LONG READS, BUT TAKE THE TIME

In today's hectic life and it's social media climate, where you don't always have the time to sit down and read the paper properly but still have the time to scroll, and a lot of what the news feed feeds you is articles ("articles") that seem to just consist of screenshots of how people commented on something on twitter, I have come to appreciate a well written article even more than before, and the chance to get a moment to sit down and read something un-interrupted.

Also, I should learn to make shorter sentences.

Many people are having a holiday this weekend, and here is some recommended reading to accompany your Easter flowers, chocolate eggs and wine (well, that is what I am having at least).

These are two different stories but they share a common theme - the migration of peole, but foremost: putting a name on a number in the statistics, a backstory behind a short mention in an article, or a story to someone with no mention anywhere at all. 

So I give you one story for each day of Easter:

1. The Wetsuit man (dagbladet.no)

This came out a few years ago at the height of the so called refugee wave. I have returned to this text every now and then.  It is a captivating and important read.

2. The Case of Jane Doe Ponytail (The New Yorker)

There is a person and a story behind every "-Doe".

3. The New Slave Trade (Buzzfeed News)
"Inside The Country Where You Can Buy A Black Man For $400".


Pictures 1. by me 2. royalty free stock image

36 YEARS AND A DECADE OUT OF THAT.

Last week's Wednesday I turned 36 and this week's Wednesday this blog became a decade old.
The later is a lot and the first neither a lot nor a little; age is a weird concept as it means so much to you at one point (Dag is counting the days, rather literally, until he turns six and dreams about being a magic ten years old) while you at some point just forget about the numbers. (Well, you do have all the physical factors to -painfully- remind you at some point though.)  Right now I don't feel old and I don't feel young and I feel both old and young and, me being something of a constant thinker and non-sleeper am even more so now; having thought a lot about life and my life the past year; what was, and was done, and what is and what will, should and can be. Call it something of an existential crisis, or perhaps existential possibilities. Either way, in general it feels like life does get better all the time, so far at least. And it seems to go by very very fast as well.

So yes indeed, it is late 2017, and I have been blogging here for then years!
In internet time, that is a whole lot. It's fun scrolling back every now and then to what both is and feels like such a long time ago. Obviously, it was a very different life ten years ago, but a lot can also change, or develop, in five.

And obviously, my name is so-not-up-to-date - are there even "fashion blogs" anymore? You know, originally the name was meant to be an sarcastic nod towards outfit blogs, as I when doing freelance work usually just sat around in leggings or underwear working, and then headed over to the harbour to work some more in overalls. And not the nice jumpsuit-y kind, but blue and neon yellow workwear. (well, in that kind of sense I am pretty close to the old days; I seldom get to wear my nice wardrobe because now I am mostly moving around at the studio, moving in the car, or moving on stage in something totally different. That, and also I don't fit most of my old clothes anymore. Ha ha. Sniff.)
So I planned to just do outfit posts on different wool socks, black t-shirts and blackunderwear. But as we all know it never turned out that way and also at this point one can't really change the name now can one?

But ok, lets look back! Because I totally did nothing at all last year when I turned 35, which, as we tend to count in fives and tens, was something more of a thing, I'll go back six years to when I turned thirty. (That's the year I actually celebrated my birthday; we had the True Blood party!)

Here was me then with a new lens. I think I look pretty much the same, but lets be honest here - my skin was indeed six years younger and also two thirds of my clothes from that time don't fit me anymore.  Those physical factors that come with time...

When I turned 25 we (J, my boyfriend at the time) took our friends on a cruise to celebrate. We knew the crew so here we are on a visit to the bridge. (I AM SO YOUNG what is this!)

J is a super fella who still works at sea and has a young boy and a second kid coming up.

And when I turned 20 I looked like this. (Yooooouuuung)My boyfriend at the time was also one whose name began with J. There's a lot of Finnish male names starting on J. I remember this one as well, we had Nepalese food with my family and I wore a long black-and white 1970's maxi skirt.
This J nowadays has a huge Dali-inspired moustache and works as an artist.

Because pretty much everything before I was 25 was shot on film there's not too many pics of my younger years (the two ones above are scanned from an album), especially not if you compare to the constant flow of pics everywhere today. I don't have any  from my 15th birthday here at home but here's one from the autumn when I had turned fourteen. I remember those pants but I have a hard time remembering life and my patterns of thinking back then. We called each other and talked for hours on the phone at home, you could make group calls and we secretly called dating chat lines, used pay phones when out on town and dreamt of being 18. But this I do remember: one day when out walking I told myself to always remember that when you are fourteen you have thought about everything so much already, that you do get things.

