Speaking of cupcakes, I'm starting a 21 day Boot Camp at the gym tomorrow morning at 6 AM. I'm a little afraid.

Kerry and JJ took me out for Indian food. So here are some more photos from Kerry's camera. She brought me flowers, And then we went to Verite for Cupcakes Royale. I wanted a Chocobunny, but there were none left in the display case. So I got a Triple Threat, and then JJ asked for a Chocobunny, and the barista pulled a tray of them from behind the counter. I threw a hissy fit, so JJ split hers with me. She's a good friend. Kerry brought purple glitter-infused candles. They sang and everything.

JJ, Kerry and me. There is steam coming out of my ears cause I ordered four stars.

A picture of me taking a picture of my cupcake, which didn't come out.

Mark & Lori are here from Rhode Island with toddler Maya, who has doubled in size since I saw her last and is ridiculously cute. Every time I hang out with them, I'm like, "Well, maybe I could do this kid thing..." But for now I'll stick to borrowing other people's because then there's more cupcakes for me.

Oh and then Miguelito was here and took me out to dinner, and conned me into seeing Persepolis at the Harvard because I didn't know it was animated. I hate animation. It was artfully done and an important story, blah blah blah, but if I wanted to watch cartoons I could just stay home. It was, however, fabulous to see him as always, and he invited me to Coachella, which I obviously must attend. I'm going to fly into LA and we'll drive out to Palm Springs. Michael is my kind of traveler -- when I raised an eyebrow at the invite because of the 100 degree dusty tent camping, he says, "Are you kidding me? I got a hotel room." I'm all about clean sheets and hot, running water. High maintenance bitch? Perhaps. But it's important to accept ones weaknesses and plan accordingly. Especially 1300 miles from home.

What else? Um, still no Vespa to speak of. Big People Scooters can't find the problem and Vespa Seattle is not returning my calls, so it's Ducati de-ja-vu all over again. Thankfully the Frankenstella is holding her own, though I'm still uneasy about longer rides so I will avoid them for now. Not that getting back an un-diagnosed dying scooter is going to assuage my fear of being stranded halfway to Portland.

We've been restoring old photographs in my Digital Imaging class and I'm enjoying it so much that I've been thinking about going into business. I would have a blast. I'll have to post some of the pics I've been working with. If only I could figure out how to fix 80's hair.

At 6 AM, John in the Morning decided to take me on a private flashback and played an insane set circa 1995, including old Smashing Pumpkins, Morissey and a Beatles song from Sgt. Pepper's. I felt like I was in Ruby's dorm room chain-smoking Marlboro Lights and drinking Beaujolais from the bottle. Then the pledge drive started and my trip down memory lane hit a detour.

Not much else going on. I have a ping-pong tournament today at work. I discovered that the new floor my department is moving to features a gameroom and a lake view. Not from my desk, of course. But I'll enjoy it vicariously through the Chief of Staff.

Rock safely, friends.

"Oh, no no no -- no crying allowed," he said, visibly concerned. I tried not to. I really did. But as I sat in the front seat of the tow truck, watching my scooter in the rearview mirror bob and weave on the flat-bed as we lurched down Airport Way, the tears just overtook me.

"It's my birthday," I said sullenly. I was missing my class. I parked downtown to grab a bite before school and when I returned to my Vespa, it sat stony and silent on 6th Ave, unresponsive to key or ignition.

"Really?!" he cried, "It's my fiancé's birthday too! What a coincidence! Wow! That's so great! A week after Valentine's Day!" He was so nice. I felt bad crying in his truck. He told me animatedly that he had left his fiancé at Tulalip Casino at 10:30 that morning for her birthday, and eight hours later she was still there, having a blast, playing the slots.

I asked him what would happen if the scooter fell off the back of the truck, because I figured that was the next step in my obvious karmic disaster. "That would never happen," he assured me. "I have VERY good truck karma." Great, I said -- maybe it will compensate for my previous life as a blood-sucking cockroach.

