[texhax] parbox placement

[Dana Murray]

Hi

I am using LaTeX and would like to place a parbox somewhere on a page
without affecting the spacing of the rest of the page.  

For instance, can one "record" the vertical position on a page, then do
the parbox and then return to the recorded vertical position?  I know I
can undo the vertical spacing of the parbox, but would like to have a
mechanism whereby I need not do this in an ad hoc way for every parbox. 
This is what \marginpar does, but I don't think I can use marginpar.

Thank you.

Dan Murray