i'm becoming more & more convinced it has to do with something regarding the SiteMail itself...

i got tired of turning notifications off so i left the bloody thing on... wandered about the site some more, went back into SiteMail using the sidebar link, and they were, at that point, turned off...  of course, now they're on again cause i went back a third time... lol...

but it would explain why i was getting e-bots for essentially every other IM/group of IMs...