RaverMadness
Bluelighter
You step into a booth, and I ask you personal questions. This is how I work.
In no particular order, I want to know all about you and all your exposure to bloodborn pathogens. It’s my job to get you to admit you just came back from Africa. You’ve been tattooed and pierced in the last twelve months. You’ve spent more than 72 hours in police custody. You’re an IV drug user. You’ve paid someone for sex. You’ve been infected with hepatitis, or you’re HIV positive. Or you’ve been having unprotected sex with any person in the above categories.
Are you a hemophiliac? Are you taking Tegeson or Soriatane, or any anticoagulant drugs? Have you lost a substantial amount of blood in the past four weeks?
Roll up your sleeves, turn over your arms, to prove you aren’t covered in track marks.
This is the interview they make me read. It’s on a clipboard, bulleted items that put you in a high-risk category where we can’t give you fifteen bucks for your plasma. That’s just a rough overview of the questions I’m required by law to ask. A phalanx of lawyers wrote the interview sheet. I can read through the list so fast that this becomes a chant, a mantra, where the hopeful plasma donor will reply, “no” to all the questions.
They’ll lie to you if they really need the money, but the real purpose of the question and answer part of the screening is to make sure the donor isn’t drunk or high. You still have to take their pulse, blood pressure and temperature, and write it down in their chart. Then, you swab one of their fingers with alcohol, and use all your skill and finesse to stick a disposable lancet in their fingertip. You squeeze the finger so the blood will flow freely, and fill a capillary tube with this.
Place the capillary tube into the centrifuge for sixty seconds, and have a short, labored conversation with the person whom you’ve wounded. Or, if you’re not the social type, you can set up the screening so they’ll be busy with the oral thermometer and blood pressure cuff.
The people that are drunk will stand towards the very back of the booth, so you can’t smell the alcohol on their breath. The people that got high before they came to donate plasma will be too friendly.
The plasma center actually doesn’t care about marijuana use, as long as it’s not “problematic”. While it’s true that they don’t want you donating plasma while you’re high, they just want to keep away the hard drug users, which are apparently AIDS patients waiting to happen.
If you develop a routine, you can do a donor screening in less than two minutes. Rattle off your questions, do the finger stick, set up the blood pressure cuff and thermometer while you’re waiting for the capillary tube to finish flying around in the tiny centrifuge. Insert the capillary tube into the gigantic syringe thing, and put the plasma on the refractometer. Examine. Record your results. Sterilize your booth. Repeat.
Dating should be this easy.
I don’t even remember what the numbers are supposed to mean when you’re checking the refractometer readings. I just have the acceptable range memorized. I’m not a qualified medical professional. I make seven bucks an hour. I came in off the street, after seeing an ad in the paper that said they needed plasma screeners.
I work nine-hour shifts, four days a week. Consequently I have a lot of downtime.
What I usually do during my down time is work as a tattoo artist. I’m not a qualified professional here either, I’m just a bitch that owns a tattoo machine and has reasonable artistic talent. I haven’t bothered to do the math on what I make doing this, but that’s not what motivates me.
It’s a long story.
I carry a pen and a notebook. If I’m not going to a show by some local band, I’ll go to one of those quirky little coffee places near the college. When those close, Denny’s. Any place that will be frequented by offbeat, counterculture types in the market for some discount body modification will do nicely.
I take advantage of the fact that there’s no place in American society that a moderately attractive woman can be left alone. I’m more than willing to give you my number, if it’s for the right reasons.
All I have to do is sit there, read a book, read a magazine, and wear a short sleeved shirt. The best thing about places like Denny’s is they’ll keep refilling your one cup of coffee as long as they think you’ll tip well.
You get a bunch of people in the same booth, all ordering nothing but coffee, is when the service goes to hell. Your server doesn’t expect that you’ll leave over a dollar for a tip, and so he doesn’t want to refill your coffee. Since you’re such a generous person and you want to prove that this concept isn’t always correct, you want to leave a nice tip so they’ll serve you better next time – except they’ve been avoiding eye contact, waiting for you to leave. You’ll leave a buck and some change between all of you. It’s a vicious cycle.
With one or two people, they’ll show some empathy, because you’re probably just a struggling creative genius like they are, who’s forced into working in the retail or service industry before someone reads your screenplay. This is before they publish the Great American Novel you’ve spent all these years working on. When someone recognizes you for the brilliant painter, actor, musician, artist that you truly are, and beats a path to your door.
Almost everyone is a struggling creative genius, and they’re waiting for their Life’s Work to finally pay off. They’ll leave their shit job, their shit life, and be free to do whatever they want without having to rely on a paycheck or tips ever again. It’s things like these that get a lot of people through the day.
I, on the other hand, am a sellout.
I enjoy what I do, and I get to meet interesting people. I get to take artwork, symbols, names, and put them on someone’s skin forever. Barring expensive, painful laser surgery or severe burns, my work will be with them even after they die, until their skin decays. A little piece of me inside all these other people, touring the world. At least that’s how I see it.
I’m an artist, but I don’t want to be famous. I realized long ago that there are very few people who’ll give you a medal for what you do. The truth is, the world doesn’t care.