"Oh no, you have good karma. You broke down in a well-lit area of downtown, and that space opened up on the street right as I pulled up to park. You could have broken down on the side of the highway. That's the worst thing ever. It could have been really late."

He was right. But I'm not buying that argument easily these days.

He said, "Well okay, if it falls off the back of the truck, you have insurance, so you can just replace it with a new one! You could even get another color if the blue isn't working out for you. Maybe the blue's bad luck."

"Maybe I should have gotten the yellow one."

"Yes -- lemon yellow! Lemon, wait -- that might be a sensitive word right now. Sorry."

He talked jovially the whole way and I stopped crying. His joy in life, he said, came from helping others, so driving a tow truck was the perfect job for him. "If your friend isn't there yet when I drop you off, I can take you someplace else -- someplace safe." Georgetown is sketchy during the day; at night, it's downright frightening. He's not supposed to provide taxi service, but he's a nice guy, and he likes to bend the rules if it means helping a damsel in distress.

We arrive at Big People Scooters without incident, though I could have used a couple Valium. The shop is closed for the night and totally deserted. As we unloaded the scooter, my friend arrived to pick me up. The driver's fiancé called to check in and update him on her winnings, and he handed me the phone so we could wish each other a happy birthday. I should have just hit the casino with her.

Today I returned to BPS to drop off the key. I had my fingers crossed when I pulled into the parking lot, hoping the Vespa would still be there. It was. I had hidden it behind a big electrical box against the building, and it was still safely stowed. Maybe my karma is making a comeback.

They said they're going to keep it over the weekend (in cycle shop terms, this means "till Tuesday or Wednesday" since everybody is closed Sundays and Mondays here -- slackers). He said they'd replace the whole electrical if they needed to. I guess the big question is, WhyTF would they need to?

In order to stay sane, I need to recount the positives -- I broke down in a safe place, I had a nice tow truck driver, I had many friends offering to pick me up, and I ate an enormous piece of German chocolate cake.

I would like to take this opportunity to publicly praise AAA. I know I've said it before that it was the best $60 I ever spent, but I am SO serious. (It cost me $60 to add cycle coverage to my existing account; it's a total of $119 per year.) My dad got me a membership when I turned 16, and I've kept it ever since. It's the greatest invention ever.

Especially if you were a blood-sucking cockroach in a past life.

On my birthday I get to wear a tiara and a tafetta gown. I'm a Pisces and I like to be doted on. I start celebrating my birthday (read as: milking it for all it's worth) several days before, and continue to celebrate for several days after. It's the only holiday I don't have to share with anyone else. Anyone I know. (Anais Nin and I don't hang as much as we used to.)

Bet you didn't know this -- the first phone book was issued in my hometown -- New Haven, Connecticut, on February 21, 1878. This day was destined from greatness, and I'm just a tiny sliver of that.

Time for Cupcake Royale.

A memory resurfaced this morning in the cafe, a strange correlation made by my sleepy mind. The image I remembered was one of those golden moments when you're afraid to move or breathe or change anything because at that second, the entire world is so perfect you don't want to scare it away. Moments of fleeting bliss. Zen moments.

I remembered a Sunday spring afternoon long ago, zipping down Storrow Drive on my little white scooter, cute blue-eyed boy riding on the back, en route to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park. It was late afternoon, the time when the sun descends from the sky and shoots gold all over the trees. I smiled into the rays. I knew we were both hearing the same music playing in our heads -- the boy and I -- it was Luna's cover of the Velvet Underground song "Ride Into the Sun," and I could hear it clearly as if it were being piped in through my little white helmet. We rode that stretch of parkway in a breath of bliss, nothing but sunshine and Luna, the Charles River, open road. A perfect moment, savored. I smiled and thought, "I could die right now and be so happy."

I don't remember if the Red Sox won that night, but I remember coming out of the stadium to find my little white scooter missing. The next day I would be called down to identify the body, opening the glove compartment to let the water and seaweed spill out. She had been found floating in the Charles River. The Kryptonite lock was still through the wheel, which meant she had been lifted and carried to the Mass Ave Bridge by some drunk Yankees fans, and thrown off into the icy depths of the dirty river.

