Chapter 193: On The Sunny Side Of The Street

Today was a good day, I would say. Let’s start at the beginning. I woke up when my alarm went off at 6:15am and didn’t feel too terribly tired, in spite of having gone to bed slightly after midnight last night. I slept well and I woke up feeling pretty refreshed. The very first thing I did upon waking up was calling my local cab company for a ride to work at 8:15am. That gave me exactly two hours to get myself ready for my very first 9-hour day of work. I mean, it wasn’t my very first 9-hour day but my first one on my new schedule. I was a little concerned about how I would deal with adding an extra hour to my workday but I figured it would be fine. Ever since I came to the realization that I had this bad attitude towards my job I have become very focused on changing my attitude and doing everything I can to remain positive. In solidarity with this new attitude, I told myself that this new 9-hour schedule would not be a problem at all to get through. So, I got out of bed, went to the bathroom, washed my face and brushed my teeth, then smoked a cigarette and prepared my breakfast. I decided to wait to eat breakfast until after I exercised. Yes, today was planned as my very first time to do my workout alone. Every other time I have planned to exercise alone, I have wound up skipping it until I had a partner available to workout with. Today, though, I decided to get rid of my apprehensions and just do it. I have to say, it was a really good thing. I decided to go ahead with my initial concept of doing the “Dancing With The Stars” DVD, mainly because I have a thing for Maksim Chmerkovskiy. No matter what the reason, this DVD was excellent and was a lot more of a hardcore workout than I was expecting. One of the very best things about this DVD, though, is the fact that it is programmable. It has a feature where you can set it to only play certain parts of the full routine. Since it was my first time, I decided to go ahead and program it to play the warm up portion, the low-impact portion, the medium-impact portion and the cool down section. There are three other sections to the DVD but I figured these parts would be plenty for my first time. Boy, was I ever right! There are two major things that I can assume about the full workout based on what I did today – it must get pretty damn intense, because I skipped the medium-impact portion due to getting pretty worn out by the low-impact part, and it must be very long, because even with skipping the medium-impact portion it still lasted over a half hour. This is definitely something that I am going to have to work my way up to – just the portion that I did today felt like considerably more than the routines that I’ve been doing. I felt really good about the whole thing, though, and I think this change in exercise routine will make a big difference for me on my quest to actually see results from all the exercise I’ve been doing. The only way to do that is to step my exercise up a notch. Sure, I’ve been exercising but I haven’t been doing it routinely enough to really make a difference. This morning was a great first step towards making that change.

After working out I ate the breakfast I had prepared before the workout. When I say that I prepared a breakfast, of course, I mean that I had instant oatmeal and all the preparation involved was pouring water and throwing it in the microwave. After I ate the oatmeal, it was about 20 after 7am, so I decided to go ahead and get in the bathroom to get myself dressed and do hair and makeup. I decided to do the Taylor Momsen inspired look that I did over the weekend for work today, mainly because it was a very quick, easy look to put together and mainly consisted of messy black stuff with hints of gold glitter. For being such a simple, messy, dark look I really love the way it comes out – it feels really fun and glamorous in an edgy way. That sounds ridiculous, I know, but edgy was the best word I could come up with. In any sense, it didn’t take long to finish off this look and I was feeling really good about it and ready to face the day by 8am. All I had left to do was fill up my spill-proof cup and put my shoes on, with 15 minutes to spare. Unfortunately, the cab company I use has a tendency to be pretty unpredictable so I figured being ready at 8am was probably the best way to go. There have been far too many occasions in the past where the cab drivers from this company are knocking at my door, or outside honking their horn, 10-15 minutes earlier than requested and before I am ready. I suppose that’s better than the times when it is 10-15 or even 20-30 minutes later than planned. Either way, I just feel like people call in early and request a specific time for a reason. Fortunately, this morning the driver showed up right on time and I got to work around 8:20am. I stayed downstairs and smoked a cigarette before heading up. I was still clocked in before 8:30am, which is extremely unusual for me. I never clock in before my scheduled time and here I was early on my first day of my earlier schedule. Just based on those first two and a half hours of my day I was already feeling really good about the day and really proud of myself.

