he won’t read this. but you will. and then when you send a personal email which contains distressing information you’ll have learnt something.

you’ll be less likely to receive hysterical emails and phone calls. more likely to keep in touch.

always ask how are you? and say, i hope that you are fine and that things are going well for you. then apologise and say that what you’re about to tell them might be upsetting. it might be upsetting but i feel that i should tell you now.

and then tell them the news. afterwards, after words, say please be calm, i really do hope that you’re ok with this, just try to think about this from my point of view.

don’t just say give up hope, there can be nothing between us in the future, this is final or something along the lines of i’ve met a nice girl, she’s really cool and we have a connection without even asking the most cursory how are you?

don’t tell them without softening the blow and then wonder how the person receiving your email can act so selfishly. they might be thinking that you don’t care how the news will affect them.

when sending emails, writing letters, on the phone, with communication in general it’s always a good idea to ask how someone is feeling.

so, how are you?

by .

shout out to pete, and ellie who have sent awesome mail in the last couple of weeks.

stickers and illustrated pages and envelopes full of love seem to be helping.

i’m currently working my way through my inbox and am replying to emails slowly slowly. if you’ve asked for my postal address, you will get the details soon.

if i’ve promised you mail, be assured that the experience will be lovely.

it’s not just because she was hurt by his willingness to become emotionally involved and tell her so soon.

she broke off contact because she knows that she would just keep on saying and writing stupid things just to get his attention, his response, his emotion. she said stupid things even though she held off telling him that she’d moved on physically, because quite frankly, it wasn’t anything to do with him.

she broke off contact because she’d tell him sensible things too, like, fine, do it, but don’t tell me about your relationship, i’m not ready to hear that yet [or maybe never]. and he’d written about it anyway. put it out into the ether for the rest of the world and her world to read about, alongside criticisms of how she’s been behaving.

she’s said so many stupid things to him. and she’s published oh so much about how she’s feeling, the colours of her moods, the charting of her recovery and relapses. but she’s held off with listing his faults, the weaknesses of character that reacted with her, against them.

and it could just be a writing style difference. but it felt to her that he never seemed to broadcast how he was feeling, or to refer to the breakup at all, unless he was critiquing her behaviour, her life, herself.

initially she thought it was a nice breakup. a you’ll be better off without me, i want to see you grow and be happy breakup. an i don’t think you can be happy with me, but i don’t want [you] to be happy with anyone else breakup.

but eventually via chat and email and blog, it turned out to be more of a you did these things wrong breakup and then a you’re dealing with this breakup wrong breakup.

so she thought about these things and apologised over and over and over again and was willing to move on. but the one big compromise he didn’t make for her, the plans he wouldn’t change for her, the decision that so much of the pain came from, he never really began to apologise for enough.

:::…

the thing about love is that those songs on the radio make sense. the other thing about love is that when love goes away, the songs on the radio doubly make sense, because you understand the love songs and then you also understand the hurt songs..

I might as well wipe him from my memory
Fracture the spell as he becomes my enemy
Maybe I was washed out like a lip-print on his shirt
See, I’m only human, I want him to hurt
I want him
I want him to hurt

God Give Me Strength, written by Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello
performed by Kirsten Vigard for the film

Life shifts and buckles.

She gets sweet emails and spicy sms from halfway across the globe. She notices that her writing triggers responses, recollections and emotional regurgitations. She thinks about painting something bright on a big piece of plywood, but she still doesn’t know where to find a lot of the things she took for granted back home.

She can’t believe she never was a brunette before. Her body has changed; she has tanned toned arms and can carry two cartons of beer at once. She: writer, artist, dreamer, bartender, brunette, beautiful and strong must be some man’s dream girl.

I’m now working the day shifts at the bar, which is awesome. I’ve got more opportunity to talk to people and learn their names and hear their stories. It’s way more chilled out than the evenings, which can be insanely busy. I’m finally learning how to use an espresso maker which is good, as eventually in Canada, the UK or even Australia, I’d rather do work in a cafe than too much bar work.

