I'm in a New York state of mind...

Wow, I just realized I missed the whole month of November! Oh how time flies around the holidays...

I guess the big news of November was Jim and Jason going on a somewhat impromptu trip to the Big Apple. Jason went to help two of his Drinking Ladies alumni deal with their New York single gal apartments (or "maxi-pads" as they refer to 'em.) Four days of trolling every thrift store in lower Manhattan, hitting the Brooklyn Flea Market, and drinking in just about every gay bar in Chelsea, the West Village, and the East Village.

I'm proud of my boys.

Luckily they had a good tour guide in the form of a certain Ms. Abby Featherstone. I set things up for her a while ago when she found her current apartment just down the street from my "Bad Pussies" mural at 3rd & Avenue B (see above.) Now her entire world of work/living/eating/drinking all takes place in a 10 minute radius of the East Village, thanks to my handiwork. During this trip she help me plant the New York bug into Jim and Jason...

(Of course I'm just talking figuratively...J&J were vigilant against the bedbugs and made sure they never came in contact with the vermin.)

Thanksgiving turned into a blessing and a curse. More Drinking Ladies and their families came to our home for lots of good food and wine and the night of the event was full of laughter and charades and good times. But sometime during the day, Jason must've eaten something bad 'cause by Friday he ended up with the worst case of food poisoning/stomach flu ever. He basically lost the entire weekend, and Jim and I did all we could to help him recover from his fever and nausea.

This month we're just hanging on to each other, trying to get through the rest of the year. I'll keep y'all posted on what happens!

When you were young and your heart was like an open book, you used to say, "Live and let live..."

Whoa--Jason just reminded me that October is nearly over and that I haven't updated y'all on the Runnicles yet this month.

Well, what to say? We've been busy. This whole month has been full of all sorts of social events every weekend: The Castro Street Fair, Aimee Mann at Yoshi's, our friend Sylvia's annual Hula show at the Palace of Fine Arts, The Trashcan Sinatras, Jason's little cousin's birthday party at Bruno's, and a spooky Halloween party at the historic Haas-Lilienthal Mansion.

For those of you who know Jason and Jim, this is uncommon. They are not social butterflies. But when the occasion rises, they can party just as hard as Pierre and Maggie Trudeau at Studio 54. (Boy, those were the days. Halston and I would hang out in a corner booth while the waiters would pour us champagne funneled through their abs. Good times.)

In addition to all this, Jason's been busy as hell with his Retrograde work, going up to Sacramento to finish up a family home as well as wrapping up another single gal's maxi-pad. Last night was the first weekend night he and Jim and I had together at home all month, so we got some fried chicken to-go from Home and watched the Project Runway finale. Ah, simple pleasures...

Jason's been working really hard with his side business. He's tired enough after the day job, but I tell him that he's got to stick with it if he wants to succeed. I mean, I was hanging out with David Hicks and Yves Saint Laurent back in the day in Marrakech, burning the candle at both ends with my writings on design. I wanted to be successful and get my book published, so I didn't take a break until Keith Richards showed up one day and slipped me some powerful recreational substances. Before I knew it, I had slept through the rest of the '70s and woke up in a club somewhere in the '80s doing coke off of Grace Jone's gleaming black a**. Needless to say, my book was lost.

So I guess the big lesson is to work hard in your creative endeavors, and stay the f*** away from Keith Richards if he offers you anything.

Jim, on the other hand, is also ending the month with some good news. He's going to be published in the Santa Fe Review soon! As for my advice to him...I'd just say don't spend too much time in Interzone.

And the people all said, "Sit down! Sit down, you're rocking the boat!"

Well, I know I always say it, but it's been a crazy month despite the fact that we all seem to be in a holding pattern. Jason keeps saying it's because Mercury's in retrograde, but then again I think he believes in that hocus-pocus mumbo-jumbo way too much. I think I caught him casting some chicken bones and some runes after he read his tea leaves and disemboweled a bird this morning. He said he was taking out the composting, but I don't believe him.

Anyhow, Jim's still trying to juggle things around at work while keeping his sanity. Jason has given up all pretense that his work has any redeeming social value. There have been many nights spent on the sofa, bourbon in hand and tear in eye. I've also been babysitting as much as I can to help out around the house. It's tough times right now, I tell ya. Even for a cat.

