Dear unidentified biting insect,

Thanks so much for the agonizing welt you left on the boniest part of my kneecap. That really made my day.

Just wanted to let you know,

Yours sincerely,

Premee.

My latest adventure was donating blood. (What, you were expecting me to say I was parasailing with celebrities? Nuts to that. I’m saving lives, man.) I never donated before because of my blood disorder, beta-thalassemia trait (minor), but the nurse said it wasn’t considered a restriction any more because the blood is artificially oxygenated before it goes into people anyway, and all that mattered was my iron level which - since I stuffed myself for days with Mini-Wheats and Ovaltine (both so heavily fortified that you can now stick fridge magnets to my forehead) - was pretty high.

I was going great guns until the end, when I fainted dead away and slid halfway off the chair - some kind of blood pressure thing. The good thing was that besides my first-time donor pin, I also got a big slice of cake! “Think of it as a medical supplement,” said the nurse virtuously. “We need to get your blood sugar back up.” A pin… and cake! Giving blood rocks. (Although the large powder-blue bruise that resulted on my inner arm makes me look slightly like a junkie. But only slightly.)
The only other notable item for the evening was the conversation I had with my mom when I got home. She said, “You probably fainted because you don’t have enough blood to donate.” I said, “Mom, adults have an average of five litres of blood and I only donated five hundred millilitres. I have plenty of blood.” Mom: “No, you’re too small to donate. You just don’t have enough reserve.” Me: (fed up) “I have loads of blood. I have vats of blood. I have more blood than Arnold Schwarzenegger!” Mom: (slightly nonplussed) “All right, dear… but don’t take a hot shower tonight. You’ll pass out right onto the floor.” Me: “Ten-four.”

I googled my own blog and found this:

http://whitenois.blogspot.com/2006/02/most-original-blog-names-found-in.html

Heh.

Back to work.

Sorry, folks, this post is only for my female readers. If you’re a male, especially a male who likes males and has zero interest in feminine woes, am-scray. Nothin’ to see here.
So, ladies, yesterday went like such: it’s approximately my fifteenth hour of (futilely) scouring Calgary for dresses fitting the description that many-a-bridesmaid agreed upon over the May Long. I’m tired; I’m thirsty; my mood is so not improved by the bony young things who keep prancing out of adjacent fitting rooms squealing, “Does this come in a size zero?”

I decide to break for eats, and while munching pensively on my nutritionally-complete meal (New York Fries: The Works, plus several packets of salt) I recall a brilliant fix that a very smrt girl thought up back in August 2005, to wit: body-shaping lingerie. I don’t know, ‘lingerie’ is kind of an inaccurate term for those things, eh? When I think ‘lingerie’ I’m thinking lounging, languorous, louche, lingering. Nothing about body-shapers lets you do or be anything like that. But I digress.

Sears had several brands of not-too-corsetty-looking items, shorts and camisoles and whatnot, and I was feeling fairly confident as I pawed through ‘EZ-Comfort Control’ and ‘Moderate Control’ till I found ‘Firm Control,’ which I hoped was a euphemism. The kind of control I need these days comes with whalebone in it. I found a promising shaper in the right size, and hied me to a fitting room.

I nearly had to hie right back out, to barf, when I (eventually) wrestled the bastard into place. (During this process I was making, I think, some fairly unusual noises - “Fnerf!” and “Ouagh!” primary among these - but no one came in to see if I were dying because frankly, all women have made those noises while trying on lingerie.) Funny how they push all your internal organs into different configurations, isn’t it? I managed a couple of shallow sips of air, and stared at myself in the full-length mirror.

Not bad. Yes, not too bad at all, really… not… not terrible, anyway. I did a half-turn to get a rear view, and said, “Awwwrrk!”

For my rear! It was gone! It was flat, and shiny, and rigid! I’d never seen anything so horrible in my life. (Well, OK, I have… but I told him to put it away.) Surely now my bum would fit neatly into those demure black dresses - at a price, and the price would be my self-identity. Allow me to explain.

As much as I whine about it, I’m actually pretty OK with my two-liter Coke-bottle body. (Yes, I’d like it to be a few inches taller, but wouldn’t we all.) I like my rack and I like my curves and I most especially like that two-baby-bobcats-in-a-croker-sack effect of my gelatinous bottom. I realize that’s not politically correct - I should really be striving to lose weight, so my health won’t be endangered and so I can fit into the outfits the best designers want me to wear. But my childhood idol, and the mould into which I try to pour all my ideas of beauty, wasn’t skinny by a long shot - and she was my hero.

This is Madhuri Dixit, a Bollywood film star. She retired at age 36, I think, to marry a surgeon and have lots of babies, but look at her in her heyday! She never played the delicate girls who swarmed with burly Romeos; she was always the sly one, the prankster, the forthright best friend, the never-say-die sister. Look at those hips! Look at those round arms! Look at that lovely little belly! I wanted to be her so badly when I was growing up.

Long story short: I thought of Mads and I thought of my rear and I put that shaper back on the hanger and left. I learned my lesson. And Kim, dear, I can’t guarantee that I’ll lose weight before your wedding - but I can guarantee that I will be more comfortable in my own skin, and look better for it, so maybe folks won’t even notice that the dress fits funny. ;-)

Well, we’ve been waiting and waiting and it’s finally here!

Happy 6/06/06, everyone!

Not that it means anything , of course.

(Scary sky photo taken from my balcony, facing approximately southwest).