IRC-Galleria

You know the saying "life flashes before your eyes" when you realize you'll die in a moment or so?
I've started thinking about this saying but in a different way. You might've heard me talking about "premonitions" or "prophetic dreams" before ('enneunet' in Finnish, translating this into English has its problems as you can see).. anyway.. It's beginning to look like the short eventful "flash movie" one sees in the moment of death is not like that in my case.. to me it seems to be different.. A long time ago when I accepted the fact that I was going to die, I also accepted the fact that in a way I am already dead. You can think about this in alternate realities or just time itself not being a linear process but a cycle which has no ending but a new beginning in another cycle(s).. think of a string of pearls where one pearl is one lifetime.. you can focus on just one life or look at the bigger picture where the whole family is in succession, one after other.

And I'm getting sidetracked.. :) anyway, when one dies their life flashes before their eyes.. and it doesn't take more than mere seconds, if even that.. but in my case, 'cos I have to be special and unique (NB! irony), the life I've lived is caught in repeat and the 'flash movie' is happening right now.. the premonitions I have from time to time are, in fact, mere memories of the life I've already lived.. and the "flash movie" is not eventful - it's slow-paced, tedious and uneventful. The audience isn't sitting at the edge of their seat, they're long gone, on they're way back home via the K-Mart of their choice.

The thing why this kind of freaks me out is.. in the dreams I've seen, I'm not with the girl that I love and live with now. In those dreams I'm with some blonde girl who used to work as a cashier at one of the local grocery stores. When I saw her years ago I had one of those "life flashing before my eyes" moments. I froze up, and the glass bottles in our (shop) trolley clashed together and one exploded into pieces leaving a pool of beer in front of the checkout. You can imagine the look on my face and the puzzled look on hers as well, a kind of "Do we know each other?" mixed with shared embarrassment for the broken bottle incident. Anyway, I never got that girl's number.. asked her out or anything.. I haven't seen her since even though she probably lived/lives in the general area (Espoonlahti). I've even expected with some horror to find her among the newbies each year in the university, but so far she hasn't come up.. but if my bad feeling about next autumn is true, it would mean bad things for me and my present lover which would just completely mess up my brain, 'cos it would verify the 'being dead already' thing and I would eventually have to break a good girl's heart, again. Oh yeah, I need to point this out, I hadn't seen that checkout girl before that day and I haven't seen her since.. which makes me even more confused.. am I to fall for her simply because my dreams tell me so?!

BUT, onto another matter.. and this one will be quite long as well, so bear with me. I've understood why J. took his own life. Shortly before the incident (few weeks or so) he told me that he had met one of our old classmates called Mikko Mäkinen. We started talking about how this guy used to be shorter than J. ..back in elementary school that is.. and now this guy is something like 6'4"-6'5" (190-195cm). He was in the same junior high school with us but on one of the other parallel classes. He went to this well-known high school and ended up in Helsinki University of Technology. I guess he succeeded in his studies both in high school and HUT (that TKK in Finnish) and he now works at Nokia. He's been together with his wife (or at least fiancée) for years.. I guess they met each other in high school or HUT. They have their own apartment (or maybe a mortgage-paying deal or something like that), their family's old car.. probably pets as well.. a regular dream-come-true. Mikko's parents are J's old friends of the family because they used to live in the same house back when both children were in kindergarten. The parents are both highly educated and well-paid professional in their chosen careers and good parents of two kids (M. and his older sister.. who incidentally is the same age as J's sister). J's father does the same kind of work as M's father, but is a bit higher on the social scale (some kind of micromanagement bosses.. heads of divisions or something like that). J's mother teaches music to young children at a local elementary school whereas M's mother is some kind of engineer like the fathers. Both moms are very caring and devoted wives as well as mothers. Well, as J grows up he decides to become like his father.. a well-paid engineer at a construction company. The boy works his way through junior high and high school.. and ends up in the same place as M. Unlike his old friend, J. has had a rough few years in junior high because of a congenital spine problem which had to be surgically fixed and he had to wear a plastic corset or a back support. His classmates used to tease him terribly.. and even his best friend couldn't do anything to stop it.. he probably went along not to be bullied.. but he did anyway, 'cos he was shy and sensitive.. had big ears and a funny fuzzy hairdo. His best friend went to another high school and so they saw each other less and less. The boys went to different places after that and as the time came for the military duty the two best friends and the new best friend of his old friend met at weekends and drank a lot. J lived at home with his parents and liked to eat like a grown man. O. ate too, but did not gain weight much like J's father who was quite thin. J gains weight and the scars from his back operation show a bit more than before.. O. begins college in a different town, so the former best friends see each other on weekends few times a month.. meanwhile J. has problems at school.. a loss of motivation, difficult courses.. anyway.. who cares? his friend lives in a different town, he's not collecting any benefits 'cos he lives at home.. years pass.. studies have to gone to hell? he meets his friends at weekends and tells them things are fine, they don't ask anything, they trust him.. Everything's fine, nobody knows except him.. he feels guilty, but can't express it to anyone. After a few years in the HUT people begin to wonder how his studies are going, he tells them something.. they believe him.. he gets a summer job through his father and so he has enough money to do the things he wants and even help out his two friends who study at college.. those damn humanists.. Finally, it's 2007.. he's asked about summer job through the same firm he's worked for earlier.. he tells his friends he'll get a better pay now 'cos he's so advanced in his studies (which is not true).. his parents decide to move to a neighbouring town which means the commute to HUT will become difficult.. his parents help him get a place which is actually quite close to school and his future workplace. Before the summer he meets Mikko who has succeeded in everything he has not. J feels he hasn't done enough in his life.. he finds out he can't get the place at work he's said to his friends 'cos he hasn't enough credits from school. He can get a job that he has done earlier which still pays well. The pressure mounts.. his parents make him feel more guilty? "no, it's not them.. I should just tell them, they'll understand.. but they wanted me out of the house, they sold it without even asking me!?" The parents probably see each other even now.. they all play golf.. M's parents are so proud of their son who has a fiancée, a house, a steady job with a good income.. J's parents tell their son will soon graduate too, not in record time like M. (it took him 4-5 yrs? and the average is 6 yrs?)..
His best friend has had emotional problems as long as he has known him.. he would just worry himself to death because of him, if he told him and asked for help.. and after all.. they're not that close anymore.. he'll continue his life at college.. in the other town.. far away from him. He loves him too much to ask for help even though he knows that he'd do anything to help him like he had before. God knows, he owes him so much for all the times he pulled him back to surface during his darker moments.

