AUSTIN, Texas, June 5, 2006— Someone in South America or Eastern Europe (or both) is using my e-mail address as a reply address to spoof spam all over the world. I have had to set up draconian auto deletion on my spam filter and check my mail every five minutes automatically to control it. I'm probably deleting legitimate e-mail. I no longer care.

Meanwhile I was having trouble accessing the blogger site which was frustrating. What if it just disappeared? (Yeah, I know, not cosmic.) What if it stopped working? (Which it has done and well most of the time so far.) It's free so who could you complain to.

It's hard to get good support for the things you do pay for. Three calls to Roadrunner commerical support trying to get help for the spoofing issue got three different support people (although they answered quickly) and three different answers.

Now that I'm eating the return e-mail successfully I feel better but then I don't like the idea that my name is being used to irritate people and trigger spam filters and mail servers with dead addresses all over the world. Yeah, the online world is a strange, wonderful and sometimes frustrating place.

I plan to go out tonight and do low-tech things like listen to jazz and eat. That should make me feel better.

A friend reacted to my artist's statement (on the blog) with tongue firmly lodged in cheek as follows:

"At times even the artist herself is reflected in the photograph, hazy and indistinguishable from the artifacts or other viewers. Trapped in her own work, the viewer can feel her struggle, yearning to be independent and free of influence in her art yet included in the world at large. Her unclear image personifies her struggle, her reflection on her place both outside and inside the everyday experience."

Check out the picture below in this context. This picture is such a happy accident of shopper and shop that it is amazing. Life's little moments.