Chapter 196: Touch

I woke up this morning at 6:15am and did all my normal morning routine stuff. I was feeling really sore still and decided to skip the workout today because of it. I don’t know if that was the right decision because, honestly, I believe working out today would have helped the soreness more than skipping did but I just wasn’t feeling it. It is really strange because even my stomach was really sore. None of the other workouts I’ve done before have left my stomach feeling the way that this “Dancing With The Stars” workout did. It was a really weird feeling because my entire body was sore, for the most part. While I normally would have been working out, I instead was browsing the recently re-incarnated Music Is The Heart Of Our Soul, now called Musicology Treat. While I was on there I discovered something that I was very excited about – a new single from one of my favorite artists, Natasha Bedingfield. The song was called “Touch,” and it isn’t actually the first single from her upcoming album but what they call a “buzz single,” that labels put out prior to an album being released to kind of gage the reaction from the public. Well, record label, my reaction to this song is “HOLY SHIT, IT’S AMAZING!” Seriously, hearing this song this morning really hit me in a major way. The lyrics to this song are telling a beautiful story about a girl who was walking down the street and spilled coffee on a man who was in a hurry because he was running late to work. Because of this coffee incident, he called his secretary and asked her to cancel his appointment with a guy who had been waiting in the lobby. While this guy was waiting in the lobby, he was talking on the phone to somebody and being invited to a party that he thought he couldn’t go to because of something to do with this appointment. In the second verse it is revealed that the girl walking down the street was the one throwing the party and was out picking up supplies, (alcohol and chocolate chip cookies, to be exact,) when she saw a dress in the window of a store that she had to have. As she crossed the street to go to this store, her heel broke and she slipped and spilled her coffee on the man from the beginning. So, because she spilled her coffee, this man cancelled his appointment and the guy the appointment was with was able to come to her party and, presumably, they fell in love. It’s a little silly, I’ll admit, but the overall message that this song is conveying is an extremely powerful one. Essentially, this song is saying that every seemingly minor, unsubstantial moment of our lives could be setting something into motion that will wind up changing the course of our entire lives. It is a beautiful concept and, as far as I am concerned, a universal truth. There is no telling what any random moment in our lives may lead to. The issue with this concept is that there is no telling what any of these things may lead to. It reminds me of one of my favorite movies, “Sliding Doors,” with Gwyneth Paltrow. “Sliding Doors” is the story of a woman who gets fired from her job and is headed back home, where her boyfriend is cheating on her. Then, as she goes to get on the subway, the entire film splits into two different stories. One is the story of what would have happened had she managed to get on the train and the other is if she didn’t. Based on this one very minor incident, these two stories are drastically different but both eventually lead to the same thing. I don’t want to give it all away because I strongly urge you all to see this movie because it is such a beautiful story and one that really puts a lot of life into perspective. This Natasha Bedingfield song does the same thing, although on a much smaller scale.

For example, something like a year ago a girl went into a Burger King to eat. I’m guessing it was shortly after her birthday or some other gift-giving event, because she had a gift card from MAC cosmetics. Somehow or another, she dropped this MAC gift card on the floor at Burger King. Later that day, one of the employees of Burger King notices it there and picks it up. She doesn’t think much of it and just puts it in her wallet. It stays in her wallet for nearly a year without her really noticing it. Then one random day, it happens to pop out at her. She calls the number on the back of the card and finds out that it has $25 on it. She realizes that she probably won’t ever use it and recalls a good friend of hers posting on Facebook how much he wanted to start a collection of MAC cosmetics and decides to give it to him. They happen to have plans for later that week and she gives it to him. Now, he has been having a certain amount of financial troubles and can’t really afford to start the MAC collection he wants anytime soon so receiving this gift card is a really big deal to him. That’s a true story. The former Burger King employee is my friend Rachel and the Boy who desperately wants to start a collection of MAC cosmetics happens to be me. I am really excited! I talked to Rachel on Tuesday and we had made plans to hang out tonight after I got out of work. I decided to cook, (which was delicious,) and we just hung out and talked a lot. It was a lot of fun. It turns out that Rachel and I are kind of in very similar places in life right now, in a lot of ways, and it is really good to have a friend around who understands how I am feeling in life these days. It seems like I have been severely lacking as far as that goes. The MAC gift card was just icing on the cake. I am particularly excited about this because this will be plenty to buy myself a MAC Pro 15 Eye Shadow Palette and probably the first pan to go in it. That will be a great way to start my palette off. I came up with this other idea, as far as the MAC palette goes. You see, my birthday is only 2 months away and I am thinking that instead of making people think of gifts to buy me for my birthday, I may ask them to select an eye shadow to go in my palette. That way, the palette will be even more special than a MAC palette is already. It will be like a little cosmetic scrapbook of people that I know and love. Plus, the pans for the palette are only $11 each, so it will also be cheaper than most birthday gifts generally are. I really like this idea and think I may wind up running with it.