It all falls in place. Like pieces of a puzzle. His dad has a gun for target practice. It has been lying around in his apartment earlier 'cos of the moving's in progress, the new place is being renovated.. it'll be ready to move in soon.. they'll all leave him soon.. he won't make it, not when they find out how his studies have gone to shit years ago.. he's a failure.. the male pattern baldness has started few years earlier, the scars on his stomach disgust him.. they made me move with out my permission.. nobody cares.. I love them too much.. fuck them.. Few days before the actual shooting he talks to his friend's best friend and his friend.. casual chitchat.. we'll see soon.. they don't care.. he's not my friend, we just drink together.. he talks to his mother.. yeah, mom, I'll take care of the rent of your new place.. he drives to the new place, picks up the gun and ends it all.. in one quick sudden blow.

---

the police find him few days later when his mom calls his best friend.. frantic, worrying.. and she was right..

---

Few points that I need to _stress_: 1) The events that followed meeting M. were NOT his fault.. M.M. is merely a prime example of what J's dreams were like.. what he was aiming at when he started HUT, what he and our 'generation' see as one of the ideals: a true success story and one of 'us' who were once on the same line.. I have nothing but admiration towards this guy, he was always good to me and J. ..and I'm happy to see he's done well in life :) and I'm just the man who delivered his newspaper last summer. He feels remorse about being one of the last people to have spoken with J. ..even though he shouldn't.. J's eyes brightened up when he talked about M. ..he was proud of him too. 2) The way I wrote this has me putting words into J's mouth.. I last spoke with him online on the weekend before the incident.. and the whole thing is still a bit unclear to me, but the study problems and so on are real.. 3) You should know that on that same year, I did try to "kill" myself by eating all the sleeping pills I had.. and I did make a big deal about it.. which was incredibly stupid in hindsight.. it's just when you battle with depression you don't think straight.. So, with all the problems J. had had before and after the March of 2007 he had to deal with my stuff too..

so, there you see what kind of friend I am..
~O~

It's been about ten days since I last saw my girlfriend.. I haven't eaten really well after that.. I can't say that I actually have an appetite.. not like I had when I was living back home in Turku.. that's right, my home is there, not here.. this place is important to me, I grew up here.. but I chose to leave this place for a reason.. which was that like I've noticed again, these people make me go crazy.. my younger sister annoys the hell out of me and I don't feel like I belong here anymore.. Don't get me wrong I love my family just as anyone else.. but they drive me insane.. I cannot understand those stereotypical Italian men who live with their mothers even when they're in their thirties or forties.. I mean get a fucking life! Learn to cook and wash your clothes.. see the world.. learn a foreign language.. JUST DO SOMETHING!! ..for fuck's sake.. there are six billion people on this planet and in your own village/town/city/counrty you'll meet a ridiculously small number of those wonderful human beings..

