The older I get, the less crap I need to do my job in the kitchen. But I also appreciate a fancy gadget, too — I use a plain old chef’s knife for most of the things a food processor is supposed to do, but when I need that food processor (potato pancakes, pesto and hummus, mainly), I really am glad to have it.

Some years ago, our friends John and Sam gave us a corkscrew that cost $100. The lever-action Screwpull was the first of its kind I’d used, and although there are many knockoffs on the market today, like the song says: The original is still the greatest. I’ve amazed many guests with its ease of use. Every time I open a bottle of wine, I think, what a miraculous gadget. If it fell to pieces tomorrow, I’d happily spend another $100 to replace it.

Which brings us to our $129 trash can.

Earlier this year I looked at Simplehuman trash cans with my sister, who has owned one for years. I thought they were nice, but like any sane person, that $129 was a bit steep for a trash can. It gave her the idea, though, and she gave us one for Christmas. There’s something both horrible and wonderful about a $129 trash can — the expense seems preposterous, but it’s … the iPod of trash cans. It’s beautiful. It has a small footprint, and a lid hinge that allows it to sit flush against the wall. The lid closes silently. It has an inner liner that eliminates unsightly bag overhang. And it’s dog-proof, important in that Spriggy, in his senility, seems to have forgotten his training in that little area. We’ve only had it since Christmas, and already I can’t imagine my kitchen with the old, primitive, $15 trash can.

Alan, our household’s leading appreciator of good design, flipped for it. (Although he calls it the Humanwaste.) He went out today and bought its baby brother for the bathroom. (Spriggy has also developed a taste for snotty Kleenex. No wonder his breath is so bad.) It was only $21. The first time he threw a tissue into it he was alarmed that the lid slammed “in an annoyingly loud fashion,” as he put it. Off to the website, where we learned with dismay that the bathroom model didn’t have “patented lid shox technology.”

See, this is the problem with a $129 trash can. Pretty soon you’re disappointed you didn’t get lid shox technology. No wonder people say, Die, yuppie scum.

How was your weekend? Mine was uneventful, except for my small encounter with the Westboro loons. They were protesting outside one of the most beautiful churches in the area, a Gothic gem run by the Presbyterians, adjacent to a public facility called the Grosse Pointe War Memorial. The presence of these knuckle-dragging goobers outside was a bit jarring, but what the hell, the First Amendment protects Larry Flynt and Fred Phelps, too.

Short entry today, because land sakes, it’s 55 degrees out there! In January! Headed higher! I’m taking a bike ride. So, bloggage:

The New Package, of course, for all you Wireheads. Join the discussion and make it jump. Now it can be told: This year’s heroin brand? “Got that Greenhouse Gas! It’s hot! Gas up!”

A fabulous story about the rest of the story of the attempted assassination of Gerald Ford by the loony Sara Jane Moore. The man who grabbed her arm, spoiling her aim and saving Ford’s life, was hailed as a hero until it was revealed he was gay, which led to the usual complications these things led to, back then. Also, the man hit by the richochet didn’t have a great rest of his life, either. It’s one Paul Harvey won’t be doing, I guess.

The publisher of Parade says the press run of yesterday’s edition was over when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, but the cover-story interview was “too important” to spike the whole run. Uh-huh.

Off to sync the iPod and enjoy an exceptional heat wave. Have a good one, y’selves.

One of my New Year’s resolutions: Make the noon meal more than half a peanut-butter sandwich eaten standing up at the sink, but at the same time, don’t go mental over it or nothin’. Day one was a smashing success, thanks to Mark Bittman’s helpful suggestion: Baked eggs. (Link warning for dial-ups: Video.)

Take two ramekins — or one, if you’re just making a snack — butter or oil the inside, and put a few tasty things in there. I used a paper-thin slice of prosciutto and a few spinach leaves. Break an egg over the top. Salt, pepper, and bake for 12-15 minutes in a 375-degree oven.

Yum.

As Christmas parties go, the Up on the Housetop Party was pretty basic: newspapermen (and women) + massive amounts of alcohol = Christmas cheer.

