Chapter 353: Jealousy

My computer is acting like a real asshole this evening. I am not entirely sure what is wrong with it but I can't seem to get it to function well enough to allow me to write this blog on it... So, I am working from my phone instead this evening. For this reason, and a few others, I am going to keep it short this evening. Another reason to keep it short tonight is the fact that I don't honestly have a whole lot to say tonight. It's been a pretty uneventful day, honestly. The bulk of today was spent cleaning up around the house and watching reruns on TV. Let me just say about the reruns, though, that there are a couple of TV shows that are amongst my very favorites of all-time that I didn't actually realize were in syndication at this point - namely "Ugly Betty," which apparently plays regularly on The TV Guide Network of all places, and "Daria," which has apparently started playing on Logo. I absolutely loved "Daria" growing up and found myself a little more excited than I probably should have been to find a mini-marathon of it on today. It was such a good show, though, and I had way too much fun sitting there watching it for a couple of hours this afternoon. The house is looking much better than it did this morning, too, which is a very positive move forward in preparing for my party. I also spent a little chunk of time this evening making ringtones for my Mom's new phone, (Kelly Clarkson songs,) and then some new ones for my phone, (from the new Cheryl Cole album.) While I was on the computer doing that, I also used that time to set up the first of my two new blogs, which will be starting shortly after this one ends. The one that I set up this evening was the one that will serve as my "personal" blog after this one ends. I finally came up with a title for that blog - Messy Little Raindrops. Clearly, the name came from the new Cheryl Cole album, as that is also the title of the album, but when I thought about it I figured that this would be the most appropriate name possible for the new blog because, as the "About Me" section of the blog says, I am trying to figure out how to navigate life, love & all the messy little raindrops that come along with them. This, I think, is really what the focus of the new blog will be, so it just seemed like the perfect title. I created the general layout of the blog and everything this afternoon but I definitely feel like it could use a few little tweaks here & there before it goes live. Still, I am suddenly feeling really excited for that blog to begin. I kind of want to do more of a Carrie Bradshaw style with that blog, as opposed to the haphazard style that I have spent the past year writing this blog in. I really want that blog to be a real behind the scenes look at somebody really, in a lot of ways, just learning to navigate the world as an adult for the first time. I also want to put much more of an emphasis on relationships in that blog and really examining what makes them work, what makes them fall apart and how to start them and when to end them and everything in between. I am excited for that blog to begin, as well as my new beauty blog, Beauty In The Mirror. I just really want to try writing these both in a very different style than I have written this one - I want them to have much more of a professional, editorial feel than this one ever has. We'll see how that pans out, though.

The other main thing I wanted to discuss in tonight's blog is the concept of jealousy. Jealousy, in general, is a completely useless, ego-based emotion that I simply don't have time for in my life. It is like Paris Hilton said in that song of hers, "Jealousy," "Nobody wins when you're filled with envy." It is so true. Still, as much as I recognize all of the things I mentioned above to be true, I am still human. Humans, by nature, are inherently weak-willed and not in control of their emotions. I am finding this to be more & more true lately when really examining my own emotional landscape. Jealousy, for all the worthlessness of it, has been one of the more prominent emotions I have been feeling lately in reference to several different situations in my life right now. I hate it but I have yet to figure out how to work through it and keep these feelings in check. I found some inspiration about this whole concept from the strangest place possible this evening. I decided to catch up on some episodes of Oprah that I had missed over the past couple of weeks and happened to watch one featuring the cast of the newest TLC trainwreck of a reality show, "Sister Wives." I had heard of this show and all the scandals surrounding it but, much like "Jon & Kate Plus 8" or that show with the family with 19 children, I really didn't have a lot of interest in ever seeing it. Still, it is an interesting concept. You see, "Sister Wives" follows a family of polygamists, featuring one man, four wives and sixteen children. I have always been intrigued by the concept of polyamorous relationships and have even thought a lot about what it would be like to be in one. It isn't something I ever plan on pursuing or anything but it is also not something that I would be opposed to taking part in should the right opportunit arise. This isn't about me, though. Oprah, in her special Oprah way, got these women, the four wives, to each open up a bit about how jealousy plays in to the relationship, since they are four women sharing one man. What was so interesting and really impressive is the fact that each of these women answered almost exactly the same way. They each acknowledged that they have moments where they feel envious of the other wives but stated that they always manage to work through those feelings. They even discussed the fact that they feel like better or stronger people because of the fact that they are able to work through those feelings so well. I'm not going to lie here, I found this part of the interview extremely inspiring and I kind of vowed to myself then and there that I would do my absolute best to try to do the same moving forward in my life. Like I said, in general, jealousy isn't something that I have a lot of trouble with or a lot of dealings with at all. It just seems that with a few recent events in my life I have found myself not only having moments of feeling jealousy but moments of being overcome with it. This is not a positive or healthy thing for me, or anyone, in life and I am beginning to see how strong it is in me right now & how much it needs to be stopped. So, this is something I will be working on moving forward. You could say that it is just another of my "messy little raindrops."

Anyway, it is 11:20pm and I really need to get to sleep. Tomorrow is back to work and, depending upon how I manage to work out my schedule, could prove to be a very easy or a very long week. I'm pretty sure that I have decided to go ahead and try to switch my schedule around so I am working on Friday. The main reason I decided on this was because if I work on Friday, I will be there to drum up last minute business for my party and be a point of contact to provide people with directions & contact info & such, as needed. So, I think I am going to try to sort that out. We'll see how that all works out, though. In the meantime, I need to get my beauty sleep. Goodnight.

Chapter 352: Raindrops

Okay, so let me go ahead and start right from the beginning of this day. I woke up at 8am this morning, which was really strange for me because I NEVER get up that early on the weekend. In spite of the fact that I was awake, though, I was nowhere near ready to get out of bed. So, I put on the new Taylor Swift record, “Speak Now,” and decided to give it a second listen, after going to bed listening to it last night. Where do I even begin to talk about this record? Well, I guess the best place to start would be to state that I had an extremely biased opinion on this record going into it because of the simple fact that I LOVE Taylor Swift. I am a huge fan of her previous two albums and I find her to be absolutely adorable and a wonderful role model for young people today. I love the fact that her music frequently seems to spread a positive message to the world, and even her love songs and such always seem to have a really positive slant on them in the end. So, like I said, I went into this record already expecting to fall in love with it and, I have to say, I was not disappointed. I am not going to do a full-blown track-by-track review here but there are a few key tracks that I really want to talk about. The first of these songs is the album’s opening track and first single, “Mine.” I heard “Mine” for the first time a couple of months ago and liked it, but I didn’t really pay it too much attention because I was kind of in a Katy Perry haze at the time. Listening to the song now and reading a few different interviews with Taylor discussing songs on the record, I have come to see it in a very different way than I did initially and have fallen in love with it. “Mine” is essentially a “Love Story” style song, chronicling a relationship going through ups and downs, with a chorus of “Do you remember we were sitting there by the water? You put your arm around me for the first time. You made a rebel of a careless man’s careful daughter. You are the best thing that’s ever been mine.” This song tells a much more mature story than any of her previous work has told, even going into discussing a marriage that seems to be breaking down but winds up working out in the end by remembering the things that brought them together in the first place. It is a really good song, either way, but I became much more drawn in to the whole concept of the song after reading a recent interview in which Taylor talks about the fact that she wrote this song about one of those moments where you meet someone or when you are just starting to get involved with somebody and kind of build up this whole story in your head of your entire relationship with this person. That is definitely something that I can relate to a lot. I have had many of those moments in my life and have written many songs based on those concepts myself, so it is kind of cool to see somebody else doing the same thing. Another favorite track of mine on the album is the title track, “Speak Now,” which is another one in a similar vein as “Love Story” or “Mine,” in the sense that it is telling a whole story that has only actually happened in her imagination. This is the story of a girl watching a guy that she is in love with getting ready to marry somebody who isn’t right for him. The song opens with the line, “I am not the kind of girl who should be rudely barging in on a white veil occasion but you are not the kind of guy who should be marrying the wrong girl,” and goes on to a chorus that says, “Don’t say yes, Run away now, I’ll meet you when you’re out of the church at the back door, Don’t wait or say a single vow, You need to hear me out, and they said Speak Now.” Aside from the whole marriage element, this is a concept that I found myself immediately drawn into because it is something that I can kind of relate to in a lot of ways right now. I am also really drawn into the whole concept of the “Speak now or forever hold your peace” line because it really gives the sense of urgency, like “you better do this now before it’s too late.” That is another concept that I can relate to right now. Another favorite song of mine on this record is the sixth track, called “Mean.” “Mean” is a song that is particularly close to my heart and a really important message to be spread right now, in light of the recent suicides brought on by kids being bullied and abused by their peers. The chorus of this song says, “Someday I’ll be living in a big old city and all you’re ever going to be is mean, Someday I’ll be big enough so you can’t hit me and all you’re ever going to be is mean.” I don’t know when this song was written or whether or not it was inspired by any of the recent bullying cases, involving gay kids or otherwise, but I definitely think it is a very positive song to be releasing right now and I really hope it winds up being released as a single at some point. The last song I am going to talk about here is called “The Story Of Us,” which I think should definitely be a front-runner for second single from this album because it is simply brilliant. This is, by far, the most pop sounding track on the record and sounds like it was specifically designed for Top 40 radio, as opposed to country radio. This is a pretty clear-cut breakup song, from the perspective of a little while after the breakup, talking about having never expected the story of your relationship to wind up the way it has. The chorus says, “Now I’m standing alone in a crowded room and we’re not speaking, & I’m dying to know if it’s killing you like it’s killing me, yeah, I don’t know what to say, it’s just a twist of fate that it all broke down, but the story of us looks a lot like a tragedy now.” This song is simply gorgeous, and if you are just going to download a song or two from this record I absolutely recommend downloading this one. The entire album is brilliant, honestly, but my favorite tracks would be all of those mentioned above, as well as “Sparks Fly,” “Back To December,” “Dear John,” “Never Grow Up,” “Enchanted,” “Innocent,” and “Better Than Revenge.” As has been the case with both of her previous albums, I really feel like the first half of the album is much stronger than the second half but, as was also the case with the first two albums, the entire thing is brilliant. I definitely recommend picking up this record when it comes out this coming Tuesday, October 26.

