Chapter 233: Sometimes I Forget

I want to preface tonight’s blog by letting you guys know a little something about yesterday’s blog post. Yesterday, I posted a video blog further discussing the Kylie Minogue album, “Aphrodite.” This video blog happened to play three tracks from the album, “Put Your Hands Up (If You Feel Love,)” “Too Much” and “Aphrodite.” Much to my surprise, although I shouldn’t really be all that surprised, I received a text this evening from my dear friend, Richie, (who I forgot to wish a Happy Birthday to – Sorry!) telling me that he was trying to watch the video and it had been blocked by EMI Records, Kylie’s record label, due to copyright infringement. I went on to YouTube to try to do the Audio Swap thing they have on there but that replaced the entire audio track, which included my speaking. So, for now the video remains blocked. I am guessing that the only option I really have is to re-upload it without the music tracks included. It kind of sucks and I’m not sure that I will even bother doing that – we’ll see. My apologies to anybody who actually wanted to watch the video blog from yesterday. It apparently only got two views on YouTube before being taken down, so pretty much nobody got to see it. That sucks. Oh well, though.

I woke up this morning at 8:30am, which is considerably earlier than I usually wake on the weekend. It makes sense, though, because I fell asleep around 12:30am last night while the video blog was uploading. It was one of those rare nights where I didn’t intend to fall asleep just yet – I just happened to lay in my bed while doing something else and it just kind of wound up happening. I slept really well, though, so I am glad for it. I didn’t really have any plans for the day time since my Mom is now working on Saturdays, so I got up, did my morning skincare routine and such, then sat down in front of the TV to catch up on some stuff on the DVR. I watched last night’s episode of “The Soup,” as well as a couple of episodes of “The View” that I missed this week. It was a pretty laidback morning. I had chicken and waffles for breakfast and spent most of the morning time, until around 2pm, watching TV. Then I went into the bathroom and took a shower, shaved and got dressed. I sat down then to do my makeup for the day and decided to experiment a little bit again with blush, contouring and highlighting. It came out looking a little crazy. Actually, it didn’t really look that bad. The more I looked at it the more I felt like it was pretty decent looking. Still, it did look like I was wearing really heavy makeup. It made me think of the time I tried it before and my Mom told me I looked like I was wearing stage makeup. I really loved the eye look I did with that and kind of wanted to keep that on but I couldn’t manage to remove all the rest of the makeup without screwing up the eyes. The whole thing made me feel really depressed and I’m not sure why. The thing is, as I have mentioned a bit here, I have been considering the possibility of getting my GED and trying to go to school for Cosmetology. If I can’t even figure out how to contour my own face, how in the world can I expect to do anything with anybody else’s face? It is really silly of me to get upset over that whole concept, though, because I know exactly why it didn’t look quite right – I don’t have the right tools or products for it. I just used an eye shadow in a shade that was probably considerably darker than one with my skin tone should use for contouring, which kind of made a mess. Plus, I just used a small blush brush for this. Every YouTube makeup guru knows that you need to use a larger, angled brush for proper contouring. I don’t have one of those currently. I need to get one. I also need to get some bronzer, which would be the proper product to use for contouring. Also, I only have one shade of blush – Hookup from Urban Decay, which is a pretty bright pink color. This works well for certain looks but not for every look. I definitely need to pick up some other blush colors. I really want to get one of those peachy/coral colored blushes that are all the rage lately. What I have decided I really need, and may try to pick up tomorrow if I can find it, is a tinted moisturizer. Foundation is cool for the winter and such but in Florida, in the summertime, you really can’t use the normal type of foundation. A few different people have recommended Mineral Powder foundations but the idea of a powder foundation kind of freaks me out and mineral makeup has all kinds of special rules that I am concerned about. So, a tinted moisturizer seems like the best way to go for me. I have been doing a little research on YouTube and such and there is one from Covergirl that sounds great, so I am thinking I may pick that up tomorrow.

