8:02 a.m. // 28 December 2004

Tried to donate blood last week, on the spur of the moment. I have never donated blood before, though I am in the bone marrow registry. I was very nervous opening the door to the blood van. After much paperwork, they found out that my iron level was too low.

Dwayne and I had Christmas at our apartment for lunch the eve of. His mom, sister and brother-in-law all convened here and we had an embarrassingly large buffet. I have been eating brisket sandwiches for days now.

For the evening we went to my parents', where my dad had food poisoning for Christmas. My mom gave me a light pink sweater (which is cool) and a "flamingo pink" long-sleeve shirt (which is appalling, and the sleeves are very tight and the torso is not). I told her that Dwayne needed some long-sleeve clothes for winter, so she got him a black shirt from Eminem's apparel company, with "shady" in large gothic letters on the front. We tried to look appreciative?

I went to Dallas on Sunday to try to help my dad tile his store, but his friend Hector was already there so I didn't get to learn how to tile. I scraped the grease off some stuff, and then Dwayne came back from Palestine and we went to Half Price Books. Their graphic novel selection has improved somewhat, and I found Kochalka's reprinted first book, an Acme Novelty Library booklet for like $2, and some Jeffrey Brown, who I've been meaning to read. Also, the Ghost World DVD for cheap. Also, Dwayne got volume 3 of the collected Hate comics. We had 1, 2, 4 and 5.

That and Donna's gift of a Peanuts art book has had been knee-deep in comics. I have a new appreciation for Schulz now, anyway.

Other stuff we got for Christmas: