I live in a different country, so you better love me NOW

Some time ago I realized that traveling alone is not only convenient because it's easier to arrange everything (you only have to agree with yourself on the time, place and cost), but it's also good fun.

It all started with an innocent trip to the lake Garda (in Italy), and afterwards I've become fixated on travelling by myself. I can make my own schedule, see the things that really interest me and not see things that don't interest me at all. I can go take a nap without feeling guilty about it, and sleep in if I'm feeling tired in the morning.

The only time I feel like some company would be in order is while I'm eating dinner. Luckily that can be arranged by finding a friendly restaurant where they sit you at the bar, and after the second night you're already friends with the staff and they'll keep you company while you eat. Problem solved.

So what happens when a young(ish) blond girl travels alone? She meets people. Man- people. And it can also happen that these man-people want to get to know you better and see you after you've returned home. Someone might call it organizing a date. I would.

Now, if this date-thing was happening with someone who lives in my city (and country), things might go approximately like this:
1) you go out one night during the week, let's say Wednesday, and you meet up in some local pub for drinks. You stay out for max 2 hours, and then it's bye bye
2) if the first date went well, you might meet up again, let's say on a Friday, for dinner. Or if you're romantic, you might meet up on a Saturday for a nice stroll by the sea side (during the day), and afterwards you go get some hot chocolate and talk for a few hours. And then it's bye bye
3) should there be a legendary third date, then it's your business what you do, I don't want to know anymore. But after the third date there's a slight possibility that you might be entering in some sort of a relationship, so be aware.

But since this man-person lives abroad, the scenario is approximately this:
1) can I come and spend a weekend at your house so I can stay with you 72 hours straight?

This freaks me out. It's like being on a first date for 3 days with someone you don't know all that well. You might realize after 2 hours that you don't like this man-person at all, and after that you're stuck with him for another 70 hours. And what's worse, he's going to be in your house, by your side, not leaving you alone, giving you zero privacy for the whole weekend. To me, this extensive closeness so early on might even ruin something that otherwise could have blossomed into a nice little relationship.

This kind of endurance-dating makes me feel like I'm running a marathon when I've only prepared myself for a 100m dash (or better, 200m fences). My feelings don't have the opportunity evolve through time, but everything has to happen NOW.

"Love me, right now, because on Sunday I'll be gone."

OK, I admit that I'm also freakishly intolerant about people who stay at my house for more than 3 hours at a time, and the same thing applies to me staying at someone else's house. To me, my house is my castle, and your house is your castle. "This is my dancing space, and that is your dancing space" (cit. P.Swayze, Dirty dancing)

Obviously none of this applies if I'm madly in love with you, then you can be the king of my castle for all I care. But until the deal is done, only short visits apply.

obviously you also need to get the cat's approval
before entering my apartment

It's weird though, the more I travel and the more people I get to know, the more I cherish the time I have for myself. I love meeting new people and hanging out with them, but when the night is over I can't wait to be by myself and mind my own business. Until the morning comes and I'm ready to be social again. It's like I need to recharge my togetherness-batteries or otherwise they'll run out and I'll become a mean bitch.

So what have we learned today folks? If you want to date me, you have to move to my country, preferably to my city, but you need to keep your distance. Easy as that! If you should one day receive an invitation to enter my apartment, you know things are going well.

Have a datefull WE everybody! Or not, your choice.

Life, part II

Sometimes I make a stupid-ass mistake and go to bed too early. What this means is that I wake up around 2am and can't sleep anymore, so for about 3 hours I think about stupid shit that I'd never think about during the day. Also, like you can imagine, the things I think about have little or no meaning to me in the real life, but during the wee hours of the night they become huge and almost impossible to overcome.

An example.
When I was moving to Italy 3 years ago, I was rather stressed out since I had only 6 weeks to pack up my life and go. During the days I wrestled with things like where to put my couch while I'm away and who might take care of my pet gecko. Pretty normal things to worry about, but would surely be arranged in some way. During the night I thought about how the hell to have breakfast on my last morning in Finland, because I obviously couldn't leave any food behind in the refrigerator. Also, I was super worried about where to put my cover and pillow after I wake up on the last morning. For some reason I didn't say to myself "go have breakfast out with your family, and give the cover and the pillow to your mom while she's having her coffee". No, instead I stayed awake until 5am worrying about it.

