I think the Go-Go’s said it best when they said, “Vacation, all I ever wanted, Vacation, have to get away, Vacation, doomed to be spent alone.” Okay, so technically I’m not on vacation. I’m not even taking the one vacation day I requested until NEXT Friday but after the week I’ve had the two days that make up a weekend are feeling a lot like a vacation… and like the song says, this vacation is doomed to be spent alone. My Mom has gone out of town and I haven’t made a single plan with anybody. Actually, that isn’t entirely true – my brother may be coming over for a bit on Sunday because he will be in town for something or another and his girlfriend wants to go hang out with her friends in town. That will be a good opportunity to discuss some of the wedding stuff. Speaking of wedding stuff, I have been meaning to talk about something wedding related here for the past few days but it just kept falling to the wayside of each blog. One detail of my brother’s wedding that I’ve been kind of iffy about is the fact that some of my Dad’s side of the family will be flying in from California to attend. If this were anyone else’s wedding, aside from my brother, this would be reason enough to back out and not even attend but since it is my brother’s wedding and because I am his best man, I can’t do that. So, instead, I have to face these family members who I have gone out of my way to avoid dealing with for years. It’s just my aunt and my Grandma, as far as I know, and possibly my Dad. I’d be cool with seeing my Dad, actually – the other two are the ones I am iffy about. Actually, even my aunt I am okay with seeing. It’s my Grandma that is the issue. It’s funny, because this Grandma was very involved when we were little. My Mom had to work a lot and such, so she would watch us and we would spend weekends at her house and such. When I was a little kid she was like my favorite person in the world, honestly, but once I hit my teen years I began to notice how much her involvement was less about genuine care and more about control. This was an ongoing issue for years. She was extremely oppressive throughout my formative years and, once I moved to Florida, became somebody that I tried my best to put behind and not think of ever again. I did a pretty good job of it, too, leaving any sort of holiday calls or anything of that nature to my brother and sister. It’s funny how my brother, sister and I all have a very different perspective on this woman now that we are adults – my brother has a certain reverence for her and really appreciates all that she did for us as children, my sister has a major sense of obligation towards her and almost seems like she is still looking for some sort of acceptance from her. Meanwhile, as I mentioned, I have simply tried to put her out of my mind. I feel no obligation to her. I don’t really have a lot of reverence for her because I now realize that while she was doing things for us as children, she was also using those as things to hold over my mother’s head. I don’t feel a lot of warm feelings towards her. I don’t necessarily carry negative feelings toward her, either. Basically, at this point, I am indifferent. There is nothing to do with her that has any real bearing on my life now. She is simply a part of the past. A large part of the reason for this is because of the fact that I am gay and she was very opposed to that and basically tried to shove me back into the closet at every opportunity. She once told me that I wasn’t gay, it was just the devil inside my head lying to me. I still laugh about that – if the devil was lying, he was REALLY convincing. If my being gay is the work of the devil I can’t wait for hell – it’s going to be a party! Like I said, she was a very oppressive force in my formative years and, although I made it through just fine, I can’t help but have no desire for anything else to do with her.
I learned something recently, though, that really puts a different spin on the concept of her and my aunt coming to the wedding. You see, the closest person to my Grandma is the aunt that is coming. They would often pair off to gang up on us and such in our teen years and were pretty much always doing something together, even living across the street from each other for years. Well, I recently received confirmation of something that my sister and I have joked about for years: My aunt is a lesbian. Apparently, it is common knowledge and has been for a while, from the way that my brother talks. Since my sister and I are in much more sporadic contact with anyone from California and my brother had visited them recently, we had no clue and he was very flippant about the whole thing. I was kind of shocked. Like I said, my sister and I had kind of joked about it for years but never expected it to actually be true. Apparently, she will be bringing her girlfriend along with her to the wedding. I assume, given that this is such common knowledge, that my Grandma is aware of this and, considering how close they are, must be somewhat okay with it. This is leaps and bounds away from what she was when I was a comfortably out and proud 15 year old and she was constantly trying to de-gay me. My sister is already talking about how introducing her to her girlfriend and family won’t be so bad after all. I am still weary of the whole situation but I figure this makes the whole thing a lot more interesting. I’m still trying to figure out whether or not I will be allowed to wear makeup to the wedding but after this news I am really hoping so. I want to make a bit of a splash with my newly gay and possibly gay-friendly family in town. We’ll see how that all goes down, though. Either way, it definitely adds a different element of excitement to the whole event… and here I thought I couldn’t be more excited for the wedding than I already was!
Anyway, as I mentioned in the first paragraph, it is the weekend and today was the perfect way to cap off one of the most irritating weeks possible. Work felt slightly less long than it did the rest of the week. This is mainly because I spent most of the day talking with my co-workers, who were in an unusually upbeat mood today. There was all kinds of crazy talk going on, including my co-workers both saying that they could never date a handicap person. Their reasoning for this was because if they got into a fight with them the first thing they would do is talk shit about their disability. Everybody got a pretty good laugh out of that. I told them about this time in the past when I was interested in a guy in a wheelchair but nothing ever came of it, and made the comment that I would be okay to casually date a handicapped person but don’t know how I would feel about getting involved enough to have to take care of them or anything. It was a very casual, light-hearted conversation that nobody thought much about. Later, I was told by a co-worker who sits on the other side of our cubicle walls that one of our other co-workers who has a prosthetic leg was really upset by the whole thing and was planning on saying something to me about it. I was very flippant about it because I didn’t make any comments that could be construed as offensive but the more I thought about it the more I felt kind of bad. It’s kind of unusual, though, because I have never really thought of this guy as handicapped in the first place. I mean, I understand that he has a prosthetic leg but he’s got kind of a big personality and, when he happens to come to mind, the prosthetic leg is the last thing that comes to mind. Still, I do feel really bad about the whole thing. Like I said, I don’t feel bad for any of the comments that I made because I don’t really see them as being offensive in any way but I do feel bad for the fact that the conversation went on for so long and I was laughing along with the other people talking. It was very silly talk. I feel bad, though. At the same time, though, I find it a little irritating that, considering I wasn’t overly involved in the conversation, I was the one to be confronted about it. The two girls that were having this conversation are pretty big personalities and may not be the most approachable people in the world but the issue was with them and they are the ones who it should really have been taken up with. Still, I can understand people not wanting to try to confront them. I don’t know. The whole situation left me pretty irritated and very glad to get out of that place this evening. My workplace is full of little dramas like this every single day and it can get really irritating.
When I came home, I sat down and watched a couple of episodes of “Chelsea Lately” from this week, and had leftover ham and potato salad from Easter for dinner. I wound up spending the bulk of the evening watching “RuPaul’s Drag Race” episodes, though, even though I really have a whole week’s worth of TV on the DVR. The only thing I watched this week was “American Idol” and my DVR records a LOT of different shows, including “the View” and Oprah every single day. Tomorrow will likely wind up with a few mini marathons of both of those shows but I just wasn’t in the mood for it tonight. I spent a little while experimenting with a new makeup look, using hot pink, green, black and silver glitter. It didn’t look bad, honestly, but it was a little over the top. I am good with over the top, though. I just felt like the silver glitter kind of overtook the look when the real focus was supposed to be on the pink and green colors. Over the past few days at work, I have drawn up a few concepts for makeup looks that I would like to try out this weekend using my NYX S104 “Every Color Imaginable” eyeshadow palette. One that I came up with was inspired by the song “Birthday” by Leighton Meester and includes blue, gold, silver and pink. If I can figure out how to make it work on my face like it does on paper it will be pretty amazing. It’s kind of funny how that look came about, actually. A few months ago, on Whitney’s birthday, I had written a blog that I titled “Birthday,” after that song and completely at random on Wednesday afternoon I got a comment on it that was just signed Stephanie. It said, “I really hope Whitney read this. I hope she appreciates your friendship. I wish I’d said Happy Birthday when I thought of you.” Interesting development. I assume that this was from our old friend, Stephanie, who was a part of our three girls and a gay group back in 2007-2008. It was kind of a fragmented group, me and my former BFF, Zenda, and Whitney and her former BFF, Stephanie. We were all really close but Zenda and I had a major falling out at one point and it turned into a three person group. Then Stephanie and Whitney kind of fell out and it became me and Whitney on our own and we got closer with some of our other friends, like April, Devin and Nate. It’s funny because I have always felt a little bad about the way things happened between Stephanie and I after she and Whitney fell out. We made a few attempts to maintain contact and such but it just never quite happened and we eventually just fell out of touch. I assumed that Stephanie just figured I had chosen Whitney over her, although that was never actually the case. It was more a matter of Whitney always making the effort to be in contact and such. Whitney was just always around and Stephanie was much less available. At the same time, though, I didn’t exactly make the most effort in the world to keep up with her, either. I don’t know. The whole thing just makes me feel kind of shitty. It just reminds me of the fact that I have always let people go too easily. I have done this all of my life. I don’t know why, exactly, but it just seems to be the way that it has always worked for me. I am trying to correct that now, although I am concerned with how well it is working out. Anyway, the day that this comment was posted it was kind of stuck in my head and the song that inspired the title of the blog was in my head, as well, and I sat down in my cubicle at work and came up with this makeup look to express that a bit. I also came up with a look inspired by the song “Perdido (Music Of The Night)” by Melanie B, which has a very mexican flare to it – it’s very bright, with pink, yellow, blue and green. I like to think that this look is kind of like a big piñata on the face!
It is 1:29am and I am pretty much ready for bed, although there is one last thing I do want to mention before I go. I have been really trying to dedicate myself to devoting at least 15 minutes a day to practicing piano. Yesterday night, I sat down and kind of struggled through 15 minutes of diligent practice and quit as soon as the clock struck the 15-minute mark. Tonight, I sat down to the piano again and started trying to practice the piece that I am working on for class and, something magical happened. It was like there was a click in my head and I had a mini “a-ha” moment at the piano. This piece I have been playing around with has suddenly come together much more than I was starting to think was possible. I get it! Don’t get me wrong, this was not the big “a-ha” moment I am still waiting for at the piano but it was a pretty major development in comparison to where I was last night! I am really excited. This is going to work out for me – I am certain of it. I am going to get to a point where I can start writing my own shit on the piano and it is going to be absolutely amazing! The Universe is working in my favor, after all, and I just had to take a moment to express my gratitude for the mini “a-ha” moment it granted me with this evening. It was so awesome and I cannot wait for even more! For now, though, it is time for bed. I am keeping my fingers crossed not to wake up at 2:30pm tomorrow. That is a bad habit I have developed for the past several weekends and I need to cut that shit out ASAP. So, off to bed I go. Goodnight.
Saturday, April 10
Friday, April 9
Chapter 154: The Heat
So, yeah, there’s that. Also, here are a few pictures of the makeup look I was talking about in the video. I really liked it a lot, although my hair looks a hot mess in these pictures. Please excuse. Also, please excuse the fact that in the above video the music was kind of louder than I thought while filming it and there may be a couple points where you can hear Toni Braxton much clearer than you can hear me! Sorry about that.
So, that is about it for today. Expect a regular blog tonight (Friday night,) because there are a few things I have been meaning to discuss here that I just keep leaving out! For now, though, I woke up late and must go get ready for work!
Thursday, April 8
Chapter 153: Push
My Mom has often talked about how sometimes she will wake up with a song in her head and that song will kind of stick with her throughout the day. I have always really liked the fact that my Mom is really into music and always has a song in her head, just like I do. It makes me very proud because I know she was like me in a lot of ways when she was younger but I think somewhere over the years she kind of lost her love for music or forgot about it and I think my love of music has really helped to remind her of hers. That is a very powerful thing, as far as I am concerned. Music is one of the most beautiful, emotional, powerful forms of art in this world and I think it is important for everybody to have an appreciation and love for it. I honestly feel really sad and personally offended when people say things like, “I’m not really into music.” Music is the absolute biggest part of who I am as a person and I can’t even begin to imagine what life would be like as one of those people who just isn’t really into it. It doesn’t make sense to me at all. I find it peculiar that I never really have that experience that my Mom has so often of waking up with a song in her head. I’ll be reminded of a song early in the morning or think of something that reminds me of a song, but it’s never really been the case that a song is stuck in my head when I wake up. Perhaps this is because I am not a very active dreamer, in terms of the dreams one has while they sleep. I am an extremely active dreamer in the waking dreams sense, as I’m sure anybody who knows me can tell. This morning I did have one of those experiences where I am reminded of a song as soon as I wake up, though. I woke up at 7:30am and did all the usual morning stuff. I also checked Cherry Culture pretty immediately to see if there were any updates on my makeup order. It was still in City Of Industry, CA, according to the FedEx tracking site. I have been assuming that it just somehow didn’t managed to get scanned at it’s time of departure from there and thus wasn’t getting updated in the system. It still said that it was on schedule to arrive on Thursday, April 8, 2010 and I am still keeping my fingers crossed for that to be accurate.
My Mom and I had discussed going walking this morning as our workout but I was feeling extra tired when I woke up and wasn’t really in the mood to get dressed to go out walking, then come back and change to go to work. I asked my Mom if she wanted to just do “Walk-A-Dobics” instead but I got caught up smoking and being online that it wound up getting a little late. My Mom told me she didn’t want to push me to do anything I didn’t feel like doing and that she would go to the gym at the apartment complex and do a few miles on the stationary bike there instead. I decided to use that time to get in a little more practice on the piece I was supposed to play at my piano lesson tonight. This was a very good thing, too, because without using the Metronome Online or anything, I managed to get my timing down perfectly with this practice. I was so ecstatic and happy that I had pushed myself enough to get it right. It was well worth missing a day’s workout, I think. Between what my Mom had said to me and my really pushing myself on the piano, I was reminded of a song - “Push” by Madonna. Madonna has said that she wrote this song about Guy Ritchie, which makes me a little sad to think. The chorus says, “Every race I win, Every mood I’m in, Everything I do, I owe it all to you, Every move I make, Every step I take, Everything I love, it’s all because you push me.” It’s essentially a song about having somebody in your life that pushes you to be better than you already are. It makes me sad to think that Madonna doesn’t have that person anymore. At the same time, though, I think Madonna is a strong enough woman to not need anybody else to push her – she can push herself just fine. I can relate to that. I don’t necessarily need anybody else to push me, either, because I do constantly push myself to be better. Fortunately, though, I do have people in my life who do push me, as well. My Mom is a great example of that in my life. Not only does she push me with the workout but she pushes me to be a less judgmental person. I am not an overly judgmental person, in general, but I do tend to hear things that her boyfriend does or says to her and immediately have the reaction of “Well, you need to break up with him right now!” I have that issue with a lot of people in my life when they tell me things about the things that people in their life say and do to them. I need to take more time to try to be more understanding about why people act the way they do and not make snap judgments about things that people may say when venting or in the heat of the moment. That is one way that my Mom pushes me a lot.
