to contribute a verse

how to survive Scotland

2012-01-28T10:00:00.000+02:00

* Go to university to study English in your country of residence and then travel with your fellow students to Edinburgh for a month-long course for foreign university students.
* Ensure you are being housed with an elderly Scottish couple living in a tenement in the north of the city. He is retired and likes to play golf even though it cripples him for the next two days, she goes to work but still has the time to cook and clean and mother you. They are both excellent at dealing with your shyness and broken English.
* Stay in an attic room with poor heating (since you are unsure of how to work the gas heater and too shy to ask) but which has two lovely goose down duvets in the bed.
* Have doughy bread with marmalade for breakfast. Have lunch in student cafeterias or at Pizza Hut. Have hearty dinners with your hosts. Discover that crisps are perfectly respectable as part of an ordinary lunch, not just (as your mother taught you) an unhealthy snack.
* Take the double-decker bus - a lovely experience! - to campus every morning. Walk home every evening. ("I have miles to go before I sleep.")
* Explore the Castle, Arthur's Seat, Prince's Street Gardens, the Royal Mile, the Camera Obscura, the lovely little closes and the amazing book shops.
* Learn about Scottish literature, art, society, education and justice system. Not to mention Robert the Bruce and Mary Queen of Scots. Learn absolutely everything about Scotland.
* Go on field trips to lots of castles and realise that it rains a lot even in May.
* Have a crush on one of the Scottish course coordinators and gossip about him during pub evenings.
* Experience cultural differences in relation to the other foreign students. Especially the ones from your own country. Deal with it and learn something in the process.
* Attend ceilidhs and learn to dance reels and gigs with men in kilts.
* Ask people in the street about ghosts. Interview a professor or parapsychology.
* Try the haggis.
* Act in a play. Almost get thrown out of a court room for giggling at the judge's wig.
* Walk seven miles to see the Loch Ness monster, because you don't realise how long a mile is, until a Scottish family takes pity on you and takes you to the lake in their boat.
* Travel on lots of trains, stay in lots of hostels and eat lots of fudge.
* Ride horses on a Braveheart beach, hitch-hike with strange men and manage to get involved in a local feud.
* Love Scotland.

go away, cold beauty

2012-01-27T10:00:00.000+02:00

"I used to pretend I loved the winter. But I'm tired of pretending. I can't wait for it to be over."

After this statement, I put my insulated gloves on, pulled my woollen hat down over my ears and tugged the zipper on my fake-fur coat as high as it would go. Then I walked in the hazy almost-sunshine (much welcome after weeks of no sun at all) down to the snowy paths by the seafront. The sea was frozen and snowed over but birds were singing. It was so cold I could see ice crystals floating in the air. And I had to admit: It was beautiful.

how to write a thesis in English lit

2012-01-26T19:30:00.000+02:00

* Do it in an era when few students (and certainly not you) have their own computer to use.
* Choose the computer lab of the English department at a small university. Make sure the lab is located in a tiny basement room with a couple of minuscule windows near the ceiling (showing the feet of passers-by to remind you that there is a world out there), limited air supply, about six working desktop computers and one temperamental printer.
* Choose to work on your thesis mainly on Sundays and in the middle of the night so you have the room to yourself.
* Choose as topic a modern work of literature but make sure it includes having to study Herodotus' The Histories in detail. A topic which you will have no use for in the future is preferable.
* Have the department choose for you (to your dismay) a thesis supervisor who is an eccentric Englishman who does not know how to dress or keep his office in order but who can discuss at length Medieval alchemy, celestial spheres, Orientalism in literature and other things that are utterly beyond your own understanding. Discover that he knows the exact formula for inspiring/pushing you to write, is able to descend from the celestial spheres and is in fact the best thing that has ever happened to you.
* Hum "ain't nothing gonna break my stride, nobody's gonna slow me down, oh no, I've got to keep on moving" while you write. Save your work on a floppy disc.
* Watch a certain film a hundred times and read a certain novel until it falls apart at the seams. Fill a large notebook with your illegible scribblings. Do some of this at a café where it is impossible to concentrate but which has great coffee.
* Ponder, "'till it drives you mad", the symbolicism indicative of national and/or personal identity, and the effect of post-colonialism on Sri Lankan-Canadian writers.
* Take endless, long breaks to surf the internet (a fairly new thing, and a limited experience in this era), reading Star Trek fanfiction and exchanging lengthy, eloquent and extremely funny emails with your email buddy Ole who is sitting somewhere else in the same city studying something really boring.
* Discover, after many long years of literature studies when you didn't really get it at all, the beauty of intricately symbolic writing. Let it affect your pragmatic heart.
* Make late starts a habit, and only call it a day when your brain and body scream for sleep or food. Ride your bicycle home through eerily empty streets in the small hours and feel strangely at peace while you wonder what your mother would say if she knew you were out alone at this hour. Count yourself blessed to be tripping over the same uneven cobblestones as students have for centuries and try not to wake your flatmate when you get home.
* Put your thesis on hiatus while you are busy working, holidaying or flirting. Email excuses to your long-suffering thesis supervisor.
* At last, spend a few hours coaxing the temperamental printer into printing your 70 pages, take them to the university publisher and pick out a handsome navy blue cover.
* Submit your thesis and revel in the feeling of being a published writer - conveniently forget the fact that in all probability, the two thesis examiners will be the only ones to ever read it.
* Realise that these were really the best of times and the worst of times.

* For a long time afterwards, occasionally entertain the fantasy that the author whose work you studied will one day read your analysis of his work (and be extremely impressed). Yes, Michael Ondaatje, I'm talking to you!

at opposite ends of a century

2012-01-26T16:34:00.001+02:00

Two new prized possessions (after a year of frugality). A new phone. And an old pocket watch - handed down from my grandfather and probably owned by one of the American emigrants in his family. Hello, my beauties!

a native of Nokia land - supposedly

2012-01-25T23:24:00.000+02:00

Want to feel like a moron with sausage fingers? Then I recommend buying a fancy new phone.

saturday night on the Island

2012-01-22T12:55:00.000+02:00

Driving the long, dark road to the Island. The car skidding in every curve on the wintry road. Having to dip my headlights and slow down every time I meet another car (which is not very often). Keeping my eye out for elks and hoping the road won't get snowed in before it's time to go back home.

It's tough driving. But I'm experimenting with some new music on the stereo. And when I reach my destination at last, 40 kilometres later, lights are welcoming me from every window of the picturesque cottage. The candles are lit, the table is set and the guests are mingling. The Warrior Queen, dressed in pink silk, is smiling at me. It's the end of the world and the party is on.

to carry bumblebees

2012-01-20T10:00:00.000+02:00

Last night I was carrying a stack of bumblebees which I had, in an ingenious way, crocheted into my sweater. Then I had trouble disentangling them from the same when I was about to release them into the forest. How does my boring mind ever come up with these storylines in my dreams?

That it was a "stack" was significant somehow - my mind puts words on things and probably only then visualizes them. Intriguing. I should donate my brain to research.

the veil between the worlds is so thin

2012-01-19T00:11:00.000+02:00

A lovely man who is real and present, and an even better one who is fictitious - you would think the choice is easy. But, le coeur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connaît point.

the peace of white

2012-01-14T17:29:00.000+02:00

Late Friday evening, a small city. A deserted back street near the seafront. The blizzard is just winding down and a snow plough has just barely cleared the street. Huge piles of snow has been pushed to the sides, almost burying the parked cars and mine is of course one of these. It takes me twenty minutes to brush four inches of snow off it, another twenty at least to shovel away enough of the powdery stuff around the wheels. The wind is hurling snow into my face, my thick gloves are getting soaked through and the drift is more than knee-deep in places. Normally, this is something I hate doing, especially being cold and wet.

But the silence of the winter night is deep, there is only the sound of the wind which is strangely soothing. I work myself into a meditative state. Snow is so earthy - nothing is as real, as present. You can't ignore it and drift into a daydream when it is covering you, chilling you and at the same time calming you with its purity.

No matter how much you might hate winter, it is a powerful experience to embrace the essence of it.

a snowy night in the Underworld

2012-01-13T00:05:00.000+02:00

"You know the Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times."
"You know, that's the first of two curses."
"What's the other one?"
"May you find what you're looking for."

