At the Small Suburban Library this morning--- a foray into my past: drive up to my old suburb, check my mailbox, spend the morning at the library, make notes in a Moleskine there in a Comfy Chair.

Effexor is the new Diet Coke... I saw that as a line a day or two ago, courtesy of Liz V. at nightmareteeth and Lizzie at skylinehaze. I'm just not quite sure what it means. I've never been on meds for depression or anxiety. If ever I've taken Xanax or Valium, it's been more...recreational. I may well be the last person I know among my friends who hasn't been on anti-depressants or anti-anxiety meds. SSRI, SNRI--- nothing I've had any experience with. So, then: Effexor is the new Diet Coke. It's a lovely line, and it's easy enough to see a lithe, clever wicked fashionista girl saying it with a flick of her Dunhill. But I do wonder--- what exactly does it mean?

Unfocused this morning--- something of a sake and shochu hangover. Very...disconnected. No headache, though. That's something. I'm quite the fan of shochu. I need to mention that to the Small Pika--- who drank lots o' shochu in Tokyo and Osaka. And I must thank Kelsey at clush for reminding about Korean soju...

Sumi37 at D-Land sent me messages at Facebook quoting Quint from "Jaws"--- Cage goes in the water, you go in the water. Shark's in the water... And then he sings "Farewell and adieu, to you fine Spanish ladies..." Sumi37 knows that I'm a great fan both of Quint and that song.

Lissy at emigree writes about immigrants and emigrants, about what it means to spend your life defining yourself as an emigrant, as someone always just leaving: bienvenido a la salida. I've always known that I was what in Soviet days was called an "internal emigre": someone who's there still in Russia, who hasn't tried to flee, but who keeps himself spiritually and psychologically separate from the society around him, who just goes through the motions of belonging. "Internal emigree" was a serious enough accusation back in Stalin's day: five years in the Gulag, anyway. They still use it as a crime in places like Cuba, of course. Internal emigre--- just being a ghost walking through the day, living in other worlds inside your head.

I used to wear a desert-camouflage parka all winter--- since I lived in a cultural desert. That may be why I always get things like BDU shorts in desert camo. That and my hope of being somewhere in a lost town on the edge of the high desert.

I want to read Nabokov's "Transparent Things" again. And I want to read Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire" again. Two impossibly different books.

And I want to recommend Abbey's "Black Sun" to Lissy at emigree and to Alessandra at bel_ebat. One of those doomed romances I do like.

I need to find more East European authors. I will make a note of that. I need to talk with Kelsey and Alessandra both about books.

And here as an internal emigre, I must rebuild my German...and read back through so many things I've forgotten about Russian and Eastern Europe...