My porn of choice? Extreme Home Makeover.

When the going gets tough, the tough break out the power tools. Well, if you're me you do. I suppose shopping, or eating, or doing yoga works for others, but nothing will snap me out of a blue funk like ripping a hole in the wall. Tearing out a sink. Whipping up a set of built-in bookshelves. Laying down ceramic tile. Mmmmmm...caulking and painting. Mmmmmmm, custom storage units. Oh *ahem* sorry.

My problem is that we moved into an apartment that's in fairly good repair, for never having been gut renovated, for being a hundred years old; which leaves me precious little to tinker with in my hours of home improvement need. Problem two is that we made a pact to not repeat the mistake of renovating a rental property. We spent countless days and hundreds of dollars trying to make our last place more livable, a quixotic endeavor at best, since things like a new tub surround and kitchen cabinets didn't do shit to make up for the cancer that was our landlord and neighbors. We said 'never again' in a rental. So the deal in the new place is no replacing fixtures, no flooring, and no built-ins; the result of any project must be able to be moved or sold when we go --with a twenty dollar exception. I can replace, repair or create anything I want, as long as it cost less than twenty dollars. An amount we agreed would allow for things like getting rid of the last tenants nasty toilet seat, or buying a single piece of wood to make a shelf in the closet. All good, necessary things, and nothing we'll cry ourselves to sleep over when we leave them behind.

But you have no idea the degree to which this "pact" wreaks havoc on my ability to manage depression. When the sads come, the tools call to me. They call. And they say things like, Wouldn't that wall look great with recessed CD shelving? Doesn't this kitchen need a custom wrap-around butcher block counter with space-saving tilt-out storage bins for the recycling? Have you considered an imported tile backsplash? But the twenty dollar rule has really put the kibosh my stress control regimen. I mean, sticking a piece of quarter-round over the gap between the bathroom threshold and the floor just isn't cutting it for me. Ooohh, I had to use my miter box. And stain the wood. Whoop-fucking-ee. It's not what I need, G's noticed the strain to my psyche, those kinds of tasks just don't add up to good mental health. Not like knocking a hole in a wall.

So yeah. I knocked a hole in the wall, okay? More like a window. To let light into the bathroom. But c'mon. The war, the economy, illness and death, everyday with the President Bush...putting some WD40 on squeaky hinges was NOT going to solve my inner turmoil.

And for you nay-sayers out there, I feel great. And your second question? $17.50.