Last night I went to bed too early, and at 2am started thinking about what happens when I die. 

If I was a person who practiced her religion (evangelic lutheran btw) I'd have this all figured out. You go to heaven (or hell...) and that's it. Good deal, no worries, I'm covered. But I'm not a religious person, so I have some doubts about the existence of heaven/hell.

Should I believe in reincarnation I wouldn't be worried either. You die and then come back, good deal, no worries. If not for reincarnating as Dennis Rodman or a dung beetle. But I'm not convinced about reincarnation either, so I'm back to square one.

An eternity in a box....

Occasionally I bring the subject up with my friends (not too often, I don't want to come off as the weirdo who doesn't know what to do when she dies). Usually it goes something like this.

me: What does one do when they die?
him: What do you mean? As in will they put you in a coffin or will you be cremated, or what?
me: No, as in "whatcha gonna do" when you die?
him: Eeeee, well dear, you don't do anything, you're dead
me: You mean that I'm supposed to just not do anything until forever and ever, like millions of years?
him: Sweetie, you're dead, you don't need to do anything, you're just dead. There.
me: Where?
him: What do you mean where?
me: As in where will I be?
him: Nowhere, you're dead. Physically you're underground, mentally you don't exist
me: But I have to be somewhere. I can't just disappear. When I die, where should I go?
him: For all I care you can go to hel................. I don't know dear, I'll think about it and let you know
me: Ok, thanks

I know I sound like a 3 year old who hasn't quite understood the concept of death, but I just can't wrap my head around the fact that one day I'll just disappear. My body and soul will vanish for good. And the concept of not doing "anything" for the next gazillion years is hard to accept. And how long is that anyway? How long do I do this "nothing"? Until Earth blows up? And then what?

Huh, I guess this is one of the reasons why people start believing in God, they can't deal with the fact that maybe there's no afterlife.

...or maybe I'll come back as a piece of Spanish artwork.
No wait, that's just a pile of rocks.

Well, instead of turning to religion for answers, I'm just going to decide now, once and for all, that when I die I will go to this really nice place X, and there will be some really cool job awaiting for me. Like "the boss of the warehouse with red and blue stuff in it" or "manager of all things shiny". So, to put it shortly, a delightful task with zero responsibility to do for the rest of the existence of the universe.

And beyond.

In the meantime, maybe I'll just try to take care of the lifetime I have at hand.

This is not a posting about the hockey match Finland vs Sweden

I could write about the EXTREMELY important hockey match that will be played today at Sochi. Finland vs. Sweden. But I won't. It would be too obvious and natural. And since I'm not obvious, nor natural, I'll write about something else.

I will say though that I REALLYREALLYREALLYREALLYREALLYREALLYREALLY hope that Finland wins. And I'm desperately trying to find a way to see the match here at work, which is hard because apparently Italian TV channels aren't interested in hockey, especially if the two teams playing come from some weird nordic place. Also, YLE Areena doesn't work here, so I'm going slightly mad. But that's all I'll say about the subject.

Instead I'll talk about another really important matter going on in the motherland. The parliament discussed yesterday the initiative (that come about an initiative from the good Finnish people) that would allow gay people to get married. It looks like the initiative will move forward, since 108 members of the parliament are for it. In general I'm not into politics, nor do I know anything about the struggles of a gay couple, but I know how much it pisses me off when someone tells me that I can't do something that in my mind I should totally be allowed to do, so for this reason I'm rooting for the homosexuals.

Where as most of the parliament seems to agree with my views, there are still some that are vigorously against it. We have this political party called Perussuomalaiset (which means "the basic Finns" or the "ordinary Finns") who in general are against everything that's weird according to them, or that has to do with foreigners. So, a lovely bunch of people, and very flexible thinkers too.

Apparently one of them (can't remember the name, a dude anyway) decided to sleep inside the parliament in order to be the first in line to cast his vote against the initiative. Now that's what I call serious commitment. I'm happy to see a representative of the parliament who's this dedicated to his work, but on the other hand, in this case, he comes off as ridiculous as the teenage girls who wait in line for days to get to the front row of the Backstreet Boys' concert. Or better yet, I can understand the enthusiasm of the Backstreet fans, the concert just isn't the same if you can't see the pimples of Nick and taste the sweat of Kevin (who's old, so he sweats). But mr. Perussuomalainen here seems to think that if he's the first one to vote, his vote will have some special powers and his opinion on the matter will be taken more seriously.

