I gave blood again today. I have rare and valuable blood, and was most particularly requested to give some more of it by the blood people, who called my house and sent me persistent emails on the subject, but they needn't have hounded me, because I am either a saint who likes to do good for others even at the cost of some personal discomfort or a crazy person who likes to get attention by giving blood. Only time will tell. For now all you need to know is that when asked to give blood, I mostly do.

So there I was lying on the big rubber slatted outdoor chaise longues that they use for blood donors, a needle in my arm drawing my blood rapidly down to a big plastic bladder, balancing my enormous biography of Virginia Woolf by her nephew Quentin Bell on my lap and attempting to turn the pages one-handed, so as not to disturb my blood-giving arm, when the nurse who was in charge of my blood complimented me on my ability to balance the book and turn pages with one hand. Bragging, I told her that I could also read and walk, and was drawn suddenly to the path in camp from my cabin to the lake, down which I used to walk, slowly, reading—so slowly, once, that by the time I got to the lake everyone else was coming up the hill again, free swim being over. I was at the time very pleased by this little evasion but I never thought of a grander one, never dreamed that the four weeks I spent there for three summers running, being the most unpleasant twelve weeks of my youth, could be avoided altogether, and spent somewhere better and happier. What I lacked when I was younger was, despite all my reading, an imagination.

We were almost hit by a car on the way to Henry's camp. When I was younger I would have welcomed a car crash as a way to get out of going to camp for the day. I also wanted to break my leg so I wouldn't have to ski and I forget what I thought would get me out of law school.

We are sending the boys to such shitty camps. Yesterday Henry’s counselors played a version of running bases in which they threw a soccer ball at the campers. Henry was hit hard in the back and cried and went to the nurse, but they waited until they pegged another camper before they stopped playing with the hard ball. When Henry told me I laughed because he told it funny. Then when I told David about it and he was shocked and upset I felt a fleeting dismay at my lack of maternal instincts.

John’s camp sucks because his counselors just stand there with vacant looks on their faces. Today a boy was screaming and trying to run out after his mother and I could see John thinking it over. Not a bad idea, he thought, but then he went to circle time instead. I’ve decided to go all retro and not care if things are substandard. I’ve decided to think that this will be good for them. Why should they always have caring, engaged caretakers? Won’t they get the wrong message about life? Etc.

I always found camp to be a time of great loneliness and unhappiness. And if I didn’t have that suffering to fall back on, where would I be today? How would I ever make art?