(Quote from my latest TV obsession, White Collar)

I am in no danger of any of these curses befalling me. This is the dead of winter, literally and figuratively. And what I am looking for can never be found. So I sit through dark nights of blizzards, with lit candles, lots of wine and left-over Christmas chocolates. Sometimes I even savour it - being dead. Being far removed from life of any kind.

Because I am Eurydice and there is an Orpheus coming to play his lyre and get me out of here, without looking back. Or perhaps I will just play my own way out. I'm practicing on the lyre.

January pursuits

2012-01-06T10:00:00.000+02:00

* Dream of seagulls with teeth and get reacquainted with real winter (2006)
* Feel technologically successful and plan new Celtic adventures (2007)
* Experience sinusitis, raspberry soufflé and a splinter of the True Cross (2008)
* Walk in golden boots and attend chocolate tasting parties (2009)
* Feel the rain and the smell of turf fires and be unconditionally happy on an Irish beach (2010)
* Be down and out but occasionally seen despite invisibility (2011)

surviving quasi-winter

2012-01-05T21:58:00.001+02:00

When the worst kind of winter (if you can call it that) hits Finland - alternating snow and rain, resulting in sleet, slush and utter dreariness - it is too dangerous to go out because you might be overcome by suicidal impulses.

The only recourse is to hole up with lots of candles, blankets, wine, chocolate, music and DVDs.

everything from caraway fields to dead puppies

2012-01-03T15:30:00.000+02:00

2011: A year of sorrow and various afflictions, Arthurian legend, poverty and absence of newspapers. A year of watching smurfette movies just to be near a certain man. A stay-at-home year when after two decades of foreign travel I did not go beyond 75 miles from home. A year that included four summer weeks of non-stop sun and family and happiness. An dull year often shaken up by whirlwinds of obsession and emotion. A year of being vaguely aware of revolutions in Arab countries and the imminent collapse of the euro but in my little street there were only dog fights and in my purse there was a constant lack of euros anyway.

* Started the year with grief, good friends, fireworks and Harry Potter.
* Found a way into my enchanted forest again.
* Suffered through a winter of repeatedly digging my father's grave out of the snow and lighting candles with frozen fingers. Pain had never before seemed so real.
* Dated a man with licence to kill. Probably should be grateful he chose to dump me only in the metaphorical sense of the word.
* Received a personal delivery of parmesan cheese from Sicily and salami from Hungary.
* Tried a combination of wine-tasting and volleyball with positive results.
* Dedicated a holiday week entirely to three seasons of a TV-show. Which caused some despair but also inspired me to be strong and brave, to fight, to seek supernatural power, to go back to the British Isles and find me a prince. Finally realised having kids and a house is not my thing.
* Found my first geocache underneath a jetty, within spitting distance from my own home, and learned that there are 500 of these treasures within a radius of 50 kilometres.
* Celebrated my birthday by trying new things: using an automatic car wash and changing tires on my car all by myself.
* Spent May Day weekend with fine dining and then a hike to the end of the world. Picnic on the beach while watching eagles, hearing the snow melt and feeling winter turn into spring.
* Experienced nausea, extreme weakness, dizziness, fear of death and even a few days of sick leave. Drew a skull and crossbones on my cough medicine bottle.
* Explored a mansion complete with ghosts and dungeons.
* Sold all of my stock (I had four shares in total, 6 euro each).
* Spent Midsummer's Eve with the Midsummer people, lilac juice and caraway fields. And Midsummer Day navigating the labyrinthic archipelago in an old wooden boat with a baby on my lap, feeling wonderfully lost in a water jungle.
* Felt responsible for the entire English-speaking world while arranging interpretation for a conference. Not many of them showed up.
* Savoured another summer in the serenity pool with the sticklebacks (who put on a show) and fantasy novels, and on the beachvolley courts with the beautiful people. The price: two lost toe rings.
* Watched a house move - literally.
* Found out I have a sibling in heaven.
* Attended a lovely wedding in a very bad place.
* Breezed through my first job interview in years and even succeeded in naming all the planets in the solar system.
* Got even more internationally involved.
* Enjoyed a Chinese tea and dumplings party which evolved into a wasabi-eating contest and story-telling of babies born in bank vaults.
* Experimented with towing a car.
* Subbed for the secretary of the CEO of the city's biggest construction company - for all of two hours.
* Edited a text for an Israeli writer but was interrupted by Yom Kippur.
* Practiced spending entire evenings with strangers - at a cottage at world's end and in a posh penthouse apartment.
* Had my whole world put in order by a virus and an Irish philosophy.
* Closed the grief door and open the happy memories door - once again with the help of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
* Danced in black lace and fell in love with a man in pure white.
* Was given a set of Torah scrolls and helped a celebrity sell books.
* Attended the most chaotic christening ever in an Alvar Aalto church.
* Visited a friend who had a dead puppy on the coffee table.
* Lent my voice to a Christmas performance where the archangel Gabriel had a sizeable beer belly and the wise men of the east were very proud of their asses.
* Washed my phone in the washing machine. Both broke down.
* Swapped one obsession for another and was inspired to know everything, play the piano and love.
* Skipped work, for the first time ever, to stay at home and watch TV.
* Enjoyed a very lonely and lovely New Year's Eve with lots of red wine.
* Couldn't decide which dream to go for: Power-dressing, cocktail-sipping white-collar worker in flashy London/New York offices or boho chic aid worker running soup kitchens.

in need of rocket fuel tonight

2011-12-31T21:59:00.000+02:00

"There are times when we need the rocket fuel of singing and dancing to power us through an act of blind faith. Falling in love is one of those times, when we need to move into a phase of enchantment with enough force so that when things cool and the air clears, we are locked into that person, that love. We fall in love and we sing as we walk down the street; we turn up the music and dance."

(Lavinia Greenlaw: The Importance of Music to Girls)

I'd even cut my hair and change my name

2011-12-25T21:47:00.000+02:00

A Christmas spent with my beloved family. A Christmas spent longing to be somewhere else entirely where there are no well-behaved kids, well-decorated houses, well-organized lives.

I have to go live in New York. Otherwise I will never be happy ever again. Have to find a way to walk those streets, exciting days, cool and smart people, glitzy bars to look beautiful in, a love to share a bottle of red and cold pizza with in a cramped apartment.

I think maybe I could, if I only first could find fifteen percent concentrated power of will.

finding the gate, finding the door,
finding the streets I used to walk before
when I was free, when I could see
when I was crazy
I wish somebody told me *

And then what? Throw away what I have now? Family, a view of the sea, a job I not only like but even believe in? Where is God and why did he make me want things and how come is life so bloody complicated?

* Marie Serneholt: I Need A House

the deadly blog entry

2011-12-14T21:31:00.001+02:00

Note to self: Before you turn on the washing machine, ensure your phone is not located inside it.

While my phone is drying out on top of the radiator, I try to write a summary of the year that is soon to end, as I usually do this time of the year. Reading through the draft, I realise it is like that book from some fairytale I vaguely remember: Anyone who dares to read it ends up dead. (Or is my recollection of that stupid horror film I don't want to admit I have actually seen, The Ring?). I would like to believe there is something supernatural about my text. But the dreary truth is, my year 2011 was so miserable and dull that anyone who is bored enough to read a summary of it will get an immediate urge to slash their wrists.

how to locate your deity

2011-12-11T10:00:00.000+02:00

It is important to locate God. In case you were thinking about trying this little corner of Finland, I can advise you that he is not here.

My God is in exciting stories, fascinating and odd people, animals, science fiction, pubs and above all in foreign countries. Most likely he is somewhere in the British Isles.

favourite smells

2011-12-10T18:49:00.001+02:00

Lily-of-the-valleys, peppermint tea, coffee, railroad tracks, books, cigarrette smoke.

academic love

2011-12-07T22:03:00.001+02:00

I had just studied Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and like Orsino, I was in love with love itself. Like Olivia, I was in love with a dream.

I was a first-year student and dreamed one night about a boy, an older student who bossed me around like older students do with freshmen. I fell helplessly in love. As far as I knew, he didn't exist in real life. But you never know for sure.

