Rachael

Hey! Remember two posts ago, when I told you about the show that made me feel old (but was so fun anyway)? Here's video proof! You can watch those kids start to dance! (Plus Lala's great on the bass.) I'm knitting somewhere, invisible to the camera.

 

For those of you bored by talk of migraines, I give you my almost-annual reminder that Salt and Vinegar potato salad is AMAZING. Enjoy. Now for the other six of you still reading:

A reader pointed out to me that I owed you all an update on how the migraine diet was going.

Uh. It's not. I made it about two weeks of eating AIR, and gave it up. I found it almost impossible to avoid everything that particular diet wanted me to.

BUT: I switched daily meds (to Nortriptyline) and I've started eating 1oz of dark chocolate every day. I know. Rather than treating it as a trigger, I'm using it as medicine. This makes MUCH more sense, no? This is on advice from my friend Theresa, for whom the practice has really worked – perhaps she will chime in in the comments with a little bit about what she told me? Basically, you eat it on an empty stomach when you first wake up. Nothing to eat for the next hour. The dark chocolate has to be very simple, and include four ingredients: cocoa, cocoa powder, vanilla, and sugar. Absolutely no milk or protein of any kind (no nuts, etc.); the protein leaches away the . . . (help me out here, Theresa) the good stuff, the phytochemicals. I know you're BLOWN AWAY with how much I know. Oh, stop.

I buy the 100 calorie packs of dark chocolate from TJ's — one and a half bars is about 1oz, but most days I just have one bar.

The chocolate, I swear to God, seems to be helping. In the last three months, I've had only one migraine, and it was mild and easily treatable by medicine (and it was totally my fault, because I felt it threatening and had a glass of red wine anyway. Dummy).

And get this: The other night I felt one coming on, and I realized it had been a few hours since I ate, so I had a relatively empty stomach. I ate an ounce of dark chocolate. Within 45 minutes, I was fine. People. Whoa. I don't usually GET fine. I usually circle the drain.

Oh, I also gave up caffeine (except for what I get in chocolate). No coffee, no green or black tea. Let's not talk about it. Wah! But honestly, giving it up wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, not at all. Not sure why. Maybe it's just what my body wanted.

Also, THIS IS BIG: I gave up all the meds I was used to taking for headaches. For two and a half months, I restricted myself to Tylenol and Advil — no rebound drugs (see this NYT article— includes anything with caffeine, like Exedrin,and my prescription meds like Fioricet). If you take pills for headaches more than twice a week, you might be at risk for rebound headaches. Right after I wrote here about my migraines, I decided to try this. I was popping Exedrin Migraine easily three or four times a week to push back headaches that waxed and waned. As soon as I stopped taking them, I had a 48 hour migraine that was so bad I was halfway convinced I would die. No joke. Every thing I'd read said you have to NOT take your meds for at least two or three months so your body gets over the rebound effect that keeps headaches going. However, going through that migraine was pretty awful. I felt like a junkie: all I could think about was how close my meds were to me — I could just take one…

But I didn't. And I didn't die. Now, theoretically, my medicine should be useful to me if I take it only when needed (less than once a month, hopefully). And when I did pop a pill for that last migraine, it worked that way. The pain lasted for less than six hours, and it was relatively mild.

To sum up: YEEHAW!

*obviously, I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. Consult with your doctor before doing anything different or weird.

Well, howdy! We just got home from a punk show at Nabolom bakery where Lala played music that the kids freaked out and danced to. And when I say kids, I mean the 20 year-olds who comprised the audience and many of the other bands. My friends were all sitting in a row, and one young gal looked at them and said (audibly) to her friend, "It's interesting to see how we'll turn out." She was lucky she said it in a nice, actually interested voice, or Kris might have had WORDS to say about POLITENESS, YOUNG LADY.

And Lala wore one of her favorite shirts which says, "I guess I was punk once." The shirt was a hyooge hit, to the point where at the end, one young queer punk came up to her and said with a voice of utter admiration, "I think I'm going to be like you in twenty years." I started laughing behind her, but she was very nice and said, "Well, I guess I was like you, twenty years ago."

I'm thirty-seven, people! (Oh! Thirty-eight on Monday.) Lala isn't much older! (See, how tactful I am? Kids, take a lesson! And get offa my lawn!) All my friends lament about how young the kids are today, but I'd never felt it until tonight. Good lord. The ENERGY. And the cuteness! The earnestness! (Okay, I'm still pretty earnest. But I can't dance like that. Maybe I never could.)

