You can still contact me at svaha@iki.fi

13 Jan 03

I wanted to bury myself inside yesterday, too, but Sanna held me to my promise to go and see "Y tu mama tambien" with her. So I did. Which is good, since the movie was extremely funny and quite touching, too.

After the movie and a cup of coffee I was altogether ready to fall asleep again.

11 Jan 03

As I suspected, I've spent most of the past three days sleeping. I was too tired even to go to Mikki's and Anne's housewarming party, and I'd really been looking forward to that.

Well, this should get easier in a few days. I hope.

8 Jan 03

Heh. There must be a conspiracy behind this. Not only did I get to sleep around midnight like a proper human being, I was woken in the morning at seven fourty am with a call to work. I was so sleepy that I said yes and then of course had to go. And did okay. And then went to town and returned a scarf I borrowed in Alternus Innocentius, met Paula, returned some scandalously overdue books to the University coursebook library, and then went and thoroughly enjoyed The Two Towers for the second time, with P&P.

And got my prescription, too. What is this new devilry? Normalcy - it's a foe beyond me. I've got to run. Right?

I said I'd be willing to go to work tomorrow and Friday as well, if the regular teacher still needs to be absent.

So bring on the Balrog of everyday life. Right now, I can stand. Don't know about tomorrow, since the new medication will probably tire me out for a few days, but we'll see. And if I fall because of that, I'll try to grab the sword again in time.

In other news, love hurts. Today. Again.

Narnian portti on pimeänä

Täällä Välimailla sumu jäätyy paikoilleen
levoton värähtely pakenee valkoisen
ja mustan taakse:
nöyrästi särkyvän kellon ääni

hiekka lasi lumi
hiekka lasi timantti lumi

Kuinka voisin puhua, kun suuni
on timanttijauhoa täynnä

7 Jan 03

Ha! Did it! It's ten pm, and I've stayed awake since yesterday evening - mostly by wandering aimlessly about town waiting for people. I met Ripa for lunch and finally got Rakurai's kimono off my hands (though not the other parts of the costume, so if anyone's interested in a historical Japanese ceremonial costume...?). Then I couldn't come up with anything useful to do while waiting to catch up with Anni, who finally got into town around four, and then it was time to meet Mom. We spent some time shopping half-heartedly at the winter sales and then went to have dinner at Via, where they make the most delicious pasta I've tasted for a long time... I bought two CD's with Grandma's Christmas money: The Two Towers soundtrack and the songbook of Notre-Dame de Paris, the musical.

Now it's time for well-earned sleep. Tomorrow I'll meet Paula for some paperwork and Two Towers. And phone my psychiatrist to get another prescription - I've lost the one I got a week ago, as I noticed when I tried to find it today to go and actually get the medication.

My old friend Kaarina just emailed me - a long, supportive letter. I feel so warm, as if someone just lit a fire in the fireplace we don't have. And no, I never stopped considering you a friend, either.

But now bed beckons. Let's see if I manage to stay awake long enough for "Danse Mon Esmeralda" to play through even once...

5 Jan 03

The line of division between one entry and another has become more and more arbitrary, as I am continuously awake from evening to morning. I've spent most of the night putting up my writings on the subject of Corona Kawa of Domus. Now all the reports are there, along with links to the old campaign pages and some overall explanation. I hope it makes sense. I hope the whole thing is worth the bother (though I have no idea who might care to read them - but isn't the point not to expect readers, only to write?).

I wonder if I should manage to stay up until evening, this time. It would be nice to be able to catch a friend and maybe go and see The Two Towers again, but most people either have plans or got bored waiting for me to wake up last week.

I'm going to be out of money pretty soon again. I wonder if I could manage to fill all those papers next week?

And I should finish up the dance instructions for the leaflet that goes with the rendance CD. Well, I'll try to take it up again today, so maybe I can finish it some time tomorrow evening.

...Darn, can't even be properly pessimistic: the Nutcracker Adagio is playing on TV. An unexpected, unasked piece of sudden bliss. Where did that come from?

Have to stay awake at least until afternoon: there is another Cirque du Soleil show on at one.

(Later) Well, guess if that one worked out? I fell asleep on the sofa, waiting for the show to begin, and found myself in my own bed much later, when Anni and Lin came home and went out again. People had been trying to phone me, but I have only the vaguest memory of the phone ringing at all. I wonder if anyone taped the show, "Dralion"? I'd really love to see it.

