When we moved to Pennsylvania seven years ago (can it really be that long ago?), I was introduced to someone that would quickly become my "Significant Other". His name was Eudora, and at first the relationship was touchy. I mean touching KEYS on my keyboard. Initially it just seemed like using Microsoft Word, to put a document on the screen for any number of uses: business letters, personal letters on decorative paper, lists of current medications to take with me to the doctors, even writing my weekly article, etc. However, I quickly discovered that my "Significant Other" had Other Significant uses that had little to do with creating documents.

For it was, in fact, something called an "Email" program, which would allow me to correspond interactively with anyone whose Email address I had or anyone who had mine. So I had to create an Email address for myself, and I began using the name under which I worked as a writer. I gave this address to people who were my colleagues in an organization for which I wrote a newsletter. I enjoyed this job, and it required me to learn the Email addresses of the other participants. This way I could question them on submissions, meeting speakers, and other bits of relevant information to be included in the current issue of Packets, the Journal of the NPA.

That first year, when I created our Christmas cards, I included my Email address on them. Amazingly, some of the folks who received the cards Emailed me to thank me for giving them an alternative way to say Merry Christmas. In addition, I began to receive Emails from family and friends who were also on line. It was interesting to look at the Email addresses that some of them had created for themselves. Before the Email provider followed by a suffix, a whole host of names were selected, no doubt to reflect the Emailer's interests, or memberships, or just to be funny. Instead of "John Doe" @ whatever.com or .net, there were a few that were designed to make you laugh or disguise the person's real name. If you didn't know who it was, other Emailers scanning the NET would pose no threat to privacy.

The place that I encountered the most interesting "names" was on the list of people who, like me, have a type of brain tumor called a "meningioma". The Meningi-Mates, as they call themselves, correspond either to selected members or to the general list. On line conversations tend to be about diagnoses, treatments, outcomes, medications, etc. But the names are great: purple jule, Cindirix, Hagar, Lucky Eddy, etc. Having a brain tumor doesn't mean losing your creativity, or your sense of humor. I enjoyed reading the correspondences, and I replied to some of them, offering encouragement. I also reply to people on various Multiple Sclerosis web sites. There again, the Email addresses are full of interesting names that people use.

After a few years, I got the hang of using Email. The key was getting the Email addresses of people you WANTED to "talk" to and hoping that they, in turn, had your address. Since I was in the habit of writing things, like addresses, on slips of paper that were easily lost under the rubble on my desk, a new system of recording Email addresses was required. Fortunately, my Significant Other was there for me, with an "Address Book" that would hold a list of all my wanted addresses and allow me to direct them into correspondence with two clicks of the Edit button on the tool bar ("copy" and then "paste"). This method, even for simple addresses, prevented me from making typos that would invalidate the transmission (WOW, don't I sound fancy?) Being able to do this helps me send Ecards on holidays from companies with which I have a paid subscription. "Personalize and Send" is easy and reliable, even for those of us who are technology challenged.

My relationship with Eudora continued to grow, as I was increasingly impressed with his trustworthiness, and grateful for his convenience. I could type out a message, have the word processor features alert me to typos and let me correct them without losing my text. The gentle "dinging" and the synthesized voice that told me "you have a mail message", became music to my ears. Each morning I could wake up, go on line, and hope to get messages from friends and family.

But there was more to my new best friend. He could bring me newspapers and magazines to read without having to buy subscriptions or warehouse tons of paper. If I could find the Email address of those publications, I could read them. In this way I kept up with events at home in New Jersey plus around the country, and even around the world. I could choose to read them in foreign languages (at least foreign to me), and from different time zones. Advertisements that I read in the newspapers and magazines that I WANTED to receive in my home often included an Email address for a business or a particular product. I could now obtain more information about them. When stores and mail-order catalogs had Email addresses, I could then BUY THINGS VIA THE INTERNET and have them delivered to me at home or to the recipient of a gift at his or her home. For a person in a wheelchair, this was a true gift from heaven.

But as with all things, there can also be a DARK SIDE, an evildoer, a devil that learns how to use potentially good things to his own purposes, and to trick the unknowing into going to his site. This menace is called SPAM. At first, it was easy to recognize since it identified itself. For example, did I want to "eliminate debt", "lose weight", "meet singles in my area", etc. A quick click of the Delete key sent it promptly into the "trash".

SPAM retaliated by using Email addresses with the kind of cutesy names people invented for themselves. This site could be a person, so I would open it only to find a sales pitch or, worse yet, pornography. The Delete key worked overtime on those. Other times, SPAM would show itself bearing a real person's name. The bad news was that occasionally these names were the same as those of a real friend or family member. I would open them only to find that I had been duped, and that the sender was not a real person.

After a while, SPAM acquired the name "junk Email", similar to what comes, unwanted, into the mailbox at the end of my driveway. The United States Congress has begun to pass legislation preventing mass Emailings that fill up computer memory and slow down access to real Email messages. In a commercial situation, this prevents actual customers from accessing needed sites. Ironically, it also created a new business designing and preventing SPAM from getting onto designated computers. Of course, this is not free. It is an example of business meeting business (SPAM busters meeting SPAM purveyors). What could be more American?

As I accumulated more Internet correspondents, my morning mail became larger. Many times it would take me over an hour just to go through the list. If some of these Emails were from family or friends, I would want to respond promptly. To that end, I discovered another special gift from my Significant Other: the Reply button. I could tap into an Email that someone had sent to me and respond to individual parts of the letter right in the sender's copy. This cut correspondence time in half, and the sender would know exactly what I was responding to. There was also a "REPLY TO ALL" button, which I have not tried yet. Maybe I could use it to Email all of the Meningi-Mates at the same time?

Little by little I became used to my newfound popularity. Everyone wanted my attention. My husband also showed me the actual CASH MONEY that he earned by answering Internet surveys. How could I do that? By continuing to respond to one particular survey site. After weeks or months of dutiful replies, I might receive money, as he did. But there were so many Emails that wanted my opinion, each one glitzier than the next. And instead of being faithful to my beloved Eudora, I betrayed him, being swayed by long surveys with bright promises of prizes and entry into sweepstakes. Correspondence was no longer enough---I hungered for more concrete rewards.

And then it happened. Somewhere in my quest for material rewards, I opened a site containing a VIRUS. Everything was corrupted! Web sites with photos had only little red x's in the places that should have shown a picture or a graphic. JustMom.com lost all of the home page artwork. Real estate sites had no photos of homes for sale, and National Geographic Picture of the Month had only printed words and empty space. Beyond the shock of zapped graphics, web sites that I relied on for paying bills were GONE. My online checking account had checked out, and the bills that I had taken to paying over the NET were coming due fast.

HELP