trinityvixen | Happy Halloween

I've gotten a bunch of compliments on my Halloween outfit. It's not a costume, just some black-and-orange-striped tights, an orange shirt with a black raven on it, and a black skirt. I think it's the tights and the witch-y shoes. I quite like the tights, actually. You can't beat synthetic material for keeping absolutely all the heat in your body. Something I need when there still is no heat on at work or at home.

Oh well: Happy Halloween to you all!

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It's funny, but I accidentally gave blood yesterday.

This past Saturday, after staying up until 3 am cleaning the apartment, I was woken by a phone call at 9 am. I'd only kept the phone in my room because I wanted to be sure that, if I overslept, I'd hear my friend calling about lunch. Instead, I got a plea from the New York Blood Centers to donate blood. Now, in all fairness, they do good works and they're having something of a crisis again, so if you're reading this and are able, please do consider donating. At least you'll be spared the inconvenience of being begged at too early an hour on a weekend.

I told the person on the phone that I have chronically low iron, and that I would try to build it up and donate soon. I hope that's what she heard, anyway--I was rather groggy and cranky at being woken. I got off the phone and resolved to at least stop by the blood drive I knew was going on at the hospital the day before Halloween...before falling asleep and forgetting about it entirely until I passed a sign on my way out yesterday.

It wasn't crowded, which is nice--these drives with the later hours usually are busy and filled with people who clearly want to be elsewhere and line-jump like bastards. I got up to the guy who does the preliminary stuff and he did the finger poke and, sure enough, I'm under the limit by 0.3 of whatever it is they measure. I asked if he could try again--I've been told by the place in Penn Station that they're no longer allowed to prick two fingers in one session any more--and it turns out he is not bound by this one-poke rule.

However, I'm pretty sure that if a two-poke isn't cheating, taking blood from the same puncture definitely is. While I wasn't looking to get stabbed in another finger, it kinda sucks to start healing up that puncture and then to have him squeeze the finger and take more blood from it when it reopens. Miraculously, my iron level jumps two whole points. This is so cheating. I get up to go over to the donor's bench to wait for a nurse to be ready to take me. I was a little confused at this point how a diet of turkey-and-cheese sandwich, milk, and some salt-and-vinegar potato chips makes me have high iron when I've abused iron pills and high-iron foods and been turned away.

Better than this, though, is the nurse who is hostilely explaining how she doesn't like to let donors go and sit on the donor lounge chairs before she's set up, as she's absolutely sure that she doesn't want them touching shit and they totally will. Of course, this is the woman I get for my blood donation. She goes right for my right arm, which is annoying since that's my writing hand arm, but I'd really prefer her to get a good stick either way than to have to poke around my left (note for the squeamish: THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED. I have always gotten the one-stick and good to go when I donated).

Everything goes fine (no matter the nurse's attitude, I've yet to have anyone take my blood that wasn't a consummate professional about it) until I get towards the end. I'm a fast bleeder. I'm not even kidding; I can complete my donation in less time than it takes to do the prelim stuff. I finished before a woman who'd started two people ahead of me (granted, she was probably really slow). As such, I'm constantly trying to crane my neck around to check my bag because I know it's going to fill faster than they're thinking. Because of what they're doing, the nurses don't immediately notice and I got a little pressure build up in my arm around the puncture, the kind that usually happens when they close the line before they take the needle out. That blood wants to go somewhere and it couldn't get any more into the bag. The other nurse at the station seems worried when I complain it hurt, but she thinks it's from the turniquet being too tight. This is partially true--that hurt a lot, but like I said I bleed so fast, I didn't think it mattered much how tight it was. Next time, I know better. I also know to pipe up about the blood bag being full because that pressure is really uncomfortable and unnecessary. I need to get a note on my donor log saying "FAST BLEEDER--PAY ATTENTION TO HER."

What's nice about spontaneous blood donation is that I got sandwiches and juice and diet pepsi at the station (in addition to my usual granola bar--blood donation being the only time I ever have one, really). I stopped by to snag my cupcake on the way out and the people at the registration table stopped me. I expected a hassle over the cupcake or something, but once they found out I had donated, I got a movie ticket to an AMC (woo! Saw IV will be free! Which is about as much as it should cost!), a nice black canvas bag (better than the one I got last year--it zips! More front pockets!), and a chance at a $25 gift card (alas, I did not win).

Still, drive-by blood donation. Weird.

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I'm really starting to regret ordering from this one company at work. The salesguy shows up about every other month to inquire as to what our lab needs and doesn't seem to like hearing "Nothing" from me. I told him again today that we didn't need anything now, and he said, "What, did the lab run out of money?" I think that was supposed to be a joke. Ha. Ha. I did not tell him to fuck off and mind his own business (I should have), but it was a near thing.

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I started to play Eternal Darkness last night. I've watched

feiran and theKathy play it for years, but I really wanted to watch someone play it and neither of them would or could (

feiran has WoW, theKathy is back in Philly). I don't know if I'm going to be able to finish, seeing as I'm not entirely comfortable with GameCube controls that require me to do more active things than catch butterflies in a net or talk to annoying animals. We'll see. I have watched most of the game, so there shouldn't be too much that freaks me out or surprises me (though I discovered last night that there is plenty to frustrate me when it comes to not finding stuff).