Another person who pushes me a lot is my sister, Amber. She is always trying to make me do better at my job. She has pushed me throughout all of my adult life but now in our current work situation, it really kind of goes to another level. One way that she has decided to push me recently is by letting me in on the fact that, on paper, I am not one of the better employees on our account. On paper means statistic-wise – this means Quality Control scores, attendance, performance issues, etc. I am not the worst, as far as this goes, either, but I am not in the top percentage. She told me this in passing, basically, but it really lit a spark underneath me. My QC scores have improved immensely in the past few months, which is a definite plus, so now I am focusing on attendance. I haven’t done well at all this year, as far as that goes. I’ve been sick a few times this year and missed a few days of work because of it. This month, however, I am feeling fine and don’t foresee any issues ahead, so I am shooting for perfect attendance this month. Perfect attendance doesn’t really mean much, in all honesty, but it DOES look good on paper. That should take me up a few notches on paper, I would think. I’m not overly concerned about the security of my job or anything at this point but I do want to be, at the very least, among the best. Work was pretty boring today, overall. I did do a lap around the parking lot with my Mom on my first break, so I did get a little bit of a workout today. We did that yesterday, as well, and I really like it. My only issue is that, now that it is warmer outside, I work up a bit of a sweat being out walking in the sun and feel paranoid and like I look all shiny when I go back to work. It’s worth it, though. I feel really good getting that little extra bit of exercise during the day.
After work, Amber picked me up to take me to my piano lesson. She was also waiting to pick up her girlfriend, as well, and there was a bit of drama surrounding that. My sister was really quiet for the whole drive there and said that she had pissed her girlfriend off. I don’t know the details surrounding the situation but I couldn’t help but feel kind of responsible. I apologized to Amber for being an inconvenience and she said it was fine and they’d figure it out fine but I still felt bad. When I arrived at my lesson, a few minutes late, Viktor was sitting in the lobby with the adorable little girl who has lessons before me, as well as a really cute, really young-looking teenaged boy who smiled at me really big. Viktor told me to go ahead into his room and he’d be in momentarily. I sat down at the piano and set up the sheet music book and my notebook and waited for him. I was really excited about tonight’s lesson because I felt really confident about the progress I had made this morning with my timing and was ready to show it off. Unfortunately, the very first thing Viktor pointed out to me when I started playing the piece was the fact that I had marked the notes wrong and was playing the entire thing a step higher than I was supposed to. So, I was pretty much immediately knocked off of the pedestal I had put myself on. If there is anything I can say about Viktor in the 5 weeks that I have been taking lessons with him, it is definitely that he pushes me. I am constantly striving to impress him in any way that I can. I think that may be a part of the problem I am having with the piano, actually. Like I am trying to push myself too hard because I really want to impress him with my skills. The issue is that I don’t actually have any piano skills at this point. That is the whole reason that I am taking these lessons. He is supposed to be teaching me these skills. It is silly of me to be trying to impress him with things I don’t know well enough yet because he hasn’t taught them to me. It is really silly of me and I need to get that under control. I just feel like he has been so good with me in the past 5 weeks and I am really desperate to prove to him and, even more, to myself that I am making progress. He made a comment tonight, though, that really made me think a lot about this whole thing. He said that typically the people who start off slower are the ones who see quicker results. I need to calm myself down about the whole thing. He also said that I needed to make sure to practice daily. I don’t have to be at the piano for hours at a time or anything. He said that just 15-20 minutes a day should be plenty to start seeing results, so I am going to start doing this much more frequently than I have been the past couple weeks. I am going to continue to push myself but in a much slower, more realistic way. I am still pretty confident about the piano.
After my lesson I finally spoke with my friend, Whitney. We talked for about 30 minutes and were able to do a good bit of catching up, as well as clearing up the issues we’ve had recently. It was a really good talk. We both decided that we should start making time to talk to each other more frequently. I am really glad that we finally got the chance to talk – it really eased my mind a LOT, made me feel much better about the world and just meant a lot to me. We talked until my Mom arrived to pick me up. My Mom and I ran by her bank, then picked up dinner from Chipotle and came home to watch “American Idol.” It was a pretty relaxed evening to cap off a pretty good day. I also decided to check Cherry Culture one more time for any updates on my order. I wasn’t expecting much, based on all of my previous checks, but FINALLY it had updated and said that my shipment arrived in Orlando at 8:10pm this evening. This means that, most likely, it should be here tomorrow and it was, as the website kept stating, on schedule. I really cannot wait to get it and open it up. It is likely that I will find it at my doorstep when I get home from work tomorrow. My Mom and I already decided that we would have a leftover night tomorrow, which means I won’t have to cook when I come home and will be able to just rip that box open and start experimenting with all of my new makeup products! I am so anxious for it already! I am going to have so much fun with it this weekend. I drew a new makeup design that I would like to try to create this weekend, inspired by the song “Birthday” by Leighton Meester. It is a really fun, spunky, over the top look consisting of blue, gold, silver and pink that I think will look pretty amazing if I can figure out how to take what I did on paper and make it work on my face. Should be a lot of fun. I am so ready for the weekend to be here. This week has been hard to push through, honestly. Fortunately, my vacation request was approved and next week I will only be working four days and getting paid for five! I really can’t wait for that. I’m not sure what I am going to do with that three-day weekend but whatever it is, I will make sure that it is fabulous! I’m really excited for that. Of course, before that I have to get through this week. First step in doing that: Going to bed right now. Goodnight!
My Mom and I had discussed going walking this morning as our workout but I was feeling extra tired when I woke up and wasn’t really in the mood to get dressed to go out walking, then come back and change to go to work. I asked my Mom if she wanted to just do “Walk-A-Dobics” instead but I got caught up smoking and being online that it wound up getting a little late. My Mom told me she didn’t want to push me to do anything I didn’t feel like doing and that she would go to the gym at the apartment complex and do a few miles on the stationary bike there instead. I decided to use that time to get in a little more practice on the piece I was supposed to play at my piano lesson tonight. This was a very good thing, too, because without using the Metronome Online or anything, I managed to get my timing down perfectly with this practice. I was so ecstatic and happy that I had pushed myself enough to get it right. It was well worth missing a day’s workout, I think. Between what my Mom had said to me and my really pushing myself on the piano, I was reminded of a song - “Push” by Madonna. Madonna has said that she wrote this song about Guy Ritchie, which makes me a little sad to think. The chorus says, “Every race I win, Every mood I’m in, Everything I do, I owe it all to you, Every move I make, Every step I take, Everything I love, it’s all because you push me.” It’s essentially a song about having somebody in your life that pushes you to be better than you already are. It makes me sad to think that Madonna doesn’t have that person anymore. At the same time, though, I think Madonna is a strong enough woman to not need anybody else to push her – she can push herself just fine. I can relate to that. I don’t necessarily need anybody else to push me, either, because I do constantly push myself to be better. Fortunately, though, I do have people in my life who do push me, as well. My Mom is a great example of that in my life. Not only does she push me with the workout but she pushes me to be a less judgmental person. I am not an overly judgmental person, in general, but I do tend to hear things that her boyfriend does or says to her and immediately have the reaction of “Well, you need to break up with him right now!” I have that issue with a lot of people in my life when they tell me things about the things that people in their life say and do to them. I need to take more time to try to be more understanding about why people act the way they do and not make snap judgments about things that people may say when venting or in the heat of the moment. That is one way that my Mom pushes me a lot.
Another person who pushes me a lot is my sister, Amber. She is always trying to make me do better at my job. She has pushed me throughout all of my adult life but now in our current work situation, it really kind of goes to another level. One way that she has decided to push me recently is by letting me in on the fact that, on paper, I am not one of the better employees on our account. On paper means statistic-wise – this means Quality Control scores, attendance, performance issues, etc. I am not the worst, as far as this goes, either, but I am not in the top percentage. She told me this in passing, basically, but it really lit a spark underneath me. My QC scores have improved immensely in the past few months, which is a definite plus, so now I am focusing on attendance. I haven’t done well at all this year, as far as that goes. I’ve been sick a few times this year and missed a few days of work because of it. This month, however, I am feeling fine and don’t foresee any issues ahead, so I am shooting for perfect attendance this month. Perfect attendance doesn’t really mean much, in all honesty, but it DOES look good on paper. That should take me up a few notches on paper, I would think. I’m not overly concerned about the security of my job or anything at this point but I do want to be, at the very least, among the best. Work was pretty boring today, overall. I did do a lap around the parking lot with my Mom on my first break, so I did get a little bit of a workout today. We did that yesterday, as well, and I really like it. My only issue is that, now that it is warmer outside, I work up a bit of a sweat being out walking in the sun and feel paranoid and like I look all shiny when I go back to work. It’s worth it, though. I feel really good getting that little extra bit of exercise during the day.
After work, Amber picked me up to take me to my piano lesson. She was also waiting to pick up her girlfriend, as well, and there was a bit of drama surrounding that. My sister was really quiet for the whole drive there and said that she had pissed her girlfriend off. I don’t know the details surrounding the situation but I couldn’t help but feel kind of responsible. I apologized to Amber for being an inconvenience and she said it was fine and they’d figure it out fine but I still felt bad. When I arrived at my lesson, a few minutes late, Viktor was sitting in the lobby with the adorable little girl who has lessons before me, as well as a really cute, really young-looking teenaged boy who smiled at me really big. Viktor told me to go ahead into his room and he’d be in momentarily. I sat down at the piano and set up the sheet music book and my notebook and waited for him. I was really excited about tonight’s lesson because I felt really confident about the progress I had made this morning with my timing and was ready to show it off. Unfortunately, the very first thing Viktor pointed out to me when I started playing the piece was the fact that I had marked the notes wrong and was playing the entire thing a step higher than I was supposed to. So, I was pretty much immediately knocked off of the pedestal I had put myself on. If there is anything I can say about Viktor in the 5 weeks that I have been taking lessons with him, it is definitely that he pushes me. I am constantly striving to impress him in any way that I can. I think that may be a part of the problem I am having with the piano, actually. Like I am trying to push myself too hard because I really want to impress him with my skills. The issue is that I don’t actually have any piano skills at this point. That is the whole reason that I am taking these lessons. He is supposed to be teaching me these skills. It is silly of me to be trying to impress him with things I don’t know well enough yet because he hasn’t taught them to me. It is really silly of me and I need to get that under control. I just feel like he has been so good with me in the past 5 weeks and I am really desperate to prove to him and, even more, to myself that I am making progress. He made a comment tonight, though, that really made me think a lot about this whole thing. He said that typically the people who start off slower are the ones who see quicker results. I need to calm myself down about the whole thing. He also said that I needed to make sure to practice daily. I don’t have to be at the piano for hours at a time or anything. He said that just 15-20 minutes a day should be plenty to start seeing results, so I am going to start doing this much more frequently than I have been the past couple weeks. I am going to continue to push myself but in a much slower, more realistic way. I am still pretty confident about the piano.
After my lesson I finally spoke with my friend, Whitney. We talked for about 30 minutes and were able to do a good bit of catching up, as well as clearing up the issues we’ve had recently. It was a really good talk. We both decided that we should start making time to talk to each other more frequently. I am really glad that we finally got the chance to talk – it really eased my mind a LOT, made me feel much better about the world and just meant a lot to me. We talked until my Mom arrived to pick me up. My Mom and I ran by her bank, then picked up dinner from Chipotle and came home to watch “American Idol.” It was a pretty relaxed evening to cap off a pretty good day. I also decided to check Cherry Culture one more time for any updates on my order. I wasn’t expecting much, based on all of my previous checks, but FINALLY it had updated and said that my shipment arrived in Orlando at 8:10pm this evening. This means that, most likely, it should be here tomorrow and it was, as the website kept stating, on schedule. I really cannot wait to get it and open it up. It is likely that I will find it at my doorstep when I get home from work tomorrow. My Mom and I already decided that we would have a leftover night tomorrow, which means I won’t have to cook when I come home and will be able to just rip that box open and start experimenting with all of my new makeup products! I am so anxious for it already! I am going to have so much fun with it this weekend. I drew a new makeup design that I would like to try to create this weekend, inspired by the song “Birthday” by Leighton Meester. It is a really fun, spunky, over the top look consisting of blue, gold, silver and pink that I think will look pretty amazing if I can figure out how to take what I did on paper and make it work on my face. Should be a lot of fun. I am so ready for the weekend to be here. This week has been hard to push through, honestly. Fortunately, my vacation request was approved and next week I will only be working four days and getting paid for five! I really can’t wait for that. I’m not sure what I am going to do with that three-day weekend but whatever it is, I will make sure that it is fabulous! I’m really excited for that. Of course, before that I have to get through this week. First step in doing that: Going to bed right now. Goodnight!
Wednesday, April 7
Chapter 152: Across The Universe
What is there to say about today? Well, it wasn’t that interesting overall and I’m kind of lost on what to write about in this blog. I guess I should just start from the beginning. I woke up this morning at 7:30am when my alarm went off and hopped out of bed. I was in a really good mood when I woke up this morning. I’m not sure why exactly but I was. I got out of bed and washed my face, brushed my teeth and all the usual morning stuff. While sitting in front of the computer smoking and drinking coffee, I checked Cherry Culture to see if my order tracking information had updated at all since yesterday. It hadn’t. I can’t imagine that it has been left sitting in City Of Industry, CA for the past few days and am assuming that the departure scan didn’t get updated into the computer for some reason. It seems like I recall this being pretty commonplace with FedEx orders for one reason or another – like the order tracking online doesn’t get updated for a few days. Normally, though, it tells you beforehand that this will happen. I don’t know. I just hope it gets here by Thursday, like it’s estimated to. I am really anxious to get this stuff – it will give me something to have fun and experiment with over the weekend. It’ll be here soon enough, I’m sure. I need to stop obsessing over it and just let it arrive when it arrives. I am already thinking of trying to figure out some sort of photoset to do over the weekend while experimenting with my new makeup. I’m excited is basically what this all boils down to. I can’t wait!
As I mentioned last night, my Mom and I decided to give a try to the “Zumba” workout this morning. As suspected, it was a lot of fun. It was our first time, so it was a little difficult to keep up with, but it was really a good workout. It is a considerably shorter program than what we normally do, but it is much more fast-paced and we worked up a sweat much quicker than usual. It was a really fun program, though, because it was basically all dancing but was still a very effective all-over workout. That is one thing I have always loved about dance, in general, is what a great workout it can be. It’s funny because back when I was 16-18 I was constantly dancing. I was always dancing at home and, once I turned 18, we were in clubs dancing pretty often. Dance was a very big part of my life during that period. I actually used to try to choreograph my own routines and wanted to pursue a secondary career in choreography, (aside from my always main career of music.) I’m not sure when that stopped exactly but I do think it’s kind of a shame. I used to love it so much and my best friend, Don, and I would have so much fun dancing together. It was always one of our favorite pastimes. Don was always a much better dancer than I was. Not to quote Sister Sledge or anything but, “He’s the greatest dancer that I’ve ever seen before.” It’s silly to put it that way but it’s totally true. Don is an amazing dancer. I definitely think it is something he needs to use to his advantage as much as he can. Knowing Don, though, he will.
