Hurricane Relief

I feel guilty today if I think of anything other than the people in Mississippi and Louisiana who were affected by the hurricane. I can't imagine what it must be like to lose all that they have lost.

We need to send them some love. I hope you'll come to lunch at Tijuana Bar and Grill at 4900 McKinney in Dallas (at McKinney and Montecello) today if you can. All the money goes to hurricane relief. The whole morning show will be there from 11-2. Or you can donate through http://1061kissfm.com.

I have friends in Baton Rouge that I've lost touch with recently, and when I think about the reasons that we have grown apart I'm completely humbled. Life is too short and fragile to let relationships unravel. Much love to everybody in Louisana and Mississippi and everyone that's helping them recover.

Turkey Sandwiches and Inadequacy

I have to kill time today until our 2:00 staff meeting. Thomas (from the mentorship program) and I were supposed to meet at 9:30, but he cancelled. He's a nice guy with potential, but he has cancelled twice in four weeks and I don't think that bodes well. Not that I'm going to punish him or anything because hey, if he doesn't show up it's less work for me. It's his career. Perhaps he just doesn't like me. Hmm. Anyway, I'll just use the time to blog. I won't type all the way up until 2:00, don't worry! I have to leave for a different meeting at 10:15 so I'll have to shut it off before that.

I ate a turkey sandwich at 6am today. I intended to save it for lunch between meetings, but it looked so good sitting there in my bag as I went to grab for an oatmeal bar that I decided I couldn't wait any longer. And I didn't want to have to dig out my access card to get through two security doors just to put my sandwich in the refrigerator in the break room. It was either get food poisoning from bad mayonnaise later or eat the sandwich early. It was tastey.

I've been feeling really inadequate lately. I'm sure everyone goes through phases like this. I thought mine could be attributed to Aunt Flo last week, but it's lingering this week. Maybe overwhelmed is a better word than inadequate. I just feel like there is not enough time in the day to do everything I want or feel I have to do, and then when I do give my attention something it doesn't turn out as well as I wanted it to. This applies mostly to writing projects and leadership opportunities outside of work, but also to friendships. I can do better than I've been doing lately.

I took The Four Agreements off the bookshelf yesterday so I will be reminded to read it again this week. Don Miguel Ruiz to the rescue...

Mostly Salsa

We went to the women's expo yesterday for about an hour, and in that short amount of time we were accosted about sixteen times by people asking us to sign up for a drawing or try a sample of their jam on a cracker. I do love the free samples, but I get uncomfortable when it's obvious that "Hi, how are you" really means "Please have an interest in my product." They did have some great stuff at the expo though. Angela walked around while I introduced the fashion show and after I was done she took me back to the exhibits she had determined were the coolest. One of those was a salsa boothe. I think we purchase salsa at every festival we attend. In fact, if the people at the expo who wanted us to buy the fancy pillows that mold to your head and give you the most restful night ever would have just thrown in a bonus bottle of salsa, we probably would have been more interested. Anyway, we left the expo with two jars of green salsa and a jar of some sort of southwest pumpkin butter concoction that rocked on pretzels. We're suckers for good condiments.

We had dinner with friends Saturday night at Mi Cocina in Irving and we ate the exact same thing we had eaten at Mi Cocina in Plano six days before. We're such creatures of habit when it comes to mexican food. Sunset style chicken fajitas. The cilantro queso sauce is amazing. If Mi Cocina would bottle that and sell it we would buy it. We know Kim and Virginia (our dinner mates) from the 20Something group that I co-lead at church on Wednesday nights so we talked about God a lot. We have some great conversations in the group on Wednesday nights, but sometimes the big group discussions don't give us the opportunity to say everything we want to say and we need to go to dinner to get it all out. I love friends with depth. We have plenty of friends who would rather not have deep conversations and that's fine, but Saturday night it was nice to get our inspiration on.

Today it's back to the Blackeyed Peas and Kelly Clarkson. Wasn't Kelly Clarkson the coolest at the MTV VMA's? She took her friend Ashley onstage with her because she didn't have a posse. She's so grounded. The depth is refreshing, especially on the same show with Diddy's five minute video tribute to himself and the history and evolution of his Diddy-P.Diddy-Puff Daddy-Puffy-Sean Combs name. So much of the show was me, me, me. Not Kelly Clarkson--she's too cool for that. And you know she loves salsa.

