Chapter 267: Piano Song

Okay, so it is Saturday morning. I had every intention of writing my Friday blog on Friday night, as usual, but I got a little bit distracted by falling asleep early. I didn't actually intend to fall asleep but I laid down on my bed, in the opposite position than I normally sleep in, to watch a YouTube review of this makeup line I've been curious about. The video was pretty long and needed time to buffer, so I left it to do that while I laid in my bed playing a game on my cell phone. Somewhere in that process, I fell asleep. I WAS really tired, though. Yesterday was a really long day, after all. I mean, it wasn't particularly stressful or difficult - it was just a long day. It really dragged along. As I mentioned in last night's unadvertised blog, the first thing on my agenda yesterday was to call Viktor and reschedule my Friday night piano lesson. Before I go into that, though, I did want to discuss the reason that I didn't advertise last night's blog. You see, last night's blog, to be frank, wasn'tvery good. It also wasn't very positive. There was also the fact that I was kind of venting about things that took place in the workplace and, in spite of the fact that I didn't name a single name or give any specific information about the workplace or anything, I didn't want to call attention to it on Facebook because there are plenty of people who I work with on Facebook who could wind up misconstruing my words or using them against me. It sucks that I have to think about things that way but it has kind of been proven over the course of my time there that it has a tendency to happen that way. I have actually considered taking the post down altogether but that is definitely not something that I want to do. After all, this blog is about taking an honest look at my life at this point and I am not interested in censoring that.

So, as I mentioned, at the top of my agenda for yesterday was calling Viktor to reschedule my piano lesson this week. Normally, my piano lessons are on Wednesdays but Viktor asked me to reschedule for Friday this week. As it turned out, though, my sister wasn't able to drive me there on Friday night, so the plan was to call & see if I could perhaps reschedule for Monday. This is not what wound up happening at all, unfortunately. After a little bit of phone tag, I finally spoke with Viktor and he dropped a bit of a bombshell on me. You see, Viktor had mentioned the possibility that he may be leaving the Allegro Academy and offering lessons from his home. Then he mentioned the idea of just taking the month of August away from the academy but also providing lessons from his home. The last time I had spoken with him, though, none of this was mentioned and it seemed as if none of it were actually going to happen, so I was taken by surprise when I spoke with him yesterday and found out that yesterday was his last day at the academy until September. So, we rescheduled my lesson - for September 3rd. As odd as it may seem, considering how much I love my piano lessons, I was actually kind of happy to hear this news. As I discussed in last night's unadvertised blog, I have been feeling a strange lack of enthusiasm for my piano lessons recently and I really feel like taking a month off from them could help with that. Plus, a month away from my lessons will give me some extra time to practice the stuff that I've already learned and try to get really good at them. I think that would be a really good thing for me. Even more than that, though, I think this will be a really good opportunity to test my abilities on my own and kind of see how necessary lessons really are at this point. Don't get me wrong, I have no intentions of stopping my lessons moving forward but I just want to find out whether or not I am in a place where I can learn new pieces on my own. So, that is exactly what I intend to do this month.

I was initially going to agonize over what piece I should try to learn on my own but I knew immediately what the piece I needed to learn was - "Speechless" by Lady Gaga. It seems so obvious to me! Of course the first piece that I learn on my own should be a Lady Gaga song - Lady Gaga is my biggest inspiration, musically and artistically, and it just seems clear that trying to learn from her would be the perfect place to start working on my own and trying to build myself and my style as an artist. So, Lady Gaga was a clear choice but she's got a pretty large selection of songs. "Speechless," I wouldn't necessarily say is my favorite song of hers, although I have always felt a really strong connection to it. The main reason that I wanted to learn "Speechless" first, though, is because it is my Mom's favorite Gaga song and I have always imagined when I am playing my first local bar show or something, that I would play it and dedicate it to her. It just makes sense to learn it first because it is the first song that I absolutely know that I want to cover. So, last night I downloaded the sheet music and kind of got started on learning the song. The left hand portion has gone incredibly well & I can sit down and play it without actually looking. On the other hand, the right hand is proving a bit more difficult. It just seems like it's trying to fit too many notes into the space provided. I don't know how to explain that exactly but I am going to continue working on it and see what I can sort out. I am really excited about it, though. I am really excited about the idea of going back in for my lesson on September 3rd and having a whole new piece down that I learned without any help. I have a whole month to get it down and I don't have any doubt that I will be able to get it done.

So, now I have some extra cash this month AND I have this opportunity to try to learn some on my own. It's a pretty exciting time. For now, though, I need to go off and get ready for the day. I am not sure of my plans for today - there's been talks of hanging out with Whitney & Nate tonight but I'm not sure if that's happening or not. What I am sure of is the fact that I need to do some cleaning around the house either way. I also have a Netflix movie here to watch, "The Marc Pease Experience," which I'm pretty excited to see because it stars two of my favorite actors, Jason Schwartzmann and Anna Kendrick. So, I'll probably watch that in a little while, as well. Beyond that, I really don't know. I need to eat something for breakfast. I think I'll go do that now. Have a great day!

Chapter 266: It’s A Sin

I don’t want to say too much about today because I spent most of it being exhausted and I still am. The times when I wasn’t feeling exhausted it was only because I was too distracted feeling outraged at the behavior of some of the people around me. So, without going into details, I take this evening’s blog to simply let out a short rant. Why the fuck is it that people – grown ass people, not teenagers or people in their early twenties but grown ass people – have to revert back to childhood behaviors in the workplace? Weren’t most of us taught as children that it is not good to be a tattletale? It is especially bad to be a tattletale when what you are tattling about is mainly speculation and, in some cases, outright fabrication? Isn’t that wrong? Again, I would understand this type of reckless behavior from teenagers or very young adults who haven’t reached that point where they have had to deal with the consequences of their actions but when you are an ADULT it is completely ridiculous. I swear to God, people can be so dumb – especially when they don’t take the time to see beyond their own anger, or stupidity, to understand the fact that what they are doing will mainly wind up bearing negative consequences for themselves. It’s just stupid.

That’s enough about that, though. Like I said, I am exhausted. It’s been a really long day. Fortunately for me, though, tomorrow is Friday and it is just about time to have the weekend off! I am really looking forward to this weekend – I don’t have any plans at all, really, so I am looking forward to spending the weekend just lying in bed and watching movies on Netflix and such. That idea sounds AMAZING right about now. I need to decompress from the workweek badly. I knew it was going to be a crappy week – I even discussed it in the blog. I’m honestly surprised that the bullshit managed to not go down until today. I don’t think there will be any major repercussions from this for the people I care about at work… but regardless of whether they are major repercussions, there will surely be repercussions. From what I understand, even my name was brought into the whole thing. I make a genuine effort not to get involved in all the bullshit that goes on in that place and I don’t really see how my name could possibly have gotten involved, which is a really good thing because it gives me a great defense if I do get called out – I haven’t done shit. Nobody can prove that I’ve done shit because I genuinely haven’t. There is absolutely no way for me to get into any sort of trouble based on this situation because I haven’t done anything wrong. I love when situations turn out that way! Like I said before, I just think the whole thing is ridiculous and will only wind up genuinely hurting the people who went at it with malicious intent and wrongdoing. So, I’m good… but again, I said I wasn’t going to talk about it anymore. Instead, I should probably get to bed.

Before I go to bed, though, I did want to mention the fact that I have to cancel my piano lesson for tomorrow night. It sucks! Unfortunately, I won’t have a ride there so I really have no choice. I am going to try to reschedule it for Monday, though. I don’t know what it is exactly but I haven’t been feeling all that thrilled about my piano lessons recently. I mean, when I am there at the lessons I love them but I find my mind wandering towards other things. In particular, I have recently been finding my mind wandering towards voice lessons. It just seems like every time I sing nowadays, ever since that awful “Glee” audition video experience, I can hear every little flaw in my voice and I feel horrible about it. I need the help. Depending on what goes on with my piano lessons next month, I am going to look into perhaps switching to voice lessons or, ideally, finding a way to do both. We’ll see how that goes, though. Anyway, it is time for me to go to bed. Goodnight.

Chapter 265: Unstable Boy

Okay, so after yesterday’s blog post I have come to realize that I am probably not a transgendered person… at least, not where it counts. I’m just artsy. The reason I bring this up right off the bat is because after writing that blog I had a bit of an epiphany – I AM an artist. So much of my lifestyle and the choices I make in life are reflections of that. The only thing missing, really, is the actual art! This is an ongoing problem that I have had in my life – I get so caught up in one aspect of what I am doing that I wind up completely missing out on what is actually the point of it all. It’s so silly. I don’t know why I let that happen to me so often. In any sense, after writing last night’s blog, I found myself feeling more empowered, driven and inspired than I have in a long time. So, I decided when I woke up this morning that what I really needed to do was focus on creation. I figured it was kind of a perfect day to start that because it is Wednesday, which I lovingly refer to as Piano Day. When I woke up this morning at 6am, I got up and did my morning skincare routine, brushed my teeth and had a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal while I watched last night’s “Chelsea Lately,” with guest Kathy Griffin. Not exactly the best way to begin my day by focusing on art – or is it? After all, I was taking in one of my favorite forms of art, and one of the few that I have very little interest in trying for myself, comedy. There was a time when I considered trying my hand at stand-up comedy. I even tried to write out a few “bits” or routines that I could use in my stand-up act. Unfortunately, those wound up coming out as these weird, long, almost-poems. They were funny but they wouldn’t work in the stand-up format. This was when I realized that, while I have always been a funny person, I am not cut out to be a comedian. There are people who are naturally funny, in an everyday way, and then there are people who are funny in a performance sort of way. Often one can be translated into the other, when a person has a real passion for it, but for most people, myself included, it doesn’t really add up to more than being able to make your friends and the people you meet in your day-to-day life laugh. I am satisfied with that, as far as humor goes, but I have a deep respect and love for comedy and anybody who is able to perform it in a way that is clever and unique. Two of my favorite comedians are Chelsea Handler and Kathy Griffin. It’s only the second time that Kathy has appeared on Chelsea’s show and it is always a really interesting thing to see those two come together. I don’t think they mesh that well, to be honest. It is always funny but also comes across as kind of awkward. Interesting, if nothing else. They just have very different brands of humor, which don’t really cross well with one another.