Don, much like me, is in pursuit of a career in music but he wants to do something very different than I do. Don has always wanted to do pure, unadulterated pop/hip-hop music, whereas I am much more interested in doing more folksy/singer-songwriter style music with a pop flare. I have questioned that a lot lately, though, honestly. I do want whatever I do to have a pure, emotional, honest, strong core of great songwriting but I have been questioning the concept of creating folk music for myself. My concept for years has been to do folk music but really poppy folk music, kind of like Mandy Moore’s album, “Wild Hope,” but more pop than that. I have just developed such a passion for more dance-oriented type music, like that of Goldfrapp or the one and only Lady Gaga, that I can’t help but think about creating that type of sound for myself. Those are both artists who very clearly have a tendency to write an amazing song and then build this insane sonic world around it. I have always loved that idea. It kind of reminds me of what Jewel did with her album “0304.” You could tell that all of those songs were written acoustically and then morphed into the dance/pop tracks that they became. This was really evident when I saw her in concert back in November and she performed a few of these songs with nothing but a guitar. It was pretty amazing. Jewel has always been a huge inspiration to me. You know who else she seems to have been a big inspiration to? Crystal Bowersox.
Let me take a moment to discuss “American Idol” here. I have watched every season of “American Idol” since it began and it just seems like this season has the least talented top 10 I have ever seen on the show. It’s not that they have a group of wholly untalented people but they have a group of people who are no more talented than any other person you could find. I feel like I could beat pretty much all of the contestants on this season, which is a large part of the reason why I am thinking long and hard about actually going to audition this summer. We’ll see about that, though. Anyway, tonight’s episode had the contestants performing songs from the Lennon/McCartney songbook and most of the contestants did shockingly well compared to what they’ve done in previous weeks. There is one standout in this group, though, and that is Crystal Bowersox. She is a full-blown hippie. She reminds me a lot of early Jewel, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that she had lived in a van at some point in her life just like Jewel did. It just seems kind of fucked up for them to have this girl competing against the rest of the contestants because she is clearly leaps and bounds above the rest. It’s almost like Adam Lambert last season, except Adam at least had some really good people he was up against. There are some really good people this season, as well, but they all seem really amateur in comparison to this one girl. It’s kind of weird. One of the other contestants, Siobhan Magnus, sang an insanely beautiful version of the Beatles’ song, “Across The Universe,” tonight that really blew my mind. It also really got me thinking a lot about that song and it’s meaning.
“Across The Universe” was featured on The Beatles’ final studio album, “Let It Be,” which was released in 1970. I have never been a huge Beatles fan, honestly, although I do recognize them as some of the greatest songwriters in history. I just don’t really like the sound of their music. I almost always love when their songs are covered, though, as with “Across The Universe.” I heard “Across The Universe” for the very first time in 1998 when it was covered by one of my favorite artists of all-time, Fiona Apple, for the soundtrack to the film, “Pleasantville.” At the time I thought it was a really pretty song but didn’t make any real connection to the lyrics. That didn’t happen until quite a few years later, when I heard the version performed by another favorite artist of mine, Rufus Wainwright, for his brilliant album, “Poses.” I first heard Rufus’ version of the song in 2006 or 2007 and absolutely fell in love with it. Having pretty well forgotten about the Fiona Apple version by this time, I was really kind of overcome with emotion when I first heard Rufus sing it. It really hit me this time. This was around the time that I was dealing with some pretty severe body image issues, which had led me into an eating disorder. When I listened to the lyrics to this song, particularly the chorus of, “Nothing’s gonna change my world,” I took it as kind of an acceptance of the fate that you have been handed and looking at your world exactly as it is and realizing that nothing is ever going to change. After hearing the song again on “American Idol” tonight, I felt pretty foolish for taking it that way. Looking at it from where I stand in life now, I realize that this isn’t what the song means to me at all. “Nothing’s gonna change my world” is not an acceptance of the things we are faced with in life at all, it is about knowing who you are and the parts of life that you love and embrace and wouldn’t give up for the world, and knowing that no matter what you may face in life nothing can ever change those things for you. It is a song about creating the world that you want to live in and not allowing anything outside of yourself to allow you to falter in creating it. It is amazing how much my life and my mind have changed in that time. I feel like people don’t realize that about me. I am told a lot that I am such a positive person and people envy that about me but it has been a very long and winding road to get to this place. Ha, there went another Beatles reference. It is moments like this, though, that I can really sit back and feel a very deep sense of pride in what I have managed to make of myself. It may not seem like much to look at from the outside but if you could only see the difference between who I am now and who I was just a few years ago, you would understand.
Anyway, tomorrow evening I have another piano lesson. I have been practicing a bit with Metronome Online for the new piece Viktor asked me to work on last night but I am struggling. Now that he has pointed out this issue with my timing I am kind of consumed with trying to fix it. Viktor has also told me multiple times not to stress myself out or expect too much from myself at this point because it is all still really new to me. That is really a struggle for me right now, though, because I want so badly for this to work out. I want so badly to be good at this. It isn’t just something I want, though, I NEED for this to work out. I NEED to be good at this. If I am going to make a career in music in any way, shape or form, I need to know how to play an instrument. It is essential to me being able to do what I want to do. I understand that plenty of people don’t play an instrument and still sing and write songs and such but I also know that this is not the path that I want to take. I want to be able to create the music for myself. I want to be the creator of every aspect of the songs I write. I want to not need anybody else’s input or assistance in achieving the sound that I want. I want to be able to do this for myself, independently. It is extremely important to me to be able to play the piano. The piano, after all, is only the start. Once I am more comfortable with the piano, I fully intend to take guitar and voice lessons, as well. Those three things, I think, will be enough for me to be able to create exactly what I want for myself. I just really need to be good at this. I am pretty sure that I will be. I just need to calm down and give it time. I still haven’t had my “a-ha” moment at the piano but I know that it is coming. The Universe is working in my favor and it is holding out for exactly the right moment for it all to click in my head. It WILL happen. I don’t doubt it – I know what is meant for my life and I know that it will all come together in good time. There went another Beatles song title. I need to go to bed. Goodnight.
As I mentioned last night, my Mom and I decided to give a try to the “Zumba” workout this morning. As suspected, it was a lot of fun. It was our first time, so it was a little difficult to keep up with, but it was really a good workout. It is a considerably shorter program than what we normally do, but it is much more fast-paced and we worked up a sweat much quicker than usual. It was a really fun program, though, because it was basically all dancing but was still a very effective all-over workout. That is one thing I have always loved about dance, in general, is what a great workout it can be. It’s funny because back when I was 16-18 I was constantly dancing. I was always dancing at home and, once I turned 18, we were in clubs dancing pretty often. Dance was a very big part of my life during that period. I actually used to try to choreograph my own routines and wanted to pursue a secondary career in choreography, (aside from my always main career of music.) I’m not sure when that stopped exactly but I do think it’s kind of a shame. I used to love it so much and my best friend, Don, and I would have so much fun dancing together. It was always one of our favorite pastimes. Don was always a much better dancer than I was. Not to quote Sister Sledge or anything but, “He’s the greatest dancer that I’ve ever seen before.” It’s silly to put it that way but it’s totally true. Don is an amazing dancer. I definitely think it is something he needs to use to his advantage as much as he can. Knowing Don, though, he will.
Don, much like me, is in pursuit of a career in music but he wants to do something very different than I do. Don has always wanted to do pure, unadulterated pop/hip-hop music, whereas I am much more interested in doing more folksy/singer-songwriter style music with a pop flare. I have questioned that a lot lately, though, honestly. I do want whatever I do to have a pure, emotional, honest, strong core of great songwriting but I have been questioning the concept of creating folk music for myself. My concept for years has been to do folk music but really poppy folk music, kind of like Mandy Moore’s album, “Wild Hope,” but more pop than that. I have just developed such a passion for more dance-oriented type music, like that of Goldfrapp or the one and only Lady Gaga, that I can’t help but think about creating that type of sound for myself. Those are both artists who very clearly have a tendency to write an amazing song and then build this insane sonic world around it. I have always loved that idea. It kind of reminds me of what Jewel did with her album “0304.” You could tell that all of those songs were written acoustically and then morphed into the dance/pop tracks that they became. This was really evident when I saw her in concert back in November and she performed a few of these songs with nothing but a guitar. It was pretty amazing. Jewel has always been a huge inspiration to me. You know who else she seems to have been a big inspiration to? Crystal Bowersox.
Let me take a moment to discuss “American Idol” here. I have watched every season of “American Idol” since it began and it just seems like this season has the least talented top 10 I have ever seen on the show. It’s not that they have a group of wholly untalented people but they have a group of people who are no more talented than any other person you could find. I feel like I could beat pretty much all of the contestants on this season, which is a large part of the reason why I am thinking long and hard about actually going to audition this summer. We’ll see about that, though. Anyway, tonight’s episode had the contestants performing songs from the Lennon/McCartney songbook and most of the contestants did shockingly well compared to what they’ve done in previous weeks. There is one standout in this group, though, and that is Crystal Bowersox. She is a full-blown hippie. She reminds me a lot of early Jewel, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that she had lived in a van at some point in her life just like Jewel did. It just seems kind of fucked up for them to have this girl competing against the rest of the contestants because she is clearly leaps and bounds above the rest. It’s almost like Adam Lambert last season, except Adam at least had some really good people he was up against. There are some really good people this season, as well, but they all seem really amateur in comparison to this one girl. It’s kind of weird. One of the other contestants, Siobhan Magnus, sang an insanely beautiful version of the Beatles’ song, “Across The Universe,” tonight that really blew my mind. It also really got me thinking a lot about that song and it’s meaning.
“Across The Universe” was featured on The Beatles’ final studio album, “Let It Be,” which was released in 1970. I have never been a huge Beatles fan, honestly, although I do recognize them as some of the greatest songwriters in history. I just don’t really like the sound of their music. I almost always love when their songs are covered, though, as with “Across The Universe.” I heard “Across The Universe” for the very first time in 1998 when it was covered by one of my favorite artists of all-time, Fiona Apple, for the soundtrack to the film, “Pleasantville.” At the time I thought it was a really pretty song but didn’t make any real connection to the lyrics. That didn’t happen until quite a few years later, when I heard the version performed by another favorite artist of mine, Rufus Wainwright, for his brilliant album, “Poses.” I first heard Rufus’ version of the song in 2006 or 2007 and absolutely fell in love with it. Having pretty well forgotten about the Fiona Apple version by this time, I was really kind of overcome with emotion when I first heard Rufus sing it. It really hit me this time. This was around the time that I was dealing with some pretty severe body image issues, which had led me into an eating disorder. When I listened to the lyrics to this song, particularly the chorus of, “Nothing’s gonna change my world,” I took it as kind of an acceptance of the fate that you have been handed and looking at your world exactly as it is and realizing that nothing is ever going to change. After hearing the song again on “American Idol” tonight, I felt pretty foolish for taking it that way. Looking at it from where I stand in life now, I realize that this isn’t what the song means to me at all. “Nothing’s gonna change my world” is not an acceptance of the things we are faced with in life at all, it is about knowing who you are and the parts of life that you love and embrace and wouldn’t give up for the world, and knowing that no matter what you may face in life nothing can ever change those things for you. It is a song about creating the world that you want to live in and not allowing anything outside of yourself to allow you to falter in creating it. It is amazing how much my life and my mind have changed in that time. I feel like people don’t realize that about me. I am told a lot that I am such a positive person and people envy that about me but it has been a very long and winding road to get to this place. Ha, there went another Beatles reference. It is moments like this, though, that I can really sit back and feel a very deep sense of pride in what I have managed to make of myself. It may not seem like much to look at from the outside but if you could only see the difference between who I am now and who I was just a few years ago, you would understand.
Anyway, tomorrow evening I have another piano lesson. I have been practicing a bit with Metronome Online for the new piece Viktor asked me to work on last night but I am struggling. Now that he has pointed out this issue with my timing I am kind of consumed with trying to fix it. Viktor has also told me multiple times not to stress myself out or expect too much from myself at this point because it is all still really new to me. That is really a struggle for me right now, though, because I want so badly for this to work out. I want so badly to be good at this. It isn’t just something I want, though, I NEED for this to work out. I NEED to be good at this. If I am going to make a career in music in any way, shape or form, I need to know how to play an instrument. It is essential to me being able to do what I want to do. I understand that plenty of people don’t play an instrument and still sing and write songs and such but I also know that this is not the path that I want to take. I want to be able to create the music for myself. I want to be the creator of every aspect of the songs I write. I want to not need anybody else’s input or assistance in achieving the sound that I want. I want to be able to do this for myself, independently. It is extremely important to me to be able to play the piano. The piano, after all, is only the start. Once I am more comfortable with the piano, I fully intend to take guitar and voice lessons, as well. Those three things, I think, will be enough for me to be able to create exactly what I want for myself. I just really need to be good at this. I am pretty sure that I will be. I just need to calm down and give it time. I still haven’t had my “a-ha” moment at the piano but I know that it is coming. The Universe is working in my favor and it is holding out for exactly the right moment for it all to click in my head. It WILL happen. I don’t doubt it – I know what is meant for my life and I know that it will all come together in good time. There went another Beatles song title. I need to go to bed. Goodnight.
Tuesday, April 6
Chapter 151: Feels So Good
Today was a pretty decent day. I woke up right on time when my alarm went off at 7:30am, got up out of bed, brushed my teeth, washed my face and sat down in front of the computer for coffee and a cigarette. The first thing I did in front of the computer was visit Cherry Culture to track my order from them. The estimated delivery date has always been Thursday, April 8 but I have had a number of items say that they were due for delivery one day and actually show up a few days earlier. I have also seen the estimated delivery dates move up on things quite a few times. The last time I had checked the tracking link on the site it said that the item had arrived in City Of Industry, CA at around 5:56am on Saturday, April 3. I checked it once yesterday and found it saying the same thing, which made perfect sense to me considering it was Easter. Because of this, I was pretty anxious to see if I would find it updated this morning. Turns out, it was not updated. It still said City Of Industry, CA. The last piece of tracking information was it arriving in City Of Industry. I could understand if there were a departure scan and then it went traveling for a couple of days without any updates but it still just said Arrived. That was pretty annoying but I am still pretty confident that it will arrive by Thursday. After all, it is what is going to be my fun times this coming weekend, so it has to show up! Still, I am pretty damn anxious to receive this stuff and am keeping my fingers crossed that it comes slightly earlier than expected. We’ll see.
