| | I gave blood at lunch today. With the Fourth of July coming up (on a Friday, no less), there's bound to be an extra dose of drinking and driving and stupid mistakes and ER visits that could easily turn into trips to the morgue. So go give blood and save a life.
If I have inspired you to do a good deed with that last part, hold on to it and don't let this next part deter you.
After getting back to the office, I threw up and blacked out twice. This was my 13th donation (not superstitious) and I've never been slammed this hard. It's over 7 hours later and I still get woozy if I stand up too long. It was disconcerting at first, but now that I'm safely home I've been playing with it. Standing over my bed until I see stars and then falling forward, causing the down comforter to poof up around me like a cloud until all the colors settle down into their proper places. Don't fuss. I've only done it once. Or twice. The first time wasn't on purpose, so it doesn't count.
So what. If it saves a human life, I'd suffer a punch in the face. I'd eagerly part with digits to spare a stranger's life. Honestly, after that my willingness to sacrifice is measured by my regard for the life in question. I certainly hope I would lay down my life for another if the opportunity ever arose. Hard to tell. Selfishness overtakes me sometimes. Regardless, sacrificing a few hours of dependable balance is incredibly trivial. Go give blood.
I spent the better part of this afternoon reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Foer. It's really making me mad. Furious, even. Not because it's a confrontational book- far from it. Let me see if I can explain why it's having this strange effect...
When I read authors like Eggers or Foer, I feel I could write books like that. I love their work, it's entertaining, and poignant and beautiful and they pluck emotions out of you like birds picking bugs off trees. Then I think that I'm delusional (which I am), and I'm missing all the nuance that makes their work so embraced by the literary world (which is probably true), and that if I were to seriously attempt to write something worthy of publishing, I'd be hailed as a piker and run out of town on a rail. And then I think that I really don't want to write books, because the only people who READ books these days are writers. A quick look down that road reveals an incestuous community of self-congratulating, closed-minded intelligentsia. Yeah, that'll change the world. Oh, I forgot. Middle aged women read books by Tim LaHaye. And air travelers will read King or Grisham, but mainly just to keep them at bay from their fellow passengers on the way from New York to L.A.
Then I remember that there is nothing I want to say, so my ability to write a book is moot and I'm getting upset over nothing.
But words are the only things that seem to do what I want. My guitar doesn't work, paint doesn't work, movement doesn't work, and singing DEFINITELY doesn't work. I can usually get edibles to fall in and present themselves, but that's so hard to share with people.
So.
I'm starting to remember why I fell out of the habit of reading books. They hurt. Maybe I should just stick to Watterson. |
| | Posted 6/18/2008 8:37 PM - 110 Views - 10 eProps - 7 comments
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