After watching that, I dragged myself into the bathroom and got dressed and did my hair and makeup for the day. I was really excited to do my makeup for the day for a very simple reason: I received my Stila Travel Girl palettes yesterday! I don’t know if I’ve mentioned the Stila Travel Girl palettes here in the blog before now but they are the greatest things possible. I know I have discussed the fact that I am obsessed with Stila lately – they are quickly becoming my favorite brand of cosmetics. One of the many reasons that I love Stila is because, while being a high-end brand, they make a lot of effort to create specialty items that are more affordable than their products normally are. It is a brilliant business scheme because they lure people in with these affordable items and it makes them want to buy more of their higher priced products. In fact, the first Stila product I bought was the It Girl palette, which was only $10, and I fell in love with it. I have bought several more Stila products since then, including the Backstage palette I got over the weekend and these two Travel Girl palettes I received in the mail yesterday. The Travel Girl palettes are an absolutely brilliant concept from Stila. Essentially, they have created this whole concept of “Stila Girls” traveling the world, and creating a palette for each trip that one of them takes. On their website, they kind of map out the girls travels, including bios of the particular girl that this palette is based around and her travel journals. The first one was the “Road To Radiance Across The USA.” This palette includes four eye shadows and a convertible color, which are widely known as one of Stila’s best products. A convertible color is a really cool cream-based product that serves as both a blush and a lip color. All of the Travel Girl palettes will include four eye shadows and a convertible color and, really, the convertible color alone is enough to make it worth the price. The price, though, is the best part. They are releasing five of these Travel Girl palettes over the next several months and each one will be only $10. Anyway, like I said, the first one is the “Road To Radiance Across The USA,” and it is based around a Stila Girl named Kylie, who was born and raised in Los Angeles and has decided to take a road trip across the USA to see the sights and such. The colors in her palette are all very soft, very girly shades of pink, taupe and alloy. The convertible color in this palette is called Hibiscus and it is also a very soft, “Barbie pink.” It is gorgeous as both a lip color and a cheek color. I love it! I kind of like the second Travel Girl palette, which is what I used today, better than the first. The second Travel Girl palette is called “Pretty In Paris,” and is based around a Stila Girl named Chelsea who has decided to spend a summer in Paris. This palette is full of warm tones, like coppers and browns. The look I did with these colors today was gorgeous! I actually used the look described on the face chart on the Stila website, (another very cool feature of the site,) which was supposed to be a very classic Parisian look. I really loved the way it came out. The convertible color in this palette is still pink but a much darker pink that verges more on red than pink. It is gorgeous and looks amazing on the cheeks! As conceited as it may sound, I was kind of in love with my own face today!

Anyway, when I got to work I decided that it was time to really focus on creating some sort of art. So, the first thing I did was sit down and wrote a new song. It was called “I Still Believe,” which I thought was kind of annoying as a title because I just think of the old Brenda Starr song. Still, I liked everything else about this song. It was basically a song about how I still haven’t found what I’m looking for in life, not really, but how I still believe that it’s out there. It is a song about how I haven’t lost my hope or my faith in what I am meant to do and be in this life. It is completely true. I was also really happy with this song because it is the most positive song that I have written in a while. I have realized recently that I haven’t been the most positive person in the world lately and I am making a conscious effort to change that lately. Writing this song kind of proves to me that it very well may be working. My songwriting has been the best reflection of my negative attitude lately, since I have been writing some very dark songs, with titles like “Fat Whore,” and “Venom.” “Venom” seems like the most appropriate title at this point because I really feel like, in a lot of ways, I have allowed myself to become full of it. Like somehow I allowed myself to be bitten and filled with this poison, and now it is what spews from me, as well. It is shitty and, like I said, I am making a conscious effort to change it at this point. After writing this song, unfortunately, I didn’t really manage to write anything else today. I did a little drawing, though, which is always nice. Mainly, though, I just sat around talking shit with my friends at work. I also finally got to see the new training class that is getting ready to come up on the floor. I’m not going to lie – it seems like a real hot mess. I was really keeping my fingers crossed and looking forward to some cute boys in this class but, as it turns out, there were only 2, maybe 2 and a half, that were of any interest to me. The reason I say a half is that there was one who probably would have been the most attractive of the whole bunch if he didn’t look like such a meth addict. The other two who I found attractive were really only slightly attractive, so it seems as though the well of men in my workplace is still dry. Lame.

After work, I spent the evening preparing a half-assed dinner for my Mom and I, (lots of re-heated and microwaved items,) and watching TV. Oh yeah! I completely forgot to mention in the midst of all that other talk that Viktor called me this afternoon asking to reschedule my piano lesson. I am going on Friday this week instead. It kind of sucks because I was really kind of hoping that he would do that next week instead of this week since next week will be the first lesson of August and I can’t really afford to pay them until Friday. I am thinking that when I am there this Friday, I may ask Viktor if we can move it to Friday again next week. Of course, at this point, I don’t even know if he intends to still be teaching there next month. I don’t know how much I’ve talked about that here because I haven’t really gotten a clear concept on that whole thing yet. You see, Viktor was initially telling me a few weeks ago that he was planning to quite teaching there altogether, but then last week he told me that he was still going to teach there but that he was going to take the month of August off. So, I’m not sure what’s happening yet. I am thinking that, if he decides to take August off, I may look into taking voice lessons there while he is away and, hopefully, continuing with both once he returns. Once again, though, I don’t really know what his plans are at this point. I guess I’ll find out more on Friday. In the meantime, I am kind of glad that it worked out the way it did because it has given me a little more time to practice before this week’s lesson. Anyway, for now, I need to get myself to sleep. It is almost midnight and I need to get my beauty sleep. I also need to take a shower and such in the morning again, so I can be all refreshed and ready to face the day tomorrow. So, I’m going to go do that now. Goodnight.

Chapter 264: Who I Am

Today I am doing things a little differently here on this blog. Instead of chronicling the details of my day or discussing the latest book I read, movie I watched or album I listened to, I have decided to try something new. Today’s blog is going to be more of an essay, or dissertation even, on a particular topic that has been on my mind today and a lot of other times recently. You see, fairly recently I had a bit of an epiphany where I came to realize something about myself that I had never actually acknowledged or understood previously. I think I may have made brief mention of it here in the blog at the time but I have never really discussed it at great length here on the blog or with anybody in my day-to-day life. I have thought a lot about it, though, and have kind of felt an itch to discuss it further. I think I really just needed to organize my thoughts about it. Having had a little extra time today and not distracting myself with other things, I decided now would be as good a time as any. So, with that being said, I have a bit of a confession to make. Confession is the wrong terminology, I think. More than that, I have a bit of a declaration to make.

I AM A TRANSGENDERED INDIVIDUAL.

One of the main reasons I have been feeling pretty strongly that I should discuss this matter is because of the automatic reactions that many of you may be having to this statement. This does not mean, in any way, that I have a desire to live my life as a female. I have no interest in going through gender reassignment therapy. I don’t intend on having any surgeries or making any attempts to change my genitalia. I don’t even have a desire to pass for female at any point – as if I actually could! The term transgender covers a much larger group of people than most people would imagine when they hear the word used. There are many different types of transgendered people in this world and I am, in fact, one of them. The entry for the word transgender in most dictionaries includes a few different definitions. The two of these definitions that are probably most common would be, "People who were assigned a sex, usually at birth and based on their genitals, but who feel that this is a false or incomplete description of themselves," and "Non-identification with, or non-presentation as, the sex (and assumed gender) one was assigned at birth." This is definitely not the case for me – I am definitely a man both inside and out. I don’t have any real qualms with that and, again, no intentions of changing it. I do not try to present myself as anything other than that. The third definition I have come across, which is much more accurate to me, reads, "Of, relating to, or designating a person whose identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender roles, but combines or moves between these." While I do identify solely as male, I do not and will not conform to the societal conventions of what being a man actually means. There are no two men or no two women in this world who are the same and what it means to be male or female is strictly a matter of individual opinion. Of course, I speak in terms of character, personality, style, etc. I understand that men have a penis and women have a vagina, although even that concept seems extremely limited to me. Like I said, what being a man or a woman truly means is up to the individual who identifies with these terms. There are even people out there who don’t identify with either one of those terms or identify with both, often referring to themselves as “third gendered,” “genderqueer,” “pangendered,” “bigendered,” “ambigendered,” “agendered” or even “non-gendered.” None of these people, and none of these terms, are incorrect. It is all just a matter of which one feels right to the person using them.

For me, personally, I feel as if I combine elements of both the male and female gender. While I do have a penis and was assigned the male gender at birth, and identify as such, I still feel as though my lifestyle, including the combination of elements of both male and female behaviors, warrants the title of being transgendered. Sure, there are people who have, or are planning to, undergo gender reassignment surgery, or who live their day-to-day lives as the opposite of the gender assigned to them at birth, who could say that I am simply a boy who likes to wear makeup and is effeminate in nature – just an extra flamboyant homosexual. The reason I do not feel as though this would be an accurate description of who I am is the fact that my effeminate behaviors, my use of makeup and stereotypically feminine products, clothing, etc. hasn’t got anything to do with my sexual orientation. This is the main misconception that I feel people need to be corrected about in terms of the transgender community – being tramsgendered has nothing to do with your sexual orientation. There are transgendered people who identify as straight just as much as there are transgendered people who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or anything else. Transgender is not the state of one’s sexual identity at all – it is the state of their gender identity. These are two very separate things. For me, personally, the combination of male and female behaviors has absolutely nothing to do with my sexual identity – sure, I do take the passive or “feminine” role in my sexual relationships but there are several men who do that without taking on feminine roles. Your preferences in terms of sexual positioning have, or should have, very little bearing on your behavior in your day-to-day life. Again, it really isn’t about that. In all honesty, my use of makeup and somewhat feminine attire, doesn’t really have to do with my gender identification, either. That, more than anything, I attribute to my lifestyle AS AN ARTIST. As I have discussed in great detail in the blog in the past, I consider wearing makeup and dressing in certain ways a form of turning myself into living art. There are many forms of artwork in this world – why shouldn’t you express yourself through the thing closest to you: your appearance? So, as you see, that isn’t necessarily what makes me consider myself transgendered, either. Well, that’s not entirely true – it is most likely a symptom of it but is not the cause of it.

