Okay, yeah, I really do need brains, but not for the reason you might think: being the friendless hermit I am, I had no idea a truly fantastic day of zombie fun was taking place tomorrow in this here mini-opolis, but when I passed the e-mail along my ol’ friend Mo sent me, I discovered I am, alas, the last to know…

And, according to one of my roomies, there’s a zombie bike parade happening at some point in the undead festivities.

With that in mind, I decided I should probably check out the damage to the baby, which occurred on one of my journeys home from Manyhunks: turning to look behind me as an ambulance nearly made me its next passenger, my front wheel was attacked by a particularly ornery piece of tree…

It was an angry piece of bark, more bark than bite, thankfully, but surly and sticklike and thus it stuck itself in between my wheel and brake, taunting me to try to ride now, sucka’! (Tree parts must get v. angry this time of year, all the wind and such making them ground up ground covering.)

Alas, the damage is minimal: a professional will be needed for a bit of a true, but for the most part, it’s just a wee bit wobbly … much like its owner.

What I did discover, however, is, while attempting to return the wheel to its fork, a crunchy dirt-like sound, which turned out to be … dirt. And lots of it.

Much like my many-thousand-dollar four-wheeled cup-holder’ed bike carrier, my modes of transport get fantastically filthy. I can remember nights, after hours spend riding in the grip of El Nino, my ex would come home, dry off, and immediately begin cleaning off his bike in preparation for another 10 hours, 100+ miles of the next days’ soggy messenger hell.

And look! On the couch! Who’s that?

Well, that’s me, also having ridden 10 hours sopping wet, flopped on the couch watching the Simpsons. Of course, I also had a fantastic bike mechanic at the time who was more than patient when my shit would get all fucked up due to my utter lack of care for the intricate mechanics that made the gears shift when I told them to, wheels turn and brakes stop.

Alas, he ceased to exist ages ago, and my two-wheeled debacles continue, unabated.

And it’s not like I haven’t tried to make new bike boy friends: I chased the hottie on the LeMond for blocks, but, more than likely the grit populating every turning part slowed me down enough for him to escape…

From now on I resort to second grade tactics, and instead of trying to impress them with my outrageously muscled calves and cycling skills, I’m just going to knock them down and kiss them…

Hey, it worked back then!

I signed up for a fiction writing class this semester. It’s actually more like a writing workshop, where students bring in a piece of short fiction for everyone else to take home, read and make comments on, then bring back to the next week’s class for a group critique.

What’s most interesting about the process is that, after a few opening comments, the writer is summarily done away with, “killed” as it were, in order to get the most out of the critique process.

I enjoy this: after about a bajillion years in art school, suffering through crits where the artist would either become sulky, belligerent or just wouldn’t shut the fuck up, this is a great way to get the most out of the process, for everyone involved.

Of course, I have no idea when I’ll be able to bring something of mine in. It’s not that I’m afraid I’ll get all sulky, belligerent or won’t stop thinking about things I’d like to say, albeit in a corpse-like way. It’s more that I’m worried that, once I put something down on paper, I’ll discover I’m actually terrible, complete and utter shit, not even fit for Harlequin prefab plotline bodice ripper WalMart tosh, and all the fantasies I’ve perpetuated in my addled mind of being the next literary icon will go down the drain.

No books on the shelves bearing my name. No book tour entertaining the three people who have read my book. (After all of you, of course: as my friends you’re required to at least skim the first chapter and read the end so you can pretend when I crash on your couch at my literary stop in your town you’ve devoured every word, in addition to searching for the parts that are actually written about you, albeit with different names and such.)

And no time on Oprah’s couch, the saddest part of all! Think about it, sitting across from the richest woman in the solar system, pouring out my heart and maybe even misting up a few times, milking the “I am woman watch me bear my soul for ratings! Yeah!” quotient with the skill of a dairy queen:

“The details and situations in your book are so compelling, and really, none of us could really imagine living such an existence. Tell me, how did you create these characters?”

“Well, Oprah, every one of my characters embodies a little piece of me, and honestly, I’ve lived through most of what I’ve written, the good, the bad and, worst of all, the ugly,” I’ll reply as the soothing light softly illuminates my face (thanks to the fifteen inches of foundation they’ve caked on me so I look less like the ghostly pale phantom I really am) as a small tear begins to trickle down my cheek. I’ll look embarrassed to be so open with so many millions of people, and the camera will hold long enough for me to look down and dab my eyes with a tissue. Books will begin to fly off the shelf and into peoples’ hot little hands of their own volition…

“I can’t believe it! It’s pure brilliance, and that you were willing to share that with the reader. It’s truly some of the best writing I’ve encountered. Truly cuts to the heart of pain and joy as few have seen it on the page…” Amazon.com will sell out in minutes…

“It’s all my life; my past…”

“Really? The emotionally crippled alcoholic who broke her heart? The bi-polar poet who kept promising to kill himself if she left him? The head quarterback???”

