Chapter 289: Hummingbird Heartbeat

It's been a pretty interesting day. Not all THAT interesting but it was pretty laid back & enjoyable. I woke up at 10:45am when my alarm went off this morning after having gone to sleep fairly early last night. I fell asleep last night around 1am listening to the newest episode of The Nerdist podcast, which is kind of a weekend tradition for me without the 1am sleep time. In fact, more often than not it is closer to 4am when I really need to be sleeping but don't actually have any intention to go to sleep for at least an hour. Fortunately, I fell asleep in the middle of it last night, so I can go ahead & do that tonight. Not really, though. It is just about to turn midnight & I am already feeling like passing out. I don't intend on making it a long blog tonight. After I woke up I spent a good two hours dicking around with something online, although I don't remember what it was now. It's not really important. After that, I decided to try watching something that had been sitting on the DVR all week - PBS' "Live From Lincoln Center" broadcast of the current revival of "South Pacific." I learned something from this, too. What did I learn? When it comes to classic musicals, I am really just into Sondheim. "South Pacific" was written by Rogers & Hammerstein. I just found it so boring. The story wasn't very compelling and the music all just seemed hokey and lame. I feel the same way about Andrew Lloyd Webber, except he is much worse. I'm kind of hit or miss with Neil Simon but I have never seen a Sondheim show or listened to a Sondheim soundtrack that I didn't love. So, I need to stick with him. I wound up stopping "South Pacific" somewhere in the midst of the first act. I came into the bedroom and decided to try to find something to watch on Netflix instead. Since I was so underwhelmed with what I saw of “South Pacific” I wanted to find some other old musical to watch that I would be happier with. Unfortunately, after digging around a bit I didn’t come up with anything that I was overly thrilled with the idea of and just wound up watching “Did You Hear About The Morgans?” with Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant. It is pretty rare that I have ever been disappointed with anything Sarah Jessica Parker has done. Unfortunately, this was one of those times. It was cute and I guess wasn’t a COMPLETE waste of time but it just wasn’t very good. The plot had more holes in it than 50 Cent’s body. Unfortunately, unlike 50 Cent’s body, these holes were never stitched up and healed. I mean, the chemistry between Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant was good – it was really good casting. It was just a stupid concept. Essentially, this movie was about two rich white people in New York City who witness a murder and are put into the witness protection program and sent to live in Wyoming. The catch is, though, they are a recently separated married couple. Oh, drama! Except that the drama never really takes place. Instead, it’s just a lot of dorky jokes and melodramatic moments of SJP being like, “Why did you sleep with another woman? Is it because she was prettier than me?” and then me being like, “Shut up, bitch, you’re Carrie FUCKING Bradshaw!” I don’t know. I may be a little overly judgmental about this but I just was really disappointed with it. I was expecting another SJP romantic comedy like “Failure To Launch,” which I loved, and I just got crap.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, I got a text message from my Mom asking if I would be interested in going to dinner at this weird little bar in town where one of my co-workers was playing in a band. One of her co-workers is very good friends with my co-worker and invited her to the show. I had been hearing forever that this guy’s band was amazing and had always said, “Oh yeah, I should go to one of his shows some time,” but never actually had. One of the new agents at work who I actually like had asked me if I would go yesterday, as well, and I gave my normal “I don’t know what my plans are but maybe” answer, even though I knew that my plans were most likely to just sit around home and watch movies with my Mom or something. Since my Mom wanted to go, too, though, I figured it would be alright. So, once again, in spite of my automatic instinct to say no, I said yes. Because of this, I made it a point to be dressed and have my hair and makeup done by the time she got off work at 4:30pm. We weren’t supposed to meet her co-worker there until around 7pm but I figured we could go run errands or shop or something beforehand. In fact, my plan was pretty clear in my head – go to Ulta to use my gift card. I had already planned to use $17.50 of the gift card on Ulta brand products so that I could get this deal they had where you get a free gift of a makeup bag loaded up with all kinds of Ulta brand stuff. The one thing I had in mind, as far as Ulta brand cosmetics went, was this liquid eyeliner pen that Whitney recommended before. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it anywhere in this Ulta store. So, instead I loaded up on a couple of really cool lip products, including my first ever lip stain. I put this on 4 hours ago and it is still going strong, in spite of eating and drinking and smoking quite a bit since then. I am actually considering going back tomorrow to pick up a couple more of these in different shades… or maybe I will go back in September, since it is “No Makeup August.” Using my gift card today made me forget about that a little bit. I had actually specifically planned not to go over the $27 and change that was on the gift card for that specific reason, because I figured I wasn’t breaking my rule if I wasn’t spending any of my own money on makeup. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize how much I was spending and went over by $12. Aside from the lip stain and this cool duel-ended liquid lip color and lip gloss, I also picked up a really gorgeous nude colored lipstick from NYX and, since NYX products were buy two get one free, I also bought their Super Skinny Liquid Eye Liner Marker and their Super Fat Liquid Eye Liner Marker, because these were both reasonable alternatives to the Ulta brand pen liquid liner I was looking for. I was really happy with all of my purchases, though, and I can technically say that I was replacing my current liquid liner, Line Stiletto by Maybelline, which I haven’t actually run out of but I have gotten really sick of. The applicator wand on it is far too flimsy and moves around far too much, causing me to fuck up my lines with it. These NYX liquid liner markers have felt tips, like a marker, and work beautifully. Therefore, I have justified all of my purchases today and “No Makeup August” is still intact. Plus, my Mom bought a perfume and got a really cute free “weekender” bag that she saw in the Ulta ads and fell in love with, so it was a productive trip for both of us… Oh, except that I didn’t actually get the free gift makeup bag they advertised. Supplies did not last very long, apparently.