I didn’t really do a whole lot after getting out of bed, beyond dicking around on the Internet and doing a whole lot of nothing important there. The next major event of the day came around noon when I heard a knock at my front door. It was the mailman and he had a package for me. This package was something I actually wasn’t expecting until the beginning of next week – my second order from Sugarpill Cosmetics! After receiving the first shipment from them, the Burning Heart palette, and completely falling in love with it, I simply had to go back and order more. Sugarpill currently only has a collection of 9 pressed eye shadows and 18 loose shadows, which is not that wide of a variety but is very impressive for a startup company like this. With the palette that I received today, I now have all but one of the pressed shadows. The only one I am missing is called Bulletproof, and it is a matte black. I am not in any huge rush to get this one because I already have plenty of matte blacks, although I am really curious about this one based on all of the other pressed shadows I have. They just have a really different feel to them than any other shadows I have used. The pigmentation on every one of these shadows is completely insane and they stay on insanely well. I mean, I wore a look to work earlier this week using the four shades in the Burning Heart palette and was shocked to have made it through my entire 10 hour work day, and a couple more hours after work, with the colors still completely intact and only showing slight signs of fading. I really cannot say enough good things about this brand of cosmetics and am really excited to try even more of their products, even though I am kind of terrified of loose eye shadows. Anyway, the palette I received today is called the Sweetheart palette and includes four more shades of Sugarpill pressed shadows, including a hot pink called Dollipop, a bright medium blue called Afterparty, an insanely gorgeous green called Midori and a matte white called Tako. I was really excited to try out these shadows, especially Dollipop, because I love a good hot pink shadow, and Midori because it is named after and really captures the color of my signature alcoholic beverage. So, I threw together a look using the four shades in this palette, as well as Poison Plum from the Burning Heart palette, and I have to say that I was really proud of my work with these. It was really bright and extremely well blended. I especially loved the fact that I did this cool effect where you only see pink in the inner corner and coming off of the outer corner of the eye. It kind of pulled it all together beautifully. I don’t know how to explain that exactly, so I am going to include a picture.


I think I may actually try to do my very first makeup tutorial video for this look. I am not sure yet – I am very apprehensive about delving into the world of making tutorial videos because the lighting in my house is kind of terrible for it. Still, it is something that I intend to sort out because I feel like the new beauty blog I am starting would be kind of incomplete without including instructional videos or tutorials. So, that is something that I will be working on moving forward.

I spent a good portion of this afternoon lying in my bed listening to the other major leak of yesterday, Cheryl Cole’s new record “Messy Little Raindrops.” This was kind of the one I was more excited for, of the two, so I had already listened to it a couple of times last night. The main reason I had listened to it a couple of times already last night was not because I was so blown away by it that I had to hear it again right away. In fact, it was kind of the opposite. I went into this record expecting to fall instantly in love with it, as well, because I definitely had that reaction to Cheryl’s first record, “3 Words.” This album, however, did not have that instantaneous feeling that “3 Words” did. It’s not to say that I didn’t like it upon first listen but I was kind of confused by it upon first listen. Well, I wouldn’t necessarily say that I was confused by it so much as I was just kind of surprised at how much I wasn’t drawn into it immediately. After listening to it a second time, I liked it quite a bit more. It wasn’t until I was lying in bed listening to it this afternoon, though, that it really hit me. I don’t know if I just wasn’t paying attention the first couple of times or if it is just one of those records that don’t hit you immediately. Either way, it was on my third listen to this record that it really finally struck me – this record is fucking GORGEOUS! One thing that needs to be mentioned right off the bat about this record is that it is being released almost exactly one year after the release of “3 Words.” That is a very brief period in which to have recorded and released a whole new record. Add to this the fact that this was an extremely tumultuous year for Cheryl, during which she divorced her husband after a huge cheating scandal and had a bout with Malaria, which actually nearly killed her. Knowing these facts, it makes a lot of sense that this record is incredibly moody. It is much more moody than “3 Words” ever dreamed of being. When I say that this record is moody, I mean that in sonic terms, (it covers a pretty wide musical landscape,) and lyrical terms, (it also covers a very wide range of emotions in it’s lyrics.) All of that being said, and a few listens in, I cannot recommend this record enough. It is absolutely beautiful. One of my favorite things about this record, too, is that it includes three ballads. The last album only had one. I also really love the sound of this record, which leans much more towards actual dance music than the urban-influenced pop vibe that “3 Words” had. Both sounds work out beautifully for Cheryl but I have to say that I find the dance style much more suited to her all around. The first song that has to be mentioned here is the album’s first single, “Promise This.” This is the opening track to the album and does a really great job of setting the pace for the rest of the record. The song opens with a sample of a classic French children’s tune, “Alouette uette uette, Alouette uette uette, Alouette uette uette, deployer l’aile,” which is insanely catchy and kind of a brilliant move to through into a pop song. The song itself is much more dance than anything Cheryl has done before and the lyrics immediately seem much more personal than anything from her last record. This song is basically about the fear of watching a relationship breakdown and come to an end, with a gorgeous chorus that says, “Promise this, if I die before I wake, Promise this, take the time to say your grace, On your knees you’ll pray for me, Promise this, be the last to kiss my lips.” It is gorgeous and as soon as I heard this song a couple of months ago I knew that the album was going to be something completely different than the last one. The next song I want to mention is probably my favorite on the record, the very last track, called “Waiting.” “Waiting” is my favorite track on this record, I think. In terms of the sound of the song, it is kind of insane in the best possible way – it is a clear dance song, with a very pop slant to it. It has one of those very ethereal sounds to it – I don’t know how to explain it exactly but it kind of feels like floating. The most important part of the sound of this song, though, that really kind of takes the song to a completely different level is the sample included in the pre-chorus bridge section – over a dance beat and these large, sweeping synth sounds, you can hear that classic, iconic piano riff from Vanessa Carlton’s song “A Thousand Miles.” It was completely unexpected but like I said, it really takes the song to a completely different level. It is absolutely gorgeous. It is not just the sound of this song that makes it my favorite, though. The lyrics on this song are beautiful and kind of break my heart every time I hear it, in spite of the joyous sound of the song. The song is basically about the frustration one can feel when they are holding out hope for the person they love to finally get their shit together and do right. The chorus says, “Waiting around all of the time, waiting around all of the time for you to get it right, Waiting around all of the time, waiting around all of the time for you and something to believe in, In another world, in another life I’d still belong to you, In another time you’d still be mine, I’d still belong to you.” This is a concept that I can relate to in many different ways. In fact, once again in spite of the joyous sound of the music on this song, it actually made me cry the first time I listened to it, but this may just be a result of my heightened emotional state right now, (which I will go into a bit more in a minute.) This entire album is absolutely brilliant and I highly recommend checking it out but there is only one more song that I want to discuss here because it is exceptionally close to my heart at this time. This would be the seventh track on the album, called “Raindrops.” This song is actually describing trying to rebuild a relationship that has fallen apart. Actually, I don’t know if it is so much about trying to rebuild a relationship as it is about trying to move on from one – it’s not entirely clear. The lyrics use a beautiful metaphor, saying “You were the tree, I was the apple, I fell to the ground and turned brown, Hate was the wind but love was the secret that blew us to where we are now.” The song goes on to a chorus that says, “Now love can’t grow without tiny little raindrops, tiny little, tiny little, messy little raindrops.” This chorus immediately struck me, more than anything else on this record, because it is such a universal truth that hadn’t necessarily dawned on me before. You see, as anybody who has been paying attention knows, love is what I am looking for right now. Love is the goal that I am working towards right now and what I feel most strongly about in my life right now. I have found myself recently feeling kind of discouraged after a few different dealings with boys that have just not come into fruition for one reason or another. Hearing this song really kind of put things into perspective for me a little bit – Perhaps all of these things, all of these disappointments recently, have simply been my “messy little raindrops.” It is true that love doesn’t really come without a little bit of a struggle, a little bit of pain and a little bit of a mess. That is all that is happening right now. I am just experiencing some “messy little raindrops,” and I have absolute faith that love will grow from these experiences. I don’t know how exactly or in what form it will come but I know that it will come. Aside from the three tracks I discussed above, my favorite tracks on this record would be “Live Tonight,” which was produced by Will.I.Am and has kind of an “I Gotta Feeling” vibe to it, the album’s second single, “The Flood,” “Hummingbird,” “Better To Lie,” which features a guy with a gorgeous voice named August Rigo, and “Happy Tears,” which is just a wonderful, inspiring song about moving on from heartbreak. I cannot say enough good things about this record and HIGHLY recommend checking it out.

Aside from that, I spent the evening driving out to Venice with my Mom for our long-standing weekend tradition of driving all the way to Venice to get Panda Express from a drive-through, even though we could just as easily go get it from the food court in the mall. It is something random that we both really enjoy. On the way out to Venice, the emotional mess that I mentioned earlier kind of reared its ugly head. There are a few different things going on in my life right now that have kind of left me in a highly emotional state right now. One of those things kind of came bursting out of me in the car yesterday listening to one of my favorite songs, “Dancing On My Own” by Robyn and finding myself on the verge of tears listening to the lyrics. This song really kind of killed me yesterday. The chorus of this song says, “I’m in the corner watching you kiss her, I’m right over here, why can’t you see me? I’m giving it my all but I’m not the guy you’re taking home, I keep dancing on my own.” It is basically just a big description of watching the person you love with somebody else. I just sat there yesterday in the car on the way to Venice finding myself relating to this whole concept entirely too much and it caused me to have a little bit of a breakdown. I don’t want to talk too much about it but it has definitely left me in a very emotional state over the past little while and it sucks. There is this other situation that kind of arose from that situation on Friday, as well. Well, not exactly – the two situations are completely unrelated but the emotional state I was in from one kind of led me to think about the other. You see, I have talked in this blog quite a bit, (although not in quite a while,) about the fact that I have always been one of those people who will have a group of friends for a little while and then, for one reason or another, will just kind of drift away from them and suddenly find that these people aren’t my friends at all anymore and I am suddenly in the midst of a whole new group of friends. The reason I talked about this so much more at the middle point of the blog is because I had a group of friends at the time that I really loved and appreciated and did not want to let go of. I talked a lot about how I really didn’t want that to happen with these friends. I was sitting here on Friday afternoon and found myself suddenly noticing that, without realizing it, the whole thing had pretty much happened – I was no longer in much contact with that old group of friends and I have found myself in the midst of a new group of friends. It was weird because this was the first time that had ever really dawned on me. It made me really sad to come to this realization. So, I decided to reach out to one of these people, the one I was always the closest with, my friend Whitney. I mean, I was close with all of these people but one has kind of turned out to be a lost cause, in a lot of ways, and the rest I have kind of maintained a friendship with that simply isn’t as close as it once was. Whitney, on the other hand, used to be one of my best friends. We used to talk a LOT and tell each other anything and everything. It made me really sad to sit and realize that I have no clue what is going on in her life at this point and that she probably has no clue what is going on in mine. So, I reached out to her on Friday evening and said that we needed to talk but it just didn’t pan out, then we were supposed to talk Saturday but I just never heard from her throughout the day. This made me really sad, too, and coupled with my heightened emotions based on the other thing, I was left feeling kind of a mess. Fortunately, a little later on last night, I finally did talk to her and we kind of came to the realization that our friendship is still intact but that it needs to be nurtured a bit more. So, hopefully that will pan out properly. It was just really good to talk to her for a while and I was really glad to catch up. The whole conversation just really improved the emotional state that I was in immensely. Sure, there are still things that are not going how I want them to but, like I concluded above, those things are nothing but raindrops - nothing but messy little raindrops. Love is going to grow – I can feel it.