We watched the other new show of theirs, "Varekai", the other day, and I thought it was beautiful... the music was particularly gorgeous. The only thing I was less than impressed with was the clown act - it simply was not funny, especially compared to a smaller cirque nouveau act that was on YLE Teema a few weeks ago. I can't find information on that one anywhere anymore, which is a great pity. I can't even remember the name of the company in it.

I haven't done much anything today (or tonight). However, I decided to get myself out of the door and to get that prescription as soon as possible (the local pharmacy is open tomorrow - or today - as well). And I'll try to find someone to see The Two Towers with me. It's been too long...

I hope to stay awake until evening, so I could finally get back to sync with the rest of the world.

4 Jan 03

Spent most of last night fiddling with small stuff in Scribblings and my larp page. Still have a tendency to drown the reader with information all on one page - not that that's any news. Pondered the sense of putting poems in chronological order; it might make a lot more sense if the occasional new scribble would be at the top, easy to glance at. Decided it was too much of a bother to change that. Was painfully reminded of one's inability to finish game debriefs - one should think I'd have enough of them to pick and choose, but no, I never get them done. Too much pressure to perform well in writing, too.

I thought about the character faults I mentioned the day before yesterday and realized that I can probably come up with the complete series of the deadly sins, and that actually scared me. I mean, I'm used to thinking of myself as - well, not a nice person as such, but at least someone who tries to be a good person, or at least not a terribly bad person. But... well. Envy, check. Anger, check. Sloth, check; even when well, I'm the world's champion procrastinator, and I hate physical exercise, unless it masquerades as something else (dance, swimming, horseriding, martial arts, hiking in spectacular surroundings). Gluttony, check - hey, what else does bulimia account to? Covetousness I'm not sure about, because I don't know the exact interpretation... if it's about money or other material things, that's maybe the only one I don't particularly fall for - on the other hand, I am in any case so incompetent with money that it amounts to misery to me and others anyway.

Pride? Well, no, not as such, but isn't the self-centric worldview born of the pathological lack of self-confidence almost a way of arriving at pride from the other side? And lust? Depends. As I said, I am certainly a very sensual person, and I suppose some people might see sin in things I accept and consider possible even for myself - such as bisexuality, or such forms of sexual activity as BDSM. However, I've noticed that I'm really more private about sex than many people I know. As much fun as it surely might be, and as valid as any hobby as long as both physical and emotional safety are considered, I couldn't have sex as a hobby. I'm not secure enough (surprise, surprise). To me, there are two absolute requirements for sex: trust and acceptance (a modicum of attraction is nearly as necessary).

So yes, I can have "buddy sex", but only with people I trust an awful lot - if the whole subject ever enters the friendship at all. But then again, sex for desperate desire is another thing altogether, and that desire might be the harmful thing meant in the description of the deadly sin. Desire so strong that one is willing to hurt both oneself and others to achieve its object... I don't know if I'm immune to that yet - I know I was not when younger - nor do I know if I can resist doing the wrong things for it. I hope so, but how can I know?

So, guilty of all seven, though on one or two the jury might be argued to lack of unanimity. Now, this has been an unpleasant observation, all in all. How am I supposed to fight for my life this year, if even logic tells me I have no right to a life?

No, I am not hysterical. I am quite calm and reasonable. But this is how it is.

What else have I done besides contemplating the meanings of sin? Not much. Slept the day. Got up after six. Didn't get food or medication, as it is Saturday and everything was closed by then. Watched TV. Wrote a bit. Watched more TV. Nice serial movie on Gustaf III of Sweden, with Iben Hjejle ("High Fidelity") as Queen Sophia Magdalena. Wish we'd seen it before Elegance.

Keep thinking about how many pieces of writing there are to finish; keep getting bogged down in them anyway. Want to write so many stories; why can't I ever just stop whining and do them?

(Later) ...Oh, let's add vanity to the list of sins. Suvi put up the rest of the pictures from last weekend's Vampire chronicle game, and to my infinite surprise and satisfaction I found a picture of me that I almost liked. It's the last picture on page 21 of the album - I won't link to it here, as Orava seems to have prevented direct linking. Actually, I really, really like that picture. It's the only one where I don't look either humongously fat, indecently exposed (I honestly did not realize my bodice was quite that low, though I should know how the corset behaves by now) or plain weird, or all of them. (And once more let me emphasize that I don't mean to imply that the fault lies with the photographer... One can't really photograph a hippopotamus as a gazelle.)