I would go to the old factory building where the English department was housed and attend lectures in the depressing basement room (only a few tiny windows near the ceiling showing the feet of passers-by proved to us students that life went on outside). There were lectures on British society by a white-bearded English gentleman, who worried about us in with avuncular kindness, and a smart, older-brother-type of a post-graduate student. There were grammatical drills by a stern but eternally smiling blonde lady (I tried to dislike her as much as I hated her subject but found it impossible) and strange literary analyses led by a weird girl who sometimes seemed to detest us and an even weirder fat man who spoke in a dreamy voice about medieval alchemy (never realising that none of us could follow him to the higher spheres where he dwelled). There were lectures on language history that I followed with reluctant but increasing interest, held by a Santa Claus-lookalike who patiently endured the fact that few of us showed up for lectures and even fewer ever did any homework (his subject somehow always ending up last on our long list of priorities). There were courses in American society, literature and language varieties led by the guest professor from Harvard who was deceptively funny and likeable and who scared us all silly with his high demands and his warnings against procrastinating. There was the one memorable course dedicated to Shakespeare, presided over by our awe-inspiring professor who had once shook the Queen's hand.

(How I would have admired all these people for their intelligence and knowledge, had I met them later in life...! At the time I was either too scared of them or just assumed I knew everything I needed to know.)

I also spent time in the dusty, deadly quiet of the two library rooms of the department, strangely inspired by the towering bookshelves around me and the feeling that these contained knowledge not found anywhere else. I was never inspired by the small room where we endured small-group tutorials and were forced to answer difficult questions, present our essays and sweat through the criticism of teachers and fellow students. I was scared of the common room, cosy with its coffee fragrance, magazines, and funny quotes pinned to the notice board, simply because the older students gathered there.

And wandering around the long corridors and tiny rooms with old carpets and new desks, meeting bright and beautiful people everywhere, I secretly hoped that I would one day turn a corner and stand face to face with HIM, the prince of my dream. Or that he would suddenly emerge from a group of older students gossiping around their coffee mugs. Perhaps he would pretend I was beneath his notice, like other first-years, but as he passed me with a regal stride he would grudgingly nod at me or toss me a mocking but well-meaning comment. And that would be enough. I would be his forever.

what I didn't learn at university

2011-12-07T21:29:00.001+02:00

Next time I get a university education I will go to more parties, wear skirts and get drunk more often. But I will also get more involved in my studies.

Last time around, I did go to parties, but usually the non-alcoholic kind. For some unfathomable reason, I didn't pay much attention to the boys. I spent more time worrying about my personal morals and the European Union (!) than enjoying youth and freedom. I ran from lectures rather than let them inspire me. Stupid, stupid me!

Still, there is something to be learned from this. In my present life, I will go to more parties, wear skirts and get drunk more often. I will pay attention to the men. I will stop worrying about worrying and I will enjoy freedom, experience and the fact that I work for a crap salary and a good cause. I will be inspired.

the kitchen of all humankind

2011-12-05T23:49:00.001+02:00

"Wow, a personal visit by the Inquisition! Would you care for a coffee?"

When friends of mine drop by at the Little Shop of Harmony and I happen to be at lunch, my coworkers direct them to the staff kitchen where they inevitably find me chewing on a cheese sandwich while reading a book and brewing a pot of coffee. My coworkers never say so, but they seem to find these visits slightly odd. Can't say that I blame them. Various visitors in the staff kitchen during my half-hour lunch include:

* A giant of a man in black leather and tattoos weeping like a baby
* Another tall, muscular man striding in and going straight to the business of ripping a metal locker door off its hinges
* A third man in a long military coat who never makes it as far as the kitchen because he gets distracted by all the books
* A tiny Asian girl who looks no older than twelve and who leaves as quickly as she arrived without meeting anyone's eyes
* A doctor coming to tell me off (hence my Inquisition comment)
* My sister, bringing another cheese sandwich, coming to lunch not with me but with one of my coworkers
* An environmental engineer coming for hushed conversations with me regarding the Revolution
* Our landlord, bypassing my boss, breezing in to discuss the future of the shop with me

It's the kitchen that does it - never was there a better place for human beings.

there are priorities and there are princes

2011-12-03T13:57:00.001+02:00

Hid in the basement when I should have been helping my coworkers with the Christmas rush. Because I needed to flirt with a handsome man.

December action

2011-12-03T00:00:00.000+02:00

* Clubbing, eating blue cheese and pondering decadence (2005)
* Stormgazing and treehugging (2006)
* Finding the gates of Heaven at a street corner in Stockholm (2007)
* Suspecting God is off somewhere drinking whiskey and playing pool (2008)
* Trying to love winter while scraping ice off a borrowed car (2009)
* Being fatherless and facing a new world (2010)
* Thinking a prince might love me back (2011)

a flawless night in Vöråstan

2011-12-02T00:00:00.000+02:00

Homemade, hot mulled wine, made on redcurrant and other currants and some serious spices. A cheese platter. Russian chocolates. A storm lashing the windows with rain. A friend not seen for ages. Candles.

Topics discussed: Life. Men. Cheese. Work. Disease. Friends. Church. How to change the world. Books. More books. More men. How to start a company. How to live on less. Ex-poodles. Kids. Internet connections. How to change the world while making money and living on less. Ice Age 3. Sugar addiction. Clearing out attics. Moscow. Ice-skating. Ultra-sound massage.

It ended on: "Where's your Calcutta? See you on Independence Day!" and a bike ride home in the rain.

deus dixit

2011-12-01T23:23:00.001+02:00

And the voice of God boomed:

Why are you working so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out?

when I learned to spell Choszczno

2011-11-24T20:22:00.001+02:00

Poland, in the '90s.

Summer heat makes the pavement soggy and minds foggy. Fairly clueless foreign teenagers sing in the streets for mildly interested Poles.

I sing my heart out, giggle when people give us money, long for an icecream and drown in the dark eyes of a Polish boy named Robert. New friends try to teach me the language, the icecream costs us thousands of zlotys and nights are spent sleeping on couches and floors.

We rehearse a dance routine by the tall, rundown apartment buildings where we live, while our host family's poodle begs us for snacks. Our hostess cooks us strange food in the tiny, muggy flat with the lace curtains. We take a canoe trip along silent lakes and creeks overgrown with the lushness of high summer and share baskets of cherries. We spend cooler evenings on the basketball and volleyball courts with youngsters from the neighbourhood. I have my heart broken by Robert of the dark eyes but I have friends who hug me, tease me and make me laugh with their weird plans of touring in a Fiat Polski. I realise that the strange people of Eastern Europe are fun, warm-hearted, wise and do know how to do a decent volleyball spike.

sewage and sugar rush

2011-11-23T22:17:00.001+02:00

How much greyer could it get? You walk shivering through a city of bare concrete walls and wet asphalt, it's November with a lame excuse for a daylight, and you are forced to squeeze past a sewage truck pumping something smelly out of a building, hoping the hose won't burst just as you are delicately stepping over it in your best boots.

So you really, really deserve that delicious, colourful, supersweet and ultra-creamy cupcake that is fragrantly crooning at you from the pastry shelf of a cosy café.

These are the three things that I think about: writing, a prince, and cupcakes.

the day of nothing better

2011-11-23T12:18:00.001+02:00

A cup of not-great coffee, sleepy remnants of a dream featuring the man of my dreams, vague anxiety. And the rest of the world is probably extremely happy.

decide to decide

2011-11-13T21:39:00.001+02:00

"An entire planet of music is spinning past me, and I'm trapped here in a shrine to my stupid sadness. Time to join the party." *

There comes a point when pain and grief is ready to let go of you, if you let go of it. It just takes a decision. I think.

I will wait one more week. Then I will make that decision. I need to prepare myself.

* R.M. Goldsby: Rhythm

a book I'm falling for

2011-11-10T12:49:00.000+02:00

"I don't know."
We pass through the rear courtyard of the art museum, the one separating it from Dod. There are footprints here, back and forth in zigzags.
"You know what Charlie told me?" he says, staring at the marks in the snow.
"What?"
"If you fire a gun, the bullet falls as fast as if you'd dropped it."
This sounds like something I learned in introductory physics.
"You can never outrun gravity," Paul says. "No matter how fast you go, you're still falling like a rock. It makes you wonder if horizontal motion is an illusion. If we move just to convince ourselves we're not falling."

One of my favourite novels, for its combination of ancient mysteries, life-loving university atmosphere and something else: The Rule of Four by Caldwell & Thomason. Makes me want to go to Princeton, stay up all night studying and fall in love.

the Himalayas and me

2011-11-07T20:18:00.000+02:00

I have three problems:

I am lonely.
I hate cooking.
I am extremely poor.

