Marloff’s

Hey Folks,

I’d like to talk about something that has been a big part of my life ever since I can remember. You probably can guess what it is.

No?

It’s music. I know people say that, but for me music has had a concrete influence in how my life, at least the early part of it, worked out. It is kind of surprising since my parents didn’t even have a record player while I was growing up. My father, being the kind of man he is, didn’t have a radio in his car until they started installing them in new cars as standard equipment.  It wasn’t that my parents didn’t like music, they just rather put their money on the more essential things, or at least so it seemed to me at the time.

That all changed, though, when on second grade, I got picked to go to a music school. The process was almost like an audition; you have to sing, play an instrument, clap a rhythm… that sort of thing. Out of maybe 60 second graders, out of two classes, only two got picked. The other kid was someone I knew, but wasn’t really friends with, and in the end he decided not to change schools, which makes my decision kind of odd when I think about it. I was really shy then, but that didn’t stop me from leaving all my friends behind to go to a new school where I knew absolutely no one. Sometimes I just don’t get myself.

So that’s how it started for me. A class of three boys and nineteen girls, if you can believe it. All very talented and all very snotty. Me included.  What I didn’t get at home, I got at school in spades. I started playing the piano. I have to say it really surprised me that my folks shelled out ten thousands marks (we didn’t have the euro back then) to buy me a piano. I never would have expected that from folks whose lives music played such a miniscule part, but then they’d always been very supportive of me.

I also sang in a choir and I played keyboards in a band. Musical theory was crammed in our heads, but what I loved the most was when we got to know classical composers. That was probably the first time I fell in love. With a Polish guy called Frédéric. Considering I was maybe ten, that’s really saying something, but then true love lasts for ever and I carry Chopin’s music with me to this day.

It wasn’t until I was in seventh grade that I started realising that music existed outside the world of classical composers. I played less and less and listened more and more. I still didn’t have a stereo at home, but I had MTV and so I got Depeche Mode, New Order, The Cure and Queen all blaring out from the idiot box. Ray Cokes was god.

At school, a friend and I used to spend every recess hanging out at a nearby music store, listening to the latest records. We weren’t supposed to leave the school premises, of course, but being the rock & roll rebels that we were, that didn’t really stop us. I’m surprised we never got caught, but I guess they were more worried about the rough crowd trying to smoke in secret than a couple of shy, introverted kids who kept their grades up and stayed under the radar. I can’t even begin to tell you how excited we used to get about whenever something new arrived at the store. We were friends with this really nice girl who worked there, and as soon as she saw our heads pop in the door, she’d have something cool playing. Those were the times, I tell you. Those were the times.

At some point I stopped taking piano lessons, I no longer played in a band, but I kept the keyboard thing going by taking keyboard classes at the very same music store I hung out at all day. I don’t think I ever loved any one place as much as I did the basement of the music store. That’s where they kept all the instruments. Even the lessons were so different from my piano lessons. My piano teacher was exactly like you imagine piano teachers to be; a sort of posh, aristocratic disciplinarian, who always complained about me being too nervous, my hands being cold and stuff like that. What did the woman expect? She yelled at me and I was afraid of her. My keyboard lessons were nothing like that.

By the time I was in high school, I had stopped taking lessons. In fact I hardly played at all. You could almost say I rebelled against everything I loved about the music school. I don’t really know why, but I did listen a lot. I had finally bought my very first CD player and I listened to the few CDs I had religiously. I was into the Cure and Depeche Mode in a big way and they became the soundtrack of my life.

Yes. I was the kid who brooded in his room a lot, listening to dark songs about lost love and reading Tolkien or Poe. Even back then music was the one thing that was able to comfort me, and it is true to this day. Trough all the ups and downs of my life music has been the one constant thing in my life. It is the one thing that I’ve never stopped liking.

Every now and then I flip through my CDs and it’s like reading a diary. I remember what I listened to during that summer after that bad breakup, I remember what I listened to when I was nursing my broken collar bone back to healt after doing a somersault with a friend’s car. I remember what was playing the first time I made love to somebody, probably because it was something so inappropriate for that moment.

