Frugal Thought #3: Blood, Sweat & Tears

I have a new obsession, and I'm afraid it's not very socially acceptable. So (deep breath) here goes... I'm obsessed with... blood. I can't stop myself. It all started with my frantic reading of all four Twilight novels until the wee hours in the morning and then led to my current addiction to HBO's True Blood (I'm only on episode 7, so please, no spoilers.) But apparently it's not the vampires I'm obsessed with but the hemoglobin itself because I did the unthinkable recently and signed up with the Red Cross to donate my own O positive life force.

With my new frugal lifestyle in mind, and the constant inner guilt from listening to the KCRW pledge drive with my broke hands tied, I decided what better way to give back when you're down and out then to give your time. LA Works has an amazing site (http://www.laworks.com/HomePage/index.php/home.html) where you can view a calendar of volunteer opportunities in LA over many months and instantly sign up. A huge array of organizations use them to recruit, so you could find yourself doing anything from building wheelchairs to feeding the homeless in the Mission District. (I recently signed up with a friend for the Tree People project this Saturday, but that's for another blog.)

Let's face it, though, some of us don't even have time and sweat to give to planting trees, so that leads to my bright idea to donate myself... my blood, that is. Look at the Red Cross website (https://www.givelife.org/index_flash.cfm?thisHB=02/10/2009%2010:50:24) for a location near you. It only takes about 20 minutes of your day and you get some free cookies and juice afterward, which to a starving writer with a sweet tooth (or should I say, fang), is more than enough incentive. Plus, if you find yourself shedding a tear or two at the sight of a needle in your arm, the more you've given of yourself to the cause. Bravo, I say. Blood, sweat and tears trump money any day.