And then there's a gap so here I turn one!

If anyone of you have been here with me for the decade-long ride all along I say thanks and send you smiles in ones and zeros! As to anyone who jumped on later as well.

MY TOP-5 LISTS

For the moment.
Apart from the daily to-do list(s). And apart from the weekly and monthly ones as well.

I am a total list-person. I write lists on my phone, on the back of receipts and opened envelopes and random A4's around the house and in multiple text files. And in email drafts. Lists are the foundations of how all practical (and less practical) parts my life is organised. Sometimes I write the same list a couple of times, to get to go over things again (or because it's enjoyable if it's a list of fun things) or because it feels like it's one step closer to be done that way. Ha!

So, here's my "top five" lists for the moment

1. List of lists to be made.
Yes, for reals.


2. Movies I want to be able to catch while they still run at theatres.


I really want to see Moonlight.

This is a constant one, that comes and goes, and that seldom gets anything checked off because work and kids and life and all that. But this winter we managed to see one movie with Eddi, so I've given new hope to actually seeing a couple more!

Also bubblin' under:
Books I want to read (I'd like to read far more than I do nowadays but feel I don't have the time. Hell, internet!)
Shows I want to watch (And no, these two are in no way connected. Ehrm...)


3. Things to renovate at home -

including separate lists of:
-wallpapers I want to use
Turns out there are more of those than walls. And it's good most of my lists are a slow process because this changes one throughout the years.
-storage; how to organise what and where
(this never ends)
-interior details to add after the hard work is done (the one you'd like to dig into immediately; fuck the hard work-part)

This set of lists is constant, because an old house will always need something, but is now back in the top-list segment, as things will kind of, somehow, finally start happening over here for reals soon!


4.  Things to grow in the garden

Because what if, this year, for reals.
It's a fun one though. Let's see if we make things happen big(-ger) this year, and all trough the summer...


5. Blog posts to write

This would make a book by now, all the unwritten ones.
If there's a hashtag #toooldtopublish here's where it comes to use.

Are you a list-writing person? Are your lists rather constant or do you get to check things off?


(Online source for top photo: vintage.es. No known original source for the final photo.)

FOR THE LAST TIME

At the beginning of this month, on my way to the airport (everything is about multitasking and combining two things these days) I stopped by the city flat to take down the last lamps and to leave the keys there for the new owners. Moving out is always a little sad, and even more so if you've lived in the house/flat for some time and put a lot of memories and heart into it. I think this was one of the hardest moves, as I have been around this flat since birth. The absolute worst move at the tie was then I was  four and we moved away from the first home I'd ever known. (Which happens to be across the park from this one.) I missed it terribly, and some months later my grandfather took me to the building so we could go up with the familiar elevator and look at my old door. He showed me there was a new name on the door, and told me there were new people living there now. I remember being very sad that we could not go in and look at "my home" because surely they would have understood.

This is the flat I bought Dag home to first, and it's Eddi's and my first mutual home. It was the first home I was able to decorate and renovate totally as I wanted to, (with my mint green Smeg for example that I took with me now that we moved). This was also the place I had my first "job" at; I used to clean at my grandmother's as a teenager for pocket money, so I really knew every corner in and out. As a child my grandparents would watch me when my mother was at work, and I'd sit on the kitchen table watching the cars turn down from the big road and drive along the park and I'd be as enthusiastic over each and every one NU KOMMER MAMMA!; "this one is mommy!. Some time ago Dag would do the same and try to see when Eddi or me were coming home.

Here's before we started renovating it in 2010 -

And later the same year in action.

Bye bye kitchen!

It was also on the floor of this kitchen that I realised who my grandparents were (one of my earliest memories; I was propably two or three years old) - sitting there playing I heard my mother say MOM to my grandmother and was all "aaah, so that's why we're hanging around these old people all the time". We used to spend many Christmases here, and one time- I must have been around five- I was a hundred percent sure I saw Santa flying in the sky with his reindeer sleigh. Like, for reals, he was there. Weird that my parents were not that stunned out by it, but just sad that it was great.

Before the renovation in spring 2010.

 

And six and a half years later when leaving.

In between it was nice!

This photo was when we had just moved in and thing weren't really in place yet.

Now it's empty. Or, was.

I will miss my bedroom window view!

Most of all I'll miss the kitchen window!

