I'm a former member, Suzanne, who couldn't stay away. I'm saying my name here because when I just opened this card the screen said "What kind of card do you wish to create, Betsy?" I don't know why, maybe I did something wrong, or maybe the computer thinks I ought to be named Betsy, or maybe I've fallen right off the edge while I wasn't watching and Betsy really is my name but I just don't know it anymore. It's a mystery.

Anyway, it's good to be back, regardless of what the computer's going to call me. I hope you'll forgive me for not writing very much this time, as John has allotted me only a limited response time, which has whittled its way down to only this very evening as the result of problems with the system and the version of Hypercard on my computer, a Mac Plus, which has now become ancient, John informs me.

Anyway, for those of you who didn't know me before, I should tell you something about who I used to be: I was a nighttime gardener, I collected stories about my escapades with men, I didn't like salad much, was a frustrated writer of short stories.

All of this has changed. I'm living with a man now who hires his own gardener and makes decent salad dressing. My escapades with men have waned down considerably in intensity to the level of things like potentially meaningful looks in line at the grocery store. And I've set aside the short stories to become the frustrated writer of a novel.

It's a big house I'm living in, in the Noe Valley district of San Francisco. There's a sunny deck that overlooks the manicured garden, a lot of closet space that I've somehow managed to fill up. I share my office space with the wine cellar - the least appealing room, so I figured it would be the one in which I'd most likely not be interrupted.

I've been here for five months now officially but still feel a little like I'm just moving in. My boyfriend likes to cook and insists on doing most of it himself, does the grocery shopping, hires a cleaning woman. I guess I should like this, but instead it makes me feel kind of odd not to have household responsibilities and be useful in some way. So I've looked for unfilled niches, like doing the laundry, and I do the laundry now with a vengeance.

This is the first time I've ever lived with anyone in a serious way, and it's not at all the way I'd imagined it might be. Now that I say this, I can't exactly picture what I had in mind before, but whatever it was this is different. I mean, the man I'm living with is an incredibly gregarious person who has no apparent concept whatsoever of introversion. Although I have a little bit of that side to me too, I'm so used to spending a lot of time by myself, and I enjoy it, and it's really hard to try to get a novel written living with a person who doesn't like being alone.

On the other hand, he's taking me to Africa next month, which is a place I've always wanted to visit. We're going on a bicycling safari to Kenya. Everyone I know who knows anyone who's been to Africa has been telling me their scary Africa stories - charging hippos and rhinos, warring ants, elephants on drugs - but as yet I'm convinced that I'll emerge alive and unscathed to tell of it.

Anyway, it's good to be back. I'm hoping I can find someone with some kind of a computer scanner (forgive my computer ignorance - I have no idea what it's really called) so I can convey a safari photo next time around.