3 Jan 2003

I just watched "Breaking the Waves" for the first time ever. I am speechless.

Not that I had energy to cry except a bit at the end. How come people describe this as a five-hankie film? It was so deep and so sad that it's not something over which to have cheap tears. It was true. All of it. Not literally, but emotionally.

I've slept and slept. And today I finally had to admit that I've failed. Again. I could not take care of those articles for Larppaaja. And I so much wanted not to fail Heli, not even when The Magic Carpet was over and done with. It was a duty not to fail her. I am sorry. More sorry than you can imagine.

And I am sorry to have failed the end of my post as an information officer for SuoLi as well. Yes, I know it was because I am ill, but still. I so much wanted not to fail.

So much.

I haven't been awake enough even to get my new prescription. I really didn't expect it to get this pitiful.

(Later) Started watching El Cid (which I bought for myself and the rest of the house for Christmas). It was surprisingly entertaining - truly epic in the proper sense of the word. Lots of grander-than-life emotions, devious plots, heroism and honour... Of course, the costumes were off by a few hundred centuries, but when are they ever correct?

It made me miss my Domus character again. Badly.

And now I almost wrote something so nasty that it would only have caused more harm than anything else. There's a fine line where honesty abandons common sense altogether, and even if I'm trying to move it a little further in connection with myself, I still try to stick to the safe side of it when dealing with others.

Okay. We're dealing with festering wounds here. Let's move away from that particular one and take up another. Milla.

(Remember what I said in the explanation to the diary? That I would not censure people's names or my real feelings on them. I notice I have not held on to that, either - I've ended up with far too many "someones" here. I'll try to adapt Project Honesty in that area as well. One exception: if I am absolutely sure that it would do more harm than good - as above; as I tend to be quite nasty when I feel awful.)

So. There was a sour sidenote to the New Year's party at Sopulilaakso: Milla and Tuomas were there, which I did not expect. Now, there is a lot of history between Milla and me, starting from the time when the Helsinki Vampire chronicle was taking its first steps and Suvi, Milla and a few others were living in the now-legendary "Mikävaan" commune. Through everything - through some moderately difficult emotional dealings and differences in style of email communication - I thought that we had managed to stay friends. I definitely counted Milla and Tuomas among my soul's family.

Last summer, Milla did not invite me to spend Midsummer with them and a bunch of other people at Milla's family's place, as supposedly there was a chance that I might "spoil the party mood".

This from a person who should know me better, and to whom, the last time we met before this, I had wept about how badly I felt for not being included in a party last new year where most people I know went. (That one I can understand: it's not like Hakkis and I have even been more than acquaintances; it just so happened that at the time I could not help feeling excluded, and of course it made me sad.) So she knew and had actively been reminded of how awful I feel about being excluded in general; and they used to say they wanted to be my friends and support me.

Now, of course everyone has a right to invite or not invite people exactly as they want to. It's not that I think what she did was somehow illegal or immoral. It's just that I have Views on friendship, and even though I am not the most perfect person, I personally try to stick to the rules created by those views... even in cases where it causes me personal discomfort or creates ugly rumours (as a case has done this summer - but loyalty is more important to me than discomfort or rumours). And I can't be friends with people who do not have the same respect for friendship (or - possibly - respect for me personally). It is their right, even then, not to have that (for friendship or for me, either way). But it is also my right to protect myself and draw back as well.

But of course it still hurts to find oneself to have been of so little worth to someone of whom one believed otherwise. So it was not very easy to see them at the party. I avoided situations where I would have been forced to talk to them, as I did not want an uncomfortable situation, or to risk being directly impolite (not that I had planned to, but I did not even want to take the risk). Nor did Milla pay any attention to me.

Tuomas caught me alone later in the evening and tried to talk about the situation as if this was a mutual argument where he hoped that I would just give up the gripe. I said I was sorry (and I really am, as this is highly unpleasant), but I saw it as Milla's call, not mine. I have no need to go on arguing, if she apologizes and admits that she was wrong. Indeed, I have no need to go on arguing anyway - I just don't want to wear myself out being friends with someone who does not appreciate me enough to admit they screwed up. It's as simple as that. And he said okay then, and wished me a happy new year. So I guess that was that. And it is sad.

