My sanity is spread all over my sheets.

So apparently the last week's been kinda rough. Okay, not just kind of, things have gone so wrong I can't do anything but laugh hysterically now and let the rain of shit fall on me. I got a food poisoning on Sunday. Well, I was able to go to work on Tuesday, but got some sort of a stomach bug that same evening which lasted for one night. Eh? I've missed four busses, a carton of peach yoghurt has broken down in my backpack on my laptop and calendar, my shoes have broken down on my feet and for some reason it's magically started raining right when I've gone outside at least five times. On Wednesday I noticed the last chance to take the exam on Gender Studies I have been planning to go and do next Monday for a long time, was on Thursday, so I went and sat in front of the screen for hours, writing declamatory essays based on three books from which I only had the time to read one for I was planning to read the remaining two during the weekend. A couple days ago I was still extremely pissed off but since then I've just laughed everything off, life's so bloody hilarious and sad at the same time sometimes.

I miss being abroad.

Five days and I'm done with my current job. Hopefully for good. I think I've made enough money to survive until Christmas. After that, I don't know. Maybe I'll be in a different continent with my new lover, Canon EOS 450D.

I'm like a mirror, I'm nothing till you look at me.

I've fallen in love with so many places in my life that I already lost count years ago. There was this small village in Southern Germany I spent one summer in, Eberhardzell, that in all its beauty took my breath away on a daily basis, and there was Brisbane that managed to make me feel like home even though I hardly spent one week there, and Brighton, whose foggy shores drift like photographs through my head whenever I think about the city, and of course Ljubljana, and so many more cities and villages and just plain buildings, streets and cafés. However, I'm more than happy to say my current place of residence is also a place I'm still, after years of feeling this way, head over granny kicking heels in love with. Tampere has, for some reason, always felt like home to me, even when I was a kid and my visits to my sister's place here only lasted for a few weeks or days. This was and is just the right size and kind of place for someone like me to build a life in, there's always something new to go and experience but at the same time the city has this familiar, homely vibe in the background that brings enough comfort to make one feel safe. I understand how people who've lived here for their entire lives might feel differently about this, but coming from a really small town, I haven't yet been forced to face the overall smallness of the city and its social circles.

I'm leaving for Düsseldorf the day after tomorrow. Well, I'm leaving for Düsseldorf airport the day after tomorrow. I have no idea where we're heading after that, we haven't booked any kind of hotels or hostels or anything and actually have no clue whether we're even staying in Germany or heading straight to Holland to visit some guy Terhi knows that I've never met. The whole trip is pretty much wide open, our only plan is to make it back to the airport on Thursday so we can get back home, aka so we can unwillingly drag our asses back to this country at least two of us three traveling companions mostly spend our time wanting out of. In every case, I'm excited to get away from my life here for a while. I hope I won't get too caught up in being abroad, I always do, and then I can't concentrate on anything else but planning how and when to get out of Finland the next time, and usually the next time can't be more than a few months away. Fact is I have to work through July and August and have no chance of getting anywhere from Tampere before school starts. I mean, I already know I'll probably be leaving for Germany to work before Christmas, but that's fucking six months away. (I know I sound ridiculous.)

I'm going out with my sister tonight to see Street Dance 3D. Dance movies are always the same, there's always some goodie-goodie girl who does ballet who falls in love with some badass hiphop guy, on comes the traditional Romeo&Juliet bullshit storyline, and then at the end the two combine their styles creating something ecstatically wonderful, after which life is good and love never dies. This doesn't really bother me, though, because the dance scenes are usually so bloody awesome. And tonight the film's in 3D! This should be something to remember when I'm old and wrinkled. At least when I break my hip and can't ever pretend to be a street dancer ever again.

My Tampere:

Soon I'll be sober and unkissed.

It's weird to realise you're suddenly acting all relationshippy again. Only eight months ago I was going on and on about how I love being single and how I was perfectly certain I wasn't gonna tie myself to anyone or anything in a long long time because I felt I was too immature and fucked up not to screw things up. I wasn't kidding, I'm still pretty messed up and indeed was hesitant and anything but ready to commit to an actual relationship until perhaps February or March this year, and even now I'm somewhat freaked out by the fact that I actually have a person in my life I'm supposed to share all my stories with and who takes up roughly half of my mindspace on a day I'm not particularly busy or concentrated on other things. Not that I wasn't all giddy about the fact that all this has happened, it's just that I'm kinda surprised how things turned out. I was so sure this wasn't going to work out. Being wrong isn't always so bad, I have a guy with identical music/film/book taste now, someone who actually gets the references I make. Most of the time I still sincerely dislike not being right, though.

