10:05 a.m. Wow is me -- I've made it to two months online! Writing away, every single day. The idea of two months, two fabulous productive months was a scary one indeed just two short months ago. I was looking, at the time, at the entrance requirements to some of the journal rings and I read with trepidation that you had to have been writing for two months before you could apply to join. Two months!

How long ago that seemed. How huge a goal it seemed at the time. One of the people making up the entrance rule mentioned that you'd probably know after two months if you wanted to continue, and dog gonne it, by golly, s/he was/is right! I know now so much more than I did when I started.

I know how to send and receive email, for example. At first I hawked over my "in" window when I hit the button and waited like a hermit without electricity for something exciting to come my way. I even read spam, I tell you. Read it to the end and even considered it. Wanna hear a joke of the month? Wanna buy a ham?

I know how to fix embarrassing mistakes and upload them to multiple servers spread all across the country before they shame me or my loved ones. I know how to link to Amazon and insert metatags. I know all about how one journal writer came to be fooling around with another, even while continuing to correspond to the unbeknownst spouse. I think I've got that right. I know how to spell "Scheharazade".

The only thing equivalent to this huge fast rush of time picking me up and sweeping me along, up and above the normal course of life was back a year or so ago when I became involved, in a very unhealthy way, with eBay. Oh, but those were the lost months, I thought back then.

I looked back now, at my old records and my paper journal and the entire months of May and June 1998 are totally gone, wiped off the face of my memory. I was insane with eBay, I tell you. Insane.

But you would be too, if you were the sort of sentimental person who sort of keeps things around, collects whatever, tends to tend to things. See the picture opposite? Do you know what it is? I had it in an old shoe box marked "small things." And that's all it was for most of my life: a very small thing.

The entire small-things collection eventually grew to two containers: one for wooden small things and one for plastic, metal, and fabric. I'm very organized, but not in an unhealthy way, I don't think. There's no such thing, for instance, as a junk drawer in my house. But, I digress.

I was keeping the small things because I figured that one day I would create dioramas. You know -- the things you used to make in third grade -- shadow boxes. I was going to make one for each novel I wrote, as a sort of extra dimension to the story, because when you sit down to write you inevitably create a universe more real than the one you're really sitting in. I wanted to show the rest of Maggie's kitchen, the inside of Clyde's painting studio, where he was creating art using his own blood mixed with mashed huckleberries. Tony Curtis was doing it, and I figured I could, too.

Let's just say that I got a little bit sidetracked.

Sure, I kept squirreling away the interesting odd thing in a TastyKake box or a Maxwell House tin. I like to put like things together so that if somebody needs a pair of gloves or say, a bit of thick yellow yarn, or some of those hooks you hang planters from, well I know just where to go and get it. My mother worked in stores all her life, including an old-fashioned hardware store, and her basement is a sight to behold. Thank God for Skippy is all I can say. Too bad they've gone plastic.

So, once I'd gone and spent enough money on eBay to alarm even the most understanding Igor, I began to ravage my own stuff to see what I could see. Imagine my surprise when I realized that people would pay good money, nay -- great! -- money for the smallest, most insignificant things. That little GI Joe fancy dud? Almost $300. I kid you not.

I'm glad I took the picture, because now that's all I have. That, and three hundred smackaroos. Or, more accurately, the memory of three hundred smackaroos. You know how it is with money -- it flows by invisibly, measured out in electric bills. That's why they call it currency.

But, I have my memories. And I'm a wiser person, of course, now that I've learned how to avoid the lure of eBay. Good thing I've learned. Good thing I'm doing this daily report on the web. Oh, and that reminds me of the other thing I've learned as I celebrate my first two months online. That ring-leader was right. I know now that I like it. I really really like it. I want to continue. And I don't ever, ever want to stop.

Addicted? Was that July or April that was just yesterday? Check in again -- yah! -- tomorrow.