We are now settled in the countryside for good, with a lot of boxes and ikea bags, no room for a Christmas tree this year, and with a big need for further renovations. Neither Eddi nor me have been home a lot lately and won't be for some time either, so I will have to be patient and take it bit by bit.

And now some new people are living in the flat. I hope they will have lots of great memories as well!

VEGAN SANDWICH BLISS

From the list of small things (or maybe not even that small in the end) that make me happy:
Going to the big super market after work at 10pm because
1) nowadays it is open that late because of free opening hours.
(It's so god damn great I tell you, for anyone that does not do the normal 9-5. Smaller stores have had longer hours for years but now any store can choose their hours themselves and all Prisma's are open until 11 pm for example. And if you live out in the middle of a god damn field like I 99% of the time do nowadays, you are thankful)
2) and in that store, although not in the centre of Helsinki, you can easily pick and choose out of several vegan options available next to any non vegan-or vegatarian one. You don't even need to find that one sad hippie-shelf in the back corner for your almond milk anymore, it's all centrally located and full with lots of different options! 2010's, yey!
3) I can thus have a classic sandwich with cheese and even maddafakin baloney on it, with chocolate milk on the side and it's vegan all the way.

I am not a self-declared vegan, but do I most of the days follow a vegan diet. Sometimes by planning my meals, sometimes more "by accident" as I am so accustomed to it by now. I was on a full-time-vegan diet for a couple of years over a decade ago, and the selection was so much different back then! There is so much more to choose from than Tartex nowadays!

I've never been too fond of vegan cheeses, often found them a bit yucky, but the VioLife one is as good as it's reputation - no funky side taste here. They even have parmesan which I want to try! And the pizza cheese. (And for anyone over here eager to try it: do so from the S-labeled stores, as the K-ones sell these to about double the price as the S-ones!!). The latest sandwhich filling I tried out was vegan baloney with green pepper (soy based). Something I haven't had on my bread for years and years! Also, on a side note: the vegetable breads by Fazer are great! This time I tried out the newest version which is Finnish dark rye bread with zucchini and parsnip. The veggie percent is over 30.

Here are my own favourite vegan bread-spreads, that also work as side dishes to any bbq or salad/meze buffet. And definitely worth trying and serving even if you or your guests aren't vegans or vegatarians -

Green Lentil Tapenade

A delicious picante mash of cooked green lentils, garlic and vinegar and some more stuff. A little (just a little) more detailed how-to with ingredients can be found if you click the link behind the name.

Vegan Liver Patée

I just love this one, and many sworn carnivores dig happily in to this without thinking of it's veeeeegan label. It makes a great ingredient in the best pasta sauce/lasagna filling evvah! Click the name for the recipe.

Ok, now I am hungry again.

(As usual, none of these were sponsored mentions, it's just me digging stuff. But it'd be awesome if they would be though, awesome for me at least. But alas, they are not.)

2030

It just struck me the other day that we are now closer to the year 2020 than we are to 2010. Which was like just a little while ago. That also makes us closer to the year 2030 than 2000. Which is freaky.

Altough the yeear 2000 does feel like a very long time ago, when one thinks back on everything that's been in between.

(Illustrating this post is a photo from 1999 - further away than 2030 that is - that has an actual analog light leak in it. No filters here no!)

But the same goes for when you talk about years and you think "10 years ago" would be somewhere around 1996 but that's twenty years ago already. If I really start thinking about it 1996 was indeed ages ago, I was just a kid. And everyday life was very different.  From what you did to how you did it and what you had to go along (no lattes back then no!) But 2006, that was ten years ago already? No way! THAT feels very scary. But, as we talked about this with a friend the other day we started going trough things we did in '06 and some everyday life details, realising that quite many things still have changed in a decade -I didn't get my first computer before 2005 for example; I read my emails at school back then and certainly not ten times per day like now -even though it feels like it went by with the blink of an eye.

I also realised my age is now closer to 50 than 20. Which is both totally something of an of course it is or whatever , and kind of terrifying at the same time. We were talking about age yesterday with Dag; I told him the cats are now ten years old, and then, mainly just stating it to myself, I said that that makes them "pretty old already". Dag then asked "Oh, so they will die soon?" to which I replied that not quite yet, although it will eventually happen one day. To which Dag replies, with his calmest and wisest voice, the one I use when I explain things to him:
"You know mom, one day each of us shall die."
(Then he listed pretty much every person and animal he knows that will all die one day, just to prove his point.) I still remember one night when I was about five, or max. six years old, lying in bed, thinking about how much I loved Christmas. Then I started calculating that my parents were 30 years old and that meant there would only be about fifty more Christmases to spend before they would DIE. And I felt so so sad when thinking about it and started crying; 50 Christmases felt like so little and Christmas was so awesome and it would all happen in no time. My mom came into the room asking what was going on. I didn't tell her why I cried, and I have remembered it like she got a little annoyed at my late-night-whining. I was really hurt that she did not (read my mind, apparently, and) appreciate me crying over her mortality.

