Cool Face

So I've been feeling super-tired and worn out lately. Now, if I were feeling that way at this time last year as I was slogging through grad school and fighting a particularly nasty tonsil infection, I would understand, but this time around, I don't have any particular reason to feel so tired and run down. Work is stressful, but for the most part it's just a lot of crap packed into 8 hours. I have board meetings, two bookclubs, and a ton of projects I'm working on, but again, nothing particular stressful or exhausting. This past weekend, my sister and I escaped to NH and shopped and shopped and shopped, but I slept a solid 8+ hours a night. What gives?

Yesterday I went for my bi-monthly platelet donation. The tech laughed when she gathered the finger prick blood sample because my blood "looks pale." She put it in the hemoglobin measuring machine thing and it beeped the rejection beep. "What the heck," she said "these stupid machines. You're so not that low." She squished blood out of my finger again and was like "well. it does look pale. and you look pale. huh." She got the same reading. "Woah! You're kind of anemic!" When I asked what my Hgb was she replied "11.2" and asked "are you feeling tired?!" I told her I've been falling asleep at my desk every afternoon. She sent me home to take some vitamins (I've been off my spirulina for low-grade anemia regimen and it shows) and try again next week. I have to admit though, it's really nice to have an explanation for the tiredness. My mother seemed not really worried but sort of puzzled by its lowness and I wrote her off saying it was no big deal, but then I thought about the massive amount of carbs and very small amount of iron rich veggies and beans I've had in the past couple of weeks and that pretty much explained it.

In other news, I got an email this morning from flickr saying someone requested to publish my picture. I figured it was on someone's blog or some sh*t and I was like "why do you have to be so formal, just link to my profile already." Actually it was a request to publish a photo in a book about feelings. "Oh Christ," I thought "It's gonna be one of those hideous ones from my 365 days project, one where I'm weeping about school or some sh*t...ughhhhhh" So not the case. It's kind of a cute pic too:I checked out the project's website to make sure the whole thing was legit and that the people weren't fanatics or people with foot fetishes (anyone who has put a foot picture on flickr understands this. It's kind of a miracle the fetish people haven't found the above pic but it's titled "self-indulgent" and is not tagged with anything foot-related).

The project is incredibly fascinating. I could spend a looong time on the website (wefeelfine.org) and I'm happy to share images with something so cool. This will be the third "primate" picture I've had appear in a book. First it was a gorilla in 24 hours of Flickr, then a vervet monkey in Plague and Pestilence and finally me toeses in this book (if it makes the final cut and all, I'm not sure if anything if final though it seems so). Maybe I should quit my job and become a photographer of monkeys, lol. I seem good at it. I count myself in that monkey category too ;)