“All true… er… well, okay, not the last one…”

“Truly amazing! We can only thank you for sharing your tumultuous journey with us!” The Pulitzer people will call….

“And I thank you, Oprah, for making me filthy rich!”

Seriously, though, it’s not like I haven’t got plenty of source material to draw from. After all, I’m rapidly sliding closer and closer to the grave (yeah, I’m still stressing over turning 35 — shaddup!), I’ve had an interesting life, I think…

Not everyone can say they literally grew up in an airplane, with a hangar out their kitchen window, getting woken up in the middle of the night to fly some part or other to Pennsylvania, Ohio, wherever, while my mother worked the midnight shift at the hospital.

My brother and I would trudge across the runway, climb up the steps into the prop-jet, blankets, books, toys and teddy bears in hand, and settle down to sleep, read or just stare out the windows, bracing ourselves and our belongings during takeoff so we wouldn’t slide off the leather chairs. (When your dad’s the pilot, you don’t have to fasten your seat belts.)

Many people have never been out of the country; I can call two countries my own. I haven’t traveled anywhere near as much as I’d like to, but some days when I wake up I can’t remember — smelling the damp cold — if I’m in London, San Francisco or the Adirondacks. (Which isn’t nearly as bad as the days I can’t remember, when crossing the street, which direction the traffic’s supposed to be coming from!)

But, at the same time, while it all seems like it might be entertaining, does anyone really care?

I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s simply a matter of putting it down, allowing my peers to ceremoniously kill me for half an hour, and going home to do it again. Because, it ain’t about the money … if I were interested in that I would never have gone to art school!!!

“So Saint Joseph is your pimp?”

My roommate; I love her. Like me, she’s totally upfront, pointing out the obvious, and at this moment the obvious seemed to be that my mother was pimping me out to some dead carpenter. Great.

“Well…. noooo… I mean….. ahhhhhh. uh….. yeah. I guess he is,” was all I could muster in response, because the fact of the matter is, somehow my “recovering Catholic” mother has lapsed into pop-Catholicism and, in a drive to get her daughter off the goddamn shelf, tasked ol’ dead Joe with getting me hitched.

Rockin’….

Allow me to explain this here biblical turnaround: It has to do with the house.

My parents live in a simple, yet beautiful A-frame, hardwood-floored, cathedral-ceilinged house at the end of a dirt road in the middle of the woods in upstate New York. It’s surrounded by trees and has big deck and lots of scary wild animals and, as my father is mere months from retirement, they are trying to unload the thing because, quite frankly, it’s too goddamned much work.

In an attempt to sell the thing in an area where the average selling price is many thousands below what they’re asking for (although most structures in that area also tend to also come with, ah, wheels…) my mother took herself off to the Catholic tchotchke store because someone told her St. Joseph is the seller of houses.

And wouldn’t you know it, at the churchy tchotchke store, when my mom inquired about the statue the woman responded, “Oh, you’re trying to sell your house,” thus sending my mother into near-biblical (en)light(enment).

But there’s a hitch: you gotta’ stick Joey upside down in the ground near the road facing out. Simple enough. A little work with a garden tool and voila, he’s ready to do his thing.

Except, for the failed Catholic who only goes to church when someone dies or is born, some things don’t always go as planned.

Upon walking one of the dogs the next morning my mother was horrified to discover that Joe had managed to spontaneously unearth himself and was laying, rather accusatorily, by the side of the drive.

And that, my friends, is the kiss of death, because there is nothing more deep seated and ingrained in any Catholic, practicing or hiding in the coffee shop on Sunday mornings behind the heretical New York Times, than guilt. Without the guilt half the shit that goes on behind the gilt doors and holy water would never fly, and it is the guilt that will inevitably see us on our deathbeds calling for the last rites “just in case.”

I told her to get over it, stick him back in there, only this time put a big rock on top of him until he’s done his job. (Can you guess who never paid attention in Catholic school and therefore is doomed to hell?) She, however, was naturally spooked, and took him inside, cleaned him off and placed him on the windowsill.

And that’s when the pimping began. Seems they’ve developed a real relationship, my mother and St. Pimpalot, chatting as she washes dishes, cooks some food or just hangs around.

Because, you see, in addition to being a divine real estate agent, Joe’s also the protector of families, and who needs better protecting than the stray 34-year-old wild child who really just needs to settle down so she and my father can die peacefully knowing that I will not wind up on the streets surrounded by trash and feral cats, begging for change so I can get my caffeine fix. (See? The guilt…)

So now, what do I do? If I date someone, not only will that further convince her that Divine Master Pimp is working, it might just send my post-hippie no nonsense pro-drugs (but only things like pot and cigarettes), -choice and -premarital sex mother back to the pews.