It is actually funny how you can remember some thoughts and insights from your childhood, but you still cannot recall how it actually felt, or how you reasoned like that, how the exact thoughts were at that time. The brain can store so much but it can't store, how would one say it, the mind itself(?) as that constantly changes as life goes by. It's not the way you can save and choose to run an older version of your  operating system...  Memories of how one thought are more like headlines-  my parents would die one day, only fifty Christmases left - or a synposis. Well not only thoughs, but whole periods of times feel like a quick synposis when thinking back on them. I wish there'd be some way to record how the mind functioned and how it really felt at a certain time. And not only for childhood, also for the teenage years, (yikes). That  might help with the teenager here at home (during which discussions I always feel so very old). Or to serve as good and painful torture some ten, twenty years later. For oneself, that is. "Did I think like that?" Well, a regular recorder would do for the torturing part, just to get to hear teenage-oneself later in life. Teenage sarcasm is certainly not that refined yet and the lines are less quick that the youngster thinks, I have noticed. "Omg did I actually say that". Sometimes wish my parents would have recorded my shit. Or well, not really. But if it would've been common practice you know. I did keep a diary that I haven't ever really opened afterwards, but one thing I remember telling my self in my teenage years was the following: Remember, when you are fourteen you realise everything. You think so much about it all and you think about everything.
And it worked; I remember thinking that, but alas, I have no idea how my mind actually worked back then and what all those things, apart from the usual teenage stuff and time and the universe and so, I actually was thinking about were. (I was always one to stay up late at night back then as well, thinking about Things.)

When time and age and how fast things go gets to me (summer is on it's way but it will be Christmas  and winter and darkness here again in no time - see, little five-year-old-me was right- and then it will be not only 2030 but 2050 and I will still have the same things on my to-do-list, you know) I just try to think about the fact that time really does not exist at all, everything just is in a constant state of RIGHT NOW and that is all there is.
Which to be honest, does not exactly help me to start sleeping earlier at night either...

THE ANATOMY OF DRESSING WHEN REALLY REALLY COLD PUT INTO ACTION

Everybody's fuzzing over the cold that blew here from Siberia, which is yes, damn cold, the kind of hurts-to-breathe-cold, but not really that big of a deal in my opinion, as it usually gets really really cold once per winter anyways. Or if not then every second year, as it has been during the late 2010's. So you know you have it coming at some point. But then again, when it's really really cold even one degree celcius less does make a rather big difference and it has not been minus f*cking 28 degrees over here for some years. So it really does get people talking.

(In 2013 it got -30 though and that day we went to a beautiful midwinter wedding where everyone was holding sparklers -and freezing- when the couple stepped out of the light chapel and into the dark winter night outside. And our car wouldn't start since it does not have heating so we drove to the wedding in the farm van.*)

Well anyway here you have it:

The anatomy of dressing when really really cold put into action!
Lots of stuffed layers.

When it's really really cold it's hard to smile because your face is all hard and stiff and if you would smile ayway your teeth will freeze. Dag is all "wtf (well in slightly other words) my face is hurting!"
But getting back inside after being outside is just fabulous. Like when you get to pee after having to hold it in for too long a time.

*) As you see, I am un-debatable when it comes to weather a winter was cold or not or a summer hot or not, as I always have the blog (or Instagram) to go back to. Plus, I did work outside for more than a decade and I tell you, then you really remember what the weather was like. Whenever the weather gets shitty (in one way or another) over here I give myself an inner pat on my back and ask myself how the hell I actually was able to do it for so long. But strange as it is, I kind of miss the harbourlife too.)

CLOUDS, TIME, LIFE AND ALL THAT

I'm going to start this one a bit tacky here now, because I thought of this back when I was fifteen (when, you know, you easily tend to be rather dramatic and corny about things). So here we go: life is  like the clouds. Constantly moving, changing shape, without really noticing when or how it happens. You look up at a cloud, it has a certian shape and you follow it with your eyes. It is changing form in front of you but you can't see that. It is not until you look away for a while and then back that you may notice the cloud has taken on a totally different shape than before. It is like a whole different cloud. (It was a rather long time ago that I was fifteen though. Phew.)