The thing that really makes me identify as transgendered is my behavior and my way of thinking. All my life I have known that I was different from the people who surrounded me. As I got a little older, I came to believe that this was simply because I was gay. As I got even older, and began to surround myself with other gay people, I found that I was different from them, as well. I never felt like I was just a man who loved other men. I mean, I did and I do, but it was always more than that. People always told me that I acted like a sixteen-year old girl, and I never thought much of that, but over time I have realized that, while the girl may not be sixteen years old, I do have a lot of the behavioral patterns of a girl beyond the stereotypical concepts of gay men acting “girly” or “femme.” I don’t even know how to explain it, really. It is just the way that I think, the way that I view the world and the people around me, the way that I look at every day things different from any man that I know, gay or straight, etc. I have never felt that I actually was a girl or I was supposed to have been born a girl but I have always felt that there was a lot of girl in me – not necessarily more girl than boy, per se, but a lot of girl. I mean, maybe this doesn’t make me a transgendered person? I’m not entirely sure. What I am sure of is the fact that whoever put me here on this earth got it right for me – I don’t believe that I was intended to be anything other than what I am.

So, what am I?

I am a songwriter.

I am an artist.

I am ME.

Chapter 263: Blur

Alright, I don't have a whole lot to say. I was dranking earlier. Dranking like a fool. This is the second time in the past week and a half that I have gone out and drank tequila. That stuff messes me up. Margaritas make me stomach hurt. I had two of those. I also had two Long Island Iced Teas, which I had for the first time last weekend. Long Island Iced Teas are my new shit. They're so tasty and get you really fucked up. It was a pretty boring day, for the most part. Work was busy and I didn't really have time to do anything fun. I ate a Turkey wrap for lunch. Then, on my last break, I got a text message from my Mom saying that her best friend from Arkansas just happened to be in St. Petersberg and wanted us to come meet him for dinner. So, we gathered up my sister and her girlfriend and headed up to Ellenton to meet him. It was really nice. We all talked and had a good time... And the liquor flowed. I only had four drinks but I'm a fucking lightweight. That was plenty. I found myself in the midst of Applebee's karaoke trying, unsuccessfully, to sing "Bad Romance." It was a mess. I was pretty much a mess for the rest of the night. I'm sobered up now and watching "The Bachelorette: The Men Tell All." I feel like ass and have a headache and don't feel like writing. Such a hot mess. I'm going to bed. Goodnight.

Chapter 262: Rose-Colored Glasses

Chapter 261: Fever

Today was a pretty good day, I would say. I didn’t wake up until 1pm, which is later than I generally care to wake up, but I didn’t really mind it today. I still felt really tired when I woke up, so I didn’t really do much right away. I mean, I did the usual morning stuff, like my morning skincare routine and brushing my teeth and such, but after that I just lied down on the couch and turned on the TV. It was on E! They were playing this weird little special called “Justin Bieber: My World.” So, I watched that for an hour. It was actually considerably more interesting than you would expect from a TV special about a 15-year old. I’m not going to lie, I am kind of a fan of Justin Bieber and this special actually made him a lot more interesting than he initially appeared. It is fascinating how his entire career began with just a grass roots campaign online started by him and his mother. It was also really interesting seeing these pretty extensive interviews with his manager, the man who really discovered him, Scooter Braun, who is a really interesting and good-looking gentleman. After that ended, I found myself sitting in front of one of those ridiculous Kardashian shows that I hate but have found myself watching lately out of sheer boredom and lack of energy to reach for the remote and change the channel. Now, I had made tentative plans with my friends Whitney and Nate to hang out tonight, since we hadn’t hung out in so long. It also happens that today was Nate’s birthday, so it was extra reason to want to hang out with him. Still, at this point this afternoon I hadn’t heard from them and really wasn’t sure whether or not we were actually going to wind up hanging out. Still, in case we did wind up hanging out, I did a bit of cleaning around the house. By this point it was after 3pm and my Mom was scheduled to get off work at 4:30pm so I figured I should get showered, shaved and dressed for the day. She had text messaged me earlier in the day asking if I still wanted to go out when she got off, which was surprising because normally when she gets off work on Saturdays she is tired and not really in the mood to go anywhere. Still, when she got off she seemed to be in really good spirits and ready to head out. So, right around 5pm, we left the house to run some errands.

Just after we left the house I finally heard from Whitney, asking if I still wanted to hang out tonight. I said that I did but had to be out for a while, and that I should be home by 8pm or so. This kind of put a time limit on the evening with my Mom – a time limit I wasn’t entirely sure we could meet. Our first stop was at Walgreen’s because I needed to get some money out of the ATM for rent. Fortunately for me, my Mom did something really great for me this week – it’s a long story but basically she came into some extra money last week, and since my paycheck was short from missing those two days last week when I was sick, she let me pay less rent than I normally would. So, I basically wound up having as much extra money as I do every paycheck, which was amazing of her. It really made a world of difference. While we were at Walgreen’s, I happened to notice in their ad that Clean & Clear products were buy one, get one 50% off, and I have been thinking for a while now that there has been a step missing in my daily skincare routine – exfoliating. Exfoliation is meant to remove dead skin cells from the skin and leave it looking and feeling softer and more refreshed. The issue with exfoliating for me was the fact that it is generally pretty harsh and only done once weekly or so. I don’t like that idea. So, I did a little research online and found that Clean & Clear has a product called the Deep Action Exfoliating Scrub, which is gentle enough for daily use but still gets the job done. I used it for the first time just before starting this blog and, I must say, it does seem like I have been really missing out. Initially, I was concerned that it would be just like any other facial cleanser but after using it I can really feel the difference on my skin. There are areas on my face that must have had a buildup of dead skin without my realizing it because they really feel completely different now. These spots that were rough and unsightly before are now soft and smooth. I’m pretty thrilled with the results at this point. Plus, I got another pack of Clean & Clear Facial Cleansing Wipes, which I use to remove my makeup every day, for half price. Earlier today, while watching E!, I saw a commercial for this new shampoo, as well, which I immediately thought I should give a try. It is called Hair Endurance For Men from Head & Shoulders. As much as I hate to admit it I have some pretty messed up scalp issues, which sometimes result in dandruff and very dry scalp. Plus, as I have discussed in this blog several times in the past, my hair is getting thinner by the day. Well, this Head & Shoulder Hair Endurance For Men is pretty much the perfect product for me because it targets both of these issues. Plus, it smells really good. So, I am pretty excited to try that product out tomorrow. It would be wonderful if I wind up seeing some results from it!

After Walgreen’s, we headed south to the Gulf Gate plaza. The first thing we did there was stop at Ulta, so I could use the gift card I got for my birthday. It was just enough to buy the brand new Stila Backstage palette, which includes six gorgeous Stila eye shadows. As I have mentioned here previously, I am a little obsessed with Stila products lately. Their eye shadows are just gorgeous. They are extremely soft to the touch and go on beautifully. This palette is no exception – it includes two really fun pink shimmer shades, as well as two neutral shimmer shades and two metallic blue/green colors. It is awesome! I am in love with that thing. I also picked up a new Covergirl Concealer Wand because the Amazing Cosmetics concealer that my friend April gave me a while back is running out very quickly and before investing in more of that, (since it is $28 for a small tube and $40 for a full-sized one,) I wanted to try out more of the less expensive, drugstore brand concealers to see if I can find something that works as well for me. I tried this Covergirl concealer once I got home and I really like the way it works on me. It is a little lighter than the Amazing Cosmetics stuff I have been using and does a better job of brightening up the area under/around my eyes, which I love. I don’t think the coverage is as good but it is still a really good product for me, I think. Since I had the gift card, I bought both of these products and only spent $2 and some change there, which was lovely. After leaving Ulta, my Mom and I decided to go get dinner at Panera Bread, which was really good. We just sat there and ate our soups and sandwiches and enjoyed each other’s company, which we haven’t really gotten to do much of lately. It was really nice.

After dinner, we had one last stop to make – the Sarasota Square Mall. I needed to go to the mall to pick up a birthday gift for Nate. Nate isn’t one of those people who are really into their birthday, in general, but I can’t think of anybody who doesn’t enjoy receiving gifts for their birthdays… even if they say that they don’t. Unfortunately, shopping for Nate isn’t really as easy as shopping for other people, so I was a little lost. I know that he has a tendency, or has had a tendency in the past, to shop at the store Buckle, so I figured that should be my first stop. I spent a good little while in this store looking for something that just screamed “Nate” to me but I really wasn’t finding anything particular that I felt like he would love. I decided to head over to Hot Topic to see if there might be something funny or interesting that he would like but I didn’t really find anything there, either. I did spot something that I really liked there but it wasn’t a product for sale – it was an employee. A few years ago, Whitney and I, along with our old friend, Stephanie, used to shop at Hot Topic VERY frequently – more frequently than anyone should – and we kind of befriended one of the employees there. We basically befriended this guy because he was extremely attractive and we all kind of had minor crushes on him. We even hung out with him at Warped Tour 2008, which was a lot of fun, and he became a fun acquaintance of ours. Over time as our friendships and, for me, personal styles changed it became much less frequent that we wound up in that store. In fact, today was the first time I have been in there in probably a year or so. This acquaintance of ours was still working there and kind of blew my mind with his increased hotness. Seriously, he looked better than I can ever remember him looking before. He made me tingly in all the right places. We talked for a little while and it was nice to catch up a bit. The whole thing made me reconsider my stance on the products they carry that I don’t really have much use for just because I would like to look at this boy more. He gave me the vapors or the fever or whatever else a flustered southern belle would say when she gets horny.

