Needing a Makeover

So, the thing is... I need a makeover.

Last month, I had a stomach virus and my entire family went out of town without me. They didn’t leave just to get away from me – -the trip had been planned for months and then I just happened to get that gross stomach bug that’d been making the rounds. (As opposed to the following week when I had strep throat and it was my birthday. Sigh.) So, I stayed home and watched a lot of Home and Garden Television. I just love all that home improvement stuff— -even though I am missing the particular gene that lets me see a space and envision it after it’s been completely decorated. I don’t think I’m alone, judging by the amount of makeover shows on HGTV now. Really, it’s hilarious.

When you think about it, it’s a perfect embodiment of the American Dream. You leave your house and come back later to find that it’s been completely redecorated in a way that you could never achieve except through trial and error and a lot of layers of paint. (Don’t ask me how I know this.) Someone ELSE does all the work in only one day AND it’s free AND they make a television show about you! Could it get much better than that?

The really BIG makeover show right now is that Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. I watched it for the first time recently and I have to admit that I’m hooked. It’s that show on Bravo that has five gay men in New York City who make-over one hapless heterosexual male every week? There was this one episode I saw where the subject had been wearing a toupee -–an obvious toupee –-for FOURTEEN YEARS and they persuaded him to take it off. Not without some heartache on both sides, though. It was kind of sweet — like losing a pet or something.

Not everything in the show translates well from New York City to the Southwest. On the same “toupee” episode, the Fab 5 put this guy into a black pin-striped suit. I’m sure it’s the height of fashion in NYC but if you showed up in Austin, Texas wearing one of those puppies, people would be looking for the violin case holding your Tommy gun.

The thing about the Fab 5 is that you can tell they don’t have children. In the episodes I’ve seen, never once has the suggestion been made to put a large drain in the middle of the kitchen floor to help with the dinner clean-up. I’ve never seen anyone try to get glue stick off of one of those Plasma TVs that decorators seem so high on – not to mention some way to organize Legos that wouldn’t require me to extract one of them from the bottom of my foot every night.

But anyway, I watched a lot of these shows and I was bitten by the home improvement bug. It helps that in Austin, Spring arrives in February and suddenly the whole city finds itself at Home Depot with New Paint Fever. Trust me on this. It’s not quite as measurable as the pollen count but it’s a true phenomenon just the same.

So, I painted my dining room blue. I thought, “Oh, what the heck. If I don’t like it, I can always paint over it, right?” However, I’m missing that gene that makes you buy colors that are bold and chic and make a Statement. Well, that’s not exactly true. My dining room made a Statement all right —it said, “I was desperate to get rid of that wallpaper!”

So then I kept messing with it. I added a green glaze. (“It looks like you have a mold problem,” said my friend Erin, tactfully.) So then I added a red glaze and a blue one which gave it this sort of a Monet effect. Then, after the third person in a row said, “Well, do YOU like it? Because that’s the really important thing.” I decided to paint it green and have done with it. So I painted it green — the same soothing green that I have in my bedroom and in the spare room – and it was just hideous. Just plug ugly.

I painted it blue. Again. Only THIS time, I took the original blue and I cut it with a bunch of white paint until I got this really nice soft robin’s egg blue. But to make the whole sorry exercise in humiliation complete, I ran out of paint before I finished the room and I had to slink back to the paint store and beg the paint guy to try to match it. He couldn’t quite match it so I got to paint the whole thing one more time. It’s getting to where I pull out a paintbrush and my children burst into tears.

I wish the Fab 5 would come visit my house! If they’d just come up with a plan, I’d be willing to implement it. Not just for the dining room but for my whole LIFE: wardrobe and hairstyle and meal planning and home decorating.

I’ve been auditioning for them in my head…

To Carson, the clothes guy: “Well, I buy most of my clothes at Sam’s Club. Because that’s usually where I am when I realize my clothes have paint all over them.”

“You can’t be serious. Carson, really. Carson – just say no to those leather pants. I live in TEXAS. If I wore leather pants, I’m afraid someone would try to put a saddle on me.”

To Ted, the food guy: “Well, actually I like to cook. But one of my children will only eat white food and tacos, and the other one subsists on peanut butter, rice milk and tacos. I don’t know if it helps you plan dinner for us but last night I made:

a) one taco with taco meat and NOTHING else for Ana (6)

b) one taco with taco meat and cheese and NOTHING else for Jane (3) (although she only ate the cheese)

c) one taco, eaten by my husband while standing in the middle of the kitchen trying to get the children to come back to the table

d) one taco that looked awfully good but was never eaten by the me because it was Bath Night. (It may, however, have been eaten by the dog off the table after everyone went upstairs – which is just as well because I am getting really sick of tacos!)

To Kyan, the grooming guru: “Well, on those days when I get to shower, I just use the bath soap to wash my face. But I exfoliate every time Jane is playing in the sandbox and gives me a hug! What do you mean?? I am NOT hopeless!”

To Jai, the culture guy: “I know, I know... we do have a lot of plastic plates. See, when my kids are helping to clear the table and don’t quite get the plates into the sink, those plates better be non-breakable. Because no matter how hard you try, it’s impossible to get all the shards up and invariably, the dog will step on one and leave bloody paw prints all over the kitchen table.”

To Thom, the interior designer: “I call my style, “Early Preschool. And it sort of works for us but I’m hoping to make it to at least Late Middle School this year.”

“What do you mean it looks like the TV is the focal point of the room? It IS the focal point of the room. We watch TV in this room. What’s your point?”

“Yes, I know there are paper bags of stuff all over Ana’s room. She never throws anything away – including candy wrappers and wrapping paper and boxes of her father’s business cards from 1983. PLEASE don’t touch them – she has this mental card catalog of them and knows if even one scrap of paper is missing. I think she’s saving things so that when she’s famous, she’ll have a collection of memorabilia to auction on E-Bay. Jane, on the other hand, once threw away her father’s watch because she couldn’t see the point in it.”

“So, is a big drain in the middle of the kitchen floor just out of the question?”

To subscribe or unsubscribe to this free (if sporadic) e-mail newsletter, send e-mail to barb@sothethingis.com. (Your address will not be used for any other purpose.) If you would like to forward this column on, please do so in its entirety. Feedback welcome. Back issues can be found at http://www.sothethingis.com.

Barbara Cooper is the mother of Ana (6) and Hurricane Jane (3). She lives in Austin, Texas and she thinks she might be cured of New Paint Fever but fears she’s coming down with the “These Floors Could Use Refinishing” virus.