Food and Fashion

It's almost the weekend, so that means I'm thinking a lot about food. Angela and her boss are playing golf right now and they're coming to our house afterward for tequila lime chicken and sour cream green chile rice. Do you ever feel like you love something so much you will never be able to fully appreciate the greatness of it? That's how I feel about tequila lime chicken. And Angela. And God. And my nieces. And of all the amazingly great people and things in my life. The onions on the tequila lime chicken are unbelievable! They've been sauteed with jalapenos and soaked in lime juice and tequila so they got drunk, but they sobered up when they were cooked again with the chicken. Amazing I tell ya.

If you listened to Kidd's show this week I'm sure you heard Kellie talking about her new fashion icon status. Her social calendar is now full of new fashion functions to attend where she will be expected to dip into the well-stocked reservoir of fashion theories that she has fine-tuned over the years of wearing twin sweater sets and overalls. (Kidd makes fun, but Kellie always looks good.) Kellie is hosting a fashion show at the Visions Womens Expo tomorrow at Market Hall, so I'm sure she'll have a full report on Monday. The funny thing? I'm hosting a fashion show at the Visions Womens Expo the next day, on Sunday. What were they thinking?! Kellie is the one with fashion sense! Do they want to know how many hot combinations one can create with Levis 515's, Old Navy Perfect Fit Polos, and Doc Marten sandals? That must be it. Or they just ran out of dj's to ask. I hope there are some Peyton Manning jerseys on the runway. Women's cut of course. The big and baggy men's cut is so unfashionable.

I think I'll wear a t-shirt with a number on it to the fashion show. I think that's totally hot. Maybe I'll be the sporty sassy fashion icon! Or just comfortable.

Demons

Well, it's that time of the month when I become bloated and paranoid, so today my pants are too tight and all my blog ideas seem stupid. I took some ibuprofen earlier, but that has done nothing to cure the bloated and gross feeling, and it hasn't made me any less psychotic. Perhaps some chocolate will take care of the latter. Can't hurt. And perhaps a spoonful of Nutella after that.

Tonight Angela and I are reading more of Angels and Demons. Atlanta and Jacksonville play preseason football too, but I'm going to be disciplined and concentrate on the quality time instead. Or maybe we can have the TV on mute while we're reading and I can glance at the score once in awhile. ;) I know...there is a fine line between successful multi-tasking and losing focus completely, and I promise to focus. TV off, a great book, my favorite person, and wine and cheese. A great evening ahead.

But first I must work on other writing projects, spend 45 minutes on the treadmill, and participate in the second of three fantasy football drafts. And imbibe some chocolate-laced ibuprofen.

Quality Book Time

Ya all are cracking me up with the fruit head references. My hair is in a pony tail right now in anticipation of getting on the treadmill later, so I'm a banana attached to a cantelope today. I discovered a few more pineapple heads at work earlier.

Angela and I started reading Angels and Demons last night. It's the book that Dan Brown wrote before The DaVinci Code, but everyone reads The DaVinci Code first. (Can't wait for the movie with Tom Hanks!) We read The DaVinci Code several months ago and now we're finally getting around to Angels and Demons. It's great so far. It starts out with the brutal murder of someone central to the story, which raises a million questions and opens the door for all sorts of mystery and suspense. That doesn't give too much away. The chapters are short and they always leave you hanging, so you're forced to read until the absolute last minute before you fall asleep. In my case, that happened at about 9:05pm. Poor Angela. I hope she didn't continue without me.

We take turns reading. We don't do that with everything -- we don't pass the newspaper or a Pottery Barn catalog back and forth -- but reading a book doubles as quality time when we share. If it's a good book that is. We tried reading Jane Eyre together and that was just a big whippin'.

I have to fix my wireless internet connection now. Things were fine last night and now my computer can't detect the network so I had to plug in the old fashioned way. Oh, how I hope I don't have to call the help line. Speaking of a big whippin...

Sucked in again

Every year I tell myself I'm not going to play fantasy football because it makes me more concerned with individual players than the overall team effort and I want to be all about the team. But darn it, fantasy football is fun. I've been sucked in again.