So, as I discussed last night, this morning was a do or die exercise morning. Like I said, my Mom and I are both really dedicated to our workout regime and are dead set on getting back on the wagon in a much bigger way than ever before. We both agreed to go ahead and do our usual “Walk-A-Dobics” this morning, just to do something we are familiar with to get us back into the swing of things. I put together a little playlist of all the up-tempo tracks on Christina Aguilera’s Greatest Hits album, “Keeps Getting Better,” and we used that as our workout soundtrack this morning, which I think worked really well. It was a pretty intense workout and I think we both got a lot out of it, which is great. It felt really good to be back to our workout routine. The whole point, though, is to NOT have it be so much of a routine. As I also mentioned last night, we have made the decision to try mixing up different types of workouts in order to speed up results, as well as to make it a little more fun, interesting and exciting for us. The issue with working out for so many people, and I think I am one of them, is that doing the same routine every day gets really boring and you get burned out on it. I am a person who needs for things to be interesting and exciting in order for me to care enough to do them. I am really good at making things fun and interesting in most situations but working out has been a little more difficult for me to figure out ways to spice up. Still, I am determined to sort it out. This evening when we got home, my Mom and I gathered up the various workout DVDs and such that we have collected to sit down and watch and see what we think could work and what wouldn’t. I brought a couple things to the table, like choreographer Jamie King’s “Rock Your Body,” and Geri Halliwell’s “Geri Yoga,” both of which my Mom kind of shot down, and she brought “Tae Bo,” which we were both like, “FUCK NO,” to. Not yet, anyway. She also brought the one we decided to give a try tomorrow morning, called “Zumba.” “Zumba” is a workout based on various types of Spanish dance styles, including Salsa, Samba, Reggaeton, Cumbia, Merengue, etc. This video was a lot of fun to watch and seemed like enough to get a good workout and try something new but not so much that we will be completely lost, which I can admit is a bit of an issue with the Jamie King one. I am already thinking about ordering up another workout DVD once I get paid again; a very special one, indeed – Mel B’s “Totally Fit.” Much like “Geri Yoga,” the immediate draw of this is the fact that it is led by one of the Spice Girls. Not only is it run by one of the Spice Girls but one who has undergone a pretty incredible physical transformation. This is a large part of why Geri and Mel B are ones who I would trust workout advice from. If Melanie C did something like this I’d be all over it, as well. I would be less prone to do a workout led by Victoria or Emma because they’ve both always kind of managed to stay in the same shape they’ve always been in. I mean, not entirely the shape they’ve always been in but Emma has pretty well stayed the same over the years and Victoria’s changed in ways that don’t appear entirely healthy. I just watched some of the clips and stuff on Mel B’s website from the DVD and it looks pretty awesome. It also looks pretty intense but I’m sure we could handle it if we keep up these other workouts regularly between now and then.
Work was boring today. It was a little busier than we are used to these days. A couple of things of note, though, are the fact that I put in a schedule request for a vacation day on April 16, which is our next payday Friday. I’ve been kind of desperate for a 3-day weekend where I’m not sick or anything, so I finally decided to go ahead and bite the bullet and request a day. What can it hurt? Nothing – it can help a lot, though. Plus, that’s the day that I get my “free” paycheck, so I may spend that day scouring the internet for new and interesting items to purchase. We’ll see. I also spent a chunk of the day drawing a picture of a woman underwater with an iPod, a Blackberry and a laptop. Inspired by the picture, I then wrote a new song that opens with the line, “I’m drowning in a sea of technology.” It’s basically a song about how we, as a society, use all these technologies that we have nowadays to escape from the things we dislike about ourselves and to avoid connecting with others. Fun stuff. Like I said, overall work was pretty boring. I spent most of the day being nervous about my piano lesson tonight. Like I mentioned in last night’s blog, I was feeling a lot more comfortable with the piece that I had to play tonight but I still wasn’t completely confident about it. I was having a lot of trouble trying to put the left and right hands together still. I spent a good deal of time at work playing pretend piano on my desk to try and sort it out but it wasn’t really working out for me.
I arrived at the Allegro Academy this evening around 6:50pm and my lesson was scheduled for 7pm. I paid for my lessons for the next month and sat down in the lobby to wait for Viktor to finish with the lesson before me. This little boy, who was probably 11 or 12 years old, came creeping out of one of the rooms off the lobby and tried to play a trick on the girl who works at the front desk but it didn’t really work out for him. He was a funny kid, though, and seemed really mature for his age but kind of immature for his age at the same time. I could understand that. He was very friendly, though, and I carried on a conversation for a while with him and Maria, who works at the front desk, while I waited for Viktor. At around 7:10pm, Viktor came out in a pair of jeans that fit him beautifully and accentuated all the right places. It put me a little out of my head for a minute. He asked if I would mind waiting just 10 minutes or so more because his current lesson was “kind of an emergency.” I said that was fine. I was actually pretty pleased with this because wait time beforehand just meant that much less wait time afterward. It was around 7:25pm when I finally got to go in. I pulled out the book and he asked me how I did with the piece I was supposed to learn. I told him that it was okay and I knew how to play it all on the piano but that I couldn’t seem to play both sides at once. When I actually tried to play it, though, Viktor decided that I had much more of a problem than only being able to play one side at a time – apparently, I have a ridiculously bad sense of timing. I kept trying to play everything too fast and couldn’t seem to keep a beat to save my life. That was interesting because I had no idea that this was any type of problem for me. Once he pointed it out, though, it became really obvious. He recommended that I get myself a metronome, which is one of those things that swings back and forth and ticks each time to keep the beat for you. That is something else I intend to pick up with my next paycheck. I did find a site online, though, that can help me in the meantime. The site is Metronome Online, which is exactly what it says. It is basically just a website that will tick for you. I played around with that a little when I got home and I think it helped a lot. He gave me a different piece to try for my next appointment, a slower one. He also really stressed the importance of picking up a metronome in order to work on my terrible timing. One thing that was really nice about this lesson, though, was the fact that Viktor took things to a really personal level today. He told me that if I am practicing at home and having any sort of trouble or getting frustrated in any way I could feel free to call him. He also offered me a ride home, which was pretty cool of him. Of course, by the time we got out of my lesson it was 7:56pm and I declined because I didn’t have much of a wait left at all. My Mom got there at around 8:20pm and we came home to check out those DVDs.
I am pretty tired at this point and should have been in bed about an hour ago. It is 12:44am now and I need to get myself rested up for trying the “Zumba” workout in the morning. I am pretty excited for it, honestly. It seems like a lot more fun than what we’ve been doing and I love the idea that it is so dance oriented. I think it will be a lot of fun and will really spice things up a lot for us. Get it? Spanish dancing spicing things up? It wasn’t really that funny. It wasn’t really even a joke. These are signs that I am too tired. It is time for bed. Goodnight.
So, as I discussed last night, this morning was a do or die exercise morning. Like I said, my Mom and I are both really dedicated to our workout regime and are dead set on getting back on the wagon in a much bigger way than ever before. We both agreed to go ahead and do our usual “Walk-A-Dobics” this morning, just to do something we are familiar with to get us back into the swing of things. I put together a little playlist of all the up-tempo tracks on Christina Aguilera’s Greatest Hits album, “Keeps Getting Better,” and we used that as our workout soundtrack this morning, which I think worked really well. It was a pretty intense workout and I think we both got a lot out of it, which is great. It felt really good to be back to our workout routine. The whole point, though, is to NOT have it be so much of a routine. As I also mentioned last night, we have made the decision to try mixing up different types of workouts in order to speed up results, as well as to make it a little more fun, interesting and exciting for us. The issue with working out for so many people, and I think I am one of them, is that doing the same routine every day gets really boring and you get burned out on it. I am a person who needs for things to be interesting and exciting in order for me to care enough to do them. I am really good at making things fun and interesting in most situations but working out has been a little more difficult for me to figure out ways to spice up. Still, I am determined to sort it out. This evening when we got home, my Mom and I gathered up the various workout DVDs and such that we have collected to sit down and watch and see what we think could work and what wouldn’t. I brought a couple things to the table, like choreographer Jamie King’s “Rock Your Body,” and Geri Halliwell’s “Geri Yoga,” both of which my Mom kind of shot down, and she brought “Tae Bo,” which we were both like, “FUCK NO,” to. Not yet, anyway. She also brought the one we decided to give a try tomorrow morning, called “Zumba.” “Zumba” is a workout based on various types of Spanish dance styles, including Salsa, Samba, Reggaeton, Cumbia, Merengue, etc. This video was a lot of fun to watch and seemed like enough to get a good workout and try something new but not so much that we will be completely lost, which I can admit is a bit of an issue with the Jamie King one. I am already thinking about ordering up another workout DVD once I get paid again; a very special one, indeed – Mel B’s “Totally Fit.” Much like “Geri Yoga,” the immediate draw of this is the fact that it is led by one of the Spice Girls. Not only is it run by one of the Spice Girls but one who has undergone a pretty incredible physical transformation. This is a large part of why Geri and Mel B are ones who I would trust workout advice from. If Melanie C did something like this I’d be all over it, as well. I would be less prone to do a workout led by Victoria or Emma because they’ve both always kind of managed to stay in the same shape they’ve always been in. I mean, not entirely the shape they’ve always been in but Emma has pretty well stayed the same over the years and Victoria’s changed in ways that don’t appear entirely healthy. I just watched some of the clips and stuff on Mel B’s website from the DVD and it looks pretty awesome. It also looks pretty intense but I’m sure we could handle it if we keep up these other workouts regularly between now and then.
Work was boring today. It was a little busier than we are used to these days. A couple of things of note, though, are the fact that I put in a schedule request for a vacation day on April 16, which is our next payday Friday. I’ve been kind of desperate for a 3-day weekend where I’m not sick or anything, so I finally decided to go ahead and bite the bullet and request a day. What can it hurt? Nothing – it can help a lot, though. Plus, that’s the day that I get my “free” paycheck, so I may spend that day scouring the internet for new and interesting items to purchase. We’ll see. I also spent a chunk of the day drawing a picture of a woman underwater with an iPod, a Blackberry and a laptop. Inspired by the picture, I then wrote a new song that opens with the line, “I’m drowning in a sea of technology.” It’s basically a song about how we, as a society, use all these technologies that we have nowadays to escape from the things we dislike about ourselves and to avoid connecting with others. Fun stuff. Like I said, overall work was pretty boring. I spent most of the day being nervous about my piano lesson tonight. Like I mentioned in last night’s blog, I was feeling a lot more comfortable with the piece that I had to play tonight but I still wasn’t completely confident about it. I was having a lot of trouble trying to put the left and right hands together still. I spent a good deal of time at work playing pretend piano on my desk to try and sort it out but it wasn’t really working out for me.
I arrived at the Allegro Academy this evening around 6:50pm and my lesson was scheduled for 7pm. I paid for my lessons for the next month and sat down in the lobby to wait for Viktor to finish with the lesson before me. This little boy, who was probably 11 or 12 years old, came creeping out of one of the rooms off the lobby and tried to play a trick on the girl who works at the front desk but it didn’t really work out for him. He was a funny kid, though, and seemed really mature for his age but kind of immature for his age at the same time. I could understand that. He was very friendly, though, and I carried on a conversation for a while with him and Maria, who works at the front desk, while I waited for Viktor. At around 7:10pm, Viktor came out in a pair of jeans that fit him beautifully and accentuated all the right places. It put me a little out of my head for a minute. He asked if I would mind waiting just 10 minutes or so more because his current lesson was “kind of an emergency.” I said that was fine. I was actually pretty pleased with this because wait time beforehand just meant that much less wait time afterward. It was around 7:25pm when I finally got to go in. I pulled out the book and he asked me how I did with the piece I was supposed to learn. I told him that it was okay and I knew how to play it all on the piano but that I couldn’t seem to play both sides at once. When I actually tried to play it, though, Viktor decided that I had much more of a problem than only being able to play one side at a time – apparently, I have a ridiculously bad sense of timing. I kept trying to play everything too fast and couldn’t seem to keep a beat to save my life. That was interesting because I had no idea that this was any type of problem for me. Once he pointed it out, though, it became really obvious. He recommended that I get myself a metronome, which is one of those things that swings back and forth and ticks each time to keep the beat for you. That is something else I intend to pick up with my next paycheck. I did find a site online, though, that can help me in the meantime. The site is Metronome Online, which is exactly what it says. It is basically just a website that will tick for you. I played around with that a little when I got home and I think it helped a lot. He gave me a different piece to try for my next appointment, a slower one. He also really stressed the importance of picking up a metronome in order to work on my terrible timing. One thing that was really nice about this lesson, though, was the fact that Viktor took things to a really personal level today. He told me that if I am practicing at home and having any sort of trouble or getting frustrated in any way I could feel free to call him. He also offered me a ride home, which was pretty cool of him. Of course, by the time we got out of my lesson it was 7:56pm and I declined because I didn’t have much of a wait left at all. My Mom got there at around 8:20pm and we came home to check out those DVDs.
I am pretty tired at this point and should have been in bed about an hour ago. It is 12:44am now and I need to get myself rested up for trying the “Zumba” workout in the morning. I am pretty excited for it, honestly. It seems like a lot more fun than what we’ve been doing and I love the idea that it is so dance oriented. I think it will be a lot of fun and will really spice things up a lot for us. Get it? Spanish dancing spicing things up? It wasn’t really that funny. It wasn’t really even a joke. These are signs that I am too tired. It is time for bed. Goodnight.
Sunday, April 4
Chapter 150: Beautiful
This is Easter Sunday, a day in celebration of Jesus Christ’s resurrection after he was crucified. Of course, you’d never really know that based on the general treatment this holiday gets in the media, as well as by the bulk of the general public. Sure, you’ve always got those people who will suddenly start bringing up Jesus in Facebook and Twitter posts, then go back to posting up a bunch of booty pictures tomorrow, but even those seem pretty sparse this year. I’m perfectly fine with that. Easter isn’t one of those holidays that you really care about once you reach a certain age, when you stop getting a basket or coloring eggs or any of those social traditions that don’t relate to the original concept of the holiday in any way. Of course, once you’ve reached that age you typically replace your basket and eggs and such with an onslaught of feelings of guilt for your general lack of enthusiasm for the religion you were brought up with… at least, you do if that religion is any sect of Christianity. I’m over religious holidays, in general. I’m not an overly religious person, nor am I an overly non-religious person. I fall somewhere in the middle. I believe what works for me. I have always believed that everybody has their own personal, separate relationship with their creator and, as such, they all have their own personal, separate understanding of what is right and what is wrong for them. What I believe and what is right for me is not the same as it is for anybody else because my relationship with my concept of a creator is not the same as anybody else’s relationship with theirs. This is a large part of my issue with organized religion because they refuse to accept the concept that everybody has a separate truth – to most organized religious groups there is one truth and one truth only and everybody else is wrong. It just seems like a really closed-minded way to view the world.
Right off the top here, I would also like to mention the fact that, holy crap, this is my 150th day of keeping this blog. That is extremely close to halfway through the year and I can’t help but feel really proud of my stick-to-it-iveness. Sure, there have been a few random days where I have kind of crapped out on writing an actual blog but nearly halfway through the year I can still count those days on one hand, I believe. Like I said, I am just really proud of myself. I think the actual story that this blog is telling still hasn’t fully come together or found it’s form yet but I do feel like it is well on it’s way to it. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t feel that way until the blog has actually been completed. I think it is one of those things that I won’t fully realize until after the fact. Either way, though, I am really excited with what I have accomplished here thus far. I am really proud of this project and all that is going to wind up coming of it. On the topic of projects, though, there is one that I do kind of need to mention here that is not shaping up quite as expected – the weekly YouTube series that I have talked about starting. All I can really say is not to expect it anytime soon. Upon further reflection on the whole concept of it, I have decided that it could really use some re-tooling. The thing is, the focus will still definitely be on inspiration and the various forms it can take but I am thinking of doing it on a much broader scale than focusing on different celebrities and artists that are an inspiration to me. I kind of want to focus more on different acts that people perform that are inspiring. I also have this idea of doing interview type segments with different everyday artistic types about what inspires them. I really love the idea of learning about how others are inspired and kind of showcasing various types of inspiration beyond just the things that inspire me in my life and my art. I’m not entirely sure of where I plan to go with the whole thing or how I plan to work that out exactly but I think this is a much better direction for me to go in than what I was planning before. It just seems to me like the previous idea I had was a little too me-focused. This isn’t really about me, at least not entirely, but I know how easy it would be for me to fall into the habit of making it all about me and I don’t want to do that. Don’t get me wrong, my thoughts and inspirations are truly fascinating and would be good enough but that isn’t what I am shooting for here.