After my initial attempt at makeup for today, I removed it all and did it over again. Then, I felt shitty about that look, as well, so I took it off and put on another. I wound up doing 5 different looks today before settling on one that I liked. Even that one I wasn’t happy with because it was the same look I have been doing more often than any other later. I don’t necessarily know if it was my makeup troubles that caused me to start feeling depressed today but whatever started it, it stuck around for quite a while. Once my Mom got home, she was saying that she was really hungry and wanted to go out and get something to eat. We also needed to go to Walgreen’s so I could get my rent money out of the ATM and I had really wanted Starbucks last night but we didn’t go, so my Mom wanted to go there today. The thing is, when she got off at 4:30pm, she had to make a couple of phone calls. It was nearly 5:30pm before we actually left the house and I felt the need to rush. You see, I had made plans with Nate, Whitney and Rachel to have a little dinner party tonight and was planning on them all arriving around 7-7:30pm. I had a couple of dishes that needed to bake for a while, so I really needed to get everything prepared fairly early. It was nearly 6:30pm when we got home and I immediately went to preparing dinner. My Mom wasn’t feeling so great and was really tired from the day, so she went into her room to take a nap. Shortly after 7pm, people started arriving. Fortunately, by the time everybody arrived, dinner was just about ready. I prepared a lovely meal of baked pork chops, this twice-baked potato casserole sort of dish and these really great green beans made with Worcestershire Sauce. It was a really good dinner, if I do say so myself. I enjoyed it a lot. Unfortunately, it seemed like there was some tension between a couple of my guests and it kind of took a bit of effort to keep everybody entertained and focused on other things. One really good thing about this evening, though, is that I kind of got to really sit and talk with my friend Nate a lot more than I have in a long time. That was a really nice thing that I enjoyed a lot. Also, Rachel and Whitney kind of got to spend a little time together. They have met before but haven’t really gotten to talk too much and they spent most of the evening talking amongst themselves. I think they could be really good friends to each other, so I was really glad to see them hitting it off so well. In spite of any tensions that may have gone on between anybody, I feel like it was a really successful dinner party. Everybody had a pretty great time and I enjoyed myself. Plus, I had a lot to drink. That was a good thing, too.

***I fell asleep before I finished this blog, so it is now Sunday, shortly after noon.***

I don’t drink very often at all and, in general, I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything because of it. I see these people, particularly working at FSP, (my new nickname for my job – it stands for “For Security Purposes,”) who make it the main focal point of any evening or weekend plans. They’ll be at work, talking all excitedly about how they’re going to go get drunk tonight. I don’t really feel like it’s something to be all that excited about or look forward to. I also really don’t like having friends who you only drink with. I used to have quite a few friends like that and I feel like you get to a point where you have to question whether or not there’s any actual connection with these people beyond the fact that you all like to drink. I don’t really feel like being drunk is a positive feeling, in general, although it can be fun sometimes. I just don’t think it should ever be the main goal of any outing or evening with friends or whatever. Last night is a great example of that. It was a dinner party. We all had dinner and talked and such, then got a little tipsy. I don’t know – I had a really good time last night and I am really glad that people came over. It was a success, as far as I am concerned.

It really got me thinking, though, about this song by Agnes. I mentioned Agnes in last week’s video blog. She is a Swedish pop star who is getting ready to break America in a big way. I discovered her on the Logo New Now Next Awards and have fallen in love with her album, called “Dance Love Pop.” Her music is really gay dance music but more mainstream and poppy than, say, Lady Gaga. A lot of it has a really great sound like a modernized version of classic disco music. I love it. Her album only has two ballads on it and one of them, my favorite track on her album, is called “Sometimes I Forget.” This is a song I can relate to a lot. It is basically a song about not expressing the way that you feel about people in your life. The chorus says, “Sometimes I forget, sometimes I don’t think to show the things I feel and to tell you what I mean, but there is not a day that ever passes by that I don’t thank God that I’ve got you in my life.” It’s a really beautiful song and the sentiment of that chorus is really something that I know very well. Hanging out with my friends last night, Whitney, Nate and Rachel, really kind of reminded me that sometimes I do forget to let the people that I care about know that I do genuinely care about them and appreciate them being a part of my life. I would like to take this time now to let anybody who may be reading this blog know how much I love and appreciate them. If you are taking the time to read this, I assume you must be somebody who I care about or who cares about me. Even if I don’t actually know you and you just stumbled upon this on the Internet, I truly appreciate your taking the time to read this. I have always believed that the point of our existence on earth is to make a connection and somehow be an inspiration to others, so if you are taking the time to read this it means that we have, in some small way, connected and I truly appreciate you allowing me the opportunity to enter into your mind, even if you never read another blog from me. As for the people who are actually in my life, who I deal with day to day or who I don’t deal with as often as I would like, I truly love and appreciate every single one of you. You all have made a major difference in my life in one way or another and I appreciate that. I also appreciate you all allowing me the opportunity to return the favor in any way I can.

For now, though, it is nearly 1pm and my Mom should be home from church very soon. I need to go get dressed and groomed for the day. I don’t really have any major plans today but I assume we will go drive and I think we need to run some errands and such, so I need to get myself looking alright to be seen in public. After all, you never know who you might bump into out in the world – it’s important to always be looking the best you can. So, I am off to do that. I’ll be back this evening.