I think watching ESPN and NFL Network incessantly gets me so excited for the season I just want to absorb as much as possible, and playing fantasy football is the best way to become actively involved and feel like I'm part of the whole thing. My main league is called Lady Lumps as a tribute to Fergie and her humps, and it will probably end up being all girls. It's not full yet, so if you want to join let me know. Guys or gals.

Nfl.com lets you have three different teams so I'll have one in the private Lady Lumps league and two in other mostly-guy leagues. I love playing against guys cuz it's always a huge surprise when you kick their butts. :) But I'm promising myself that this will all be for fun and that I won't become overly competitive. Deep breath. It's all for fun and I can't control whether or not David Akers misses a last second field goal and I end up losing by two points that week. Lunch will still taste good everyday. And the laundry will still smell great when there is Downy in it. Much to be happy about.

I'm mentoring Thomas later today. He didn't show up for our first meeting last week, but he did drop off a cassette with a sample of his delivery. We'll go over that today...if he shows up. If he brings his girlfriend we'll all just sit around and chit chat about what type of heads we might have if all heads were fruits or something. I'm looking at Michael Blake here in the Kiss studio as I'm typing this...I think his head might be a pineapple.

40 Year Old Virgin and Fruit

I'm wearing a new shirt today and I'm watching the replay of the Chiefs/Cardinals preseason game on NFL Network. I'm in a great mood! The new shirt isn't fancy and I'm not a huge Chiefs or Cardinals fan, but for some reason the combination makes me happy. I must still be buzzing from our great weekend.

We saw 40 Year Old Virgin Saturday. Hilarious! I loved it when Andy was getting his chest waxed and screamed "ahhh....Kelly Clarkson" and added that to his string of pain-induced expletives. What a goofball. Poor Kelly though...she's a swear word now. Steve Carell said it was his idea to suffer through the chest wax for the movie, so you knew his reaction was genuine. You could tell it was even hard for Paul Rudd to keep a straight face. Anyway, I thought the whole movie was greatness. And it reminded me to wax my eyebrows today.

Angela and I always have the best conversations when we're able to break from our routine and change the setting, and I think that's why going to Kathleen's is so special to us. (Kathleen's Art Cafe, not some lady's house. Just in case you missed the last blog.) We had asiago crusted trout and some drinks and pondered the meaning of life. And then we started talking about the size of our heads. I forget how that came up, but we basically decided if the standard of measurement were a grapefruit, my head would be a cantelope and Angela's head would be an orange. We went through quite a few fruits before we settled on the ones that were most fitting, but these work well I think. And together we would make a nice, refreshing fruit plate. So if we were nuts I would be a slow-roasted, hickory-smoked almond, and Angela would be a honey-roasted peanut (several blogs ago), and if we were fruits I'd be a cantelope and Angela would be an orange. Everything relates to food. The trout was good, but I wouldn't want to be a fish.

Yesterday after church we went to the Mi Cocina on Preston in Plano because it has the coolest patio, but once we got there we decided it was way too hot to sit out there. We sat inside and looked out the window instead. I guess we still had the patio view. This time we talked about the things we had taken from the earlier sermon at church, which was about transforming your mind and not letting things like fear and doubt dictate your actions. I'm trying to be more conscious of self-imposed limitations, so the sermon was a great conversation-starter and it led us to all sorts of other great topics. If we didn't have jobs I think we would be quite content filling up our days with deep, philosophical discussions. Well, we would want to play golf and go to funny movies sometimes too. But Angela is one of the wisest people I know and it's always exciting for me to learn from her perspective.

The only bummer to the whole weekend...Six Feet Under is over. Ahhh.....Kelly Clarkson!

Things that make you go Hmm!

I loved the comment yesterday about longevity in relationships. Congrats on 8 and 1/2 years! It's awesome to still be excited about seeing your partner at the end of each day and to crave the quality time alone together. Angela and I always say we are the other's favorite person and if we go too long without quality time because of our jobs or family obligations or whatever, we have major withdrawls. I guess the withdrawls are good cuz they make the time we do get to spend together that much sweeter. Anniversaries are a great time to reflect on that.