Still, no matter how hot the boy was looking, it really wasn’t any help in the situation of finding a birthday present for Nate. So, I wound up doing something I always hate doing – I went back to Buckle and bought him a gift card. It was nearly 8pm by this point, so we headed back to the house. I re-applied my makeup using the new products I picked up from Ulta, which I absolutely loved, and I filmed it for the second time today. Yes, I forgot to mention that I had filmed it earlier in the day, as well. What was the reason for this? As I mentioned in last night’s post, I had been really interested in the Ridley Scott/Kevin McDonald “Life In A Day” project, where they asked random people to film themselves doing anything they did today, July 24, 2010, and submit it to them for use in a film they are putting together called “Life In A Day.” Anybody whose video wound up getting used in the film would be credited as a co-director on the film and everything, which is really an amazing concept. So, I had decided that what I was going to film would be me applying my makeup for the day. Unfortunately, neither of these videos turned out very well, at all. I also came up with the idea of perhaps filming myself as I took off my makeup for the day but I didn’t wind up doing it because it was really late and I was tired. Of course, I suppose I wasn’t too tired to sit in front of the computer for the past two hours, but whatever. Whitney and Nate showed up around 9pm and we had a really good time hanging out. It was a lot of fun. We basically spent the entire evening just talking and watching random videos on YouTube. We also watched the movie “Connie & Carla,” which is one of my all-time favorite movies. They both seemed to really like it, as well, which is always cool. I love showing people my favorite movies and having them come to love them, as well. They didn’t wind up leaving until around 3am. After that, I did my weekly deep cleaning of my makeup brushes and did my evening skincare routine. Then, I wound up here.

It is nearly 6am now and I absolutely must get to bed. After all, I can’t afford to sleep all day tomorrow – I have to be ready to go to bed at a decent hour tomorrow and be ready to wake up, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, for work on Monday. This coming week is going to be a bit of a mess, I think – my supervisor is going to be off the floor training the new hires and we have clients visiting all week long, which means we can’t read and have to dress nicer than we usually do. In general, when we aren’t allowed to read and such, people get bored and talk more and trouble comes much more easily. So, it should be interesting. In the meantime, I intend to use tomorrow to do absolutely nothing but laundry and laying around watching movies on Netflix. My Mom pretty well has her day planned out already tomorrow, including going to church and going to visit an elderly friend of hers in the hospital, which will probably take up a good portion of the day for her. So, I intend to use the alone time to just relax and veg out… but not sleep. I DO need to go get a few hours of sleep now, though. Goodnight.

Chapter 260: The Safest Place

Okay, so I realize that I have been starting every blog lately by saying, "Ilm going to keep it short tonight," or something along those lines. I also realize that most of those times I haven't actually wound up sticking to that. Tonight is a different story, though. How is it so different, you may ask? Well, it's different because I am saying that I am going to keep it short and I actually mean it. I am sure of this because I am writing tonight's blog from my cell phone as I lie in my bed, ready to pass out. It is after 2am right now and I am exhausted. It's been a really long day. In fact, it's been a very long week, in spite of the fact that I only worked 3 days this week. It just felt like it took forever to get to the weekend this week. Of course, here I am - it is officially the weekend and I can get rid of any thoughts of that place for the next two days. That is a very good feeling to have. As far as today goes, it wasn't bad. It wasn't really great, either. It was mainly boring. It also seemed as if every single customer that I spoke with today had some sort of fucked up accent or a speech impediment or something along those lines. I also dealt with a good number of customers who wanted to argue over our company policies or whatever. Whatever. Aside from all of those crazy customers, I basically spent the entire day readin the next novel in the "Gossip Girl" series. They are actually really well-written books, aside from the immense amount od product placement in them. Every other page inxludes some line just randomly slipped in about one of the characters using her Stila Lip Glaze or Urban Decay Pocket Rocket or whatever else. I don't really mind that type of thing except that I feel like the way that itLs done in these books really diminishes the quality of the writing. It all just comes across as very random and forced. Aside from that, though, I am really enjoying these books and am looking forward to moving through the rest of the series.

So, that basically sums up the workday for me. After work didn't get much more interesting, either. My Mom and I had Gyros & Seafood for dinner and watched season two of the series, "Noah's Arc." "Noah's Arc," for those not familiar, is a series created for Logo about a group of four gay, African-American twenty-somethings living in Los Angeles. It is basically like a black, gay version of "Sex & The City."It was a really fun, positive and groundbreaking series that, unfortunately, only lasted for two seasons and one movie. It was brilliant, though - the writing was always really fun, quirky & current and the cast was full of gorgeous & very talented black and latino actors. What was so great about this show, though, was that it was really the first true glimpse into the inner workings of black gay culture that many people ever got. I absolutely loved this series. The main reason that I bring the series up in the first place is because of one of the storylines in the second season that really affected me as I watched it play out. Towards the end of the season, Noah gets severely attacked by a group of men at a gas station. This causes a huge emotional tailspin in his life and leaves him understandably traumatized. Now, I have long kind of turned my nose up at the use of gay bashing in gay cinema because, much like HIV & coming out storylines, it just seems like such a cliche and like it kind of only paints the picture of a very small spectrum of the gay community. However, this evening as I was watching this storyline play out on the show, it really kind of dawned on me that it is actually a very real danger to pretty much all of us in the gay community. For me and my type, the more eccentric/flamboyant types, it is an even bigger threat because we are pretty automatically identified. I have never had any genuine experience of my own with this type of attack, beyond being called a faggot or whatever else by people on the street or in bars or whatever, but it has always been something that remains in the back of my mind. It's a large part of the reason that I don't like to go out at night unless somebody I feel completely safe with is also there. To be quite honest, I really don't feel safe in public most of the time. I'm not sure when this started exactly but it's been that way for as long as I can remember. Now that I have taken to expressing myself through makeup and such, I feel as though I am even more vulnerable to this type of thing. Of course, I don't ever let this stop me from living my life but I do proceed with considerably more caution than your average straight person would when I am going out to public places or whatever. It sucks but, for the time being, it is simply how I feel and, sadly, is not without it's merits.

The only other thing I wanted to mention is this brilliant new project that is being spearheaded by Ridley Scott and directore Ken Thompson. The project is called "Life In A Day," and the basic concept is that they are asking people all across the world to
film something, ANYTHING, that they do on this one particular day. Then, you
lsubmit the video to them and they are splicing them all or a small portion of them together & creating a feature length film out of them. The point is to document what people all over the world were doing on this one day. It seems like an amazing project and I definitely intend to take part in it. I'm not sure yet of what I am going to film just yet but my mind is all abuzz with ideas for this. I don't know - whatever it is, I'll make sure it is brilliant. Also, whatever it is, I'll make sure to share it here once it is done. In the meantime, I absolutely must get to sleep. I keep wanting to doze off while writing this & I really can't fight it anymore. It is definitely time for bed. Goodnight.

Chapter 259: Teenage Dream

I am going to try to keep this really short tonight. Why is that? Well, it is not even 10pm yet and I am exhausted. I actually have been all day. You see, the story of today has to begin a little earlier than most of my blogs – it begins last night. You see, as I mentioned while ending last night’s blog, my intention was to go to the Ulta website and do a little shopping with the Ulta gift card that I got from my Mom for my birthday. It was around 11-11:15pm when I finished the blog and I pretty much immediately headed to the website and was sifting through all kinds of stuff. I eventually settled on the Stila Pro Artist Palette, which was on sale for only $19.99. I have developed a bit of an obsession with Stila Cosmetics as of late, honestly – both Stila and Urban Decay have become my obsessions lately. I have given up on my MAC dreams, for the moment, because I can’t afford it half the time and don’t get to the stuffy gross mall where the only MAC store in town is located. Of course, that may change at some point this weekend because my sister and her girlfriend didn’t get me a birthday gift and said that they would take me to the MAC store to pick out something else for myself. So, hopefully I’ll get to do that this weekend, because that would be awesome! Anyway, so I was pretty well done with my shopping around on the Ulta site by just before midnight. I went into the bathroom to do my evening skincare routine, which took about 15 minutes, and had my head on a pillow by 12:15am. I was kind of dicking around on my phone for a while and listening to a shuffle of all four Hannah Montana soundtracks in bed. Unfortunately, that dicking around with my phone lasted until around 1am – not a good thing at all. So, I put my phone down and closed my eyes to try to fall asleep. My mind was kind of all over the place and sleep was clearly not coming anytime soon. Still, I stayed in bed and waited for it. Finally, around 1:50am, I decided to get out of bed long enough to go to the bathroom and smoke a cigarette. By this time it was just after 2am when I got back into bed. It was a little while longer, but not too long, before I actually fell asleep. So, when my alarm went off at 6am, I wasn’t quite ready to get out of bed.

My alarm clock and my phone are about five minutes apart for some reason so when the first one went off I turned it off and laid my head back down. Next thing I knew, it was 7:03am. This is an entire hour later than I usually get up in order to be to work by 8:30am, but now I had to be to work by 8am. I kind of flipped out. So, I did things a little differently than I normally would this morning. In general, when I first wake up I do my morning skincare routine and brush my teeth, then I have coffee, cigarettes and breakfast before heading back into the bathroom to get dressed and do hair and makeup. Because of the time restraints, I switched it up a bit today. I did a bit of prioritizing and decided that, as fucked up as it may sound, I would rather go to work hungry than go to work without makeup. So, as soon as I got out of bed, I grabbed my clothes for the day, went into the bathroom and did my normal skincare routine and brushed my teeth, then immediately got dressed and did my hair and makeup. I really rushed through it this morning, doing my go-to makeup look when I am in a rush, the single shadow Taylor Momsen-inspired look using Gilded Fierce from Christian Siriano for VS Makeup. It is a gorgeous black shadow with lots of gold glitter in it. I also lined my eyes with my Urban Decay Heavy Metal Glitter Liner, in Midnight Cowboy, which is a gorgeous gold glitter color. It was REALLY much more of an evening look but I liked it, anyway. Plus, like I said, it is my quickest, easiest makeup look and I was in a rush. Fortunately, I finished with all of this by 7:35am, so I had time to eat a bowl of cereal and smoke a cigarette or two before it was time to leave for work. I still hadn’t had any caffeine, so I filled my workplace approved spill-proof cup with coffee and rushed out the door.