This was in Columbus. The name came from the Christmas carol, which was composed by a local, Benjamin Hanby. For a long time, I’d hear people mention W.C. Handy, aka the Father of the Blues, and I’d think, “Yes, and no one ever mentions he also wrote ‘Up on the Housetop’, the B-list Christmas song.” It’s a good thing I never said this aloud, because if you follow the links above, you realize that not only are they different people, one is a white Methodist from Ohio and the other a black son of an A.M.E. preacher from Alabama, and their lives only intersected for six years. That would be embarrassing, but what can I say? At every Up on the Housetop party I ever attended, I was shitfaced.

The Up on the Housetop party was an unofficial Christmas party, hosted by a few of the older staffers. The official one was a buffet in the newsroom with an open bar. It was served by the staff at the company’s country retreat, where they entertained bigshots and advertisers. The bartenders had been well-trained to put guests in an ad-buying mood by pouring heavy, and they didn’t change their habits when serving at the Christmas party. This was at midday, and even in that different time most people knew enough not to get hammered when they still had half a shift to go and a paper to put out. Not all people. I remember walking through the hallway between the city room and the sports/features departments and seeing a young librarian on her knees, about to hurl. Merry Christmas, darlin’! Those bartenders know their stuff, don’t they?

Although we aren’t supposed to party like that anymore — I certainly don’t — those people knew something we didn’t: That there’s nothing wrong with letting your hair down a bit, as long as someone else drives you home. Most company Christmas parties these days are pretty joyless affairs, crippled by liability concerns and corporate skinflints. I can no more imagine my employer buying me a drink these days than I can — wait. I don’t have an employer anymore. Rather, I’m my own employer. Let me buy me a drink.

Wait. It’s 9:07 a.m.

Tell me the stories of your best/worst Christmas parties. Spare no details. Because there’s nothing that says “our savior is born” quite like stirring your martini with a candy cane, is there?

Holiday weekend bloggage:

Take Eric Zorn’s So You Think You Know Carols? quiz. I got 80 percent, but I? Wuz robbed. Hint: Beware of trick questions. UPDATE: Don’t miss the Scared of Santa photo gallery, either.

Good to see pranksters haven’t lost their sense of humor: A rash of baby-Jesus thefts ends in mass amnesty. If you read any part of this at all, see the last quote.

OID (or River Rouge, in this case): The world’s worst, and dumbest, babysitter helps toddler smoke a joint. And videotapes it.

Happy holidays, all! The holiday photos start next week. As of today, I have but two. So if you’re of a mind to, mail ’em in. Still plenty of time to get your mug up there.

Friends, in one hour I have to be standing in front of Dr. Larry, DVM, for a follow-up check on the Sprigster. At the end of the day, I have the well-child pediatrician appointment. In between, one final present to buy and, oh yeah, work.

So I’ll be leaving you with not much today, although I could be back to sprinkle a little magic around the room. For starters, why don’t we kick off with today’s O.I.D. (only in Detroit) story?

A 30-year-old bus driver transporting Detroit Public Schools special needs students was arrested Wednesday after allegedly pulling his bus alongside an undercover officer, propositioning her for sex from his window, and promising to return after he dropped the children off at school.

Every day in this town, reading the newspaper is like getting a little show for 50 cents.

Say what you will about Ashley Morris, but she sure made some cute kids.

Do you have Gmail? Then you can do virtually instantaneous translation. J.C. checks it out with a few test phrases.

Later, pals.

First snow of the season = first pot of split-pea soup. I’ve been planning this for a couple of weeks, so the timing is strictly a coincidence. I bought the ham but kept forgetting the split peas, then remembered when I was getting hummus from the gourmet-y market down the street. I found not the plain, unadorned bag of split peas that Kroger sells, but an everything-you-need soup-assembly kit, which translated to two cups of split peas plus a seasoning bundle.

Price: $5.99. No, I am not kidding.