Well, yes, in any case. Everything indeed changes and evolves (that is perhaps what time is all about, changes in- and layers on eternity) and sometimes things go so fast you that years just pass by and if you get a second to think about it, it will very likely become a 'whoah, how did we get here'-moment. And then it's WOOOM on again to the next one.

Changes are what life is made of. Something is always changing even when you think it's not, time goes on, trees grow bigger and people grow old. No matter how well thought out or planned something may be you never know how it will turn out as anything can come up along the way. Or it may go just like planned, but the outcome may still be something different than you though.  And so on, yada yada. I don't really believe in finding reasons why random things happen or in meant to be's, it's just something we have come up with to make the chaos that forms everything more understandable, and bearable. Stuff just happen. Some by itself and some you make happen.

I've been making some things happening lately. I quit the harbour late this spring. Which wasn't a big thing per se, as I had not been working there for three years, but I had remained employed there anyway. Now my time for parental time-off was up -in short, you getup to 9months off paid, and can then get an unpaid leave until the child turns three, when you are to return (unless you get another child before the 3 years date when it all starts over again. I always knew I wouldn't go back, but sometimes some parts of me miss that. By now I have forgotten how it felt to be out there no matter what weather (or time of the day. And year).

(Here's me in the harbour a long time ago, a shot from that German tv show with fine shots of the Baltic Sea that airs every now and then and always brings me lots of strange Facebook messages from strangers in various European languages. "hello, I saw you on tv. Bye")

Dag did indeed turn three this summer which is both totally strange and totally natural at the same time. (We're on a feelings-level here, as I do know that turning three when you have lived three years is what most would describe as "natural"). He just started attending play school (or play club, whatever you may call it, a few times a week) and he's talking and making jokes and all and soon he'll be going to school and wanting to use the car and then moving out. The way it goes.

See, here he's already flippin' me the bird:

(To his defence -or mine, it's my kid after all- he is actually showing us thumbs up from a very unfortunate angle.)

It feels very odd to think I at this point of the year could have had a baby of a few months already. As it didn't turn out that way, I fast forwarded some other plans instead. Now the baby-thought feels very distant, and, I'm perhaps a little relieved (that's the brain working I guess, creating reason and meant-to-be's again). You do get kind of comfortable with time, and it's like I've almost forgotten the baby time with Dag, how it felt and how 24/7 it was. Not that I remember it being that rough then, comfort wise, but thinking of it now feels like it would be an awful lot of work to go trough again. I mean I have a child that can go to the toilet by himself already. So easy nowadays! I of course know that if or when such a time will come again the brain will settle into that mode and it will be fine and great all over (and tiring and messy too of course).

You may have noticed I have been rather busy the last year and my blogging has been less frequent.
As I just said I'd quit my old job and that my son is starting to mind his own business a lot you may wonder what the hell I actually have been doing away from the internet.

A whole lot. One of my fasts forwards was starting to study to become a pilates instructor (classical, mat. Apparatus are not very common over here. Yet.). It's something I had thought of for many years, to perhaps do at some point, and then decided to really go for in 2016. But it then came to happen this year already. I started in January and hold one certificate now, but will still be continuing to study for a long time. More on that later.

But what I also have been working on is a thing I had dreamt of for years, but never really felt was realistic. (And soon we will see it if is or not, dum-de-dum) : My colleague and performance partner Ruska and I are opening up our own studio, the very first one dedicated to burlesque in Finland!

There has been classes here and there for years already, and we have thought many of those and kept a small studio ourselves for quite some time already, but now we are opening up and actual burlesque school, a studio that has burlesque as it's main thing and that is the first one over here. We will combine that with other classes under the same roof; yoga and pilates (Ruska is a yoga teacher) and stretching as well as other dance exercise. The name Studio Shangri-La comes from our duo performane The Ravishing Shangri-La Rubies and we have coached our own performing student troupes for two years under the name The Shangri-La School of Showgirls. (I linked our Facebook pages there. Do go and like them. All in Finnish, but don't let that stop you.)

I really had intended to blog about the process of fixing up our new space. "I will have so much to post about". And alas - I would have had, and did. But what I did not have was the actual time to do so. (Well you have seen some on instagram along the way, for those of you who hang around there.) In between waiting for contrucion guys who never came (and then came late and charged too much and so on) and painting and ordering things (and spending up a lot of hard earned cash) and planning and plotting summer just went by and here we are at the opening already. On Wednesday!
Eli sinne kaikki, dit allihopa eller hur!