Like, huopatukka, who wrote in her blog about how she's pissed off at people who simply don't care about the world and what they're doing to it.. I am too.. the amount of expletives would get me censored in most 'civilized' countries, so I'll just say that.. watch the news.. recycle.. buy your clothes from second-hand stores.. concentrate on what's really important in life: family, friends, life experience, making a difference in your immediate surroundings.. help a stranger on the street find their way to wherever.. show some fucking human kindness for once in your miserable existence.. C'mon, hop to it! It ain't so hard..

This Western way of life is so focused on the material plain that people forget to think about what they can actually take with them when they die.. I keep repeating this same old line from "Fight Club" but I has truth in it: The things you own, end up owing you.. ..If you think the irony in this line ..well.. the person who says it, isn't real.. at least in this reality..
Those who know me may know how I've planned to get few tattoos once I have enough money and balls to get them.. one of these would entail getting the words "In omnia paratus" and "Omnia mea mecum porto" hacked under my skin.. Now, my girlfriend, will probably correct me and say that you really shouldn't ..'cos I've understood them wrong or something.. but the first means "ready for anything" and the second "everything I own I carry with me".. The first appeared in Gilmore Girls as a slogan for the Life and Death Brigade.. and the second comes from Ancient Greece.. one of those old stories about a man who goes on a boat trip and they end up in a horrible storm and people drown clinging to their belongings.. and when he gets to shore, people ask him what did he lose as the boat sank to the bottom.. the man says 'omnia mea mecum porto' (but in Koine Greek of course) ..I've tried to live my life by these codes as best as I can..

We talked about death and dying with my therapist.. a few weeks ago.. and I said that if I died now I wouldn't regret anything I've done.. I've seen the things I've wanted to see.. of course I'd want to travel to far away places etc. but let's face it.. I'll probably never have enough money to do so.. I mean.. when do you have _enough money_? I only regret not saying "I love you" to the people who'd deserve hearing it.. I regret not treating my friends better (everyone at Anglica.. especially Lilli and her friends.. I could've been nicer to them..) ..I regret acting like a fool everytime I was too drunk to know my own name.. and for the times I'll continue to do likewise.. I'm not proud of the times I've flirted with anyone who was/is seeing someone else.. even though it's just flirting to me.. somewhere along the line.. somebody could get hurt..
All in all, I don't fear death.. I wait for it.. I've accepted the fact that my friends and I will die someday.. but what we do now, how we treat the people now.. what kind of an impression we leave in the minds of others.. will determine how well we have lived our lives.

Again, this became longer than I originally intended..
Enjoy the summer,
Your enlightened boddhisattva,
~O~

are fucking boring.

I seriously believe that the sole purpose of relatives is to annoy people with their endless stories of health issues and how they can't do anything.. their close encounters with death.. how their children are so fucking adorable you could just die of insulin shock 'cos they're so sweet..

I swear to God I wanted to blow my brains out so badly today.. Yes, I know your husband (my uncle) has serious health problems and I wish he'd get better.. but let's face it.. the man's almost 70.. in the past he would've died ten times already. And while your at it.. learn to fucking pronounce words correctly.. there's a 'sh' in -skär.. Why is it so difficult? You've lived till to the ripe age of thousand and one ..and you don't know Swedish.. you've got family there, so learn the fucking language instead of using your relatives as interpreters..

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGHHH!! *bangs his head against the wall*

On an also amusing note.. I miss my girlfriend and it's only been few days since I last saw her.. I'm broke.. I want to drink so much booze I'll need a dialysis and liver transplant.. I've been dreaming about having sex with other women and I'm horny constantly..
Welcome to my summer! <3

ihkuu! on kuumaa ja paahdan itteäni partsilla.. <3

today J would've been 27.. we would've met yesterday with T and possibly other friends and congratulate J for the anniversary of his cellular decay.. "haha, you dinosaur! ..soon you'll need a walker or a cane to help you walk" ..I miss that fat fucking bastard so much it's hurts like hell.. fuck you for leaving me and all your other friends here!

Jack-81

I've been choking on my tears for few days.. holding them in.. not letting myself fall apart. The thing is I understand why he did it.. I see things through his eyes now 'cos a lot of the stuff's happening to me: my grades are low if I'm completing the courses; I look at myself in the mirror and don't like what I see (and I even don't have the same kind of weight problems he had..); I really don't trust any of my friends enough to tell them anything.. as if they'd even care; I can't talk to my parents 'cos they wouldn't understand.. they've worked for all their lives.. been independent and grown-up..

