more and more snow. i am torn inside. part of me wants the winter to go on and on, another has had enough. the gardener in me longs for spring but my hurt and broken heart is terrified.

i have five weeks left in this place, weeks to be spent well, packing, making use of the space while i have it... cutting patterns and sewing would be so good. but i've been sick in bed most days, feeling weak, stressed out and dizzy. the neighbours from hell aren't helping. they've begun smoking indoors and the smell lingers into my bathroom. my towels stink. on monday it triggered another migraine-ish, eye-crooking and nauseating headache that kept me from my ceramics class and finishing the pieces i have made for the raku weekend. i'm well pissed off. and too scared to complain. they're that sort of lot, loud and violent.

my brother's girlfriend brought me a big box of harem's delight from turkey. pistachio ones... mmm. i am not to open this box anytime soon. i scarfed down so much last week. she also gave me a pair of white knee-high socks with big bows on. the bows might come off, though... but for some reason they make me happy a little. like i should put them on and go buy macaroons.

speaking of socks, the whole thing about only wearing the silky toe socks to bed has gone out the window. i haven't taken them off except to wash. i need another pair... many pairs...

my project for april is to eat everything. i'm like a squirrel the way i store sundries and then forget about them. today we ate falafel from a mix and a jar of indian tomato sauce. check. i ought to list everything and plan some meals. i also noticed there's peanut butter from whole foods in ann arbor still in the fridge. three years old. which makes the unopened seedless raspberry jam even more past it. i wish i was, too.

little did the succulent i picked from the flower shop know of what lay ahead... this was an experiment in ceramics and continues to be one in indoor gardening. i have no idea if the plant will tolerate any of it. i was looking for something with dark, purple leaves but fell for this silhouette.

similar hanging plant pods were featured in an interior magazine a couple months back. they were sleeker in shape but mine can be watered from the top. i should try and make some more if i have the time. plain white ones would be ideal. the shape is far from what i envisioned, but have i mentioned yet how much i suck at sculpting clay? i would like them to be streamlined and textured, more seed-like.

there is a circle of black plastic, with a slit cut to accommodate the stem, tucked into the pod to keep the earth in place. i'll replace it with felt once i locate my scrap stash, in hopes of introducing some absorbency to the equation. now the water will pretty much run through, thanks to the sandy soil.

please excuse the depressing view from my window. it's much nicer when the trees are green. i won't be seeing that this year, or ever again. now that the move is so imminent, i realize just how fond i am of this apartment even though i hate living here. i would take it with me if i could, only improve it a little afterwards, push the walls wider.

i still don't know where i'll be going. or how. the only strongman with a van i know will be out of the country, and the big day appears to fall on a national holiday. splendid.

that unopened packet was originally my birthday gift to myself. i sort of forgot, then saved it for x-mas... didn't feel like opening it then either, apparently. now i don't know. and since i do know what it is, it's easy to keep it unopened. and even though i know what it is, the suspense is a thrill... i guess i'm just funny that way.

i have beautiful, voluptuous, white carnations by my bed and they smell of cloves up close. i think i want to eat them... but i'm eating leftover leftover risotto i made yesterday instead. concocted of some hemp tofu, the last ladleful of homemade ketchup, half a red onion, a withered stalk of lemon thyme and crumbs of dried seaweed and porcini, this simple rice dish is such a feast of flavour. italy meets japan in a way i've never tasted before.

it's the vernal equinox. and the moon is quite full. kind of hard to handle all that light.

i don't know if it was the super intense full moon last night or what, but yesterday was one long anxiety attack for me. my heart was pounding and i couldn't do anything but lay in bed, watching ace of cakes and dog whisperer episodes online. i was so tired i could hardly keep my eyes open, yet i stayed awake into the wee hours.

in my dreams the snow had all melted from the yard overnight. in reality only some of the ice on the front steps did. the eaves are dripping though. i tried to push some of the new snow from the driveway but it's just too heavy for me. besides, there's nowhere to push it to, the banks are so high. i bet it won't all be gone even by may.

snow shoes would have come handy today, treading in tigh-high wet snow, falling deep on each step. i wanted to gather pussy willow to make a wreath from, but gave up. i cut some branches from the nearest willow to mix with the cherry blossoms in a jar. they go together well, both so delicate but different textures.

came across one early to rise mosquito on the snow, so torpid that i picked him up and placed on top of a branch of the apple tree in the sun. mosquitos are among the few fauna on this earth that i hate with a vengeance, but i still feel for the underdog.

