I went over on Saturday morning to give blood. It just doesn't bother me to do it, so I don't get bonus points for sacrifices, but I'm glad it can help someone. I seriously hate the snacks on the table, though. After you donate they send you out to wait 10 minutes and they feed you snacks and juice. The selection is revolting, consisting of all the stuff no one buys out of vending machines. I don't mean that literally, I mean the stuff they choose is similar to what's usually left over. So I munched on some generic crackers, sipped my juice, and blasted away to begin my Saturday properly. I went home and had a nap with the cats.

I then spent some time trolling through the online diaries. To my dismay, plenty has changed since I last went a-wandering. First of all, Gabby has stopped doing Turns Into Stone and now does a journal called Fragments. I didn't even know it. Also, some chump of the first degree sent her hate mail. What's the point, you know? No one takes hate mail as a useful critique of their style or personality. It's just filed under Chump Material and ignored. After that, I tried reading some of the multiplying diaries on the mother of all diary rings, Open Pages, and discovered how few people write really well when they're recording their experiences. I want to recommend Ned Rorem's diaries for an example of how to keep a fascinating diary. You and I may not be famous composers or mingle with the cafe society of Paris, but we do have the option of editing our thoughts and days for content.