People will come up to me, the heavily tattooed, moderately attractive chick, and bother me. If they ask me about my tattoos, that’s usually a good sign. It shows they’re interested in my work.
Other people will approach me because the tattoos must mean I’m weird and exotic, and must do some freaky shit in bed. I have a suspicion that these are the same kind of men who are obsessed with Asian women for the same reasons.
They’ll come up to you, and ask what you’re reading. This opening line is stupid – whatever I’m reading is clearly displayed on the cover of the book. They could at least feign interest and pretend they’re semi-literate, and pretend they’ve read whatever author happened to be responsible for the book. Not that fake intellectuals interested in a trophy fuck are any better.
These guys invite you to sit with them, like their fumbling attempts at conversation are more engaging than my quiet solitude. Yes, I want to sit with your friends. My lack of eye contact means I’m playing hard to get, and want to fuck you even more.
Please, just use me. Show me off to all your friends. I am the wild, untamed tattooed bitch, an elusive creature few people have captured. Add me to your list of interesting people you’ve fucked. I’m dying for the chance to be a story you tell your friends.
When asked what I’m doing, I usually just say that I’m ignoring you.
When guys think I’m being cute or funny when I say this, I’ll usually come up with something off the top of my head. I never said I wasn’t an interesting person.
Tonight I told this guy and his receding hairline that I’m writing a movie. I told this wall-eyed, intrusive fucktard I’m writing a movie about cowboys, except in my movie, I’m not using actors. I’m going to use state of the art digital effects to make all the characters gigantic talking penises wearing vests and cowboy hats. It’s very avant-garde. These giant cowboy penises will ride around on horses made out of shit, and blow each other away while spouting patriotic one liners. I haven’t thought of a title for it, not yet.
And this guy, with his receding hairline and mid life crisis and paunch asks if he can see the script.
I tell him that I’d love for him to read it, except that all my creative works are stored inside a microchip implanted in my skull. He can’t see it, but I’m busy writing the thing right now. The words show up in front of my eyes, and I have a printer port installed in the back of my head. My hair just does a good job of covering it. I say that I’d print him out a copy to read, but the manager won’t let me use the printer in the back office.
And this guy looks at me, and asks if I’m a lesbian.
I say, of course. All of us lesbians are cyborgs.
He leaves me alone after that. At least someone got a decent story out of this whole thing.
Tonight, people in need of tattoos are off somewhere else. Working. Frolicking. At any rate, not here at Denny’s. But at least I’m doing what I love.
[ 14 March 2003: Message edited by: *CrystalMeth Bunny* ]
In no particular order, I want to know all about you and all your exposure to bloodborn pathogens. It’s my job to get you to admit you just came back from Africa. You’ve been tattooed and pierced in the last twelve months. You’ve spent more than 72 hours in police custody. You’re an IV drug user. You’ve paid someone for sex. You’ve been infected with hepatitis, or you’re HIV positive. Or you’ve been having unprotected sex with any person in the above categories.
Are you a hemophiliac? Are you taking Tegeson or Soriatane, or any anticoagulant drugs? Have you lost a substantial amount of blood in the past four weeks?
Roll up your sleeves, turn over your arms, to prove you aren’t covered in track marks.
This is the interview they make me read. It’s on a clipboard, bulleted items that put you in a high-risk category where we can’t give you fifteen bucks for your plasma. That’s just a rough overview of the questions I’m required by law to ask. A phalanx of lawyers wrote the interview sheet. I can read through the list so fast that this becomes a chant, a mantra, where the hopeful plasma donor will reply, “no” to all the questions.
They’ll lie to you if they really need the money, but the real purpose of the question and answer part of the screening is to make sure the donor isn’t drunk or high. You still have to take their pulse, blood pressure and temperature, and write it down in their chart. Then, you swab one of their fingers with alcohol, and use all your skill and finesse to stick a disposable lancet in their fingertip. You squeeze the finger so the blood will flow freely, and fill a capillary tube with this.
Place the capillary tube into the centrifuge for sixty seconds, and have a short, labored conversation with the person whom you’ve wounded. Or, if you’re not the social type, you can set up the screening so they’ll be busy with the oral thermometer and blood pressure cuff.
The people that are drunk will stand towards the very back of the booth, so you can’t smell the alcohol on their breath. The people that got high before they came to donate plasma will be too friendly.
The plasma center actually doesn’t care about marijuana use, as long as it’s not “problematic”. While it’s true that they don’t want you donating plasma while you’re high, they just want to keep away the hard drug users, which are apparently AIDS patients waiting to happen.
If you develop a routine, you can do a donor screening in less than two minutes. Rattle off your questions, do the finger stick, set up the blood pressure cuff and thermometer while you’re waiting for the capillary tube to finish flying around in the tiny centrifuge. Insert the capillary tube into the gigantic syringe thing, and put the plasma on the refractometer. Examine. Record your results. Sterilize your booth. Repeat.
Dating should be this easy.