And interestingly, for one of these I have some hope for a change even though there is no sign of it yet. Yes, the last one.

Meaning I don't believe in love and I don't believe I can change, but apparently I do believe the world will eventually come to its senses and offer me a decent job.

helmet vs. vegetable

2011-11-07T19:52:00.001+02:00

Dilemma as I cycle around town: wear a helmet and feel ugly and ridiculous, or not wear a helmet and feel fantastic and alive? I don't fear hitting my head and dying. I fear hitting my head and spending a long life as a vegetable.

That was today's middle-aged moment. Now I will take my vitamin supplement and go do something slightly less pathetic. Count my pension savings perhaps?

I was born to dance on a mountain

2011-11-04T14:27:00.000+02:00

I remember the days when I lived deeply and lived lightly.

I used to wake up in a big bed in a friend's house, comfortable under the duvet even though the room was slightly chilly. I would stretch and yawn and then decide that although it would be nice to sleep a bit longer, instead I would get up and make the most of this day. I read a few pages from a book left lying on the nightstand, a little pretty book* that said things like "When I loved myself enough, I started taking the gift of life seriously and gratefully" and I felt seriously grateful for little things, like the grey winter daylight and the cats that came in to investigate when I opened the bedroom door.

I looked out the window and saw little back yards surrounded by crumbling stone walls, and the rooftops of a little Irish city. When I opened the window, the air was chilly and raw, yet incredibly mild for one who is used to the severe cold of a Nordic winter. There was, as always, the sounds of Ireland (a burglar alarm going off somewhere in the distance) and the smells of Ireland (turf fires). Shivering in the poorly heated house but genuinely joyful, I sensed coffee brewing and went downstairs for a shower and a simple breakfast with one of my best friends in the world. Everything, from the weird start/stop-button in the shower to the breakfast rolls with marmalade, was both foreign and well-known. I was back in my second homeland with an intense, almost physical feeling of belonging.

And everything I did that day, and all the days of my all-too-short Irish visit, I did with mindfulness and concentration and simple enjoyment. It was a series of moments, ordinary but special. It was walks on the beach, talking to stray dogs, exploring the city's bookshops and back streets, food shopping in Tesco's, driving my friend's car (on the left side of the road!), reading papers to catch up on current Irish issues, lazy evenings with my friend, her cats and some wine while laughing at stupid Celebrity Big Brother. I felt at home visiting the dry-cleaner's and walking alone through dark streets to get a bottle from the off-license.

I did not let my awareness of life slip. I spent almost no time reading, playing inane computer games, checking in on FaceBook or worrying/dreaming about the past/future. I was just there, just then, feeling loved and at home and determined not to let an hour go by unexperienced. Determined to live out every positive and negative feeling instead of analysing them too much.

And I went dancing with old friends. And when they dragged me on a midnight drive along dangerous mountain paths to someone's house for yet another party when I wanted nothing more than a long night's sleep, I was able to let go of tiredness and fear and submit to the thrill of letting adventure take me where I'd never been before.

That's the kind of people I want around me: Those who take life lightly and enjoy it. Who accept people as they are. Who don't analyse everything but who can spend a whole day just hanging out together, discussing whatever comes up (whether it's celebrity gossip or deep emotions). Who are themselves without trying to live up to ideals that are beyond them. Who let their personality shine and allow themselves to really feel every feeling. Who can dance.

That's who I am: The person I am in Ireland is ME, the one I was created to be - free, open-minded, ready for adventure, curious, carefree. Now I just have to convince her to come back to Finland with me.

Run to win. Live your life, the world will wonder why. Or like my friend advised me: "Wear high heels while you still can."

* When I Loved Myself Enough by Kim McMillen

the mysteries of trees

2011-11-03T21:38:00.000+02:00

Strolling in the romantically named Forest of Court of Appeal, which is growing wild and where you half expect to suddenly find Sleeping Beauty's castle, I came upon this little note lying on the muddy path.

"Maybe the next tree?"

Intriguing. But the next tree gave no further clue.

the November chronicles

2011-11-02T16:30:00.000+02:00

In November these things have been known to happen:

* The government tries to drown me in forms and I am in despair (2005)
* I have tea with fifteen Africans and get a guitarist neighbour (2006)
* Game stew is served at the university (2007)
* I explore the mussels of Brussels and run past a "kiss and drive" sign (2008)
* Fancy fills my dreaming eye as I bond with a Brontë (2009)
* I make a comprehensive list of all the despicable people of the world (2010)
* I discover happiness in a virus and walk among ruins (2011)

influenza: the meaning of life

2011-11-01T20:53:00.001+02:00

Today I have: a runny nose, a wheezing chest, a scratchy voice and a faint suspicion that I may be dying.

And, even more incomprehensibly than yesterday, I also still have that mysterious joy of life. As I dragged my soon-to-be corpse to work, I felt a spark of elation when I stepped out into the grey morning. That NEVER happens. And I didn't kick my neighbour's bike which is always parked where it blocks my way.

If this is one of the flu symptoms, I never want to get well, ever again.

to gaze upon the face of gangster-Jesus

2011-10-31T20:31:00.000+02:00

Today I have: a runny nose, a virus-weak body and a high level of self-pity.

But surprisingly, I also have: a weird enthusiasm about life. The unexpected result of some philosophical musings I spent my Sunday on. Have no idea how they came about. But I will just revel in the feeling and then go to bed early.

Today's quote collection from the Little Shop of Harmony:

"I'm looking for a good picture of Jesus' face. Not one of those where he looks like a gangster."
"Who is that other customer who was just here? I saw her window-shopping at nearly midnight the other day! How does she dare to go out at that hour?"
"You want my signature? That's gonna cost you extra!"
"...and a nurse named Lisa told me those meds are dangerous but what are you going to do, you want to trust the doctors, don't you, so I just took them and..."
"What we need is some macho-angels."
"Check! Check!"

cows, jets and devious babysitters

2011-10-29T22:49:00.001+03:00

In case someone hasn't noticed, I collect quirky comments. This is a sample from the last few days in the Little Shop of Harmony:

* Don't you think I'm cute?
* Are you related to that dentist?
* Do we have a book with a cow on the cover?
* It's time to buy a private jet.
* I'm supposed to be babysitting my grandson but I slipped out and asked him not to tell his parents. But I met them on my way out.
* I got my boat out of the water so that's one less thing to worry about.
* Can you give this book a PG rating?
* I just realised people can see me when I come out of the shower.
* I can't take that book into China.
* I can't be seen reading a book on the Hamas on a plane to the U.S.
* I don't believe in revival anymore.
* My hands are shaking after I walked up those stairs.
* I hate to ask for Christmas products this early, but do you have any?
* Next time, don't let me into the shop.

how to build a cathedral

2011-10-28T23:04:00.000+03:00

My first thought: Why doesn't anybody build cathedrals anymore?

Then there is that story:

A traveler came upon a group of three hard-at-work stonemasons, and asked each in turn what he was doing.
The first said, “I am sanding down this block of marble.”
The second said, “I am preparing a foundation.”
The third said, “I am building a cathedral.”
(found in the Rule of St. Benedict, about 530 A.D.)

And lastly, a lovely quote:

"Lives of careless wrongdoing are tumble-down shacks;
holy living builds soaring cathedrals."
(Proverbs 14:11, The Message Bible)

So, I'm off to build. Holy living sounds difficult but really it's just sanding down the block of marble that God has assigned you, and doing it well.

freedom symbols

2011-10-28T15:30:00.000+03:00

...lorries in the night, airports, alcohol in the middle of the afternoon, mountains, tobacco smoke, hotels, open sea, dance music so loud you feel it in your bones, the first seagull in the spring, dark pubs, smell of train tracks, dreadlocks, flight tickets booked, vintage clothes, sound of cranes, high heels on a normal working day when sensible shoes would be better, driving alone, glimpsing another world, an afternoon with friends doing absolutely nothing...

forgiven on a Tuesday

2011-10-25T17:17:00.001+03:00

Maybe my calling is different and maybe that's OK. Maybe I'm allowed to do the things that I love, the way that I like. Maybe I can let go today and start over. Maybe I can trust that everything will work out even when I'm not in control. Maybe I can believe just enough to take a step toward my dream. Maybe my prison is an illusion. Maybe grace is at work here and now.

And beauty is at work in this song by Illiyun...