I think I did one of those cough-explosions you do when someone tells you the thing you thought would cost a dime is actually $20,000. That’s roughly the disproportion here, as split peas are among the humblest and cheapest foods on the planet. For a long time I’d pay 69 cents a pound, but lately it’s around 84 cents, which I figure is skyrocketing energy prices asserting themselves. Or perhaps that six-buck soup kit reflected the true cost of what I’ve long believed is the truth about split peas — that they’re painstakingly split on a long, Tim Burton-style assembly line:

An army of workers arrives and take their seats on the line, hammer and chisel in hand. As the factory whistle blows, a single pea is released down a chute to land in front of each worker. A small vise is tightened, the worker places the chisel, taps it once, and the pea separates into equal hemispheres, each rolling down to a collection bin. A tap of a foot lever releases the next pea, and the process starts all over again.

Well, that’s how it should go.

More likely, the peas were “organic,” a designation that requires a lot of faith in the purchaser. I buy organic food when the price differential isn’t insulting, but figure the designation is a crapshoot and, perhaps, a fairy tale. (Also, at the midcentury mark, I figure all my filtering organs have already been poisoned by the chemicals of half a lifetime, so why lose sleep over it now?) Organic is hot, “green” is hot, and the marketplace is cashing in. The $5.15 difference in what I pay for split peas at Kroger and what I’d pay for the soup kit at Fancypants Market isn’t for the extra tablespoon of dried herbs; it’s for a complicated mix of overhead, packaging, advertising, distribution and a harder-to-quantify factor I guess you could call specialness. (This is the sort of thing I think about on bike rides. If only I could make it pay somehow.)

I realize discussion of what things cost is about as interesting to some of you as shoveling snow, but it seems to be a theme of late. My health-care news farming last night harvested a lengthy NYT report on how global “free trade zones” abet prescription-drug counterfeiters. (There’s money in heroin, but there’s also money — and fewer automatic weapons — in fake and otherwise squirrelly erectile-dysfunction drugs. Even Tony Soprano was getting in on it in the last season. Remember his meeting with Bobby and the Canadian gangsters? They were discussing bulk pricing on expired Fosamax.) It’s an interesting story, because it illustrates what happens when one country — that would be us — makes health care so complicated for people living at the margins of affordability. If it were just a bunch of boner drugs being faked and sold on the black and grey markets, it would be a problem for the patent holders and the people who gamble on swallowing them. But alas, it’s more complicated than that:

…An examination of the case reveals its link to a complex supply chain of fake drugs that ran from China through Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, Britain and the Bahamas, ultimately leading to an Internet pharmacy whose American customers believed they were buying medicine from Canada, according to interviews with regulators and drug company investigators in six countries. …These were not just lifestyle drugs; this medicine was supposed to treat high blood pressure, high cholesterol, osteoporosis and acid reflux, among other ailments.

…In the Bahamas, investigators had also made an important discovery. The computers at Personal Touch Pharmacy were connected to a server hosting a Canadian Internet pharmacy Web site.

The site belonged to RxNorth, described by one trade association as the world’s first major online pharmacy.

A founder, Andrew Strempler, had been the subject of numerous profiles, including one in The New York Times in 2005 that described how at the age of 30 he had two Dodge Vipers, a Jaguar and a yellow Lamborghini with a license plate that reads “RX Boss.”

The article reported that Mr. Strempler’s innovation “created a whole new Canadian industry that has plugged a niche in America’s troubled health care system almost overnight, providing about $800 million worth of low-cost drugs a year to two million uninsured and underinsured Americans, many elderly.” Drugs have traditionally been cheaper in Canada because of its health care system.

One of the counterfeits of a name-brand blood thinner was found to contain cement powder. And that’s what some geezer was taking to head off a stroke. Ah, free enterprise.

But I don’t want to bring you down on what promises to be a lovely day. We got another dusting of fresh snow overnight, and the world is white and beautiful. We’re promised enough sunshine to make glacier glasses a necessity today, so I’m bucking up. Besides, we have a special sub-category of bloggage today: NN.C Readers in the News!