Apart from that we are working on the Pin-Up competition and putting together a custom performance for the book launch of Sofi Oksanens new book. And then I'd really like to fix up some rooms in the farmhouse plus grow back all the kale that the lambs ate.

Well, this started with clouds and ended up in Shangri-La in something of a mish mash of a post.
So for now: studio studio studio. And buy classes!

Oh and also bangs or no bangs?
Oh the choices in life.

OCTOBER; 33, THE EIGHT YEAR AND THE SECOND ONE

Arrived home after a fabulous and work-filled weekend in Turku (of which you can see an ultra quick  fun time-lapse vide of on vimeo, by Tuomas) just in time to catch all the lovely colours of autumn - last year I missed it, as the leaves fell of quickly, and I was in Stockholm performing during those short days of excessive colour.

Dag and I had to go out on a mission immediately as some of the lams had decided the grass was greener on the other side of the fence rather literally, and for some reason also on the road. So we chased them back much to Dag's excitement. 

He is wearing a Mickey Mouse-coat that both me and my sisters have worn when we were kids, that we got from our cousins who were a few years older than us. There was one in about every size and this is the first one. Dag finds it very fancy.

Lambs trying to camouflage themselves.

Last weekend, on Saturday, it was also my 33th birthday. I rarely celebrate mine; last time was when K and I threw our very fabulous True Blood feast when we turned 30. Usually I have been at work on my birthdays as a grown up, first in the harbour (where one tended to spend the whole day as shifts are long), now on stage. This year was no different!

As those of you who have hanged around here for a longer time know, my blog also gets a year older along with me - so we are entering our eight year here now. That is a long time I tell you!
If someone ever wondered about the rather imbecile but catchy name of my blog it has been explained here on a few occasions back in the days but we can do it one more time; the idea of a blog was born way before it actuallystarted, when blogging looked a bit different that now. I had just found fashion blogs that consisted of outfits and outfits only, and I found them both inspiring and a bit silly at the same time. So The Freelancer's Fashion Blog was an ironic idea -  I have always had a big wardrobe, but from time to time (a lot like now) I haven't really been able to use it properly. Back then in 2006 and -07, when thinking about blogging, I had finished my studies and worked with freelance graphic design as well as in the harbour. So I was basically working most of the time (like now, but in a different matter) and felt that I mainly was wearing black tights or leggings (or underwear) and a black t-shirt or a top, when in front of my computer or under my workwear. What people who work from home often look like... And I thought about how that would make it in a fashion blog, different versions of something that looks just the same. Well, that blog never happened. When my blog then started it was all about drawithe outfits though and staying incognito -it took until March the next year until I posted a photo of myself - and as with most blogs this one slowly developed into something more personal.

This was that very first photo, from many years back.

Speaking of outfits, there is of course a reason why I have been walking around mainly in stretchy wear and sneaky yoga pants, other than the one that I am always running from workouts to rehearsals and classes nowadays- I got pregnant again! And unlike the pregnancy that ended in a miscarriage this summer, when I had felt strangely well when I thought back on it, I this time felt bad and swollen,  just like I had with Dag, feeling like I was hungover for two months. Until week seven was over I was a bit scared every time I went to the toilet that I would see blood, and was reliefed when I passed the weeks of the previous miscarriage. I had my first prenatal appointment and had all future ultras and appointments set now, as is the custom. But, even though I am lucky enough to get pregnant easily - so far always on the first try, I am apparently not as lucky after that. Last Friday, the day before my 33rd birthday, I had an ultra sound and found out I had had a so called missed abortion; the foetus had died a few weeks earlier. Well, I could almost see it right away - the baby in the monitor looked too small for it's weeks, although I kept thinking that perhaps they always grow miraculously just the week after this. But I moved my face from the screen to the doctor's face and saw he looked serious and then he told me he could not see a heart beat. As the first miscarriage came rather slowly I had time to let it sink in and it was an event that made me disappointed and frustrated, but this was totally different. I couldn't imagine it could go wrong a second time because everything had felt so normal!  Not now, not this one! I was rather shocked. Not just because of the loss of the  baby-to-be, but because of how much we already had planned with everything else around the fact we would have a baby in April; jobs, life, arrangements. It's because I was looking at maternity dresses onine already. I shouldn't have! Everything had been just right, damnit! But it wasn't.