So, for now, it is Sunday afternoon and I really need to get started on my day – I need to do some cleaning around this house and do some laundry and various things like that. I also need to watch “Cabaret,” as I have had the DVD from Netflix for the past couple of weeks and have yet to watch it. I don’t know what it is exactly but I just haven’t been in a mood for watching movies for the past little while. I need to get back to watching more movies with my free time – after all, I am paying for the Netflix service, I should probably use it as more than just a little Streisand machine. Perhaps I will do a bit of that today. Who knows? What I know now is that I am hungry. I’m going to go find something to eat and get stated on all the shit that I need to do today. Have a good day!

Chapter 351: Yeah Yeah

Okay, so it has only been about 4 hours since I posted yesterday’s blog and there isn’t a whole lot that has happened in that time. There are a couple of random things that are pretty noteworthy that popped up during those hours, though. The first, and most important, is that I found out during that time that the ban has been lifted on gay and lesbian couples adopting in the state of Florida. That is HUGE and I couldn’t be happier to hear this news. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any intentions of adopting a child at any point but it is a great feeling to see a step forward on the road to equality, particularly in light of the recent setbacks we have faced on that road, like the vote to NOT repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Of course, there is also the “It Gets Better” project and all the attention that has been paid to anti-gay bullying and abuse that is taking place across this country, which is a very positive thing, as well, although I definitely don’t think it is worth the cost of the lives of the six, possibly seven, kids who brought the whole thing on. All I am saying here is that it seems like there is some progress being made at the moment, which is a very positive thing. Even our current President, Barack Obama, and the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, made video statements for “It Gets Better,” which is a lot more than any past administrations have done to show their support for the GLBTQ community. So, that all makes me feel really good about the direction we are heading in… all while still realizing that we’ve got a LONG way to go still. The other two things that happened this evening were the leaks of two of my most anticipated records of the fall, “Speak Now” by Taylor Swift and “Messy Little Raindrops” by the most beautiful girl in the world, Cheryl Cole. Also, today saw the leak of the debut from last year’s “X Factor” winner, Joe McElderry, which I am less excited about than I am curious about. I haven’t actually had a chance to listen to any of these records yet, (I am actually in the midst of listening to Cheryl Cole’s record for the first time right now,) so I won’t be doing reviews of them in tonight’s blog. I will most likely post full-length reviews of all three of these records tomorrow night, though.

Also in the last four hours, I made dinner for my Mom and we sat down and watched a bootleg of “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” that I borrowed from one of my co-workers. Neither of us had seen it while it was still in theatres and my Mom really didn’t want to wait until the DVD comes out in December. So, we watched it this evening and, I must say, neither one of us were impressed with it. It really felt like they were trying to turn this one into a genre film – it kind of attempted to straddle the line between horror and action. This would have been fine, I suppose, if the first two films in the series had followed that same sort of formula. Neither of them did, though, so it just seemed kind of awkward. I also felt like some of the sequencing, in comparison to the book, didn’t make a whole lot of sense. It was just odd the way they shuffled some things around. Don’t get me wrong, there were certain things that I absolutely understood, like pulling the Quileutes Council Meeting scene from “New Moon” to place in this film instead, because it just made more sense thematically. However, there were little things that made other things make considerably less sense. For example, in the book “Eclipse,” Bella’s graduation didn’t happen until the very end of the book, but in the movie they had it happen very early on. This wouldn’t matter much, except for the fact that one of the key scenes in this story was completely thrown off by changing the timing of this. For those of you who are familiar with these books and films, there is a pivotal scene in the books in which Edward and Bella are camped out in this strange field area preparing for this big crazy battle that has to take place. Jacob is there, as well, waiting outside of their tent. It is very cold outside and Bella is freezing, so because of the fact that Jacob’s werewolf body holds so much heat they ask Jacob to come in and get into the sleeping bag with Bella in order to warm her up, yada yada yada. That made perfect sense in the book because this scene was supposed to be taking place in the middle of winter. However, since they changed the placement of the graduation, which always happens in May or June, the timing of this scene was moved to the middle of summer. I know that weather is different in that northern portion of the West Coast but I also know that it is not drastic enough of a difference that it would be snowing and at such cold temperatures as the film portrays in the middle of July. So, that minor change was enough to make the most important scenes of the movie not make any sense to me. I don’t know… maybe I am just being overly critical of it. I just was not impressed at all, and found myself spending the entire movie pointing out mistakes or cracking jokes like, “Oh, I must have missed the scene when Bella bought herself a curling iron,” because her hair was suddenly curled for the last portion of the film. Also, a few of the characters suddenly had accents that they didn’t have in the first two films. I don’t know. I just felt like the whole thing was kind of dumb.

So, since I have rambled on about fucking “Twilight” movies now, I am going to go ahead and end this. I don’t have anything important to say this evening. At least, I don’t have anything important to say that I actually want to say right now. There are a few emotional matters that I really could discuss at this point but I just don’t feel like drudging up my emotions right now. It is just strange how things kind of pop up in your mind at different points in time – like the Universe is sending you signals that something needs to happen. I guess the reason these things happen is because the Universe actually IS sending you signals that something needs to happen. In any sense, none of it actually happened today so there is no need to discuss it right now. Oh shit. I just remembered that tonight was supposed to be a themed blog. It’s okay, though, it was a really dumb theme, anyway. You see, I spent most of today putting together a playlist of music to shuffle at my party and I was going to make tonight’s blog post a big discussion of the ideal party music. See, I told you it was a dumb theme – a REALLY dumb theme, actually. I’m glad that I decided not to go ahead with that because that would be one hot mess of a blog for this evening. It’s not to say that this is any better, but it’s something. So, I am going to go ahead and end this here. Goodnight.

Chapter 350: The Beat Goes On

Okay, so it is 4:52pm on Friday and, once again, I am sitting down to write the blog for Thursday night. Fuck it. I’ve only got 14 days left of this, anyway. That means that exactly two weeks from today I will be sitting here writing the final chapter of this story… The very last post here. Wow. That is a lot to think about. I still can’t believe that I have managed to actually complete the year. I know it hasn’t exactly changed the world or anything but I do feel like this has been quite an accomplishment for me. I mean, I can’t think of any other time in my life where I have set such a long-term goal for myself and actually achieved it, so this is a big step. I am really excited about this whole thing coming to an end, actually. I mean, I am kind of sad about it but I am also really excited because I know that the end of this blog also means the beginning of a couple of really cool new projects. Aside from that, though, the end of this blog also means that I am no longer tied down to a strict schedule of writing every day. Not to say that writing every day has been a bad thing, or that I have stuck to that schedule all that well over the past few months, but I do think it will be nice to have a little more freedom, in terms of time, to get really creative with the things that I do. I am going to miss this whole thing, though. I was actually talking to my Mom last night about the ending of this blog. As I have mentioned here a time or two, I was really hoping to end the blog by being at the start of a healthy long-term relationship. I was hoping for that to be the connection that I managed to make with the outside world to finish off this story of my transition from living inside my own head to living and functioning in the outside world. Unfortunately, my time is running out very quickly and I can’t help but begin to doubt that it is going to happen in time to make the happy ending to this story that I wanted. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t have a single doubt that this is going to happen for me, and soon, but I do doubt that it will happen in time for the ending of this blog. As my mother and I were discussing, and as I have kind of discussed here in the blog, I think this story has already found it’s happy ending, anyway. What I mean by this is that I have already managed to make a connection to the outside world – not a love connection but a connection, anyway. Over the past few months I have blossomed in ways that I hadn’t really imagined would happen – I have put myself out there, I have been open with my feelings and I have made a connection with many different people. I have stopped being so internalized and feel like I have managed to let myself shine in ways that I never had before. I mean, I have always let myself shine but I also always kept a certain amount of my shine hidden away from the world. I have always felt like there were so many parts of my personality and who I am as a person that nobody had ever seen, and I can honestly say that I don’t feel like that is the case, anymore. Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely still parts that are hidden but, in general, I am about a million times more open than I ever have been before. I honestly feel like right now, in this moment, I am the very best version of myself that I have ever been and I couldn’t possibly feel more grateful for that. So, in that sense, this story is over. However, there are still two weeks left of this blog and who knows what could happen in that time? I am definitely keeping my fingers crossed for something great. Perhaps at my Halloween party?

I have these strange ideals in my head about parties that rarely ever turn out to be true. I don’t know what it is exactly but I just always imagine when you throw a party something magical has to happen or some major event or something like that. Like, you’re supposed to fall in love or have some exceptionally crazy shit go down that you will remember for the rest of your life. I have this same concept of summer, as I discussed in this blog several times over the course of this past summer, and it also rarely ever turns out to be true. I was discussing this recently with a friend of mine, who was saying she had the same ideals about summertime, and we determined that it was likely a product of watching too many teen movies growing up. It is true that, while discussing my Halloween party, my head is filled with all of these ideas from the movie “Can’t Hardly Wait,” about getting locked in the bathroom with somebody and realizing that we were meant to be together or confessing my feelings to somebody and having them mistakenly think that I was just trying to get into their pants, only to find my special letter to them later and then having them come chasing after me at the train station the next morning. I don’t have anybody to confess my feelings to and I haven’t written a special letter to them or anything, and I am not due to get on a train or anything the next morning… but you get my drift. I don’t think that anything all that monumental is going to go down at my party, aside from having a pretty epic evening of fun and inebriation. Still, I am really excited for the epic fun and inebriation that this shall bring. Speaking of Halloween, at my work they are doing Halloween festivities on the Friday before, October 29. Friday is my day off every week, so I was already planning on not taking part in any of their Halloween festivities. However, since I have kind of brought this to a couple of people’s attention, mainly my sister, I have kind of been encouraged to try to switch days off with somebody for next week in order to be there that day. I am not sure if I am going to do that yet or not but I might. It kind of sucks because when I was initially thinking I was going to be there that day I was planning on doing two separate costumes, one for work and one for my party, but now I only have the one and it seems kind of lame to wear the same costume to both. Of course, I mentioned this to one of my friends who then was like, “Oh, it’s going to be lame if I wear the same costume to work and to your party?” I didn’t know how to explain that away exactly because it would sound bad if I said, “Well, I hold myself to much higher standards.” That isn’t actually true, anyway… but, again, you get my drift. So, I suppose it all depends on whether or not the other person at my job wants to trade days off next week. I don’t care too much either way about that at this point, honestly.