That was a decade ago.

Yesterday was shamelessly delicious. We rode to Renton, this long stretch of dusty road past Boeing, holiday deserted. The sun warmed my face and I basked -- it felt like it had been months since I'd seen daylight. Aphrodite skimmed the pavement effortlessly, vibrationless, nearly silent, and I was free to simply enjoy the ride -- no shifting, no pleading with her to top 50 mph, wondering if the engine was going to explode around the next bend.

After Renton we climbed up to Alki, riding along the beach, every mountain within 100 miles pushing its snowy shoulders above the water for us. We looped West Seattle at a languid pace. Coasting along the waterfront, sunshine on my face, warm, with a bellyful of lunch, I realized my head was totally silent. I was not planning, not analyzing, not trying to make sense of anything, or capture my experience in words. I was not replaying or practicing or archiving. I just... was. I soaked in the moment, the air, captured it with my skin, savored it on my tongue. It was a pure moment of Zen. And I thought, "I could die right now and be so happy."

The glow persisted for the rest of the afternoon, and though my head predictably turned the volume back up, I didn't have much material to work with. Good friends, new scooter, perfect apartment, good job with a fat raise, fulfilling school, I'm healthy, I'm sane -- there's not a single thing I would change right now, if I could. So I'd review that list, reassuring myself, making the dialog quiet down again, so it could just become waves in Puget Sound, and mountains in the sky, and sun making the metallic midnight blue Vespa sparkle like a chariot.

When I returned home in the early evening to pick up some items and venture back out, the scooter would not start. The LCD display sputtered and the engine clicked and whirred, and then silence. I checked the kill switch, which has a habit of getting pushed in when you put the seat up. I made sure the brakes were in. I checked the oil. I checked the sparkplug. I tried again. No dice. Aphrodite, my three-day-old scooter, was dead.

See, I don't want to become one of those people who really believes that when things seem too good to be true, they are. I want to believe I deserve a shot at happiness. I felt like the universe was getting back at me for having such a great day. "For every action, an equal and opposite reaction." But that can't be true, can it? I'm trying to hang onto the other maxim, "shit happens." Sometimes, shit's timing is not so great. In this case, I'm glad I got to enjoy Monday so fully before the shit happened, and I'm grateful the shit happened in my driveway and not in Renton.

I was paralyzed by the irony of riding the Frankenstella out to Greenwood last night for dinner. The scooter I forcefully abandoned because I know an abusive relationship when I see one. She took me all the way out to 120th without incident, and then home, in the pitch black night, over the Ballard Bridge which smelled like the sea, all along 15th to Denny, where I rode past Vespa Seattle, gazing through the showroom window and grinding my teeth in frustration.

Big People Scooters came this morning and picked up the immobilized Aphrodite, loaded her on a trailer next to another midnight blue Vespa (though an LX150), and I watched her disappear around the corner. I returned sullenly to work. My friends are trying to convince me that the coincidences are just that -- but my sister can recommend a good exorcist for the Frankenstella.

Luckily, it appears Aphrodite suffered only from a dead battery, which I imagine was from sitting in the showroom for so long. Lots of people have cited the stock battery in the GTS as total crap, and recommend replacing it as soon as you get the bike home. Well, she's got a new battery now, and I'll have them examine the charging system to make sure that's working; I'm not totally comfortable with the fact that I rode nearly 200 miles over the weekend and the battery didn't charge. But she'll be due for her first service in a week or two, based on my current weekend adventures.

I'm hitting the restart button. Control + R. Refresh. Clean slate. "Coincidences" bedamned. From here on out, it will be smooth sailing. Or scooting. Maybe it's all the X-files I've been watching, but, I want to believe.

It's been three days now and I can't seem to get this shit-eating grin off my face. I know this won't mean much to 90% of you, but we're talking 350 pounds of four-stroke, automatic, liquid-cooled, fuel-injected Italian steel. We're talking 0-60 in as long as it takes for the Hummer you left at the light to say, "Did you see something?"

