Chapter 199: Simple & Clean

When last we left this blog, I was saying that I absolutely had to wake up early today in order to prepare myself for having to wake up early tomorrow for work. Well, that didn’t happen. I was up until nearly 5am writing last night’s blog and figured I would be able to simply go to sleep that late and only get about four hours of sleep and be okay. This happens pretty frequently on Sundays and I can normally pull it off without a hitch. This morning, however, that was simply not the case. I didn’t wake up until around 1:30pm. My Mom was in the kitchen washing dishes and such, and my first thought was, “Oh shit, she’s already cleaning and I haven’t gotten a thing done.” Fortunately, I found out that she had just started cleaning herself. My second thought upon waking, though, was “Holy shit, I’m starving.” It isn’t normal for me to wake up and immediately feel hungry. It’s strange, too, because I had a pretty large dinner last night. In any sense, after brushing my teeth, washing my face and such I was pretty eager to get something to eat. I told my Mom this and we mutually decided to get McDonald’s for lunch. She ran out to do that while I sat in the living room in a sleepy daze, watching “Clean House.” I stayed in that daze, in that spot, watching “Clean House” for nearly two hours. Finally, around 4pm, I decided that it was time get my ass in gear and start cleaning. My Mom took on the kitchen, while I devoted this afternoon to getting my bedroom in order. I got a trash bag, sat down on the floor of my bedroom and just started grabbing things to be thrown away. Of course, there were things on the floor that I didn’t want to throw away so I separated them into little piles and put them away in their various places where they belonged. I also moved a few things around and got rid of a TV stand that I had in my bedroom even though I haven’t had a TV in my bedroom in nearly a year. My sister’s TV went out at her house several months ago, so I offered her mine. I rarely ever used it, anyway. My Mom said that her boyfriend needed a TV stand, so she is going to take this one to him when she goes to see him next weekend. After removing that I was able to move my keyboard into that corner and clear out a very large amount of space in my closet by putting the drawers that were in there out in the free space that was added there. I know, most of you don’t know what my bedroom looks like so this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense but it makes my room look a lot bigger than it did before. It is really nice in here now.

I also decided to take a few small steps towards decorating my room. My computer desk has a large column stretching out above the space that holds the monitor with a shelve type thing on it. I decided to make use of that space by displaying my autographed copies of Cyndi Lauper’s album, “The Body Acoustic,” and Liz Phair’s “Somebody’s Miracle.” I also put up a little display of the Lady Gaga comic book I got on Free Comic Book Day and my Madonna “Confessions Tour” tourbook and a gorgeous lithograph I got from ICON, the official fan club, that has been laying in my closet. I also put up a couple of things on the walls. Back when we first moved into this apartment, I bought this really cool layered frame thing and made a sort of collage of my various thing autographed by the Veronicas, as well as my ticket stubs from their shows, etc. The Veronicas, for those who don’t know, are one of my favorite bands in the world. I’ve met them multiple times and they have remembered me every time, always act really excited to see me and are just really sweet and adorable girls. Also, both of their albums are amongst my top ten favorites of all-time. I also did a regular framing job on the poster I got autographed by Liz Phair when I met her. Liz Phair is my second favorite artist of all time and meeting her was such a huge inspiration to me. I like keeping the autographs from her up where I can see them as often as possible to remind me of the experience. I feel the same way about my autographs from Chris Carrabba from Dashboard Confessional and Mandy Moore, although I have not found a good way to feature those just yet. It’s a little silly looking at the moment because I only have small amounts of wall décor and big empty spaces on the rest of the walls but I figure it’s all a process that I will have to continue. Moving forward, when I have more money and time to devote, I plan on framing some other posters and such that I have and devoting my walls to the artists who have inspired me the most in life. I intend to feature Idina Menzel, Mandy Moore, Dashboard Confessional, Darren Hayes, Kylie Minogue and Barbra Streisand. I’m sure there will be others, like more Madonna and Gaga, but this is just the base concept at this point. I’m pretty excited to take on the project of creating a bedroom that is filled with inspiration and memories of mine. It is going to be a lot of fun to put together. In the meantime, though, my bedroom is looking a million times better than it did before and is nearly ready for company to stay in it.

This evening is a pretty special occasion for my Mom and her boyfriend – it is the series finale of “Lost.” Her boyfriend is a really big fan of the show and converted her recently, as well, and she has wound up watching the entire series over the past few months. I never had any interest in this show before until last night when ABC re-ran the enhanced version of the pilot episode. It was the very first time I Had ever actually watched an episode, because my Mom wanted to watch it, and it was actually really interesting. I was surprised at how much it held my interest. This evening, after we had finished our cleaning for the day, we watched the little pre-show to the finale, which featured the cast and creators of the show discussing the past six seasons and it really kind of sucked me in. I am not watching the finale tonight because I am probably going to wind up watching from the beginning on DVD now. It seems really fascinating. I suppose I have a little bit of “nerd” in me, after all. “Lost” is definitely a “nerd” thing. Oh well, I don’t mind having slight nerd tendencies. They will go well with my slight tendencies towards everything else you can possibly think of… except heterosexuality, of course. Instead of watching the “Lost” finale with my Mom, I decided to get myself all showered and shaved tonight, instead of tomorrow morning. I also found this makeup tutorial on YouTube for a Celine Dion-inspired nude eye look, which will allow me to use my Brule shadow from MAC and will look really nice, clean and fresh for a Monday morning. I found this look while searching YouTube for nude makeup looks that I could possibly wear from a fresh-faced but completely natural look for the wedding. I figure I want to do something to my eyes for the wedding but I want it to be something that you can’t really see or tell is makeup. I think I am just going to wind up going without for the wedding, though. May as well go natural… at least, mostly natural.

For now, though, it is 11:21pm and I have my alarm set for 6am. I had better get to bed. Fortunately, in spite of how late I slept today, I am feeling pretty tired right now and ready for bed. I want to keep up that momentum of tiredness before I keep myself awake too long and let my mind start racing. I have to work tomorrow but I am kind of keeping my fingers crossed that it will feel the way last Monday did. Last week felt like Monday didn’t even exist and I went straight into my third day off on Tuesday. So, last week kind of felt like a three-day week. I am hoping that will be how every week goes on this new schedule. We’ll see how that goes, though. In the meantime, I definitely need to get to sleep. Goodnight.