Bleeding Arts

The first time I ever tried to give blood, the Red Cross worker told me she had ethical issues with extracting blood from someone as green as I was.  I was seventeen years old, I hated needles as much as I did when I was 5 and needed recovery cookies after shots, and I about keeled over when they pricked my thumb.  In case you can’t picture this, here is a photo from my first “about me” post (http://allisonbody.blogspot.com/2011/09/fabulous-life-of-allison-marie.html) showing my bravery at getting my ears double pierced:

Now picture that, but instead of a half a second, fifteen minutes of blood draining.  It wasn’t happening.  I thought that I was destined never to be a donor, but I discovered in the second to last week of my junior year of college that I am capable of giving blood.  Motivated by some combination of bravery, altruism, and pure nerdiness, I traded my blood for a ticket to the play Little Shop of Horrors. 

It all started a week earlier when Dr. Miller, my mentor for the Rockhurst Review, offered me two tickets to a piano and violin concert at UMKC (She wanted to go but was hosting a fabulous dinner party for another group of performers—how I envy the life of Dr. P.C. Miller).  I went with a fellow culture lover, Ryan, and we discovered that Little Shop of Horrors—a musical I had always wanted to see and one of his favorites—was playing at the Kansas City Repertory Theater.  Unfortunately, tickets were $20, and we are broke college students.  Undaunted by this setback, some fierce Googling turned up a potential option: if you participated in a blood drive hosted at the Repertory Theater, you could get a free ticket.  Somehow, Ryan and our other friend Colin talked me into doing it with them, assuring me that it wasn’t that bad, I was a big girl now, yes I could have a cookie when I was done, and yes they would hold my hands if I wanted. 

So we went.  I made it past the finger pricking part, which I considered to be a hugely successful step, but I turned a little green when they actually started to prep me.  All of the workers were so amused by my attempts to conceal my panic.  I was totally playing it cool.  It must Ryan and Colin’s concerned looks every 30 seconds that gave them the impression I was scared.  When the moment came to stick the needle in, my nurse directed me to talk to another nurse sitting nearby.  I casually inquired if any other donors ever got a little nervous.  It came out something like this: “DOES ANYBODY ELSE CHICKEN ME DONATE?!”  To his credit, he just smiled and nodded, and the needle was in!  Besides a panicked moment where I informed the nurse that my entire body was tingling, the rest of the donation went smoothly.  I was a little nauseous afterwards, but I happily munched my Nutter-Butters and Sprite (when there are two weeks left in school and you inexplicably only  have green peppers and oatmeal in your kitchen, you do not turn down free food under any circumstances) while texting half my phone book that I had survived. 

So I got my ticket—close to the stage even!  The show was great—one of the many reasons why I am so glad I go to school in a city like KC. 

So there is my tale.  Either a success story of an altruistic girl overcoming her fears, or an example of an arts nerd willing to trade blood for culture.  I like to think it is a nice combination of the two. 

Ode to Delphi

            It has been less than a week since I moved out of my townhouse, and I have to say I miss my roommates already. I thought it might be a nice ode to our THV—nicknamed "Delphi" by our friend Isy, who is convinced my roommate Sam has the answers to all life's questions—to end the year with a recap of a few of Delphi's finer moments:

·         KE$HA.  What better way to begin the year and kick off roommate bonding than by teasing the living daylights out of your hair, covering yourselves (and your new townhouse) with glitter, and going to a Ke$ha concert? 

·         World Series. Check out the Cardinal Crazy post (http://allisonbody.blogspot.com/2011/10/cardinal-crazy-i-guess-if-theres-one.html) for the full story on this one, but suffice to say we have some extreme sports fans in the house—just ask Emma when the last time she washed her “Lucky Blues Shirt” was.

·         Brunch.  One Saturday during the fall we decided that since we were all at home we should cook a big brunch…this turned into a multiple hour project and more of a feast, so it is questionable whether you can still call our 3:00 pm smorgasbord a “brunch.”  We cooked about every breakfast item we could come up with—eggs, French toast, biscuits and gravy (it is also up for debate whether you could call my floury sludge “gravy”).