Speaking of everyday types who have been an inspiration to me, let me take a second to talk about my friend April, who I hung out with on Friday night. We hadn’t seen each other in a pretty long time and getting together to catch up was a lot of fun. One of the major topics of conversation throughout the evening was makeup and general health and beauty products and such. One thing that April told me about that I really took to heart was different types of skin products. As I have mentioned here multiple times, I have fallen in love with Clean & Clear Morning Burst facial cleanser and my complexion has cleared up immensely since I started using this product. I have found myself looking at and loving my skin more than I ever imagined I could. This is the first time I have ever had a skin care regime and I am still kind of learning all the ins and outs of trying to maintain clean, healthy looking skin. I have been simply using the Clean & Clear Morning Burst facial cleanser every morning and simply leaving it at that. I always kind of felt like it would make sense to do some sort of facial cleansing before bed, as well, but I’ve never been sure of what to do in the evening. April told me about a few different products that she uses that she thought could be really helpful for me. She mentioned a gentle facial bar soap to wash the face at night, as well as moisturizer. She actually brought me a couple of sample-sized versions of the moisturizer she uses, from Clinique. So, I figured this would be a good thing to give a shot. It has been very important to me to try to develop a fuller skin care regime recently because my skin has improved so much recently and I really want to maintain that. I have talked a lot about a few different shows I have been watching lately, including Jessica Simpson’s “The Price Of Beauty” and “TRANSform Me,” which are very focused on trying to help women feel good about their looks and bodies, and trying to help them to see how beautiful they truly are. I wouldn’t say that I have had a lot of issues over the years as far as my face goes but I have definitely had body image issues. Still, I have discovered recently the power of little things like having skin that looks and feels good and makeup that accentuates the positives of your face. These things have really helped me to recognize a lot of my own beauty and I really cherish that. It means more to me than I can express in words here to look at myself in the mirror before I start my day and to feel like I look beautiful. It is a very powerful thing. I know it sounds cheesy to sit here and cite this as an influence but it really reminds me of a song; a song that I feel is one of the greatest songs ever written. If you haven’t guessed by now, you must not know me as well as you think. Of course I am talking about Christina Aguilera singing Linda Perry’s absolute masterpiece of a song, “Beautiful.” The very first time I heard that song I remember thinking to myself, “My God, what a powerful statement that makes.” In general, as a society, we have been raised to feel like it is wrong or a bad thing to be able to look at ourselves and say, “I am beautiful, no matter what they say.” It really seems like people are beginning to see the light about this matter nowadays. Not only is it positive but extremely important to our growth and development as people to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror and absolutely love what we see. I don’t just mean our physical selves, either. We, as human beings, need to be able to look at ourselves inside and out and truly love what we find there. It is far too rare that people are able to honestly feel that way about both inside and out. I can’t even honestly say that I do completely. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love myself inside and out but I still have moments where I feel insecure or unhappy with different parts of myself. That is completely natural, though, and I don’t really believe that anybody is ever going to be completely happy with themselves 100% of the time. What they can do, and what I do, is be able to take a step back from those individual moments and honestly say that, as a whole, I absolutely love myself inside and out. As I said before, I feel like these various TV shows focused on helping people recognize their own beauty are the most important programs on television right now because when you are able to feel good about what you have on the outside, you will slowly but surely become considerably happier with the way you feel on the inside, as well. The two go hand-in-hand so much that it seems like it would be pretty impossible to have one without starting to develop the other.
Speaking of feeling beautiful on the outside, my Mom and I had a bit of a long talk earlier today about our quest to lose weight. We both kind of admitted that we had become stagnant and kind of flippant about the whole thing, easily skipping days and even whole weeks of working out for various reasons. We also kind of discussed our eating habits and how we have managed to fall back into our old habits of eating out constantly, which is considerably less healthy than what we could be eating at home. We also both acknowledged, though, how important losing weight is to us and are determined to re-focus and improve upon what we’ve been doing already. We also recognized the fact that Webster defines “crazy” as “repeating the same actions expecting different results.” We have both acknowledged how that is true of our workout regime. We keep doing the same program every day and we keep crashing and burning at one point or another. I figure that we should continue with the program that we are doing but mix in some other ones, as well, to keep a bit of variety in the workout regime and really challenge ourselves in different ways. Fortunately, we have a lot of different options to work with here, including varying types of DVD programs, a whole lot of walking space in our surrounding area and the apartment complex gym. We’ve also got a pool right here that we could easily use for exercise. We have a lot of different options, basically, that we are not taking full advantage of. We are both really dedicated to the whole idea of losing weight and now is the time for us to really step things up before we let it fizzle out completely. I refuse to let that happen, for myself or for my Mom. We both need this. We both need each other’s support in this, as well.
So, it is 11:14pm now and I am feeling pretty exhausted. I went to Walgreen’s today and picked up a couple of bars of Yardley’s gentle moisturizing bar soap and washed my face with it, as well as moisturizing with the Clinique stuff that April gave me. My skin feels really great and I am all prepped and ready for bed. I need to get my rest tonight, too. Tomorrow I have to get up and workout, then work until 6pm and follow that up with my make up piano lesson at 7pm. I have practiced the piece a few times over the past few days and feel much more comfortable with it than I did before. I wouldn’t say that I have it mastered, by any means, but I am doing much better with it than I was before. There are a few things I am having a bit of trouble with, as far as the piece goes, but they are things that I wouldn’t really be able to figure out on my own at this point, anyway. I will have to address those things with Viktor at tomorrow night’s lesson, though. I am excited to get back to my lessons, though. Right now, though, I am most excited about getting into my bed and falling asleep. Have a good night. I know I will.
Right off the top here, I would also like to mention the fact that, holy crap, this is my 150th day of keeping this blog. That is extremely close to halfway through the year and I can’t help but feel really proud of my stick-to-it-iveness. Sure, there have been a few random days where I have kind of crapped out on writing an actual blog but nearly halfway through the year I can still count those days on one hand, I believe. Like I said, I am just really proud of myself. I think the actual story that this blog is telling still hasn’t fully come together or found it’s form yet but I do feel like it is well on it’s way to it. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t feel that way until the blog has actually been completed. I think it is one of those things that I won’t fully realize until after the fact. Either way, though, I am really excited with what I have accomplished here thus far. I am really proud of this project and all that is going to wind up coming of it. On the topic of projects, though, there is one that I do kind of need to mention here that is not shaping up quite as expected – the weekly YouTube series that I have talked about starting. All I can really say is not to expect it anytime soon. Upon further reflection on the whole concept of it, I have decided that it could really use some re-tooling. The thing is, the focus will still definitely be on inspiration and the various forms it can take but I am thinking of doing it on a much broader scale than focusing on different celebrities and artists that are an inspiration to me. I kind of want to focus more on different acts that people perform that are inspiring. I also have this idea of doing interview type segments with different everyday artistic types about what inspires them. I really love the idea of learning about how others are inspired and kind of showcasing various types of inspiration beyond just the things that inspire me in my life and my art. I’m not entirely sure of where I plan to go with the whole thing or how I plan to work that out exactly but I think this is a much better direction for me to go in than what I was planning before. It just seems to me like the previous idea I had was a little too me-focused. This isn’t really about me, at least not entirely, but I know how easy it would be for me to fall into the habit of making it all about me and I don’t want to do that. Don’t get me wrong, my thoughts and inspirations are truly fascinating and would be good enough but that isn’t what I am shooting for here.
Speaking of everyday types who have been an inspiration to me, let me take a second to talk about my friend April, who I hung out with on Friday night. We hadn’t seen each other in a pretty long time and getting together to catch up was a lot of fun. One of the major topics of conversation throughout the evening was makeup and general health and beauty products and such. One thing that April told me about that I really took to heart was different types of skin products. As I have mentioned here multiple times, I have fallen in love with Clean & Clear Morning Burst facial cleanser and my complexion has cleared up immensely since I started using this product. I have found myself looking at and loving my skin more than I ever imagined I could. This is the first time I have ever had a skin care regime and I am still kind of learning all the ins and outs of trying to maintain clean, healthy looking skin. I have been simply using the Clean & Clear Morning Burst facial cleanser every morning and simply leaving it at that. I always kind of felt like it would make sense to do some sort of facial cleansing before bed, as well, but I’ve never been sure of what to do in the evening. April told me about a few different products that she uses that she thought could be really helpful for me. She mentioned a gentle facial bar soap to wash the face at night, as well as moisturizer. She actually brought me a couple of sample-sized versions of the moisturizer she uses, from Clinique. So, I figured this would be a good thing to give a shot. It has been very important to me to try to develop a fuller skin care regime recently because my skin has improved so much recently and I really want to maintain that. I have talked a lot about a few different shows I have been watching lately, including Jessica Simpson’s “The Price Of Beauty” and “TRANSform Me,” which are very focused on trying to help women feel good about their looks and bodies, and trying to help them to see how beautiful they truly are. I wouldn’t say that I have had a lot of issues over the years as far as my face goes but I have definitely had body image issues. Still, I have discovered recently the power of little things like having skin that looks and feels good and makeup that accentuates the positives of your face. These things have really helped me to recognize a lot of my own beauty and I really cherish that. It means more to me than I can express in words here to look at myself in the mirror before I start my day and to feel like I look beautiful. It is a very powerful thing. I know it sounds cheesy to sit here and cite this as an influence but it really reminds me of a song; a song that I feel is one of the greatest songs ever written. If you haven’t guessed by now, you must not know me as well as you think. Of course I am talking about Christina Aguilera singing Linda Perry’s absolute masterpiece of a song, “Beautiful.” The very first time I heard that song I remember thinking to myself, “My God, what a powerful statement that makes.” In general, as a society, we have been raised to feel like it is wrong or a bad thing to be able to look at ourselves and say, “I am beautiful, no matter what they say.” It really seems like people are beginning to see the light about this matter nowadays. Not only is it positive but extremely important to our growth and development as people to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror and absolutely love what we see. I don’t just mean our physical selves, either. We, as human beings, need to be able to look at ourselves inside and out and truly love what we find there. It is far too rare that people are able to honestly feel that way about both inside and out. I can’t even honestly say that I do completely. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love myself inside and out but I still have moments where I feel insecure or unhappy with different parts of myself. That is completely natural, though, and I don’t really believe that anybody is ever going to be completely happy with themselves 100% of the time. What they can do, and what I do, is be able to take a step back from those individual moments and honestly say that, as a whole, I absolutely love myself inside and out. As I said before, I feel like these various TV shows focused on helping people recognize their own beauty are the most important programs on television right now because when you are able to feel good about what you have on the outside, you will slowly but surely become considerably happier with the way you feel on the inside, as well. The two go hand-in-hand so much that it seems like it would be pretty impossible to have one without starting to develop the other.
Speaking of feeling beautiful on the outside, my Mom and I had a bit of a long talk earlier today about our quest to lose weight. We both kind of admitted that we had become stagnant and kind of flippant about the whole thing, easily skipping days and even whole weeks of working out for various reasons. We also kind of discussed our eating habits and how we have managed to fall back into our old habits of eating out constantly, which is considerably less healthy than what we could be eating at home. We also both acknowledged, though, how important losing weight is to us and are determined to re-focus and improve upon what we’ve been doing already. We also recognized the fact that Webster defines “crazy” as “repeating the same actions expecting different results.” We have both acknowledged how that is true of our workout regime. We keep doing the same program every day and we keep crashing and burning at one point or another. I figure that we should continue with the program that we are doing but mix in some other ones, as well, to keep a bit of variety in the workout regime and really challenge ourselves in different ways. Fortunately, we have a lot of different options to work with here, including varying types of DVD programs, a whole lot of walking space in our surrounding area and the apartment complex gym. We’ve also got a pool right here that we could easily use for exercise. We have a lot of different options, basically, that we are not taking full advantage of. We are both really dedicated to the whole idea of losing weight and now is the time for us to really step things up before we let it fizzle out completely. I refuse to let that happen, for myself or for my Mom. We both need this. We both need each other’s support in this, as well.
So, it is 11:14pm now and I am feeling pretty exhausted. I went to Walgreen’s today and picked up a couple of bars of Yardley’s gentle moisturizing bar soap and washed my face with it, as well as moisturizing with the Clinique stuff that April gave me. My skin feels really great and I am all prepped and ready for bed. I need to get my rest tonight, too. Tomorrow I have to get up and workout, then work until 6pm and follow that up with my make up piano lesson at 7pm. I have practiced the piece a few times over the past few days and feel much more comfortable with it than I did before. I wouldn’t say that I have it mastered, by any means, but I am doing much better with it than I was before. There are a few things I am having a bit of trouble with, as far as the piece goes, but they are things that I wouldn’t really be able to figure out on my own at this point, anyway. I will have to address those things with Viktor at tomorrow night’s lesson, though. I am excited to get back to my lessons, though. Right now, though, I am most excited about getting into my bed and falling asleep. Have a good night. I know I will.
Chapter 149: Energy
So, after recording this video with all of the Scientology talk and uploading it from the camera to the computer I’m not sure what happened exactly but the computer went completely apeshit. This is the reason for the delay in uploading this video to YouTube and posting the blog. I kept telling myself that I would just go to bed and deal with it in the morning but every time I tried to just go to bed I would obsess over it. I did this until close to 6am, when I finally found the resolution. Apparently, there was some sort of issue with the drivers for my video card. I only figured this out through Google and various tech forums that came up as results on Google. It is pretty awesome because any time I manage to have some sort of issue with the computer that is pretty much always where I find the answer. This has served to remind me, though, that someday soon when I can figure out how to afford it I need to get a new computer. It sucks, but this one is nearly 10 years old now. That’s a bridge to cross when we get to it, though. Anyway, happy Easter, y’all!
Saturday, April 3
Chapter 148: Witness To Your Life
One of my absolute favorite songs right now, if not ever, is “The Story” by Brandi Carlile. Anyone who is not familiar with this song should go to YouTube or iTunes or wherever else you like to find music and listen to it immediately. “The Story” is a sweeping, epic tale of love and self-acceptance – the chorus is one of the most beautiful sentiments I have ever heard. “All of these lines across my face tell you the story of who I am, so many stories of where I’ve been and how I got to where I am, but these stories don’t mean anything without someone to tell them to, it’s true, and I was made for you.” I really do believe that this is the reason why we all spend our entire lives searching for somebody to love – not because love itself is a beautiful thing but because love gives us somebody to share our story with, and that makes us feel like ours is a story worth telling. This sentiment is echoed in another favorite song of mine, “Witness To Your Life” by Lori McKenna. “All you really need is someone to be here, someone who’ll never let you disappear, and I will be that witness to your life.” Both of these songs have left me wondering many times throughout my life – who will I share my story with? Who will be the witness to my life? I don’t know the answer to these questions yet, but I have an idea. You see, I have long said that the love of a romantic partner is not the love that will be the focus of my life’s story. I have never said that this type of love wouldn’t be a part of my story but that it would not be the focus of it. I still really do believe that. It’s also not to say that the story of my life will not be a love story – it is simply a tale of a different type of love. The story of my life will be of the love I have for myself and, much more, the love that I have for music. Music will forever be the first love of my life. Yes, I am looking for that romantic type of love right now but I also recognize that no matter who I may find or fall in love with my love for them will always be secondary. I don’t think this diminishes that love in any way – it just makes it slightly different than the “normal” idea of romantic love. I’ve never really been the type of person who falls into those “normal” ideas, anyway. Whoever I do find love with will be of the utmost importance to me and will get all of the attention and love they need and deserve – they will just have to share my love. That person will not necessarily be the witness to my life. Who will be? The witness to my life will be the world. It will be people who will hear my music and see my art and be moved by it. It will be the person who feels completely alone in their life, except for that song they hear on the radio that makes them feel better about the world. It will be the person who can’t seem to find a connection to any of the people around them but can always connect to the music coming through their headphones. It will be the person who feels exactly how I feel now. Those people will be my witnesses and I will love each and every one of them as much as anybody possibly could. THAT will be my story, and I can’t imagine a better story than that.
