How I Take Your Blood

My friend Ang and I were discussing manners of all sorts the other day, etiquette, wedding invitations, matters of a disturbing and dark nature, and while she was telling me about a label problem from the Martha Stewart line of wedding invites (Martha Stewart is the devil, albeit a big blonde one who makes nifty little treats out of ordinary household objects just like my mother did -- except my mother said things like, Here's something dead. See what you can do with it and Martha, well, Martha insists that most things are good things except when her husband fucked Erica Jong at a bookfair in Germany many years ago and both Erica and Martha lived to tell the tale about how awful the whole nightmare was), and I thought about the last stationary set I bought that starts out, Dear Douche Bag. It also includes a Dear Douche Bag pen, and I look forward to many hours of writing with it. I prefer douchebag as one word, but when you find treasure, you cannot be all that picky.

I'm not one to stand on much ceremony these days, but I do miss some of the common courtesy, feel a sadness about so much slipping away. I had my blood drawn on Friday afternoon and asked the tech how her day was going. Late Friday afternoon, everyone tired, the office a morass of low morale and illness. "It won't affect how I take your blood," she said. I said that I knew, but was just interested, just being friendly. "Oh," she said. "Nobody ever asks me anything about my day. People just hate being back here so they never worry about me. I'm getting a divorce. It's a nightmare." I said I was sorry as she taped up my arm and told me to squeeze a ball as she found a vein. It was over before I knew it, which is more than I can say for her situation. "Everywhere thinks it's going to hurt a lot worse than it does," she said. I told her she was good at what she did, that I had been to people who had trouble finding a vein. She smiled and said, "I wish everyone knew it wasn't easy."

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Honesty has come to mean the privilege of insulting you to your face without expecting redress." Judith Martin

Cocktail Hour
Drinking movie suggestion: Turn The River

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Sunday! Thanks for all kind words about my broken piggy. He's healing and is getting used to being taped next to his buddy piggy.