I don’t even remember what the numbers are supposed to mean when you’re checking the refractometer readings. I just have the acceptable range memorized. I’m not a qualified medical professional. I make seven bucks an hour. I came in off the street, after seeing an ad in the paper that said they needed plasma screeners.
I work nine-hour shifts, four days a week. Consequently I have a lot of downtime.
What I usually do during my down time is work as a tattoo artist. I’m not a qualified professional here either, I’m just a bitch that owns a tattoo machine and has reasonable artistic talent. I haven’t bothered to do the math on what I make doing this, but that’s not what motivates me.
It’s a long story.
I carry a pen and a notebook. If I’m not going to a show by some local band, I’ll go to one of those quirky little coffee places near the college. When those close, Denny’s. Any place that will be frequented by offbeat, counterculture types in the market for some discount body modification will do nicely.
I take advantage of the fact that there’s no place in American society that a moderately attractive woman can be left alone. I’m more than willing to give you my number, if it’s for the right reasons.
All I have to do is sit there, read a book, read a magazine, and wear a short sleeved shirt. The best thing about places like Denny’s is they’ll keep refilling your one cup of coffee as long as they think you’ll tip well.
You get a bunch of people in the same booth, all ordering nothing but coffee, is when the service goes to hell. Your server doesn’t expect that you’ll leave over a dollar for a tip, and so he doesn’t want to refill your coffee. Since you’re such a generous person and you want to prove that this concept isn’t always correct, you want to leave a nice tip so they’ll serve you better next time – except they’ve been avoiding eye contact, waiting for you to leave. You’ll leave a buck and some change between all of you. It’s a vicious cycle.
With one or two people, they’ll show some empathy, because you’re probably just a struggling creative genius like they are, who’s forced into working in the retail or service industry before someone reads your screenplay. This is before they publish the Great American Novel you’ve spent all these years working on. When someone recognizes you for the brilliant painter, actor, musician, artist that you truly are, and beats a path to your door.
Almost everyone is a struggling creative genius, and they’re waiting for their Life’s Work to finally pay off. They’ll leave their shit job, their shit life, and be free to do whatever they want without having to rely on a paycheck or tips ever again. It’s things like these that get a lot of people through the day.
I, on the other hand, am a sellout.
I enjoy what I do, and I get to meet interesting people. I get to take artwork, symbols, names, and put them on someone’s skin forever. Barring expensive, painful laser surgery or severe burns, my work will be with them even after they die, until their skin decays. A little piece of me inside all these other people, touring the world. At least that’s how I see it.
I’m an artist, but I don’t want to be famous. I realized long ago that there are very few people who’ll give you a medal for what you do. The truth is, the world doesn’t care.
People will come up to me, the heavily tattooed, moderately attractive chick, and bother me. If they ask me about my tattoos, that’s usually a good sign. It shows they’re interested in my work.
Other people will approach me because the tattoos must mean I’m weird and exotic, and must do some freaky shit in bed. I have a suspicion that these are the same kind of men who are obsessed with Asian women for the same reasons.
They’ll come up to you, and ask what you’re reading. This opening line is stupid – whatever I’m reading is clearly displayed on the cover of the book. They could at least feign interest and pretend they’re semi-literate, and pretend they’ve read whatever author happened to be responsible for the book. Not that fake intellectuals interested in a trophy fuck are any better.
These guys invite you to sit with them, like their fumbling attempts at conversation are more engaging than my quiet solitude. Yes, I want to sit with your friends. My lack of eye contact means I’m playing hard to get, and want to fuck you even more.
Please, just use me. Show me off to all your friends. I am the wild, untamed tattooed bitch, an elusive creature few people have captured. Add me to your list of interesting people you’ve fucked. I’m dying for the chance to be a story you tell your friends.
When asked what I’m doing, I usually just say that I’m ignoring you.
When guys think I’m being cute or funny when I say this, I’ll usually come up with something off the top of my head. I never said I wasn’t an interesting person.
Tonight I told this guy and his receding hairline that I’m writing a movie. I told this wall-eyed, intrusive fucktard I’m writing a movie about cowboys, except in my movie, I’m not using actors. I’m going to use state of the art digital effects to make all the characters gigantic talking penises wearing vests and cowboy hats. It’s very avant-garde. These giant cowboy penises will ride around on horses made out of shit, and blow each other away while spouting patriotic one liners. I haven’t thought of a title for it, not yet.
And this guy, with his receding hairline and mid life crisis and paunch asks if he can see the script.
I tell him that I’d love for him to read it, except that all my creative works are stored inside a microchip implanted in my skull. He can’t see it, but I’m busy writing the thing right now. The words show up in front of my eyes, and I have a printer port installed in the back of my head. My hair just does a good job of covering it. I say that I’d print him out a copy to read, but the manager won’t let me use the printer in the back office.
And this guy looks at me, and asks if I’m a lesbian.
I say, of course. All of us lesbians are cyborgs.
He leaves me alone after that. At least someone got a decent story out of this whole thing.
Tonight, people in need of tattoos are off somewhere else. Working. Frolicking. At any rate, not here at Denny’s. But at least I’m doing what I love.
[ 14 March 2003: Message edited by: *CrystalMeth Bunny* ]
