Every new picture writes right over the last one, so these are the few I happened to catch. When I see something good on the screen upstairs, I right-click it in Netscape and save it before the next one comes along. I've saved more than this, but most of them look like fish.

The Frog
Monday, August 2, 1999, 7:30 p.m.

That is not a frog. That's Hoover, flat against the front glass with his belly to the world, fins spread out like he's being frisked. Plecos hang on with their mouths, and he does this every evening once the house gets quiet. That night he picked the exact middle of the picture and stayed there for about twenty minutes, so the whole Internet got twenty minutes of pleco. I've had more e-mail about this frame than about everything else on the page put together, and at least half of it asks about the frog.

Breakfast
Sunday, September 19, 1999, 8:15 a.m.

That's my arm, in my good Sunday sweatshirt, with the can of flakes. The tetras know the sound of the lid coming off and they're at the top before I am. Flakes in the morning, frozen bloodworms on Saturdays, and an algae wafer for Hoover and the corys after the light goes off. A pinch is plenty. More fish are killed by kindness than by anything else. I tell people the same thing about their vitamins.

After Hours
Saturday, September 25, 1999, 11:41 p.m.

Proof that I forget to shut it off. This is the den at a quarter to midnight with the lamp on in the corner and the tank gone dim and murky. You can just make out the sword plant and the driftwood. The fish are in there somewhere, asleep. A lady in Oregon wrote me that she leaves this on her screen at night because it's restful. I'll take it.