When Angela and I first met I was a total freak. I don't think I was all that comfortable with myself yet, so I really had issues with the idea that I could possibly fall in love with this person. The thought scared me. I had been in one other lengthy relationship (a year and a half) and I had dated after that, but the potential permanence with Angela made me a complete loon. One night after we had been to the movies I was dropping her off at her apartment, and right before she got out of the car I spontaneously burst into tears, couldn't really put words together, and pretty much made a complete fool of myself. It wasn't like we had a disastrous date or anything. I just freaked out.

Naturally it concerned her to see this much blubbering after things had been fine only a few minutes before, so she asked what was wrong and all I could come up with was, "I don't know." She asked if it was because I didn't want to see her anymore and I said that definitely wasn't it. I was just an emotional mess. Thankfully, she stuck with me despite the emotional roller coaster and we moved on. Now that I've become a whole lot more comfortable in my own skin I can look back and realize that there was a lot going on internally with me at that point, and that it was an isolated moment of temporary insanity. Well, there was one other moment of temporary insanity in 2002 that perhaps I'll blog about at some point. But I'm done with being insane now.

Angela is the coolest, most generous person I know. And she can handle anything. If something breaks she can fix it, if someone needs help she will offer it, and if I have a moment of PMS-induced paranoia she can talk sense into me and bring me back to reality. I can't tell you how many times I've been worried about something to the point of irrationality, and she has calmly given me a hundred reasons why things would turn out okay. And they always do. She's truly my better half.

And her little quirks are fun and infectious. She says, "Hmm!" in a silly high pitch constantly, usually after she learns of some good news and gets excited. It's so addictive. Our friends have started doing it now. If you hear someone shout "Hmm!" in the office this afternoon after you land some big account or something, remember where it came from. If you find out your bonus check is going to be huge you can add a couple of hmm's and drag out the last one. Hmm hmm hmmmmmm!

The seven years that we've been together have flown by. We have lots of ideas about what we might want to do in the future, but for right now it's nice just to appreciate the moment. The moment may include some margaritas this weekend. And we may go to Kathleen's Art Cafe in Plano. The Dallas location has always been sort of a special place for us and a friend told us about the new Plano location so we have to try it. Sunday we're going to church to celebrate with God. God is definitely the reason we've made it this far. Hmm hmm hmmmmmm!

Anniversaries

Seven years ago this past Monday (the 15th) I had my belly button pierced. Happy anniversary to me and my navel. I didn't get it pierced so I could be sexy or anything. I've never made it a habit to show off my pastey white stomach and I'm not about to start now. I did it for symbolic reasons, to remind myself that I had cut the cord from everything that had kept me safe and secure to that point and that I was a brave new being. I was breaking out of a holding pattern that included lots of self-imposed emotional limitations and about thirty pounds of extra weight, and I wanted something to physically remind me that I wasn't going to take a step back.

I was in Austin at the time. After I got my belly button pierced that Saturday night I went to the Rainbow Cattle Company (the equivalent of the Round Up in Dallas), and I met my friend Susan there. She introduced me to her friends--one of whom was Angela. What an essential piece of metal that little ring turned out to be. It served as an immediate icebreaker--or rather an opportunity to flirt--because my navel was burning at that point and I couldn't help but talk about it. The alcohol had started to numb it, but I could still tell that I had something strange embedded in my belly. Susan and the rest of her friends were out on the dance floor, so that just left Angela and me to strike up a conversation, and the piercing process was the first thing she asked about. Naturally I had to show her my stomach. That was the most skin I had ever shown in the bar. Then over the next hour or so she kept acting like she was going to "accidentally" bump into me. Mmm hmm. Flirt. Then it sort of became her duty to protect me from all drunk passersby who might stumble into me. Eventually we left the bar, exchanged phone numbers, and had our first date the following Friday.

So seven years of belly button love as of the 15th, and seven years of partner love this Sunday the 21st. More about the latter tomorrow.