prunus cerasus

on my previous country stay i trimmed the cherry tree that didn't get clipped in the fall. after two weeks in a jar of stagnant water, the branches have unfolded their first blossoms. they are tiny, not more than half an inch wide, and would have become tart, bright red, translucent cherries towards the beginning of august.

my grandmother's house, the one her deaf father built, had a huge cherry tree in the garden. so tall only a third of the bounty could ever be harvested, the rest was literally for the birds. those cherries were always the highlight of summer, small but juicy and tasty. as much as i like the imported, sweet and dark, almost black cherries, the sour ones hold a world of memories for me in their flavour.

i should ask the new owners for cuttings of that tree, but i'm afraid of ending up bawling my eyes out over what they have done to the house i always thought would be mine one day.

things to do with washi masking tape :: add life to keyboard

a sleeping polar bear...

today kind of whisked me from one place to another. i heard a little voice in my head: "help, we are dying! we want to drink!" and packed my things, then left. my poor plants, abandoned in an empty house... dad has been sick all week and hasn't been able to come and water them. good thing i came today. everything was bone dry. my new fern perished. ginger was on its way, laying limp in the pot.

new things had sprouted, too. daffodils — and pumpkins by the look of it. when did i sow pumpkins? and why? a schlumbergera formerly known as november cactus was in bloom as well, again. maybe it has aspirations to be an easter cactus. my kalanchoë cuttings have also taken root. it's far from my favourite plant, but i bought one in the winter because i liked its white flowers. there is something about the way it grows that annoys me tremendously. but i still couldn't just toss it away after the bloom was over.

i tried to look up the english term for a flower cultivated to have a fuller bloom, and got 'told flower'. i almost bought it, but then realized the finnish word kerrottu indeed means 'told', too. what is the real term? is it 'doubled'? i'm drawing a blank here. anyway, that's what the kalanchoë flowers were like, white and dense. i'm not expecting them to bloom again, but you never know...

i stopped by the supermarket on my way here, between buses, and somehow managed to do all my shopping in twenty minutes. which would've been great if it hadn't resulted in having to sit at the bus station for an hour, frozen goods melting in the bag. what was i thinking? nothing, apparently. i also forgot to buy birdfeed, which was a particularly crappy move on my part, because the bird feeders were all empty and this is not the time to stop when i've been doing it all winter. the woodpecker has already been absent for a month and i'm worried for him.

a packet arrived from japan today, having just escaped the disaster. this made my delight a little bittersweet... i wish so much i could take someone in from the cold and offer a bowl of hot soup.

my new silky toe socks are pure love. almost too precious for my damp ol' toes... i really do love them, with a place for each toe to curl up in... mmm. the only ones sold here tend to be garish, acrylic, 'fun' socks. these, i think, will be designated for sleepwear only, so they won't wear out too soon.

loving this mesh patterned masking tape, too. peeled every bit off the packaging carefully, like i always do. what is it about a good weave-like pattern? especially in formica, as a counter-top, i think it's just the best. probably has to do with the reckless order of it. something i'm always striving for. the mailer has a drawing of a city on one side, on the other it gradually becomes a dense woods. ♥

a magazine, tennen seikatsu i think it's called, arrived too. full of bento pictures, it's made me quite hungry especially having missed dinner yesterday. i can only read a word here and there and understand the ones in katakana, the trans... what's the word? the foreign ones.

i learned to read very young and remember my frustration at school when kids would decipher out words syllable by syllable. i appreciate that learning japanese has put me in that situation. it's humbling, but the struggle is also what makes it so captivating. and these lovely magazines. there is so much i want to understand! this issue has a marmalade recipe and directions on how to cook something that looks like field horsetail sprouts. and all that bento... not to mention the articles.

i've had a crush on japan for years, its sleek style and that wonderful sense of down-to-earth ethearalness. i love all that crazy, cute stuff as well. and as a people, the japanese seem kindred spirits to a finn, in many ways, but also very eclectic and outlandish and interesting in others. japanese plants appeal to me, too, always so elegant and beautiful. if anything good will come of the ruins of today, my wish is that it will connect people with each other as well the nature, encourage sustainability and remind that there is more to life than work and pay. not only in japan, but all over the world.

my wonderful things today were bought from uguisu, a shop owned by the very friendly and keen-eyed hiki in tokyo. she is now donating 80% of every sale for aid work, so not only do you get amazing goods in lovely packages, the money is also well spent!