I had a lot of things to take care of during that day, which was awful to go trough, and I skipped out on some because I was so tired and just wanted to lie in bed. My body still felt pregnant, swollen and nauseous, and I was distressed over the fact that it was not over totally yet, but I would still have to abort it during the week to come. The thought of the pain that might bring, and all the arrangements around that felt the worst for the moment. I would have to call lots of places and re-arrange meetings and cancel classes and tell them I had the flue or something because you don't tell people you lost a pregnancy. You could, but you don't, because they will get uncomfortable. Too much info, stick to the flue.

As Scandinavia is ruled by the Jante -law (the 'don't think you're any special'-one, which in cases like this translates to: don't think your pain is any worse than anyone else's), and as I've grown up in a society that looks down on self-pity (well, don't they all?) and go by the mentality that one should shut the fuck up and quit whining, I thought it was best to do so. And as everyone keeps telling you: it is very common and it happens a lot. So it is. I had a lot to do during the weekend too; had to perform and hold a workshop and first the thought of all that felt rather horrifying. But it actually helped to be busy and around people and kept my mind off the fact there was a little dead beginning of a human lying inside of me. On Monday I went to the hospital and got the pills to empty the womb and so today this second one was over with less physical pain than I had expected. (For the record, for those who might read this in a similar situation: they gave me Cytotec, which is what they use over here pretty much as the only option, a drug I have had once before -I presume- many years ago for a similar reason and that was a very painful experience. Well at least I was prepared for what the beginning of labour would feel like when the day that came. The almighty internet is also full of mainly horror stories on said drug, as you see I of course googled a lot waiting in horror for it to kick in, but let it be said here for those who have an interest in this: This time I was stocked up with strong painkillers and it was not all that bad, by evening the medicine had done it's job. So it worked for me.)

As I wrote about the first miscarriage I thought it would be strange not to mention this second one. And, as I said the last time, when you have some sort of situation going on, you google all you can find about it, and then you google some more. (I always search in three languages to get as much out of it as possible). You want to and need to read about it. There is always someone out there who feels better reading about things like this, because of how one can relate, even though this story here is not one of those miracle stories where there was still a living twin inside!  (which will only give you false hope, because you know, there seldom is).

But it is still a bit odd, how we are not really supposed to mention miscarriage, and are not supposed to feel bad about it either. It is something of a taboo. With a friend who was, and luckily still is, as many weeks pregnant as I was, we talked about how you usually feel your worst and weirdest in the beginning of pregnancy but you are not supposed to talk about it because things can go wrong , and then if they do go wrong and you feel terrible you can't talk about it either because no one knew about it and you know, it does happen all the time.

So, no use of dwelling on things one can not change! I have a lot of work and projects that I will concentrate on the rest of this year, and also on the wonderful little fella in the Mickey Mouse coat that I shall snuggle up!
And come the weekend, I will drink some wine, oh yes.

RED CROSS DONATION / THS FIRST WORL BAD CONCIOUSNESS

I deliberately choose to leave out discussions and any stronger opinions in here - I have enough of them in real life - and focus on blogging about the lighter, nicer and more inspirational things. Plus I really try to avoid too long texts too, for many reasons. However, blogging about a dress after a set of bad news  might work like neutralisation, calming it down, but mainly it makes me leave it be for another time.

My mind is often filled with so called first world guilt  - I get a bad consciousness for a lot of things, big and small: I feel I don't read as much as I would want to but then again spend too much on the internet, I'm probably not as ecologic in many everyday choices as I could be if I really tried, I don't have the time to visit my grandparents enough, to name a few, and even the thing in where I contribute to make at least a little difference (and that should also allow me to feel a bit better about myself - because in the end there are very few good deeds we do that in some ways are not also selfish); sponsoring the boy in India, is giving me a bad consciousness: I never have the time to write him any letters. Argh.  And then I, as many others, have issues with closets overflowing but still being in need of that one pair of perfect black heels... a fact that I remind myself of with a grin of emotional stress. (That being what the "first world club" is about, a sarcastic finger pointing at myself /ourselves I sometimes joke about- it's for heaven's sake not about "being smug about living in the first world," as one reader chose to see it. Well, the way a person reads certain things may say more about the person than the text itself...) Not saying that all of our issues and problems are totally unjustified; not all things in this world can be compared. Just because we don't have to walk ten kilometres to get water everyday or have to leave our families to work in another country to support them or beg on the streets doesn't mean we can't complain when the city decides to put down a bus line and our trip to work doubles in time. For example. But it's good to reflect about this every now and then, different lives, different situations, how most of us reading this blog have it good in many ways and on many levels. One would think everybody reflects on this, but I have met a lot of people in my life, and not everybody do, or, some see things very differently.

