Ohio Girl

I just finished watching the film Twister on network television. I currently lack cable and thus the option of at least the Discovery Channel to make my hours spent on the couch sound intentional and worthwhile. Really, I was avoiding laundry and assorted household duties which if I avoid past this evening will mean going to work sans panties.

I have not gone without underwear since college, but will confess to occasionally having to wash them out in the sink last minute and heading off to the office wearing them still wet. I have gone without seeing Twister since shortly after college, although managed to see it at least twenty times.

Twister played on a loop at the plasma center in Cleveland where some friends and I went to donate body fluids in exchange for money to pay the electric bill and buy beer. We were in the minority as most folks made it clear they were there for crack cash and free cookies.

I do recall another group of twenty-somethings like us. Their group eyed my group across the waiting area. They obviously thought themselves cooler as they had more things that were pierced and were dressed in leftover Goth-gear from their college days. We were all still wearing the same exact flannel shirts and Birkenstock sandals from our own recent time in college and had just finished listening to Hole on the car ride over.

Just before we broke out into a Grunge-Goth, West Side Story face-off we were all called back and connected to machines that took stuff out, separated it, and put some stuff back into our veins. It was not necessary to ponder the disturbing nature of the procedure as Twister was playing on a half dozen TVs that hung from the ceilings. I remember thinking Helen Hunt was kind of hot. I had the same thought watching it today and also noticed that it was Philip Seymour Hoffman who played the loud-mouthed, long-haired, chubby dude.

During Twister a commercial for a local plasma center came on and made a rather appealing appeal for “donations.” I jotted down the number. I don’t so much need cash for beer and electricity anymore. But I DID hear plasma donations speed up your metabolism and help you lose weight.