Aging

It's happening. Can't help it. On Saturday I'll be once again a year older. Well, 5 days older than what I'm now. Thirty One. 31. Three and one. I'm not sure how I feel about my age starting with a three yet so... I don't know...I don't feel like I'm  (going to be) 31. Don't feel like I'm in my thirties. Don't feel grown up. 30 Was not my year. No sir-rey. Nope. I said 2011 will be my year. So far not so much. But we have few months left. But I've come up with a long term plan. It might just be totally crazy and it might not ever materialize, but I am going to work towards it. Human rights. Civil rights. What I wanted when I was in my teens. It's taken me over a decade to come a full circle and really see what it is that I want to do with my life, to come back to this place. To see. But I do see. I do want. I need. To make a difference. I might hurt some people. I might offend some people. I might get hurt myself. But I need to do this.

Purpose.

Am I crazy?

I really like Justin Bieber's song "Baby". Of course I'm listening to the Glee version as I do NOT have any Biebs on iTunes but that song has been growing on me slowly but surely. I must be delirious!

Must be, since it's 3:30 in the morning.

Things you learn/notice on a evening stroll

I got on a scale few days ago and got the proof first hand that my life preserver in my mid section has in deed gotten bigger. I've only gained +/- 2kg as weight and my pants still fit fine but I'm getting softer, if you know what I mean. Maybe as a result of that I've taken on a new hobby; evening stroll. It also is a useful tool to run some errands. Anyway...I'm now at a weight where I can actually donate blood so it's not like I'm heavy or anything...

So, yesterday I went to take a walk. I was so pissed off that I just had to go outside and take it out on something, so what better than to put on some great motivating music and go pound the pavement. On my walk I had to pass this older couple, maybe in their late 60's or early 70's who were holding hands. It was so cute! I was like "I want that when I'm old" (sooner wouldn't hurt either), to still be in love with someone when your old and grey and smelly enough to want to show that to the world.

Then today I found and ally in the city center that I've never seen before in my life! And mind you, I've lived in this city 24 years of my life so you'd think I'd seen it before. And what's more bizarre, it's about 100 meters from my apartment. Next to the kindergarden I went to when I was a kid. Crazy! And as I came home from said evening stroll, my Facebook newsfeed was full of EARTHQUAKE! Apparently there was an earthquake on the east coast of US of A and everybody is talking about it. Brent Celek, the Tight End for Philadelphia Eagles said on twitter that he dropped a dumbbell...he apologized for it though. But damn, it was felt all the way from DC to NY. That's a lot of land to cover. Mother Earth is pissed!

Speaking of Facebook...it has this new annoying feature that announces your status update from a year ago if you made one. A year ago I was looking forward to my birthday and the ex to arrive to celebrate it with me so I had a countdown. So every day now when I go on to Facebook on the upper right hand side corner I see a number flashing. Annoying, to say the least!

I woke up this morning from a dream that was a little disturbing. In my dream I was in my bed when the front door opened and the landlord came in announcing that the TV license inspector was on his way and I should be prepared. When he leaves, I get out of bed, go to my living room to remove the TV that I don't own, and hide it in the walk-in closet. I get that done but before I'm able to move the digibox or playstation or even dust the TV table, the front door opens again and my landlord and the inspector walk in. I'm trying to explain that I don't own a TV and that the PS and digibox are not really mine but it doesn't fly. And as I really don't have ~500 euros for TV license fees and the interest that not paying it have incurred, I'm in deep shit. But then the Inspector says "How about you pay for 2 weeks and then cancel?" Like he sees this every day and knows how little money people have and just can't come up with the money for it. And I'm like Awww, that's so nice.


Till next time!

Let's play "Career Counselor"

EVERYBODY who reads this post NEEDS to participate. It's mandatory!

So I've obviously invested a lot of time and money on my environmental education (Bachelor of Science in Environmental Engineering and Master of Arts in Environmental Management) without much success in finding a job in the field. So far I have been rejected by both USA and Finland so maybe it's time to look outside the box. Am I not suitable for the environmental field? Am I suitable for office work? And if not, what would it be? I'm pretty sure my gigantic height and bad back rule out heavy manual labor. So if the environmental field and manual labor is out of the picture, what could/should I do?

