7 Essential Skills You Need for a DIY Remodel

1. A champagne budget, and beer tastes.
If you have loads of money and you're good at making inexpensive materials look like a million bucks, then you will go far in your home remodel. If, like me, you can make a $4000 granite countertop look like it was installed by blind one-armed monkeys, you probably should just rent.
2. An eye for thrift store stuff that can be repainted/covered/re-engineered to look like something far more expensive.
I bought an old folding screen and intended to cover it with Marimekko fabric and place it in the living room. After moldering on the carport for three years, that folding screen went out with the trash.
3. The ability to negotiate for a better deal.
I have the reverse of this, where you pay far more than something is worth just because you're too embarrassed to haggle and look like a cheapskate.
4. Basic carpentry, painting and power tool skills.
I once cut myself with a hammer. If something needs to be plugged in, I will either trip over the cord or stick a finger in the socket. But I can paint like a mother.
5. Patience.
As if. 
6. A willingness to go with the flow and take setbacks in stride.
I painted our new steel doors a couple of weeks ago. Problem is, I painted them high gloss to match the trim. Never do this. In fact, I knew not to do this but it's like my brain had taken a nap for the three hours while this was going on. So there I was, just mechanically painting and thinking about old Seinfeld episodes and musing over which character I liked best when really they're all equally unlikable, then suddenly I realized what I was doing and my brain screamed, "What the hell with the high gloss paint, you idiot?" Then I started crying and pretty much just did that for the next hour. Then I spent two days scraping the paint off the doors and repainting them with oil primer and flat paint in the wall color. The doors look fab, but I have developed a twitch whenever I look at them.
7. The ability to know when enough is enough, and just call the damn contractor already.

What a difference 8 years of marriage makes

It's 2002. Royal and I are at a luncheon with my co-workers celebrating our engagement:
Royal: (Pokes at salad on plate tentatively.) "Hey, these are dogwood leaves!
Me: (Gazing at him adoringly.) "Oh my God,  you're so adorable. My baby has never had arugula! It's so charming!"
Co-workers: Squeal with adoration in unison.

Eight years later, at the dinner table:
Royal: (Pokes at salad on plate tentatively.) "What is--"
Me: (Snarling) "Just eat the damn salad."

37 Songs

Today starts my birthday week (not that I'm celebrating for an entire week -- in fact, can I just say that I'm not celebrating at all? I still haven't really wrapped my head around being 37 yet) and because I was inspired by Laurel's road trip post, and because I'm a lazy blogger, here are 37 songs I have loved over the years that I will still love at 87, provided I live that long:

1. Bizarre Love Triangle, New Order
2. We Got the Beat, The Go-Gos
3. Come Dancing, The Kinks
4. Rock Lobster, B-52s
5. A Letter to Elise, The Cure
6. Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie
7. Space Oddity, David Bowie
8. Ashes to Ashes, David Bowie (I couldn't pick just one Bowie song)
9. Hold Me, Fleetwood Mac (I always loved this cheesy video, but why were they in the desert?)
10. The Weight, Aretha Franklin
11. Heartless, Heart
12. Electric Church Red House, Jimi Hendrix
13. Once I Had a Woman, Jimi Hendrix
14. Voodoo Chile, Jimi Hendrix (I couldn't pick just one Hendrix song)
15. Texas Flood, Stevie Ray Vaughan
16. In the Evening, Led Zeppelin
17. Misty Mountain Hop, Led Zeppelin
18. Immigrant Song, Led Zeppelin
19. Ramble On, Led Zeppelin (with the old Hobbit cartoon!)
20. Thank You, Led Zeppelin (Oh God, Led Zep was the soundtrack to my teenage years)
21. Why, Annie Lennox
22. Do I Move You, Nina Simone
23. Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out, Bessie Smith
24. Non Je Ne Regrette Nien, Edith Piaf
25. Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd
26. Mother, Pink Floyd (and the entirety of "The Wall," the best album of all time)
27. The W.A.N.D., The Flaming Lips
28. Maps, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
29. Violet, Hole
30. Seether, Veruca Salt
31. Train in Vain, The Clash
32. Where is My Mind, Pixies
33. Une Very Stylish Fille, Dimitri from Paris
34. Shake Your Rump, The Beastie Boys (I used to have a huge crush on Ad Rock - he's still pretty cute)
35. Killer Queen, Queen
36. Let's Groove, Earth Wind and Fire (My all-time fave song to roller skate to)
37. Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin), Sly & the Family Stone

Happy early birthday to me!

The Life of a Migraineur

I love that the term for a sufferer of migraines is French. Unfortunately, that's the only exotic thing about migraines. Unlike my other disorder, this one has no silver lining.

My eyesight is 20/200 and I often read weighty tomes with words printed in 8 point type. I've always had headaches. Most of the time I forget I'm even having one because they're so common. I used to rarely even bother to take pain relievers for my headaches, unless I got one of those tension headaches that made my eyes throb in their sockets. In a perverse way, I thought of my frequent headaches as a badge of honor; a nerd badge from all the reading I did.

At Lipstick, one of our saleswomen suffered from migraines. She always seemed to get a migraine just when I needed her to meet with an important potential advertiser. I suspected her "migraines" were just a convenient excuse. As someone who experienced almost constant headaches, I considered her a lightweight. Not knowing anyone personally who suffered from migraines, I placed them on my list with allergy sufferers -- weak people who didn't spend enough time around germs while growing up.

