WHAM.

Today autumn slammed into New York like a ton of orange, gold, and red colored anvils.

It wasn't gradual this year. Normally we spend a bit more time in 70sville before dwindling down into 60stown.

About this time every year I get what I've come to refer to as the "Fall Melancholy". I'm delighted by the gorgeous weather, the turning leaves, and promise of end-of-the-year festivities and merrymaking, and at the same time infected with a creeping depression that gnaws at the edges of my soul--death is on its way. Persephone is returning to the underworld.

And *man* does that get me down.

But while the F.M. usually works like a slow-acting poison, this year it's worked a little bit more like a bludgeon to the noodle. It's like Manhattan grabbed me by the shirt this morning and said, "Fall's here, muthuhf*#kuh!"

It then forced me to hand over my varied collection of smiles, songs, and hopes I normally keep locked safely in my heart.

Matters have been made considerably worse by the knowledge that today my Dad forever locked the doors on our family's house in Texas. The key on my keyring which remained a symbol of security and promise of a warm meal and cozy bed waiting for me somewhere across the miles has been relinquished.

Mom says, "You'll always have memories." Well, yeah. But that doesn't mean it doesn't suck.

Then there's all this political garbage. I don't know what it's like where you live, but in New York, it's a veritable battlefield of nasty, nasty headlines on every "news"paper you see. The media up here is positively beside themselves with delight at the prospect of turning vitriol into dollars as people exchange quarters for rags reading "Scandal!", "Shock!", and "Certain Doom!"

Everyone's mad. Everyone's ready to fight. And if you *don't* think and profess that one "S.P." is the Baba Jaga and eats orphaned baby sea otters for lunch every day, get ready to be fed to the lions. It's just dreadful.

And 28 is half over. Oh God. Oh GOD! I don't say that as an oath either. But as a cry for mercy. Where's my fancy job, sack of money, house, wife, kid, and SUV?

Part of me adores my family (I'm thinking, specifically of the "family" that happens when we're all together in South Carolina). After all, if I continue along in this Peter Pan existence and spend the rest of my days penniless and alone, at least I know someone will be around to begrudgingly bury my Forkish bones (thanks in advance, Li'l Allie). I find great comfort in spending time with them.

But the other part **loathes** them for the very reason my brother Forko always hated "them". Sitting around the table at Thanksgiving, these perfectly dear but bored people insist on making the guy with the funny hair into a birthday party clown.

"Why didn't you bring your stilts?"

"Why aren't you playing your ukulele?"

"When are you gonna be on Broadway?"

"Put on a play for us!"

"Do a trick for the baby! You're an *actor* after all. You're supposed to do tricks!"

"You need to get your mom to give you a haircut!"

Funny that no one asks for a demonstration of my mad modeling skillz.

So we three (my echo, my shadow, and me) are anticipating these coming trips to SC over the holidays to be a soft-serve chocolate swirl of creamy relaxation with that unmistakable when's-the-expiration-date-on-this-thing sour edge of apprehension and defensiveness.

That and with the second great depression all up ons...it's all a person can do to keep from drowning a sack of kittens to protect them from the torture of being alive in a world gone bonkers.

Kittens...Nelson...oh my son! Forgive me!

That's Fall, Folks!