Well, good luck mr. Perussuomalainen, maybe tonight you can go sleep in front of the border of Finland in order to block any foreigners from entering, or in front of the supermarket in order to block the grannies from buying discounted coffee. Your move.

There's also this other revolutionary thing going on in Finland. Apparently this chain of kiosks called R-kioski has implemented a new way of offering coffee to their customers. You can choose a red mug if you're currently in a relationship, or the green mug if you're single and therefore available for a chit chat with a fellow R-kioski goer. 

I think this system isn't exactly waterproof. What if I'm single but I'm NOT looking for a date? What if I'm in a relationship but I'm a huge bastard and looking for new companions? What if I'm lesbian and looking for women's company? What if I'm kind of in a relationship, but it's still too early to tell (to use a FB term: It's complicated) and so I might be up for some new action, but you have to be a really hot guy or otherwise super interesting. What if I went to R-kioski just to get a cup of coffee instead of wanting to declare my relationship status? Who the hell hangs around a kiosk in hopes of scoring a hot date anyway?

Finland, the land of a thousand relationship-related problems, both hetero- and homosexual. (FYI for those of you who didn't get the joke, Finland is usually referred to as the land of thousand lakes) (OK, I just kinda ruined the joke by explaining it)

looking at one of the thousand lakes,
wearing something around my neck that looks like one of those rescue hoops.
Instead, it's scarf. A really big scarf.

If this is the level of the problems in the motherland, then I can feel pretty satisfied. We're not struggling for our lives, like let's say, in Kiev. Kiev, hang in there, things will get better, and let's hope that one day your biggest problem too will be from which mug to drink your coffee at the local kiosk. Looking forward to it.

And last but not least:
my Swedish supplier (at work) just informed me that he'd buy me dinner next time he comes here if Finland wins the match. I didn't promise him anything if Sweden wins. That's what we Finns call SISU.

No sorry, my bad, that's just being a nasty bastard.

Still, GO FINLAND!!!!!!

Je veux jambon, merci.

I work in a somewhat international environment. A part from Italians I talk with the Finns (well duh), Swedes, Americans, Germans, Austrians and the French. I don't speak all of these languages fluently, but in theory, by the power vested in me by the hours of language lessons taken during the 30+ years of my life, I should be able to say something in each of these languages. At least the basic things, who I am, why I'm calling, and "sorry but the person you're looking for isn't available at the moment, would you like to leave a message?". But in reality, things aren't that easy.

I speak fluently Finnish, English and Italian. I speak fairly well Swedish, in theory. I used to speak Swedish really well when I still lived in Finland, it's actually a language that I like a lot. When I'm at home alone, when I'm speaking by myself in Swedish (yeeees yeeees I'm weird and I talk by myself using foreign languages), I'm a rather skillful Swedish-speaker. I write Swedish well, apart from having forgotten some of the words, but that's what Google translator is for. Still, when I they call me from Sweden, I sometimes freeze up. I can't remember any of the words, and sometimes I forget why I called in the first place. Yes, it's just lack of practice, but still the difference is huge comparing to the fluent Swedish I speak at home by myself. It's rather baffling, and a little sad. I never know how to describe my Swedish skills in my CV. I wish there was an option somewhere between "fluent" and "intermediate", like "fluent speaker in closed premises" or "fluent with the cat".

I've also studied French for 5 years, and got a super-grade on it when I graduated high school in 2000. So, what, 14 years ago? GOD I'M OLD. So naturally I've forgotten most of it, but it amazes me that after all the studying I can't seem to come with a single word when I suddenly get a call from France and the caller doesn't speak any English. Ok, it's a situation that I wasn't prepared for, but not even a simple bonjour comes out of my mouth. Instead I start speaking English to him veeeeeery veeeeeeeeeery slowly. Of course he understands everything I'm saying even though he claims not to speak English (like all French people), and I understand everything he says to me in French. Still, all I can muster up is a "merci, au revoir" before hanging up. It's a disgrace folks, a disgrace.

nope, I'm not fine at all

I sometimes fly with Air France. When the hostess greets me at the entrance of the plain, in French, I always respond with a really nice and fluent "Bonjour!". The problem is that after that they think I'm actually French, and later on when they come to ask me if I want a cheese or ham sandwich, they do it in French. And even though I by now know to expect this, and I kinda prepare myself to respond in French, I always freak out in the end and what comes out is English. Would it really be so hard to say "jambon" or "fromage"? Evidently it is.

