I looked at the two bags that held the yellowish stuff they tell me is my platelets, and it just doesn't look like much. The bags don't bulge when they lay flat like pint blood bags do, they sorta go all saggy; so I mention to the nurse that it didn't look like much.

He raised his eyebrows at me, and said that I had given a lot. My hemocrit numbers apparently were really good for a woman - I gave today the amount he normally gives, and he's about 10 inches taller and 75 pounds heavier than I am. My two bags of platelets will go to two kids of the larger variety, he said, or a lot of little babies. I can handle that. (And now that I think about it, it's funny I never asked that question before...how many people am I helping when I donate. At least now I know, sorta.)

He said that most women have a hemocrit number between 12 and 14, usually around the 12 mark. Any lower, and they can't take their blood products even if they're perfectly healthy. Mine was 13.2, and isn't that more information than you wanted to know? At any rate, I left there feeling pretty darn good.

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While I was hooked up to the machines, I watched CALENDAR GIRLS. What a hoot! I so wish I had seen that in the movie theatre now, to boost their numbers. I laughed out loud a lot during that movie - but as I was the only one in the lab today, that didn't matter too much.

And when I got home, I watched BEFORE SUNSET, which was wonderful. Especially the ending. Now I have to rent BEFORE SUNRISE. And then see both of them again. Lovely romantic movies.

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I'm a judge this year for the Golden Heart contest, the big unpubbed contest for RWA. The instructions are clear, and in the prelimnary judging you basically assign a number to the manuscript partial you read, between 1 and 9 with 9 the top number. I'm lucky - I've read several way cool manuscripts. The emphasis is totally on that this is NOT a teaching tool contest - no feedback is given. Something that, in my opinion, isn't fully explained in the signups.

But it's interesting, and I'm really glad I'm doing it. I'm learning a ton and understanding how much polish work is done on these manuscripts before they ever see the Golden Heart. Some of these manuscripts have been in other contests in the past couple years, as I recognize the titles - but don't remember if they've won anything or not. Luckily, nothing looks familiar, so I doubt if I've gotten something written by anyone I know.

Still...an interesting exercise. And boy am I glad I didn't enter this year! For one thing, I don't think I want to hang onto a book for that long...