Why can't I do it? It shouldn't be that difficult, right?

Well.. I didn't get a summer job.. I guess I didn't call early enough or something.. I was always focusing on some other thing.. to which I lost interest in few days. I feel like a failure. I won't be able to pay my rent. I won't do anything nice that costs a lot. I can live at my parent's house for the summer.. but eventually they'll pressure me about work and school (which they do when I visit them for weekends etc.)

We once talked about my pre-pubescent years at therapy.. or was it puberty.. whatever.. the period of my life when I looked after my younger sister when she was in kindergarten (= daycare) and needed to be picked up at 4pm or a bit earlier. We spent the few hours together before my mom came home from work. I've now been thinking about the fact that I never really was 'young' when my friends were. You know the time when you've supposed to be madly in love with some girl or boy who has braces in their mouth.. those awkward moments when you should kiss some one but both of you are scared shitless.. I got to that period when I was about 20.. I drank for the first time when I was 17 and I've been drinking a lot from 18 onwards (pretty much every weekend from the military months ~20-y/o->) My first real girlfriend was someone I met at college when I was 24, she was 19. Needless to say, we were both quite clueless. I was a bigger brat than she was, but you know what they say, girls mature earlier than boys.. I'd began taking antidepressants in spring of the same year. Like always, I was looking for someone to love or at least someone who could save me from myself. She was shy and I guess I managed to get her out of her shell.. at least a bit..
Unfortunately, the summer vacation ended what had been fading away for some time.

After some single-serving relationships.. I'm now living together with a girl I love (if I'm in love with her it's for brief moments when I realize how gorgeous she is.. these moments usually follow each other).. I'm scared the same will happen again.. the few upcoming months will end the relationship. I'm like a small child who needs constant care. I need someone strong enough who can assure me that things will work out.. and yes.. fuck Freud but in my case he's right.. I _do_ need a mother figure. If I don't get it from my girlfriend I'll seek it somewhere else? I hate myself for this, but I don't know if it's just a temporary thing or a part of my personality. A flaw.. an imperfection.. that dark smudge in your otherwise pristine crystal glass that just can't be removed.

You should always end on a positive note? ..My bunny gives great joy to me and my girlfriend.. he does these amazing leaps of joy and runs around the apartment.. he really loves the new home.. but he also gets weird panic attacks.. it's like he can't hear our footsteps or he's just so preoccupied all the time.

Enjoy the summer,
Yours,
~O~

I turned down a good job (sorting out mail as a part-time job (Mon-Fri evenings 5-9pm) @Itella, 'cos I've been selected into international and faculty's tutor training.. my kids will require my full attention and I won't be able to work in the evenings and take care of the newbies at the same time..

I've been cursin' to myself that now I'll be broke during the summer and autumn.. and this job would've probably been something I could've done when the studies begin in late August if hadn't been accepted into the tutor training.. BUT all in all.. this me-muttering-to-myself is just a passing phase and come autumn I'll be happy I _did_ apply for the tutor thing and was selected.

The thing that bugs me right now is the fact that on 5th of May the training days are on the same day and in different places.. so.. I have no idea wtf I should do.. I sent an email to the persons in charge and hope to get some suggestions as to what's the best way to handle this schedule problem.

The reason I applied for both of these programs was that this way I can integrate the exchange students via my own student organization (all filled with people who are 'experts' in English) and at the same time make sure my Anglica kiddies get to use English as much as possible. Also, if the exchange students aren't native speakers of English (which probably is the case) I get to better my French and German skills.

I'll be at the mercy of the computer lab for some time as we're moving to our new apartment tomorrow.
Enjoy the eve of May and Fi(r)st of May!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DKXGpMGY_o&feature=related

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/foofighters/bestofyou.html

this song's one of my theme songs.. usually when I've spent some time being madly in love with someone who doesn't return the emotion.. a kind of musical/lyrical version of "FU" <3

if you've ever wondered what happens when you've got too much THC in your system check the following strip: http://sinfest.net/comikaze/comics/2008-03-13.gif and the ones that follow it..

last night something like that happened to me.. for the second time.. the first one occurred in 2001 and the ripple effects lasted a few months..

the next time will probably end up with me in an asylum for mental patients or possibly some rehab. I wish I could stop fucking things up before that happens.