So, this blog is supposed to be talking about Thursday. Thursday started off pretty shitty, honestly. I mean, it wasn’t shitty but work was absolute hell. It was just the longest, most boring day possible. Well, maybe not possible, but it was extremely long and boring. I was pretty excited, though, that my team lead had an assload of work to do at the last minute and let me stand up and watch the floor for her while she did her work. So, I basically got to spend the last hour of the day standing around talking to my friend since none of the agents there actually seemed to have any questions, or very few questions. So, that was fun. After work, I had a few friends over and got a little tipsy. I broke open my special treat to myself for the party – a bottle of Midori and some sour mix – and it is all gone now. So, that is a little money that I will have to spend from the paycheck before the party. It will be worth it, though, because I fucking love my Midori Sours. They were delicious last night. I had a lot of fun last night, actually. It was a perfect way to end this week, which was really not very much fun at all, and start off the weekend. After my party shopping earlier this week, I wound up really broke so I can’t really afford to go out and do anything this weekend, so it was nice to have a little bit of the “night out” effect at home for free. As far as the rest of the weekend goes I don’t really have a lot of plans. Today, so far, hasn’t been all that eventful. In fact, today has pretty well been focused on one thing. I will save the details of that thing, though, for tonight’s blog – let me just warn you, we have another theme post coming this evening. As far as the rest of the weekend, though, I know that Rachel is coming to hang out tomorrow evening. We have resigned ourselves to just spending this Saturday night hanging out at my house due to a lack of funds for a night out to TOTIs or anything. Then Sunday will probably just be spent trying to work on cleaning up this house, since there will be a good deal of people in it next weekend and I won’t really have a ton of time to do it next week. So, that is pretty much my weekend at this point.

One last thing to mention before I end this, is the fact that I received a shipment from Stila yesterday that I was really excited about! I was especially excited about it because I had completely forgotten that I had ordered anything from them. So, I opened up the package not actually knowing what was in it. It was kind of like Christmas or my birthday or something. This package included a three eye shadow palette, which was part of their Happy Hour Friday last week, that included three “earth” themed shades, all varying types of matte brown, which are pretty gorgeous. It also included the fourth in Stila’s set of five “travel palettes,” each including four eye shadows and one convertible lip and cheek color. This one is called “Make An Impression In Moscow,” and it is the Russian themed palette. The eye shadows in this palette are gorgeous, but I was most excited about the convertible color in this palette, Lily, which is a very soft pinkish brown color that I have already tried out and found looks absolutely gorgeous on the lips. I am kind of obsessed with it right now and think that it will be PERFECT for winter looks. As anybody who has been paying attention to this blog should know, I LOVE my Stila Cosmetics. I am kind of obsessing over Sugarpill Cosmetics at this point, as well, but I haven’t quite gone over the deep end with them yet as I have with Stila. So, needless to say, I was very happy with my Stila package yesterday. I am also very excited for a package that should be coming in the next few days from Sugarpill. As anybody who has talked to me for more than five minutes knows, I LOVE makeup, and I really can’t wait to get started on my beauty blog. In the meantime, though, I’ve got two weeks left with this one, and I plan to enjoy them. I’ll be posting again in just a few hours, most likely. Have a good evening until then!

Chapter 349: Everything I Want To Be

Today was declared “Spirit Day” across the nation, in memory of the recent rash of suicides amongst gay youth. It was a day to honor the memory of all of those GLBTQ teenagers who have recently been driven to suicide after being bullied, harassed and abused by their peers and the people in their lives. In reality, though, I think it was really a day to take a stand against bullying of any kind, for any reason. For obvious reasons, the GLBTQ aspect is the nearest to my heart but I also understand that there are kids out there being bullied and harassed for a number of reasons – their religious background, race, general appearance, social status, disabilities or maybe even mistakes they may have made in the past. I can honestly say that, at one time or another, I have faced pressures and harassment for a lot of those things myself. It definitely goes much deeper than just kids being bullied for being gay. This really isn’t an issue of being bullied for any of these actual reasons – it is an issue of kids having a lack of understanding and tolerance for people who are different than they are. It is fascinating and horrifying and extremely troublesome to see the way that violence is discussed amongst the younger generation of today. As I have discussed a little bit here, over the past few months I have befriended a few kids who are nearly a decade younger than I am and I found myself really surprised at the attitudes I have seen towards these types of issues – not just with the ones I have befriended but with a lot of the younger people I have come across. It seems that the teenagers of today have much more of an automatic instinct towards violence than they did when I was a teenager. It’s not to say that they are all violent creatures, constantly lashing out and attacking others, but it seems like their minds have much more of a tendency to go in that sort of direction than they did back in my day. It seems to me that, perhaps, all those warnings that people were making back in the 90s about violence on television desensitizing children may not have been as much hooey as it seemed at the time. At the same time, though, I can’t actually speak of this with all that much authority. I am not around that many teens nowadays, (I would be considered kind of creepy if I were,) so I am only basing this on my observations of the ones I do wind up around. All I do know is that this whole thing is a problem. Aside from the suicides of gay teens, there have been countless other cases over the past year of kids committing suicide after facing bullying from their peers. It is a terrible shame and such a waste of life – lives that could have and should have wound up being much longer and surely would have gotten much better. Yes, “It Gets Better.”

Now, more than ever, the “It Gets Better” project seems like such an important thing to exist in this world and I could not possibly feel more grateful for the fact that I was able to take some small part in it. The “It Gets Better” project, for those who don’t know, is a campaign that was started by Dan Savage, openly gay writer of the site Savage Love, with a pretty simple, yet extremely powerful, concept. Have you ever heard one of these types of news stories about a kid committing suicide and thought to yourself, “If only I could have just sat down and talk with them for five minutes…” Essentially, “It Gets Better” is our way of doing that – sitting down and talking to these kids who are in such dark places in their lives and can’t possibly imagine anything every improving for them, and telling them that it DOES get better. My video for this project was based around a very simple concept, as well – it was all about the concept of “going through hell” and how on the other side of hell there is heaven. It was all about how no matter how low they may be right now, perhaps at the lowest lows they could possibly imagine, if they manage to stick it out and stick around for the lives that they will eventually have they will reach heights they never imagined either. The experience I have had in my life has definitely reflected that – I really do feel like, at different times in my life, I have seen the lowest of lows and the highest of heights. I really wanted to make a video for this project because the more I thought about it the more I realized that I truly am a living example of what the project really is all about. As I discussed in my video, which got a lot more personal than I had initially intended, I attempted to commit suicide in my teen years a few times. For me, it was never really a matter of bullying or harassment but it was definitely a matter of feeling like things couldn’t ever possibly improve for me. I understand that feeling of loneliness and being completely hopeless. I know that feeling. Thank God none of my suicide attempts ever actually worked out because as I grew up and took much more of a look at the world, I have found myself experiencing feelings I NEVER imagined I could – none more powerful, though, than the simple feeling of realizing that I was okay. There has been nothing more liberating or gratifying for me in my life than simply coming to the realization that there is nothing wrong with me and that everything I could ever possibly need out of life is already inside of me. I don’t know how to explain that exactly but it is simply the feeling that, no matter what could possibly happen to me in my life, I am complete and the only thing that can ever take that away from me is myself and my ego. It is the simplest concept in the world but one that many people struggle with throughout their entire lives. Don’t get me wrong, I still struggle with it often – I don’t think there will ever be a time when I don’t. It is just so important to recognize the power and the beauty and the magic that you hold inside and simply put your faith in the fact that you are already fully equipped to handle anything and everything that may come into your life. That, as far as I am concerned, is the highest of heights that anybody can possibly reach and I am so grateful that I have managed to reach that point at such an early age.

Still, there are millions of children, teens and adults out there who have yet to come to this realization. Today was for each one of them. Today was the day for each and every one of us to take a stand against the type of bullying that teens are experiencing nowadays. In honor of “Spirit Day,” people across the country were asked to wear the color purple. So, I wore a purple heather v-neck from Old Navy and did a really cute makeup look inspired by Barbra Streisand in “Funny Girl.” I was a little disappointed with the purple turnout at my job today but in the end it wound up being a really positive thing because there were enough people in purple to get conversations started. I know that I was stopped and asked by quite a few people what the deal was with everybody wearing purple, which allowed me to explain the story behin “Spirit Day” to them and make them aware of the issue. After all, if people are not aware of the problem they are not likely to gather to try to find a solution. I honestly feel like I may have opened a few eyes about the whole thing today, which I am extremely proud of and grateful for the opportunity to do. Overall, it was a pretty great day and I was really proud to have taken part in the whole thing. For now, though, it is 11:38pm and I should really be getting to bed. Goodnight.

Chapter 348: We Wanna Party

Today was a much better day than yesterday was in many ways. I mean, it didn’t involve being contacted by any famous people or artists that I am obsessed with but it did set my mind at ease about a few different things that had been plaguing me recently and gave me a chance that I didn’t really get yesterday – the chance to just have some fun. Let me explain. Before I do explain, though, I just wanted to take a moment to say that it is already 11:15pm and I need to be getting to bed, so I am going to keep tonight’s blog fairly short. I hate to do this in these, the very last days of the blog, but I simply must be getting to bed soon if I am going to wake up on time and make myself gorgeous in the morning... and tomorrow is a day in which I definitely want to make myself gorgeous. I’ll elaborate more on that later. First, let me go ahead and get back to the explanation that I mentioned before – what I mean when I say that today gave me the chance to just have fun, whereas yesterday did not, I simply mean that yesterday was kind of a high stress day and I had a lot of emotional mess going on. Today I was able to let go of some of that mess and just have a good time for a while. This all begins with the issue I had discussed in last night’s blog, in which my ego had me beginning to ask questions like, “what about me?” and “what does all of this mean to me?” As it turns out, today set my mind at ease about that situation a lot, which I was really relieved about, and I managed to have a lot of fun with the whole situation and the people involved today. It was a very positive thing for me. As far as the second situation I discussed in last night’s blog – there is no progress at this point. I kind of feel like the situation is being avoided, honestly, but I am not allowing myself to get overly concerned about it. It doesn’t honestly matter that much – it is just something interesting.

