Fridaynight, 22:47 Have you ever had that experience, talking about someone who then comes in, as if they heard you were talking about them? I was writing about this mysterious woman, and there she is. When I stood up in order to close the tent, because of the midges, she was passing by. It looked like she walked there on purpose, as if she knew I'd be there. She looked at me. "Hi!" "Oh, hi! Should I know you?" She chuckled. "You don't recognize me?" "Yes, I mean, I've seen you before, here at HIP, a couple of times. I was wondering who you are, and if we met before. I can't seem to remember we did. Did we?" She chuckled again. She looked ever so mysterious, in the sparse light of a shrinking moon. Jupiter was rising on the left, observed by two astronomers and a couple of HIPpers. "Sure we did. I'm surprised you don't remember. It wasn't so long ago. Are you sure you don't remember?" I tried again. Tried to think where or when I could possibly have met her. I tried various contexts, different from HIP. In vain. But still, there was something familiar about her. Something in her that told me I should know her, apart from her saying we'd met before. Am I crazy? Can I know her and yet not know her, or at least not remember? It felt like someone had hacked my brain and removed all references to her, forgetting some of the side effects of the memory. Like you remove all traces of your hack to a government computer but you leave a stain of Jolt, spilt while hacking, and giving you away. But surely, even if people can hack my computer, as they showed today, they can't hack my brain, can they? Can they? "I'm sorry, I really don't know. You'll have to help me remember." She didn't get angry, or disappointed. She smiled. Her shorts and shirt went well with her blueish hair. Uhm, hadn't that hair been greenish this morning? How can she paint her hair more than once a day? Wasn't it just plain blond yesterday? "Think of IRC, several months ago. Channel #amsterdam. Remember who was there. Remember who you were talking to." "I can't. I just don't know. I have been on that channel, but I can't remember you. How should I? If I only know you on irc?" "Think harder. It's not just IRC. Remember soc.women, three months ago." She was playing with me. She definitely knew, yet I didn't have a clue. Nobody talking on #Amsterdam I knew ever posted in soc.women. When I told her, she said "Do you use the same name as a nick on irc and on usenet?" "Well, no. I'm X10 on irc, and Christine on usenet. Except when my alternate personality posts, she's got a totally different name and email address. Why" "Like you, I have a nick on irc that differs from my name on usenet. But listen, I have to go now. It was nice talking to you." Not leaving me time to reply, off she went, within seconds she dissappeared behind a tent. I went after her, but I couldn't find her. I asked someone in a neighbouring tent, but they hadn't seen her at all. Oh well, maybe I'd meet her again, so I could ask her to please tell me who she is and why it bothers me so much that I don't know. Maybe I won't meet her again. Who cares. Still, there's something scary about her.... MJ still hasn't returned. Writing that, I hear her voice. There she is. Time to stop writing, or "£% Saturday