-- Sunday, February 20, 2000 --

11:29 p.m. (approximately). It's hard to tell the exact time because the power keeps going on and off and the digital clock I depend on is flashing 12:00 right beside my elbow. Making corner-of-the-eye ghost movements. No use in fixing it -- a hearty wind is going to blow the power out again in a few minutes, maybe. Possibilities.

Dreams of melting candlelight.

My magic month continues. A couple of nights ago I had a dream about my best friend, who lives, along with everyone else in my life except Igor, on the East Coast. One of those really vivid dreams -- do you know what I mean?

The kind in which you see the person you've been dreaming about for a better part of the next day ... and you might try to get on with your life, because everyone knows dreams are silly, but you know down deep in your heart that something's up. Then, when we went to the little movie premier that evening, the director/producer looked and talked exactly like Joan's husband. Calling: Eerie, Pennsylvania.

And today of course, Joan called and she's coming out to this coast for a quick business trip and visit. So, I'm glad to report that the *real* Sky One Paging System is intact and working well. Go to sleep, have a dream, keep in touch. What could be more natural?

We've in the middle of a really bad set of storms here in Sunnyland tonight. Incredible pounding rain coming down from Alaska. Here's something I haven't seen out here before: the rain is being blown with such force, it's coming right through the door frame into the room.

I'd put my hard drive on the floor behind my desk, cradled and muffled by a big pillow because the fan is getting noisy and it's driving me crazy. I don't dare turn it off to try to open it up and clean it because it's never been off. It's difficult to turn back on.

You just have to trust me on this. I believe in letting the machines around me have their little peccadilloes. My hard drive has 13 gigabytes of the most fabulous stuff on it, and if it wants to have a stuck switch and a clattering fan, I'm here to grant it permission. Except that the water was blowing in on it from the gale-force wind-driven rain, so that's not good.

So, I'm sponging off the walls and mopping up the mess under the hard drive and I think I'm going to call it a night. Gather up my pots and pans and head upstairs to my beloved bed. Fluff up the blankets and lay down my weary head.

I've got call waiting on my pillow.