9:45 a.m. I'm getting a bit behind on my reading these days, spending so much time, you know ... reading on the web. I was thinking about this last night when I fell into bed very late, my eyes bristling with red dots, the blood in my head beating a faint, distant tom-tom, my brain racing around on its small, confined wheel. I'd just had to pull myself physically away from another online journal -- another person's honest, gripping account of the day just past.

But, this isn't reading. It's not real.

The book I practically waited by the doorway for when it finally came up for sale on Amazon is only two-thirds read. Sure it's a rough, indulgent read. Sure it's three hundred pounds of a pointed hard cover pressing into my tummy or my arm no matter how I prop it up. But it's real. It's printed on soothing cream paper. And I have a bookmark, a real paper bookmark, made by my own Secondo, when he was in kindergarten. It says "Mom" and it has yarn on it and his teacher had gotten hold of a plastic sealing machine, so it's extremely thick and practical and homey.

On Igor's side there is a growing pile of magazines that neither one of us is managing to conquer. Last night I tried to read some of the article on the origins of man in Time's (last week) cover story. Frustration ensues when you realize that not a single one of the many lovely pictures is going to yield more information when you press on it. And the ink comes off on your fingers. And the magazine must be deboned carefully of all its dropouts and glue-in insets and of course, neatly stripped and ripped along all those perforated lines.

Not that I'm obsessive, but I have noticed that the most perforated inset cards I've ever seen in one magazine at one time just so happened to be in an issue of Psychology Today, back when I bothered to actually read that magazine. I was busy ripping them all out, one by one, making a nice pile for the trash, when I realized that some psychologist could be making good money with me, were I to call up for an appointment.

The more I read on the web the more nostalgic I've become for real reading. I've joined a Book 'burb, which is a subgroup of online journal writers who also like to talk about their offline reading habits. It's comforting, you know? The old lamp, the old Morris chair with the wide arms, the old foot stool, the old musty smells, the old silverfish scurrying away when you disturb their quiet domain. The real thing.

In yesterday's Times, which I just now got around to reading, another writer has suddenly discovered the wheel and is getting paid handsomely, I presume, to talk about it on the Op-Ed page. He just can't get over the fact that you can read entire issues of magazines, for free, on the web. It's put him all in a tizzy. He's talking revolution ... and you can bet he'll be up all night for many moon-soaked months as he explores the incredible new Alexandria that has opened its electronic library doors just for him.

No charge. The reading is free. So far. Who can put a price on the accumulated knowledge that is our intellectual right? Don't worry -- guys who get paid are working triple-time-and-a-half on it. Give the good folks at Disney a little more time to figure this out. They've already tried with some success to copyright Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, so it's just a matter of time before they'll get a better grip on all the little people of the web.

Bill Gates has purchased entire picture archives, hoping to charge you for looking. Slate tried to put a price on their priceless prose and Salon laughed at them, for free. The Blair Witch Project has scared the bejesus out of movie companies, and Todd Rundgren and now Adam Sandler are now taking their music and their millions and are playing directly to the people.

What can you charge when it's free? Are the best things in life really for sale? Of course, these are questions near to my heart, nestled as it is, so close to my stomach. I'm in love with the web, but I've still got to eat. I get paid to write in real life, but I'm giving it away for free as we speak. I've tried to straddle this divide by gathering other like-minded writers into my own 'burb: Pro's Prose. My mother is appalled and quite glum about all this. She really believes that we are going to starve. And she should know.

And I am fully aware that behind the scenes, way back in the hidden recesses of the picture, real money is changing hands. Real fortunes are being made in the shade while full-throated troubadours are strolling in the sun, singing out their heartfelt stories to the free, fresh airwaves.

You can't help but be wide-eyed as you wander through the web. So much to see and do. But beware. Everything's ultimately for sale, kiddies, they will tell you. Everything has its price. Is it real? Is it a revolution? Or are we wandering along, eyes glassy with wonder, fingers sticky with grease, playing in the faux tableaux of the ultimate Renaissance Faire?