╱◥◣
│∩ │◥███◣ ╱◥███◣
╱◥◣ ◥████◣▓∩▓│∩ ║
│╱◥█◣║∩∩∩ ║◥█▓ ▓█◣
││∩│ ▓ ║∩田│║▓ ▓ ▓∩ ║

awesome. does anyone know who made this?

had to wait until today to take pictures of my sweets... in the sorry excuse for daylight we keep having. very nearly ate them all last night. is a delight turkish when there are nuts in it? i've had turkish delight with pistachios in them before. or maybe there is no real distinction and i'm just being too dogmatic. good is what they are, really delicious!

my box has had four flavours, but the translations had gone a bit awry... i had to dig through the sticker to the english on the box itself to find out they were: rose, bergamot, vanilla, orange and strawberry. only that makes five. granted, it does say 'mixed flavour' on the label.

note to self: make your own lokkum. in lemon, grapefruit and myrtle. you've only meant to for years...

 

i should know better by now not to wander into zara when i'm supposedly only on my way to buy food. somehow i ended into a fitting booth and inside a dress impossible to resist. honestly, i thought it was going to be too big, so i could just sigh and say 'oh well'... but if was perfect in every way. very simple and clean-cut and essentially me. deep, inky blue seems to be rivaling wine reds in my wardrobe these days. i also had my paws on a lacy dress at the kiddie section, natural white and softer than soft, almost exactly like my piece of vintace lace curtain i'd sew into a garment if it weren't so fragile. it was dreamy but since i don't live in a whitewashed villa in tuscany, i walked away.

i thought i bought turkish delights from the delicatessen (i love that it's called that, even though in reality my grocery shopping is not that exquisit) but now i see i've got greek delight. is there a difference?

there was some sort of model competition at the mall and i swear some of those girls had legs longer than i am tall. i felt sorry for the nervous one that was so obviously not going to make it, even though she was very model-y and gorgeous. then, out of the blue, i felt very happy to be five foot two in flat boots with nothing to prove to anyone. today it was also warm enough not to slouch and shiver, with some ice-less streets, and all of that contributed to a stride and posture i'd forgotten i can pull off.

one of my friends stayed the night and he left me an organic pink grapefruit. it was so tasty... i boiled the peel to make an AHA toner, and the fragrance of that is out of this world! too bad the liquid does not taste as good...

i want to write about japan, but i don't know what to say. usually i don't get this upset over disasters in the world. i don't even know anyone in japan personally, but i'm so heartbroken that there's nothing i can do, no one i can offer shelter from the cold, no way to hold and comfort somebody. and how can life be so fickle for some, yet so persistent on others?

the easter eggs had appeared... one was called licorice goblin — how could i not?

my raw side table/stool has arrived. the colour is nothing like i imagined. i expected a high-gloss, deep electric blue. it's more a dusty sky blue. almost what i had in mind, but still too lavender and 1992 for me to handle. it kind of reminds me of the acrylic matte paint used in elementary school. but the finish was good news because i was worried about having to sand something so... raw. now i can just paint, as soon as i decide on the right hue. oh, and find a paint shop.

the box it came in is big enough for me to climb and curl into, like a cat.

even though i haven't listened to music anymore, i still wake up with a song in my head most mornings. i dreamed that some occupant of this building was playing songs i knew and i sang along or played the tambourine... i don't remember what songs they were, or if they were real life music at all, only that one was a christmas carol.

the song that i woke with came back to me verse by verse, here and there, as i lay with closed eyes still under the covers, singing quietly to myself. i'm still not sure whose it is, even if the original was sung by a male or a female... but i know it by heart. i would be easy enough to look it up online but i don't want to.

...
liian nuorna nukkui lintu
lensi liion lyhyen
liian nuorna herkes laulu
hämärän kävi näkemähän


uinu lintu liinatonna
liinatonna, luvatonna

picasa or blogger insists that this is a portrait, not landscape image... too tired to fight it

i'm not in my ceramics class right now, i have a terrible, burning headache and a bit of temperature. i get these from time to time but still don't know if it's caused by stress or something i eat, or don't eat for that matter. the bus driver on my way back last night was sick and coughed a lot. i always catch all the bugs on buses, so this could be the beginnings of a flu as well. but the headache is so specific, it builds tension and pressure in my skull and jaw until i get nauseous and shaky, then usually it helps to stick fingers down the throat. just the gag reflex is enough, no vomit required. it's odd and awful.