It's funny to realise you're slowly growing out of certain attitudes and behaviours that have been bothering you more or less since you learned to think. Take my neuroticism, for example, even though I still sometimes get into a hysterical state, I'm mostly able to calm myself down before I start hyperventilating and panicking uncontrollably. Am I growing up? Is this the part where I'm supposed to start looking back and feeling all conceited about not being the person I was when I was oh so young and foolish? Don't think so, I'm still the same Peter Pan with a grin on my face, just a tad more sane version now.

I'm actually in Raahe now visiting my folks. My mom's sick in bed so I'm helping the best way I can, mostly by cooking, cleaning and making sure she doesn't try to skip the bed rest and get back to business. I'm glad I'm here now 'cause otherwise she would have to do everything by herself since the gender roles in my family are still very traditional. Yesterday was Mother's Day so I guess this is one way of showing how thankful I am for everything she's done for me , and also probably a better way than giving her a rose and some cake like I did yesterday morning. Also, I have practically nothing to do here so at least I can be productive in some way. I'm pretty much broke at the moment so I'll probably be staying here for a couple weeks. I can manage a couple days but I'm sure I'll explode out of frustration unless I figure out a better way or place to spend my time before the weekend.

Now let's see what the new Crystal Castles album sounds like. I'll die a little inside if it sucks.

Suurenmoisesta ruumissaatosta kuumaan rakkauteen.

Some things in life are so huge that it's better to forget them a little before even trying to deal with them. I feel like cracking a "that's what she said" joke here but I'm gonna skip it now since I'm actually being serious for once. Even though time may sometimes make things seem a lot better and more miraculous than they actually were, some time can also make the extra weight of a certain memory go away so that you can finally see the reality without all the hazy bitterness and grief you thought you had already left behind.

I ended up spending my long holiday weekend in Seinäjoki. I wasn't meaning to leave there, I had already planned everything in Tampere but late at night on Thursday I found myself at the railway station with a ticket in my hand. Love strikes, I guess, sometimes you just have to prioritize whether you like it or not. Either way, I had a lot of fun during the weekend even though I woke up with puke on my leggings and my head ticking like a bomb from headache. Saturday night was hilarious, we were at some VIP punk party and I felt like a pink-haired 15-year-old rebel gal with a safety pin on her lip again. All three bands that played there were excellent, especially the last one with their sailor hats and kinky stockings.

I've been thinking a lot about control lately, and how easy it is to lose it. I'm all for living your life to the fullest - crying a flood, loving with your full heart, running for your life, shouting at the top of your lungs - but even so I think there are some lines you shouldn't ever cross. Go, live, love, shout, cry, do whatever it is you feel like doing, but don't let that get between you and your friends, because it's those people that care for you that will help you up from that huge pile of shit when you find yourself sinking in it, and you will. When you're willing to sacrifice everything - even every relationship - you have just for a fast kick and a transitory feeling, it's no longer fun and crazy, it's just sad. People you care for and who care for you should always come first, no matter how dark that place is where your head's at.

I think my brains have melted into pink jelly. I may have to face how deep the miserably euphoric feeling that has taken control over me lately really is, and it's scarier than a feverish nightmare after which you wake up screaming. There is no great escape plan, I'm in this and I'm in this for good, whether I end up opening doors or closing them.

Open hearts and doors.

My personal Tyler Durden/Jack came over yesterday with her sister to spend the night at my place before leaving to Edinburgh, and I woke up early for once to take them to the bus stop. After that I've mostly been thinking about the soundtrack of my life so far, and even though I can think of more than 392489 songs to match every single mood I've ever experienced, I'm still having trouble deciding which ones would fit the images in my head the best. I have to get back on this one, I'm sure I'll be able to come up with a perfect compilation eventually. Important decisions and all that.

I had my second last exam yesterday, and even though I still have one to go I feel so relieved I could practically run a marathon wearing only flowers and a smile. Most of the semi-breakdowns I've been going through lately probably have little to do with the actual circumstances of my life but have happened mainly because I've been so stressed. It's not that I don't work efficiently under stress, I do, it's those other things apart from working that suffer from me being in full-on action mode. I start snapping at people for idiotic reasons and develop paranoia of some sort to keep myself concentrated on other things while trying to digest what I've just learned.

It's amazingly hard to try and explain why you consider someone particularly lovely and interesting, whether romantically or not. Liking someone isn't really something that can be explained with reason. It's undoubtedly possible to find some logic behind your feelings towards various people but all in all underneath all that logic there still exists that hazy euphoria that stems from purely unconscious factors. Not that these things should be explained in the first place, at least not to anyone else but yourself, it's just a reflex of some sort for me to try to originate where certain feelings come from before being able to trust them fully.