And, even worse, this could potentially lock me into a relationship with the first sucker I’m silly enough to admit to seeing, thus forcing my (non-existent) love life underground. Or, even worse, could keep me from ever dating again because, well, who can go on with that sort of pressure and besides, I’d be afraid he’d be, you know, watching all the time….

Not to be too catty, but I’m struck by Britney Spears’ big, fat wrestler neck. I’ve noticed it before, but it’s like someone stuck Barbie’s head on Henry Rollins…

She’s got those trailer trash lines where fat rolls will soon sag out, too, if you look close… so eventually she’s going to look like trashy Barbie on Henry Rollins’ neck covered by a big, soft fleshy sock…

He he!

That’s what I get for checking into Google news all day — you never know what’s going to catch your attention. Could be a literal train derailment across the world, or a virtual one across the country!

I need these things to keep me entertained and informed. Sad but true. But hey, I’m journalist through and through, no matter what industry I may currently be whoring myself out for.

Which is why it shouldn’t come as a shock, thought it does at least to me, that I’ll be checking out Columbia School of Journalism’s PhD program next month. Granted, the odds of me getting in are about the same as the odds of me marrying the prince of Denmark, (once he ditches that awful Australian, that is!) but hey, stranger things have happened.

And, I’ve got to be building up good karma by getting on the train by 6–bloody–a.m. on a Saturday to get to Man–effing–hattan on time, right?!?!?

Plus, if I don’t like what I see, I can always move to Denmark…

Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage’s wife of 14 months gave birth on Monday to the couple’s first child together, a son they named Kal-el — a moniker recognised by comic book fans as the birth name of Superman.

Awoke yesterday to the sound of a plastic bag rustling. As the fan was pointed in the opposite direction, my groggy brain began to send warning signals to my hung over body.

Crawling out of bed — many hours spent playing a drinking game revolving around being the first one to know the name and/or title of the random 90s songs that kept coming on at the bar made me realize the years of mosh pits and free DJ passes to the Rocket, Babyhead, Rathskellar, countless clubs named Trocadero and many more I can barely remember, may have finally taken their toll — I stared at the Whole Foods bag that held the remains of a massive vegan chocolate chip cookie eaten over several e-mail sessions.

Slightly to the left of said bag I realized, even in my half-blind non-contact-lensed state, something was staring back at me, and that’s when I realized that yep, it really is fall, and Couscous — or his bastard offspring; he was mighty small — had already taken up residence in my humble abode.

A little back story: I don’t mind most animals or spiders; most other bugs heeb me out. Unless, that is, I’m laying in the middle of the woods surrounded by a canvas tent or some other form of camping acoutrement, in which case I am inhabiting some other creatures’ home — thus, I can cope. But, in my own home, I prefer to live in solitude. Plus, I’m afraid they’re going to crawl in my mouth while I sleep and take itty bitty digital pictures to send to all their furry friends… (“Woo hoo! Lookie me! ha ha! I got my whole HEAD in that snoring human’s mouth! Betcha’ she’d freak out if she knew! Squeak!”)

So, it was a bit disturbing when, last winter, I realized I have a roommate of the small, furry variety. Calling him one day, in vain, he was anointed with his nom de squeak: CousCous. (Imagine this, people: a few glasses of red wine and I’m wandering about, flashlight in hand, sing-songing, “moose-moose! C’mere moose-moose!” Thus, Couscous stuck…)

So, Couscous, or, perhaps, Spawn of Couscous, has returned, and with him, crisp, cool weather. That I do not mind, though that means driving in snow isn’t much behind, but that as well I am a bit of an expert at, so it’s all good. (Riding in snow: different story. I’m a wimp. It’s true. Walked out of Whole Foods today (yes, it’s an affliction: I am yuppie, hear me roar as I carry organic non-BSE laden cheese products to my mouse-ful lair… *sigh*) into the pouring rain.

Skidding on painted stripes, nearly getting taken out by buses and getting drenched in the process as I slowly turned the pedals toward home, I had a massive flashback to El Nino, and my long-lost messenger 50-degree always wet sniffles EmergenC in the water bottle getting hit on Polk Street unable to stop and get out of the way of the nearsighted station wagon driver nerve damage makes the left hand go numb after too much time on the drops and the messenger bag digging into the shoulder doesn’t help much days. Sometimes the worker bee cubicle don’t seem so goddamned bad…

And, as my roommate came dragging in as wet and dirty as me thanks to her similar two-wheeled trip up Walnut, and we sat in front of the idiot box watching some new sitcom er other, I found myself wondering if a single mouse is really that bad. Because, as Thendara can attest, once upon a time in the SF we were overrun…

Although, and laugh at me all you want if it doesn’t work: my mom told me she uses dryer sheets to keep them out of her camper.

My entire room now smells like a Bounce factory exploded…