One day I was sitting in my very loud, very bright office -- my office had three walls of glass, so there was no sound proofing at all against the tide of phones and chatter on our floor -- and I was overcome by the worst feeling I'd ever had. I felt more nauseated than I ever had before. The room seemed to be tilting, the walls melting. Voices that I could normally tune out were shrill and piercing. The light was oppressive -- I felt it would shatter my eyeballs. I had no idea what was going on, but the pressure in my skull was intense. I wanted to cry, to puke, to pass out. What the hell was happening to me? I couldn't speak, but I managed to inch my way down to the back elevator, feeling my way along the wall because my eyes were squeezed shut against the pain. The walk through the atrium was agony. The noise from all four floors of the building had coalesced into a spinning ball of cacophony that lodged in my brain, along with the horrible food smells that came from the cafeteria. Deadly shafts of sunlight streamed through the windows and I thought I would scream. I stumbled out onto the street, and somehow made it to the relative darkness of my car in the parking deck. I called Royal. "Come get me," I sobbed. "I don't know what's happening to me."

The ride home was hellish. Royal had to pull over twice so I could vomit, and the pain in my head was demonic now. I think I begged him to kill me. He didn't know if he should take me home or to the hospital. I just wanted to lie down and die. At home, he put me in bed with a cool cloth on my head and pulled the curtains tight. A handful of Advil later, I felt a bit better. I think I finally slept, although fitfully.

That was my first migraine, and it was certainly the worst. After seeing my doctor, who gave me a shockingly expensive prescription medicine (at the time, it was something like $25 a pill), I was told my migraines were probably hormonal. It seemed my migraines had been brought on by switching to the generic version of the birth control pills I had been taking for years.

Now I get a migraine once or twice a month, and they aren't so bad. I'm prepared for them now with a bottle of Coke (caffeine is a wonder drug) and four Excedrin Migraine tablets. But even when I can dispatch them quickly, migraines have changed my life. I no longer shrug off a headache, I worry that it will bloom across my skull like a bloodstain. I now keep pain relievers in my purse, in my car, on my desk, anywhere that I might need to grab them at a moment's notice. Social plans are often canceled at the first twinge of a migraine. If I'm working, I try to stumble through the pain, but I'm in such a fog that I might as well give in and go to bed.

A migraine can appear on a otherwise perfect day and ruin everything. Like today, when I woke up and actually had some energy. I worked out and was cleaning the kitchen when BAM. A migraine hit and I didn't have a Coke on hand. I swallowed some pills but they just weren't working this time. Two hours in bed helped, but even now I can feel the insistent pressure at the back of my skull.

The worst part of being a migraineur -- besides the debilitating pain, of course -- is that there are no outward symptoms. I don't get a fever, spasms, blotches, a hacking cough, fainting spells or any other outward manifestation that tells people, "This chick is sick." The worst part of getting migraines is that they're all in your head -- and you hope people believe you're not using them as a convenient excuse.

The Meanings of Little Debbie Snack Cakes

Little Debbie Snack Cakes are sources of much mystery and wonder. How, I ask, can you create a dessert-like snack so full of deliciousness, yet completely devoid of anything remotely resembling actual food ingredients? By pondering the meanings of these faux pastries, we may truly understand the universe.

What your choice of Little Debbie Snack Cake says about you:

Swiss Cake Rolls: Sadomasochists. Most people are unaware of this, but to really enjoy a Swiss Cake Roll, you must first peel off the "chocolate" layer that enrobes the "spongecake" layer. This requires patience and laser focus, after which you will become so frustrated that you consume the rest of the box in one sitting.
Devil  Squares: Submissives. Swiss Cake Rolls with training wheels. Eat these and taste your shame.
Oatmeal Cream Pies: Traditionalists and/or ironic hipsters. These little "pies" seem so homely and wholesome Americana, yet to eat them is to truly know bliss.
Nutty Bars: The paterfamilias. My own dad eats them by the case. Whenever I pass by them in the grocery store, I think, "I need to call Daddy." They remind me of steel lunch pails and faded blue coveralls.

Far out, dude

Cosmic Brownies: If you said "drug users," nope, wrong. Sadly, these do not contain the drugs the box leads you to believe they do. These are the O'Doul's of snack cakes.

Fancy Cakes: No one eats these.
Fudge Rounds: The sensualist. "Chocolate" and more "chocolate-type product" are pressed together into delicious, creamy harmony. A wave of fudge icing adorns the moist, rich cake. These are sometimes called "slut cakes."
Fall Brownies: The snack of the easily amused. Whenever my husband sees them in the store, he says, "FAIL brownies"and laughs in a manner very like either Beavis or Butthead. Then he snaps a photo with his phone. I don't know what he does with this photo, since he doesn't blog or tweet or anything. He does this every time we go to the store. EVERY TIME.
Pecan Spinwheels: Your inner child. These take me back to third grade. My mom has set out a plate of these and a cold glass of milk for me after school. It's fall, and the windows are open in the kitchen as I unroll the Spinwheels and eat them in strips. Mama is washing dishes while asking me about my day. The TV softly chatters in another room. I am not aware of it, but this is an extraordinary moment. One day I will forget the pleasure of eating a snack in the kitchen while my mother speaks warmly to me.

Also, one day I will be fat.