I can hear strange alien electronic sounds and explosions and automatic weapons off in the distance. That's not (alas) the 150-ft. Psyduck Mechas of the Bad Baatz Maru Legion fighting off the Evil, Alien Esquimaux or the Vile, Batrachian Manxmen. It's only a film being made here. Somewhere a few blocks from my flat, the USMC is fighting aliens in the computer-generated streets of Los Angeles. Well, at least the film seems to be getting something right. Unlike all those ridiculous sci-fi films of the Sixties (or "Independence Day"), gunfire can take down the aliens. Even H.G. Wells allowed HMS "Thunder Child" to take down a couple of Martian fighting machines in "War of the Worlds". I'll take physics as a given here: if a weapon can take out armoured vehicles, it'll take out aliens and dinosaurs both.

So--- in the distance, movie gunfire, movie aliens, and strange coloured lights in the sky. And my flat is suddenly on the borders of an imaginary Los Angeles.

Just as a note, and apropos of nothing at all--- C.J. Cherryh's "Serpent's Reach" remains one of my favourite sci-fi novels, and certainly one I want to see filmed. Japanese animation, probably--- I don't think even CGI on the level of "District Nine" would work. But--- "Serpent's Reach" is a favourite. And so is Cherryh's "Wave Without a Shore".

Anthony Bourdain is on "No Reservations" doing kebab joints in Melbourne. I'd love to have Kara-Jaime at arakha show me Melbourne late-night kebab cafes. And I must go get kebabs at lunch tomorrow. I can get lentil soup...but the kebab shop near my office doesn't have fried lamb brains.

Kebabs in Melbourne--- and I do wish I could take a lovely companion to Mamoun's in New Haven.

I have my little magenta cans of Sofia Coppola faux-champagne. I need to sit outside and open one soon. All I need is a lovely companion and a crisp clear autumn night.

Every time I see a co-ed in cardigan worn over a camisole, I think about Lissy at emigree and her Adulterous Spring Break in Stockholm. I wish I could read her Moleskine account of what happened. Details Matter--- always. I always wonder... She tells brilliant and entrancing Stories, but how much is her, and how much is Charlotte J. Nolan? It's the same for Kelsey at clush. Her profile shifts from describing herself as German displaced to the US to being Scandinavian with a US passport. Is that something that goes back to lust for Eric from "True Blood"? All last year Kelsey was wild to join the US Army--- and I really think she'd be a fine combat officer. Her profile now says she wants to be USMC. Has she changed ROTC programs of just changed favourite war memoirs? I don't know how to separate the girl from the Story.

In the darkness of futures past/ The magician longs to see/ One chance heart between two worlds: / Fire walk with me... Does anyone have any idea why I'm reciting that in my head tonight?

I am tired. No sleep at all last night. Worried about work, angry at myself for my own incompetence at a job I hate, fear of the future. I just lay there thinking about whether anyone would ever remember me at O-bon. At 0330 a text came through from the Small Pika in Brooklyn. What was she doing up before dawn in Williamsburg? But the text said that she was grateful and glad that I'd been there for her since 1999. I'm glad I could be. She's been a good friend and very special to me for a decade. Small texts from the Small Pika--- they do matter.

We need Hokkaido novels. We need expat novels set in Sapporo. Expats-in-Japan novels focus on the beauty of autumn or the breathless Tokyo summer. We need winter--- ice palaces and beer gardens in Sapporo. And I don't just say that as a De Guzman of Hokkaido. We need Sapporo novels. And more tales of Noboru Watanabe the kitty. Yet another small literary Russian Blue kitty.

No more gunfire outside, no more plumes of red vapour... I can only assume that the Marines have destroyed the last of the Evil, Alien Esquimaux ("taste leaden death, Nanook!"). No kebabs at midnight, though. But I may pour a glass of Reyka vodka and go out and just look out to the tugboat lights on the river.