Start Again

lame excuses found in fantasy literature

2011-10-24T15:28:00.000+03:00

Nicholas said bitterly, 'I fail all the time.'
Pug's smile was unforgiving. 'But you have a reason for failing, don't you?'
Nicholas felt a cold stab to his stomach as he said, 'What do you mean?'
'You fail not because you're lacking but because you're the lame child.' Pug floated in the air before Nicholas. 'You have two choices, Prince of the Kingdom. You can hang here until you grow old, knowing that there are all manner of great things you might do: save innocents, find the woman of your dreams, protect your subjects ... if only you didn't have a lame foot. Or you can cut yourself free from your excuse.'
Nicholas tried to pull himself upward but couldn't gain any leverage.
Pug pointed an accusing finger. 'You've hit the rocks! You know what it is.'
'It hurts!' cried Nicholas.
'Of course it hurts,' chided Pug, 'but you get over it. It's only pain.'

(from The King's Buccaneer by R.E. Feist)

What's my excuse for letting fear run my life? There are great things I could do. If it's lack of money, is it really that hard to find a better job? (Actually, yes, it is, but...) If family is keeping me in a place I don't belong, should I leave despite the pain? If I'm waiting for a vision from God Almighty, then God help me!

competing with the ivy

2011-10-23T21:27:00.000+03:00

To be twenty years old and leave your home town 200 miles behind you and go to university. To find yourself in a completely new world - university, big city, medieval buildings, weird people, independence. When this happens, you write something like this in your journal:

"... I'm scared and don't know how I'll ever manage university studies, it all seems so incredibly complicated. But still, can you believe it: I'm at university!

I would like to complete lots of courses and learn so much now that I have the chance. Study opportunities like these may never come again. My flatmates, also freshmen, bemoan "the next six years" that we will spend here. The first day, standing on campus outside the large former factory building where we will have most of our lectures, one of them pointed out a small ivy plant creeping up the wall and said: 'That little green thing will have covered the whole building by the time we get out of here!' Both of them of course want to study but at the same time they long for it to be over and done with, and to move back home.

I, on the other hand, never want to go back to Ostrobothnia - not that I don't love it, it will always be my home, but I long to see the world. And this is a little part of the world..."

as a kid, I wrote poetry like Shakespeare

2011-10-23T20:30:00.000+03:00

My first (and undoubtedly classy) poem was written when I was about ten and impatient like most ten-year-olds:

Tomorrow
Tomorrow we go to the cottage
Tomorrow we go travelling
Why can't anything ever happen
This very day?

(My poetic skills have not improved much since, in case anyone wondered.)

Only recently I realised I had unwittingly ripped of The Great Bard:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time

Only unlike him, I still had hope. At that age.

creeps in this petty pace from day to day

2011-10-22T01:05:00.000+03:00

It's after midnight I and should go to bed. Tomorrow I'm taking my mother to buy yarn.

I wonder if there will ever be a day when my plans for the next day includes saving the world, making a dream come true or singing a song that will echo through the ages?

next year in the Swal Daw Pagoda?

2011-10-21T10:00:00.000+03:00

Hopefully trying to cure a tension headache with lots of Riesling and a Norwegian ballad.

The wind is howling outside, like it always does in October.

Fleamarket find of the day: a map of downtown Rangoon, dated 1979. Wouldn't you just love to know how it made its way to a basement shop in a Finnish town thirty years later, to be found by a tired shop assistant waiting for the last customer to leave? Me too. I have never been within a thousand miles of Rangoon but I'm studying it carefully, tracing a route from Tsing Tsong Avenue to the Sacred Cave. I don't know if they still exist like they did in the seventies (the city is not even called Rangoon anymore, is it?) but when I go to check with Google Maps, I get lost in scrolling through the satellite maps showing alien-looking pagodas and asymmetrical houses with blue roofs.

Because that's the beauty of it all: although the thought has never before struck me, someday I may no longer be dusting off books in a quiet shop, preoccupied with plans to buy a bottle of wine to go with a lonely TV dinner. Someday I might end up in Rangoon.

message on a Mazda

2011-10-20T22:07:00.002+03:00

Walked by your car and had this idea to leave a scribbled note on your windscreen. Something like "I love you, is that OK?"

But then I didn't. It seemed childish. Love is childish.

your hand, my handle

2011-10-12T15:25:00.000+03:00

I look at your hand and I can see it
Grasping mine
Stroking my cheek
Averting violence
Holding my life

timeline of Octobers

2011-10-10T10:00:00.000+03:00

In October I have been:

* Dreaming of kitchen tables and novel-writing by open windows (2005)
* Discussing asthma with door-to-door vendors (2006)
* Shivering on the balcony, semi-unemployed (2007)
* Buying angels with crazy smiles (2008)
* Drinking wine with a robust heart (2009)
* Feeling invisible despite new nail polish (2010)
* Envying the rich and giving, giving, giving (2011)

beaten and blown by the wind

2011-10-09T14:26:00.000+03:00

Another sunny, chilly, GORGEOUS autumn Sunday. Determined not to waste it this time, I decided to go cycling before breakfast (which on a Sunday occurs at an hour most people would call lunch).

I completely forgot that exercise on an empty stomach always turns me into a snarling monster that hates everyone and everything. Getting an ear-ache from the cold wind certainly didn't help. It took me half of the afternoon and plenty of comfort food to recover.

Lots of coffee and U2 - the mythical Remedy to Cure All Ills.

destinies are troublesome things

2011-09-29T10:00:00.000+03:00

in Thwil tonight

2011-09-28T19:30:00.000+03:00

'This is the School,' the old man said mildly. 'I am the doorkeeper. Enter if you can.'
Ged stepped forward. It seemed to him that he had passed through the doorway: yet he stood outside on the pavement where he had stood before.
Once more he stepped forward, and once more he remained standing outside the door. The doorkeeper, inside, watched him with mild eyes.

Bedtime reading: The Earthsea Quartet by Ursula le Guin

highway lullaby by Jamie

2011-09-28T19:11:00.000+03:00

Day 4 out of four days off. I have done only things that felt right (mostly lying on the sofa watching QI) and life has caught up with me and now nothing feels right. Not a single thing. Useless, useless, vanity of vanities.

After spending hours thinking about places I could go in order to get a new perspective, and rejecting all of them, I go on a road trip to the nearest town. There is nothing to see there, except an overgrown, abandoned park where I stroll in the mild September sun. I'm sure I look out of place dressed in black and leather among the falling leaves and the tall thistles. But the quietness of the trees and the fields nearby calms me.

But the main cure for depression turns out to be driving a car. Focusing on simple things and listening to Jamie Cullum sing "nothing's gonna harm you, not while I'm around. No one's gonna hurt you, not while I'm around".

to draw and be drawn to

2011-09-26T22:06:00.001+03:00

When I doodle, it used to be stars. Now it's hearts. Which is funny, as I don't have a high opinion of love.

But this year's favourite word is prince. And I have decided which are the two sexiest things in a man (abstract and concrete): self-confidence and strong hands.

and now over to biology class

2011-09-25T20:39:00.000+03:00

Observation of the day:

Everything does not move at frantic, human pace. It always surprises me to note that a tree can stand still in the same place day after day. That a cloud can take a whole day just to get from one end of the sky to the other. That the birds don't feel they should be doing something more useful than fly around all day.

Annoyance of the day:

Fruits that are ripe on the outside and unripe further in - example: the avocado that was so easy to peel but impossible to eat and now it's peeled and going brown. And fruits that are unripe on the outside and rotting further in - example: weird nectarines.

National Geographic, feel free to publish this (and don't forget to pay me).

geography of laziness

2011-09-22T10:00:00.000+03:00

List of places to spend my day off:

* My bed, for as long as possible in the morning.
* The library, especially the reading room, with a British Sunday paper.
* My mom's flat, for a late lunch, lots of cinnamon coffee, a tug-of-war with the poodle, some reading, a free haircut.
* My own sofa, with a dry cider, the internet and the box set of Before Sunrise & Before Sunset.
* My bed again, for dreams.

when I get rich I will buy

2011-09-21T18:05:00.000+03:00

A cupcake.
Cooool vintage clothes.
A professional hair cut and hair dye.
DVD box sets for long winter evenings.
A nice bottle because "he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy". *
Dangly earrings.
A vanilla latte (bucket-size).
A copy of The Shack.
A journey around the world.