My Old Room

My sister Jodi is all settled in Nebraska now. She's living at our parents' house while she waits for her house here to sell, then she'll move into her own place. Our parents still live in the same house we grew up in, so she and Ciara (the 7-month old) are sleeping in my old room and Jada (2) is sleeping next door in what used to be my sis's room. It's weird to think about that. In my mind, my old room still has posters everywhere of Rob Lowe, Corey Feldman, Michael Jordan, and the entire cast of As The World Turns. That used to be my favorite show. I wrote psycho fan letters to every cast member and got a ton of autographed pictures back, so I posted all of them on the walls and on the back of my door. I even cut out some pictures from magazines and put those up in the vacant spaces, so my entire door was a collage-like shrine to the show. I had the pictures up so long the tape on the back of them got really sticky and sort of fossilized, so when it was time to take them down I had to use peanut butter. I was a nut. I don't even watch the show anymore.

I was fat in through most of elementary and junior high and by the time I got skinny as a sophomore in high school it was too late to get really good at individual sports, so I didn't have a lot of medals to display in my room. I did keep my 7th grade spelling bee trophy on display. In 8th grade I think I got knocked out in the first round, but in 7th grade I got easy words and made it all the way to the final two, then some guy misspelled the word "version" and I spelled it right, then spelled the next word right, and I won. I still misspell stuff sometimes, but spelling errors but the crap out of me. I decided to quit dating a girl once when she misspelled the word "definitely." She always wrote "definately" in emails and it bugged me. It wasn't just a typo because she did it constantly. There were other words too. Very Seinfeldish of me.

So anyway, Jodi and Ciara have taken over my old room and Jada is next door. It gives me the warm fuzzies to think about them being all tucked in there. I've talked to Jada on the phone a couple of times since they moved, but so far she has been more concerned with coloring than with talking to Aunt Nenny. I hope she doesn't forget me.

Six Feet Under continued

Okay, so we finally watched Sunday night's episode of Six Feet Under. The disturbing scene one of you mentioned yesterday had to be the scene with Billy and Brenda acting not so brother and sister like, right? Eeww! I warned Angela that there would be some scene that would give us the willies and as soon as that one started we knew that was it. We just thought, okay why are they doing this? Yuck. It didn't stop soon enough.

The thing is, most off-the-wall scenes that turn out to be dreams are obvious. They're just too wacko. (i.e. David's dream that the red-sweatshirt guy came in and started stabbing the boys.) But this one was believable! Too much chemistry between Brenda and Billy I guess. What did you think? We watched the Six Feet Under special on HBO last night that showed highlights from each season, and I had forgotten that Billy had kissed Brenda at least once before. Brenda was oogged out by it though. That's a relief.

So a 75 minute season finale next week. I can't wait. How can they wrap up all the loose ends? I think the Fisher funeral home is going to go out of business because Nate is dead, David is crazy, and Rico is going to get his own place. We'll see.

What else is going on besides this SFU obsession? Hmm. Angela's grandmother is leaving this morning to drive back to Austin. We sat around last night and talked about God. It was great. Eunice is so wise; it's great to pick her brain.

How did I get from being grossed out by Billy and Brenda to God? Hmm. I feel random today. What else. We have floods of Chiclets here at the radio station, so I'm chewing on those a lot. Right now it's the lemon ones. Great appetite curbers. All fow now...

Six Feet Under

I'm sad that Six Feet Under is ending. I love it. Angela and I don't watch many shows, but that is one that we never miss. Well, I'm a liar. We did miss it last night but we Tivoed it and we're going to watch it as soon as we can.

Angela's grandmother arrived last night at 8:01pm, right after they did the "last week on Six Feet Under" recap, and smack dab in the middle of the theme song. Dang it! Eunice is a sweet lady and I love her dearly, but if only she would have planned the ten hour drive through three thunderstorms a little bit better and arrived at 9. Kidding! Before you start writing nasty comments...we were happy to see her, at whatever time she happened to arrive. We could have invited her to watch it with us I suppose, but the idea that Nate died from complications of a stroke he suffered after having sex with someone other than his pregnant wife as a means of finding inner peace might be a little bit much for her.

Maybe we should have turned Six Feet Under off completely, but we left the TV in the bedroom on HBO while we visited with Eunice in the living room. I walked through the bedroom once to go plug my cell phone in or something, and as I was leaving again I saw Claire get into a car accident. Spoiler! Don't ya hate that?! Now the suspense is killing me. Is she okay? Is the whole cast going to be six feet under by the time the series ends next week? I haven't told Angela about the accident. It would worry her too much, and she's trying to have quality time with her grandmother.