First, John Ritter — who I think comments here as just plain John — writes an op-ed in his hometown paper, The Day. The headline is typical of op-ed pages everywhere, in that it states an obvious, inoffensive truth with a lot of capital letters:

An Understanding Of American History makes Us Better Appreciate Who We Are

That’s too bad, because John was reacting to a previous letter to the editor, in which the writer stated Daniel Boone died at the Alamo, a rather major fact-boner that either skated under the editors’ noses, or was thought harmless enough to pass unchallenged. I think John gets at, but does not explicitly state, the reason for the confusion here:

Yes, Daniel Boone was a big man and yes, he did fight for America to make it free. He did quite a few things in his life but one thing he didn’t do was die at the Alamo. He had died a peaceful death on Sept. 20, 1820, only 15 1/2 years before Davy Crockett perished at the Alamo. Davy Crockett is another larger than life American legend. But he was not Daniel Boone, although the actor Fess Parker did portray both of them very well.

Fess Parker played them both! You can see why we get these things mixed up.

On the other side of the world, communist bomb-throwing college professor Ashley Morris does his best to bolster jihad on his way home from a two-week teaching stint in the Persian Gulf:

I have been in Bahrain for two weeks and I am quite happy to report that as a New Orleanian, I feel vindicated. I travel around the world, and people ask where I am from. I do not say, “America”, I say “New Orleans”. After the complete and utter abandonment of the city and people of New Orleans by the American government, I do not feel like an “American” anymore. Being in the Arabian Gulf has made me realise that most people here understand the feeling.

As I commented on Ashley’s own blog: Enjoy your next strip search, professor.

Less personal bloggage:

You’ve heard of a turducken? Or a tofucken? Meet the…turdugoosquapartsquab…en. Or something. Make up your own name. It sounds vile, but then, I’ve always considered goose to be the white-people version of chitlins. Sure, it has a long history — very Dickens and all — but you don’t have to live in the past, and anyone who would eat one of those greasy beasts when a nice tender chicken or turkey was available is simply nuts. Of course, the percentage of goose in this thing is pretty low. Still.

Off to find my glacier glasses (although the sun is still behind a cloud bank somewhere). Have a swell day, all.

I think this says it all.

Not much today, friends, but you’re free to play like kittens in the comments. Just to get you started…

Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to be Mitch Albom, to get up every morning, look in the mirror and say, “I am worth every penny.” Think he does that? Or does he, like so many other successful people, secretly believe he has pulled off an illusion worthy of Ricky Jay, and tremble inwardly at what will happen when the audience finds out? I dunno. All I know is, I have never been a sportswriter and everything I know about baseball could fit in a shoebox, and I could have written a better column about the Mitchell Report than this. In fact, if you’d given me the Mitchell Report as a challenge, and asked me to write something about it, something suitable for a daily newspaper, I would have turned in something very much like Albom’s column. Watch me as I reveal the mysteries of punditry:

First, state facts already in evidence:

… the report was not earth-shattering, only because we already have suspected much of what it contained. Sure, many more names were thrown on the bonfire, including All-Stars such as Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Miguel Tejada, and as you read this, analysts and fans are screaming over how to view their careers.

Then, ask a lot of rhetorical questions:

So now what? … And if they had nothing to hide, why didn’t any of them talk? …Or will the net result be, as many suspect, a big fat nothing?

Sign off with that time-tested waffler:

Where we go next is anyone’s guess.

Cash check.

Michael Rosenberg, the other Freep sports columnist, does a better job. Not hugely better, but better. Writing a first-day column about a big event expected to have wide repercussions someday, but not today, is always an exercise in thumb-twiddling. But some twiddle better than others. For instruction on how to do it well, I recommend Thomas Boswell and Harvey Araton.

For the scores of you keeping track at home, let me report the dog’s health has taken a dramatic turn for the better on his new food. Within 24 hours, his energy improved, his tucked-in skinny flanks began to fill out and he stopped looking like a sick dog, and more like a very healthy one. There was a trip to the groomer in there for a bath and haircut, which helped, but you can’t fake weight gain. He goes back next week for another blood test, and unless my eyes deceive me, the results will be good.

Something to think about for later this month. Last year we spent that down week between the holidays posting pictures submitted by you folks. Because we have so many regular commenters here, it’s nice to get a closer look at one another when there’s not much else going on. So send in some holiday pictures, and we’ll fill the waning days of the year sharing them here.

So have a great weekend. Mine will be exhausting. Hope yours isn’t.