Work was pretty boring today. I found myself getting REALLY bored as the day wore on and having a lot of trouble finding ways to entertain myself. By the end of the day, though, when a lot of management had left the building and such, I was able to let loose a little and have some fun. The real fun came after work, though. Rachel picked me up from work and we decided to do the shopping for my Halloween party this evening. I really had no idea of what I wanted to do as far as any of it went but I was very fortunate to have Rachel around to sit me down and speak with me about it all in a rational way. I was also very fortunate to find that Rachel has some really good organizational skills, and we sat down and made a list of what was needed for the party, worked out a bit of a budget for it all and were extremely prepared when we left the house to actually go shopping. We came up with a list of items we needed to pick up and figured out each place we needed to go to get these items, which wound up coming down to only two places – Wal-Mart and an ABC Liquor Store. It was as simple as those two stops. So, we went to Wal-Mart first and gathered up most of the necessary supplies to make a wicked “hunch punch,” as well as a couple of cases of beer, some random decorative items and a few random pieces of Hard Candy makeup, which Rachel and I had both been really curious about. We were in Wal-Mart for over an hour before we both started feeling that strange itch that only Wal-Mart can bring – I hate Wal-Mart. So does Rachel. We were both discussing how we try to avoid going there like the plague and how anytime we are there, after a certain point, we just feel this overwhelming urge to get the heck out. So, it was on to ABC Liquors, where we picked up the remaining ingredients for the “hunch punch,” as well as each picking up our own drink of choice, (Midori and Sour Mix for me, Jagermeister for her.) It was all fine and there really isn’t anything more that I need for the party, although I did go horribly over budget and am left barely scraping by until my next paycheck. All this really means, though, is that I really can’t do ANYTHING between now and when I get paid again. At least, not anything that costs money. So, the next week and a half will be a lot of nights at home – I am okay with that. No TOTIs trip this weekend or anything like that. In fact, it is just dawning on me that this means we won’t be going to TOTIs for the next two weeks, due to no funds this weekend and the party the following weekend. That sucks. It’ll be worth it, though. In fact, I think it is actually a really good thing – I could probably use a little break from all the drinking that I have been doing recently… at least, until the party. Then I will get fucking wrecked out of my brain. I am just happy that I have managed to get everything for the party sorted out now, so that when I get paid again I won’t have to spend any further money on it. The only thing left for my party is a part of my costume – false eyelashes. I couldn’t find any decent ones this evening. What can you expect from Wal-Mart? That step can be sorted out the day before, or even the day of, the party. That is not really a concern. I am just really excited for my Halloween party. I think it is going to be a shitload of fun.

So, aside from all of that, I bought dinner from Little Cesar’s tonight and we came back to the house and overloaded on pizza while watching the past two episodes of “The A List: New York,” which is my new favorite “guilty pleasure” show, and became Rachel’s new favorite this evening, as well. All in all, it was a pretty fun day. That day, however, is over now. I need to get my beauty rest this evening in order to wake up tomorrow and get myself all dressed up in purple. I spent much of today harassing my co-workers and such to wear purple tomorrow, as well. You see, tomorrow has been dubbed “Spirit Day,” in memory of the many GLBTQ youths who have committed suicide recently after suffering bullying, harassment and abuse from their people and the people in their lives. These are kids who were made to feel like there was nobody or nowhere for them to turn and that their lives would never get better. It is a horrible thing and an issue that I feel extremely strongly about. I know what it is like to be one of those kids, in a lot of ways, and I have been extremely fortunate to make it to the other side and to see that life really does get better. It is such a simple thing, yet such a powerful way to honor the memory of these kids whose lives have already been lost and show our support for those who are still living with these struggles. If you are reading this and have the opportunity, please wear some purple tomorrow. I know it seems like it doesn’t make any REAL difference but it certainly can’t hurt. On that note, I bid you adieu. Goodnight.

Chapter 347: She

Today was an odd day. I woke up in a very good mood after going to bed in a very good mood. I was a little surprised by how good of a mood I woke up in, considering I didn’t fall asleep until nearly 2am and it was one of those nights where I never really felt like I went to sleep at all. I know that I woke up a few different times in the course of the four hours I was in bed. It was very odd. I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, though, and went about my morning in hopes of maintaining my good mood. I did all my usual morning stuff then went ahead with doing my makeup for the day. In spite of my initial plans to not actually wear a look using my Sugarpill products until Halloween, I was just too curious about the whole thing and couldn’t resist. So, I did a really cool look blending the bright yellow, orange and red across my eyelid and then blending the purple out in the crease. I absolutely loved the way this look came out and this only added to my good mood for the morning. In relation to these products, though, this was the first time I wore them for more than long enough to just do trial runs of my Halloween makeup and such, and I must say – they are AMAZING! I did my makeup around 7am or so this morning, and didn’t take it off until after 7pm – 12 hours. When I sat down to remove this stuff, it had only faded slightly from when I first put it on this morning. The only thing I used as a base was original formula Urban Decay Primer Potion, the same thing I use for 90% of my eye makeup, and there wasn’t a single hint of creasing or wearing off when I removed it. Do you understand what that means? Let me reiterate here that it was 12 hours later. That is INSANE. It was enough to get me back on the Sugarpill site to order another palette. The one I have currently is called the Burning Heart palette, which includes four of the nine pressed shadows in the Sugarpill line – Flamepoint, Buttercupcake, Love+ and Posion Plum. So, this evening I went ahead and ordered the Sweetheart palette, which includes an absolutely gorgeous, bright pink called Dollipop, a very bold light blue called Afterparty, a bright green called Midori, (which is totally the color of my signature drink, the Midori Sour,) and a straight up white called Tako. Once I receive this palette I will have all but one of the Sugarpill pressed shadows, and I couldn’t be more excited about this. The only one I will be missing is a matte black, called Bulletproof. I can order that one individually at a later date, when I delve into the world of Sugarpill loose shadows, which I totally intend to do in the future. Loose shadows just scare me – I have never even experimented with them at this point. From what I understand they can do some really amazing things but they also seem a lot more difficult to work with. It is something I have been wanting to play around with for a long time now, though, and I think Sugarpill would be the perfect place to start, since I am pretty much completely obsessed with the company at this point.

So, I was ready with plenty of time to spare when my sister picked me up just before 8am. On the ride to work my sister told me that we had a client visiting today and for the rest of the week, which I had no idea about prior to this and had not at all dressed for. More than that, though, I hadn’t really mentally prepared for it, which became very evident by the fact that I was reprimanded right away this morning for having a conversation that was not at all appropriate at my desk, which is right within earshot of where the client was all day long. The conversation was not inappropriate in the sense that I was discussing something not safe for work but more in the sense that it was a conversation about something that gave a very negative impression of my views of the company. It was a shitty moment because as soon as I was called on my shit it suddenly all dawned on me – I was sitting there cracking jokes about the company while a woman who works for the company directly was sitting in a room, with an open door, about 10 feet away… and my voice carries. What a fucking stupid move! This definitely knocked my good mood down a peg but I was determined not to let it completely ruin it for me for the day. Instead, I retreated into my desk and tried my hand at a little songwriting. After all, I have found myself a big giant ball of emotions lately and I’m not entirely sure why. Unfortunately, the big ball of emotions didn’t wind up resulting in anything good in terms of songwriting and I wound up with three verses and choruses, none of which were all that great. I spent a little while drawing, which was fun and passed the time but didn’t really bring on any real results.

Okay, so the issue I am coming upon here is that there were two things that were kind of the main focus of my day that I don’t feel entirely comfortable discussing in such a public forum as this. As you all must have learned by now, I don’t really have any problem with discussing matters that are very personal to me, sometimes a little too personal, but it becomes iffy when the matters I want to focus on or matters that are a major focus of my day involve other people and issues relating to them. I am perfectly fine to air out all of my dirty laundry and discuss the issues that I may have openly like this, otherwise why would I even write in this blog? I don’t feel as fine with airing the dirty laundry of others, though. So, I am going to discuss these things as best I can without making any major implications or giving any real indication of who I am talking about. The first thing is that there was a situation that arose somewhat out of the blue last week and has escalated really quickly into a full-blown “thing.” It is a very positive thing, as far as I am concerned, and I am very happy for all of the parties involved because it is a really great thing for them all and it makes me happy to see them happy. On the other hand, though, now that the ball has gotten rolling and these positive things are happening for these other people, I find myself beginning to consider what all of it means for me. It led to some slightly awkward moments today, which I am pretty sure were only in my head, and left me feeling a little strange throughout much of the day. I don’t know how to explain it exactly – I am not feeling jealousy or anything like that but I am feeling a sense of, “Hey, wait! What about me?” I know that this is, of course, simply an act of my own ego. A part of me feels like perhaps I was simply brought into this situation with these particular people to make things happen for them and now I am simply disposable – of no more use. Like I said, this is simply an act of my ego and holds no more real meaning than that.

The other thing I was focused on through much of the day is a situation that began over the weekend. This is a situation that is yet to be determined as either positive or negative. Whichever it turns out to be, it is definitely one that I intend to explore further. I was kind of hoping to do a little of that further exploration today but it never happened, mainly because the person involved wasn’t really around. I mean, I saw that they were there and everything but they were never really in a spot where I could actually speak to them or anything. As much as I couldn’t really imagine it being the case, I felt this sinking suspicion that this was a purposeful move on this person’s part. I couldn’t really imagine why… actually, that is a lie, I could imagine a million different reasons why. It is just one of those things where I have no idea what that person is thinking beyond what took place over the weekend. That bothers me to no end. It is probably a good thing, in the end. I was beginning to wonder if I was kind of tricking myself into thinking more of the situation than there actually was but I discussed it with a couple of other people who were around at the time who were able to confirm my thoughts. So, who knows what any of that means? I certainly don’t. Like I said, I don’t know whether this is a positive or a negative situation but, either way, it is one I definitely want to explore a bit further. I didn’t get an opportunity to do that today, which I was kind of disappointed in. With these two different vague ideas of situations, unfortunately, my good mood was pretty well defeated by the time I got home. I was in a bit of a weird funk for the rest of the night after work. There is this whole other element to the day, the past few days actually, that I intended to take a little time discuss here – a strange, sexual sort of discussion. I think, however, that I am going to reserve that to be the main topic of tomorrow or another night’s blog.