It's said that people are alike, everywhere. And it's true. But our lives can be very different. Many years ago I was on a long trip in a country far away and we were eating by a street hut in a small town. There were lots of street kids begging next to us, dragging our sleeves, before being hushed away by the hut keeper.  The situation made me feel bad, uncomfortable,  in different ways. One person among us said it was rude of the kids not to wait with their begging until after we were finished with our meals. Manners, you know, eh? That made me crazy. "Come on, you can't feed the whole country" they said. No of course not. And I was not there to to saving anyone, trying to go all Jesus handing out dollars as a, although on a student budget,  like a rich wordsaving westerner hippie, I was "just travelling". But isn't even one meal for one person is better than no meal at all?  Yes. Mother Amma, for example,  has said - as part of a longer quote-  that every person should be able to have at least one day, when she does not go to sleep hungry. Not everyone will have that day. And I just didn't buy that plate. When we were leaving a young man around the same age as I came to our tables and pointed at our plates, scraping what was left of the rice into a plastic bag in his hand. He had another bag with glue. And that's when it struck me, we differ, our lives,  there is no way I could ever really understand what his life was like. Not that you have travel half around the globe to realise this either, as I've seen later on elsewhere as well.  (Why didn't I buy that cup with small shabby apples from that old lady by the side of the road in a country not that far away from here, aaaaah! Beause I did not want apples just then? Well, this is sliding off topic, but I've thought about these occasions a lot.)

I've always believed that if you can help others if only a little bit you should, another thing you'd think (or, hope) most other people believe too. And by this I don't mean sharing linked articles on Facebook and then feeling like you've done your part of good in the world. In the case of charity, it's either (or both, given the opportunity) time or money. If you don't have the chance to give your time and do actual, concrete work, you can always support  a  cause in a monetary way. (Yes, somebody going to say the money does not go where it should, or that it prevents countries from doing things themselves, perhaps, but not in all cases. You can check up on any legit charity, to see how they are organised and how funds are used. Plus, especially with catastrophe funds, like the Red Cross' , helps is offered when a community, nation itself cannot take care of a situation, for example.)

I've supported a handful of charities monthly for about a decade. After Dag was born and I changed my work pattern my income decreased with some 70%, and I thought about what to do with the monthly monetary aid I had going out from my bank account, to cut them off. I decided to keep them, even though they now made up quit a big part of my income. I'm not writing this to collect any good karma-points from the internet, but just to tell that in the end - so far at least- it did not take that much to leave some things out and be able to keep up my donations. Of course my lifestyle is a bit different now, more affordable, spending more time at home, no daily work lunches out and so on, but that combined wuth with a little more planning (and a little more work) I have been able to manage keeping my support.

So, I managed to write a little novel here anyway, even though I intended to keep it short and in my usual matter cut some text away... longer but still brief texts about serious matters on the internet can easily come off a bit melodramatic, one of the reasons I prefer to leave them to elsewhere. (And because this is the internet someone is going to give me shit for something said here anyway.)

But, today, after my daily news intake seeing pictures of dead Syrian toddlers and reading a very depressing article bout the situation in the Central African Republic plus also the updates from closeguantanamo.org I thought I'd skip the apple-pie blogging. And post about my Red Cross fundraising box instead! (See, we got to the point here in the end.)

I had a similar box last year; I collected fifteen euros.
From one donor (me, I thought the zero was so sad).

My intentions here are not to make anyone feel bad or obliged, and certainly not to raise discussion, just to raise money. Think about it; if everyone who comes upon this post would donate one euro we would raise quite much.

You can donate from anywhere. Or, check out and choose to donate to your local Red Cross. For example.

BEFORE THE APPLE TREES WEEP

 Few things are prettier than blossoming trees in late spring; the amazing seemingly never-ending amount of sheer white, pink, yellow, lilac fluff reaching up to the skies. And they only ever bloom for such a short time before continuing their year-long cycle of change.

I can't help it, but ever since I was a teenager I've been getting this short desperate feeling of dark haunting angst at this time of year, that it will all be over soon and autumn is just around the corner.

But in a couple of days it passes and I start enjoying summer again!

(Which is always over in no time and then it's back to dark nights, wet shoes cold wind and winter jackets and Aaaaaaa damn it!...)