When I arrived at work, I was seriously out of it. I gulped down my coffee as quickly as I could stand, with some sort of hopes that drinking it faster would cause the caffeine to kick in immediately. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out very well and I basically wound up feeling exhausted all day long. It was kind of interesting because it seemed like everybody at work was in that same place today. It seemed like everybody I talked to had a rough night last night in one way or another and was feeling the effects of it today. It was one of those days that I really had to push myself through. I spent most of the day being quiet and just reading the current book in the Gossip Girl series that I am reading – “Because I’m Worth It.” It is the first of the series that I hadn’t read before. I like it a lot. It is crazy how different the show is from the book series. The characters are completely different and things that wound up being long-term storylines on the show are barely even blips on the radar in the books. The best example of this is the character Chuck Bass, who is one of the main characters on the TV show and one of the series’ biggest draws. In the books, Chuck Bass is a completely one-sided character, nothing more than a complete sleaze ball, and he is very rarely featured in the books. I just think it’s really interesting, the differences between the book and the television series. Fortunately, there was no real drama to speak of at work today, although everybody did seem pretty annoyed with everybody else. Like I said before, though, nobody seemed overly annoyed with me so I don’t really care.

I got a text from my Mom pretty early in the day telling me that the package that was waiting for me at the office from UPS yesterday, the surprising and wonderful gift from my surprising and wonderful friend, Kelly, was from Urban Decay. I felt a little flash of concern and guilt over hearing this because I knew that, whatever it was, if it came from Urban Decay it probably cost her a pretty penny. I am still slightly conflicted on this matter, honestly. I mean, I know that she wouldn’t have bought it and sent it to me if she couldn’t afford it or didn’t actually want to but I still can’t help but feel bad. Still, when I got home and opened the package, I was absolutely thrilled with what I got! It was the brand-spanking new Urban Decay Vegan palette, which they created to celebrate the 30th anniversary of PETA, which is pretty cool. Urban Decay have long prided themselves on being a company that has never done animal testing, and they offer a pretty wide variety of vegan products, (although I’m not entirely sure what makes one eye shadow any more vegan than the rest of them.) So, this palette includes six of Urban Decays vegan eye shadows, including some really gorgeous colors that I am already coming up with all kinds of ideas for using! Actually, as soon as I opened up the palette and got a look at all of the included colors, I immediately came up with the look that I am going to do tomorrow. I won’t spoil it here but I’m pretty sure you can count on seeing pictures of the look on Facebook or Twitter, or maybe even on here, tomorrow. Like I said before, I am completely thrilled with this gift and couldn’t possibly feel more grateful for it. It was really an amazing gesture from my friend Kelly and I couldn’t even begin to explain how much it meant to receive this gift for my birthday this year, when I was feeling so bad about my birthday.

So, I baked up a couple of those Tombstone pizzas for dinner tonight and sat down with my Mom to watch “Big Brother” and eat. After that, we watched yesterday’s episode of “The View,” which featured two women who I found really inspiring. These two women were on opposite ends of the age spectrum but I really found myself incredibly inspired by both of them. The first woman was 18-year old singer/actress, and now fashion designer, Selena Gomez. I just feel like she is such a great example for young girls nowadays because, unlike many of her contemporaries, she has remained nothing less than classy in every move she has made in her career. Plus, she has just launched a clothing line called Dream Out Loud, which is exclusive to K-Mart and features extremely affordable, and extremely adorable, items of clothing that are not only fashionable but also completely appropriate for girls ranging from their teens to their twenties. I just feel like she is, like another favorite artist of mine, Taylor Swift, doing everything right. She has managed to become a huge star and yet remain accessible and relatable to fans of all ages. I adore her. The second woman who inspired me so greatly this evening was 89-year old singer/dancer/actress/living legend, Carl Channing. Carol was on “The View” yesterday to promote a new album she has recorded but, even more, was there to discuss a great passion of hers – her charity work in trying to save the arts programs in public schools across the country. This is a cause that is very near to my heart, as well. Unfortunately, I didn’t take advantage of the arts programs that were available in my school days and I really do feel like I really wasted a lot of my school years because of it. I mean, I was a complete fuck up in school but part of me really thinks that things would have gone very differently for me in school had I actually gotten involved in arts programs. I also am a very firm believer in the importance of cultivating artists in their formative years, like middle school and high school. It is hard to imagine a world where the arts have died out and, particularly in this fame-obsessed world, I think it is really important to help kids develop the skills necessary to move forward in a life that they will feel happy with and passionate about. I also believe that had I been involved in the arts programs when I was in school the natural talents that I have would have been honed much better and I would be in a better position now to be pursuing my destiny. I just feel like school-aged kids should have the option to take part in these things, and that will simply not be the case if these programs are removed from schools. It is a very important issue, as far as I am concerned, and I am really glad to see public figures like Carol Channing and Barry Manilow, (who has been a very outspoken supporter of keeping the arts in schools over the years,) speaking out about the topic and doing what they are able to do to help. It is inspiring and makes me really wonder what I could possibly do to help out in the position that I am in now.

Anyway, it is now 11:15pm, and this blog has wound up much longer than intended, so I should be getting to bed. Oh… I forgot to follow up on something mentioned earlier in this post, though – I had mentioned earlier that I ordered the Stila Pro Artist Palette on Ulta’s website last night. What I failed to mention, though, was the fact that while I was at work today I received an email advising me that the order had been cancelled because the item I had selected was no long available or out of stock or something like that. So, I said, “fuck it,” and have decided that I will be going down to the Ulta store this weekend. There is a different palette from Stila, The Backstage Palette, which just came out, that I actually like a lot better. It is $28, instead of the $19.99 that the other one was, but if I go pick it up in the store I won’t have to factor in shipping and it will still manage to be covered by my gift card. So, I will likely wind up doing that this weekend. I will just have to make sure not to wander around the store too much and just run grab exactly what I need. Anyway, it is late and I need to go to bed. Goodnight.

Chapter 258: I’m Still Good

Today was the big return to my normal, day-to-day life. You know, the one that includes the regular every day and every week things, like work and piano lessons and things of that nature. I woke up when my alarm went off at 6am, got up and did my morning skincare routine and brushed my teeth and such, made myself some coffee and smoked a cigarette, had a bowl of Honey Bunches Of Oats and all the normal things I do in the morning. This morning was a little odd, though, because I found out yesterday from my sister that we are getting our hours back at work and that I had a few different options on how to take my hours back. Of course, one option was to go back to how my schedule was before – five days a week, 9:30-6pm. This was the least desirable option to me. The other option was to stick with my current schedule and just come in 30 minutes earlier each day. I would still be missing two hours that way but I would also still get to keep my extra day off. So, I told my sister that this was the option I wanted to go with, which meant that this morning I had to manage to get myself ready in time to be to work by 8am. It was only slightly different, honestly. I just had to make sure that I started and finished hair and makeup about 20 minutes earlier than I normally would. No big issue. Plus, I actually like doing 8am-6pm better because adding that extra half hour to my shift means that I get an extra break, which makes the day flow much better than it did before. So, it is a pretty even trade.

Work started out kind of fun today. I spent the first little while discussing the illuminati with a girl from the account that sits right next to us, which is always a topic that I am fascinated with. Once the two girls who sit beside me came in at their regular time of 8:30am we all sat around chatting and joking and laughing and such. It made the morning pretty fun, honestly, and I was actually enjoying myself. Plus, those first couple hours passed pretty quickly. Unfortunately, when I went to my first break everything was fine and dandy but when I came back I had apparently missed some big drama on the floor and there was a pretty thick air of tension in the air. I still don’t know exactly what happened but I figure that since I wasn’t involved and didn’t witness anything, it shouldn’t create any issues for me. So, I am making it a point not to get involved. I also found out that our new employees will be showing up next week and that, as I have been hoping and lobbying for, there will be boys in it! It’s not as if I intend to try to scrape up a boyfriend or anything from our new training class but it would be nice to have some boys around. If nothing else, it will give me something to look at throughout the day. Either way, I think that adding new people into the environment may help to alleviate some of the drama on the floor – if nothing else, it may create a buffer zone between all the people who don’t get along. So, I am looking forward to that… mainly for the boys. Of course, this also means that we will have a week while those new employees are training where our supervisor is off the floor doing that training. Everybody is already anticipating that there will be drama during that time. What else is new, though? Like I said, as long as I am not involved I don’t care. I just don’t know how much longer I can avoid becoming involved. Of course, as long as I keep my composure and avoid doing anything that could potentially get me in trouble, I don’t have anything to worry about. So, basically, all I can really say is, “fuck it.”

After work today, I had my piano lesson. It was a little strange because I had just been there the day before yesterday, so I wasn’t really expecting much progress or anything like that. I don’t think Viktor, my piano instructor, was really expecting much, either. Surprisingly, though, he did see some progress. He seemed pretty impressed with my work today, although I felt a little silly because I was playing the piece at tempo now but not without repeated screw-ups. Still, he was impressed with the fact that I was doing it at tempo at this point, since I wasn’t on Monday. I mean, I practiced a good amount yesterday but I didn’t expect that. I just kind of walked in and did it – which was, I suppose, a really good thing. I’m pretty impressed with myself, honestly. He wants me to keep working on this piece over the next week and try to perfect it. Then, next week, he is going to give me a new piece to work on – a classical piece. I’m not overly excited about that, if I’m being honest. I mean, I am excited to start work on a new piece but I am not all that excited that we are moving into classical music at this point. I’m just not a fan of classical music, although I guess I do see the value in learning some of it. It is definitely a stepping-stone to learning to play piano. After all, it is kind of the cornerstone of the craft or what started it all. So, I guess I am kind of excited for it.

