That clunking thing has happened many times since then, but now it always happens when I'm completely sober, sitting in a meeting or trying to listen to somebody answer the critically important question I just asked them.

Lot of mail lately asking why it is I only post the hatemail. Don't have an answer for that, but if I had the inclination I'd post more of this kind of mail. Can't decide what to do, but I sometimes look back through the hate mail of the people who threatened me with death, and every three or four months I'll send them a note just to let them know that I'm still thinking about them, and that I hope they're well.

I think that probably drives them crazy, and makes them hate me, or themselves, even more.

Can't say that I worry about this kind of e-mail. Any step a person takes into a place which invites the company of strangers is one which also invites death-threats and all the filthiest, most thoughtless expressions of modern life.

I show my website to friends, and invariably they comment about how "disturbing" those messages are.

My response, which usually results in outbursts of laughter from whoever I'm talking to, is that befoere I wrote one word I decided I was ready for this nonsense in April 1995 when I started making this site. I was prepared for the potshots and stupidity you open yourself up to when you enter public life.

Have to admit, in this context the words PUBLIC LIFE make me laugh, too. After all, since when does sitting behind a computer all day constitute "public life"?

For a while I posted that stuff thinking that others would see it and reconsider sending their own such message.

But it never had that effect. The hostile invective just keeps coming at me. Does anyone know why?