Now if I could do whatever I wanted all day long and money was not an issue, here's 3 things I'd LOVE to be included in my job description:

reading fan fic

cats

advocating for gay rights


So...what's my job title?

I'm pretty sure I have a future as a cat lady and if you combine my passion for cats and gays (well mostly lesbians), that would mean that I should be working with gay cats? Am I right?

Anyways...suggestions in comments, please!

Dear Diary,

Finally after weeks of staring at my diaries, I put them away 2 days ago. The bag also contained a lot of correspondence between me and my besties at the time. School was always easy enough for me and the teachers clueless enough so that we were constantly passing on notes to each other. Me and my bff at the time even had a little note book that we wrote in. I didn't thoroughly go through any of them but just enough to jog my memory. Good time were had by oh so many...

I had 5 diaries that span the time from May 21st, 1994 to December 29th 1996 which means from end of 7th grade to end of first semester of freshman year in high school. I briefly looked at them, but here are some things that stood out.

I was a sports NUT.
You think I'm sports nut now but no, this was an obsession. Basically any sport you threw my way, I knew anything and everything about it, players, stats, champions... which is why had my 15-year-old-self been sitting next to that ice hockey player from HIFK on my home from USA this spring, she would have known his name, number, DOB, marital status, stats from every pro year, original team, has he played for Finnish national team on any level and who his line mates are and their info as well. But this 2011 version of me is not that crazy anymore. Other things occupy my mind these days. And one team that had my full attention was one of the local women's basketball teams...

Careful what you wish for.
My step sister had started to act out. She was not easy to get along with and she was stealing, lying and smoking her way through middle school. Do not hope for your best friend to become your sister. Do. Not.

Transference.
My bff had an older boyfriend. That's ALL she talked about. I felt like I was left behind. I was jealous. Ring any bells? So I went and got a crush on this older boy as well. Just because I could. Totally unrequited and totally make belief but I didn't wanna be different and I didn't wanna be outsider so that's what I did. To this day though I do remember him fondly but everything else in my diaries are making it very clear that this was just because I couldn't get the person I wanted.

First crush.
Oh my...to this day seeing her will make my heart skip a beat. She was older than me and even if she was a lesbian it would NEVER have worked out but for many years I was totally crushing on her. She was beautiful, blonde and great at what she did and every week like a love sick puppy I went to watch her play. I didn't realize it at the time, or maybe I did, but she was mentioned a LOT in my diaries. And I believe since I couldn't have her I transferred those feelings to the guy because it was just as impossible of a situation.

Jealousy.
There is a definite proof in my diaries that my jealousy was an issue in middle school. My bff gets a boyfriend, I get left behind and I get jealous. Start passive aggressively act out. Story of my life, it seems.



Self awareness.
I was aware of my actions to a certain degree and I was aware of my feelings as well, and knew what I was doing but the reason behind my behavior and my feelings, me liking girls, had not entered my orbit yet.


Denial.

Denial.

Denial.

One of these days I will sit down and read them through but today is not that day. When I do, I will share some entries of I feel like they might be of any interest.

Song of the day

It seems that me dying was maybe declared just a little bit too soon. So unfortunately for the world, I'm still here. Still breathing. And very much alive. The emergency root canal performed yesterday might have just saved my life as I'm only in minor pain anymore. But still medicated. No hospice care needed just yet.

I made a kick ass vegetarian lasagna yesterday, because really, what else are you gonna do in your death bed than cook something delish? And I ate maybe 1/3rd of it yesterday. And lemme tell ya, who ever invented cheese is my new god. Or my only god. I'm not replacing any gods because I don't belief in them but really, that person was at least a genius, even if it was an accident. And since this seems to be a food blog anyway, talking about cheeses and my lasagna seems appropriate anyway.