Well, the French hostess isn't much better either, after having heard my response in English she asks me what I'd like to drink, in French. I blame it on the noise in the plane, and she probably didn't hear me speak in English. But most likely she's just a mean French hostess who hates me for not knowing her language.

I've studied German for 6 months now. In some ways it's a lot like Swedish, so that helps a lot. I've noticed that once you've lived abroad and you've had to learn a new language quick, you develop a skill to understand new languages, any language, in a short period of time. I might not be able to say many things in German yet (or more like say things correctly in German), but I've learned how to listen and understand German in a matter of a few months. We'll see how it goes when I get my first call from a German person who doesn't speak English. I'll let you know.

The thing is that with all these languages in my head, I've started to lose my Finnish. Or I start a sentence in English and somewhere in the middle it turns into Italian. Or I'm writing something in Swedish, get a call from a colleague and suddenly can't speak a word of Italian, bara svenska. I translate the sayings in Italian into Finnish, only to find out that it doesn't make any sense.

When you speak lots of languages daily, in the end you're not fluent in any of them. Not even your mother's tongue. Kinda makes you wonder if all this studying and messing about with different languages is causing me more damage than anything else.

folks, don't go learning Italian  in order to understand this message,
in the end it's not that important

So folks, what have we learned today? That learning languages is bad. We should all stay in our homes, in our own countries, not talk to strangers, and watch TV shows dubbed in our own language. Stick with what you know and be good at that. We have 5 million people in Finland, so don't tell me you can't find a fellow countryman to talk to if you fancy a chit-chat. No need to talk with foreigners, it'll just confuse you.

To the ones who didn't get that the above is called irony, I hope you take my advice. For the rest of you, wishing you a super international day!

Don't let the sun get you down

I recently read the status of one person in FB :
" XYZ is feeling sad".
It took about 5 minutes for some person to write a comment below :
" Noooooo you can't be sad today, it's sunny outside".

My immediate question was, what the hell does the weather conditions have to do with somebody's sadness?

At this point I might have to refer to my sympathy/empathy-posting I made before Christmas (see the posting HERE ). When someone's feeling sad, the empathetic person tries to support them by asking why they're sad and then co-feel their sadness with them by being present and listening. The sympathetic person tries to cheer up the sad person by making up all kinds of reasons why this sadness shouldn't exist, or by demonstrating that there are worse things in this world than what you're experiencing, so "CHEER UP BUDDY". Needless to say the FB-comment above falls on the sympathy-category.

I should mention that I'm not a person who's mindset is controlled by the weather. I can be sad and un-social even though it's sunny, and I can be happy even if it's raining. A planet somewhere far far away and the non-existence of clouds at any particular time just can't make me feel better if my mind is bothered by something gloomy. Nor do I feel that it's my duty to go outside when there's beautiful weather if I don't feel like it. "But you're wasting a wonderful day by staying inside!!". Sorry, but no. How can it be a waste if I'm doing what I feel like doing and enjoying myself, although indoors? On the other hand, I can be the cheeriest person even if it's been raining for weeks, that is if there's something to be cheery about.

Hey, you, Mister, yes you under the tree!
Having a nice sunny day eh?
Don't stay in the sun too long because
IT WILL BURN YOU ALIVE!!

Weather just doesn't have an effect on me and my mood. Weather is just something that happens, regardless of myself. I can't control it, so it doesn't need to play a bigger part in my everyday life than it already does.

I understand that people mean well when they're trying to cheer you up, or forcing you to appreciate the pretty day outside. They see a FB status like the one above as a public cry for help, and they run to the rescue with these lame lines about weather, because it's the quickest cure to the problem from their point of view. But do they really expect the answer to be "oh yes, you're right, there's sun outside, so what the hell with my problems, everything will be better if I just appreciate the weather".

Sunlight will make you feel better if you're suffering from vitamin D deficiency, but that's about it. Enjoying the sun is something that care-free people can do, not those who are under the weather.

