The Fashion Blog

You’ll be happy to know that M made it home in one piece, and helped me cure my boredom. But then he went to work and I got bored again. I tried eating one of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups he brought me from America, but it didn’t help. I tried eating another one to see if it was just a matter of quantity, but I was still pretty bored. After a third Peanut Butter Cup I was still bored, and also a little nauseous, so I figured peanut butter probably wasn’t the solution.

I did a load of laundry but was still bored. Then I did the dishes, and suddenly got even more bored. Eventually I had to bring out the big guns, my nail polish. Out of pure self-preservation I occupied myself with painting my nails the perfect shade of green. I say perfect because my mom hates it and I love it.

Even a man could pull off this shade of green.

Then I washed my hair and very quickly realized I should have started with the hair and then moved on to the nail polish. Lesson learned. And from now on this blog will focus exclusively on hair care products, nail polish and “Today’s Outfit.”

Clean hair.

Luckily M and I have promised to babysit my 14-year old brother all weekend while my parents are away. I’m looking forward to a weekend full of broken curfews, fast food, underage drinking, smoking and maybe even a break-up or two. Everything is highly dramatic when you’re 14. Come Monday I’ll be happy to be bored again. *

The Fashion Blog

I Still Have Nightmares About Cookies

I’m bored. I’m so bored I can’t even write a blog post. I’m sitting here, watching TV and experimenting with different ways of eating a mandarin (they taste best if you peel them first). Where is M, you ask? M is away again. He’s somewhere in a faraway land, sharing a hotel room with a weird Italian guy. Google invited him to beautiful Sunnyvale to discuss world dominance and I wasn’t invited. And you won’t believe how great a girlfriend I am. I got up at 3 am on Friday and drove him to the bus. Yes, the bus, you didn’t really think I’d drive him all the way to the airport, did you? I’m his girlfriend, not Mother Teresa.

While he’s been away, I’ve been busy visiting people. On Friday I took the train to our nation’s capital and visited my famous sister who spent the entire evening sewing a dress for the hostess of the Finnish Dancing with the Stars and stressing out because apparently famous people do that a lot. Muschu and I rented The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and drooled over the pretty men and then I slept in a sleeping bag for the first time since my Girl Scout days. I remember now why I’m not a Girl Scout anymore.

This dress.

I’ve also had dinner with my parents, coffee with my grandmother and a large bowl of popcorn all alone. I’ve read two books about murder and mayhem and subsequently slept about 5 hours in the past two nights. And today I realized that the ceiling light in the living room is going to explode any day now and set fire to the couch I’m always sitting on. I had to turn off the light and light some candles instead. I did this because clearly candles won’t burn down my apartment, but a light bulb definitely will. M being gone is so not good for my mental health.

Perfectly safe.

Firebomb.

*

I Still Have Nightmares About Cookies

The Hunt For White October

All over Finland the first snow has fallen. Everywhere except where I live. I’m not sure if I’m happy about this or not, but when I heard about the snow I actually had to drag my ass outside to see if we’re really that close to winter already and if I could find any white stuff. I found the air cold and crisp, and the world looking like this:

Mostly red, and a little yellow. No white.

Mostly yellow, with splotches of red. No white.

Mostly brownish yellow. No white. And clearly no one who rakes up the leaves.

Red and green. Looks more like summer than winter.

White!! But it looks suspiciously nothing like snow.

I drew the very scientific conclusion that it wasn't very wintery, but not exactly summery either. My guess? We’re not getting any snow until November. Damn gulf stream making the coast all warm and toasty.

But apart from no snow at all, another amazing thing has happened. I have finally won something I’ve been trying to win for the better part of a year. I’ve won the coveted captioning contest hosted by the fabulous Dufus who shall not be named. This week, I be hangin' with nonamedufus. You may worship me now.

*

The Hunt For White October

Denial Ain't Just a River in Egypt, It's a Whole Freaking Country in Asia

Exactly a year ago I wrote a post about the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize and Barack Obama, its recipient. And apparently it’s becoming a tradition, because this year I’m once again going to address the peace prize. This year the Nobel Peace Prize Committee is trying to save face after last year’s controversial choice of Obama (“for peaceful actions not yet performed.”) They awarded the peace prize to the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who at the moment is serving an 11-year prison sentence for disagreeing with the Chinese government. In Finland a life sentence for murdering a whole family of midgets isn’t that long. But then again, the Chinese government has a pretty unique way of seeing things.

Please don't kill us.

China actually warned the Norwegian government before the prize was awarded, and said that they wouldn’t see lightly on the matter if Liu Xiaobo received the peace prize. What China clearly doesn’t understand is that the Committee is independent. For my Chinese reader out there, that means that there is no interference by the state. Crazy, I know. Nevertheless, the Chinese government holds the entire country of Norway responsible and there will most likely be both political and economic repercussions.

Liu Xiaobo, who still doesn’t know he has actually won, was awarded the prize "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China." I can see why the Chinese government would oppose that. It sounds both democratic and humane. China has gone as far as saying that many Chinese nationalists will see this as an example of the West trying to demonize China. Oh yes, the demonic human rights will soon provide everyone with the right to vote and the right to choose how many babies they have. The horror would be unimaginable.

Oh the horror!

So unimaginable in fact, that the Chinese government has exercised their self-appointed right of censorship. Very few people in China even know that Liu Xiaobo has won the peace prize. Come to think of it, very few people in China even know that there exists such a concept as fundamental human rights. TV’s went black all over China when the peace prize recipient was to be announced, searches for Liu Xiaobo on Chinese search engines won’t turn up any results. Even text messages with the Chinese characters for his name won’t find their destination.

At this very moment leaders around the world are calling for Liu Xiaobo's immediate release. China’s answer: “Liu who?” *

Denial Ain't Just a River in Egypt, It's a Whole Freaking Country in Asia

Happy 8th 6.825.600 seconds, babe!

Sometime in December or January M and I will have been together for 2 years. I don’t know when exactly it will be, because I have no idea when we decided we weren’t casually dating and actually became a couple. Last year we didn’t really celebrate any anniversary, but I’m sure once we get married we’ll probably become like every other couple and celebrate our relationship once every 365 or 366 days.

I don’t like the inconsistency of time in general. One minute is 60 seconds, 60 minutes is one hour, 24 hours is one day, 7 days is one week, and 30 days is one month. Or 31 days if it’s a particularly generous month. Or 28 days if it’s February, because we all know February is a little special. Or 29 days if February is feeling particularly giving. And to get an entire year you need a very unscientific number of months, weeks and days. Crazy, I tell you. It’s like the powers to be sat down, chose a bunch of random numbers and called it time. Kind of like Americans did with weight and distance.

Time, it confuses me.

So why is that one year is the appropriate time to celebrate? I think M and I are going to be a little original and celebrate every 100 days. Or maybe every 6.825.600 seconds. Yeah, that would be good. I would get diamonds much more often. *

Happy 8th 6.825.600 seconds, babe!

Note to self: must start doing my Kegel exercises

I never get sick. I shared this fact with M a week ago when he was coughing and blowing his nose. One kiss later I was down for the count. In the last week I’ve produced mucus by the bucket-load, slept only during the day and made a very decent attempt at coughing my intestines out. My throat is hurting, my ears are hurting, my abs are hurting even worse than after those workouts I pretend to do all the time and my brain has seen better days.

I’ll be back with more inspired writing once I can breathe again. *

Note to self: must start doing my Kegel exercises