There's an Engrish sign I've seen--- a Japanese noodle stall that says "Let's Kiosk!" I really, really want to order noodles there. Going for miso-flavoured ramen at a Let's Kiosk strikes me as a perfect midnight snack.

There's a line I really do want to use. I can't quite recall where it comes from, though it may be something that retinadarling created. In any case, it's a perfect line to use on incompetent service workers and Foreigners: Do you speak English...or just molest little boys who do? It's a good line to have at hand. I just need an occasion to use it.

It's a line that I will offer up to certain girls--- e.g., Stella at stelladellasera, Ms. Chang, Ioana at winterbymorning. It's just the sort of line I can imagine Ms. Chang using against incompetent waiters. And I think Ms. Flox at besideserato would have the voice to make it work, too. And what Siobhan in Adelaide could do with the line is...chilling.

Do you speak English...or just molest little boys who do? I think Campbell Scott could make the line work. I'll have to work on my own delivery.

I sat at lunch today and ate sushi--- smoked salmon rolls ---and looked at the Lonely Planet website. I keep thinking about the Baltic States, and about Hokkaido. I think about Mongolia, too. I haven't taken anything approaching a vacation in a full decade. I haven't even taken a day off since law school. I can read about UrbanBones at D-Land or wineandscarlet going off to the California coast to lose themselves in a dream of seacoasts and empty highways. I'm thinking right now about the video for Beth Orton's "Anywhere", about the little diner there in the high desert. Those are all images of losing oneself in a landscape, of dissolving the self in travel. The German phrase is Flucht nach vorn: flight forward. I keep thinking of places--- the Altai, the Baltikum, Sapporo ---where you can go to just lose everything in your past.

One of the things Ginny at ginny_mccoo liked about "Lolita" was the road trip across late-1940s America. I can think, too, about the little all-night diner/post office David Duchovny's character frequents in the frame to the early "Red Shoe Diaries" episodes. That's a place at the end of the highway, a place where no one knows anyone's name, where the coffee is poured out at dawn to figures who've given up their names and pasts.

I told Krystina at yes_please and ginny_mccoo that I've always liked girls who smoke. I told Umi at ivich that, too. It's not an oral sex thing. It's an Art Deco thing, a film noir thing. A cigarette is a prop--- obviously. I won't smoke in my flat, but I'll do cigarillos on the balcony at night, and I've been known to do steak and martinis at a cigar bar. And of course you can't do late-night jazz clubs or certain kinds of coffeehouses without cigarettes as a prop. And what's a more elegant prop than an Art Deco cigarette case? I remember something Lily at CloverSt wrote about herself once--- being a green-eyed blonde in a severely-tailored charcoal-grey 1940s skirt suit. It's a great film noir image; it does call for a cigarette.

And I am thinking about Irene Jacob's character in "The Double Life of Veronique" lighting a cigarette...

So much of life is about finding the right props, the right accessories.

I know that ginny_mccoo flew off to England as a teen to be an au pair for a summer. But I wonder where she goes off on her own for trips between semesters... Umi at ivich can visit family in Kagoshima, and she's given to Florence and Berlin as vacation sites. But there's a difference between vacations and a flight forward, an escape.

I can hear songs in my head: John Foxx singing "Europe After the Rains" from the long-ago "The Garden" CD. I need to hear Pet Shop Boys tonight. And I need to hear Japan sing "Gentlemen Take Polaroids", too. Lissy at emigree loved the "Atonement" soundtrack. Should I listen to it? I think I'd like to find Philip Glass' soundtrack to "Kundun". I'd like to watch "Kundun" again, too...

I will put out a request for Lists... I'll ask Lissy at emigree and Ginny at ginny_mccoo and any other readers and correspondents for music and book lists. I can't think of a way to do a long road trip or end up in a cafe in an exiles' city, listening to a girl explain her fascination with hermeneutics and Russian history while she lights a Dunhill...