In the meantime, there is one more thing I needed to mention. You see, as I mentioned, I was in kind of a funk when I got home from work and pretty much stayed there for the rest of the evening. However, something happened to change that. It happened as I was writing this blog, actually. As many of you may have noticed by now, in general, when I am writing in the blog I am also doing other things on the computer. Tonight, as a matter of fact, I was kind of dicking around on Facebook while I was writing. I know it’s dorky, and maybe a little douchey, but I have a tendency to quote song lyrics in my status updates. After all, it is quite often that I find lyrics that express the way that I am feeling better than I can articulate in such a small space. So, tonight I was quoting the song “She” by Andrea Lewis. Andrea Lewis, for those who haven’t been following the blog recently, just released an album called “54321.” This album was released in the same style as Simon Curtis’ brilliant record, “8Bit Heart.” She essentially just placed the album up for free download on her website for any and all to download. Now, I was familiar with Andrea from some of the work she had done in the past, like my favorite TV show of all-time, “Degrassi” and a few other random TV and movie spots. So, I figured this album would be worth checking out. It was about a week and a half ago that the album was released and it is pretty much all that I have listened to since then. It is one of my very favorite records to have come out this year and I could not possibly be more impressed with it. So, I was quoting some lyrics from the song “She” from this record, "It never really mattered that much to me, I always knew that you and I were meant to be, You never say her name only 'she,' so what the fuck is 'she' supposed to mean to me? She don't love you like I love you..." At the end of the quote I placed a dash and then the name of the artist, Andrea Lewis. I don’t normally do this when I am updating my status with a quote but for one reason or another I went ahead and entered her name as a link to her Facebook. In Facebook terms, this means that I tagged her in the post and it would show up on her wall. I didn’t really think much of this and went on about dicking around on Facebook and writing the blog. After a little while, I received a little message at the bottom of the screen saying “Andrea Lewis likes your status.” So, I went to that status and added a comment to the effect of “HOLY SHIT, ANDREA LEWIS LIKED MY STATUS!!!” then I added in a second comment, “Andrea Lewis, I like your status, too - your album is pretty much all I have been listening to since it came out!!” I was all thrilled with the concept that she had even read my status, let alone pressed the like button. After this, she took it a step further and posted a comment saying “Thanks! J” After being in a good mood and having that mood worn down throughout the day, this was really all it took to bring it all back. Not to mention the fact that I just happened to log in to my Twitter account to find something that I had mentioned on the phone with Rachel and found that not only had Andrea Lewis messaged me on there saying that she read my review of her album on the blog, and called it AMAZING, but I also had a message from Amy, the founder of Sugarpill Cosmetics, saying thanks for the great review I did of her products here on the blog and that she was glad that I loved everything! I was so excited to see this stuff and it kind of reminded me of something that I have always known but had maybe forgotten a little bit recently – I am fucking special! Seriously, even if the people in my day-to-day life who I am trying to get attention from or who I feel like are not concerned enough with me, there are people out there who recognize the things that I do. Many of them are people in my life but there are also people out there, people who I completely respect and admire as artists and inspirations to me, who also recognize the things that I do, as well. That is an amazing feeling! It is the absolute perfect note to end tonight’s blog on – so, I am going to end it right there. Goodnight.

Chapter 346: The Time Warp

So, I posted yesterday’s blog only about 4 hours ago. There’s not a lot that I have to add at this point because, quite simply, nothing has happened over the course of those 4 hours. When I say nothing has happened, I don’t mean that I have sat in one spot and done absolutely nothing during that time. What I mean is nothing of any real substance happened during those times. Certainly nothing worth writing an entire blog post on. So, I have come up with a different idea. I am going to write tonight’s blog about one specific topic that I have been pretty focused on for the past 4 hours and one that I am feeling really enthusiastic about at the moment. However, in the interest of keeping with the general context of this blog, I figured I should take a moment to share what I did with the past few hours. So, after finishing up the earlier blog I lied in bed for a few minutes trying to gather up motivation to get up and do some “chores” that needed to be done. Once I finally did get up, I did the past week’s laundry, I gathered up and took out all of the trash, and spent a little while experimenting with my Sugarpill Cosmetics products. I did a second test run of my Halloween makeup, (after trying it out yesterday,) and I was MUCH happier with the results today. There is a little more tweaking that needs to be done to it but I am very happy with the results so far. Aside from that, I basically spent the evening watching a few missed episodes of Oprah. All in all, nothing of any real significance happened.

One thing I did do during that time, though, was dig through my massive DVD collection, (seriously… there’s a LOT to dig through,) for this one specific movie that it is kind of a tradition to watch around this time of year, (although I do enjoy watching it any time of year.) This movie, of course, is “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” I was reminded of this DVD last night when I was at my sister’s house for the impromptu birthday party because they busted out their record collection and the music for the evening was taken from that. One of the records that I noticed amongst their collection was the soundtrack to this film and we played a few songs from it. It really took me back hearing some of those songs. The first song that they played was “Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me,” which brought back an insane amount of memories – back in California, when my sister, my best friend and I used to constantly be working the karaoke circuit, this was one of my favorite songs to sing. It was always a lot of fun because I would be pretty extreme with it, going incredibly over-the-top and sexual with my performance. I don’t know what it is exactly but people always seem to respond to me best when I am being really sexual in an over-the-top sort of way. It is my very best brand of humor, I think. If nothing else, it is my favorite brand of humor to use. So, hearing that song made me feel a pretty strong desire to actually watch the film again, as I hadn’t in a very long time. Unfortunately, I never did find my copy of the DVD, which I think I loaned to my sister a long time ago and never got back. I did, however, find the soundtrack to it on my iPod, so I decided that this would have to do for the moment. Much like “Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me” did last night, all of these songs brought back a boatload of memories from my past.

Before I go into all of that, though, let me give a little bit of backstory on the film itself, for those who may not be as familiar with it as I am. “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” was originally released in 1975, based on a London stage production that was simply called “The Rocky Horror Show,” with book and lyrics written by Richard O’Brien, who also co-wrote the screenplay for the film. Richard O’Brien also took one of the key roles in the film, the character of Riff Raff. “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is the story of a young, newly engaged couple, Brad Majors and Janet Weiss, (played by Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon,) who are on a trip to visit the man who introduced them to one another, Dr. Everett Scott. On the way to see Dr. Scott their car breaks down. They don’t know what to do until they see a light in a castle nearby, which they decide to follow in hopes of being able to use the phone there to call for help. When they arrive at the castle, they find a huge celebration happening there. The castle is filled with very unusual looking people, partaking in strange, hedonistic dances and such. Brad and Janet are very put off by the whole thing, especially when they meet the owner of the castle, Dr. Frank N. Furter, (played brilliantly by Tim Curry.) Dr. Frank N. Furter comes out and introduces himself in one of the film’s most iconic numbers, “Sweet Transvestite.” He tells them that they simply must stay and enjoy the celebration with him while they wait for the rain outside to let up. They reluctantly agree and watch as Frank introduces the cause for this celebration – he has built himself a man. The man, named Rocky Horror, is all blonde hair and muscles and such, and was designed to be his sexual slave. As the evening wears on, Frank shows Brad and Janet to their separate rooms for the evening and, disguising himself as the other, seduces them both. Janet finds out, through one of the monitors throughout the castle, that Brad is off having sex with Frank and becomes upset. Then she finds Rocky Horror, having broken free from his shackles and feeling lost and terrified, and proceeds to seduce him, (this is the point where she sings “Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me.”) Once Frank finds out about this, he goes insane with jealousy. It also doesn’t help that he soon finds an intruder on the premises, Dr. Everett Scott, a rival scientist and the man who introduced Brad and Janet. Learning of the connection between them, Frank decides that they must have been brought in as spies for him. After Janet flies into Rocky’s arms in fear, (after being served another characters remains for dinner,) and a major chase ensues as Frank flies into a rage, they all wind up in Frank’s lab, where he captures them, transforms them into living statues and forces them to perform a huge floor show. This performance is all interrupted by Frank’s servants, Riff Raff and Magenta, who stage a bit of a coup and reveal that the castle is actually a space craft and that they are returning to their home planet of Transexual, in the galaxy of Transylvania. Frank does not respond well to this information and they wind up killing him in the process. They release Brad, Janet and Dr. Scott, and fly off in the castle.

I know that I didn’t explain that anywhere near as thoroughly as I could have but that is the jist of it. I still remember the very first time I saw this film – it was 1993, I believe. I was only 10 years old. It aired during the day on Fox, at 3pm, with a little pre-emptive message stating that it was not suitable for children. Me, being the type of kid I was, immediately knew that this made it worth checking out. I fell in love with it immediately and eventually bought a VHS copy of it, which I watched an insane amount of times. At the time, I was really not sure what it was all about. I don’t think I even actually followed the plot at all. I was really into the character of Rocky Horror, because he was a hot guy running around in a gold lame’ speedo all the time, and I loved the music. I continued to watch it fairly regularly over the years but then kind of stopped for a while. I think I was probably 18 years old the first time that I watched it and it finally clicked what all was going on in this story. It had never dawned on me before exactly how sexual this film was. I mean, I understood that there was dirty stuff going on but I never actually added it all up to realize that this story really revolves around sex in many ways. It took me all that time to realize that Dr. Frank N. Furter was a bisexual, hedonistic mad scientist/sex freak who based his entire life on building creatures to be his sexual toys, or that Janet Weiss was having her sexual awakening throughout the course of this story, or that Magenta and Riff Raff were siblings but also sexual partners. It’s really a LOT for such a young mind to comprehend, I suppose. In any sense, like I said, something about the musical numbers and all of that really drew me into this whole thing even if I didn’t completely understand it. To this day, it seems as if every time I watch this film, I am finding some new element of it that I hadn’t entirely understood the last time. It is one of my absolute favorite films of all-time and, if you haven’t already, I highly recommend everybody check it out.