So, in spite of skipping my workout today I did walk the entirety of the parking lot at work today. According to my pedometer, which I don’t think I have discussed here yet but don’t feel like it right now, the parking lot is just under 2,000 steps, which is just under a mile. So, walking a mile in fifteen minutes is quite a bit of exercise on it’s own. I don’t really feel bad for skipping the workout this morning. Of course, I was still really sore all day at work. Work today was really boring. There simply wasn’t much of anything going on and it really dragged because of this. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to simply sit in my desk and read my book, which probably would have made the day pass a little more quickly. I just wasn’t in a mood for reading today. Unfortunately, all of my co-workers did seem to be in the mood for reading and all spent most of the day with their heads in their own cubicles reading books. I wrote my two new songs for the day, which were both pretty decent. They were both dance/pop songs but were very different from my usual style, lyrically. The first was called “Too Many Things,” and it was kind of listing all the different things in life that we allow to weigh us down and hold us back from doing what we really want to do. This song was really inspired by the Scissor Sisters song “Fire With Fire,” which I discussed in last night’s blog. The other song was called “Jealousy,” and it was basically a song about how, for much of my life, I have found that people start imitating me in many ways. I mean, not really imitating me but it just seems like I have a lot of influence on the people around me. This sounds very conceited. I don’t mean that I am so great that they want to be like me but it just seems like my habits, speech patterns, interests and such rub off on people really easily. This song began when I randomly came up with the line, “Jealousy is just a perverted form of admiration.” That instantly became the first line of the song. Now, I don’t really think that people envy me or anything it is just a very tongue-in-cheek, over the top song based on that concept. I also did a bit of drawing today and came up with a makeup look that I am pretty eager to try. It is basically just a purple smoky eye but with a bit of a twist. I think I may try it out tomorrow. Today was also the first time that I decided to try wearing foundation and powder for the entire day. I must say, it worked out beautifully. Last weekend I bought myself the Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse foundation and Maybelline Dream Mousse Powder to experiment with face makeup. It turns out I did a really great job of picking the colors because my face and neck matched perfectly. I really loved the look of it and it held up really well. I think I may start doing this every day because I just loved the way that my face looked with this stuff on. My face developed a weird bit of unsavory redness in the cheeks over the course of winter that I can’t seem to get rid of and also has a bit of a color continuity issue but wearing foundation and powder did a really great job of evening everything out. Plus, these Maybelline Dream Mousse products are great because it doesn’t actually feel like you are wearing makeup on your face – they are so light and smooth. It is really the perfect texture, I think. It works beautifully on me.

It is now 11:50pm and I absolutely must get to bed. I have agreed to work 8am-6pm on Friday for the next few weeks because my co-worker who would normally come in at 8am isn’t able to start that shift until her children’s school lets out in the first week of June and the other usual 8am worker has Fridays off now. So, I agreed to it without any hesitancy. Of course, now that I am faced with the concept of going in 30 minutes earlier, the hesitation has begun. I don’t foresee it being any problem, honestly. I am setting my alarm for 6am instead of 6:15am and should still have plenty of time to workout and get ready with time to spare in the morning. I will just make sure to start my workout at 6:30am instead of 6:45am, and make sure I am working on my makeup by 7:15am. That should leave plenty of time for everything. Plus, those extra 30 minutes mean that I get an extra break, which should help the day pass a little more easily. I am really happy with the new schedule I have. It doesn’t feel at all like tomorrow should be Friday. In fact, it feels kind of like tomorrow should be Wednesday. If this is the way that it works every week I will be thrilled. Imagine every week having Friday feel like a Wednesday instead. That way I can get through the day with that Wednesday feeling but not have to go back the next day. This week Monday felt simply like an afterthought and I can’t imagine a Monday feeling any better than that. I am really excited for the weekend to come. We are supposed to be going down to Fort Meyers so my Mom can go to my brother’s fiancé’s Bridal Shower and I can go hang out with my brother and possibly shop for my outfit for the wedding. We also need to do a lot of cleaning this weekend. Somewhere in the midst of all that, I also need to go to the MAC store to use this gift card and official start my MAC Pro Palette Project! It should be a good time all around. For now, though, I need to go to sleep. Goodnight.