-- Monday, March 6, 2000 --

11:55 p.m. No matter where you are, you are always here. In this bright moment -- pinned to the shiny plaque on the wall -- you are here.

The heyoka is afloat over the Pacific Ocean, heading back to England and I just now realized that for all our lugging of the cameras around and comparing notes and scouting the good shots -- that I didn't take one single picture of her and she didn't take one single picture of me.

I don't think it occurred to either of us at the time. I'm not exactly sure why that would be -- and I didn't even think about it until now. She took some intriguing pictures of bark. I have a shot of a neighbor's mailbox -- but no heyoka.

She's a very bouncy girl. I'm possibly a nice lady. Now, without any evidence to the contrary, you'll just have to take my word for it. Yes, her hair is purple. And I mostly wore a purple jacket with "Upper Darby" stitched on the back -- but I can't prove it.

Maybe it's just part of the odd continuum of meeting an online person in the real world. The package that contains the thoughts is not as ... as ... as the thoughts? Usually, it's just the opposite. Usually you notice what a colleague is wearing and rarely have a clue about what she is thinking. Strange.

The internet has turned us inside-out.

Earlier today we stopped into a vintage clothing store where, according to my calculations, I was more vintage than some of the colorful frocks. But that's ok. Decades are mere gaudy paillettes in the fabric of my memory.

I was both a child and a teenager and a mother in the sixties. Try that on for size.

And now, with a gentle heyoka winging softly home and a pile of recommended new books calling to me from the bedside table, I will bid you a fond adieu for the night.

Plus, they shot Christopher on the Sopranos, and his big old camel nose is all taped up with life-support stuff and poor Tony is just sitting there in disbelief and there's no closing music ... just the shhhhhhump shhhhhhump of the bellows of life.

Maybe I should start spending some time on the Sopranos website -- get to know the characters, maybe send a virtual plant or maybe a nice canolli to the imaginary characters who seem so real. At least as real as my lost brocades. I mean, decades.