This film also happens to be the film with the longest theatre run in history, having never been pulled from theatres since it’s initial release in 1975. 35 years later, the film still has weekly midnight shows in many major cities across America. This is mainly due to the fact that there is such a huge cult following for this film. A large part of the cult following is the fact that in many major cities there is a huge audience participation factor to it, where people go to the theatre dressed as the characters, and speak back to the screen, including throwing random props and such. In fact, in many places they will have the film play with a stage, where a “shadow cast” acts out the entire story along with it. This is one of the biggest parts of the history of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” but also a part of the whole thing that I can’t really speak too authoritatively about because I have never actually attended one of these showings. I have actually had many opportunities to and made plans to several times in the past but it has never actually panned out for me. As a matter of fact, I know that there is a theatre in town doing the whole thing Halloween weekend this year… and, of course, this is the year that I am planning a party for that weekend and won’t really have the opportunity to go. I still hope to do it sometime in the coming years – after all, I don’t think these types of showings are going anywhere.

Anyway, like I said, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is one of my favorite films of all-time and has been a very big influence on me as an artist and as a person. I actually found that they have it on Netflix for Instant Watch, so I think I may put it on while I go to bed this evening. It’s been a long time since I have actually watched it. Like I said before, as well, I highly recommend seeing this film if you have not. It is absolutely brilliant. For now, though, I should probably get to bed. It’s been a long weekend – in a good way, for the most part – but the weekend is about to be over. I need to get my beauty sleep and get rested up for another week of work and all that comes along with it. I’m in a really good mood tonight, though. I don’t know how easily sleep will come with my being in such a good mood. For some reason, in general, when I am in a good mood my mind wanders and I have a lot of energy. So, we’ll see. Either way, I should go try. Goodnight.

Chapter 345: Love Game

Once again, it is late Sunday afternoon and I am just sitting down to write Saturday night’s blog. This is a fairly common occurrence considering last night was Saturday night and I went out… at least, it is not that I am not doing video blogs anymore. So, where do I begin to talk about yesterday? I woke up at 10:30am yesterday morning and got a really slow start to the day. I was feeling very lazy and didn’t really do much of anything for the first few hours that I was up. I was kind of watching out the window for the mailman to come because I was really hoping that I would receive my order from Sugarpill Cosmetics, which is the makeup I ordered specifically for Halloween. It was only a couple of hours after I woke up that I got a knock on my door – it was the mailman with a big box from Sugarpill Cosmetics. I kind of freaked out with glee as I ripped the package open. Now, I kind of assumed I’d be impressed with the products themselves because I have seen them in action a lot of times but I was also immediately impressed with the first thing I saw in the box. There was a lot of pink packing paper and at the very top when I opened the box there was a “receipt,” summarizing the order and cost and everything and on this paper, in pink marker, was a little note from Amy, the founder of Sugarpill Cosmetics, that simply read, “Thanks Jason! <3 Amy,” along with an adorable little Lisa Frank looking colorful cat sticker. I just felt like that was a really nice personal touch for a small, upstart company. It kind of adds a little personal element to the shopping experience, which I thought was really cool. I was also incredibly impressed with the packaging on all of these items – for such a small, new company they have really gorgeous packaging on their products, full of really bright, vibrant colors and absolutely no indication that they are a new company at all. The packaging for these products was actually a lot more impressive than a lot of the stuff that I have gotten from some of the biggest names in cosmetics, like Stila, MAC and Urban Decay. As far as the products themselves, I was extremely impressed with them – I knew I would be. I bought the Burning Heart palette, which includes four very large eye shadow pans, including an insanely pigmented “traffic cone” orange called Flamepoint, a bright true yellow called Buttercupcake, a deep purple called Poison Plum and, best of all, the most gorgeous, highly pigmented matte red eye shadow I have ever seen called Love+. As soon as I opened the package I swatched these colors on my hand and was completely blown away by them. It is insane how pigmented these colors come off on the skin. Seriously, they look INSANE. The colors go on your skin pretty much EXACTLY how they look in the pans, which is incredible when discussing colors like yellow, orange and red, all of which typically have a tendency to not be all that pigmented and go on looking very different on your skin. I cannot say enough good things about these products and I am already browsing the Sugarpill website for more!

After experimenting with my Sugarpill products a bit, I called my sister to ask her about giving me a ride to work on Monday and Tuesday, since my Mom is going to be out of town. When my sister answered the phone, though, she said that she had been meaning to call me because they were putting together a surprise birthday party for Jaq, her girlfriend’s daughter. I had completely forgotten that her birthday was coming because they have this funny thing that they do every year for both of her daughter’s birthdays, in which they celebrate for a much longer period than just one day, so I have never been entirely certain of the actual day either of their birthdays fall on. Anyway, so they told me that they were putting together this party for yesterday night and that I needed to come. I had already made plans with Rachel for going out to TOTIs yesterday evening but I figured I could do both. They asked me to come over early, when my Mom off work before she left town, so I suddenly had to be ready a lot sooner than expected. So, I had been experimenting with my Sugarpill makeup and was wearing this really ridiculous, over the top look I had come up with that I didn’t necessarily want to wear out for the evening, so I had to take it all off and kind of rush through the process of reapplying my makeup. I did a gorgeous look using the Stla Jewel Eye Palette but since I was rushing, I forgot to put on a primer and the look was pretty worn after not too long.

Once I arrived over at my sister’s house, I just spent a little while hanging out and talking to all of them about all the random issues of my life right now and such. It was nice because it seems like there is less and less time that I get to just hang out and talk with my sister and her girlfriend and their family. Of course, it was like 6pm when I actually started drinking this spiked punch stuff they made. I was already feeling a little bit of a buzz by 7pm when people started arriving. I had a lot of fun, though, and was very excited to get to hang out with some people that I hadn’t really gotten to see in a while. Most notably, my dear friend Kessler actually came down. I hadn’t seen him in months and it was really nice to get a chance to catch up with him for a while. We always had a lot of fun together back in the day and last night was a fun way to revisit that. I miss that guy. Like I said, I had a lot of fun there and wasn’t actually in the mood to leave when Rachel arrived to pick me up and head over to TOTIs. We actually hung out there for quite a while before leaving. I had a lot of fun and, like I said, it was really good to hang out for a while with people I don’t get a lot of chance to hang out with. I even got to spend a little while doing some harmless flirting with a hot old friend of mine, which is always nice and actually continued a little throughout the evening after I left by way of Facebook comments.

Now, I had actually drunk a LOT at my sister’s house and was feeling kind of a mess by the time we left. I had actually developed a bit of a headache and was feeling kind of shitty. Still, Rachel and I had been talking about going out to TOTIs all week and I was not about to punk out on that. So, after stopping by my house for a few minutes to do makeup touch-ups and grab my iPod speakers. Then, we headed out to Venice and partook of our favorite part of these trips – rocking out to all of our favorite pop music on the way! It was a big mish-mash of Ke$ha, Robyn, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and, our favorite party soundtrack, Katy Perry! Once we arrived at the bar I was still feeling pretty crappy and just kind of posted up at the bar while Rachel befriended some random gay kid who we met there. I had one of those experiences where I was feeling crappy and I was trying to convince myself that I could drink the crappy feeling away. I realized about $40 worth of drinks later that this wasn’t going to be the case. It was kind of a strange night for me after leaving my sister’s house but I had a lot of fun. I just felt really messed up. I was still feeling crappy by the time I got home and pretty much immediately put myself to bed. Of course, I made sure this time to remove my makeup and wash my face beforehand in order to avoid another breakout, since the last one still hasn’t entirely cleared up. It was a good day yesterday, though. I had a lot of fun.

One other thing I wanted to mention here is that I have found a new “mark.” By this I mean that I have met somebody who I am feeling really into right now. Actually, I met this person a very long time ago but have never really looked at them in this way before. I don’t know how to explain it exactly but I just suddenly started looking at them differently and have decided that this could be something I would be interested in pursing… and so, the game begins. That’s right, folks, Lady Gaga was right when she called it a “Love Game.” In fact, on the way home from the bar last night I played that song and suddenly found myself thinking, “Oh wow, this is all sounding pretty accurate.” I was particularly drawn in by the second verse of the song, which says, “I’m on a mission and it involves some heavy touching, yeah, You’ve indicated your interest, I’m educated in sex, yes, and now I want it bad, want it bad, a love game, a love game.” That kind of summarizes my feelings at the moment. I don’t know how to explain it exactly but it is like something comes over me and I become very focused. I become a man on a mission. I home in on my target and become very single-minded about it all until one of two things happens. The first of these two things is that something actually comes of it and I get to put my education in sex to good use. The second option is that I become increasingly discouraged about the whole thing and start feeling rejected and give up. I am that man on a mission now. Which direction this takes is yet to be determined. I suppose we shall see in time. For now, though, I need to get to the rest of my day. I don’t have a lot planned, aside from enjoying one of my very favorite Halloween-time traditions, watching “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” if I can find my DVD of it, and doing laundry. Of course, it is already after 5pm so if I am going to do any of it I need to get to it pretty much immediately. Have a good day. Blog again in just a few hours!

Chapter 344: A Beautiful Life (La Bella Vita)

I have to learn to tell myself no. I have to learn to tell myself when to stop. I have to learn to tell myself when it's time to just give up. More than any of that, though, I have to learn to mean it. I have to learn how to not lie to myself or talk myself into changing the way I think and the way I feel. I have got to learn because right now I have no idea and it fucking sucks. I already discussed all of this in the blog from yesterday/this morning, though. All I can really add here is that today was no help at all. In fact, today only wound up making matters worse. Man, it's hard to be me sometimes. Okay, it really isn't and I should never say that again. I can't remember the last time I ever did say that or anything like it because that's how long it has been. It isn't hard to be me at all. It's actually pretty fucking fabulous to be me and I am never ever going to knock it. I absolutely love being me. Sure, it could be a whole lot easier if I were somebody else but I don't know that it would be as fun. I really can't believe the audacity of me to actually type that sentence out. Fuck me, that was fucking stupid! Things could be SO much worse. I could live in a third-world country and be struggling to survive. I could live in one of those cultures where being myself and expressing it as openly as I do day-to-day would get me killed. I could be a woman - now THAT seems like a rough life to me. There are so many things out there that could be so much worse than having "too many feelings." I seriously just kind of sickened myself with that one sentence. God, I can be fucking ridiculous sometimes. It is fucking ridiculous of me to spend even a single moment feeling sorry for myself and I vow to do everything I can to never do it again. It's like the chorus of one of my very favorite songs, "A Beautiful Life (La Bella Vita)" by Lindsay Lohan, says, "This is my beautiful life, the only thing certain is everything changes, the lows and the highs and all those goodbyes, as hard as it gets I know it's still amazing to feel alive, It's a beautiful life." It truly is and I don't ever want to allow myself to forget that.