i can't sleep yet because i ate a bit too eagerly, thinking my head was hurting from hunger... i need to stay upright or i will be throwing up. neighbours won't cease with the beats either. the reason for my reluctance to return here is so obvious to me now. it's noisy and all the don't-know-what-to-do-with-this items are awkwardly strewn all over the place.

and that bus ride back... we only ever rode that bus together once, but every time since it's been agony. he slept half the way, yet i recall every stone and sign pointed out, and every one of them floods my mind with terror and trauma if i don't carefully keep myself in check. last night, exhausted and stressed, this little piggy cried all the way home.

everyone's always sharing their best smoothie recipe. i'm sharing my worst. invented this morning, it included salad cress, lemon thyme, pomegranate, some leftover green gooseberries from last night's caramel sauce fest, three cherry tomatoes and water. i drank it all, but... i wouldn't recommend this combination. they were all stuff that needed to be consumed fast, that's all.

i have to go back to the city tonight and i'm nervous for some reason. even though the sewer trouble here has made things almost unbearable, there's this reluctance to leave. probably because everything is up in the air in a way, and my plans were so abruptly shuffled into confusion. and i have lots to do in a short time today, and i keep procrastinating like mad... (hello blog! hello online games!)

next month i have an opportunity to try raku ceramics and tomorrow i'm supposed to start making whatever i plan to fire later. i imagined leisurely looking for inspiration, sketching and planning. but the week just flew by. one night i had another nightmare where my belongings had been scattered all over by the wind (it was really stormy all night) and the roof of our house had collapsed. i woke up with lactic acid in my arm muscles from all the tension. other than the bad ones, i dream about my games... items and how to get them, organizing my stash, random things... stressful nights.

speaking of games, today i left my green farm for a moment, and while i was gone an anonymous had fertilized my organic carrots and harvested my one single corn that i was holding onto. i felt violated. i had no idea someone can even do that! and of course i had animals to pet and a supersize pumpkin that actually needs other players' fertilizer to grow, but did the mystery visitor touch those? no. now i just feel weird about the whole game. i don't want my things touched, especially behind my back. i'm a territorial control freak, okay? that's why i play those games, to have control over something.

so all in all, i'm a little edgy. but at least i get to wash my hair tonight, finally.

well... if was ever going to use the 'snowcaps' font...

the past days have totally wrung me out. i kind of moved a bit, and moved from a rock to a hard place it seems. we escaped, me and my plants and a bunch of my stuff while at it, to the country only to find the plumbing frozen here at the sanctuary. so, in the city the problem was not being able to bathe, here i can't let any water down the drain or it will overflow onto the bathroom floor. that includes flushing the toilet...

if i had been able to think clearly, i would've just hauled all the junk boxes and excess furniture here and left the plants well home, returning to my apartment to enjoy its vast openness. it's so nice now that there is space... well, best not forget the impossible noise from the repairs and the insane neighbours who deal with the noise by blasting the worst kind of awful hiphop, when not making insane noise themselves. at least here it's quiet. and there is still lots of pure, white snow...

it got so warm a couple of days ago, the air felt strange against the skin, on my cheeks, above zero. it's always like that after the long winter, disbelief that it can be so. and on the night of arrival here, the sky was pitch black and full of stars, more so than i remember seeing in years. i stood out on the yard gawking at them for ages in the howling wind, not feeling cold at all. not feeling anything much at all, just seeing, looking.

the whole ordeal of packing up and turning my place upside down in two days, all on my own, was physically exhausting, but emotionally even more demanding. in and of itself the change was hard, but it also dredged up all that past that i'm trying to put behind me... diaries surfacing from the shelves, little things reminding me of what i haven't yet forgotten. i shut down, i am so numb now. like some sort of inverted out of body experience... i'm not within myself, but only the nothingness is aware of itself.

i don't know what that flower in the first photo is called, but it's a houseplant of my father's that blossoms every spring. i cut it to see if it'll make more. i also took a side shoot to take root. i've been up very early these last days, mornings are always strangers to me... the light coming in odd angles. yoghurt is good again, today sweetened with honey and garnished with pine nuts and pomegranate seeds. now i need sleep, lots and lots of it, preferably without dreams of being half paralysed by a sudden hail storm in a supermarket aisle, dragging myself around a garden neighbourhood looking for help, then being taught dance steps by an ancient crush, and ignored. please. none of that. just slumber... sweet nothing...