...I gave some and then got some?

Give blood.

Seriously -- for whatever that word is worth in this context -- if you can, you should. It's free, for a start, and unlike most other things you can donate it's very unlikely that it'll end up hocked for cough syrup. Blood is like money: you don't really appreciate it until you need some and can't get it.

Actually, that's a bad analogy. Blood isn't like money. Nobody ever won the love of strangers and the hatred of friends by amassing enormous quantities of blood. Opening a vein on a first date doesn't impress anybody. No ... a better comparison would involve something that you want to always have plenty of, but which you'd never devote your life to acquiring. And except for that last part, it seems to me that blood is a lot like sex.

So yes, two key parts to today's memory. The first involved watching my own disturbingly dark life-juice being sucked out through my elbow. The second involved La Petite Boheme, who -- after asking if I wanted to watch 'National Treasure' (which I did, because Sean Bean rocks my world) -- made it very clear that if I wanted to actually see any of the movie I'd have to do it over, under, or around her very much alive body.

Anyway, while Nic Cage and some anonymous blonde science-woman were dashing around setting fire to things I was busy discovering a new twist on an old idea. Now, the Arcimedian Principle states that an old Greek guy and his rubber duck will displace an amount of bathwater equal to their own cubic volume. Conversely, the band-aid-and-condom principle states that you have only so much blood in your body, and if you want to displace some of it to a particular location you're going to find yourself lacking somewhere else.

Now, all credit to the ever-astonishing LPB. But 'lightheaded' is a sex-symptom that's only supposed to go so far, and suffice it to say that if I (sulking at not being allowed to watch the movie) hadn't insisted on being on the bottom, the evening might have ended very disappointingly. Blinking back stars, I was reminded of my high school biology classes: blood carries oxygen. And I was fresh out. Hence the fuzzy blackness at the corners of my vision.

And then I noticed something else. And this may all have been imagination, or possibly just more credit to the ever-astonishing LPB, but ... it was really good. I mean ... really, in a field where greatness is the norm. And that put me in mind of the high school biology lessons you hear outside the classrooms, or that Chuck Palahniuk story that I can't even think about anymore. Now, I'm not the adventurous sort -- my adventures in oxygen deprivation begin and end with the little 'I Gave' sticker. But still.

Give blood.

Trust me.

...I woke up next to an Asian roofer?

I did. And it came as quite a shock to me, I can tell you. After a long and largely sleepless night -- more of which anon -- I was quite startled to open my eyes and find myself looking into the wise, inscrutable face of the guy operating a jackhammer right outside my window. We may have exchanged nods. Not, however, before I had ascertained that the third member of our unexpected menage was fully and securely covered.

I'll take this opportunity to introduce La Petite Boheme. She'll be popping up frequently in these posts -- in all probability, she'll make it her business to be the subject of more than a few of them. LPB falls into the 'nobody tell God he screwed up and gave me all the luck' category, and although last night came in over the wires too late to make the front page ... let's just say that my friend the roofer seemed quietly amused at the decadent carelessness with which we'd distributed wine bottles, pizza boxes and undergarments around my humble flat. It's my hope that these nights will be too frequent to qualify for individual mention in this space (although particularly exceptional exploits will certainly receive mention). It won't break my heart, however, if I'm occasionally allowed to greet the dawn without finding mysterious jackhammerists peering into my den of iniquity.

...I was inappropriately aroused by Cate Blanchett screwing a fifteen-year-old?

Saw 'Notes on a Scandal'. If you haven't, do. If you want a review, check out here, here, and here.

The film raises a number of challenging questions, such as 'are they just going to let Judi Dench pick up her Oscar at the door this year?', and 'is the idea of Cate Blanchett having sex with Bill Nighy more or less upsetting than the idea of Cate Blanchett having sex with Billy Bob Thornton (circa 'Bandits')?' Coming in a close third, however, is 'okay ... that was a slide-my-hand-up-my-date's-thigh sex scene ... between Cate ... and a fifteen year old kid. Should I seek help, or jump straight to a lifetime of silent self-loathing?'

It's a fair question. And the movie isn't going to help you out; I won't spoil the plot (it involves notes and a scandal) but nobody ever steers too near to the basic eew-factor of the hot Blanchett-on-child loving. In fact, this isn't really the point of the movie -- Cate's cradle-robbery is relevant primarily as a weapon in the arsenal of the twistedly pathetic Dench's obsession. But a random sample of the conversations leaving the theater would reveal that the most stickily troubling on-screen moments were also the most riveting ones: specifically, those that involved Blanchett's tongue in the mouth of or otherwise involved with one of her young pupils.

And see, here's the funny thing. Nowhere, from start to finish, is there any suggestion that Cate was in any way a predator, a molestor, or even in the driver's seat of this May-December (well ... March-July) relationship. I don't even hesitate to call it a 'relationship' -- and I'm immediately skeptical of any attempt to legitimize sexual affairs in which one party holds all the power. The fact is, the situation was not merely unshocking, it hardly even rose to the level of surprising: a horny and obviously experienced (in the Hendrix sense) teenage boy saw and took the opportunity to romance and use his rather callow and sheltered teacher. Bad for business, no doubt, and not the sort of thing we encourage. But is it really shocking?

How far can we take this line of reasoning? If the titular scandal had involved a thirtysomething man and a fifteen-year-old girl, would we be more or less inclined to condemn? More interestingly, would I have been more or less likely to blog about the hotness of the sex scenes?

Push it further. What if Dench, rather than Blanchett, had been the female party? Cate would be ethereally winsome if she went on a three-state killing spree; what if the participants had been as unattractive as the situation? At what point does the objection cease to be ethical and become mere squeamishness? Surely the phrase 'consenting adults' must have practical rather than a merely legal relevance. If we can acknowledge that age is no guarantee of sexual maturity or innocence, aren't we compelled to accept that such visceral reactions are simply that, and no more? Could there be a mutually-harmless sexual relationship so unappealing as to reach actual moral unacceptability? Maybe between Bill Nighy and Billy Bob Thornton. But even that's a maybe.

...I started a blog?

It's night in Dupont Circle, Washington D.C., and I'm a man on a mission. Thirteen days into January, my life has become something I wouldn't have recognized last Thanksgiving. If nothing else I have learned this: time moves quickly, has sharp edges, and drags you through some strange and unexpected puddles. I've never had much luck steering the runaway carnival float that is my life, nor at handling the inevitable collisions - I think the best that I can do is try to understand the wreckage I leave in my wake and resolve to duck sooner next time. We learn from our mistakes, and if history's any guide I plan on learning a lot in 2007. Specifically, I plan on having (engineering, if necessary) at least one genuinely memorable experience every day. To accomplish this goal I will very probably have to resort at times to painful acts of self-humiliation. This is different from how I used to live my life. Now I have a reason.

BONUS:

...I was in grave fake danger?

True! This afternoon a battalion of D.C. police descended on my neighborhood and strung up yellow crime scene tape all around the block. The Circle itself was cordoned off - prompting one heavily earringed and lip-studded cynic to surmise that they'd finally decided to start rounding up and shooting gays - until it turned out that the suspicious suitcase that had brought the K-9 units slavering like Pavlov's dinner bell was in fact no danger to anybody. Still. Something could in theory have happened. And if it had, it would have happened to me.