I work out at the McBurney Y. I love the Y. Love love love. Real people, real stinky sweat, no roidheads preening and posing at the mirrors the way they did in my last gym. I love the old guys sitting around arguing with each other in the afternoons ("Nah, that nobody, he couldn't touch Willie Mays with a pole." "You used to watch Willie play?" "Watch him? I taught him how to swing!") and the one-year-olds shrieking in the pool at Baby Swim. I especially love the really old guy who pushes his walker around the indoor track. That'll be me, I'm telling you.

What I was unprepared for was Day Camp. Did not run into this last year, when I was going in the evenings, but I've changed my schedule and now go midday. Kids of all sizes swarming, lining up, failing to line up, charging around both gyms, paddling around the pool. Eddying and flowing in all directions. I'm up to my waist in short people. Shorter-than-I-am-people, is what I mean. The electric energy of childhood. Quite revivifying. You could light the whole city if you could bottle that.