Michael Blake makes fun of me on Kidd's warm up show (5-6am), for never watching the cool TV shows like American Idol, The Bachelor, and other reality crapola. Maybe I'm just an oddball, but I don't see the appeal in those. HBO and Showtime's original series are much more clever. And smart. I like smart. Now that Six Feet Under is ending I guess I'll have to get hooked on Weeds.

Cookin'

We're going to a surprise party for a friend in Frisco later today. Her mom is going to take her shopping this afternoon so she won't suspect anything, and in the meantime a bunch of her friends and co-workers are going to sneak into her house and take over her kitchen to get ready. I would hate that. Not the people in my kitchen rooting around, but the shock of seeing all of them when I have end-of-the-day bad hair and a shopping hangover. I guess it's the control freak in me that's uncomfortable with it. But this friend is a better sport and I'm sure she'll love it. I would tell you her name, but this might be the one day she decides to read this silly blog and that would spoil the surprise.

So this party means I get to cook. I haven't always loved to cook--I suppose I grew up in the Midwest and it was all about meat, potatoes, and different variations of gravy to go over both. I got bored with that. Not to mention fat. But after college I discovered there is more to life than gravy. I love to cook now, especially fancy stuff like crab cakes and shrimp scampi. Those are the best nights, when Angela and I just hang at the house, put the Pottery Barn dinner music CD on (hey, it works), open a bottle of wine, and cook something interesting together. Then we watch a movie and fall asleep. (Kidding.) We're just taking spinach artichoke dip and s'mores bars to this party today. Just fun food.

I think we're making tequila lime chicken tomorrow. Angela's grandmother will be here, so I'll try to lay off on some of the jalapenos. We may still put on the Pottery Barn CD. Have a good weekend!

Doubting Thomas

This mentor/protege thing isn't going very well so far. Thomas couldn't make it yesterday so he rescheduled for today, and then he was twenty minutes late because he was stuck in traffic. I didn't know of any huge delays at 10:00 this morning except for eastbound 635 at Preston where just the right lane was getting through. I asked if that was it, but he just stammered around and didn't really say for sure. Hmm. Perhaps he really was part of the onlooker delay...it was stop and go back to Webb Chappel. This has been brought to you by Boothe Eye Care and Laser Center.

Thomas and I chatted for 45 minutes and I think we'll get along just fine as mentor and protege. He seems nice enough. But he brought his girlfriend to the meeting. Is that weird or is it just me? She was nice too, but moving forward I don't think my take on the 80/20 tease will be of any use to her. She did mention that she used to live near Austin. Maybe we could talk about the greatness that is Guero's Taco Bar.

I have to call the guy at the broadcasting school who hooked us up now and talk about future meetings. We'll see how much longer this lasts.

My New Project

Kidd was just talking about "I feel fat days" a little while ago. Wow, can I relate. It has nothing to do with actual fatness, does it? It's more about how a girl feels one day compared to the day before. For me today, so far so good. I just ate a peach and a handful of peanuts last night after I worked out so I have no reason to feel stuffed and bloated. (Although I did eat an entire package of Louis Rich chicken breast strips and some garlic new potatoes for lunch yesterday. Hopefully I left most of that on the treadmill.) I don't like eating big meals late in the day, and I've really grown to love the empty feeling that goes with going to bed a little hungry. Seriously. I used to be fat and I was full most of the time, and this is way more comfortable.

I'm getting an intern named Thomas today. Actually he's more of a protege, but using that word makes me the mentor and it implies that I know what I'm doing and that I'm somehow qualified to take this person under my wing. I've been in radio for eleven years, but I still learn something new about it every day and I feel like a novice most of the time--especially working with Kidd. He is so good at what he does. He sets the bar high. Since I'll have a mentor-protege relationship with this new project I just have to meet with him one a week for an hour to answer his questions and give him advice. I can handle that. I hope I don't mess him up though.