This makes me think of an experience I had yesterday that I didn't get to mention in the blog this morning. You see, yesterday was the most boring day possible at work. Seriously, it was so slow and I was so bored pretty much all day. I posted a little blurb about it on Facebook & received a comment from one of my dearest Facebook friends, Kelly, saying that she would send me an email telling me her life story to get me through the day. Honestly, I'm pretty sure she was joking but I took her up on the offer. The email I got was pretty incredible. Now, I am not going to go into any of the details or anything because it's not my story to tell but I will say that it definitely put a lot of things into perspective for me and kind of made me stop and look at my life and my experiences a lot differently. Like I mentioned above, it is very rare that you will hear me say some shit like I did above. I don't really do self-pity, in general, and genuinely enjoy the experience of being me. As I've also mentioned in the blog several times in the past, I have been called an inspiration by many different people for many different reasons. Most recently, though, the person I have heard this from the most is Kelly, the author of this email. I love the feeling of that because my ultimate goal with my life is to be an inspiration to as many people as I possibly can. Still, not in a self-pitying way or anything, I sometimes find myself questioning whether or not these statements from people are true and, even more, whether or not I am actually worthy of them. I try my best to live my life in a way that is always true to who I am inside and keeps in mind the concept of being an example to others. There are definitely moments, though, where I feel extremely humbled and somewhat unworthy of the title of "inspiration." Those moments most frequently come when I hear somebody else's story and how much they have managed to make it through and still stay standing. This was definitely the case with Kelly's email and I feel eternally grateful to her for sharing it with me. I also feel extremely grateful to her for being probably the biggest supporter and most loyal follower of this blog from nearly the very beginning.

Just talking about that right now really took my mind off of all that other mess I've been focusing on so much. I mean, not completely. It didn't completely take my mind off of it but it did remind me to put the whole thing into perspective. After all, a few years down the road, when I am sitting with my perfect partner, my very own James Dean, this moment and this day will not even be a blip on the radar. It doesn't actually mean anything at all. I mean, the people involved definitely do but the feelings I am feeling right now and this particular day does not. So, fuck it. As I was recently telling one of my very good friends, everything will work out exactly how it is meant to, so if it is meant to happen it will happen eventually. I know, it's a little cliche but I have always believed that cliches only become cliches because they are actually statements that are universally true... Overly simplified, sure, but still true. This friend has been turning to me for a lot of advice recently and told me that I need to write a self-help book. While music has always been my main passion in life, I do also get a great deal of pleasure out of writing and have long been told that I am really good at it and that it is something that I should pursue. I never gave much thought to that whole concept, really, because I always dismissed it as not being my passion or what I REALLY wanted to do with my life. Thinking of it now, though, perhaps I was wrong about that. I mean, my main passion has always been music and my biggest dream in life has always been to become a successful musician. Underneath the surface of that dream, though, was always the same reason why - because I wanted to be an inspiration to people all over the world. I wanted to be a source of comfort to people, make them feel less alone in their lives and be a reflection of what they want to become for themselves. What I am slowly starting to realize now, though, is that I can still do that without making music. I mean, sure, music has always been my dream but it truly isn't the only way. In fact, it may not even be the most efficient way considering the fact that I lack a lot of the ability necessary to make it as a musician, most notably the ability to actually write music. One ability that I DO have, though, is the ability to write. I may not be the best writer in the world but I do have a lot of ideas and a LOT to say to the world. So, why not?

So, aside from all that, I didn't really do a whole lot today. I received one of the two big boxes o' makeup I have been anxiously awaiting since last weekend. This box is the one that I was less excited for, honestly, but I was still really happy to receive it. This was from my very favorite brand of cosmetics, Stila. It was their limited edition Jewel Eye Shadow Palette, which had become pretty hard to find and was only selling for very high prices on Ebay and such. So, I was really excited when Stila posted on their Facebook page that they were bringing it back in a limited quantity and I quickly rushed to order one for myself before they ran out. The Jewel Eye Shadow palette is a smaller than it should be eye shadow quad featuring four gorgeous new shades of eye shadow from Stila, each one filled with an insane amount of glitter. There is the lightest shade, a pale pink full of silver colored glitter called Rose Quartz, a bronze/beige full of golden/champagne colored glitter called Golden Topaz, a deep purple full of silver glitter called Amethyst and an intense black full of silver glitter called Black Diamond. Of course, as soon as this item arrived I just had to go ahead and experiment with it a bit. I put together a gorgeous look using all four shadows and was really blown away by the amount of sparkle this look had. Even more, though, I was blown away by the amount of pigment the actual shadows had - it seems like, more often than not, when these cosmetics company try to do a really glittery shadow it winds up going on as looking like a lot of glitter and not a lot of actual color. This was not the case with these shadows, though. They went on beautifully. I absolutely loved the look I did with this palette today and am already planning on wearing another look with these colors out tomorrow night when Rachel and I go out for our weekly TOTIs trip.

I wound up having a few friends over for a couple of hours this evening, which was a lot of fun. I felt a little bad because I kind of had to rush them off because I had to go run errands with my Mom when she got off work at 8pm. It was okay, though, because they had actually kind of come up with other plans while we were hanging out, anyway. So, it all worked out in the end. It is kind of funny, though, because I have become pretty close with these people, who I met at work, over the past few months but they are considerably younger than I am - like almost a decade. Age doesn't really make a whole lot of difference to me if you actually gel with people but I do find myself taking on this kind of "maternal" role with them. As they were leaving my house this evening I was sitting there telling them to put on sweaters and BE CAREFUL and all those kinds of things that you normally only get from your parents or "trustworthy adults" or whatever. It is kind of weird for me to now have to say, "Oh shit, I'm one of those adults." When the hell did that happen? When did I start being concerned with the consequences of people's actions and stuff? I must have missed the moment that it happened but it is becoming increasingly clear that it has happened. One thing that I do really appreciate about hanging out with younger people, though, is that they kind of remind me to be a little less cautious and a little less concerned about consequences and such, and remind me of how great it can feel to just say "Fuck it," and let go for a little while. This is a feeling that I have been embracing a lot lately, actually, and I think that this may have a lot to do with the people I have been surrounding myself with. It's definitely a positive move for me, I think. After all, I have been having a lot more fun in the past couple of months than I have probably throughout the rest of the almost year that I have been writing this blog and I think it probably shows... if in no other way than my little series of fucked up, drunk out of my mind video blogs. It is all good as long as I keep myself under control. That is a very important thing for me to remember. I definitely do not need to fall into some of the patterns I have fallen into in the past.

After my friends left, my Mom picked me up to go out and run some errands. We had to pick up some groceries for this weekend and go to Walgreen's to get money out of the ATM for my share of the rent and bills and such. While we were at Walgreen's I did what I do pretty much any time I walk into a Walgreen's and went on a mini-shopping spree for drugstore brand makeup. They had some really kick ass sales, too - pretty much every brand had a wide selection of items that were buy one, get one 50% off. So, I snatched up a few things that I am really excited about. I got two new Revlon kohl eyeliners, in white, which I have really been needing, and a very bright purple, which will suit many of the looks I do day to day. I also picked up two of the Revlon Colorstay Ultimate Liquid Lipcolors, in #1 Nude and Iconic Iris. I have become a little obsessed with liquid lipsticks because I find that they stay on so much better than a regular lipstick but look so much better than a lip stain. Plus, these colors both look gorgeous on me! I also picked up two new Maybelline blushers because I feel like I don't really have a wide selection to choose from in terms of blushes. I pretty much always just use my Stila Convertible Colors, which are great, but I don't have a large selection of colors in those. I actually learned a new technique for applying blush earlier today that I used when doing my makeup for the day and I found it to work absolutely perfectly for me. You see, I have always started by placing blush on the apples of my cheeks and blending it back towards the ear, which works out okay but never quite comes out giving the appearance of a natural flush of color. What I learned today, by way of some YouTube video I watched, was to start at the apples of the cheeks and blend downwards and continue blending downwards moving back towards the ear. I don't quite know how to explain that properly here but, essentially, it is all about blending downwards instead of side to side. It doesn't seem like that would make all that much of a difference but it really does. So, I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again - yay for drugstore makeup! I love to buy drugstore makeup for experimentation purposes, when I want to try out new things and discover different products that I like, before going out and paying the cost for high end versions of products. It works out well for me, I think. It will also make for some really good posts on my upcoming beauty blog, as well, I think.

Speaking of my upcoming beauty blog, Beauty In The Mirror, I was kind of telling my Mom about the whole concept behind it and some of the different things I wanted to do with it and her response was, "Oh, just like on Ugly Betty?" I kind of got a kick out of that comment because I hadn't made the connection before but "Ugly Betty" is one of my favorite television shows of all-time and was a huge inspiration to me in a LOT of different ways. In the fourth and final season of the show, Betty was feeling unsatisfied with the stuff that she was being asked to write for Mode Magazine, so she started a blog on which she could write about the topics that she really wanted to discuss. Her blog was focused on finding the beauty in everyday people, much like mine will be. I must have taken my inspiration from that subconsciously. As I have mentioned quite a few times recently, I am really excited to get started on that whole project. I have decided, though, that I need to buy myself a better digital camera than what I have currently. Don't get me wrong, my Sony Bloggie is brilliant as a camcorder, because that is what it is actually meant for, but it definitely leaves something to be desired in terms of still photography. So, I have decided that I need to find myself a better quality camera for actual photography because I definitely intend for photography to be a big part of my beauty blog. So, this is something that I will definitely have to research further.

It is almost 2am and I need to get myself to bed. It has been a really long day, in a lot of ways, but a really good day in a lot of ways, as well. I am happy with the results of this day looking back on it. Sure, some things are still not as clear as I had hoped they would be but I suppose that is all a part of life. What can I say about life? It ISN'T hard for me. It is fucking fabulous. Like the Lindsay Lohan song I quoted above said, "It's a beautiful life." It truly is, and I fully intend to remind myself of that every chance that I get moving forward. No more feeling sorry for myself ever again - it was a moment of weakness and I feel almost ashamed of myself for it. No more. I am moving forward with my beautiful life and, soon enough, I am going to fall in love with a beautiful man and find the way to really make something of my beautiful self. I am going to find my way to show the rest of the world what a beautiful life it can be. For now, though, I am going to hop into my beautiful bed and get a beautiful night's sleep. After all, I need to get rested up for another crazy TOTIs night tomorrow! Goodnight.