At a recent wedding, Jason ran into an old friend who now lives in Chicago. She and her hubby encouraged the Runnicles to come visit. Shortly afterwards, Jason heard from another old friend and colleague who moved to the windy city a while ago. And then we got a few more signs pointing us to the mid-west...all the in past few days. Kinda weird, if you ask me. Maybe Jason's on to something with his voodoo nonsense...

A new adventure? I can see it now:

CAMERA PANS OVER CHICAGO SKYLINE

CHINO'S VOICEOVER: I've been to a lot of places around this world. But now I've got a family. It's time for a new adventure in the windy city. Watch out, bitches!

ZOOM IN TO A 'WELCOME TO CHICAGO' SIGN. ANIMATED CAT TAIL KNOCKS AWAY ALL LETTERS EXCEPT "C", "H", "I", AND "O". ANIMATED ORANGE TABBY JUMPS INTO SIGN TO FORM THE LETTER "N".

We'll see if any networks go for it.

Soy un perdedor...I'm a loser, baby

Yeah, I need my reading glasses these days...I'm not getting any younger, right?

So what's been going on? "Same sh**, different day," as Jason likes to say. He's been working hard with both his dayjob and his side business. Jim's been stressed out at work again--let's just say the writing's on the wall over at his office.

The weekends have been nice here in the city, more or less, but we all still miss the crazy heat wave of last year. I personally miss having our friend Jen D. around in the neighborhood 'cause she was such a good cat sitter...but we're trying to convince some other friends to move close by.

Jason's mother had a medical scare recently, and for some reason Jim's family keeps sending him news and clippings of his childhood acquaintances who have died. Strange days.

But I guess nothing's too strange when you're living in a house full of Runnicles.

Are you with me, Doctor Wu?

So Amy asked for a photo of me in my Flashdance t-shirt. Here it is.

For those of you who didn't know, I had a little surgery recently to remove a benign lil' tumor on my side. Rather than have me wear a cone around my neck (oh, the indignity) and risk smothering to death (oh, the humanity) Jason and Jim took this old t-shirt from a teddy bear and put it on me to keep me from gettin' at my stitches.

Yeah, it's kind of scoop-necked and knotted at one side for a better fit. And you can't see the front, but there's this cartoon of a motorcycle biker on it and the words "Highway Boogie". It used to belong to Jason's older brother Dewey when he was a lil' kid, then it got put on the teddy bear, and now I got the chance to wear it for a while.

Luckily the stitches are out and I can give the shirt back to its rightful owner.

In family news, Jason's been getting a lot of work lately, and Jim's still trying to figure it all out. They're going to take a few days off soon and I'm looking forward to hanging out with little cousin Johnny, who we don't see as often as we should. Watch out, Castro...we'll be tearing it up at night.

The boys are back, the boys are back in town!

Holy f***ing sh**, I'm back.

Did you miss me?

A few months ago, Jason, Jim, and I sat down and had a long talk about our family website, runniclesonline.com (don't try and access it--it doesn't exist anymore.) Jason had branched out and was doing his own thing with his design blog. Jim wasn't really using the site for his own work and tried his own hand at blogging--it didn't work out. In the end, I was the only one really using it, so we decided to just scrap it and go our separate ways, web-wise.

Now don't get all sad, it's not like we were the Beatles or anything (but if we were, you know I'd be John. Jason'd be George Harrison 'cause he's kind of enigmatic. And Jim'd be Ringo, just because.) In the end, I knew it'd be best if I found something easier to use than our old Mac-based website. I mean really, I'm a cat on the go. I can't be bogged down by a single platform like that. If I'm in Bangkok, I want to be able to keep y'all updated with my adventures! I needed something entirely web-based, so I decided to start something new on Blogger. Now it doesn't if I'm in Iceland. Or the Phillipines. Or this place...

Yes, the two-year archive of my old blogs are gone and probably won't get re-posted on this site. But sometimes fresh starts are good. I'll keep everyone updated on what's happening with Jim, Jason, and the rest of the cast.

So far everything's the same, except we're all getting fatter. With the warmer weather, though, Jason's back to crippling himself with daily runs and Jim's cutting back on the beer. I've been riding my bike to my North Beach writers' group instead of scootin' around on my Vespa and taking an extra Jazzercise class whenever I can. I mean really, a cat's gotta stay slim, right?

Hope everyone is enjoying the sun as much as I am. I look forward to chronicling more family adventures this summer.