We went to Tom's opening in Camden yesterday, which was populated almost entirely by seventy-year-old yachters, and it was so strange and comic: I could feel my my trashy hick blood beginning to surge and complain . . . not in self-defense or nervously or angrily or anything of the sort. More like wanting to show off its tattoos. And I don't even have a tattoo.

So after a while this kid walked in through the door: I say kid but he was probably about 23, kind of sloppy with a big beard. And the women in the room completely lost themselves in happiness . . . started crowding around him, hugging him, and he nodded and smiled at the men, who nodded back with pleasure: and I realized, This is someone's grandson. They've all known him since he was a baby rolling off their poop-decks and spilling their gin-and-tonics and roping his little brother to the mast. Look how much they love him. At this point my trashy blood calmed right down and behaved itself.

And now on to something completely different: I just want to reiterate, for the record, that I am not a joiner of writing groups. I am not a participator in authorial-group-niceness-for-the-sake-of-being-supportive. This sounds selfish, and it is selfish. It's also isolating and ascetic and necessary. For me, being a writer is entirely different from being a student or a teacher. I hope, in both of these latter roles, that I am sympathetic and patient and encouraging. But my own writing practice is different. I work alone, and the only people who read my stuff before it gets published are people who (1) have a personal stake in the matter or (2) have established an intense writing or reading link with me. Most of the people in category 2 (and there aren't many) take the opportunity to point out weakness. This is a good thing.

But today I got a note this morning from a reader in category 2 who liked the essay, without qualification. This crazy essay, that doesn't mention one single work of literature! I feel like I've suddenly stumbled through the back of a wardrobe into a strange and snowy country.