No One Said Enlightenment Was Easy

Today’s Attire: I’m wearing a dress I haven’t worn in probably 3 years.  Blue print cotton knee length wrap dress (Banana Republic $48), white with silver detail sandals (White House Black Market Outlet $28).

 Outfit Justification: There are three reasons why I’m wearing this dress.  I was supposed to conduct an interview that was canceled and thought I would look as presentable as I could for that. Second, I’m going to the doctor this afternoon and needed something that would be light on the scale when I step on it. Third, I was finally able to get into the damn thing.

 No One Said Enlightenment Was Easy:

I’m not a “new agey” type of person.   But I can appreciate certain aspects of new age beliefs and philosophies.  I have people in my life who believe very strongly in this.  And I love them for it.  I was born and raised in a religious background, I’m Christian, and that’s where my beliefs are. I guess if I have to put a label on me, I could say that I’m spiritual.  But I like to state that I have an open mind. I truly believe that not everything works for everyone.  You have to try a few things.  Sometimes you have to get away from what you know in effort to gain some insight in this life.  I guess I was looking for something new insight in my life.

 Last night I went to a book signing at a new age type bookstore in Venice. My friend who I haven’t seen in 3 years was doing a workshop and book signing.   She sent me a message that she was going to be in town and wanted to invite me to the signing.  This isn’t normally my type of thing.  But something in me said that I needed to make an effort attend.  I told my buddy Natalie that I was going to this, and asked if she was interested in going with me.  She agreed.  I’ve never been to a book signing before, so I didn’t really know what to expect.  Natalie hadn’t been to one either.  I guess I completely missed the part about the workshop.  I was just happy for the opportunity to see my friend again.  I had a copy of her book and I get her weekly inspirational emails, but it’s been awhile since we spoke.  And I thought it would be nice to see her in this setting.

 So leading up to the event, I was in a foul mood.  I had very low energy and was in very low spirits.  When I went to talk to Natalie I said to her, “Oh good, you’re wearing something new agey”. Referring to her turquoise necklace.  She laughed. And then sent an email saying how it was funny that we were going to this, when we really aren’t new age, yogi, philosophical types.  But we were both eager to go to this.   And I’m glad we did.

 When we arrived at the bookstore we were greeted very warmly by my friend, I remembered why I was so eager to see her again.  Her smile always put me at ease even in the most uncomfortable situations.  The funny thing was I was super uncomfortable at this signing.  It was fear of the unknown I guess.  Most of that fell away as the evening proceeded on.  Other people started to arrive and Natalie and I found our seats on a nice cozy loveseat in the corner.  One of the ladies offered us a sound bath.  I accepted her offer despite not knowing what it was.  And I was hoping my face didn’t reflect my thoughts. Because all I had going through my head was “What the hell is a sound bath?”  She then took a metal bowl and some sort of stick and tapped the bowl lightly and rotated the stick around the bowl as it vibrated and made a lovely sound.  She rotated the bowl and stick around my body. Still not understanding what was going on, I just tried to relax and stay in tuned with the sound. Which totally relaxed me.   I watched her repeat the process with Natalie agreed to get a sound bath.  And I kept thinking afterwards, I don’t know what that was, but it was nice. 

 Without going into a bunch of specifics, I learned a lot during this workshop. It was interesting to hear my friend talk about her book and how it came to be. Then going through some of the exercises she suggested for different situations.  A lot of breathing, and listening and quieting outside sounds to try and be in tune with what you need or want.  There was mention of techniques used for coping with things.  I felt enlightened afterwards.   I don’t have any special powers now that I’ve gone to this workshop. I did come out better than I did when I left.  And I think that counts for a lot.  I do plan on trying to use these exercises I learned in the future.  But it’s baby steps.  I tried this morning, but nothing seems to really be effective as it was last night.   But you have to keep trying.  No one said enlightenment was easy.

Here’s a link to my friend’s book: http://www.mikaelajones.com/the-little-book-of-light/ It’s definitely worth looking into because it’s very inspirational.

Being a Copy Cat Isn’t Always a Bad Thing:

Today’s Fashion Attire:  

Today I’m wearing a white “wife beater” style tank top (Old Navy $5) paired with a black knit cardigan with asymmetrical hem and lace detail on the shoulders (White House Black Market $38), a beige cotton single breasted trench (Gap Outlet $12), medium wash denim premium skinny jeans (Gap Outlet $35), knee high taupe microfiber/suede boots (Torrid $48). I added a zebra print ruffled scarf (White House Black Market $14) and black and silver bead bracelet (White House Black Market $12).

Outfit Justification:  

This is me duplicating another outfit from the Dresses page on Facebook. I realized I had the most of the pieces, or similar ones.  And although I wanted to be festive and wear something in Mardi Gras colors, I opted to copy this outfit. It's easier using a guildeline.