After my lesson, Viktor drove me home, which is always very nice of him to do. I was kind of expecting to find a package at my doorstep. You see, my dear friend on Facebook, Kelly, actually ordered a birthday present for me, which was amazing of her to do and not at all expected. Apparently, it arrived today. Unfortunately, it wasn’t waiting at my door when I got home. I checked the UPS tracking site and found that it was left at the office – the office that closes at 6pm. I got home around 7:30pm, so I don’t get to find out what this gift is until tomorrow. I am pretty excited to see what she came up with for me, though. She has really been one of the most kind, observant and caring people in my life over the past little while, especially with all of my birthday dramatics, so I really appreciate her. I’ve kind of gotten to a point where I am not concerning myself with other people so much, aside from a select few, so it is nice to see that there are at least a few people left out there who are willing to concern themselves with me. So, I am going to have my Mom go get the package from the office when it opens in the morning, because it isn’t open before I go to work, and it will be here waiting for me when I get home. I’m pretty excited. As shitty as it may sound to say, I LOVE getting gifts. So, I am excited. Speaking of birthday gifts, I am still struggling with the Ulta gift card my Mom gave me for my birthday. I mean, not really struggling but having a little trouble deciding what to do with it. I can’t decide if I should use it online now or if I should save it for this weekend and actually go to the store and shop. The only reason I wouldn’t want to go use it at the store is that I think looking all the stuff in the face, I would be more prone to want to spend more than the gift card amount. I can’t really do that this weekend because I basically missed two days of work last week, which will be on this weekend’s paycheck, and I can’t really afford to spend anything extra. So, if I just go ahead and use the gift card online it will be easier not to spend more than the gift card amount but still get new stuff.

Writing it out now, it seems clear that I should just go ahead and use the thing online now. It just makes more sense. So, I think I may go do that right now. Before I do, though, I should probably finish off the day. There’s really not much else to it. My Mom got off work at 8pm and we went down to Taco Bell to pick up something for dinner, (I had a strange craving for it for some reason,) came home and watched “Big Brother,” and “Kathy Griffin’s My Life On The D List,” then I came into the bedroom to listen to Disney Channel soundtracks, (“Hannah Montana Forever,” and the new “Jonas LA” soundtrack, both of which I am kind of in love with for their fun, summer themes!) So, that is about it. It was a pretty decent day. In spite of the fact that my vacation time is done for the year and I am back to the daily grind, like the Hannah Montana song says, “I’m still good.” Now, I am off to shop online. Goodnight.

Chapter 257: The Child Is Gone

Okay, so it is the day after my birthday today and I have been able to take a little time to detach myself from the whole thing a bit, emotionally, and have come to realize that I was probably being a bit melodramatic about the whole thing. As I mentioned in last night's blog, my birthday weekend and the circumstances surrounding it brought up a lot of old issues and emotions in me that I didn't necessarily realize were still affecting me so strongly. I do feel like, all in all, my birthday weekend was a complete disaster. It had some really nice moments, courtesy of a few different people, but overall the whole thing was pretty wrecked.

One word that I would use to describe the experience of my 27th birthday would be sobering. Another word I would use would be shitty but we are going to focus on the word sobering here. So, why sobering? Well, it kind of forced me to confront a couple different truths about myself that I have long been aware of but I don't think ever really took the time to comprehend the real weight and gravity of. You see, the main thing that this birthday weekend forced me to deal with is the fact that I am, by all standards, an adult now. Gone are the days of being the center of the world to people like my Mother. No more will people make the effort to cater to my whims or see to my emotional needs like they did before. No more will people stop what they are doing to pay attention to or focus on me just because I happen to be feeling alone or neglected or unloved. No more will I be babied. Basically, what this weekend made me realize more than anything else is that, from this point on, I am in this fight alone. I am expected to take care of myself and never again will I truly be able to depend on anybody else to do it for me. I am at an age where my general well-being, whether they admit it or not, is not genuinely their concern. It isn't anybody else's responsibility to keep me happy or healthy anymore. Anything that I may need or want out of life is up to me; SOLELY up to me. I can't genuinely expect anything out of anybody else at this point... & I'm okay.

Still, thinking about this epiphany I have now had, it does seem like a very large, heavy, unmanageable thing to cope with. I mean, I know that I can. I assume that most people do at some point in their lives. Still, I can't help but think about how life used to be. I have spent so many years not really relying on myself for anything. There was always somebody else who could take on the responsibilities of my life, be it my Mom, my sister, or my best friend, I just always had somebody around who WOULD cater to my whims and do everything they could to make sure that I was happy and taken care of. Looking at it from where I'm standing now I realize that I completely took that for granted. It really is a shame, because I long for that feeling now. Like I said before, though... Those days are over.

Like Fiona Apple said, "The child is gone..."

I knew this day would have to come eventually but that is really no consolation to me now. Still, despite my initial reaction, I'm okay with it all. It's better this way, actually. I have always kind of scoffed at that whole concept of people talking about how they wish they could be a kid again. I hate the very essence of childhood - naivete and innocence; more like ignorance to me. I hate the idea of childhood because it really all equates to being unaware. I don't want to be unaware or naive or lacking in experience. That is not what life is about. Life, to me, is about one thing and one thing only - moving forward. THAT, more than anything else, is what this weekend has really been for me - one giant step forward, and on to the next plane of existence. It makes perfect sense to me now, the whole thing. My life is all about transcendence and, frankly, you simply cannot transcend when you tie yourself down to things in your life. Don't get me wrong, please. Nobody is being cut out of my life or anything along those lines. I have simply come to recognize the fact that I don't have ties on anybody else in this world, and nobody else has ties on me. I am free to move about the craft that we call life.

...& that, my friends, is a beautiful thing. Goodnight.

Chapter 256: New

I’m starting late tonight. I’m not really sure what to say about today. Today was my birthday. My age is one number higher than it was yesterday. One year in my life has ended and another has just begun. I didn’t really ring in this new year in any special way, like I had previously hoped to. In fact, I didn’t really do much of anything today. I woke up at noon. I wasted a couple of hours doing a whole lot of nothing. I spent another 45 minutes or so practicing piano. I practiced so long that I didn’t leave myself much time to get dressed and ready for my piano lesson today, and so I threw myself together too quickly, got moisturizer in my eye, and headed out for my piano lesson. Today’s lesson was really good. In fact, it was by far the highlight of my day. I got there five minutes late, which turned out great because Viktor set me up in another room to practice for a while because he was still with his previous student. So, I sat in this other room by myself and practiced for about 30 more minutes, which was a good thing. When I got into my lesson with Viktor, everything went well. I told him how I had been sick last week and such, and he assumed that I hadn’t done any practicing, so it was nice to be able to prove him wrong when I started playing the piece. After my lesson, I came back home and sat in my bedroom wasting time for a few more hours. My Mom gave me an Ulta gift card, which I really appreciated. I feel bad that I may not have shown how much I appreciated it, though. I have just been really upset with my Mom this weekend. We’ve barely spoken all weekend – on this, my birthday weekend. Anytime we did speak, she came across as extremely distracted and flippant and more concerned with what her boyfriend was doing. Even this evening, when we were supposed to get together with my sister and her girlfriend to watch the new RuPaul show, she and her boyfriend went into the other room and that was the end of it. The whole thing just really pisses me off. Even more, though, it just really disappoints me. It has created a considerably more negative impression of my Mom in my mind. There was a time in the past when my Mom was faced with a decision that involved me and she, no matter what anybody else, including her, has to say, absolutely made the wrong one. It was one of the most ridiculously painful experiences I have ever had in my life. I can’t even begin to describe the feeling of complete worthlessness and rejection that it caused in me. After this weekend, in spite of what I may have thought before, I can’t help but feel like if it came down to it, she would do the same thing again. It sickens me. It sickens me down to my very core. I can’t even imagine it. This has really been the main feeling and focus of my birthday this year. So, you can see why I haven’t exactly been pleased with the whole thing. I have talked a lot in the blog over the past week or so about feelings of being alone and neglected and isolated. I have kind of come to realize that it isn’t that I feel this from everybody in my life, like I initially thought, but that I feel it from my mother. I hate this feeling more than anything else in this world. There was some good that came out of today, though. I got to talk to a few different people who I hadn’t really been able to connect with in a while. I got to make plans with one of my dearest friends here, who I was kind of beginning to worry about in some ways, and I got to hang out with my sister and her girlfriend for a while. Plus, I had a really good piano lesson. I didn’t really get much, in the way of gifts, this year but that isn’t really what it’s about, is it? I am fine without gifts as long as I get to spend time and celebrate with the people I love and care about the most. Oh yeah, I didn’t get to do that much, either. It doesn’t really matter, though. Today was a shitty day, like so many others before it. In the grand scheme of things, my 27th birthday won’t mean shit to me when I look back on it years from now. There are things I will remember from it, like the kindness I have received from people close to me, and people not so close to me. The pain of this day, on the other hand, will be better best forgotten. Everything is going to be alright. After all, this marks a new year in my life and, somehow, I am going to make sure that it is better than the last. I don’t know how I will do it, exactly, but I will. I have decided that I am going to start working out again tomorrow, after having taken about a month and a half off from it, which I think will make a marked improvement on my psyche. I am also going to do everything I can to continue pursuing my artistic endeavors moving forward. I remember a time, late last year or earlier this year, when I was really making it a point to live my life primarily in the artist mindset and much less in the “person” mindset. I don’t recall exactly where I dropped the ball on that but I fully intend to pick that ball back up and move forward with it. No more wasting my time concerning myself with relationships and other people’s dramas. Now, more than ever before, is the time for art. I have to make something of my life. After all, I’m not getting any younger here. For now, though, I need to end this dreaded day so I can wake up tomorrow to a brand new year of my life, and to a brand new me. Goodnight.