And no, I would not write about this if it did not matter at all. It does. It is bloody painful. And neither do I want to seem to say that I don't allow my friends any mistakes at all. I do. We all make mistakes, of course, all the time, and we all need to apologize, forgive and forget. But I can, and do, demand the same respect from friends that I try to show them. I am often sharp and difficult because of my insecurities (which I try to admit and apologize for, in the end, though I don't always get that far), but I will not budge on loyalty.

And I realize that now that I have made this breakup public, it would be even more difficult for the other side to apologize. I'm sorry for that, Milla, I truly am, but I wanted to demonstrate something of what I mean by friendship, and loyalty, and things on which I cannot bend, or I'll break irrevocably. And it's not all that flattering to me myself, either.

And I will try to be more open about my relations to others in the future, as well. This was an attempt at that - perhaps only the second one I've made in these diaries (if my incoherent complaints about the cinematic, awful and often needless arguments Anni and I keep having can be counted).

(And no, not all my relations to people are awful. I just tend to worry about them endlessly. As could be expected.)

2 Jan 2003

God, I'm so pissed with people who think they know everything and expect me to learn the same things all by myself without proper instructions simply because they think it's easy (and they think so only because they can no longer remember what it was like not to know anything about the subject).

I don't belong to the Nerd classification. I don't like to tinker with things and work them out myself. I want to use the experience that is out there already and then, when I know what I am doing, start tinkering, if needed.

What is this, you ask. Well, I just decided today that I'm not being honest enough in this diary. I've become pretty picky on what I say and how - if I still fool people into believing this equals openness, it is simply because that one fact, depression, has become an open issue. But there's a lot about me that you don't know yet, if you've only read this diary.

Like the fact that I'm terribly impatient and prone to slashing out at people far too easily (of course, it could be deduced from extant information, such as my lack of self-confidence). Or that I am awfully envious - so much so that it transforms into jealousy of everyone and everything. Or that I am actually a highly sensual person, and always have been... so much so that I still find it difficult to talk about the fact at all, because it's no the sort of thing a proper person is. Or that my sexual tastes run in the milder forms of BDSM, especially submission. Or that (gee, what a neat contrast in subject) I truly, absolutely believe in the existence of a personified Supreme Being and even further in that Being's incarnation as a human in Jesus, no matter how unfashionable that is among young urban intellectuals.

And many more smaller details. I'm actually not a very nice person. Most of the time I try, sometimes I succeed, more often not.

Hmfh. The above was written in a burst of anger. I'll see if I can explain myself better in the following entries. I haven't really had energy for much else than sleeping. I've cancelled meetings with friends simply because all I could do was sleep. I wonder what I am trying to hide from this time?

1 Jan 2003

So. So... 2002 is past, and I am still here. And it is not too bad that it is so, at least for now.

The Sopulilaakso party was nice... though I was somewhat sad that I could not go on to the other party I planned to attend (at Talo). At the time I should have changed locations, I was feeling ill because of the party food (too much good stuff after the stomach flu), and I didn't know for how late Talo was receiving guests, and didn't dare to barge in at the small hours. So I stayed at Sopulilaakso, where luckily people were less drunk and more fun than they had been at Halloween, so I had many nice conversations and many warm wishes for the new year (and the stomach calmed down pretty soon, too).

Oh yes, I was sober. And so much better for it.

I made a New Year's Promise. It's small and altogether selfish - it doesn't make anyone's life any better except my own - but perhaps I may be granted that much leeway. I'm giving up chocolate and all other candy as well as crisps for the whole year. Crisps have absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever; neither has candy, though I only eat them occasionally anyway; and I heard (from people I trust in these matters) that about 70% of the raw cocoa used in chocolate in these parts comes from the Ivory Coast, where child slavery is still prevalent in cocoa plantations. So, no chocolate either. And that will be difficult. So will the crisps. But I'll give it a serious try, and we'll see.

There's Buffy going on downstairs, but I couldn't watch the particular episode for all the heartbreak it contains, so I took a break to update some. I've slept most of the day - perhaps in some sort of a relief reaction.

I got a wonderful and heart-warming surprise today: email from my closest friends during the active years at University, one of whom currently lives in the States, and one with whom we've simply lost touch through to both of us being shy and complicated people. They had found these pages and wanted to wish me a better new year. It brightened the day so much.