It was when Lala was in her car searching for sunscreen to give to the circus punks who played accordion and washboard that I mentioned that she was in danger of becoming the band mom. "Too late!" she cried. "Did you see how burned they were?"

But the very nice thing about playing a show in a co-op bakery? Free challah and other pastries. Also, no one was a drunk jackass.

And now, completely unrelated, a very short video of my nephew Isaac, who is learning baby sign — he knows please, and thank you, and I love you. That last is signed by crossing your arms over your chest, and he does a modified version, seen here:

that I will probably rarely wear.

Sadly, I'm just not happy with it. I've taken a few pictures, and trust me, it looks optimal in these. You might leave nice comments that it looks fine, yadda yadda, but truly, these are the best of the bunch. The fit isn't right, and I just don't know how to adjust it so that it is. I might be almost ready to give up (after wearing it for a couple of days and not liking how I felt in it):

Specs:

Pattern: Lace Wrap Sweaterbabe #112

Yarn: Brooks Farm Mas Acero

Needles: US 7

I love the yarn –gorgeous, drapey stuff. And I like the IDEA of the pattern. It just didn't really work on me. Honestly.

But I can still grab a cat when necessary:

And hold it, too:

 

See, the problem is it slides off my shoulders at just the wrong times. And when fastened differently (it won't just hang open, not on my frame), it makes my hips look HYOOGE:

Those are not my hips! I don't know what they are!

 

Hello, WTF with the break in color at the mid-tricep? I have no idea.

Now, I have normal body issues about normal body parts, but one thing I'm sure of is this: my hips are not too big. Nor would I mind if they were. I'd love to take some padding off other parts and put it on my hips. This sweater is lying, and I don't like untrustworthy sweaters.

I'm not pleased. But that's okay. There is more yarn in the world, and I have some of it. More to follow.

And just for fun, you know you're in the Bay Area when a guy is up a pole…

 

…with his desk.

 

Oh, Albany Bulb, I love you.

Did you know about this? I can't wait. It's at Splash Pad Park (across the street from the Grand Lake theater) this Sunday, June 27th 10am-4pm. There's an article about it here, and I'll be there from noon to three, signing The Book. I'd love to see you, and I think it's going to be an awesome event.

(PS – Fiber festival! Oakland! Just when I thought I couldn't love Oakland any more than I did.)

You guys.

I have big news. BIG. 

From yesterday's Publisher's Marketplace:

Rachael Herron's KNITTING IN THE ROUND, a memoir in essays about the ways in which knitting defines the milestones of her life — from surviving a typhoon, to marrying the love of her life, to grieving for her mother's death, to Jodi Warshaw at Chronicle, for publication in Fall 2011, by Susanna Einstein at LJK Literary Management (World excl. UK/AUS).

 

Um. Yes. I am SO excited.

<cartwheel>

Okay, pretending like that huge news up there doesn't exist, let me go on and say that I had a marvelous weekend, and you all should get up right now and plan on making a trip to San Luis Obispo, on the Central Coast of California, because it just become a Yarn Mecca.

First, there was Yarns at the Adobe. Owned by the lovely Anne, they hosted me on Friday for a reading, and it was so much fun. Lots of knitters, as well as my favorite high school English teacher (and I had lunch with my favorite college professor, so it felt very circular and awesome). And this gorgeous yarn store is located in the second oldest building in SLO-town, the adobe across the street from the Mission, and on the huge back patio is a real adobe stove…

…in which they cooked many pizzas, which cooked in UNDER A MINUTE in there. And then Anne fed them to the many awesome knitters. WIN.

Also: Are you ready for this? You know Garnstudio? Yes, that one, that makes the wonderful free DROPS patterns? They now have a real brick and mortar store: Nordicmart. In San Luis Obispo. Their yarns really are the most GORGEOUS colors, and should I really even start with how affordable they are? It is truly worth the trip — to be able to feel and touch yarn that you won't see anywhere else. Beautiful, lovely yarn.

(Photo lifted from their FB page with thanks.) 

Seriously. My sister and I hit it just hours after it opened on its first day (Saturday), right before we got on the road home. I believe I rhapsodized about the store for the next 75 miles, and I've done the same periodically since. I have more to say about it here than I did for my new book deal.

NEW BOOK! OOOOH!

Yarn is good.