My shelves are filled with memories like that.

Moments coupled with songs.

Hey folks,

I’m finally home, but once again I have a tremendous need to write something, but absolutely no idea what that could be. I’m thinking about picking up the Lilith fiction again, I had plenty of time to think about where I want to go with that while trying to kill the boredom at my parents’. Well, it wasn’t total boredom, the EuroCup is on. It’s Russia versus Spain tonight. Which means more of Señor Torres. Not that anyone minds

Well, anyway. While I struggle to think up things to write about, I saw this bit at Fiesty Charlie’s. I thought I’d give it a go.

4 Jobs I’ve had

1. Tech Support
2. It Lab Tester
3. Rail Track Maintenance Worker
4. Technical Worker at a hospital

5 movies I can watch over & over:

1. Beautiful Girls
2. Star Wars (Ep IV-VI)
3. The Shawshank Redemption
4. Nightmare Before Christmas (How goth of me)
5. La Vita é Bella (Life Is Beautiful)

4 places I’ve lived: (All in Finland)

1. Seinäjoki
2. Vaasa
3. Kauhava
4. Oulu

5 TV shows I love:

1. Battlestar Galactica
2. Twin Peaks
3. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
4. Poirot (Can you tell I love detective stories?)
5. Millennium

5 places I’ve been on vacation:

1. Corfu, Greece
2. London, England
3. Tallinn, Estonia
4. Stockholm, Sweden
5. Skagen, Denmark

5 of my favorite meals: (damn, it’s hard to decide.)

1. tenderloin steak
2. chicken pasta salad
3. “new potatoes” with anything (In Northern Europe, especially Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, newly harvested, early ripening varieties are considered a special delicacy. -wikipedia)
4. pizza (my current favourite is chicken-feta salad pizza)
5. anything mediterranean really.

5 websites I visit daily:

1. Finnish Meteorological Institute
2. YLE News
3. Telkku.com (it’s a tv-guide)
4. mixx.com
5. blogger

5 places I’d rather be now:

1. Somewhere warm and sunny, preferably with a cold drink in my hand
2. Cabo de Roca, Portugal (westernmost point of Europe. Wonderful scenery, quiet sleepy fishing)
3. Driving through Western Europe
4. Corfu (been there before, and liked it a lot)
5. Scotland (never been there, but I’d love to go)

Greetings from Seinäjoki, everyone!

I celebrated my 32nd birthday the other day by having a terrible headache and generally feeling nauseous. I spent 8 euros at a restaurant for nothing, since couldn’t eat at all.  And it wasn’t the food, that was perfectly fine. I felt ill just by looking at it. I picked at the salad, which in my palate had a metal taste. I’m sure it didn’t, though.

But never mind.

My friend Outi baked a cake last Sunday. It was mostly for her hubby’s graduation, but I was told that it was combined graduation, birthday, wedding, and funeral cake. So I did get a birthday cake after all. Actually, my mum promised bake another today. So at least I’m suitably “caked”. For the record, I don’t know who died and who got married.

Yeah, I said Seinäjoki, didn’t I?

I decided to celebrate Midsummer with my parents. Which of course meant another train ride. And wouldn’t you know, the air-con in my train car was out of order. The conductor said I could get my money back, because the heat was really unbearable. I survived by the virtue of Pepsi Max and Danone drinkable yogurt.

The traditional Finnish way to celebrate Midsummer, is of course to escape the City for much nicer environs of lakeside cabins. There we would bathe in a sauna, swim in one of our 187,888 lakes, light bonfires and generally make the fool of ourselves by drinking too much alcohol. If Wappu was St. Patrick’s Day on steroids, Midsummer is even worse. They have all sorts of morbid statistics about Midsummer, which is really sad since it’s supposed to be a celebration. Sure, a celebration of pagan origin, but still a celebration. Something about being by the water and having too much alcohol at hand spells disaster.