Being a Copy Cat Isn’t Always a Bad Thing:

This blog is going to be a short one.  I don’t have anything profound to say today. Last week’s blog on Outfit Inspiration has already addressed.  I just wanted to show off my efforts of duplicating another one of these outfits.  The beauty of having such a large wardrobe is every now and then you can duplicate something you see.  It’s kinda of like shopping your own closet.  Me documenting that I did this, might help me for future reference when I need to pick an outfit.  I look reasonably cute and presentable.  I can’t always say that. 

Creep: The Vivian Rogers Chronicle

Today’s Attire: Today I’m sporting my cold winter’s worse, a long sleeve lime green(chartreuse) crew neck tee (TJ Maxx $13) under a thick a midnight blue and white checked flannel (stolen from an ex because it looked much better on me than it did on him), black cotton leggings with zipper detail on the ankle (Banana Republic $17) paired with knee high black leather boots (Torrid $45).

Outfit Justification:  I woke up cold.  And I didn’t feel like wearing one of my blah oversized sweaters, and I clearly lacked much imagination.  I put this big flannel over this loud tee, to calm it down a little.  No, this isn’t one of my best outfits, but frankly I’m warm and that’s all that counts at the moment.  I usually spend half my day walking in and out of a server room.  I’m allowed to look like I’m kicking it with my 90’s grunge friends from Seattle.

Creep:  The Vivian Rogers Chronicle

This past Friday night, I was given the opportunity to perform again with Lounge-O-Rama at Britannia Pub in Santa Monica. I was asked to sing a song that I’ve been singing at karaoke for about 6 months, Creep by Radiohead.  I’ve never had the opportunity to sing it with a live band.  Scratch that, I did sing it once at a rehearsal with a project that I worked on.  But I have never performed it live with a band until this past Friday night. 

This has been one of my new favorite songs to sing because of the good reaction I get when I sing it. The funniest thing about it is that I’ve hated this song for about 5 years because of karaoke.   I’d heard so many people sing this song poorly and it was so overdone that I walked out of the bar every time someone sang it. It didn’t matter how good it might sound, I just hated hearing it.  My best friend David also had the same reaction to it.  Whenever we were in a car together and the original would come on the radio we each raced to change the channel.  A while back I was auditioning for a band and that was one of the songs that I had to prepare for the audition.  So I decided to give this song a practice at karaoke to see if I could stomach singing it.  And the weirdest thing was that I did my own take on it and it was good.  The audition fell through, I forgot about the song and left it alone after that. 

One afternoon when I was preparing to audition for The Voice, I was watching an episode of it.  It was one of the battle rounds. And Adam Levine of Maroon 5 had chosen this song for two people who felt it was completely out of their range.  I saw them do it, and then remembered I had done it once.   As I listened to these two people perform, I thought to myself “I can do better than that”.  A short time after the audition, I did just that.  Everyone flipped.  In my mind, I said, I’ll file that one away for when I need it.

As mentioned before, last year was a tough year for me. I was an emotional wreck for months because I was ill and didn’t know the cause. Then after all my health issues, I was really struggling with my voice.  A lot of damage had been done to my singing voice during the time I was sick.  I was struggling to do the one thing that I love so much and I was beginning to think that I might I have to abandon the singing thing because I just didn’t sound that good any more.   I had a performance that felt less than stellar about.  Plus a series of bad nights when I went to karaoke. Needless to say I felt lost.

Then I did the one thing I do when I hit some of the lowest points in my life. I look at the lyrics of song and really try to understand how they apply to me.  Doing this sometimes gives me a new purpose and perspective.  In the darkest years it was Sober and Who Knew by Pink. Around the anniversary of my father’s death, I started thinking about the lyrics to Creep and really wondered if they applied to me. Before I would just sing the song with no real thought to what I was singing.  But this particular day I thought about it.

The Song Breakdown as Applied to Me:

The main theme: “I’m a creep. I’m a weirdo” this is me, this is how I feel.  Here I am this girl, singing a dude’s song, in his range in the beginning.  That makes me kind of a weirdo.  Many people think I have I have a lot of attitude and think that I’m a bitch.   That makes me a creep.   

In the first verse “Couldn’t look you in the eye. You’re just like an angel.” refers to me being intimidated by really good singers and my lack of faith in my owning singing ability. In my mind I have a tendency to deify them.  “I wish I was special” This refers to my being envious of those people with those typical fantastic vocals.

In the second verse I take the song up an octave when it mentions “don’t care if it hurts”.  Singing in that upper range is completely out of my comfort zone.  A lot of the vocal damage was evident up there. Pushing through to my upper notes hurt sometimes, physically and emotionally. “I want to have control. I want a perfect body. I want a perfect soul.” These are the most meaningful lyrics that hit home in this song for me.  It’s no secret that I struggle with my weight.   Wanting the perfect body is something that sometimes paralyzes me because I’m so far from it.  And I beat myself up mentally for lacking the control for letting my body get to the point where it is.  Although I want to achieve a place where I’m not punishing myself for being fat, and can accept me as I am, I’m not there yet.  If I ever got to a point where I accepted my body as is, that would be the equivalent of having a perfect soul.   It’s the mind body balance.