That would be my 250cc Vespa Granturismo Sport. Mine. MINE. Aphrodite, in her midnight blue, is my new BFF. And it's True Love Forever.

I left the Frankenstella in the hands of Orin, and apparently while in his garage, she infected his PX150 with the evil Stellavirus -- on today's ride his Vespa experienced a frighteningly familiar racing idle. That scooter is just bad voodoo.

I will have more pictues to share shortly, and the one above is not particularly noteworthy, but I was encouraged to post about my new crush, and I can't rely on other people's photos solely.

I guess I can rely on them partially:

(Courtesy of Orin. Cause it's hard to take a picture of yourself when you're riding, you know. )

Wait -- what am I doing sitting here writing when I could be out riding?! I'm trying to break 200 miles today. We're pretty darn close.

I'm off...

Hoping a spark plug change would help, Ralph and I rode out to U Village to Schucks. They didn't have any of the type I needed in stock. I hadn't planned on going to the automotive store right then, so I left the slip of paper with the type of plug I needed on my desk. Because of this detail, I was treated to holier-than-thou handling by the Counter Man at Schucks, who rolled his eyes and gave me the "Dumb Girl" tone one uses with a wailing toddler. I was ready to get all up in his grill and show him what for -- and I'll take my money elsewhere you smug little prick -- but I didn't want to embarrass Ralph who is much more mild-mannered than I. Instead, I snatched the example spark plug I had supplied from my glove box and marched out.

Returning on Roosevelt, Celeste nearly died twice while wide-open, and I sadly descended 10th, parked my scooter and went inside to lick my wounds and feel sorry for myself.

Two hours later, a raucous rescue team of Westenders pulled into my driveway to joyously begin relief efforts at reviving the Frankenstella. I stood with my hands in my pockets as Doc removed the cowl and a dozen scooterists gathered around to view the innards of my feeble engine.

Doc is an absolute genius. In ten minutes he had bared the carb, checked the jet, adjusted the idle, swapped out the sparkplug, and started her back up. Then we took a test run through Montlake. Celeste surged neck-and-neck with Doc's P200 as we raced up the endless hill in fourth gear and she was chomping at the bit to break 50.

My face started to hurt and I realized that I looked like the Cheshire Kat with the world's biggest smile plastered across my face. We took Aloha by storm, up the back side of Capitol Hill, and when I looked in my rear view, it was just me and Doc. In the glory of digging my newfound chutzpah, we'd left the rest of the Westenders in the dust.

The thing is, when you're not worried about stalling, or slipping the clutch, or figuring out where that weird sound is coming from, there is nothing that compares to a joyride in the open air on a scooter tricked out for drag-racing. It has been a long time since I rode so carefree, and the overwhelming Yeehaw! of it made me high for the rest of the afternoon.

Orin offered to show me how to adjust my clutch and also how to change a tire. I've gotten a flat on that bike, but since I was holding it over a curb to raise the rear up, I didn't get to watch the actual tire changing. One of the Vespa club folks told me I could just lay the bike down in the grass and change it myself if I picked up a nail while on the road alone. It looks like we're going to hold a series of tech labs in my garage where the Elders learn the Newbies how to work on their own bikes. I'm so excited about this -- it's one of the reasons I wanted a two-stroke to being with. I just hadn't had a chance to even crack open the shop manual before the Frankenstella began her rapid decline.

Doc even had great plans for restoring the street damage done to her body. A rubber hammer, some filler, buffing and touch-up paint and she'll be ready for the chrome kit that's been sitting in storage since September. Celeste has taken three tumbles and I've yet to put on the crash bars. But those are going on soon, and Project Bling will be underway. I've got to catch up to Roger Tango's super sweet red Vespa that's All Modded Out with whitewhalls and chrome. There's a pic of the competition here, taken by Orin, alongside his own Vespa. (Plus lots more great shots, like me emoting while Doc fixes my bike.) Hopefully I'll actually get to go on the next ride and use my very own camera. Perhaps for my birthday, on the Westenders Frankenstella Resurrection Ride!