A post with words!!

1. I gave blood the other day and they got allllll fired up about the fact that I've neer had a baby, which makes me a kickass candidate for apherisis and OMG CAN WE TEST YOUR WHITE BLOOD CELL COUNT!?!?!

Yeah, sure.

So if I'm still a good candidate once they've done extra special tests on my blood, I'll go ahead and donate...even though it's a lonnnng-ass process. I used to do apherisis in college but it was part of a research study where I got paid $150 for my delicious white blood cells. This time it will be out of the goodness of my GODDAMN heart.

If you're not familiar, this means I'm going to sit in a big ass recliner while they take the blood out of one arm, spin it through a little thing-a-ma-bobber and then put it back in the other arm. And then because your blood is hanging around outside your body you get collllld, so a nice lady will come around and tuck you into warm blankets and give you warm water bottles to hold onto.

And there are movies!!

And of course, cookies afterwards!!

But anyhooters, they were telling me that with each pregnancy a woman becomes less and less desirable for apherisis because of the antibodies in her blood or whatever and that they have difficulty keeping the donor population up because women keep going and having babies and ruining it for everyone. I think they probably took one look at me and said "THAT WOMAN WILL NEVER GET A DATE, MUCH LESS PREGNANT! SIGN HER UP!!!!!"

2. I don't have anything else to report but I just realized I started the whole "look at my ticket stubs" thing 100 years ago and never followed through...so here you go:

This is one of the more recent stubs I have and it represents an evening I already blogged about:



In a nutshell, Leslie had a spare ticket, I went with her, I played the pretending-I-don't-see-you game with the bartender from TGI Fridays that I used to have the mega hots for.

Another recent one!



Team Texas and I went to San Antonio because the San Antonio Riverwalk is on one of the lists of 1,000 things to see before you die (must have been the US version because it wasn't ALL THAT and I can't imagine it made it onto the global list). As mentioned in the blog post about that trip, San Antonio Riverwalk is famous in our house because of the fine, fine film Cloak & Dagger.

This one is from 100 years ago when Christa and Carrie and Allison (and maybe Sassy Sarah too?) all taught at Allison's family dance studio. I LOVED (for reals) going to the shows because WHO DOESN'T LIKE 8-year-olds hip hopping to top 40 hits???



I can't say I remember this particular performance, but I'm sure it was special.

Here's another one I don't really remember, but SUE ME because it was fifteen years ago:



I remember that this was the makeup Pearl Jam concert that they played because Eddie Vedder was sick for the original show in San Francisco and jumped ship after a couple of songs. I don't specifically remember going to this show but I was dating Joe at the time (yeah, THAT Joe) and he was a major Pearl Jam fan and went to the SF show with me so I can only assume that he was at this one too.

And finally, here we have the Burning Man 2003 stub:



I'm 99% sure that was the year we met Team North Carolina. (HEY GREG! YOU'RE GREAT AND GORGEOUS!!!) I was going back through the archives to find Burning Man 2003 pictures to remind me of other exciting things that happened that year and I found THIS:



OMG SO YOUNG! OMG SUCH BIG, BLOND HAIR!!

Pictures from that year's Burning Man aren't so cute, but here's one of me and my (formerly) beloved Clive and Enrique:



And then the prettiest picture I've ever taken with my own two hands:



The end.

1-5

I was cleaning out my desk this morning and started going through the stack of concert and event ticket stubs I've collected over the years. I kept thinking "This is when I BLAH BLAH BLAH" or "This was the day So-and-So said BLAH BLAH BLAH" so I decided that I'd work my way through telling those stories here.

And by "stories" I mean "probably disjointed thoughts dislodged from my brain by looking at the ticket stubs."

Here are the first few, in no particular order.

August 10, 2002:



Joanie had moved to Portland for a while so we made plans for me to fly up and for her to take the train down to Seattle. We stayed at the Westin -- possibly using her dad's points for a free room? I don't remember, but I know that we did get complementary pretzels and beer because her dad had an ass load of Starwood points.

We spent the day shopping for Burning Man outfits on Capitol Hill and then had dinner at a sushi restaurant before heading over to the theater. We had no idea who Guster was (SO SORRY LIZZIE V!!!!) and I remember that we drank red wine in the lobby while we waited for John Mayer to start.

We drank A LOT of red wine and then all hell ended up breaking loose. I believe there was a cab ride to 7-11 later that night and when I got home to San Jose there was a GIANT LUMP with an impressive bruise on my back. We have our theories for how that happened, but when I think "Joanie and Elizabeth see John Mayer in Seattle" I think "It's a miracle we're not dead."

Labor Day-ish, 2007:



This was my last year at Burning Man. It was the year I sat around looking at all the high people and thinking that there were plenty of other places I'd rather be. There were moments of awesome, but not so many that I could look past the moments of SUCK. I remember sitting in my MaxxDaddy chair and surveying our camp, deciding what was going to be thrown directly into the dumpster when we got home and what I might want to keep.

November 10, 2007:




This was the first of two times I've seen Billy Joel in concert (and the BEST of the two!). It was a life list item for me so I bought the tickets months and months in advance and ended up bringing Joanie with me because she was one of the few of my friends who would go with joy in her heart and not just out of pity for me, her Billy Joel loving friend.

I remember that it was POURING rain that day, which you could probably tell from the state of the ticket stub.

I remember that we took the bus back to my apartment from BART and by the time we walked in my front door, we were DRENCHED.

I remember that Joanie suggested we take our pants off before walking on the carpet so our wet, bussy, BARTy, concerty jeans didn't drag along my carpet.

July 18, 2009:



I'm not a huge Kenny Chesney fan but I found cheap tickets so I asked my country loving friend Kathy to join me.

I made BFFs with the two girls next to us and we all added each other as Facebook friends right then and there but then I deleted them a few days later because they were far less awesome by the light of day.

I smuggled a flask of something-or-other into this concert by shoving it into my bra.

Country music fans are DRINKERS. What a bunch of drunk, hardly clothed, probably underage ladies! SHEESH!

December 14, 2000:



I'm 99% sure this was my first Sharks game and I only went because my employer at the time bought tickets for everyone. I remember we stood up to go to the concession stand mid-play and when we got to the bottom, an usher handed us a card telling us to stay seated during the action.

Oops.

I also remember this other chick I worked with didn't care about the hockey etiquette and started a shouting match with someone who told her to SIT DOWN.

And look! This was back when the Arena was actually still called the Arena!