I came home this afternoon and sat outside and drank Kirin Ichi-Ban beer and smoked my way through half a dozen cigarillos while reading "Bar Flower". I'd been telling myself half-seriously that I need to drink more, smoke more, and eat less. Well--- beer and cigarillos aren't a good idea on summer days with high humidity. I'll be taking sinus pills and using a saline inhaler all night. I wonder--- it's been a long time since I've been in a club. Can I still drink and smoke all night? I'm convinced that lots of cocaine would help. Snuff might work, too. Though I remember reading in Outside that you happen to be afflicted with blocked sinuses while wandering through Peru or Paraguay, snorting cayenne pepper is a quick fix...in a Last Resort kind of way.

There's a wonderful small passage in Hanrahan's "Lost Girls and Love Hotels" that I love. The heroine and her friends leave a Tokyo nightclub and wander off in an Ecstasy and vodka-fueled haze to a pub called Tengu:

Outside the pub, a wooden figure of Tengu, the mischievous little goblin with the six-inch nose, stands guard.... For a moment, I think about hopping on top of Tengu's nose and simulating an obscene act, but I think better of it. I am above that. Besides, the last time I did it, a red-faced cop yelled at me for five minutes and I was barred from entering the restaurant. I was stoned and had the munchies. It seemed tragic.

I love the idea. And Catherine Hanrahan's author photo makes her seem like a girl who just might do that. She has a wonderfully wicked grin. I'm trying to think of the girls I know, about which of them would do that with Tengu's nose. Melissa at kraftig_bewegt, certainly. Caitlin at kissmecaitlin or Stella at stelladellasera might have done it in their Bi Slut High days. But I am wondering who else would've done it--- who might still do it. I will have to ask--- which girls of my acquaintance would fellate (or dry hump) Tengu's nose on a Tokyo street?

Now--- that passage from "Lost Girls and Love Hotels" makes me want to...go somewhere and order a vur' large bowl of agedashi-dofu. I need that a lot.

I wrote Ginny at ginny_mccoo tonight to say that Netflix has sent out "My Blueberry Nights" to me. Ginny loved the film. I'm a Wong Kar Wai fan, and I will have to tell her what I think of "Blueberry Nights". I sit up most nights and watch films, but I so rarely have anyone to talk with about them.

I have a documentary about Marianne Faithfull coming, too. I love her voice. Some of her early '80s songs--- "Times Square", "Falling From Grace", "Running For Our Lives" ---are key songs for me, key bits of soundtrack from my past. And one of the great memories of my Lost Youth is sitting with Lacey in a tiny club in New Orleans and hearing Marianne Faithfull sing "St. James Infirmary" and "Surabaya Johnny".

The most-pettable little K-dot called to say that she was spending the week at her grandmother's house and that she desperately wanted Thai yellow curry. I had to agree--- agedashi-dofu is my immediate craving, but I wouldn't mind yellow curry at all.

And I'd love to hear from both Kelsey at clush and Lissy at emigree about new music... I need recommendations. I need an iPod, too. But music recommendations are a place to start.