As someone who comes from a country where you have very little sun light for about 4-5 months of the year, you can't let the weather get to you too much. In Finland, not caring about the weather is a means of survival during the winter months. That's why we start saying right after 21.12. that "oh look, only 6 months till midsummer" or "from now on the days will only get longer and longer" even if it's still a long way to having even 5h of daily sunlight. We focus on the big picture, because it's what gets us through the darker months. If we got sad every time it got -30 degrees outside and there was a week long blizzard, we'd all be cutting our veins sooner or later. Instead we say "who cares about the weather when I can have a cozy 24 degrees inside my house,a nice fire in the fireplace and there's good TV and salmiakki".

Well, I say it anyways.

Of course we frolic around like crazy people during the summer months because there's SO much light and we can't sleep, but that's another story.

"Dude, sometimes I feel like it's raining all the time down here"
"I hear ya bro, I hear ya"

So next time someone tells you they're feeling sad, ask them why and listen, instead of trying to fix their problem. Next time your friend wants to hang out inside even though there's a sunny day outside, let them be, or join them in their indoor fun. Accept the fact that not everybody feels like the sun is the coolest thing ever, or needs to be conditioned by it. Sun is fun, but only when you're already in a "fun" mood. Sun is something extra. A bonus you didn't expect on an already amazing day.

Besides, staying indoors is SO underrated.

Have a good one folks!

The holy friendship day

So it's almost Valentine's Day. At this point in my life I've spent enough Valentine's Days without a boyfriend that I no longer feel abandoned or sad seeing all the mushymushy-commercials and teddy bears sitting on a heart saying "ai wowe vuu" when you press their tummy. It's just material anyway, has nothing to do with love. Love is something that you show every day (not just 14.2), by bringing the other person breakfast in bed or allowing them to watch football even when you're favorite TV show is on the other channel. But anyways, moving on.

I wanted to talk about what Valentine's Day means to us Finns. Obviously us being a cold hearted and evil group of people, we don't celebrate Valentine's Day as the day of the lovers. No sirree. To us, it's the day of Friendship.

I'm not sure exactly why we've decided to be different. Found this explanation on the web site of "Holidays and Festivities in Finland" (see the link HERE )

"In Finland Valentine's Day is about celebrating friendship (Ystävänpäivä means Friend's Day in Finnish). The day has no romantic content, instead people send cards and gifts to their friends. Valentine's Day celebration came to Finland quite late which probably led to it's unique interpretation"

Well hell yes, way to go us, I think! Instead of feeling gloomy about not having a companion, you can celebrate the fact that you have wonderful friends!! Unless of course you have no friends either, and in that case you can probably join some Valentine's Day support group and try to survive the day.


I remember when I was in seventh grade, and went to this rather big high school. The tradition was that you would put all the gifts and the cards you made for your friends into this large collecting box placed in the hall before the big day, and on Valentine's Day, on 5th period, the tutors went around the school and delivered all the presents to their rightful destination. I sent a lot of little gifts and cards, and in return received a lot of little gifts and cards. Nothing special, just heart shaped lollipops or key rings, or cards with something special written on them, but still it made me feel really special to realize that I had all these friends who cared about me. Sometimes there would even be some "unknown" gift from a secret admirer, which was always a nice surprise.

We often don't think about our friends. They're just sort of "there". I have some friends that I've known all my life, or for 20 years anyway, and especially now that I live abroad I find it ever so comforting to know that no matter how long I've been away, when I return I can sit down with them, start talking, and it's like I never left. They are there, even though we don't call each other often or write messages if not via FB. It's a wonderful thing to have in your life, these BFF's, but sometimes I think the relationship between us would deserve a little celebration. Sometimes I just wish I was in seventh grade again and had the chance to send these little gifts to my friends to let them know that they're important to me. That I do care, even though I'm not there to say it out loud.

So if you're dateless this Valentine's Day, don't beat yourself up and get all sad and lonely. Instead, celebrate the holiday Finn-style! Make some wonderful little gifts for your closest friends, or send them a card with a cute note saying how much that particular person means to you, or maybe share with them a nice memory from your past and let them know you're thinking about them today. I guarantee it'll make you feel just about the most marvelous person in the world.

I'm a busy little bastard so no time for home made cards or gifts of any sort. Instead, I made this little photo collage for you. Yes you, you know who you are. 