And now, thanks to Stephen and Michelle’s most recent whinge, I’m now extra motivated to learn how to make a good coffee.

Whenever I make espresso I stress to the customer “I’m still learning! Tell me how the coffee is.” and thankfully, no one’s complained yet (only about 10 cups served so far), but the Finns are very used to the drip filter slime. Luckily I’ve been trained by an Aussie who lived in Rome for about 6 years. Hold back on the foam, don’t let the coffee go bitter…

I can only make myself one test cup a day or otherwise I shake so much I almost collapse into a nervous heap.

A good chai latte. I’d like to make that. But then I’m still looking for the perfect spicy chai tea / syrup in the first place, let alone thinking about adding in the froth. The best chai I ever had was very spicy as well as fragrant. Yay for hippies on the northern NSW coast.

:::…

I distract myself from thought by cleaning all the glasses in the bar, cleaning the refrigerators, wiping tables, remembering the regulars.

I listen to Regina Spektor and Peter Bjorn and John. Spoon, Ryan Adams, Roy Orbison, Arctic Monkeys, Fiona Apple and Architecture in Helsinki too.

I was going to meet up with my old friend Pete in Rome, but I didn’t buy the tickets in time and now they’re so expensive that I’d have ended up missing out on three or four other trips around Europe. My coffee making friend told me about the best cappucinno in the world, but I guess for me it will have to wait.

She found a list of the fun stuff they did. Thought about destroying it, but figured that she might want it later. After all, there will be times when she will need to remember the good things. Though at the moment there are usually times when she thinks about what went wrong, mainly so she can justify moving forward with her life. She debates with herself, is it possible to forget something (maybe someone) on purpose?
At her old flat she remembered to pick up her shoes, but the poster she bought from lux sits rolled up in the hallway.

by .

is on the seventh floor but there’s a cool lift (hissi).
is on a great street with trees 15 minutes walk from work
has huge windows (the window sills are wide and excellent for candles, pretty things and plants)
has a tv lent by lea and kimmo my sister and brother flatmates
has a loaned single mattress (soon to be replaced with a cheap ikea futon)
cable internet
needs a table and chair
has been a good distraction from other recent happenings.

I’ve tried and everytime I talk to him or write to him I fuck up. And I apologise and I fuck up again. Obviously I’m bitter and mentally unstable and a fucking bitch. Or I could just be someone who was once very much in love and who doesn’t know how to talk to that person anymore.

I don’t behave like this with anyone else. So I presume that it’s not a psychological thing.

Goodluck to you ex-boyfriend, in what seems to be your new relationship. I may have started having sex again and I’m sorry about the way I told you, sorry about everything I’ve ever said to you. But there’s no way that I’d disrespect what we had by getting emotionally involved with someone just yet. That mate of yours, if he’s the guy I think he is, waited a wee bit longer before he had the strength to get into a relationship again. Goodluck and goodbye.

So, friends. Please don’t mention his name to me anymore. I’d delete the photos and the blog posts and the emails, but that would wipe history. And sadly the technology from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind does not exist to clean my mind.

The now changes though. The email contacts are going. The phone numbers. The weblinks and the contacts are going too.

by .

as you may have guessed, i am now teched up.

i can play on the web again whenever i want, and i can finally get the photos off my camera.

i didn’t take that many photos over the last couple of months as i had no way of cleaning up my memory card and there was a lot of dirt on the camera from mongolia.

anyway, are some of the best photos from the last two or so months.

The ARS 06 exhibit at KIASMA Museum of Contemporary Art has been one of the life saving things about Helsinki over the last couple of months.

I’ll write more about it (and post some photos) soon, but as it’s 4.52 am here in Finland I’ll be brief.

If I had to pick my favourite piece (and that would be very difficult) it would have to be the and the Helsingin Valituskuoro by .

You can read more about it at the links included above, but I highly recommend downloading the Birmingham MP3 to your music playing device of choice. And if for example you’ve just had an incredibly shit time at work and have come home in the taxi crying, just play the and eventually you’ll be singing along and feeling better too.