Some people here are running a supertriple bet. That is, you try to guess the amount of people drowning, people dying in traffic accidents and people getting killed by other people this Midsummer. We Finns have a really dark sense of humour. I guess you have to, if you plan to live in this kind of a climate. There’s even a saying that really says something about the cynicism of the people here. It goes:

Suomen kesä on lyhyt ja vähäluminen.

It translates roughly as

The Summer in Finland is short and there’s little snow.

Luckily, there’s little risk of me ending up as part of the statistics in that bet. We’re spending the holiday in the city (if you can call it that). It’s kind of spooky, since most people have already gone to their summer cabins and the streets here are empty. I do like it, though; I’m not too fond of crowds.  We are planning to barbecue and naturally we’ll have a go at the sauna. Other than that, I think the plan is to enjoy the peace and quiet of suburban life. The only way I drown is if I trip and fall face-first into the shallow irrigation ditch behind the back yard.

That’s about it. Even if you don’t celebrate it, I wish you all fantastic Midsummer!

Yeah,

The news wasn’t exactly what I hoped for. It’s more antibiotics, more lab tests and more waiting. But never mind that. I’m not one to dwell on hardship, and to tell you the truth, I’ve been uncharacteristically whiny lately.

My creed in life is to accept and move on.

I’ve been that way since I was born. My mother tells me these stories of when I was just a babe. I would lie in my crib, and I would cry for some attention, and if no one came that instant, I would just shut up and go back to sleep. Little discomfort never mattered. I could have my rubber boots in the wrong feet, socks bunched up at the toe and life would be good.  I don’t know if that means I am very adaptable or just very apathetic.

It also means I’m not in the least bit competitive. Being such a lovely day, some friends and I headed out to weigh and measure each other at the glorious summer (and foot friendly) sport of miniature golf and I totally managed, by clear margin, to not win. My friend Ari was happy to win. He’s extremely competitive. I was more than happy to see him win. I took pleasure in being out in the sun with my friends.

It’s not the first sport I find myself lacking ability. Only sport I’ve ever been good at is swimming. I learned to swim before I learned to ride a bike. I competed. I even won a gold medal in 50 m freestyle at the regionals back in 89 or something. My crowning achievement. Truth is, I never cared about competing. I just liked hanging out with my friends from the swim team, I liked the bus trips to the competitions. Competing was just the price I paid for having fun. I never took it seriously, which, in retrospect, must be why wasn’t very successful.  Oh, well. Accept and move on.

That’s the way I try to deal with everything in my life. I try not to frett over the stuff I can’t change. I just accept and move on.

So, uhm yeah.

I’m feeling a little bit fidgety and anxious because I have a doctor’s appointment in a few hours. They drew some blood from me yesterday for lab tests, and I guess now I’ll find out if the news is good or not. I hope it’s good. The damn limb certainly looks better than it did; it’s not swollen and it feels sort of normal, that is, like the other one. There’s still slight discolouration, but that’s normal I suppose. I’ve had this particular infection before and some pigment damage is to be expected. Aren’t I the lucky one?

When I’m nervous I take comfort in the one thing that constantly makes me feel better no matter what; music. Being in this kind of state of mind that is hyper-focused on the one thing that’s going on, I find creative thought to be a real struggle, thus, you’ll never guess what’s the first song that came to mind:

This is the story of your red right ankle
And how it came to meet your leg
And how the muscle, bone, and sinews tangled
And how the skin was softly shed
And how it whispered, “Oh, adhere to me
For we are bound by symmetry
And whatever differences our lives have been
We together make a limb”
This is the story of your red right ankle

For those not that well-versed in their indie classics, that’s from the Decemberists’ song…well.. Red Right Ankle. See how literal associations my brain makes when it’s worried. Well, I’m off to sit in an uncertainty room. Wish me luck. I wish you, my dear readers, good health and prosperity. Oh, and blueberry pie ice cream, my new favourite.

If you don’t hear from me again, they mistook me for an amputee patient. Boy, I’m hilarious when I’m nervous.