My BFF's 4eva.

Shopping Night!!!

Sorry folks, I couldn't NOT write about this.

Who watches the marvelous reality TV show called "Shopping Night" with the gay-as-a-spring-cucumber Enzo Miccio and rigid-as-a-frozen-grasshopper Carla Gozzi? Come on, it's ok to say it, I know it's embarrassing but you're not alone, I watch it too. We can form a support group later, but now it's time to talk about the greatness of this wonderful show.

Link to the episodes of Shopping Night on Real Time

So there are always 3 superconfident women who are being chosen for every episode, and they enter in this huge department store during the night when there are no other people there. And for what? For shopping of course!! They come out of this fancy limo wearing only a bathrobe, and find Carla and Enzo in front of the department store already waiting. They present these poor women with "the challenge of the evening", which is to find the perfect outfit for some special occasion, such as a new year's eve party, a meeting with the ex (my absolute favorite, I didn't even know there was a special way to dress for the ex!!), or a school reunion. They send the girls on their way, and then retire to this "control room" to observe the events.

"The world of fashion needs a new queen, go hurry girls, it's SHOPPING NIGHT!!!"

And let the mother of all things corny begin...

Here's what I would've chosen for the ex...
a Paul Frank hoodie...

Now, first of all, the girls have only 15 minutes to find the clothes they want. There's something fishy here if you ask me. If I enter into a store, ANY store of ANY size, it's going to take at least 5 minutes for me to figure out where everything is and from where to start. How these girls manage to find at least 15 outfits from a huge department store in 15 minutes is beyond me. Then again, I'm not in the show, they are.

Obviously Enzo and Carla are often appalled by the clothes that the girls are choosing. They do these pre-arranged smart-as-a-whip dialogues about how one of the girls has chosen a skirt with a leopard design on it, and they'll say things like "it's so last season" or some other weird thing in French. Every once in a while one of them goes to talk to the girls to give advice about accessories or shoes or some other shit that's really not that important.

When 15 minutes are up, it's time for "steal the deal". Or in other words each of the girls can steal an outfit from one of the other girls. None of the girls go about this task thinking "what does she have that would look good on me". No no. These vindictive bitches steal an outfit thinking "this would look SO good on her, so I better steal it, even though it would look like a piece of crap on me". You go girl, that's the spirit of a fair game!

...these supercool Converse sneakers...

Ok, then it's off to the dressing rooms. Again, they have like 5 minutes of time to try on all the clothes they managed to drag with them. How the hell do they do this? Ok, they're wearing only a bathrobe so they don't really need to undress first (something that during the winter months in Finland takes about 8,5 minutes, starting from your reindeer-skin coat). But still, I'd never manage to try on 15 pieces of clothing in 5 minutes, and decide what looks good and what not. There's something fishy here too folks...

In the midst of the struggling with the clothes there's obviously also pre-arranged bickering among the contestants. I can just picture in my mind how the director has given each girl a line to say, they've practiced it a few times, and off you go you little actor-wanna-be-you's! They're almost as convincing as Enzo "I have all the Cindy Crawford work out tapes" Miccio and Carla "could someone come and put some oil in my joints before I fall apart completely" Gozzi.

...these mind-blowing blue jeans...

In the end the girls get a little make up of their own choosing, and after that they present themselves to the judges, a.k.a. Enzo and Carla. Each of the girls talk about their outfit and say why they chose those clothes and accessories in particular. It works like this.

1. Girl A says she chose the dress because it has a nice neck line
2. (there's a cut to a scene where Girl B says something horrible about the neck line on that dress)
3. Girl B says she chose the shoes because they had some lovely glitter on it and that they reflect her personality
4. (there's a cut to a scene where Girl A says that Girl B's personality is as interesting as a wet dog's fart)
And so on.... basically it's a roast.

Of course there can be only one winner, one "queen", so Enzo and Carla take a little break to discuss the outfits and then give their ruling. There's always one girl who has committed "a crime against fashion that can't be forgiven". To them it's so obvious who's the first one out, but I have to say that I have no clue as to who's the loser or why. To me, the girls are often equally weirdly dressed. In the end they choose the winner among the two girls left, and she tries to act all surprised and maybe even cries a little. She also get's a small crown. Well, duh. She's the new queen of fashion isn't she?

