Apropos

It’s not easy bein’ green.
Having to spend each day the color of the leaves
when I think it might be nicer being red, or yellow, or gold,
or something much more colorful like that.

It’s not easy bein’ green.
It seems you blend in with so many other ordinary things,
and people tend to pass you over, ‘cause you’re not standing out like flashy sparkles in the water, or stars in the sky.

But green is the color of Spring,
and green can be cool and friendly-like,
and green can be big, like a mountain
or important like a river, 
or tall like a tree.

When green is all there is to be,
it could make you wonder why,
but why wonder?
Why wonder?

I’m green, and it’ll do fine.
It’s beautiful, 
and I think it’s what I want to be.

Do you know what makes me exceptionally mad?

I don’t have HIV, I have never had hepatitis or any blood-borne infection, I haven’t traveled outside the country recently, I don’t have low hemoglobin, and despite all of that I am ineligible to donate blood. Forever and forever, because I am a man who has sex with other men.

The FDA has its reasons for not allowing men who have sex with men to donate blood, but I can’t help but feel that if this involved any other minority group it would be outrageous. 

The FDA’s current policy has been in place since 1992, and they give only one instance of review of that policy - a conference in 2006.

I posit that if black men were ineligible to donate their blood, based on their race having a (hypothetically) larger risk of HIV, the FDA would review its policy a bit more frequently than every 14 years.

I also think that if you offered blood from a gay man who does not have HIV, who tests negative for HIV and whose donated blood tests negative for HIV, if you offered his blood to someone, it would be unlikely that they would choose to die rather than take the risk of HIV infection from a false negative. People who need blood in emergencies are already accepting the risk of HIV from transfusion. I would think that most people would rather live with what is proving a treatable condition than die without trying.

I could deal with all of this stupidity if it weren’t for the fact that every single organ and blood donation center and website is desperately advertising how much they need my blood and how much good just one donation can do, and then once it comes up that I’m a sexually active gay man they just close the door in your face. “We’re sorry, you are ineligible to donate blood. Good bye.” 

They don’t even give you the option to just volunteer at a center. I had to dig around for ways I could potentially help without donating. Five minutes ago I had the most valuable resource in the universe, and now just because I have a love life there’s plenty of blood that’s better than mine and they’d rather I didn’t talk to them anymore. We need blood so badly! Oh, but not really we’re fine without yours.

Because it’s not like you’re getting anywhere in the real world! Just pretend you are instead.

Endorphin rush was like x10. Hella fucking awesome.

The rest and recovery afterwards……………………………………. You know what? Uh-uh.

Which is not drunk at all, but for me it’s a big deal.