Chapter 326: Stronger

Okay, let me start off tonight's blog by letting you all know exactly how fucking out of it I am this evening - last night I had a LOT of trouble falling asleep. When I say that I had a LOT of trouble falling asleep, I mean that I got into bed around 12am but couldn't actually fall asleep until somewhere around 2:45-3am. So, this morning when I woke up at 5:45am I wasn't in the best of moods. Actually, I was in a pretty decent mood I was just exhausted. When it was nearing 2:30am or so I knew what to expect. I still went ahead and muscled through the morning and went through all of my regular morning routines, including skin care, brushing my teeth, shaving, breakfast, coffee, etc. Then I went on to begin a little project I have decided to toy around with for this week. In honor of "Glee" doing their big Britney Spears tribute episode this week, I am doing a bit of a Britney Spears tribute of my own. I have decided that every day this week I will be recreating one of Britney's classic, iconic makeup looks. I started off today with a look that I fell in love with years ago, in 2000, when I first saw it - the blue/silver smoky eye from the video for the single, "Stronger," from her second album, "Oops!... I Did It Again." The look is gorgeous and I think I pulled it off really well. I loved the look of it - it was kind of big, dark and dramatic for a day-to-day, going to work look but in recreating looks from music videos it is kind of bound to happen that way. Still, as I said, I really loved the look. I particularly enjoyed the fact that it was such a dramatic eye look and the rest of the face and lips were really nude and understated. It was a really great look and I was very pleased with it.

Let me also begin by saying that I understand that I have been really weird about the blog recently because I have been exerting the majority of my thought and energy to this whole big thing that I am not talking about here in the blog. I don't know how to explain the whole situation and I don't feel at all like it would be appropriate for me to discuss here, yada yada yada. So, I have come to a decision about this thing - I am no longer going to sit around and obsess over it. I am going to focus on going through my day and living my life in a way that makes for a great ending to this blog and a great time in my life. That is what is important right now. This other situation will either progress to a point where it can be reevaluated and discussed here or it will resolve itself and get to a point where it is no longer such an issue in my head. I know that some people may have heard all this before, (namely, Rachel,) but I'm pretty sure that I actually mean it this time and am pretty determined to stick to it.

In fact, this makes me think that this Britney Spears themed week could not have come at a better time. You see, for all of the crazy that the world has gotten to watch play out in her life, one thing I can say for Britney Spears is that, to me, she has always exemplified a certain image of strength. In her early career, back when "...Baby One More Time" was released, she was always such a fearless performer - from her controversial Rolling Stone cover in a bra and clutching a Tinky Winky doll to her complete lack of shame for the fact that she created full-blown bubblegum pop music in the midst of a world full of nothing but rap, hip-hop and rock music. She has faced harsher criticism throughout the entirety of her career from critics and fans alike and she has managed to make it out the other side still standing, although definitely a little worse for wear. Today's makeup look was from a song off of the album "Oops!... I Did It Again," and I have kind of made that my album for the day. I listened to the album while doing my makeup this morning, on the way to work today and am listening to it as I write this blog. I didn't really see the significance of this album for the day until right now - this, to me, seems like Britney's total "strength" record. The majority of the tracks on this record, including "Oops!... I Did It Again," "Stronger," "Don't Go Knockin' On My Door," "Satisfaction," "What U See (Is What U Get,)" "Can't Make You Love Me," and even "One Kiss From You," and "Don't Let Me Be The Last To Know" all, in their own ways, exemplify the type of strength I am trying to summon in my own life at this point. These are all youthful, carefree, fun pop songs but they all express a certain type of "take me or leave me" attitude, a (sometimes) quiet confidence and a real strong sense of self-awareness. That is exactly what I need to be channeling at this point in time. So, without actually realizing it, I managed to pick out exactly the record that I needed to hear today. I love the way the Universe works out little things like that for you.

So, work was pretty fun today. I basically just spent the entire day bullshitting around with my friend who sits next to me, talking a lot of shit and debating about music and political issues and such. It's pretty cool because they actually managed to seat me next to somebody who likes a lot of the same things I do but also has very different political views and general views on life than I do, so we actually manage to sit and have things to talk about all day long, which makes the days go by pretty well. Of course, there wasn't a thing in the world that was going to make today pass quickly. I was exhausted. In spite of my positive attitude about the lack of sleep before work, by the time I actually got to work I was feeling pretty out of it. Unfortunately, that feeling pretty much stuck around all day. I was really having a lot of trouble functioning today, although I managed not to screw anything up or make any real mistakes. Still, I felt like crap because I was so exhausted. I spent all day just waiting for the end. When the day finally did end I came home and fought with myself not to fall asleep. My Mom and I discussed it and were both too tired to actually cook this evening, so we decided to just get pizza. I spent the rest of the evening sitting in front of the TV watching "Desperate Housewives" and fighting with myself not to sleep some more. It is time for this fight to end now, though. Goodnight.