It was a pretty good day, honestly. I woke up this morning and found my paycheck deposited into my bank account. It was considerably less than I was expecting but that is only because I suck at math and wasn’t thinking logically about what my paycheck would actually look like having missed a day of work. Still, I had $37 and some change remaining in my bank account from my last paycheck and had been anxiously awaiting my direct deposit going through before I could spend that money. So, when I saw that my direct deposit was in the first thing I did was head to Cherry Culture, a really cool online cosmetics store that sells NYX Cosmetics with free shipping on orders over $40. I figured this would be a good way to get a little more “bang” for my buck than going directly through the NYX website. After all, I would wind up spending over $40 on just the eye shadow palette I have been obsessing over and shipping on the NYX site. It seems like it would be silly of me not to go ahead and spend the same $40 on Cherry Culture and get a few other things that I have been wanting and not have to pay shipping. Aside from the NYX S104 “Every Color Imaginable” eye shadow palette, I also picked up the NYX concealer jar in Orange, which I have heard is really good for hiding dark circles under the eyes, a NYX mascara, which I don’t normally use because I have really good lashes on my own but figured it couldn’t hurt to perk them up a bit, and three NYX Jumbo Eye Shadow Pencils, in Milk, (white,) Black Bean, (black,) and Strawberry Milk, (a soft pink.) I have been kind of obsessed with the Jumbo Eye Shadow Pencils lately after seeing some really cool uses for them in makeup tutorials on YouTube. I decided on black and white because they both make really great bases for other colors to go on top of and the pink because it is always best to use a pink base when doing looks with pinks, which I like to do often. All of the reviews and tutorials and such that I have seen say that these are the greatest product NYX has because they are super creamy and will work beautifully on their own or as a base for other colors. Since they are so creamy, other colors stick to them and will really pop. I am extremely excited to get this stuff in the mail. The order already shipped today and is coming from Whittier, CA. The estimated delivery date is Thursday, April 8, 2010, so I’ve got a little bit of a wait. It will be well worth it, though, once they have arrived and it is probably good that they won’t be here until the end of the week because they will give me something to be excited about next weekend and diffuse my desire to spend money on more makeup then. That is a really good thing because after sorting out my finances for this paycheck I have figured out that I really can’t afford to spend another dime!
My check was short, which sucks. I really need to stop missing work. It’s not like I did any of it on purpose or for frivolous reasons at all – I have managed to get myself sick a few too many times recently. Enough of that! I am not going to get sick again and any time that I miss from work will be requested beforehand and I will use vacation hours in order to still get paid for it. Still, that doesn’t really help this paycheck. After paying my rent and the next month of piano lessons, which comes from this check, I am left with something like $70. Fortunately, I will only need to buy cigarettes once this pay period so as long as I don’t go around spending money during that time I should be able to maintain a comfortable balance of between $30-40 in my bank account. Sure, it’s less than I would like but it’s enough for me to stay comfortable with. I am figuring that I can diffuse any desire to spend money by focusing on the fact that I only have to pay out a minimal amount from my next paycheck because we get three paychecks in April and that is the one where I don’t have to pay rent with. I owe my Mom about $100 that needs to come out of that and I will also probably use a chunk of it to pay off the cell phone bill but that will still leave me with considerably more extra cash than I have out of any normal paycheck. I am really excited for that paycheck. I don’t have any real plans for it, although I would like to set a good piece of it aside to go towards my brother’s wedding, whether that winds up going towards a wedding gift or something along those lines or some other random cost associated with it, like paying for my outfit or something.
Speaking of my brother’s wedding, one cost that I recently found out I won’t have to cover is the bachelor party. It seems that he has already sorted out plans with some friends of his to do a weekend-long trip to Orlando to get various types of buck wild. Sounds like a fun time and I think I am invited along, which I think would be a lot of fun. I don’t know how a group of straight guys would be able to handle me for an entire weekend and, even more, I don’t know how I would be able to handle them for an entire weekend but I definitely think it could be worth a shot. I can’t say that I wasn’t a little disappointed in the fact that I don’t get to organize the whole thing but I also can’t say that I wasn’t more than a little relieved. It would definitely be a pretty big, expensive undertaking that I really probably couldn’t handle or afford at this point in my life. It sucks because I really would want to do something big for my brother before he gets married but at this point I don’t really have the ability and it makes me really sad. Again, though, I am also pretty relieved and it sounds like this excursion he’s got planned will be better and more suited to him than anything I could have managed. Still, I would like to try to do something cool for him before the wedding and whatever I come up with will surely require money and I should start setting aside for it while I do have a little extra.
Work was not bad today, although the day did feel like it passed really slowly. I spent a little more time talking with the new neighbors than I did yesterday and they aren’t bad. Some of them actually seem pretty cool. There is one woman, though, who kind of creeps me out. She is the most talkative and always seems to be trying to pop up in my conversations with my co-workers, which is weird. Overall, though, it’s not bad. I spent most of today drawing up different makeup looks I want to try once I get my new stuff in the mail. I was absolutely ready, though, when the day ended. This week has just felt really long and I have felt like I haven’t gotten enough sleep at all, so I intend to use this weekend to catch up on that a bit. When I got off work, though, I came home and immediately changed clothes and did new hair and makeup to get ready for my dinner plans with April and Devin. They picked me up shortly after 8pm and we headed downtown to this amazing little Mexican restaurant my Mom and I found a couple of weeks ago, called Cinco De Mayo Restaurant. The name is a little on the nose, the service isn’t the best in the world but the food is delicious and I love the décor in that place. It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed catching up with April and Devin. It has been a really long time since I have hung out with them for an extended period and I can’t even remember the last time it was just the three of us. It was a lot of fun and we got to catch up on a LOT of stuff that we had missed out on in each other’s lives. I really enjoyed it. After dinner we all headed over to a Starbuck’s in town and sat on their patio drinking coffee and talking about anything and everything. It felt really good to actually be out of the house and seeing my friends again. As much as it’s been a really long time since I have hung out with April and Devin, I think it has been just as long since I have actually gone out for an extended period and really gotten the chance to connect with anybody aside from my Mom. It was the best possible thing for me right now to just be reminded that I do actually have really good friends that I can talk to. It was a really great night. April also happened to bring a few treats for me after reading the blog and seeing some of my Facebook postings talking about my makeup obsession. She brought me a couple of really good Clinique moisturizers and a sample of the concealer that she uses, since she knew I have been looking for something to cover up the dark circles under my eyes. The best thing, though, is that she brought me a NYX Jumbo Eye Shadow Pencil in Milk, just like what I had just ordered this morning, which I was really excited about because it meant that I didn’t have to wait to experiment with at least one of the things I ordered. As soon as I got home I played around with these things and am absolutely in love with the Jumbo Eye Shadow Pencil. All those reviews and stuff were absolutely correct, that thing is amazing! I experimented with it quite a bit on my hand, pairing it with different types of eyeshadow and stuff and seeing what it works well with and how well it goes on, (which is extremely smooth!) I also tried out the concealer, which made a world of difference under my eyes. I put some of that under my eyes and then used the Jumbo Eye Shadow Pencil to add a little bit of highlight to my cheekbones, forehead and nose and I looked at myself in the mirror and really thought to myself, “Wow, I look GOOD.” Silly, I know, but it really put a smile on my face!
Anyway, as I said, today was a really good day. It’s days like today that are perfect examples of why I can honestly say that I love my life, no matter how much I may get frustrated with certain parts of it. There are always moments that will pop up and remind me that life is beautiful and is really the greatest gift we can ever be given. I know it may sound cheesy or cliché but I am completely genuine in saying that. I am extremely grateful to the Universe for blessing me with the life that I lead and all of the different people in it who have helped me in so many different ways. I know that it is only going to get better from here. I know that someday in the not-too-distant future that person who is feeling alone, that person who can’t seem to make a connection and that person who feels like I have been feeling so much lately will all stand up and take notice and will have found that something they have been looking for to make them feel better about life and about the world that they live in. I will give them that something that they have been looking for and it will be my privilege to do so. I cannot wait to share everything I have with the world. I can’t wait to share my story with them. I can’t wait to find that witness to my life.
It was a pretty good day, honestly. I woke up this morning and found my paycheck deposited into my bank account. It was considerably less than I was expecting but that is only because I suck at math and wasn’t thinking logically about what my paycheck would actually look like having missed a day of work. Still, I had $37 and some change remaining in my bank account from my last paycheck and had been anxiously awaiting my direct deposit going through before I could spend that money. So, when I saw that my direct deposit was in the first thing I did was head to Cherry Culture, a really cool online cosmetics store that sells NYX Cosmetics with free shipping on orders over $40. I figured this would be a good way to get a little more “bang” for my buck than going directly through the NYX website. After all, I would wind up spending over $40 on just the eye shadow palette I have been obsessing over and shipping on the NYX site. It seems like it would be silly of me not to go ahead and spend the same $40 on Cherry Culture and get a few other things that I have been wanting and not have to pay shipping. Aside from the NYX S104 “Every Color Imaginable” eye shadow palette, I also picked up the NYX concealer jar in Orange, which I have heard is really good for hiding dark circles under the eyes, a NYX mascara, which I don’t normally use because I have really good lashes on my own but figured it couldn’t hurt to perk them up a bit, and three NYX Jumbo Eye Shadow Pencils, in Milk, (white,) Black Bean, (black,) and Strawberry Milk, (a soft pink.) I have been kind of obsessed with the Jumbo Eye Shadow Pencils lately after seeing some really cool uses for them in makeup tutorials on YouTube. I decided on black and white because they both make really great bases for other colors to go on top of and the pink because it is always best to use a pink base when doing looks with pinks, which I like to do often. All of the reviews and tutorials and such that I have seen say that these are the greatest product NYX has because they are super creamy and will work beautifully on their own or as a base for other colors. Since they are so creamy, other colors stick to them and will really pop. I am extremely excited to get this stuff in the mail. The order already shipped today and is coming from Whittier, CA. The estimated delivery date is Thursday, April 8, 2010, so I’ve got a little bit of a wait. It will be well worth it, though, once they have arrived and it is probably good that they won’t be here until the end of the week because they will give me something to be excited about next weekend and diffuse my desire to spend money on more makeup then. That is a really good thing because after sorting out my finances for this paycheck I have figured out that I really can’t afford to spend another dime!
My check was short, which sucks. I really need to stop missing work. It’s not like I did any of it on purpose or for frivolous reasons at all – I have managed to get myself sick a few too many times recently. Enough of that! I am not going to get sick again and any time that I miss from work will be requested beforehand and I will use vacation hours in order to still get paid for it. Still, that doesn’t really help this paycheck. After paying my rent and the next month of piano lessons, which comes from this check, I am left with something like $70. Fortunately, I will only need to buy cigarettes once this pay period so as long as I don’t go around spending money during that time I should be able to maintain a comfortable balance of between $30-40 in my bank account. Sure, it’s less than I would like but it’s enough for me to stay comfortable with. I am figuring that I can diffuse any desire to spend money by focusing on the fact that I only have to pay out a minimal amount from my next paycheck because we get three paychecks in April and that is the one where I don’t have to pay rent with. I owe my Mom about $100 that needs to come out of that and I will also probably use a chunk of it to pay off the cell phone bill but that will still leave me with considerably more extra cash than I have out of any normal paycheck. I am really excited for that paycheck. I don’t have any real plans for it, although I would like to set a good piece of it aside to go towards my brother’s wedding, whether that winds up going towards a wedding gift or something along those lines or some other random cost associated with it, like paying for my outfit or something.
Speaking of my brother’s wedding, one cost that I recently found out I won’t have to cover is the bachelor party. It seems that he has already sorted out plans with some friends of his to do a weekend-long trip to Orlando to get various types of buck wild. Sounds like a fun time and I think I am invited along, which I think would be a lot of fun. I don’t know how a group of straight guys would be able to handle me for an entire weekend and, even more, I don’t know how I would be able to handle them for an entire weekend but I definitely think it could be worth a shot. I can’t say that I wasn’t a little disappointed in the fact that I don’t get to organize the whole thing but I also can’t say that I wasn’t more than a little relieved. It would definitely be a pretty big, expensive undertaking that I really probably couldn’t handle or afford at this point in my life. It sucks because I really would want to do something big for my brother before he gets married but at this point I don’t really have the ability and it makes me really sad. Again, though, I am also pretty relieved and it sounds like this excursion he’s got planned will be better and more suited to him than anything I could have managed. Still, I would like to try to do something cool for him before the wedding and whatever I come up with will surely require money and I should start setting aside for it while I do have a little extra.
Work was not bad today, although the day did feel like it passed really slowly. I spent a little more time talking with the new neighbors than I did yesterday and they aren’t bad. Some of them actually seem pretty cool. There is one woman, though, who kind of creeps me out. She is the most talkative and always seems to be trying to pop up in my conversations with my co-workers, which is weird. Overall, though, it’s not bad. I spent most of today drawing up different makeup looks I want to try once I get my new stuff in the mail. I was absolutely ready, though, when the day ended. This week has just felt really long and I have felt like I haven’t gotten enough sleep at all, so I intend to use this weekend to catch up on that a bit. When I got off work, though, I came home and immediately changed clothes and did new hair and makeup to get ready for my dinner plans with April and Devin. They picked me up shortly after 8pm and we headed downtown to this amazing little Mexican restaurant my Mom and I found a couple of weeks ago, called Cinco De Mayo Restaurant. The name is a little on the nose, the service isn’t the best in the world but the food is delicious and I love the décor in that place. It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed catching up with April and Devin. It has been a really long time since I have hung out with them for an extended period and I can’t even remember the last time it was just the three of us. It was a lot of fun and we got to catch up on a LOT of stuff that we had missed out on in each other’s lives. I really enjoyed it. After dinner we all headed over to a Starbuck’s in town and sat on their patio drinking coffee and talking about anything and everything. It felt really good to actually be out of the house and seeing my friends again. As much as it’s been a really long time since I have hung out with April and Devin, I think it has been just as long since I have actually gone out for an extended period and really gotten the chance to connect with anybody aside from my Mom. It was the best possible thing for me right now to just be reminded that I do actually have really good friends that I can talk to. It was a really great night. April also happened to bring a few treats for me after reading the blog and seeing some of my Facebook postings talking about my makeup obsession. She brought me a couple of really good Clinique moisturizers and a sample of the concealer that she uses, since she knew I have been looking for something to cover up the dark circles under my eyes. The best thing, though, is that she brought me a NYX Jumbo Eye Shadow Pencil in Milk, just like what I had just ordered this morning, which I was really excited about because it meant that I didn’t have to wait to experiment with at least one of the things I ordered. As soon as I got home I played around with these things and am absolutely in love with the Jumbo Eye Shadow Pencil. All those reviews and stuff were absolutely correct, that thing is amazing! I experimented with it quite a bit on my hand, pairing it with different types of eyeshadow and stuff and seeing what it works well with and how well it goes on, (which is extremely smooth!) I also tried out the concealer, which made a world of difference under my eyes. I put some of that under my eyes and then used the Jumbo Eye Shadow Pencil to add a little bit of highlight to my cheekbones, forehead and nose and I looked at myself in the mirror and really thought to myself, “Wow, I look GOOD.” Silly, I know, but it really put a smile on my face!