so.. where to begin.. I saw my old shrink today, she's retiring in the autumn and wanted to see me face-to-face before that.. we talked about how my things have been going.. the usual stuff: school, the therapy @ Toivola, my medication, relationships and so on.. she thought it would be good for me to think about stop taking meds, not like 'go cold turkey' or anything, but tone it down so that I could see what life was like without them.. where the therapy has got me.. maybe figure out things while battling with the deepest stages of my depression.. Well, I said, sure.. the idea scares the hell out of me, but if you think that's what I oughta do, fine.. I'll try it, in the autumn.. the more I think about it, the more complex my feelings about this upcoming 'event' are: I mean, I get her point - it's not good to dope yourself up and just lull into a state of false happiness.. to get to the bottom of things you need to get down and dirty.. It's just.. you know.. when you've spent the best part of your life feeling so f-n' miserable that you wake up wishing you'd died in your sleep..and.. no the person responsible for the therapy (besides myself of course) is someone you can't really relate to and feels somewhat elusive all the time.. you really don't feel like giving up the only thing that's keeping you going and sane..
I'll ask her opinion about this next Monday, but I think she'll agree with me that it's better to see how things are in the autumn.. especially, when I've been chosen to tutor the new English majors..

Yeah, that's right.. you're looking at one of the new tutors! :) Makes you feel sorry for the n00bs, right? But those of you who know me well enough know that I'm as loyal as they come.. and I like taking care of other people and their problems.. it puts my own stuff in perspective and lets me concentrate on something else besides the demons inside my head..

Some of you might've noticed that I've been doing some 'research' on polyamory. Few weeks ago on a tv-series for women," G-spot", there was a story about polyamory and it was something that I had been thinking about, but did not have term for. I've been thinking how strange the idea of living your whole life with just one person is.. I mean, sure, it's romantic and everything, but given the fact that half of the marriages end in divorce and the other half might have problems dealing with cheating and so on.. wouldn't it be wiser to agree that you are free to f*ck around as long as it doesn't change the way the couple leads their life? Don't take me wrong, 'cos polyamory doesn't mean that! It's synonymous with 'responsible non-monogamy'.. where all participants know the score.. it isn't about sex.. more about deep, intimate relationships with more than one person.. sure sex can be a part of that, if the rules have been so decided among the people. It's amazing how complicated and yet so simple the idea is :)

One thing that's been bothering me is this: If you live in a polyamorous relationship, how easy is it to begin new intimate relationships? It must depend on the persons in question, I mean, that's self-explanatory(?).. But if you think about this from the standpoint of one's own life: say you've decided with your partner that OK, you and I, we're in a polyamorous relationship.. we're free to date other people, maybe even have sex with them.. but remember to use a condom or other type of protection! How do you meet people who'll understand that you're not cheating your partner and they're OK with you being with who(m)ever? If you live in a closed surrounding or are thinking about someone from where you both might work.. maybe their friends.. aren't they going to shun you? If know that person, they're in a relationship with someone I know.. *cold shivers down the spine*

I don't know.. you tell me.. :) fortunately, I've got the benefit of not being polyamorous (at the time.. don't know about the future, 'cos the idea intrigues me, even though I like the girl I've been with for more than six months(?) and I'm with as long as she doesn't dump me. The other thing is that I don't know too many women who'd even be interested in me.. 'cos I'm with someone.. and they'd only get a guy who knows a thing or two about the female anatomy.. so basically just sex and friendship.. and love, but not the kind of love I have for my significant other. You can love many people, but be IN love with one person? How does that work in polyamorous situations? I don't think love is something you can count.. it certainly isn't a count(able) noun.. there's 'love' and 'the love'.. but not 'a love' or 'many loves'..? Therefore love isn't something you could stock and run out of.. you can fall in or out of love.. but it isn't like bread or something that runs out.. The fact that you love your friends doesn't mean you couldn't love your partner.. so why would the one relationship exclude the possiblity of being in love with someone else?

The thing that makes it harder to have many relationships is time.. and space.. you can only BE in one place and time.. unless you've cloned yourself or are schizophrenic or something.. and even then, your body is in one place and your mind somewhere else.. That's possible and occurs in everyday life.. think of the times you've been listening to someone really boring prattling about their personal problems or their spouses healt issues.. and you go into your happy place.. or think about the grocery list..

But I think that's enough prattle from my part.. :) Oh yeah, unless, I haven't said it here on Facebook, I'm moving in together with Aino.. we'll move at the end of this month or the beginning of May and I don't know when we get the Internet connection working in the new apartment.. it should be simple as we're moving to a place owned by the same firm

~O~