So I’m not one to believe in prophetic dreams, fortune tellers or anything of that sort, but even I can’t explain this one.

Earlier this week I had a dream…sometime. I was dreaming about normal dream-like stuff, involving ice-cream and sharks, and then it had to get all weird on me.  I dreamt that I was about 10 or 11, playing on the playground.  I’m playing tag with a bunch of kids.

“Save!”  A little boy says, running up to me and touching me on the arm.

“But, you’re not ‘It’,”  I say, thinking that he said ‘tag’.

“I said, ‘Save’,” He says.

“Save what?”

“It’s not save…what…”  He says, looking at me with his eyes wide.

“Save where?”  I ask tentatively, and he shakes his head.

“You should be asking ‘Save who?’,” He says, staring at me obviously.

“Tag!”  A little girl runs up to me and slaps me on the arm before adding, “You’re not supposed to be standing still…”

I wake up from that dream thinking I need to quit playing PS2 games so much in my free time.

Fast-forward to yesterday.  I’m driving home from work and I remember that the BloodCenter of Wisconsin is along the way from the research I did on the internet the other night.  I pull into the driveway.

“We’re not Red Cross,”  The woman behind the counter says immidiately, frowning.  I asked her if I could get some information about their blood drive, since I was no longer happy with the Red Cross.  It’s like I said something about the bastard child of the family; suddenly everyone is frowning at me.

“No I know you aren’t the Red Cross, I don’t like them because of…”  I say, exasperated.  Sighing, I pull up the sleeve of my long-sleeved business-casual shirt.  She gasps, but in the next second she is smiling and waving someone over.

“Yes, you can talk with her,”  She says a moment later to a woman about my age, with a long white coat and white pants on.  She ushers me into another, quieter room that looks like an office.

“Oh my god what did they do?!”  The woman exclaims after I show her my bruise from giving blood to the Red Cross.  She gives me a bunch of information and pamphlets, and pretty soon we’re laughing and joking like old friends.

“Well, I usually don’t tell people about this if they don’t ask, but there is a program called the National Marrow Donor Program that we participate in, or N-M-D-P,”  She says, explaining about bone marrow.

“Bone…barrow?  As in wheelbarrow?”  I ask, sounding like I ate a bowl of crazy-flakes for breakfast.

“No,”  She says, laughing, “It’s bone MARROW.”

She says that there is a lot of people that need it, a lot of sick people.  I ask if it hurts, and she says no.  Of course I don’t believe her, I mean, taking something OUT OF MY BONES.  Yeah, that’s gotta hurt.  I get up with all of my new papers about the bone marrow program and shake her hand.

“And, think of it this way, you can save…” She starts, coughing in mid-sentence.

“Save what?”  I ask, having strong deja-vu going on by now.

“It’s not save what,”  She says, before adding, “It’s save who.”

I stop shaking her hand for a split second before pulling away.

“There are a lot of kids and adults that have diseases that require bone marrow,”  She says.  We shake hands again.  She tells me to think about it overnight, and come in tomorrow, or another day, when I decide if I want to do this or not.

That night I researched like crazy the bone marrow program.  As it turns out she is right, if you don’t have a common allele or whatever it is, then you most likely will never be selected as a donor.  I go in today and the same woman is there.  She takes out a package that says “DO NOT TOUCH” and “CONTAMINATION WARNING” all over it.

“Alright, now you just have to swab your mouth with these,”  She says, leading me into the same room and handing me the small box,  “Now I can’t touch it, except the outside so just open it up and read the instructions.”

“So I take it the government now has access to my DNA after this, right?”  I joke, putting the last gigantic Q-Tip into the foam holder.  She laughs, but doesn’t answer directly.

Ah well, so what if I’m on the government top 10 most wanted by tomorrow.  I don’t know if anyone really is chosen to be a donor like me, the woman hinted to the fact that they need more people of non-Caucasian race to sign up for this. The lady also said that it is completely voluntary and I can withdraw my name at any time. However, I’m most afraid if I am chosen, that I will hyperventilate even before it is time to do anything.

I’ll probably never be chosen anyways.

I was going to post a funny video I found on the Internet, but I decided that since I have not posted in about a week, that the people deserve more than just some silly video, right?  RIGHT?!

Right.

Lately I have had SO much time on my hands, it is hard to figure out what to DO with all of that time.  Because, there is only so many times one can vacuum with a new vacuum cleaner (6 times in a week…I have a problem), and there is only so many times one can reformat a harddrive.

So lately, I’ve been trying to find things to do.  First thing I did was buy a table and chairs, and, thinking I could save 68 bucks on shipping and get rid of a day’s worth of boredom, I decided to pick it up and put it together myself.  Well, that was successful, if only for a day.  Now I have the rest of my life to figure out what to do with my time.

Sure, it looks pretty, but I will confess here that I only sat in the chairs to test them out, and I sat in each of them for about five minutes.  And the chairs came PRE-MADE.  As in, no assembly required.  I’m almost afraid of putting anything heavier than 5 pounds on the table itself, though, for fear it will collapse in an almost cartoonish style.  Because that is the one thing that I DID assemble.  With my own hands.  Using things called a WRENCH.  Sounds like a kind of pancake if you ask me.

Well, that took care of one day of fun, with my carpet covered in shreds of packing material, and cardboard boxes all over the place, I would like to add that I was able to use my vacuum cleaner again.  However, I decided that I still need something for sustaining fun.  So, I started thinking. What is the one thing that could give me both a panic attack AND is helpful to other people?  It took some time and thought, but I think I’ve come up with the perfect solution -

And, now I give blood - in a vain attempt to try and get myself to not be so afraid of doctors for irrational reasons.  So the other day, I made an appointment to give blood to the Red Cross.  Sounds perfectly reasonable, right?  I go in, and a lady takes my blood pressure, after I sat in the waiting area for about 5 minutes.  Not NEARLY enough time to calm myself, I might add.  Of course, the first thing she asks is if I am nervous.

“Why?”

“Because your blood pressure is slightly elevated,” She says, writing down some numbers.

Wow, is it that obvious?  I mean, I can practically feel my heart about to BURST FROM MY CHEST. Hellooooo doctor, please have the defibrillator ready for your nervous blood-donor, thank you!

And before I know it, I’m lying down, giving blood, and the lady comes over and adjusts the needle a bit.

“Um, ow,”  I say, feeling a weird sensation in my arm.  Kind of a pinching and pulling inside, all at once.

“Yes, I had to adjust it,”  The lady in the white coat says.

“That’s fine, but it feels weird,”  I say, “Are you sure that I’m still ‘donating’?”

“Yes, of course,”  She says.  She fiddles with something out of my vision, just below the chair.  “Hmmmm I don’t think it is moving along…Do you feel alright?”

“If by ‘alright’, you mean: ‘feels like you inserted the needle with a 9-gauge shotgun’, then I’M FINE THANKS,”  Is what I thought.

“It hurts, I think more than it should,”  I say, clenching my teeth.

“Oh dear,”  She says, and without going into too much details, she takes her SWEET TIME adjusting the damn plastic tube and needle.  Pretty soon her frown turns into a reassuring smile. “It’s good now.”

If by “good” you mean “you will have a bruise the size of Texas” and by “now” you mean “by tomorrow”, then it’s crystal clear.  Not even the largest band-aid I have was able to cover the bruise, and now I’m forced to wear long-sleeved shirts to work every day this past week.

Click here for the picture of the bruise (not for the faint of heart).

Annddd with a gigantic bandaid.

Giving blood is awesome, and I definitely recommend that everyone donate to the Red Cross! (Reassuring smile, Thumbs up sign)