Tuesday, August 30, 2011

2005 and New York justice

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...

Monday, August 29, 2011

e-books, e-music and e-princes

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.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

what to see by the sea. and Babylonian dreams

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

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.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

to the man of peace

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

a good day in seven steps

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.

Monday, August 22, 2011

harmony or money, that is the question

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?

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Bon Jovi helped me write this

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?

Friday, August 19, 2011

never previously published

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..."

Thursday, August 18, 2011

don't mess with unknown gods

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

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

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.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

that book, you know

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.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

God is in Oxford

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

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

"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.

Monday, August 15, 2011

a guitarist and the Potter boy

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?

Tuesday, August 09, 2011

missing focus on a Tuesday evening

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

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

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)

Monday, August 08, 2011

salmon, a crowd and the Marias

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.

Sunday, August 07, 2011

love and the couscous prince

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

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.