Here's my first piece of advice for Thomas: if you get hungry while you're on the air, make sure you leave yourself at least a minute between the time you take your last bite and the time you need to turn on the mic, cuz if you don't you'll burp. Not that that has happened to me or anything. I'm just sayin'. And don't eat in the studio! Leave your burger and fries on the table right outside the Kiss FM door, or czars of expensive equipment will slap you silly. And if you start choking on the air and need water...too bad. Drinks can't be in the studio near the control board...cotton mouth be danged. We may have full-sized Whataburger menus hanging in the studio (for what reason I don't really know--it's a Billy the Kidd thing I think), but that doesn't mean the taquitos and cokes can follow. There is an enormous bean bag in the studio if you should feel like taking a nap during your shift. (This came in handy last Saturday when I had the near-death experience with the migraine.) So you can't eat in the studio but you can sleep.

So much of radio happens off the air. It's funny like that. Welcome to the madness Thomas!

For you visual creatures...

I wondered when you all would tire of blogs about skim milk, migraines, and how sappy I am about my nieces.

Sure, I'll post a picture of Angela. Our mouths look different now because I don't have braces anymore and Angela has had crown lengthening surgery on her gums so her teeth are longer, but otherwise this is what we look like together. We aren't always color coordinated.

Thanks for asking!

Skim milk

I started drinking skim milk in college, when I was about thirty pounds heavier than I am now. Even though it was a college cafeteria and the food wasn't superb, there was such an abundance of it I couldn't resist eating a few bites of just about everything. But I made the conscious choice to drink skim milk with the piles of food because I didn't want to consume any unnecessary calories. Great logic.

I actually started liking skim milk then, because it tasted a lot less milky than the stuff I had grown up on. My mom always bought 2% and my grandma always had whole milk. At Thanksgiving dinners at my grandma's house I always had to put ice in the milk to try to freeze out the thick milky taste. No one drank skim in rural Nebraska. People in my tiny hometown thought it was for wackos in the city who also liked fresh basil pesto and used garlic in clove form and not in a jar labeled McCormick. I must be a full-blown wacko now.

So I've been drinking skim milk religiously since college. But today I've had an epiphany. Skim milk is watered down!

We had leftover whole milk in the fridge last week (Jada's) and I decided to drink it with some of this new cappucino syrup I bought. It was awesome! Especially with crushed ice. It was a cold, creamy iced coffee that didn't cost $4.85. What an amazing discovery. But I tried to make it today with skim milk and it turned out like cold blackish tan coffee. Dang it. I didn't throw it out or anything - I could never waste a coffee bean, even if it has been pressed and squished into syrup - but I may have to buy whole milk occasionally now. I have seen the light.

If the thirty pounds start to creep back I'll just stop eating mayonnaise or something else thick and white. Seems like a fair trade. It's all about the logic.

Migraine shmigraine

I had one of my worst migraines ever today. I woke up with it at 3:30am, so I took my prescribed migraine killer, but when I got up for work at 4:45 it was still hanging on. I never get nauseous with my migraines, but this time I did. I even had to hurl into the trash can outside the Kiss studio a couple of times. Too much behind the scenes info? Hey, I'm just glad no one from one of our sister stations happened to be walking by to witness that debacle. When JJ and I changed shifts at 10, the first thing he said after "hey" was, "Are you okay?" I must have looked more pastey white than usual. He let me go a few minutes early. He's such a sweetie.

So I got home, took more drugs, and crawled into bed. I didn't get up until 4:30pm! I didn't sleep the whole time, but the only acceptable position to keep the throbbing at a minimum was on my right side with my head on two pillows and my right arm underneath. Migraines suck. I asked my doctor for new migraine drugs a few months ago and she let me switch, but I think I want the old drugs back now. I never had any all day migraines with those, but I had to give myself shots and I didn't like that part. After today I'm thinking shots are good.

Angela sister Amanda, and her husband Steven, and their 6-month old son Gavin are here for the weekend and they all went to a barbecue for a cousin in Fort Worth this afternoon while I was incapacitated. Nothing they could have done for me anyway. I had regained the ability to function by the time they got home and I could effectively bond. The hug from Angela felt great. Once you survive a near death migraine experience everything becomes a little sweeter.

Time to go join the pool game upstairs. I'm wide awake! I may actually be able to stay up for all of Saturday Night Live this weekend.