Anyway, as I said, today was a really good day. It’s days like today that are perfect examples of why I can honestly say that I love my life, no matter how much I may get frustrated with certain parts of it. There are always moments that will pop up and remind me that life is beautiful and is really the greatest gift we can ever be given. I know it may sound cheesy or cliché but I am completely genuine in saying that. I am extremely grateful to the Universe for blessing me with the life that I lead and all of the different people in it who have helped me in so many different ways. I know that it is only going to get better from here. I know that someday in the not-too-distant future that person who is feeling alone, that person who can’t seem to make a connection and that person who feels like I have been feeling so much lately will all stand up and take notice and will have found that something they have been looking for to make them feel better about life and about the world that they live in. I will give them that something that they have been looking for and it will be my privilege to do so. I cannot wait to share everything I have with the world. I can’t wait to share my story with them. I can’t wait to find that witness to my life.
Friday, April 2
Chapter 147: Like It Or Not
Let me just begin by saying that I am going to make this a short blog tonight. I am doing this for a few different reasons, the main one being that I am really tired and don’t really have a ton to say. Another reason, though, is because I have managed to put off even beginning this blog until 11:37pm. Why have I done that? I really don’t have an answer for that, except that I am really tired and don’t really have a ton to say, as I mentioned previously. I feel like I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately. I figured I would use this time, though, to discuss a few things that really bother me in life. As you must know from reading this blog so far, I try really hard to be a very positive person and avoid putting lot of negative energy out into the Universe but every now and then you just kind of need to vent. After all, the best way to let go of the negative energy you have is to express it. Once it has been expressed, it is considerably easier to let go of. I honestly believe that if more people found some sort of creative outlet for their frustrations in life they would have a much easier go of performing the simple act of living and would find that they have much less conflict in their lives. I can only speak from my own personal experience but I have found that writing lyrics, or blogs like this, or even drawing have all been immensely helpful in allowing me to let go of some of the less-than-positive emotions I have felt in my life. It is really a more powerful thing than I could even begin to express in words. However, sometimes there are things that you see throughout the day that just kind of get on your nerves and sometimes you just need to mention them.
First of all, one thing that really bothers me in life is watching people treat one another badly without any genuine cause beyond their own egos. I have been watching Anderson Cooper 360 more than usual this week because I have been recording his special investigation on the Church of Scientology and it’s history of violence, (which is riveting, by the way,) but he has also had a recurring discussion all this week about bullying in schools. There have been shocking numbers of teen suicides in recent years brought on by being bullied in school. These are kids as young as 11 years old being constantly tormented in school to the point that they no longer feel like life is worth living. I can’t even imagine feeling so tormented at only 11 years old that I would want to end my own life. I wasn’t bullied in school at all, not to say I wasn’t made fun of or anything but I was always fairly popular. I can’t say I understand what the experience is life for these kids but I certainly know that this type of thing needs to be stopped immediately. It’s not just bullying, though, and it’s not just school kids, either. Just today, in fact, I watched two different incidents of people treating each other badly without any real cause. One of my co-workers today asked a guy from another department a very simple, non-invasive question that I can’t even remember at this point and I watched him flip out and try to sit there and berate her for it. She didn’t take it, of course, and snapped back at him hard enough to get him to crawl into his cubicle in silence. Both parties were left looking pretty angry and seemed to be shaken by the whole experience, at least for a little while. There was no need for any of that. The guy could have simply told my co-worker that he didn’t want to talk about it and been done with the whole situation but for one reason or another this question she asked struck a nerve with him and he decided to pop off and make an ass out of himself and put a damper on somebody else’s day. It all just seemed so unnecessary. As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, we got some new neighbors at work, as well, and today was their first full day sitting by us. There is one girl in this group who is very pretty and has some very interesting looking artwork hanging in her cubicle. She is very thin, young and pretty. A couple of my co-workers saw her and immediately began saying all kinds of terrible things about her to each other and stuff. This girl didn’t seem to notice, although I think she may have noticed and chosen to ignore it. I just couldn’t help but feel like this was some sort of ego-driven thing. The people that were talking about this girl are very pretty girls themselves and it almost seemed like they wanted to be the only pretty girls around. That kind of attitude pisses me off. This actually plays into the bullying in school that I was talking about earlier. It is pretty startling the way that the act of bullying has changed over the years. As I watched Anderson Cooper, I was kind of discussing the topic with my Mom and how teenagers now are different from the ones back when she was a teenager. One of the ideas that we talked about was the fact that back in those days the majority of bullying was pretty outright and your typical bullies were boys. It is very different now – bullying in the new millennium is much more common amongst females. One of my all-time favorite films, “Mean Girls,” really captures this in a very powerful way. I know that you’re thinking, “Mean Girls did nothing powerful,” but you are absolutely incorrect. I have always said that every decade has a film that really becomes a cultural phenomenon and changes the face of teen culture in that period, like the John Hughes films or “Fast Times At Ridgemont High,” in the 80s or “Clueless” in the 90s, and “Mean Girls” was that film for the new millennium. It really captured the way that teenage girls treat each other in day-to-day life, how everything has to be a hierarchy and every girl is trying to be the “Queen Bee.” The thing I have realized, though, is that this type of behavior doesn’t stop with teenage girls. Full-grown, adult women do exactly the same things. It is terrible. I have often said that the reason we feel like so much of our adult lives are “just like high school” is because I believe that when the education system was developed it was separated the way that it is for that very reason – high school is the period where people are developing into the people they will be for the rest of their lives and, as such, the rest of your life will reflect the way that things were when you were in high school. Of course it will not be entirely true of every person but I believe we will always have that feeling that things are “just like high school” because life itself is just like high school, but with much higher stakes.
Another thing that bothers me are people who can’t be comfortable with who they are. There is this guy at my work who always seems to be working extremely hard to look and act like something he is not. He has shown me glimpses of who he really is but for the most part he seems to be putting a LOT of effort into trying to be the complete opposite of what he really is. This guy always seems to be extremely moody and is always having some sort of conflicts with other people, many of which are very clearly because somebody has tried to call him out on his façade. It’s just sad to me because I have dealt with this guy quite a bit and I know that he is capable of being a really cool, likeable person but because he can’t come to terms with himself and has all these crazy mood swings and rapid personality changes people find him strange and are creeped out by him. This bothers me in a sad way more than in an angry way, although it can certainly be irritating at times. It makes me feel really bad for the guy because he always seems so unhappy with his life but for some reason he just can’t come to terms with his true self. I know that as soon as he does he will be immensely happier and it makes me sad that he shows very little sign of making a change for himself. I hate that. I hate seeing people who are not willing, or not able, to make the changes that they so clearly NEED to survive. It is just an extremely sad. I hope he finds what he needs to come to terms with himself soon – it will be the best thing that has ever happened to him. I know this from personal experience. I mean, I’m gay and everybody knows it, but that isn’t something that I have ever really struggled with. I was very fortunate throughout the whole process of coming out and such. I was blessed with the best possible support system and had plenty of time beforehand to figure things out for myself before having to face anybody else’s reactions to it. This, of course, does not mean that I haven’t struggled with my identity over the years. Sexuality aside, I have gone through many different incarnations and it took me a really long time to figure out how to just be comfortable and happy with myself for the person that I am. Now that I can honestly say that I am comfortable and happy with myself, though, I can also honestly say that it is the best thing that could possibly have happened to me. I truly wish that sort of happiness for every single person in this world – it is something that every single person is capable of and, even more, something that every single person deserves. It makes an immense difference in your life and relieves such a massive amount of the weight we all carry on our shoulders every day. Like I said, I truly wish that feeling for every single person in this world.
Aside from those things, though, it was a pretty good day. It is now 12:34am and I am exhausted. I didn’t workout this morning, which sucks. What sucks even more, though, is the fact that not working out for the past two days has been my own decision – I was the one to say it and everything. I’m not sure if we are going to workout tomorrow or not. Since the week is already pretty much shot, my Mom and I said that we would just make a snap decision in the morning. One thing I know I am going to do in the morning, once my direct deposit has been completed, is go online and order a few things from NYX Cosmetics. The main thing I am picking up is my newest obsession – the NYX S104 “Every Color Imaginable” eyeshadow palette. I have been obsessively watching tutorials and reviews about it on YouTube and have completely fallen in love with the thing. I have spent the past week or so dreaming up all kinds of really cool things to do with it. I am also planning to order a couple of the NYX Jumbo Eye pencils and maybe one of their concealer pots in orange, which is supposed to be the best color to use to cover dark circles under the eyes. I have a really bad problem with dark circles and have been trying to figure out a few different ways to try to alleviate them. I think this one is worth a shot, as well. Anyway, it is 12:38am now and I REALLY need to get some sleep. I really feel like I haven’t been getting anywhere near enough sleep lately and I am exhausted right now, so hopefully I won’t have any trouble falling asleep tonight. Until tomorrow… goodnight.
First of all, one thing that really bothers me in life is watching people treat one another badly without any genuine cause beyond their own egos. I have been watching Anderson Cooper 360 more than usual this week because I have been recording his special investigation on the Church of Scientology and it’s history of violence, (which is riveting, by the way,) but he has also had a recurring discussion all this week about bullying in schools. There have been shocking numbers of teen suicides in recent years brought on by being bullied in school. These are kids as young as 11 years old being constantly tormented in school to the point that they no longer feel like life is worth living. I can’t even imagine feeling so tormented at only 11 years old that I would want to end my own life. I wasn’t bullied in school at all, not to say I wasn’t made fun of or anything but I was always fairly popular. I can’t say I understand what the experience is life for these kids but I certainly know that this type of thing needs to be stopped immediately. It’s not just bullying, though, and it’s not just school kids, either. Just today, in fact, I watched two different incidents of people treating each other badly without any real cause. One of my co-workers today asked a guy from another department a very simple, non-invasive question that I can’t even remember at this point and I watched him flip out and try to sit there and berate her for it. She didn’t take it, of course, and snapped back at him hard enough to get him to crawl into his cubicle in silence. Both parties were left looking pretty angry and seemed to be shaken by the whole experience, at least for a little while. There was no need for any of that. The guy could have simply told my co-worker that he didn’t want to talk about it and been done with the whole situation but for one reason or another this question she asked struck a nerve with him and he decided to pop off and make an ass out of himself and put a damper on somebody else’s day. It all just seemed so unnecessary. As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, we got some new neighbors at work, as well, and today was their first full day sitting by us. There is one girl in this group who is very pretty and has some very interesting looking artwork hanging in her cubicle. She is very thin, young and pretty. A couple of my co-workers saw her and immediately began saying all kinds of terrible things about her to each other and stuff. This girl didn’t seem to notice, although I think she may have noticed and chosen to ignore it. I just couldn’t help but feel like this was some sort of ego-driven thing. The people that were talking about this girl are very pretty girls themselves and it almost seemed like they wanted to be the only pretty girls around. That kind of attitude pisses me off. This actually plays into the bullying in school that I was talking about earlier. It is pretty startling the way that the act of bullying has changed over the years. As I watched Anderson Cooper, I was kind of discussing the topic with my Mom and how teenagers now are different from the ones back when she was a teenager. One of the ideas that we talked about was the fact that back in those days the majority of bullying was pretty outright and your typical bullies were boys. It is very different now – bullying in the new millennium is much more common amongst females. One of my all-time favorite films, “Mean Girls,” really captures this in a very powerful way. I know that you’re thinking, “Mean Girls did nothing powerful,” but you are absolutely incorrect. I have always said that every decade has a film that really becomes a cultural phenomenon and changes the face of teen culture in that period, like the John Hughes films or “Fast Times At Ridgemont High,” in the 80s or “Clueless” in the 90s, and “Mean Girls” was that film for the new millennium. It really captured the way that teenage girls treat each other in day-to-day life, how everything has to be a hierarchy and every girl is trying to be the “Queen Bee.” The thing I have realized, though, is that this type of behavior doesn’t stop with teenage girls. Full-grown, adult women do exactly the same things. It is terrible. I have often said that the reason we feel like so much of our adult lives are “just like high school” is because I believe that when the education system was developed it was separated the way that it is for that very reason – high school is the period where people are developing into the people they will be for the rest of their lives and, as such, the rest of your life will reflect the way that things were when you were in high school. Of course it will not be entirely true of every person but I believe we will always have that feeling that things are “just like high school” because life itself is just like high school, but with much higher stakes.
Another thing that bothers me are people who can’t be comfortable with who they are. There is this guy at my work who always seems to be working extremely hard to look and act like something he is not. He has shown me glimpses of who he really is but for the most part he seems to be putting a LOT of effort into trying to be the complete opposite of what he really is. This guy always seems to be extremely moody and is always having some sort of conflicts with other people, many of which are very clearly because somebody has tried to call him out on his façade. It’s just sad to me because I have dealt with this guy quite a bit and I know that he is capable of being a really cool, likeable person but because he can’t come to terms with himself and has all these crazy mood swings and rapid personality changes people find him strange and are creeped out by him. This bothers me in a sad way more than in an angry way, although it can certainly be irritating at times. It makes me feel really bad for the guy because he always seems so unhappy with his life but for some reason he just can’t come to terms with his true self. I know that as soon as he does he will be immensely happier and it makes me sad that he shows very little sign of making a change for himself. I hate that. I hate seeing people who are not willing, or not able, to make the changes that they so clearly NEED to survive. It is just an extremely sad. I hope he finds what he needs to come to terms with himself soon – it will be the best thing that has ever happened to him. I know this from personal experience. I mean, I’m gay and everybody knows it, but that isn’t something that I have ever really struggled with. I was very fortunate throughout the whole process of coming out and such. I was blessed with the best possible support system and had plenty of time beforehand to figure things out for myself before having to face anybody else’s reactions to it. This, of course, does not mean that I haven’t struggled with my identity over the years. Sexuality aside, I have gone through many different incarnations and it took me a really long time to figure out how to just be comfortable and happy with myself for the person that I am. Now that I can honestly say that I am comfortable and happy with myself, though, I can also honestly say that it is the best thing that could possibly have happened to me. I truly wish that sort of happiness for every single person in this world – it is something that every single person is capable of and, even more, something that every single person deserves. It makes an immense difference in your life and relieves such a massive amount of the weight we all carry on our shoulders every day. Like I said, I truly wish that feeling for every single person in this world.
