I'm No Edward Cullen

It's 2:23 AM, which clearly signals Time To Blog in LL's brain. It's like a little happy alarm goes off in my head, and I obey. Never mind that I have work tomorrow morning, or that my eyes are twitching with tiredness. I'm listening to The Fray's "Happiness" (guaranteed to yield excellent Genius results) and am in an excellent mood. Prepare to be benefited.

Jon recently visited me for a few days, and it was pure bliss to have him around to cook for and snuggle up with to watch Arrested Development while eating frozen grapes (pretty much our favorite past-time). We took modelesque beach pictures, double dated with our new favorite (non married) couple, celebrated Halloweenie like the forest fire and Smokey the Bear that we are, and scoffed at the disappointment that "Where the Wild Things Are" ended up to be. Obviously, we're some cool cats.

While my Taxi Driver was in town, I decided to donate blood at the blood drive going on at my school. Now, let me preface this story with a story. A year ago, I decided to pierce my rook (a delightful little unnecessary piece of cartilage in your ear that really isn't good for anything other than piercing -- see photo) and it resulted in the world's.worst.infection. Seriously. I was in the ER twice, ICU for a week, and almost lost my freakin' ear! Ever since that fun experience, I've had a crippling fear of needles + blood. Part of this completely rational fear resulted from my IV not being screwed in tight enough one time... but I won't go into that story here. Anyway, I talked it over with the ever supportive boyfriend, who strongly suggested that I sign up to donate blood to conquer these fears, and do some good for some poor cancer patient out there. Sidenote: Jon cannot give blood due to an insufficiency of iron in his blood, so I'm quite positive that he was trying to secretly live vicariously through me. Go big or go home.

When I arrived at the Red Cross trailer on Monday, a few minutes late for my appointment (this story wouldn't quite have the LL touch if it didn't involve me running late), I could only think about three things: Bon Iver's "Blood Bank" EP (quite excellent; give it a listen), the fact that my skin was stained green from my forest fire hair dye (awkward), and I was as nervous as a pimply boy asking his crush to the Prom. Except worse. Pimply boys don't (usually) have green skin.

After I answered a series of questions that determined I wasn't a prostitute or from Africa, the kind Latina woman with missing acrylic nails and Winnie the Pooh scrubs set me up with my own personal little blood bag. I laid down on my cot, shakily asked for a blanket (WHY are Red Cross trailers so cold?! Why, cruel world?), and contemplated telling her that I had changed my mind. As I set about mentally planning how I would color a little red dot on my arm so Jon wouldn't suspect anything, she pricked me (I thanked God for my lack of peripheral vision which enabled me to not see a thing), and my vein started proudly emptying it's contents into a tube. It was strange. And kind of disgusting. And... not that bad.

The whole thing was over in a flash, and I was relieved have my arm back, and to accept some Nutter Butters and orange juice. Some payment for human blood. I decided that I liked challenging my fear in order to help someone. It put me way outside of my comfort zone, and it felt good. Next on the agenda? Eating a worm to experience true hunger. Just kidding...