Cold Blooded

I have poor circulation.

Categorically.

Ok, maybe it hasn't been medically diagnosed or even tested, but I know it.  The way I know I'm of above average height without needing a fancy chart.  I look around, can see over most girls' heads, and I know I'm tall. Period.  I shake hands with people after having been in a warm environment for hours and they say "cold hands warm heart." I know blood is not flowing to my fingertips as it should. I just know it.

Granted, my fingertips are pretty far from my heart.  It's a long journey for blood cells to get from place to place.  I consider my little red blood cells and imagine them drawing straws about who has to go where as my heart shoots them into the vast unknown circulatory system.

A lean, cocky cell breaks free of the group.  "Off to the stomach, see ya later suckas."

Then a sweet, sassy cell exclaims, "Brain!  That's right, brain.  Who's the smart cell now?!"

It goes on until, bumbling out of the chamber, a sad, asymmetrical little guy checks his lot and whispers to himself, "Fingertips?  Aw man.  No one likes fingertips.  Nothing cool happens there..."

And this tiny funny-looking cell joins up with some other cool-organ rejects as they start to make their way along the arterial highways.  They pass the exits for the digestive system, the spinal cord, and hold their oxygen, waiting for the finish line.  Even the leg exits make them dreary with despair.  Next go-round they think.  They hope.

Down the long lonely tunnel they see their own offramp.  The arteries close in around them.  The pudgy little cell catches his peers giving up around the elbow, others caught in limbo near the wrist, and even a few pulling u-turns into the forearm capillaries.  Anything to dodge the fate of traveling all the way to the very end.

As little pudgy mr. red-blood arrives at the final tip, breathing his oxygen to the sensitive tissue right below the hangnail, he turns to see that of the thousands once rallying with him, only a few brave cells remain.  Turning back, he knows he fought a greater battle than that jerk who floated effortlessly to the abdomen.  He is the victor. He shall claim the prize!

...

Yes, this is all what happens inside my body.  My fingertips, frozen with neglect, never get to reap the benefits of all the blood cells more excited to detour to the midsection or thighs or armpits.  Which leaves me with just one choice.

Come home late after a training,

find my J-Man warm and snuggled under the blanket,

promise to get him a glass of water and then,

with my sad, neglected, arctic hands

(just to prove I'm alive)

press against the blazing inside of his elbow.

And he's awake. 

And I giggle while he tells me I'm cold-blooded and asks if I had caffeine tonight,

before watching 90210 on the couch, sitting on my palms, until I've reached a fair snuggling temperature to return to our bed.