Chapter 255: Like The Movies

As was surely made obvious in last night’s blog, I did quite a bit of drinking last night. It honestly wasn’t THAT much but it was enough to leave me feeling pretty fucked up when I woke up today. I drank a very large margarita last night, and my body never responds well to tequila. I also had two Long Island iced teas and three mimosas. So, like I said, I woke up feeling a fucking wreck this morning. So much so, in fact, that I didn’t wake up at all this morning – it was 2:30pm before I got out of bed. Actually, that’s not an entirely accurate statement, either. It was 2:30pm when I woke up but I pretty well stayed in bed all day long today. I knew as soon as I woke up that it was that kind of day. So, in order to make use of my time in bed, I decided to make it a movie day. I know what you’re thinking – how in the world is watching movies all day making use of my time? Well, I consider any time spent taking in some form of art to be somewhat productive time. Okay, maybe not productive but time well spent, anyway. So, I watched a LOT of movies since the last blog. Let’s discuss.

First of all, after last night’s blog, I couldn’t fall asleep any time soon, so I decided to pull up a movie on Netflix and keep myself entertained for a bit. I dug around a bit on the Netflix site looking for something that would suit my mood – not too serious but not an actual comedy, either. I came upon this movie I had heard of before but forgotten all about, called “Tennessee.” I didn’t have high expectations for “Tennessee,” mainly because of one of it’s stars – Mariah Carey. Don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of Mariah’s and think that her skill as an actress may have been undermined by the fact that her first major film was a complete disaster known as “Glitter.” Still, I had seen this other movie she was in, called “Wisegals,” which co-starred Mira Sorvino, which I was actually really impressed with. She was also really good in her few scenes in the movie “Precious.” Then, of course, there was “Glitter.” “Glitter” is one of those movies I love to fast-forward through. I have watched it all the way through several times but most times I have bothered to watch it, I have fast-forwarded to the scenes where she sings. Still, I love the idea of “Glitter,” because it seems like they were really trying to do a modern-day version of some of those classic musicals, like “Funny Girl.” I really do believe that this type of movie could really use a resurrection and would be a really great thing to place in a modern setting, (which is one of many reasons I am so excited for Christina Aguilera’s upcoming film debut, “Burlesque,” as it appears to be that same type of story.) Anyway, “Tennessee” is the story of two brothers living in New Mexico after having fled their abusive father in their hometown in Tennessee. Now, several years later, the younger of the two brothers is suffering from leukemia and their last hope of getting him a bone marrow transplant is returning to Tennessee in hopes of finding their father. So, they decide to make the journey from New Mexico to Tennessee but are quickly halted when their car breaks down outside a small diner somewhere in Texas. At this diner, they meet a waitress/aspiring singer, portrayed by Mariah Carey, who is simply unhappy and unfulfilled in her life and marriage there in Texas. So, with a little convincing they get her to continue on the journey with them. It was considerably better than I expected. I actually really liked it. It was a little slow to start and didn’t really get exciting until Mariah’s character showed up but once it got going, it was really good. Plus, Mariah Carey sang a really pretty song in the movie! I don’t know how much I recommend seeing this movie – it is definitely flawed but I enjoyed it. So, you might enjoy it, as well.

When I woke up this afternoon, for one reason or another, I had this really strong desire to watch that old documentary by journalist Nick Broomfield, “Kurt & Courtney.” I had seen this film once years ago but couldn’t really remember much about it, beyond the fact that it painted Courtney Love in a very negative light. So, I decided to watch it again this afternoon. It is definitely a fascinating documentary and I like the fact that it simply presents information to you and lets you make your own decisions about what you think really happened, as opposed to shoving the opinions of the filmmakers on the viewer. The whole premise is that this journalist is trying to figure out what exactly happened surrounding Kurt Cobain’s death and whether or not it was actually a suicide. I have always felt, and still do after viewing this film again today, that it was actually a suicide. I don’t believe that Courtney was involved in Kurt’s death in any direct way. Sure, I think dealing with her was probably a big contributing factor to it, but I don’t believe he was murdered and I don’t believe Courtney was involved in any way. If nothing else, none of the sources who were supporting the idea that Courtney was involved seemed reliable at all. They were all a bunch of strung out white trash who often seemed to be under the influence while appearing in the film. Even Courtney’s father, who has written a couple of books about why he thinks Courtney killed Kurt, really comes across as simply an old man holding a grudge against his own daughter. Still, this film gives you a lot to think about. I definitely recommend seeing this film to anybody who is a big fan of Nirvana or Hole. Otherwise, you probably wouldn’t have a huge amount of interest.

Next up, I watched one of the best indie films I have seen in a long time, aside from “Timer,” which is still the best thing I have seen in ages, called “Good Dick.” This, much like “Timer,” really goes to show you that there are original concepts out there still. I don’t understand why Hollywood doesn’t embrace this type of film more often. “Good Dick” was written, directed and produced by, and stars, Marianna Palka. It was also co-produced and co-stars the gorgeous and talented son of the late John Ritter, Jason Ritter. Jason Ritter is one of my favorite actors, which was the initial lure to this film, (although the title definitely caught my eye, as well.) “Good Dick” is the story of a young woman who is essentially a hermit, only venturing out of her apartment to visit her local video store to rent softcore porn. One of the employees at the video store, Jason Ritter, becomes slightly infatuated with her and slowly weaves his way into her home and her life, and they begin a very offbeat, tumultuous relationship in which they don’t ever have sex. The thing that fascinated me the most about this film is the fact that it explores a little-known phenomena called Sexual Anorexia. I read a book about this a while back, where people deny themselves sexual pleasure, or sexual involvement with others, (as is the case with this film, because the character masturbates but refuses to interact sexually with a partner.) This is most often spurred by some form of sexual assault, abuse, incest or molestation. This is clearly not something that I have suffered from myself but I find the topic fascinating and was very pleased to see a film about the topic. Aside from that, though, it is a very fun, offbeat and fascinating story. I highly recommend everybody check this one out. It was brilliantly put together and it is extremely impressive that it was pretty well all orchestrated by one random girl who’d never actually worked in the film industry before. VERY good stuff, indeed.

After “Good Dick,” I decided to watch a film that I just happened to stumble up on Netflix and really liked the concept of and the cast, which included Kathleen Robertson and, another of my favorite actors, Mark Ruffalo. This movie was called “XX/XY,” and it is the story of three college students who have a very strange sort of poly-amorous relationship in college, which quickly falls apart, as these things have a tendency to do. I only say it is sort of poly-amorous because it was never something that was clearly defined as all three people actually being in a relationship with each other, although that is really what it was, and that is what really winds up being the catalyst for the whole thing ending. The main focus of the film is 10 years after the fact when these three people all happen to reunite. They have all moved on into their own separate lives and relationships but suddenly being back with these people kind of puts them back into that place, and drama ensues as old feelings start coming back up in the midst of completely new and separate lives. I really loved this movie for the fact that it really takes a look at what the past really means to the present, and how sometimes the two shouldn’t really mix. This is what I took from it, anyway. It was definitely a great movie, though, and one I definitely recommend checking out.

The last film I watched today was probably my least favorite of the bunch, although it was definitely interesting. This was a movie called “Sex & Breakfast,” starring Macaulay Culkin, Eliza Dushku, Kuno Becker and Alexis Dziena as a pair of couples experiencing a bit of sexual dysfunction. It isn’t that anybody can’t get it up or anything like that but after years of being together these couples just aren’t finding the spark like they used to. So, upon recommendations from their separate friends, and parents in one case, the two couples decide to attend a seminar from a doctor who has stopped practicing and started providing a service where they pair up couples, etc., for group sex experiences in order to revitalize their individual sex lives. These two couples don’t happen to know each other or anything, and both have many apprehensions about going through with the whole thing. Inevitably, though, they do wind up going through with it and find themselves paired up with each other’s partners. Unfortunately, though, not every relationship can survive this type of thing. That is really the story that this film tells and I found it really fascinating to watch these couples go through the torment involved in experiencing that lack of sexual spark and having the whole relationship ruined, or near ruined, by trying to find ways to bring that back. It may be my least favorite of the group of films I watched today but it was still a pretty good one and I do recommend checking it out. On a slightly more critical note, though, it did feel like there was a lot of stuff included in the film that was wholly unnecessary and then when we got to the really interesting stuff they just kind of shot right through it. I mean, it still got it’s point across but it could definitely have made better use of it’s time.

So, yeah… I watched movies today. Tomorrow, (or, right now actually,) is my actual birthday and the plans are… well, not much. I have to go to my piano lesson tomorrow afternoon, which should be fun, and then tomorrow evening we are having my sister, her girlfriend and their family over to watch the premiere of the new RuPaul series and hang out. It should be fun. I am really glad I don’t have to go back to work for two more days, although it sucks that I won’t be able to request any more time off, at least not paid time off, for the rest of the year. Oh well, though… Those are the breaks. It is after 2am, though, and I’d really like to get to bed earlier than I did last night. Goodnight.

Chapter 254: Drunk

Okay, I can’t really do this tonight. The blog is going to have to be skipped. Why is that? My focus is off. Why is that? Well, quite frankly… I be dranking. In one hand is a ghetto mimosa, made with the finest champagne known to man, Verdi. In the other hand is a seemingly continuous cigarette because I keep re-lighting them. These things, unfortunately, are not conducive to writing a blog for the evening. So, I’m not going to. I mean, not really. I will tell you this: today wound up a lot better than I expected it would. Well, that’s not entirely true. The morning sucked. The early afternoon was slightly better but the evening was pretty good. I had some dranks. My brother and sister-in-law did wind up coming up from Fort Meyers, and my sister and her girlfriend came out and we all just went out to dinner and, like I said, I had a few dranks. Then I came home and had some more dranks. Dranky dranky dranky. I think I’m gonna go watch a movie on Netflix until I pass out. It was a pretty decent day. I’m kinda sad Rachel couldn’t be there – she had car drama. Still, it was fun. I’m glad. We’re doing another little thing on Monday, my actual birthday, with just my sister and her girlfriend and her family. I mean we’re just getting together to watch the premiere of the new RuPaul show. It should be fun, though. I’m drunk. I need to go to sleep or something. Goodnight.

