4:11 a.m. It's been a glorious day; it's been a short day. THE short day, and since I am a born optimist, I must point out that from here on out, we add another minute of sunlight back into our lives.

For those who measure their joy in small, tea-packet servings, this is good news indeed. Another small joy for me is the fact that the toilet is fixed -- quickly and without too much fuss. Unfortunately, the heater just blew out, but you can't have everything.

In addition to the solstice and the full moon, today marks the six-month anniversary of this online journal. Half a year of writing every single day. Of learning how to answer email and post to listservs; of trying to write something coherent every single day. Every single day.

An amazing accomplishment. A life-changing six months.

I really didn't know what was going to happen to my psyche or my career if I tried to communicate this way. Tradition demands that you work with your agent and you write and submit your books to your editor, one after the other, nice and neat. You might teach a little, lecture a little, volunteer a little, but to move away from the norm and just start writing for the general population -- for free?

It's either the smartest thing I've ever done, or the dumbest.

I'd been an avid reader and a wanderer on the web for a long time and I knew the pleasure I got from journals way back when I first discovered them. They were more immediate and real than any book on a shelf and I was hooked almost from the beginning.

I can't remember how or who I found first, but I can certainly remember quite vividly each time I'd spend another entire evening with yet another person creating a world open for visiting. I remember reading Gus and following his links to a feud he was having with a woman whose journal is gone now.

I remember finding Dr. Scott's journal and marveling at his photos every day, his wife's entries, her granny, their wedding photos. I spent a whole chunk of time getting to know Joan and her housemates.

These lives haunted me when I first discovered them. So much handed over so generously; such humor, such humanity. Long evenings reading and visiting Lynda and Doug and Pamie and Al and Steve and Chuck and Diane and Bob and Kymm and Viv and Rob -- long evenings doing "research" into a new way of writing and publishing.

One of the last journals I read whole before deciding to start my own was Steve's Late Night Snacks. Some of his photo collections were entire essays, freely given, but richer than anything you could find in a book store. I almost wrote to each of these people back at the beginning of this year, but I continually lost my nerve. I wanted to thank them for being so generous with their time and their talent, but ... I didn't.

I thank them today, and for all our shared tomorrows.

It wasn't until I read the very first pages of Vestinambula, pages describing the terror and exhilaration of trying to get something up on line, that I decided that if Catherine could do it, so could I.

And here I am, six months later. I did it.

Staying up until 5:30 in the morning on the shortest day, looking up at the ceiling, trying to find the words. Working harder than I ever have in my life and not getting paid a dime.

Thinking that I am finally in the right place at the right time, doing the absolutely perfect, the most righteous thing I could be doing. Holding up a two-way mirror, shining on the spot, reflecting on my life.

I am through the looking glass, sucked over to the other side of the monitor.

I'm home.