(from the left around the table: Emma, Kara, Anne, Liz, me, and Sam is taking the picture)



·         Cleaning.  The cleaning got less and less frequent as the year went on (sorry, Anne), but we had a couple of good Friday afternoon sprees that included singing “Calling Baton Rouge” at the top of our lungs and often devolved into something like this:

·         Nontraditional Holidays.  Sam and I somehow got into the habit of celebrating nontraditional holidays (see our All Saints Day extravaganza - http://allisonbody.blogspot.com/2011/11/lost-causes-st.html).  So naturally, I was very insistent that we could not let Leap Day pass us by—a whole extra day in the year!  We had to make it count.  The only logical solution was to drag another armchair into the dining room (yes, for some reason we already had one armchair permanently in the kitchen), make snacks, and watch as many episodes of Grey’s Anatomy as we could before feeling guilty about neglecting homework.

·         Typical Chaos.  There was always something going on in our house.  We are loud, we like to laugh, and we like to be goofy.  I went an entire month brushing my teeth with toothpaste loaded with Oragel, courtesy of Sam and Kara.  My entire house had me convinced I was a crazy hypochondriac when I would burst into people’s rooms insisting my toothpaste was making my mouth numb. I bought new toothpaste twice, replaced my toothbrush, and was on the verge of either believing them or scheduling a dentist appointment when Sam ‘fessed up.  And then there are the spontaneous moments, like fighting over who is going to cook two questionable cubes of Velveta: 

·         Cinco de Mayo.  To commemorate the end of our year we went to Jalapenos—the best little Mexican restaurant in the area—and ate more chips and dip than I care to admit.  We finished the night with roommate bonding at our house…sitting on the floor playing games because we had moved out all the furniture.

Lizzy, Kara, Sam, Emma, Anne – thanks for a great year at the Rock.  I swear the best part of college is the roommates. 

We Are the Champions...

            Yes, the chorus of this song was playing on repeat in my head the day the Rockhurst Review finally came in.  The Review is Rockhurst University’s national literary magazine, which means we accept submissions from writers all over the country, and even a few from abroad.  I was the Managing Editor this year, which is a fancy way of saying I did all the dirty work, and I will be again next year, plus an assistant/Managing Editor in training, so I am putting together a little step-by-step checklist for myself and future editors so the process can go a little more smoothly.  And since I have talked so much about the Review (see my post about my office - http://allisonbody.blogspot.com/2012/02/cupboard-at-top-of-stairs-i-have-office.html), I’ve decided to share with you all a little sneak peak of a draft of my checklist:

1.      Sometime in September, rid the Review’s email account of the mysterious advertisements in foreign languages and be ready to start sorting submissions into folders by authors’ last names.

2.      Over Thanksgiving break, bring home all of the printed submissions you have received thus far and fill out cover sheets for them with the author’s information, then sort them into alphabetical folders.  You can do this by yourself, or you can bribe your ten-year-old cousin with orange soda and a Mary-Kate and Ashley movie to help you.

3.      Over Christmas break, read, read, read, read submissions, checking yes, no, or maybe as to whether you think they should make it into this year’s edition. 

4.      When you get back to school, read, read, read, read, and beg/bribe/bully every English major you know into pretty please reading a folder for you and PLEASE return it soon. 

5.      Right before Spring break, track down all of the people who did not return their folder soon.

6.      Sit with Dr. Miller, the editor-in-chief and benefactor of the magazine, and sort through each of the evaluated submissions, picking which ones have received the most yeses or maybes and making the final decision as to what makes it into the magazine. 

7.      Befriend Anne Pearce, hands down the coolest and quirkiest art director/art professor, and have her whip up a few art submissions for you.

8.      Type up the submissions that were mailed in.  Take a break so you don’t go cross-eyed.  Type up more submissions.

9.      Bribe Matt Hodapp, your future assistant editor, with leftover tacos to sit in your living room until midnight on a Sunday and proofread every single submission multiple times.

10.  Email submissions, cover page, table of contents, and everything else you have painstakingly typed to Randy the Printer.  Does Randy have a last name?  We don’t know.  He is simply referred to as “Randy the Printer.”

11.  Pick up a print from Covington Press and let Dr. Miller inform the literary agent that he will be taking you all to lunch at Californio’s.  Enjoy delicious butternut squash soup and fascinating conversation at Californio’s (apparently Dr. Miller had Harry Truman over for dinner once!). 

12.  Scramble to re-check every little detail, give the publisher the go-ahead to print, wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat about something on the table of contents, then decide that it is all out of your hands and get the best night’s sleep you’ve gotten in a while.

13.  REJOICE WHEN THE GLOSSY, BEAUTIFUL FINAL COPIES ARE DELIVERED!  (and refuse to stress about the occasional typo). 

Yeah, I think I’ve got this under control for next year.