Hank alerts us to what he calls Oklahoma’s “de facto state Christmas carol,” a jingle for a local jewelry store that’s been running every holiday season for 51 years. I warn you, click at your own risk. Those susceptible to jingle-sickness — the tendency for these things to burn themselves on your personal hard drive, shoving aside such minor data bits as the names of your children — are urged not to go there. But hey! It’s catchy!

A little background:

Oklahoma is pro-capitalism; some people will buy TV time to sing your jingle:

OK, no more links. The virus has been passed. Soon, crowds will mill around the evacuating helicopters, shouting, “I’m not infected! I’m not infected!” as the rest of us scream and scream “at Oklahoma’s oldest jeweler! Since eighteen-ninety-two!” over the sound of the spinning rotors.

Actually, when you think about it, there’s something about a certain four-syllable state name that lends itself to music, isn’t there? Every night my honey lamb and I sit alone and talk, and watch a hawk making lazy circles in the skyyyyyy…

Since we seem to be off on a YouTube foot this morning, you can waste all kinds of time following the links from this Metafilter post, which managed to dig up a video of Ella no-I’m-not-kidding Fitzgerald singing “Sunshine of Your Love.”

As for me, I’m watching the sun rise on a severe-clear day (Midwest weather-nerd translation: Clear winter skies, abundant winter sunshine, cold as hell) that promises to turn overcast and snowy sometime in the next 24 hours. Fine with me. Bring on the precipitation, bring on the set-dressing for the holidays. Alan is out evacuating the dog; he (the dog) is on a new food regimen, and I’m making sure he has every opportunity to get his innards adjusted to the change before he settles back into his usual daytime routine of sleeping it away. The depredations of age are starting to settle in — the new food is a response to recent weight loss, which the vet says is caused by diminished kidney function.

“And what’s causing that?” I asked.

“Being 16 years old,” he replied.

Oh, well. None of us live forever, and ever since he entered the double digits, I guess I’ve been waiting for the inevitable. The good news: “He’s still got a lot of fight left in him,” the vet says. I’ll say. The little bastard still has a few Easter baskets and trick-or-treat bags to plunder. If the $20-a-case canned stuff allows him to do so, all the better.

Brian passes along a story I’d meant to bring to your attention earlier in the week, and then forgot about (probably because I was reading In Style): Everything a Parent Needs to Know About Theme-Park Rides to Make Them Want to Lock Their Children in the Basement Forever, via the WashPost. Bottom line: Many are not safe and everything you suspected about sleazebag carnies is probably true. And then, buried in the middle, is this gem:

Although the (Consumer Product Safety Commission) regulates children’s toys, strollers, bicycles and car seats, it has no jurisdiction over rides at fixed amusement parks, such as those run by Walt Disney Co., Six Flags, Universal and Anheuser-Busch Entertainment that host an estimated 300 million people on 1.84 billion rides annually.

Theme parks won their exemption in 1981, after a CPSC probe of ride accidents at Marriott theme parks alleged a coverup of safety hazards. Marriott, represented by Kenneth W. Starr, then a young Washington lawyer, and the industry fought back in the courts and on the Hill, where its top lobbyist complained about the “economic hardship” created by CPSC policing. More safety measures lessening risks would “make the ride worthless,” lobbyist John Graff told Congress at the time. “The activities of the commission must be limited.”

We must spare economic hardship to Disney at all costs. What’s a few immature human feet when such great American companies would be inconvenienced:

At Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom, 13-year-old Kaitlyn Lasitter’s feet were severed while she was riding the Tower of Power, a stomach-flipping thriller that draws riders up and pauses briefly before plunging at more than 50 mph. A cable snapped and wound around Kaitlyn’s legs like a bullwhip. Surgeons reattached her right foot, but her left was too damaged to save.

OK, that’s unfair. The story is more about rides that should have seat belts but don’t, the ones you see at the church fundraiser on the corner. And also, the lack of consistent inspection of rides, which typically travel the country, in and out of jurisdictions, many of which lack the manpower to even make a passing safety check. Since it’s no longer theme-park season, at least at this latitude, you can probably read this story without getting nauseous. I can’t guarantee anything about next year, though.