Movie talk 2

Okay, last night Angela and I watched another movie and this time I didn't read a magazine. I thought about trying to read a magazine on the treadmill yesterday (see the comment on the blog below), but I have enough trouble fiddling with the remote when ESPN goes to commercial, and I figured trying to flip pages in a magazine while I'm bouncing around might just make me fall off. Remember that story from an earlier blog about Angela falling off the treadmill and poking a hole in the wall? Well, we have since moved the treadmill, but a fall now could send me out into the hallway and into a closet. It still wouldn't be good. You can insert your own closet joke here.

I tried to be "in the moment" with Angela and pay attention to the movie, but then I remembered we're going to a big birthday party for a friend next week and we have to take food, so I had to get off the couch and look for the necessary ingredients for spinach artichoke dip. Then I fed the dogs and I had to stand there and wait for Sophie to finish because she eats slow and if nobody has her back Marlee will stick her piggy little nose in there and get some. I just think I'm ADD when it comes to movies. I'll try to get better about this though. If you have more advice, please impart.

Angela said she's much more bothered by my falling asleep during movies than the ADD. On average I probably fall asleep during seven out of ten movies. I still don't know how Oceans 12 ended. Will there be a 13? But last night I managed to stay awake. And then we went into the bedroom and looked up Bible verses together because Angela had one on her mind and she couldn't figure out which book and chapter it came from. Quality time.

Movie talk

Angela and I watched Trauma last night. Have you seen it? Weird movie. Neither of us liked it much. Colin Firth gets into a car accident and ends up going nuts, and something bad happens with ants and poisonous spiders. I was actually more into my Oprah magazine than the movie, but that's what I gathered.

Angela gets upset with me when we sit down to watch a movie and I end up flipping through a magazine or writing out a grocery list, but I'm just not that into so-so movies. It's still quality time the way I see it. We're sitting near each other and our feet are overlapping on the same ottoman, so what difference does it make if she has Colin Firth's pet ants on her mind and I have "What Oprah knows for sure" on mine?

There are movies I love--like Sideways and Crash--but for the most part if movies don't launch me into deep thought where I can ponder the meaning of life, then I would rather skip them. I hate wasting time. I really hate movies with 'splosions. There's no point for me. Well, unless Jennifer Beals is in the 'splosion movie. She's inspiring.

I have that Blockbuster Online subscription that Kidd and Kellie talk about, so we order a ton of movies. Next up, Guess Who. No 'splosions in that, right? I'm finished with this issue of O and I may actually have to watch.

Gutts and the lack thereof

Since my sis and nieces moved away over the weekend, my nearest geographical relative is about a thousand miles away now. Angela has relatives in Austin, but for the most part we're on a little familyless island all by ourselves. Well, it's not really an island - it's more like a field where Frisco and Little Elm come together. We just got a Lowe's. That's what I would take with me if I ever were stranded on an island...the whole store.

Angela and I been blessed with great friends so we're not lonely, but it's odd for me especially, to come from a close family and not have any family around. Well, the dogs are family. But now Sophie is eating more slowly than usual and Marlee is acting like her gums hurt, so now I'm stressed that even though we have their teeth cleaned fairly regularly, they're getting gum disease and their teeth will fall out and we'll have to feed them little doggie smoothies every day. Family stresses me out.

Living far away from family never bothered me much before. I moved to Austin several years ago without knowing a soul and with only a part-time radio job lined up, and I didn't give that a second thought. I just wanted to get the heck out of the rural Midwest so I ordered an info packet from the Austin Chamber of Commerce, hopped on a plane two weeks later to go interview with a couple of radio stations and find an apartment, and a month later I moved, knowing only my new boss at the radio station (KASE 101), and a girl named April who helped me find an apartment. I had gutts back then. Or else I was so incredibly selfish I only thought about me, and now I'm an old softie whose innards have turned to jelly. Maybe I should eat more peanut butter to thicken them.

Okay then, this afternoon it's all about me. I'm going to work on other writing projects, work out for an hour, and flip back and forth between ESPN and NFL Network so I can make sure I'm full of football training camp knowledge. Family be danged I say. Me, me me. Right after I check the dogs' teeth again, email my sister, and pick up some mousse for Angela.