After we left Ulta, it was already after 7pm and we immediately headed over to the weird little bar. When we arrived at this place I was immediately taken aback a bit – it was very small and very “redneck.” I’m not going to lie about the fact that redneck bars really freak me out. Much more than any other group, rednecks are notoriously known for not being very accepting of different types of people. I definitely felt a little hesitant about walking into this place with all of my makeup and such. Still, in spite of my initial discomfort, I went ahead and actually wound up having a really good time. I met a pair of really cute young guys who were musicians, which was pretty cool, and discovered that my co-worker’s band was fucking incredible. Seriously, oftentimes when people tell you that they’re in a band or are an artist of any type you kind of wonder if they’re actually any good at it or if they just really think that they are. I mean, a lot of other people had told me how good this guy was but I wasn’t expecting it to be as good as it actually was. It was kind of inspiring to me, as well, because it was great to see somebody in the same, or similar, position as I am in life who still goes out and does what he loves and also just works a regular job. It kind of reminded me that whether or not I ever “make it big” or whatever, I will still always have the opportunity to do what I love, even if it is on a small scale. So, that was a really great thing to see. I was also surprised, sadly I think, to see how friendly people were to me in this place. Don’t get me wrong, I got my share of funny looks and such, but overall everybody I spoke with and such was very nice. It was a nice time. It also made me realize that I really need to stop thinking of small town bars and such as being full of crazies who are waiting to gay bash me. It is silly, irrational and, most of all, judgmental. I am not a judgmental person, in general, but I guess I do my fair share of passing judgment much more than I realized. So, from this point forward, I need to stop that.

On the way home, my Mom and I were listening to the new Katy Perry record, “Teenage Dream,” and started having this discussion about one of the songs. Before I go into that, though, I just have to say that “Teenage Dream” is one of the best albums to have been released this year so far, BY FAR. There isn’t a single song on this record that I don’t absolutely love. I have been listening to the album pretty much constantly since it leaked earlier this week. It is AMAZING and I definitely recommend that everybody pick it up when it is released this coming Tuesday. In fact, it is so good that I intend to actually buy it on iTunes when it comes out. One of my favorite tracks on the album has become the second to last song on the record, called “Hummingbird Heartbeat.” As we were driving home and listening to this song, I was saying that this song is describing exactly what I am looking for right now – that “hummingbird heartbeat” feeling, where you feel like your heart starts racing and your teeth want to chatter and you get that fuzzy feeling in your stomach and that crazy, amazing nervous-but-excited feeling in your head. That real “head over heels” feeling is what I am looking for. My Mom was saying that she doesn’t have that feeling with her boyfriend, and I asked her, “Not ever?” She told me that she does have it every now and then but much more often they have the feeling of being completely comfortable with one another. She also talked about how sometimes they will just be sitting together and she will catch him just looking at her and smiling. She talked about how sometimes they will just feel giddy for no reason when they are together. As we were discussing this, I decided that the things she was talking about are what the “hummingbird heartbeat” should eventually lead to. You can’t constantly have the “hummingbird heartbeat” long-term. If that is how you always feel, I would think that there is something wrong. I do think that you should always get it occasionally but eventually you should grow into the feeling that she described of being able to feel completely comfortable with one another but also have the feeling of being giddy just to be together and such. The one should gradually turn into the other without every going away completely. What do I know, though? I have never made it past the “hummingbird heartbeat” stage of a relationship. So, I suppose that the “hummingbird heartbeat” isn’t what I am looking for at all right now. I mean, I am looking for that but much more I am looking forward to getting past that point to something even greater. That is what I am really looking for. I am looking for a love that will last. It’ll come. It’ll come soon, actually. James Dean is on his way to me. I can feel it. In fact, since it is nearly 3:30am, I should probably go ahead and get to bed so I can have some dreams of him. Goodnight.