I just went to give blood, because yesterday the blood bank called me and frantically said “We have less than one day’s worth of your blood type. Please come in and donate!”.
So I went in, filled out the lengthy questionnaire (I had to lie about the wild sex I had last week with the gay African IV-drug-user), suffered the iron prick, and finally sat down next to BJ and waited to be drained. The lady came over, iodined me, and stuck the needle in, but it really hurt! She said it wasn’t working right (i.e. she had stuck it in wrong) and dug around with the needle looking for the blood to start flowing. That hurt even more! Finally, after a lot of unfruitful poking and squeezing, she threw in the towel and inquired about my other arm. I thought to myself “I don’t think so lady!” She and another more qualified nurse searched my left arm and gave up, claiming they couldn’t find any veins that would work.
I feel so impotent! I went in to donate blood, to do my part! But then some inexperienced phlebotomist messed up the insertion, and the whole thing was shot to hell. And the nerve of them, to make me feel like it was ultimately my fault - than my veins weren’t “visible” enough! Well maybe if you hadn’t screwed up and vein-raped my right arm in the first place!
Last time, it all went so well. The blood flowed, I met a cute P.E. teacher who slipped me the numba, I got pizza. This time: no flowing, no numba, just juice and an achey, undrained arm.
Overheard on the way to Peter Pan:
Me: Want to hear something dorky?
Ash: Ok.
Me: My mom and I used to have matching coolots.
Ash: What’s a coolot?
I saw the umpteenth film version of the story of Peter Pan last night. I was pretty excited, because I love the story and the preview was beautiful, but as I sat down in a theatre filled with gurgling children, I worried if this was about to be 113 minutes that I would end up regretting.
But I didn’t end up regretting it at all - in fact, the movie was great, despite having been directed by Crocodile Dundee. The acting was wonderful; mostly cute, plucky British children. The girl who played Wendy was beautiful in a perfect Wendy-way, where it wasn’t about being sexy.
The film sticks to the story pretty well, I can’t remember anything being changed except one little twist at the end. The romance is really played up, the action scenes were good, and the Indian/ Princess Tiger Lily stuff was handled very tastefully. A lot of the film was pretty funny, too, especially the one-eyed, one-legged plotting parrot. The characters were all three-dimensional and well thought out, from Smee to the sinister mermaids that try to drown Wendy. Peter and Wendy even have the classic “He Can’t Commit” argument.
My complaints are that the special effects (the ticking crocodile, Hook’s hookless stumpy hand) were kind of cheesy, and the color filters were way overboard. There were very pink or very blue scenes in the film where I was just begging for some normal colored light! And the boy who played Peter was good, but not great. I had some problems with his mouth.
Overall, a solid fairy tale film, with a beautiful set and beautiful actors. What more could you wish for from Peter Pan?
This evening at the restaurant, I was viciously reamed by a woman in a wheelchair. She was upset because of the condition of the wheelchair ramp in the back hallway, which is normally just a service area. The ramp was up to par as far as handicapped access codes, but she was hot under the collar because there were a “few dirty dishes and some trays” lingering at the end of the hallway, apparently compromising the aesthetic quality of her roll. She kept telling me how inappropriate that was for a nice restaurant, expecting me to apologize repeatedly and probably give her something free.
But there were no freebies to give.
So I apologized, walked away, and wished I had said:
“The thing is, Wheelchair Lady, life is not always pretty (as I’m sure you well know). If being in proximity of a few dirty plates is the worst thing to happen to you all day, then your life is a whole helluvalot better than mine, legs or no. Do what you need to do to be at peace with your disability, but don’t take it out on your waitress!”
In the words of Gene Wood, at a San Francisco Mac Donald’s circa 1996, “Fuckin’ Cripple!”
Yesterday, I was beat. I had just finished a long day of finals, which had followed an even longer night of frantically finishing a paper about urban sprawl (always a joy!)
I plopped down in my car, heaved a sigh of relief, and flipped on the classic radio station. I needed to hear some Led Zeppelin, or maybe some Hendrix - hell I’d even listen to some Toto as long as it would help me move past whiny exhaustion and remember that the world was bigger than me and my GPA.
But there was no classic rock on the radio. Oh no.
Instead, it was Osama Got Run Over By a Reindeer . My jaw dropped open in horror.
What the hell is happening to our radio stations?
There’s a link on memepool that compares the work of a recent London photographer named Matt Stuart to that of Diane Arbus, arguably the best photographer in the world and my personal hero.
I think it’s an improper comparison, and that Stuart’s work is much more comparable to Robert Frank’s pictures in The Americans.
But, I guess it doesn’t really matter, since they’re all great photographers.
I hereby declare that, until the year 2004, I will not spend any more money on STUFF, food and toiletries excluded.
This means:
No new clothes (even undies!)
No new sheets or bedding, no matter how cold it gets. In San Diego.
No new doggie toys (sorry Miles.)
No new media, or renting DVDs, or books or even magazines.
No gratuitous christmas cards: only send them to people you really love or people
with quality gift-giving potential. 37 cents is a lot!
No new jewelry, sex toys, jammies, picture frames, environmental non-profit donations, hand-bags, cute pads of paper, or late fees at the library.
NO MORE SPENDING!!!