Blood

Blood seems strange to me. Not in the sense of unfamiliarity but in the sense that it is weird stuff. It has little things in it like hemoglobin and red and white cells and platelets and vitamins and minerals and hormones and pheromones and alcohol and caffeine and bacteria and viruses all pumping through my body under pressure.

The fluid, plasma, just sounds cool. Plasma. Plasma.

When I was little and started playing video games with giant mechanical warriors, one of the most devastating weapons was the plasma cannon. I thought the plasma cannon, that shot big green fire balls, was just a weapon that harnessed the blood some how. And I became afraid that my blood was green, and if it ever reached the outside air it would explode. So I was careful for about a day until I fell out of a tree and scratched my arm real good and watched the tomato red blood ooze out of me expecting, any second, for it to turn green and blow up.

I noticed I said, "scratched my arm real good" isn't that interesting? Like if I barely caused harm to myself it would have been a bad scratch, because a good scratch is long and deep. Although if you go too far than you get a bad scratch, in the sense that if you don't seek medical attention you will bleed to death. Paper cut, bad. Vegetable knife slice, good. Car accident gash, bad. It seems like any laceration should be bad, but I hear people say things like, "Yeah, than I cut myself real good."

Good for who? Good for the thing that cut you? Good for being cut? Good for the blood? Good for the scar afterward? That has to be it right? A big flesh wound that looks worse than it actually is. Those kinds of wounds people call, 'good ones.' I wonder why that is. I think it is for scar recognition.

When I cut myself badly at work across my left bicep--er I mean, goodly, cut myself real good-- I went around and showed everyone because it looked really bad--er, good-- but it didn't hurt much, but it bled a lot, anyway I showed everyone. The guys were like, "Awesome man!" and sounded envious. The girls were like, "you should get some disinfectant on that." And one time this woman named Kitty was next to this checker from Alabama named Phil who was a part time body guard for celebrities (this was at the Vons I used to work at) and I walked up to them both and showed them the gash and Kitty said, "Wow, that's gonna leave a gorgeous scar," and Phil said, "Hell, yeah. Boy, how'd you get that?" And I told them the story:

I was reaching over the desk to get this paper that fell behind and this board slipped and cut me.

They both looked at each other before Phil said, "I'd keep that to yourself," and Kitty said, "Yeah, I'd make up a story involving being mauled by a mountain lion."
"Or a bear," Phil chimed in.

So now, if you ask me I tell the story of how I was mauled by a bear, and the scar looks totally believable.

But I think I want to be abducted by aliens now. Ask me in a few days, maybe I will have been abducted. They left a burn scar, I have proof!