* said Samuel Johnson

the petrol pump date

2011-09-21T00:54:00.000+03:00

Sometimes I love small-town life.

Like when it takes you a long time to put petrol in your car late one evening because the self-service pump has trouble reading your credit card but you don't mind one bit. Because at the other pump, having the same problem, is the guy you secretly fancy. And the autumn wind is still mild in your face and it's dark but safe, and you are on your way home to a hot shower and a hot cup of tea, your mind still full of the day's experiences. And you smile at the guy and joke about the card problem.

Then it is suddenly OK not to have the thrill of a foreign world around you. Because you have a world filled with family, and childhood memories, and friends you unexpectedly run into at petrol stations. And the man you are so happy to see - you know his name and you know you will see him again. Because this town is yours.

the weekend of wasabi and wrecking

2011-09-19T22:50:00.000+03:00

If you have nothing better to do on the weekend, you can always go and look at pigs.
Or have a Chinese party with no Chinese.
Or listen to stories about babies being born in bank vaults.
Or hatch international plans.
Or watch teary-eyed guys have a wasabi-eating contest.
Or ask questions about daily life in a Russian city.
Or ponder what kind of walking aid you will want in old age.
Or have a typical Kenyan student dinner.
Or ruin your car.

if the planets are aligned

2011-09-14T22:32:00.000+03:00

In the job interview, I was asked to list all the planets in the solar system. I did, prudently ending with the fact that Pluto is no longer a planet. I thought the job was selling books.

Apparently, the demands out there in the job market are much harsher these days. Astronomical knowledge required. It remains to be seen if I managed to impress. I didn't even forget Uranus.

sneak preview of God's plans

2011-09-13T10:00:00.000+03:00

"... I'll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out - plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for..."

(Jeremiah 29:11, The Message Bible)

flash mobs make me cry

2011-09-12T10:00:00.000+03:00

I have to go to Heathrow Airport more often. I want a welcome like this!

if words could hug

2011-09-12T09:00:00.000+03:00

It's OK. You don't have to try so hard all the time. You are perfect as you are. You are LOVED.

I went to church yesterday. These words weren't said there. But I felt them, as real as a hug. Shocking.

they love hamburgers more than me

2011-09-11T21:56:00.000+03:00

When you are bored and/or introspective (and/or have that important but boring deadline looming), you can always browse your blog stats for entertainment.

Apparently the blog entry that attracted most page views by far on this blog is the one that rambled about some holiday beneath a McDonald's sign. Go figure. Have I benefited from the fame of a brand name?

Well, they do say McDonald's has managed to go almost every place where no multinational brand has gone before (possible with the exception of Coca-Cola, and perhaps Nokia?). Even the jungle. So why not an obscure blog in the unexplored taiga forests of the Internet.

(You may have noticed that I unashamedly threw in a couple more brand names here in the hopes of repeating the phenomenon.)

people in wondertown

2011-09-11T21:26:00.001+03:00

Within one week I have met a woman with a blue nose and a man whose brain was clearly visible beneath the skin of his hairless head. And there is no circus in town.

as much a woman

2011-09-11T20:52:00.000+03:00

Things I couldn't stand:

* Having to get out of bed several times a night
* Having a house littered with broken toys and stains of every description, feeling the despair of ugliness
* Having to entertain by playing peekaboo and reading silly stories when you'd much rather be writing something incredible or watching the clouds

And to think I actually wanted a child. I suppose God knew better after all. I could have spared myself all those moments of bitterness.

go create!

2011-09-10T13:15:00.000+03:00

A deadline coming up, for a difficult and boring work task.

You sit yourself in front of the computer with a sigh.

Suddenly you have an irresistible urge to write The Great Novel.

can I add letters to my title?

2011-09-06T00:37:00.000+03:00

Job interview coming up.

My first since those horrible years when I went from interview to interview and everybody said NO.

At least this time I don't have to get the job. Although it would be nice. More than nice. It's at a publishing house!! I never dreamed of even making it to an interview at such a place.

The books and me. We were made for each other.

a tale of three princes

2011-09-05T15:19:00.001+03:00

Charming, Bad Boy or Safe Harbour?

* A slightly goofy but spiritual guitarist with exuberant charm towards everyone.
* A darkly handsome volleyball player with whole-hearted, live-in-the-now devotion and an irresistible aura of potential danger.
* An outdoors enthusiast with practical skills and an absolutely enchanting, fearless calm.

I'm in love. But with which one? And I'm also in fear. So what to do?

the unchronicled year

2011-09-04T10:00:00.000+03:00

* A boring New Year where the only excitement was almost colliding with a herd of deer in the middle of the night (really, deer! Elks would have been boring).
* "... my problem solving method is to go straight onto the main issue and then state that everyone just needs an attitude adjustment..."
* Lived on the second floor of the basement, with a view of an industrial age castle (Suomen Rehu) and a kitchen containing a dancefloor and constant moonlight.
* Dreamed of being an archeologist and sitting in a muddy, rainy field in Ballygobackwards. Alternatively a marine biologist, travelling the seven seas. Alternatively, a Riverdance dancer.
* Discovered that if you work for yourself, you hate your boss.
* Took a course to learn the language of my own country better and felt more of a stranger than when I was actually living in strange lands.
* Luxury at the Grand Hotel Tammer, weirdness at the Lenin Museum, sledding down a hill late at night, being exotic and attractive just by speaking English.
* Shared a flat for 3 weeks with a suicidal and life-loving German.
* Suffered from the Finland syndrome: Not achieving enough, knowing enough, being beautiful enough, being a health freak enough.
* Was dedicated an original poem by text message.
* Gained a Thai nephew.
* Enjoyed being a hermit. Also enjoyed pub nights my three knights in shining armour - a minister, a pastor and an expert on commercial law.
* Cried a lot in church pews.
* Moved to the sea.
* Midsummer celebration on a deserted island with good friends. With the open horizon on every side, sunsets going straight into sunrises and the constant wind singing between the bare rocks.
* La France: the decadence of dark chocolate and even darker espresso by the seaside in Normandy, troglodytes and Neolithic stones, the luscious Loire with fairytale castles, being scared in the back streets of Le Havre, thunderstorms in Chartres, dinners on bread with Camembert, local wine and sweet apricots.
* Joined a Greek-Orthodox monastery for two days, admired the monks and their berry wine.
* Found the secret garden of Helsinki.
* The first summer in the history of mankind when Finns have actually longed for rain. I spent it in Eden.
* Saw a real king and queen, up close, and pitied them.
* Found the aliens in my home town and finally felt at home. Many an interesting night with a bunch of Africans and some Colombian teenagers.
* Researched identity.
* Became a cynic.
* Interpreter and volleyball player - back to my mission in life.
* Ended the year like I started it: with deer. A good steak this time.

The year? 2006. The purpose of this blog entry? To contribute to the Useless Information Archives.

p-off p-poet

2011-09-03T15:26:00.001+03:00

They say that in complete silence you can still hear two things: your own blood circulation (a low-pitched noise) and some degree of tinnitus (a higher-pitched one).

I will add to my silent room the noise of typing and sighing. I am pissed of with mankind and will bury myself in work for a week.

I covet

2011-09-02T17:45:00.001+03:00

Because it looks like something that could have been unearthed at an archaelogical dig in Shropshire.

While we're at it, I also want a pair of looong, dangly ear-rings with pearls and feathers.

what do stars do? shine!

2011-09-01T16:17:00.000+03:00

Maybe I will, after all. Try my luck in Hollywood (or rather the British equivalent). In my next life.

The fact that it won't be in this one doesn't bother me. Because I have started to dream again!

I will work with something that is really, really fun. And I will get lots of attention and feel incredible. I will sit back, relaxed, during interviews about my latest project, be myself and be loved for it.

Meanwhile, waiting for that life: I will sit back in this one, relaxed, talking to friends and strangers. Being myself and being loved for it. WHY NOT?

mission statement

2011-09-01T15:28:00.000+03:00

To make people realise who they are in the company of God himself.
To make people believe in themselves.
To make people love life.

To always drink coffee out of a mug with funny pictures on it.
To never buy postcards unless I'm abroad.
To force someone to invent hair dye that never grows out.

