600 Hours of Edward

do that anymore. It was easy when you had to pay for the time on the Internet, because you could just write down the time when you got the bill. Now the Internet is hooked up through my cable television, and I can spend as much time as I want on it for one price, which my father pays. It bothers me sometimes that I don’t keep track of the time I spend on the Internet, but I’velearned to “let that go,” as Dr. Buckley says. Dr. Buckley was very happy for me when I stopped tracking my Internet time. I’m not sure why she cared.
    Lately, I have been spending most of my online time at Internet dating sites. On the television commercials, everyone who is finding dates online seems so happy, and all of them have found a “soul mate,” whatever that is. I doubt that they have any scientific proof that they have found their soul mate—for all they know, someone even more special is out there dating someone else—but I cannot argue with how happy they all are. I am envious.
    I have not gone on an Internet date. I think I would like to go on an Internet date, but so far I haven’t met anyone who keeps track of weather data, and I think it is important that whomever I date on the Internet have something in common with me.
    I have not told Dr. Buckley about the Internet dating yet, as there is nothing to tell. I wouldn’t have told my father, either, but he got the bill and asked me about it, so I had no choice.
    I now use Montana Personal Connect. I tried eHarmony, because I liked the white hair and glasses of that guy on the commercials, and his manner was gentle, but eHarmony told me that its system and its twenty-nine levels of compatibility couldn’t find anyone for me.
    That hurt my feelings.
    – • –
    At 10:00 p.m. sharp, I watch episode number ninety-two of
Dragnet
, which originally aired on March 5, 1970.
    The episode, the twentieth of the fourth and final season, is called “Missing Persons: The Body,” and it is one of my favorites.
    In this episode, Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon have only two clues to identify a woman who was found dead under the Venice Pier in Los Angeles: a wadded piece of paper and a ring. But because of their doggedness, they eventually find out who she was and crack the case. Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon are good cops.
    When I started to learn my way around the Internet, I found that the actors who appeared on
Dragnet
were, in many cases, not difficult to track down. Most of them were not big stars, and some even have listed phone numbers and addresses. That’s not the case with the main actors in this episode, Anthony Eisley, Virginia Gregg, and Luana Patten; they are all dead. A lot of other people who were in the ensemble are dead, too, but some are alive. I exchanged some mail with an actor named Clark Howat, who appeared in twenty-one episodes of
Dragnet
. He was very nice. He told me how the star and creator of the show, Jack Webb, who plays Sergeant Joe Friday, didn’t want his actors to act because the series had such a small budget and could not afford more than one take on each scene. Instead, Jack Webb had them read their lines off teleprompters. Mr. Howat said it was hard to get used to, as actors’ training is to be more natural. But, he said, Jack Webb’s methods worked. I wrote back to Mr. Howat five or six times, and even invited him to have a cup of coffee with me if he ever came through Billings, but he never wrote back. It’s just as well. I don’t like coffee, and I think it would be difficult to sit at a table with a stranger and talk, even if he was in
Dragnet
twenty-one times.
    – • –
    I am flummoxed by my letter of complaint tonight. (I love the word “flummoxed.” I heard a man use it once, and I immediatelyincorporated it into my lexicon. I also love the word “lexicon.” I had to look it up first, though. I used to write down the words and definitions I looked up, but I stopped doing that because the words are right there in the dictionary, and I can look at the dictionary anytime I want. It’s harder to keep a record of daily temperatures, because you would have to store a lot of old newspapers in the house, and so I decided it’s best that I focus on that and not the words. That way, I ensure that my data is complete.)
    I would like to complain to my father for his rudeness about my credit card bill, but I don’t like to complain to the same person two times in a row. It’s bothersome enough that