Chapter 253: It's My Party

It's Friday. It's the weekend. It's another, probably the last, four day weekend for me. I'm not entirely certain but I think I'm already regretting using my last vacation day for the year for my birthday. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to spend my birthday at work. It just seems like, at this point, it probably wasn't actually worth taking a day off for. Now, I want to make sure to warn you all up front: I AM ABOUT TO START WHINING ABOUT TEENAGE GIRL PROBLEMS. If you can't deal with that or find it annoying, please do not move forward at this point. For years my sister and most of my friends and pretty much anybody who knew me at the time said that I was like a teenage girl. I was constantly compared to or equated with a teenage girl. I didn't mind it all the time but it definitely didn't help with my lifelong struggles and insecurities about being taken seriously. Still, the teenage girl in me ran the show most of the time back in those days, so I suppose I can't really blame anybody for thinking of me that way. That is a much less frequent issue for me these days & I feel much more like I am taken seriously by the people around me. Still, every now and then, that teenage girl will come out to play. Then, some other days, that teenage girl will come out to bitch.

Today is one of those days.

I hate to be all Molly Ringwald about it but my birthday sucks. I hate it. It's really done nothing but stress me out, piss me off and make me sad this year. The whole thing with it is the fact that nobody really seems to give a shit about it. That's not entirely true - my dear friend Rachel seems really happy & excited about it - much more than I even am at this point. I am really grateful for her being there and reminding me that it IS something special. It seems that everybody else in my life is too focused on other things to really give a shit. For example, my Mom is using this weekend as an excuse to have her boyfriend over and do all the things she would normally do when her boyfriend is here, like go out and do whatever it is they do together while I sit at home alone. My brother, who was supposed to come up this weekend for my birthday, has decided to have a yard sale instead. I haven't really heard much out of most of my friends and what I have heard hasn't really been birthday-related, or even very me-related. My birthday party has basically dwindled down so far that it could very easily just wind up being me hanging out with Rachel & my sister. It could be any other night. I know what you're thinking. I'm thinking it, too.

Who the fuck cares?

Well, I do. I care. I probably care a lot more than I should. The thing you have to know is this: I am not bitching about my birthday at all right now. I mean, in literal terms, I am but it all runs a bit deeper than that. The things I have to complain about in reference to my birthday are actually all the same things I have to bitch about in reference to the rest of my life. I do feel like I've gotten to a point where very few people actually give a shit about me. It's not to say that I believe the people in my life don't care at all, they just don't care enough. I don't hear from most of my friends in general, not just right now. My Mom is more focused on her relationship with her boyfriend than any other facet of her life at this point and I do worry about being alone. I FEEL alone. It's a horrible feeling. I hate it. I just feel like everybody around me is in a place where their lists of priorities doesn't include maintaining a relationship with me. This is why I couldn't throw a big birthday party. This is why I don't really expect to see any gifts. This is why I've lost the will to care about the whole thing.

Also, aside from that, I am pretty much over my sickness from the past few days and it has left me feeling extremely exhausted. It is just after 10pm and I am seriously considering going to sleep already. I know it is early but I am exhausted. So, I should probably go off to bed & get ready for my lack of a birthday party tomorrow. Goodnight.

Chapter 252: Never Gonna Give Up

It’s going to be a short one tonight. Like, this may be one of those single page Microsoft Word documents. The main reason for this is that absolutely nothing happened today. I woke up at 6am when my alarm went off. I got out of bed and went into the bathroom to do my morning skincare routine, brush my teeth and go to the bathroom. After that I had a cup of coffee and a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. I smoked a couple of cigarettes. When I initially woke up I was having trouble getting a gage on how I was feeling but as the morning went on I started to realize that yesterday’s sickness had definitely not gone away. Still, I was determined to go to work today. I really couldn’t afford to miss an entire day and a half of work. So, I pushed myself forward and went into the bathroom to get dressed and do my hair and makeup for the day. I decided to try something a little different with my makeup today. With all of the drama surrounding her, I felt like I needed to do a little something to pay tribute to one of my favorite celebrities, Lindsay Lohan. You see, I have been a fan of Lindsay’s since I first saw her in the remake of “Freaky Friday,” and she has honestly been an indirect part of some very major things in my life. One example would be a major realization I came to about my self and my personality. One day I was just having one of those random conversations that you have in life with my dear old friend, Jen, about the fact that I really loved both Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff. This was back when they were both more prominently in the spotlight and were allegedly feuding. She said that I was a dichotomy in that sense. I had heard the word dichotomy before but I was never quite sure of what it meant, so I looked it up later and found out that it is defined as “the line between two opposing forces.” This inspired me immensely, and I wrote a song about it. This song, called “The Dichotomy,” is still one of my favorite things I have ever written because I feel like it is one of the most autobiographical things I have ever written and could really be an anthem for my life – like, if my life were a TV show, this song would be the theme. The reason for this is because I really came to realize after she made this statement that it didn’t just apply to my opinions on the Hilary/Lindsay debate but really could be applied to every part of my life. I stand on that line on every issue in my life. I can never form a completely solid opinion on things because I am always standing on the line between each side of it. I do everything I can to see both sides of every situation and not be judgmental or dismissive of any of the sides of the situation. I understand that this isn’t actually the technical definition of the word dichotomy but that word is what made me come to this realization about myself. Lindsay was also there with me for one of the most difficult experiences of my entire life, when I finally realized/admitted that I had an extremely unhealthy relationship with food and had honestly been struggling with an eating disorder for several years. This was a few years ago when her now infamous interview with Vanity Fair magazine came out, in which she (somewhat) admitted to having an eating disorder herself, as well as having experimented with drugs. While Lindsay and I didn’t exactly share the same struggles, she was always the celebrity type person that I could identify with the most. She was struggling and dealing with life in the same ways that I was at the time. I have since managed to improve my life immensely, although it is still far from perfect, but Lindsay does not seem to have made those same changes, unfortunately. Now, she is heading into jail for a 90-day sentence. As far as my opinion on this – I hope she can manage to make something positive out of this experience. To be specific, I hope she makes some music out of this experience. She is an immensely talented girl, as an actress and a musician, and it would be a shame to see these gifts go to waste.

So, in tribute to Lindsay, today I wore what has kind of become her signature look over the past few years, which is a nude eye with really thick, black liner. I also feel like I really got my face looking great this morning, with contouring and highlighting and such. Unfortunately, that great makeup was really wasted today because after about 90 minutes of work, it became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to make it through the day there and went home early. I feel really bad because I think I managed to piss off a couple of co-workers by leaving early again but I was visibly ill, in spite of good makeup. There was no way I was going to make it through the day. So, I called my Mom to come pick me up but didn’t get an answer from her. I sat in the atrium at work and waited to hear back from her. While I was sitting there, one of my co-workers came through the atrium going to break and shot me the most evil look possible. I already felt bad enough about leaving, and felt bad enough in general, so that seemed a little unnecessary. Plus, I really needed to take the time to come home and recover because there is no ifs, ands or buts about it – there is no way in hell I can miss tomorrow. We have somehow managed to become incredibly understaffed on Fridays and there is no way that I can miss that day. It just can’t happen. So, when I got home I took some Dayquil for my flu-like symptoms and an acid controller for my stomach issues and just sat down on the couch and didn’t move for a long time. I basically spent the day lying in front of the couch watching various “Behind The Scenes,” and “Looking Back” specials about “The Hills.” MTV has been airing these things non-stop for the past week and I had already seen all of them but it didn’t hurt to watch again. I also whipped out my DVDs of the show and watched some of my favorite episodes from season three. I pretty well wasted the entire day on watching things I had already seen before from “The Hills.” I am celebrating the end of an era, you know? Okay, maybe not… but it is the end of a show that I LOVED for a very long time. Around 6-6:30pm I fell asleep on the couch watching all this stuff and didn’t wake up until after 8pm. I was supposed to make dinner before my Mom got home but that clearly didn’t happen. I text messaged her and told her that and she was fine with it. She had to go to the grocery store, anyway, so she picked up some chicken from Winn Dixie and we had that for dinner. I watched “Big Brother,” which is my favorite reality competition show ever, and then watched the VH1 “Behind The Music” on Jennifer Lopez. Jennifer Lopez has always been a big inspiration to me, as well. One thing that has always really inspired me about her is the fact that she really seems to go at life with everything she has – whether it’s acting, music, designing or even love, she always seems to be giving it everything she has. I have often talked about how I have always believed that my life story isn’t one about romantic love, or that I don’t have a big, epic love story in me, because my life story is going to be one of passion and art and, most of all, music. Well, watching Jennifer Lopez over the years has really made me think that it wouldn’t be impossible to have both. Sure, she has kissed a lot of frogs but it seems to have paid off in the long run. The beautiful thing, I think, is the fact that she never gave up on trying to find it. She was in her late 30s before it actually happened for her with Marc Anthony. I’m only going to be 27 next week and I feel like, in a lot of ways, I have already given up on it. If nothing else, watching this Jennifer Lopez “Behind The Music” special really kind of reminded me that it will come eventually and that I should NEVER give up on trying to find it. It may take me until my late 30s, or even later, but it will happen for me eventually. In the meantime, my focus should remain on pursuing my major passions in life, like art and music. For now, though, my focus needs to be on going to bed. This blog wound up being longer than expected. I guess I had more to say than I thought. Anyway, I need to get my rest in order to go into work tomorrow and make it through the day. Goodnight.