PEOPLE

By Joel Stein

LIKE MATT DILLON IS COOTIE-FREE

Think about it. If you were as perfect as CAMERON DIAZ, would you want to palm strange bathroom doorknobs? The model cum actress, 25, despite being Matt Dillon's girlfriend, is deeply germophobic. The star of A Life Less Ordinary hasn't worked since shooting that film last winter, instead devoting much of her time to scrubbing her Hollywood home scrupulously. Along with her floors, she says, she washes her hands "many times" each day and uses her elbows to push open doors. "I'm not scared of germs. I'm just aware of them," Diaz says. "I'm not into other people's fluids unless I know them really well."

TASTES LIKE BURNED CHICKEN

If Act I is consensual sex as an adult with your dad and Act II is making a meal of your grandmother's ashes, then we're sticking around through intermission. KATHRYN HARRISON, author of the incest memoir The Kiss, read her latest confession at the ninth annual PEN/Faulkner dinner in Washington to a crowd of squeamish guests that included William Rehnquist and Amy Tan. In her piece, Harrison announced that she had first stuck her finger into the urn that contained her grandmother's brownish, bone-studded ashes, licked it and then decided to go back for a full, five-fingered snack. We hope they served a nice Chianti.

BEANIE, BABY!

Sure they're pasty, effete and live in the past, but the great thing about the English is that they seem smart even when acting stupid. ROWAN ATKINSON's inane mime character, Mr. Bean, washes up on American shores Friday in Bean. Atkinson realizes that Bean's immature antics may not appeal to everyone. "Most of my friends don't have time for Mr. Bean," he says. "For those who prefer their humor more verbal, more literary, or indeed harder or ruder, Bean is not their thing."

FEUD OF THE WEEK JIM ("ALMOST") KELLY

AGE: 37

HEIGHT: 6 ft. 3 in.

WEIGHT: 218 lbs.

OCCUPATION: NBC sportscaster; ex-Bills QB

BEST PUNCH: After calling Harbaugh a "baby" on the air, Kelly took a punch from his nemesis, then said he didn't even remember it.

JIM ("CAPTAIN COMEBACK") HARBAUGH

AGE: 33

HEIGHT: 6 ft. 3 in.

WEIGHT: 215 lbs.

OCCUPATION: Colts QB

BEST PUNCH: Angrily attacked Kelly the night before last Sunday's game, breaking his own hand.

THE WINNER: Kelly. Harbaugh will miss several weeks, at $147,000 a game.