2005 and New York justice

2011-08-30T10:00:00.002+03:00

At random, pick a year (a bit like they do on FaceBook nowadays) and describe it. Completely unnecessary. It's been done (dredge the archives if you don't believe me). But 2005 was the nightmare year. Perhaps I can make sense of it, pick the raisins out of it?

2005, the year I tried to settle down, albeit with unconventional methods (moving in with one's parents? working as a freelance? building a labyrinth and starting to write?).

A summer in the garden of Eden, dating the prince I was scared of as a 16-year-old and dreamed of as a 31-year-old, a computer and an entry into the blog world would probably be my greatest achievements that year. And, against all odds, I managed to make a few new friends - one who's saved my mental health more than once, one whose creativity and new ideas always inspire and who gave me a jasper bracelet, one who taught me that you can be friends with someone you don't get. At all.

And a new hotel. The most boring one in my working life so far. But it showed me beyond a doubt that the hotel culture is different in Finland. The bonus: a very boozy dinner with all my workmates and bosses and SO worth a summer of feeling like a supermarket check-out.

And it was my annus horribilis. Being back home after several wonderful years abroad, unemployed and forced into the old grid of people's expectations almost crushed me. I got out of the worst of it towards the end of the year.

"Never again a year like 2005!" was a toast I and my best friend made recently. But without it - what an insufferable person I would be. I wouldn't be on the run from New York justice either...

e-books, e-music and e-princes

2011-08-29T19:41:00.000+03:00

Today's projects:

Worked out how to use an e-book. Not that difficult, even for me, but the hard part was trying to explain to my IT-illiterate workmate.

Took a boring but necessary (for my thighs) bike trip - past the racing track (to see the horses stabled there and dream a little) and the housing fair (to establish once more that I don't need a fancy house) and the woods (to note that the chiffchaff is no longer chiffchaffing).

Now, all that's left to do today is to listen to music by Daft Punk and Runrig. And maybe obsess just a teeny weeny little bit over my latest blue-eyed prince.

what to see by the sea. and Babylonian dreams

2011-08-24T10:00:00.005+03:00

Observations through my window:

Spider webs, schoolgirls at a drawing lesson, empty beach volley courts, fishermen, the kayaking club on an outing. How could I ever NOT live by the sea?

How could I ever leave the magical hotel world? I'm watching old Hotel Babylon-episodes on the internet and falling back in love.

take me to Camelot or the river Cam

2011-08-24T00:01:00.003+03:00

This is horrible treason to my wannabe Irish soul.

I'm suddenly in love with everything British. Have I watched too much Merlin, Hotel Babylon, Hustle, Spooks, QI (and Lie To Me with Tim Roth's gorgeous accent), even Torchwood? Is reading The Observer once every three months too addictive? Was allowing myself to dream of Cadbury Creme Eggs the other day a terrible mistake?

All I want is to be back there, struggling to get my National Insurance Number, hearing the word "cheers" twice in every conversation, swearing at the snobbish upper middle class, wondering what's all the fuss with the horse races, getting rained on unexpectedly, never finding a bus that runs on time, being spoken to in the street by strangers, eating chocolate chip cookies, loving the pubs and everything ancient, longing for a real forest, sneering at the tabloids, wondering if everyone is a foreigner, having a picnic where King Arthur once gathered his brave knights, never being alone anywhere, wrinkling my nose at greasy food, attending free concerts in the park, being called "love" by matronly shop keepers, reading novels set in the same town I'm in, realising what is meant by a "stiff upper lip", always finding something to gawp at, often suspecting someone is taking the piss.

to the man of peace

2011-08-23T20:08:00.000+03:00

Happy 80th birthday! There are red roses on your grave today.

a good day in seven steps

2011-08-23T20:04:00.000+03:00

1. Sleep until noon.
2. Have breakfast and coffee while watching Hotel Babylon.
3. Pick up a parcel for the Little Shop of Harmony. (At the convenience store?! Whatever happened to post offices?)
4. Read The Observer at the Library.
5. Have supper at mum's.
6. Take a walk in the woods and in a suburban residential area. Smell freshly cut timber and say hello to kids.
7. Come home to watch more Hotel Babylon and make comments on FaceBook.

Only a little worry and painful longing today.

harmony or money, that is the question

2011-08-22T16:26:00.001+03:00

Told my boss and my coworkers of my plans to combine my job at the Little Shop of Harmony with another part-time job. Never before have I used the words "money trouble" in so many conversations in one day.

Fear/thrill of possible Change now hanging in the air.

I should really know better than to enter that bureacratic dance of having two (or three) jobs again. But who would, even with money trouble, leave the little workplace of harmony completely?

Bon Jovi helped me write this

2011-08-20T13:26:00.000+03:00

It's been a while since I last wrote one of those jumbled, confused lists. So here goes. This is today:

Dizzy morning, quiet workday, sun, job application (4 years since the last one, must be a personal best!), ache & hormones, black coffee rescue, stress, have to have that difficult chat with boss but save it until Monday, unexpected holiday coming up, escape to Eden as soon as I lock that shop door.

For a worry-day, I'm feeling not too bad after all. Maybe I'm standing on a ledge, showing the wind how to fly? Just a little bit?

never previously published

2011-08-19T10:00:00.001+03:00

Went dredging through the dark dungeons of this blog again. Rescued some bits and bobs which (no doubt for good reason) never made it past the draft stage:

"Green dinner on broccoli cheese-melt, avocado on crispbread and half a Golden Delicious apple. The apple is probably French so it is appropriate that I also listen to French chansons."
"Can't settle down. Must have a window with a view."
"My dollhouse was inhabited by the clan O'Condor. Apparently I had a thing for everything Irish even at an early age. Or maybe it was the apostrophe that appealed to me."
"A day out on the town in beautiful, terrible boots. Bought: 2 Damp Eaters (sounds like something out of Harry Potter but is a dehumidifier)."
"The cider tastes bitter. I'm from a country where the cider is sweet."
"Endless cups of coffee with cream and endless postponed decisions to go out and find a wood to walk in."
"If you ask Google Maps for directions to go from Seattle to Honolulu it tells you to get a kayak and paddle across the Pacific."
"I am not one to place myself in danger to rescue stupid poodles."
"Wig-selling lady of a certain age..."
"Back to work but I did not let that break the stride of my eternal holiday in this, the sweetest of summers. I shrugged off my workday and headed to the beach to play."
"...this is a picture of my daughter who is a circus performer, I used to be with Sirkus Finlandia myself, my family comes from the Karelia area and Putin is trying to get all Karelians who moved to Finland at the time to move back there, but no way, I'm a Finn not a Russian..."

don't mess with unknown gods

2011-08-18T13:50:00.000+03:00

I have a strong fear of messing with mobile network operators or internet service providers. By messing with them I mean trying to unsubscribe to their services in order to switch to another provider. Or even remotely suggesting such a thing. Or voicing a mild complaint.

Because if they somehow sense your doubts about them, your mobile/internet connection suddenly will start acting up. And you will be kept on hold endlessly when you try to call customer service, listening to scratchy music at the other end of the line while being charged lots of money for your call.

I was never primitively superstitious before I started to use all this technology. Now I'm an unwilling but devout believer in the deus ex machina. Or in the omnipotent power of underwaged, frustrated workers in customer call centres.

last year was not my last year

2011-08-18T12:00:00.013+03:00

Random excerpts from my recent life:

"Someone has invented a Camembert-burger."
"Going out for dinner with ten athletic men who are, for once, not sweating - my volleyball mates."
"Dress beautifully and dramatically and you will be beautiful and dramatic!"
"Let's do a 'Cambridge' - that is, having a Frappuccino on the banks of the river! Except there is no river here and no Frappuccino worth the name."
"If only I was a little, little smarter. Or a few weeks older." (Quoting Tove Jansson's books)
"There is a wonderful, ugly dog in the neighbourhood who brings tears of joy to my eyes every time I see him because he doesn't only wag his tail, he actually SMILES at me - literally!"
"My best days and my blessed days are ahead of me. Believe it."
"Under every bridge in this town sits a foreigner with a fishing rod."
"Everybody has dated everybody at some point - it's a parody of a soap."
"This evening: New York Super Fudge Chunk Icecream."
"Someone on the radio is saying he's counted the vertebrae on a bird skeleton. There were six. Actually it was only half a skeleton."
"Me and my mother almost got arrested for offensive behaviour. But when you have to go, you have to go!"
"Je voudrais seulement m'en aller cultiver mes tomates au soleil..."
"My nephew took a picture of me posing as a commando with a machine gun."
"A direction to go. I need. Why do I stand still here, always with shame, without mercy on myself, what if I should be in Ireland?"

lace and latte decisions

2011-08-18T10:00:00.003+03:00

Inspiration found on a day spent blog-surfing when I perhaps should have been doing something else:

* I am never having children. Instead, I aim to find a long, black leather coat and pair it with white lace.
* High heels is the most confusing thing.
* I can taste a vanilla latte by just thinking about it. Could I save money that way?
* BOHEMIAN CHIC!
* Attitude and peace of mind is the ultimate combination.

that book, you know

2011-08-17T10:00:00.001+03:00

I get dizzy staring at the page. Side by side, friends from different eras of my life, parts of the world, circumstances - might as well be from different planets or different dreams of mine.

