I am a Mungleford junkie. My head tells me it's been months since he's updated, so the guy ain't coming back. My heart wants to know what happened.

Isn't it odd how that happens?

I mean, I was just bopping from diary to diary, following links randomly, and one night I ended up at Mungleford's.

Most diaries don't reach me. I know lots of the folks out here in Diaryland are writing from the heart, and many of them are writing from a world of pain, but somehow ... somehow, I'm insulated from them.

Jeez, this makes me sound cold, but it's true. Is it the same for you? I wonder ...

That insulation disappeared when I bumped into Mungleford. Lordy, but I grokked him from the get go.

Maybe it's because there's a marriage melting down in my husband's family. Mungleford takes you to ground zero as his marriage auto destructs around him. Maybe that's it.

Maybe it's because he writes with fluidity and grace, just nails what he has to say. He makes me feel like I'm using duct tape to hold my diary together. Maybe that's it.

And maybe it's because he uses just enough humour so that when he takes us to some very dark places we can bear to look into the gloom.

I really don't know.

All I do know is that on Feb. 12 Mungleford posted his last entry and hasn't come back. I wish he would. I wish I knew what happened, even if Mungleford turns out to be someone's creative writing project.

Want to know the funniest thing about all this? If you asked me to name three books I'd take to the proverbial desert island here's what I would say:

-- Tim Winton's "The Riders"

-- Kent Haruf's "Plainsong"

-- Chang-rae Lee's "A Gesture Life".

On the surface, you couldn't pick three more different books, but they do what Mungleford's diary has done. They give you a slice of a life, but nothing near the whole pie.

Not one of these novels come to any clear conclusions.

Not one gives you a tidy ending.

Kind of like real life, huh?

Kind of like the Mungleford diary.