OK, that’s it for me. Have a great day.

How bad can a day be when it begins with a bracing cup of Detroit Journalist o’ the Year Ron French? I ask you.

Ron’s package on southeast Michigan’s foreclosure crisis drops today (and to be sure, if I squint I can make out another name on the byline — Mike Wilkinson). As usual, it bangs the hammer of justice on the anvil of truth, and always has another killer anecdote coming down the pike:

Derek Brown knew Detroit had a problem when a grocery clerk he knew quit his job to become a mortgage loan officer. “Everyone was selling mortgages. There were mortgage offices on every block,” said Brown, president of Quorum Commercial and past president of the Detroit Real Estate Brokers Association. “One day bagging groceries and the next day selling my mother a mortgage? What the hell is that?”

Yeah, what the hell is that? Well, I know what I’ll be doing for a big chunk of the morning. Unfortunately, for the rest of the day, I’ll be doing the deadline scramble, to keep my own house out of foreclosure. It’s all good — work = invoices = checks = happy Nance — but something has to take a back seat. So enjoy a few bloggage tidbits; I’m sure you folks will find something to amuse you:

I know someone who claimed to have weighed 14 pounds at birth. In case you’re wondering how big that is, here’s a handy picture. Of course, this mother of this baby had a C-section. The man I knew was born at home, in his parent’s tenement apartment in Chicago, because they couldn’t afford doctors and hospitals. Imagine squeezing that thing out your vagina without drugs and only a neighborhood midwife in attendance.

So that’s why the sink was draining so slowly: Torso found in east-side sewer. Just another day in the action-packed city.

A tech-support question for Appleheads: Some months back, I promised Alex I’d make him a custom “In-a-Gadda-da-Vida” ringtone for his phone. In the past I did this by biting a 30-second chunk of the track, saving it as a separate MP3, and e-mailing it away. (It is, in fact, how I got the opening guitar riff from “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)” for my own pink Razr. Yes, I am insufferable.) However, the copy of the track I have from the iTunes Music Store doesn’t allow me to export it or change the file format at all. Can I assume this is part of Apple’s digital-rights management system? If so: weiners. I already spent 99 cents for the damn thing; why can’t I mess around with it a little? Also, please don’t tell anyone Alex likes Iron Butterfly, or they won’t let him in any of the gay bars anymore.

Dick Cheney successfully treated for irregular heartbeat. In related news, police report no progress on missing twin newborns at nearby hospital.

Why getting shot in the leg can be very, very dangerous: Because femoral arteries carry a lot of blood. RIP, Sean Taylor.

Finally, things found en route to other things — rap represented in charts and graphs:

The real 8 Mile Road, Detroit

How many times have I said reading a daily newspaper in Detroit is hardly ever boring?

Two years ago, 1-year-old Deante Reid died in his parents’ care — and, to avoid funeral costs, his parents tried to cremate him in a barbecue grill, the boy’s mother told police. But the bones wouldn’t burn completely, so the couple hid what was left of the baby in the ceiling of a home on Dickerson in Detroit.

Jesus Christ. The story gets worse: The authorities found about the barbecue because they’re investigating the abuse of another kid in the same family. Burns.

Shudder.

Well, don’t want to bring you down too early on Monday. I’m writing this on my birthday, a big birthday, one that ends in a zero. It doesn’t make me happy — I don’t feel 50, although I’ve looked it since 40 or so. And while I’m happy to be 50 in the 21st century, when 50 is the new 35, nothing really changes. Women are invisible past 50. Nature is a bitch. Cronehood is scant compensation, but what the hell, we all can’t be Charlotte Rampling.

Self-pity over. I’m glad to be alive, even in a world where people barbecue their children.

Besides — [jarring change of mood; distraction by shiny object] — I got a cool present. I knew it was cool when I couldn’t even play with it the whole first day because Kate was downstairs with her friends, making a series of experimental films involving mutant werewolves and delinquent teenagers. As soon as I retrieve it from the werewolves, I think it’ll be a nice new resource for NN.C. More to come.