Work was pretty laid back today. I sorted out a break schedule for myself that didn’t interfere with anybody else’s breaks and still allowed for me to go to lunch with my Mom, on days when she is there. This was one of my main concerns about the changed schedule so I was happy to have it resolved right away. The bulk of today for me was spent reading a book my picked up recently and I kind of commandeered. The book is “One Fifth Avenue” by Candace Bushnell. Candace Bushnell, for anyone who’s been living under a rock, is the author of the original book “Sex & The City,” which was the basis for the TV show, films and general cultural phenomenon. This is the first time I am reading any of Candace Bushnell’s work and I am in love with it. “One Fifth Avenue,” like all of her books, is set in the glamorous world of New York City. It is full of really fascinating characters, most of whom are all really driven by their desire for money and status in one way or another. The thing I really love about this book, though, is the way it perfectly captures the outsider’s fantasy of New York City. I know this very well because I have lived with that fantasy all of my life and this book feeds into all of those ideals I have had about New York since I was just a kid. After reading this book, I am very anxious to read more from Candace Bushnell. In particular, I want to read her new book, “The Carrie Diaries,” which is a new young adult series she has started focusing on Carrie Bradshaw, the main character of “Sex & The City,” as a teenager. Before I read that, though, I feel like I should read the original book version of “Sex & The City,” and get to know the original version of Carrie Bradshaw. I’m very intrigued by that whole concept because I don’t know how well I will deal with Carrie being different in the books than Sarah Jessica Parker on the show. Seriously, “Sex & The City” is one of my favorite television series of all-time and has really served as a bit of a guideline for my dealings with men, not to mention friendships, throughout my adult life. I feel very close to the television and film versions of these characters. Still, I am curious to see what the book version is like. On the topic of “Sex & The City,” I would like to just take a moment to say, “HOLY SHIT, THE SECOND MOVIE IS OUT IN JUST 10 DAYS!!!” I cannot wait for this movie to come out. I saw the first movie in theaters five times, which is more than I have seen any movie in the theater. I am kind of hoping to do the same with this new one, as well. I am just so excited to finally see this movie and the continuation of this story. It is bound to be completely epic – at least as epic as the first one! Plus, I have a four-day weekend that week, so I will have plenty of time to go see it a couple times during that weekend. It looks amazing and, as much as I didn’t really care for his character on the show, I am really excited to see John Corbett back in the new film. It should really shake things up a lot, and I am really excited to see that!

Anyway, I also wrote two new songs at work today. The first was called “Have You Looks In The Mirror Lately.” This is basically a song about suddenly seeing somebody you have known for a long time in a completely different way. In the context of the song, it is about somebody who has only ever been a friend but who you suddenly start looking at in more of a romantic way. I didn’t write this song about anybody in particular. Okay, that’s not entirely true. The truth is that I wrote this song about a few different particular people. The second song I wrote was called “Glitter,” and it is basically about the concept that we are always told “All that glitters is not gold,” and it makes us apprehensive to reach out for the things in life that do glitter. If we don’t reach out for the glitter, how will we ever know whether or not it’s gold? I started writing this song when I got a very different song, “All That Glitters” by Kristine W, stuck in my head. That song is a warning of the aforementioned concept that “all that glitters is not gold.” It just really got me thinking – why would we be brought up discouraged to trust our instincts and go for the things that we really want in life? Why are we always taught not to trust things that look “too good to be true?” I don’t believe in the concept of “too good to be true.” I don’t believe that anything is too good to be true, except maybe $30 MAC palettes on Ebay. As I mentioned the other day, I ordered a set of MAC Hello Kitty palettes from Ebay for only $30. I was thrilled! I have wanted to start experimenting with MAC products for a while now but always felt they were too expensive for me to get into at this point. So, finding these palettes for such a decent price seemed like a great deal. Come to find out, I didn’t do my research very well beforehand, because these particular Hello Kitty palettes don’t actually exist. At least, they don’t in the world of MAC. Still, I figured they’d be worth a shot since I had already paid for them and everything. I came home to these waiting in my mailbox after work today and was very excited to see what they were like, even though they weren’t genuine MAC products. I threw together a look using a few of the shadows in these palettes and found them a little… funky. I mean, the look came out well and everything, but I had to apply a LOT of product in order to get the desired look. It’s pretty shitty. The packaging is adorable, though. It kind of sucks but I really can’t blame anybody but myself. Had I actually done my research beforehand I would have known better than to spend my money on this crap. Oh well. I’ll probably still use them every now and again, anyway. Still, this has made me really want to start a MAC collection. As I have discussed a few times here, though, I am going to gradually fill a customer MAC pro palette starting with my next paycheck probably and I am really excited for that. It is kind of like starting a new project for myself and I am really excited to get it started!

So, it is 2:48am right now and, despite not having to work tomorrow, I really should have been in bed ages ago. I need to keep myself on a schedule of going to bed earlier than I have been on the weekends and such. I need to keep getting up early every day. I am thinking I will set myself an alarm for 8:15am tomorrow instead of 6:15am, so I am still getting to sleep in a bit but am also still getting up early. I have made plans to have a long phone conversation with one of my best friends in the world, in California, Alyssa. We used to talk several times a week, normally for at least an hour at a time but usually even more than that. Then, I started working at my current job and life just got really busy and I kind of allowed myself to fall out of touch. It sucks but it is a pattern I repeat constantly in my life. Fortunately, though, I am aware of this issue now and am doing my best to stop it. It can be difficult, though. Still, I choose to look at it in a positive way – life is giving me an opportunity to be better than I have been before. I am going to take that opportunity. I have been on a bit of a Cyndi Lauper kick recently and I was just listening to her 2003 album of cover songs, “At Last.” The last song on this record is one that I had never heard before, on this album of old standards and such where I had heard every song before, called “On The Sunny Side Of The Street.” This song is positively joyous and it really kind of reaffirmed what I have been saying and thinking all along – “Life can be sweet on the sunny side of the street!” Goodnight.