...and my new cool eyeglasses.
No wait, THAT'S JUST HOW I DRESS EVERY DAY.
Damn.

This is one of the worst and stupidest TV- shows ever made, but by god you have to love Enzo and Carla and their robot-like banter. The fact that he bursts out to sing some old Italian folk-tune every now and then as if his whole life was a musical, and she tries not to trip with her squickely knees as even her bathroom visits are done according to the etiquette. You have to adore the 3 women who have peed their pants for the last 6 months waiting to be on the show and then finally get kicked out because they mixed black with brown.

So next Wednesday at 23.05, don't miss this show that will one day undoubtedly  be a part of the Italian broadcasting heritage.

SHOPPING NIGHT!!!!

Crazy fog

If yesterday was all sunny and cuddly and full of good deeds, today is all gloomy with fog that makes you want to run right in the middle of it and disappear. It's ok though, sometimes it's good to disappear a little.

spot the city in this picture

This is the photo that I took from my bathroom window this morning (no filters). Now, usually you would see the city behind those lovely orange houses (btw, still after 3 years haven't quite understood why someone would paint their house orange, but what do I know right?), and also a nice silhouette of a mountain not too far away. This morning I saw squat.

We get a lot of fog in these parts of the country, but this is getting ridiculous folks.

When I was little I saw this terrible horror movie called "The Fog" (more info HERE). Not the 2005-version but the 1980-version that was badly made and super scary. Ever since I've always gotten the creeps when there's deep and dense fog like this morning. It's like it's trying to enter inside your house even, steal your stuff and strangle your cat.

it's coming.....

The fog this morning is like the perfect metaphor for the situation inside my head. I try to look forward but can't see anything from the fog that's blocking everything. I know my future's out there somewhere, but for the time being it's invisible, and I just have to deal with the fact that I have to wait for the weather to clear out.

Hope it's sunny where you are, my dear reader. Both inside and outside your head.

Have a great weekend folks!

Saving the world. Today.

I'm currently drying my eyes from tears, because I just watched a video of a stray dog being rescued and nursed back to health after having lived in a dump for many months. He even found a little doggy-friend while recovering, and now they're best buddies and looking for a home. (see the video HERE )

I also saw another video this morning that made me feel like an ass for being human. You can see the clip HERE.

I've always been very sensitive when it comes to animals and nature, and tried to do my best in helping out. When the volunteers of Amnesty International approach me on the street for donations, my response to them was always "no thanks, I'd like to help animals and nature first, don't you have any of those WWF guys around today?". 

In fact that's the true story of how I became a donor member of WWF . The WWF guy was just around the corner and the Amnesty-girl took me to him. The Greenpeace guy was also there, but I've always thought they were scary and might make me attack some fishing boat in the Pacific sea if I joined.

I've always felt that people are evil by nature, and don't always deserve to be helped. Animals are innocent by nature, and often suffer because of the before mentioned evilness of humans, so in my book the animals should be helped first and the humans second. I'm not saying that there isn't a whole lot of injustice among us people as well that should be dealt with, but you have to pick your battles, and I've chosen to fight for the animal kingdom first.

A few times I've tried to be a vegetarian. The problem is that I'm not much into cooking to begin with, and having to think before hand what to eat and how to prepare it seems like too much work. That's a real lame ass excuse, I know. I plea on the fact that I'm an evil human.

Then one day I read from somewhere about the method they use to kill the foxes in Finland that they grow for the fur. I'm against using animals for fur (unless you live in Eskimo-land, and you caught that animal with your bare hands, you ate the meat, used the fur to keep you warm at night and made a toy out of the tail for the kiddies, =  used the whole animal and nothing was being wasted). I'm a super fan of foxes, I think they're really pretty and interesting animals. I'm not going to explain how they kill these foxes in Finland, I'll just say that when I went to the supermarket later that day, I couldn't bare to buy any meat. Fox or otherwise. I felt too guilty.

So this is what it took for me to become a vegetarian, huh?

Lately I've become really interested in this animal rights thing. I don't know if it's because I have a somewhat of a rescue cat at home which I love to peaces, or what's the deel-io here, but I feel an increasing need to help out and do something. Anything. 

Found an abandoned orangutan outside the parking lot this morning.
Offered to took him to the monkey shelter,
but he said that actually he was just waiting for a friend.

