the dregs of a blogger's mind

Does every blogger have those blog entries that (thankfully) never made it past the draft stage?

Going through my blog I found quite a few never-published entries, most of them no more than a couple of sentences long. Some of them end in the middle of a cryptic phrase - I seem to have an incredibly short attention/inspiration span. For the benefit of my heirs I hereby publish them anyway. Or at least excerpts of them (cropped out of context they suddenly seem much more interesting). But some of them are actually the whole thing...

"Fell in love with that cute guy from CSI:NY and then I found him IRL."

"BOHEMIAN CHIC!"

"The devil himself is probably on FaceBook."

"I scrubbed a 20-foot sailboat with a toothbrush..."

"...what soul-choking acceptance..."

"God sits down next to me."

"Lurking darkness all around, sore throat, breakfast on karjalanpiirakka."

"Twice in my life I have run away."

"Autumn's first frost and a sales rep arrives at the Little Shop of Harmony in his big blue bus full of books just for me."

"'How can I help you? What can I do to make your day better?'"

"...a poem must have meter, fancy sequencing and chime..."

"The city of Brussels also had a pair of dangly earrings."

"Joseph (in Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat) meets his father... Runs to him but stops just short. Instead of falling into his waiting arms, just stands there looking him in the eye."

"My cane and I had lunch with Xena the Warrior Princess. She had got an axe and a chain-saw for her birthday."

"He tends to suddenly die on me."

"Someone talked to me as if I were stupid today. The computer gave me a meaningless chaos of numbers where..."

"...the shadows in the deserted restaurant are deep and I turn up MTV to drown out all the little noises (in my head?) that make me nervous..."

"My old teacher of history stood beneath the Monument of Liberty, straight-backed and proud. He spoke of legendary General Mannerheim..."

"The beauty of blue... at dusk, the twilight hour that I love best. Forgiveness and comfort instead of the harsh demands of dawn."

"I met him in a lift, a middle-aged, fairly ordinary man with thinning hair."

my not-meant-to-be

Excerpt from the Mostly Secret Diary of a Foolish Girl:

He comes looking for me.

We idle for hours, sharing food and hugs, dreams and silly jokes, almost-forgotten memories. Nobody knows me like he does. Nobody else remembers that I like salmon, once had a dog that used to bite, dream of learning how to handle a pistol. He can tell me stories about my favourite school teacher from more than a decade ago. He listens to my crazy stories about my ex-boss that he's never met. He asks me about the things that matter to me. He laughs at my jokes. He doesn't only know my past, he understands it.

My soulmate. But every time, we go our separate ways. My wayward soul stubbornly demands solitude.

me and the wildlife

They shot a bear not far from here recently as he was heading into town and upsetting the morning commuters. A wolf has been sighted in the woods across the bay - if he had a mind to, he could stroll across the ice towards me. The regional newspaper ran a story about a hare who fought three crows and apparently killed at least one of them. Of course they all got their 30 seconds of fame on YouTube (found here and here).

I live in a town of about 60,000 people and apparently not a few wild things.

the music makers and dreamers of dreams

Finches, starlings, thrushes, sparrows, swans and, above all, cranes...

Their music soothes me when the sun of spring, that slavedriver, makes other Finns swoon with happiness.

half-moon day and everything by halves

In the Little Shop of Harmony - grey skies and few customers. All I have sold so far is a book, plus a few trinkets from the second-hand basement. My work morale and morals are scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Shopping list for after work: Wine. Cheese. Muesli. Eggs (from freeranging chickens). Lots of fruit. Ingredients for a salad. Maybe some chicken. Chocolate (not as much as I would like). And something cheap and dramatic and gorgeous to wear.

Then home to watch CSI:NY and dream of America.

girl, woman

Met a young girl and saw myself eons ago. That sparkle in innocent eyes, the joy, the dreams of wonderful adventures.

And later, staring into the mirror in the ladies' room, saw myself today. That weary look, the cynicism, the fear of a life hopelessly spinning away towards a scarier horizon. But also, a little bit of wisdom and a diamond core. The knowledge that I have seen so much and not yet perished. The comfort in knowing even broken dreams can be survived.

Sometimes I wish I was a teenager, with all the giggles and glossy hair and secrets between friends. But I took another look at the girl and then went on to do what a grown-up woman is meant to do. Gave her the help she needed just then; an opportunity, encouragement, a vote of confidence, a little bit of calm and wisdom.

We help each other grow.