Aside from those things, though, it was a pretty good day. It is now 12:34am and I am exhausted. I didn’t workout this morning, which sucks. What sucks even more, though, is the fact that not working out for the past two days has been my own decision – I was the one to say it and everything. I’m not sure if we are going to workout tomorrow or not. Since the week is already pretty much shot, my Mom and I said that we would just make a snap decision in the morning. One thing I know I am going to do in the morning, once my direct deposit has been completed, is go online and order a few things from NYX Cosmetics. The main thing I am picking up is my newest obsession – the NYX S104 “Every Color Imaginable” eyeshadow palette. I have been obsessively watching tutorials and reviews about it on YouTube and have completely fallen in love with the thing. I have spent the past week or so dreaming up all kinds of really cool things to do with it. I am also planning to order a couple of the NYX Jumbo Eye pencils and maybe one of their concealer pots in orange, which is supposed to be the best color to use to cover dark circles under the eyes. I have a really bad problem with dark circles and have been trying to figure out a few different ways to try to alleviate them. I think this one is worth a shot, as well. Anyway, it is 12:38am now and I REALLY need to get some sleep. I really feel like I haven’t been getting anywhere near enough sleep lately and I am exhausted right now, so hopefully I won’t have any trouble falling asleep tonight. Until tomorrow… goodnight.
Thursday, April 1
Chapter 146: Fools Like Me
I have been making it a point lately not to start my blogs by saying, “Today was a boring day.” However, today WAS a boring day. I woke up and didn’t work out because I was in a bit of a panic – I was still a hot mess at the piece I was supposed to be playing at my piano lesson this evening! My Mom went to the gym at our apartment complex instead and I stayed here practicing the piece. The little bit of practice I was able to get before work was really not much help at all and I was feeling the opposite of confident about the piece when I left the house this morning. I did dress myself up really nice to make up for it, though. I figured since I would be sitting outside for an hour after my lesson and the weather is still slightly chilly right now I should wear something with long-sleeves, so I threw on one of my biggest fashion essentials, the plain white Calvin Klein tee, with a black Marc Ecko cardigan with pink, red and gray designs over it and felt like I looked really cute. I did a nice pink and purple theme with eye makeup and was feeling pretty confident about my look. Of course, that didn’t help at all with the fact that I didn’t practice the piece for my piano lesson and was going to walk in looking a fool… at the very least, I would be a cute fool!
Work was the most boring part of the day. There was a little excitement in the first couple of hours that I was there because I missed a call from a Tampa area code and I figured it was Viktor, my piano instructor. When I went on break, I called him and he was very sweet and rescheduled my lesson for this week to Monday of next week. Then I will go back on Wednesday for next week’s lesson and go back to business as usual. This was a major relief to me because not only did that mean I wouldn’t have to arrange a cab ride to get there and spend the money for that, but it also meant that I now have four extra days to actually practice the piece and hopefully be able to go in on Monday looking slightly more competent than I would have today. My department also got pulled off the production floor for a special meeting today encouraging us to set a good example for our new neighbors, a brand new account full of people fresh off the street and since we are all so tenured, (I am the newest hire on my account, and I’ve been there over a year now,) we should be setting a good example for them. Essentially, we were being told to behave and keep our conversations work-safe, which is not very likely considering the group of people I work with. It’s just funny that they put my department next to the new people because we are so well known for being completely inappropriate and filled with drama. It should be interesting, anyway. I met a couple of the people who are our new neighbors today and they seem… interesting. The supervisor for their account, though, is very good-looking, which is always nice. I always appreciate having something nice to look at in the workplace.
I also confirmed plans with my friends April and Devin to go out to dinner on Friday night, which I am pretty excited about. It’s been a long time since I have seen April and Devin, and even longer since I have actually gotten to sit down and talk with them for a decent amount of time. I am really glad to be doing this. It all kind of came about after April reached out to me in the comments of one of my blogs over the weekend, where I was being completely pathetic and going on about how alone I feel. Those blogs actually wound up doing a bit more than I expected, actually. First of all, like I said, April reached out to me after reading, which really meant a lot to me. April and I have always gotten along really well and have a different kind of connection than I do with most people. I don’t know how to explain that, really, but April and I have a lot in common on a deeper level than just shared interests or anything like that. I like to think I have things in common on a deeper level with all of my friends right now and that is a big part of why I feel so strongly about trying to hang on to the people in my life right now. I went through a period where I kind of felt like April didn’t want me around or something and I developed a bit of a complex about it, which is another reason why it meant so much that she reached out to me. I’m really excited about hanging out with her and Devin. It’s really been far too long. Just a little while ago this evening, I received a text from Whitney referencing those blogs, as well. I honestly wasn’t sure she’d ever wind up reading them but somehow I had this feeling that she would. As it turns out, she did. They made her sad. I told her that I was sorry but that I was just saying how I felt so I really shouldn’t apologize. I also said that I missed talking to her and just generally having her around. I didn’t get a response, which sucks but isn’t overly surprising. I mean, I could see her being upset about me writing those blogs and I can understand why she would be but I am writing this blog to express how I am feeling in my life over the course of a year and that was something that I have been feeling a lot lately. Even though I was only being honest with my feelings, I surely could have been more discreet about it. I don’t know how to feel about the whole thing. I still feel really alone, though, and I am not going to be surprised if expressing that in this blog doesn’t leave me feeling even more alone than I did before. This whole thing sucks, basically. I hate it. I am reminded of a song by Lisa Loeb, called “Try,” which says, “Your girlfriend never smiles and no one ever calls, You begin to wonder if they were your friends at all, You frown, You take a look around, You shout, ‘This will never get better,’ but the doubt that you grow when you feel desprouted is turning your fields into a deeper valley, You’d find that the mountains aren’t so high if you’d only try.” This is just such foreign territory to me that I have no idea how to try. All I know is that I just feel really alone and now I feel like I’ve probably pissed off the person that I am really trying to mend my relationship with. I hate it.
I’ve talked a bit lately about how I want to find a boyfriend or some sort of companion but the more I think about it the more I feel like that would probably be a really bad idea. In a lot of ways I feel like that would be trying to replace my broken relationships with my friends by finding somebody to have an even more intimate and likely even more fucked up relationship with. I don’t know if that’s really true. I don’t think I would be trying to replace my friends and I don’t necessarily think that a romantic relationship would be fucked up or any more intimate than my relationships with my friends. I’m just feeling cynical tonight. If I am being completely honest, which I swore I would be in this blog, as confident as I feel in my life in general I don’t feel entirely confident in dealing with potential romantic partners. It’s like I can love myself all day every day until an attractive boy comes around and suddenly I feel like a fat, unattractive, useless lump. That’s not entirely true. It’s not that I feel fat, unattractive or useless… I just feel less than good enough, which is terrible in comparison to how I normally feel – better than the best. I don’t know how to articulate what I am trying to say here except to say that I definitely feel like I am a long way off on my quest for a decent relationship and it is probably better that way. In his song “Don’t Wanna Be Alone,” Simon Curtis says, “love is a game only played by the dumbest of fools.” At the same time, though, in her song “Fools Like Me,” Lisa Loeb says, “love was surely made for fools like me.” As much as I have always thought of myself as a person who lives by the Simon Curtis quote I have come to realize more and more that I live my life much more by the Lisa Loeb one. I understand that it’s all a big mess and nothing is ever going to last but I can’t imagine ever COMPLETELY giving up on it. Even for the past few years that I have been saying that I had, I never COMPLETELY gave up on it. I doubt if I ever will.
For the time being, though, it is 12:32am and I should really get to bed. Tomorrow is a brand new month and my Mom and I are both determined to get up in the morning and workout. We are talking about possibly going to the gym at the apartment complex instead of doing the DVD thing tomorrow, which I think could be a really good way to switch things up. It concerns me because it would be a bit more time consuming than the DVD is, for me, but at the same time I could definitely stand to take things up a notch and could probably cut down on my prep time in the morning to make it work. I just think it could be a really good way to switch up the workout, which I am beginning to feel like is necessary. If we are going to start that tomorrow, though, I should really get my rest tonight. I downloaded a new record from Lisa Loeb that came out two years ago but I just found out about last night, called “Camp Lisa,” which is a children’s record filled with old campfire songs. I love the concept and I have been a fan of Lisa’s for years and years, so I am pretty excited to listen to this. Concept albums are always a tough sell but I think this one may very well work. I’m not sure what it is exactly but I have really been listening to her a lot lately. I am feeling very connected to her music lately and it has been helping me get a little more centered than I have been managing to do for myself lately, so I really appreciate that. I don't know, maybe things are looking up - I finally got a response from Whitney saying that we need to talk tomorrow. I'm very glad to hear that. Anyway, for now, I’d better get to bed. Goodnight.
Work was the most boring part of the day. There was a little excitement in the first couple of hours that I was there because I missed a call from a Tampa area code and I figured it was Viktor, my piano instructor. When I went on break, I called him and he was very sweet and rescheduled my lesson for this week to Monday of next week. Then I will go back on Wednesday for next week’s lesson and go back to business as usual. This was a major relief to me because not only did that mean I wouldn’t have to arrange a cab ride to get there and spend the money for that, but it also meant that I now have four extra days to actually practice the piece and hopefully be able to go in on Monday looking slightly more competent than I would have today. My department also got pulled off the production floor for a special meeting today encouraging us to set a good example for our new neighbors, a brand new account full of people fresh off the street and since we are all so tenured, (I am the newest hire on my account, and I’ve been there over a year now,) we should be setting a good example for them. Essentially, we were being told to behave and keep our conversations work-safe, which is not very likely considering the group of people I work with. It’s just funny that they put my department next to the new people because we are so well known for being completely inappropriate and filled with drama. It should be interesting, anyway. I met a couple of the people who are our new neighbors today and they seem… interesting. The supervisor for their account, though, is very good-looking, which is always nice. I always appreciate having something nice to look at in the workplace.
I also confirmed plans with my friends April and Devin to go out to dinner on Friday night, which I am pretty excited about. It’s been a long time since I have seen April and Devin, and even longer since I have actually gotten to sit down and talk with them for a decent amount of time. I am really glad to be doing this. It all kind of came about after April reached out to me in the comments of one of my blogs over the weekend, where I was being completely pathetic and going on about how alone I feel. Those blogs actually wound up doing a bit more than I expected, actually. First of all, like I said, April reached out to me after reading, which really meant a lot to me. April and I have always gotten along really well and have a different kind of connection than I do with most people. I don’t know how to explain that, really, but April and I have a lot in common on a deeper level than just shared interests or anything like that. I like to think I have things in common on a deeper level with all of my friends right now and that is a big part of why I feel so strongly about trying to hang on to the people in my life right now. I went through a period where I kind of felt like April didn’t want me around or something and I developed a bit of a complex about it, which is another reason why it meant so much that she reached out to me. I’m really excited about hanging out with her and Devin. It’s really been far too long. Just a little while ago this evening, I received a text from Whitney referencing those blogs, as well. I honestly wasn’t sure she’d ever wind up reading them but somehow I had this feeling that she would. As it turns out, she did. They made her sad. I told her that I was sorry but that I was just saying how I felt so I really shouldn’t apologize. I also said that I missed talking to her and just generally having her around. I didn’t get a response, which sucks but isn’t overly surprising. I mean, I could see her being upset about me writing those blogs and I can understand why she would be but I am writing this blog to express how I am feeling in my life over the course of a year and that was something that I have been feeling a lot lately. Even though I was only being honest with my feelings, I surely could have been more discreet about it. I don’t know how to feel about the whole thing. I still feel really alone, though, and I am not going to be surprised if expressing that in this blog doesn’t leave me feeling even more alone than I did before. This whole thing sucks, basically. I hate it. I am reminded of a song by Lisa Loeb, called “Try,” which says, “Your girlfriend never smiles and no one ever calls, You begin to wonder if they were your friends at all, You frown, You take a look around, You shout, ‘This will never get better,’ but the doubt that you grow when you feel desprouted is turning your fields into a deeper valley, You’d find that the mountains aren’t so high if you’d only try.” This is just such foreign territory to me that I have no idea how to try. All I know is that I just feel really alone and now I feel like I’ve probably pissed off the person that I am really trying to mend my relationship with. I hate it.
I’ve talked a bit lately about how I want to find a boyfriend or some sort of companion but the more I think about it the more I feel like that would probably be a really bad idea. In a lot of ways I feel like that would be trying to replace my broken relationships with my friends by finding somebody to have an even more intimate and likely even more fucked up relationship with. I don’t know if that’s really true. I don’t think I would be trying to replace my friends and I don’t necessarily think that a romantic relationship would be fucked up or any more intimate than my relationships with my friends. I’m just feeling cynical tonight. If I am being completely honest, which I swore I would be in this blog, as confident as I feel in my life in general I don’t feel entirely confident in dealing with potential romantic partners. It’s like I can love myself all day every day until an attractive boy comes around and suddenly I feel like a fat, unattractive, useless lump. That’s not entirely true. It’s not that I feel fat, unattractive or useless… I just feel less than good enough, which is terrible in comparison to how I normally feel – better than the best. I don’t know how to articulate what I am trying to say here except to say that I definitely feel like I am a long way off on my quest for a decent relationship and it is probably better that way. In his song “Don’t Wanna Be Alone,” Simon Curtis says, “love is a game only played by the dumbest of fools.” At the same time, though, in her song “Fools Like Me,” Lisa Loeb says, “love was surely made for fools like me.” As much as I have always thought of myself as a person who lives by the Simon Curtis quote I have come to realize more and more that I live my life much more by the Lisa Loeb one. I understand that it’s all a big mess and nothing is ever going to last but I can’t imagine ever COMPLETELY giving up on it. Even for the past few years that I have been saying that I had, I never COMPLETELY gave up on it. I doubt if I ever will.
For the time being, though, it is 12:32am and I should really get to bed. Tomorrow is a brand new month and my Mom and I are both determined to get up in the morning and workout. We are talking about possibly going to the gym at the apartment complex instead of doing the DVD thing tomorrow, which I think could be a really good way to switch things up. It concerns me because it would be a bit more time consuming than the DVD is, for me, but at the same time I could definitely stand to take things up a notch and could probably cut down on my prep time in the morning to make it work. I just think it could be a really good way to switch up the workout, which I am beginning to feel like is necessary. If we are going to start that tomorrow, though, I should really get my rest tonight. I downloaded a new record from Lisa Loeb that came out two years ago but I just found out about last night, called “Camp Lisa,” which is a children’s record filled with old campfire songs. I love the concept and I have been a fan of Lisa’s for years and years, so I am pretty excited to listen to this. Concept albums are always a tough sell but I think this one may very well work. I’m not sure what it is exactly but I have really been listening to her a lot lately. I am feeling very connected to her music lately and it has been helping me get a little more centered than I have been managing to do for myself lately, so I really appreciate that. I don't know, maybe things are looking up - I finally got a response from Whitney saying that we need to talk tomorrow. I'm very glad to hear that. Anyway, for now, I’d better get to bed. Goodnight.
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