So how was everybody’s weekend? Good, I hope. I celebrated my impending midcentury doom by giving blood Friday. I mean, why not? I’ve always been a blood donor; all anyone has ever had to do is ask. This was my 49th unit, and yes, I noted the symmetry. I started when I was young and healthy in Columbus, Ohio, and have seen quite a few things change since then. Image-wise, blood products have gone from being the very stuff of life to agents of contagion more akin to toxic waste. The usually put a sticker on your shirt as you’re leaving, something like, “Be nice to me! I gave blood today.” If they were redesigning the stickers today, they should say, “Bow down before me! I have no communicable diseases, nor do I take Plavix, coumadin or Accutane and to my knowledge have not had sex with a man who’s had sex with another man since 1977.”

I’ve learned that the blood you give isn’t immediately rushed across the street to be infused in an accident victim; sometimes it’s exported to another part of the world. Blood is a commodity, and the Red Cross treats it as such, and you shouldn’t be shocked or offended to learn this. Remember those horrible pictures of 9/11, of all the emergency medical personnel lined up in ambulance bays, waiting for injured that never arrived? Remember how America responded? (The ones without stupid blogs, that is.) Feeling helpless in their living rooms, watching the carnage on TV, they went down to their local blood banks and donated a pint, blood that was, quite frankly, of no use to the thousands who died that day. Blood has a shelf life; gallons had to be discarded, rivers of blood now soaking into bio-waste landfills. Lesson: Think before you give.

Of course, there’s always a need. Most blood stays in the communities where it’s collected. Every year it gets scarcer, and once you’ve donated blood in the 21st century, you understand why. When I started donating in the late ’70s, the questions were about hepatitis and recent vaccinations, and the nice nurses touched you with their bare hands. Within a few years, they started asking about AIDS and HIV, and everyone wore latex. A few years later, they instituted a private-moment interlude in the interview, when you could slip behind a screen and put an anonymous bar-code sticker on your chart that told the computer what you were too embarrassed to tell the nice nurse — that you were an IV drug abuser or a catcher at last Saturday night’s bareback anal-sex orgy.

Friday was my first donor appointment in four years. The last one, in 2003, was memorable because it was in our office, and was marked by two faintings (Emma’s husband swooned, and Emma, watching, swooned in sympathy. Or maybe it was the other way around.) and a set-to between a gay editor and the bureaucracy of the American Red Cross, who found his protestations of rigorous HIV testing, safe-sex practices and mutual monogamy unconvincing, and rejected him permanently. This year, I was told by a gruff nurse to read the manual before I even signed in.

“I’ve got some experience with this,” I said. “Is there anything new?”

“The FDA requires us to make you read the manual,” she replied.

OK. The manual: Do you feel well today? Are you prone to fainting spells? Had a recent tattoo? Positive drug test for HIV? All familiar questions, then a new medical horror: Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease or Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Variant. Had a dura mater transplant lately? God, no. Cancer? Chemo? Infections? On to the contraindicated drug list, which had grown by a page, now encompassing many of the wonder drugs advertised on prime-time television. Insulin from bovine sources, blood thinners, acne drugs linked to birth defects. I began to wonder if this was worth it for a couple of cookies, a glass of orange juice and a free blood-pressure check.

It took 45 minutes to get through the screening. After that, the needle stick was a relief.

The whole operation was understaffed, and I didn’t have the usual post-donation experience of being walked to the canteen by an old man who keeps a firm grip on your elbow, lest you pass out. They waved me over to the Lorna Doones with a gesture and told me to call if I developed any alarming symptoms or recalled a previously forgotten interlude with a Village Person. The experience was, like so many things these days, not what it used to be.

So be nice to me. I put up with a lot of shit to keep the country’s blood supply safe.

Bloggage:

Meet a 3-year-old drum prodigy. Does he have a website? But of course. Sounds like his career’s well underway, which is good, because his parents have enrolled him in a school that will require many record sales to meet the tuition bill.

Amy Winehouse is Judy Garland, 2007 version. What the hell is that hanging down between her legs? A tampon string?

More later, but less of it. I have so much work to do this week I’ll barely have time to make videos. There’s a problem to have, eh?