How I love my sweet new ride, with its sleek lines and functional rear windshield wiper. It�s vastly superior to my previous ride, the Goldy P. All weekend, I did little but cruise and cruise from the laundromat to the grocery store, luxuriating on the leather seats and listening to Serge Gainsbourg on the CD player, which works�another area of superiority to my previous ride. Yes, it is smooth as whipped cream cheese, my lovely black Volvo 940 wagon of love.

The opening line of �Histoire de Melody Nelson,� the Gainsbourg CD I played on endless repeat, whispers, over a slinky bass line, �The wings of the Rolls skimmed the pylons�� or something like that; it�s in French, but I think that�s what it says. Listening to it, I easily envisioned a silver hood ornament flying ahead of me as I negotiated the curves in the supermarket parking lot, imagining myself as a devastating French degenerate on my way to an impromptu tryst with an underaged girl. Such is the power of my new ride. Amen, amen.

I named my new car Inky, after a lanky and affectionate black kitten I once came across and also named Inky, rather than in reference to the ink in my fountain pen, which is chocolate brown. If this past weekend is any indication, then I foresee great things for me and Inky.

Inky and I went to our first meeting of a book club on Saturday, an assembly characterized by the common traits of hangovers and varying degrees of haven�t-read-the-book-ness. As you might imagine, I fit right in. The book we failed to read was A Million Little Pieces, and as I didn�t read it, I was forced to guess at its plot during the discussion. My oral report, in which I glibly described a book closer to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory than (as I later learned) the semi-fictional memoir of a drug addict, garnered much attention but little praise, and we were forced to move on to the next item on the agenda which was: Finding a name for my band.

The list of names was, I report, disappointing, and ranged from Lesbian Spank Inferno to Renee and the Tit-Grabbers. I was mollified by the giant vat of Mimosas on hand, but left without a suitable suggestion, a situation that will soon become untenable, as evidenced by the phone call I got from Anthony just as I was leaving the book club.

He called from the brewery where he and his fiancee Lara work, to tell me that a film crew was there getting footage for a reality series on microbreweries. �Yeah, it�s slightly weird,� he said over the clanking of the bottling machine in the background, �they�ve been following us around all day.� The footage is for a pilot, he said, which will be pitched to a cable network. The upshot of his call was that the film crew wanted to get some footage of the band, and could I come down to the brewery. His timing was perfect�I had nothing but errands on the docket, and several Mimosas under my belt.

Sadly, the shoot was postponed until Friday, which means that I have several days to contemplate important issues like wardrobe and oh, I don�t know, lack of overall singing ability. It�s perfect. By the time they�re ready to film me, I�ll be a complete neurotic geek, wearing a bathrobe over a stolen mink coat, mismatched false eyelashes hanging at odd angles, chain-smoking Mores and gibbering like Charo.

To disabuse myself of that notion, I spoke to my friend Al Perry, who gave me this advice: Get over yourself. I paraphrase, but that was the essence, and he delivered it with such casual certainty that I was forced to see his wisdom. He reminded me, not unkindly, that this proposed show on breweries by definition is not focused primarily on me, and at most, I might appear for two seconds in a segment that�s part of a larger work, if it airs at all.

�But I don�t feel ready,� I told him. �I�m concerned that I�m totally unprepared to perform in public.� I heard a slight laugh on the other end of the phone, so I pressed him. �Do you ever play a gig where you feel just totally unprepared?� He laughed again, and said, �Seven times a week. I never feel prepared.�

One of the problems connected to addiction is that abandoning the drug creates a void. My self-consciousness being what it is�a time-consuming addiction�would create its own void, were I to abandon it. Sometimes I think I hang onto it because I can�t imagine what would take its place.

Star of the day. . .Cool Beth