Hmmm... all this excuse of the attached picture and I forgot to attach it...
Hope it works. I have not tested it.

>My "touch circuit" is a piece of grounded wire :)). The pic somehow detects
>the touch (I programmed it in PicBasicPro with a simple rctime command that
>measures a change) which works fine - except that I cant independently
>reproduce it in another PIC at the same time. So I guess my question is -
>is there a way to give each pic its own ground? I'm using a standard wall
>wart 9 volt adapter with no real earth pin.

I have humble answer to your problem, but I am afraid it contains two
transistors and one resistor for each detector.

I'm tryly sorry for the attachment, I know many of the PICsters don't aprove
of it, but sending the picture of the circuit is the only way I see to give
away this information.

Hope it is of any help, and PLEASE give me feedback if I have completely
screwed this one up, misunderstood something and so. :-) Please be
indulgent, I am only a student yet... :-))

Attachment converted: wonderland:touch.JPG (JPEG/JVWR) (00018230)