The bridge of the song “She’s running out the door”.  This has been my response to most awful things in my life, I’ve run.  A major character flaw of mine is the need to bolt when a situation has gotten tough.  I warned my husband when we first started dating, that I have had my share of trust and commitment issues and that plagues me.  If I can’t deal, I quit. That was my old philosophy.

In the final verse of the song “Whatever makes you happy. Whatever you want” there are so many of my emotional issues that are tied to trying to please other people.  And in trying to please so many people, I have failed.  But I mostly failed myself because it wasn’t whatever made ME happy.  And I was still struggling to be special and ultimately felt like “I don’t belong here”.

To sum this up, this song brings to light so many of my emotional issues.  Once I decided this was my go to song to sing, I put so much passion behind it became a therapy session every time I sang it.  This is my song.

Outfit Inspiration Tools

Today’s Fashion Attire:  Today I’m wearing a fitted white tee (White House Black Market Outlet $10), dark wash boot cut jeans with white stitching (Ross $15), Chinese Laundry short black motorcycle boots (Ross $12) black leather belt (Gap Outlet $14). I accessorized with long beaded necklaces, a bangle and multiple bracelets.

Outfit Justification:  I saw a picture of an outfit on Facebook over the weekend and I wanted to duplicate it.  This was my attempt.

Outfit Inspiration Tools:

Even the most versatile fashionista hits a style rut.  If you have spent any significant time with me, you know that I have a very large wardrobe. I love clothes. I love shopping. I’m very good at shopping.  Actually, I’m a little too good at shopping. I’m grateful that I have a very large closet in our apartment.  But despite all that, I have on multiple occasions looked in my closet and uttered the words “I have nothing to wear!”  This is a false statement. It’s not that I don’t have anything to wear it’s that when it comes to getting dress, I’m not inspired to wear something.  As a result I feel less than fabulous. Usually this involves some sort of meltdown.  (The meltdowns usually occur when something doesn’t fit, let’s just call it a fat day). The thing is I can put together an outfit. I do it all the time when I’m shopping. But somehow I’m never inspired when dressing in the morning or going out for the evening. And then I’m at a loss when I’m trying to do this in my own home.

Two inventions have been helping resolve my plight. One is the “Dresses” page on Facebook. The second is Pinterest. If you’re friends with me on Facebook, and if I’m in your newsfeed, you’ll see me occasionally like an outfit on this page called Dresses.  Quisha, my hairstylist extraordinaire, was the one who introduced me to this page.  The page is created by some person who lives in Egypt.  The gist of the page is that post pictures of complete outfits.  And even though the page is called Dresses, it doesn’t only feature dresses.  They should change the name to Outfits.  The pictures include the outfit, shoes, purses, and other assorted accessories. Sometimes it includes fragrances and nail polish. Sometimes it includes something random like a Starbucks coffee cup…yes that’s weird.   Not every outfit is fantastic. Some of them are either darn right tacky, or just too hoochified for my liking. But what I like about this particular page is that there isn’t usually a body in the clothes.  We’re not associating an outfit with some rail thin model.  You can imagine yourself in the outfit and not the person they pictured. Sometimes they have a person in there, but most of the time not.  What I don’t love is that they don’t include where to buy something or how much it costs.  Oh well it helps the person to use their own imagination as to where someone can find an item.  And in my case, I can usually look in my closet for something similar.

Pinterest is also another great source for ideas on a lot of things. In case you hadn’t heard, Pinterest is another social media website that is basically electronic scrapbooking.  You login to the site, there’s a feed from everyone you’re following and the boards you’re following.  And you can like things, or you can just repin them to your own board. My friend Natalie has been inspired by the hairstyles on there, and tried them on herself.  I find myself pinning stuff left and right. And recently I’ve been using the app on my phone to show people pieces of my Pinup Girl wardrobe when I’m out and about.  Often times there’s the  same kind of feed of outfits on Pinterest, and I’m pin them thinking I’m going to try find something in my closet that looks like what they put together.  So it’s another source.

I have to say, having these lovely little tools to help me put an outfit together is pretty cool. I still have my fashion magazines, like InStyle, for inspiration as well, but having these new little tools brings a certain coolness to copying someone else.  And I have to say I have a major sense of accomplishment by being able to successfully duplicate one of these outfits.  Today, I’ve received a few compliments on my outfit, well the jewelry.  I’ve been pretty sick with the flu all week and weekend and coming back to compliments has helped me feel a little better.  So I count that as a fabulous success.  I’m including a picture of the page from Dresses, I copied, and a picture of me in the outfit.