A few days back I watched a documentary about the situation of the seas on our planet. And again I was crying in the end. I'm not one of those people who's trying to save our planet for the future generations, I'm trying to save the planet for ME. Now. Today. I'm afraid of eating a freakin tomato because it has so many pesticides in it. I'm not trying to save the world for my unborn children, I'm trying to save myself from dying of cancer and other diseases caused by pollution. If I die of cancer, it should be because I smoked too much or tanned too much, not because I ate too many tomatoes.

Now, I'm no saint either. I drive to work even though I could just as easily walk. I buy stuff that I don't really need, most of them made of plastic. I think I even own a leather coat, which I bought years ago not even thinking about the fact that it's the skin of some animal (probably because I can usually afford only the fake ones). I fly to see foreign places, and quite often I might add. But you can't fix everything right away, so you gots to start somewhere.

I  have already some bigger plans for the future that will hopefully benefit the animal kingdom in some way, but for the moment I'll do these very concrete and easy things.

1) this weekend I'm going to donate some supplies to the local pet shelter 

2) I'm going to become (again) a donor for WWF (I stopped when I came to Italy because I didn't know if I'd have the money for it. Stupid me)

Oh, and of course I'm trying to keep up with my newly found vegetarianism. Thinking about the little foxies while shopping for food is a nice meat-repellent. I might eat an egg every once in a while, but only if it's marked "bio" and there's a picture of a chicken that's running around outside with other chickens.

It's been raining for two weeks here, non stop. Not even a 5 minute break. This morning finally it stopped. And even the sun is out, just slightly, but it's there. It's going to be a good day today, the kind of a day when you do good things. 

So go for it. Save a little bit of the world you live in. Your world. Today.

Silence is golden

This weekend we played a gig at one of our favorite places in Treviso. It's a real treat for us to play there. Not only because it's a really cool place with friendly staff, but also because unlike many smaller places they provide you with a sound technician and all the gadgets and monitors you want. Also, they feed you really well, which is important for a starving artist.

The gig went really well, we had lots of fun, played well and got lots of compliments. Still, I woke up in the middle of the night to a certain sadness. There was something that bothered me about the gig. I started to think about it, and came to the conclusion that even though the gig went well, I felt to have failed in one department.

I didn't listen.

I sung, I performed, but I didn't listen.

This has always been my problem every since I jumped from classical music to popular music. When you grow up studying classical music, you learn to make music from a very theoretical point of view. Classical music is full of rules that are followed to a tee. Not much room for improvisation or changing the order of things. Having piano as my first instrument didn't give me access to orchestras, and so I always played on my own. I learned to listen to myself (actually I hardly did that either, I just played like a mechanical monkey), but not others. And this defect of mine has always followed me, and it still causes me problems. Now that I sing, I'm always playing with someone, and if I don't listen to the other person, well... we're screwed.

My guitarist is this marvelous dude who plays really well. Any genre, any song, any-thing. He's very intuitive as a musician, and I often miss his subtle hints of "I'm going to continue with my solo" or "let's go to the chorus again" or "let's play this softer". It's actually not because I'm not interested in his part of the performance, it's not about me being selfish or egoist, it's about the fact that I'm worried about not doing my part well. So I tend to concentrate too much on me, and forget to listen to what he's doing.

Oh, wait. Actually, I AM being egoist.

It's egoism that doesn't come from an evil place where I'm convinced to be the best and so I should be the center of attention and the one that other's should follow. It's egoism that comes from my insecurity as a musician, and fear of failure. In the middle of my fear of personal failure, I'm failing as a partner. I'm letting down my fellow musician. I'm not being a team player. Inside my head I'm still that lonely piano player, that mechanical monkey, wrapped in her own artistic performance.

This is what separates me from the real musicians. They listen first, and play second.

Not listening is probably my problem in life in general. I could do a lot better if I just learned to listen people. And not just listen, but understand and interpret as well. I've always been the talkative one, maybe it's time to shut up for a while and just listen. Give space to others to tell me their ideas instead of forcing mine on them.

Shutting up and listening goes well with my New Year's resolution of being more empathetic. Seeing that it's already February, it would be about time to get with the program.

Or just buy a muzzle.

1) find the microphone in this picture
2) then throw it away because it's time to shut up