A bully from high school, a person I struggled through the jungle with, someone I performed a dance show with, someone I studied Scottish ghosts with, someone I had a picnic at the Versailles with...

...people in whose company I have got drunk, been kissed, spent the night in a Gothic cemetery, spent Christmas night on a beach, kissed the Blarney stone, had supernatural experiences, analysed French poems, smoked weed, been on a double date, eaten mince pie, celebrated volleyball victories, scrubbed a 20-foot sailboat with a toothbrush, visited obscure country pubs and trendy nightclubs, participated in Bible study...

...one woman who got us lost in the slum of St. Petersburg, Russia, one guy I have only met in the blog world, one guy I'm not sure I have actually met, someone I played with as a two-year-old and hardly seen since, a handsome man whose nose I nearly broke, a lesbian girl whose suicide I prevented, my exes and their exes, family members, people I have loved/hated/admired...

...pastors, ex-football-stars, managers, chefs, occult guides, safari guides, musicians, clowns, sculptors and actors, doctors, bar owners, green magazine publishers, army officers, surfer dudes, biker dudes, missionaries, pet shop owners, Tesco lorry drivers... and my scary boss who just joined and made me break out in a cold sweat trying to think if I have posted something embarrassing lately.

How neat to have the relationships of an entire life underneath that blue-white banner, FaceBook.

God is in Oxford

2011-08-16T21:01:00.001+03:00

I had been in many good churches before. It had also been many years since I last set foot in one. I was chased into this one by a torrential rainfall that suddenly tried to drown me in the grey streets of Oxford.

I was a jaded sinner who wasn't sure I was even interested. And I was warmly welcomed. By the people, but most poignantly of all, by God himself. How many tears I shed during the few Sundays I managed to spend there, I don't know.

But ever since - inside churches and outside of them - whenever I need to be reminded that God exists and that he even has a personal interest in me, I think of this old church. The one that in words and action shouts: "God is love".

PS. If there is someone else who needs to find God, you can look him up in St. Aldate's, Oxford, England. Although it sometimes also works by reading the Bible.

out of the night that covered me then

2011-08-16T19:22:00.000+03:00

In the place and time where I was happiest, other strong emotions used to tear through me. An intense life can make you write this:

How did I get here - What self-destructive drive
What makes me stay - What soul-choking acceptance
If I leave - Who will fill this space

looking forward to King's Cross

2011-08-16T16:10:00.000+03:00

"Is that Snape?"
"Do his glasses actually have lenses in them or not?"
"Were did that jacket come from all of a sudden?"
"What were those things again?" "Horcruxes."
"And why were they bad?" "They were pieces of his soul so they had to be destroyed."
"And one of them was in Harry?" "Yes, it happened when his mother died for him."
"What was that guy's name again with the white beard?" "Dumbledore."
"Did he die or not?" "Yes, and rose again like Jesus."
"One thing we can. However. Conclude." "I know... If you are really evil you speak slowly and articulate ve...ry. Clear...ly."

The evening went well. There are a lot of things to discuss and clarify when it's been a while since the last Potter film.

But the best thing in all of Harry Potter-universe is the fact that when you die you apparently go to... King's Cross Station. I could not think of a place more appropriate.

a guitarist and the Potter boy

2011-08-15T18:34:00.000+03:00

Shining like a diamond, rolling with the dice... going to the cinema with a cute guitarist. I was the one who asked.

And I'm not even nervous. Good sign or bad?

missing focus on a Tuesday evening

2011-08-09T20:18:00.000+03:00

I swear that if I see one more jogger running past as I sit here growing fat in my sofa, I will kill them with a well-aimed blunt object (boring 600-page fantasy novel) thrown at their head.

Now I will heave myself out of the sofa and walk (slowly) to the corner shop to buy a big bag of crisps. Which I will eat in front of the telly (NCIS, Primeval). Mostly out of boredom.

Mean something already, life!

water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink

2011-08-09T19:02:00.000+03:00

Could just KILL for a glass of wine right now. But the choice: buy a bottle or pay the phone bill.

i can drink, type & be sarcastic

2011-08-09T00:00:00.016+03:00

My hidden talents & secrets most foul:

* Quote Shakespeare, Blake & the Bible
* Play the Moonlight Sonata on the piano
* Type really fast
* Listen, talk and read simultaneously
* Drink and not get drunk
* Question, doubt and suspect
* Avoid people
* Find anything on the internet
* Name birds and dog breeds
* Lie convincingly
* Stay up late
* Attract weirdos
* Read between the lines in hotel brochures
* Look innocent while being where I should not
* Raise a sarcastic eyebrow

Superpower:

* Be invisible (unfortunately, this is not controllable and happens at the most inconvenient of moments, like when I really want to be seen)

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." (Aldous Huxley)

salmon, a crowd and the Marias

2011-08-08T20:57:00.000+03:00

Lunch-time, a popular city-centre restaurant, an ordinary Monday, a lot of people.

Bankers and insurance workers in suits. Young IT techs discussing the general IQ level of people involved in car racing. Mothers who bring a toddler with ear-shattering shrieks and a granny who is trying to distract the child. A balding elderly man with his Asian mail-order bride. Students waitressing to get money for a trip to Rome. Old ladies who take their time picking out their dessert icecream. Lonely people trying not to catch anyone's eye.

And me, with two ex-coworkers named Maria.

love and the couscous prince

2011-08-07T16:43:00.000+03:00

Question: Why don't I have a gorgeous man in my kitchen? (Stirring the couscous, wearing the coolest wrist watch and a white shirt with carelessly rolled-up sleeves, eyes of a prince.)

Answer: Because you don't believe that you deserve one, could hold on to one, really want one. Because you are not in love with your own life.

Just be (in love).

let rain and ruin commence

2011-08-07T15:53:00.000+03:00

I have dirty dishes that have been sitting in the sink since June. Not the smelly kind, but still. I have dustbunnies that have had free reign in my flat all summer.

So? I have been busy. Doing summer. Floating on the sea in the sun, reading fantasy novels, sipping wine by the fire on chilly evenings, tasting sand on beaches, eating icecream, thinking great thoughts.

But I must admit it's a nice feeling to be finally rid of dishes and dustbunnies and stretch out on the sofa with a laptop after too much time offline. To eat leftover couscous and drink real coffee after a summer diet of potatoes, pork and Nescafé. To be in the city and let my mind wither with too much internet and TV.

return of the noble savage

2011-07-21T12:35:00.000+03:00

Vacation-time and life by the sea with no mod cons, not even real coffee. The more the world advances, the more it mystifies me that I can still enjoy going for days without the internet, hot showers, an electric light to read by. That there are parts of the world that do not advance like the rest. Places where you light a wood fire on chilly nights and it's the birds who do twittering.

A brief stop-by in town to go online, drink coffee, partake of some popular culture (Merlin (the TV-series) and music I can choose myself), do laundry, get away from family, get together with friends, stock up on essentials (chocolate and books), play beach volley.

loops in the sky, knots in the sea

2011-07-20T22:49:00.000+03:00

Today's most strenuous activity: lying on my back, watching summer clouds roll lazily by and fighter aircraft exercising loops, and listening to fourteen-year-olds speculate on Gaddafi's possible successor.

But I also found a Gordian worm in the water. And rejected two novels, after having read approx. 120 pages of each. Nothing but the best literature is good enough for a beautiful summer's day by the sea. Maybe I have to bring out Special Topics in Calamity Physics again.

missionary in a foreign field

2011-07-09T18:52:00.001+03:00

I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own

Coldplay: Viva la Vida