It's coffee time now. I think I'll have a sandwich too to celebrate the beautiful and miraculous vibrations in the air.

http://www.learnsomethingeveryday.co.uk/

You've kicked me around, you've wrapped me in cotton.

Collapsing publically is kind of a refreshing experience. Friday the 5th was pretty exhausting and hilarious at the same time. I was at my friend, Otto's (www.ottomaja.com) exhibition's opening party (which was superb, btw, everyone in Seinäjoki should go and see it at Still Standing), the night was good until we got back to our hotel room in the morning and things got a bit out of hand. I ended up screaming my lungs out at Otto's face at 6am, probably waking up a whole floor at the same time. For some (both particular and mysterious) reason I just had to spill out every kind of insult I was able to come up with at that time of the night, after which I locked myself in the bathroom until someone unlocked the door from the outside and put me to sleep. The next morning I woke up wishing someone had actually put me to sleep. We all laughed it off pretty quickly, though, and after some dealcoholocausting we were finally able to drive back to Jurva. I spent my whole winter holiday week there, surfing from mood to another, laying around in my pyjamas smelling like ass and cracking bullshit jokes all day long. Wednesday was pretty rough, though, we were planning on having a beer or two at the local pub and ended up getting shitfaced in Vaasa. Things got fucked up - this time not because of my inability to cope with stuff that goes on in my head, fortunately and un-fucking-fortunately - and at 5am I found myself in Vaasa airport, planning to leave the country with two other nutjobs with the same idea in mind. Good thing we finally realised none of us have enough cash to actually put our plan in action and we ordered a taxi back to Jurva (which, btw, was anything but cheap). How stupid can you be? Pretty fucking stupid, apparently.

I've been back in Tampere since Friday and the vibes and moods have been pretty good ever since. I actually managed to only have a few glasses of wine and cider on Friday without even wanting to get plastered, and was home around 1am for a change, not alone but in good company. Yesterday I went on an almost date after which we (meaning me and four of my friends, not just me and the, well, date) went and saw Alice in Wonderland in 3D. The film was a huge disappointment, even the 3D effects weren't able to save the whole mess Burton apparently meant to make his new masterpiece.

Whether my new but not-really-new-at-all guy I've been having a relationshippy thing with for a while now has something to do with both the I-want-to-die and the I-can't-stop-my-face-from-looking-like-a-retard-on-happy-pills moods during the past few weeks or not is something that we can all decide not to even argue about since it's so obvious. I'm not used to reacting to things on such an intense level as I have lately, and I'm not sure if I should be freaking out or not about actually feeling all kinds of lovey-dovey feelings varying from jealousy to euphoria again. Truth be told, I'm not freaking out for once, which is a fact that almost makes me freak out, since it's really that weird for me to feel normal about this kind of stuff, and not just pretend everything's normal and I'm not feeling like a fake and like shit underneath. Oh yes, I'm perfectly aware that I'm nuts, not just about this particular being.

Anyways, life has been and probably will continue being pretty intense, sometimes in a bad but mostly just in a good way. Things are creepy but oh so lovely. There is one question I hope I won't ever have to ask myself again, and that is "Alive or just breathing?". Just gotta make sure I won't have to.

Poor little misunderstood baby, no one likes a sad face - but I can't remember life without him. I think I did have good days.

Surfing from place and person to another and never feeling any better or more at home than before. Creating false illusions of happiness to take the edge out of your own melancholic anxiety, living a lie that is called life, a lie that is actually more truthful than any truth you've said out loud within the past few years. Waking up after every dream sleep-deprived, falling asleep just as tired as you were when you first got up. Screaming your lungs out by staying quiet for days, opening a door inside your mind for people to walk in, just to notice there are 200 other doors behind that one waiting to be unlocked but you forgot the key in your childhood and you have no idea where there.



I must now make a sober confession: I really am done with people surfing for a while. I'm all kittens and puppies.

Everything is and will be fine.

I'm in a skip divided malfunction.

Life has a funny way of spitting in your face after bitchslapping you, ending this whole scenario with pointing its' finger at you and laughing. You never realise how hypocritical and lost you've been before someone throws a rock at you and shows you how your denialist mind has been tricking you into thinking ridiculous things only for your own protection. I feel like a 12-year-old who's just figured out she doesn't have to shut up just because everyone expects her to.

I've been living in the middle of a huge alcoholocaust since Thursday. My memory's filled with blank pages but I don't really mind, I don't think I've been this confused in ages but for the first time in a very long time I'm actually not feeling utterly lost, which is pretty ironic.

Maybe I'm just banging my head against the wall again but to hell with it. Let it fucking hurt then.