Virtual Memory gone mad

[Jonathan Ryshpan]

Investigating why my computer had suddenly become very s.l.o.w, I
noticed that virtual memory usage had become very large.  Following is
an extract from a "$ ps axuw" for the system sorted according to VM
usage, the top 20 processes in VM usage.  Does anyone know why evolution
+ evolution evolution-data-server use not quite 2 GBytes?  Or why the
ordinary applets use together 1.4 GBytes?  Or why sealert uses about 0.5
GBytes?  Or anything else on this list?

 PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
2656  1.2  5.2 1668576 53708 ?       Sl   12:20   1:26 evolution
2662  0.0  0.2  444628  2680 ?       S    12:20   0:00 /usr/bin/python -E /usr/bin/sealert -s
2611  0.0  0.5  381732  6132 ?       S    12:20   0:02 nautilus --no-desktop --browser
2660  3.4  2.4  354252 25396 ?       Sl   12:20   3:51 /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.7/firefox
2887  0.0  0.2  339324  2280 ?       Sl   12:21   0:00 /usr/libexec/evolution/2.24/evolution-alarm-notify ...
2642  0.0  0.5  331800  6080 ?       Sl   12:20   0:02 gnome-terminal --geometry=90x30
1918  0.0  0.2  327812  2388 ?       Ssl  12:09   0:02 /usr/bin/python -E /usr/sbin/setroubleshootd
2929  0.0  0.2  320556  2672 ?       Sl   12:22   0:01 mono /usr/lib64/tomboy/Tomboy.exe --panel-applet ...
2827  0.0  0.2  313216  2804 ?       Sl   12:21   0:00 /usr/libexec/evolution-data-server-2.24 ...
2909  0.0  0.3  288000  3708 ?       S    12:21   0:00 /usr/libexec/clock-applet ...
2922  0.0  0.2  287036  2812 ?       Sl   12:22   0:00 /usr/libexec/mixer_applet2 ...
2600  0.0  0.2  281228  3000 ?       Ssl  12:20   0:00 /usr/libexec/gnome-settings-daemon
3769  0.0  0.3  276596  3604 ?       S    12:31   0:00 /usr/libexec/notification-daemon
2665  0.0  0.3  262356  3392 ?       S    12:20   0:00 mail-notification --sm-disable
2768  0.0  0.6  257552  6368 ?       S    12:21   0:05 /usr/libexec/wnck-applet ...
2608  0.0  0.5  256040  5848 ?       S    12:20   0:02 gnome-panel
5596  9.1  0.9  254712  9548 ?       Sl   14:04   0:54 gnome-system-monitor
2673  0.0  0.2  241080  2680 ?       S    12:20   0:00 gnome-power-manager
2776  0.0  0.3  240844  3544 ?       S    12:21   0:00 /usr/libexec/trashapplet ...
2609  0.1  0.1  237652  1660 ?       Ss   12:20   0:12 gnome-screensaver

For an old-line embedded systems programmer, who used to think in terms
of KBytes, this looks a little excessive.

Thanks - jon