2:26 a.m. Mulder and Scully, sitting in a tree ...

2:57. But ... but ... this is a life! You can't tell me the man in Plato's cave had anything better going for him on a Sunday night than watching the X-Files. Who knows what he thought he saw in the shadows?

Of course, it wasn't the world's best kiss. And it doesn't much matter in the grand scheme of things. But they are awfully cute.

And I know that I'd better come up with something of substance to say right about now, but my mind is a blank. Good grooming always does that to me -- that, and a white shirt and tie.

3:27. It's going to be one of those.

I just spent practically an entire hour over at a fabulous X-Files fan site -- um, reviewing the fine photos and ... ah, trying to decide whether to add another one to this entry.

Let's see -- a nice topic.

Today commemorates the first skywriting, performed in 1922. And what did the plane spell out? That info is lost to history. I guess those white lines in the sky lasted about as long as a TV kiss.

Ok. Yesterday we repotted a giant plant we have. It was much harder than we thought it would be. It involved laboriously cutting the too-small plastic pot away bit by bit and pulling and yanking and of course the poor plant fell over a few times. It's easily 8 feet tall ... and by the time we finished I had a distinct feeling that I knew it in a close, personal way. It's a very noble plant, and now it doesn't have to feel as if it's suffering in too-small shoes anymore.

Today I worked almost all day on Christmas decorations, but not the normal kind -- these are the digital and pixel versions. I've been duplicating holly at a merry pace, playing around with cute little snowmen and candy canes ... working a little ahead of time for the big rollover of the archive page on December 1.

December 1 is also the day set aside to make a statement about the AIDS epidemic. Many web sites are going to go black for the day and many websites will not. I feel lousy on either side of this particular wicket. The problem is so vast and I have no personal way to fix it. Stamping my little metaphorical feet seems ... pretty ephemeral.

The top story in today's paper is the continuing good news coming from Belfast, Northern Ireland. It's a story that's a little less abstract these days because of the web. I worry about Fiona and her brood of adorable Noisy Ones, big and small. Because I am able to read her journal entries, my mind has registered that there's a real human being living in that city, a person who eats pizza and gets colds and worries about car pools.

That particular flickering shadow of a story has more substance. The events seem real, and I really care about the outcome now. It's amazing how a little bit of one-on-one contact can make the abstract just a little less so.