And speaking of...how come I can go days and days without really eating a hot meal, even weeks maybe, and then all of a sudden when I'm dying and cannot chew to save my life, I'm hungry like I haven't seen food in months and just CRAVE something hot? When it's been super hot I haven't bothered cooking because when the inside of your apartment is 30 degrees C and outside even hotter, the last thing you want to do is put the oven or or even the hot plates to cook something hot but as soon as the temps plummet, all you wanna do is have a hot meal. Weird.

Anyway...song of the day, Demons by Bryan McFadden. Came on in my shuffle through this morning.



One of these days I'll tell you about Cher...

Excitement for Sunday morning

If you are bored with your regular Sunday mornings, sleeping late, lazy breakfast, reading the Sunday paper and are looking for something new and exciting to try, here is my suggestion: Root canal without local anesthesia and/or pain killers! It is definitely out of the ordinary and it gets your heart pumping!

I went back to the hospital this morning because the tooth wasn't getting any better, in fact it was worse. I've never really been much of a follower when it comes to pain killer recommendations as far as amount is concerned but I gotta say after consuming 4000mg of burana (10x400mg) in 24 hours without long term pain reducing effects when the recommended amount is 1200mg I thought I didn't wanna end up having my stomach pumped or in the poison ward of a hospital if I kept it up for a week till my appointment to see the "real" dentist is...so I went back. And they decided to do an emergency root canal. No pain killers, no local anesthesia...let's just go in there and drill the SOB. It had also been few hours since my last self-medication so that was wearing off as well. It was just good times all around. I think this was my time crying at the dentist. As I said...I recommend!

Then I was given a cocktail of pain meds. The assistant told me that sometimes 2 affecting agents work better together and that I should go get both of them. She didn't say how many times a day I should do it so this should be fun if the pain doesn't go away soon. Now I'm waiting for the pharmacy to open. Oh yeah...I might have to go back if the pain doesn't go away and the tooth doesn't settle in few days. It's gonna be a fun week!

I'm dying

I'm dying

I think I'm dying

I might be dying...

I thought dentists were my friends. Like really, I thought that. I've been going to see dentists regularly since first grade when I had 7(?) cavities. Since then I've seen them regularly every year throughout elementary, middle and high school until it wasn't free anymore. After that I went when it was absolutely necessary. And that usually meant multiple appointments as well. So obviously I've never been afraid of them.

I was once told that I only have like 6-8 teeth that have had cavities but those are the once that just keep getting them over and over again. When I was 17(?) and we had the last year of free dental care and they did the spit tests and everything I was also told that my spit is creating an environment in my mouth which increases the chances of developing cavities. So no matter how much I brush, floss or use mouthwash, I will get them. They also told me that I still should do all those things to try to prevent them from appearing. TMI, I know. Sorry. (I know you ya'll really really wanna kiss me right now...)

I have a pretty high tolerance for pain. My foot few years back was the first time I've ever experienced excruciating pain and no matter what they did or what kind of pain killers I was given, it hurt like mother fucker! Right now though...I wish I still had my phantom pain medication with me. It wasn't really helping with what it was supposed to help with but it made me sleepy. I have a feeling tonight I won't be sleeping much.

So what's the matter? The furthest tooth on lower left side of my mouth is sensitive to touch to the point where any contact is hurting. It's not a cavity pain, it's not sensitive to hot or cold. It does react to them but it's not the shooting pain you get with a cavity. It's a constant pain that radiated throughout my left jaw and the point where your lymph notes are is really hurting. Sensitive to touch as well. But they're not swollen. The left side just hurts. It's kind of like wisdom tooth pain when they are coming out except I don't have wisdom teeth on my lower jaw. I went to see the on call dentist today at the hospital and they x-rayed me and filled the cavity that was there but it DID NOT help. I'm in even more pain. If this is as bad as it is tomorrow, I'm going back tomorrow.  And the kicker is... the pain killer I have, Burana 400, you're only supposed to take 1/2 -1 tablets 3 times a day...I've already taken double that and the pain is ok for maybe 5h at a time. So majorly overdosing  here. If I go into organ failure you all know what the cause was.

Oh, btw...I have already diagnosed myself and I didn't even go to webMD or any other website: I have a brain tumor that's pressing against the nerves on my jaw and tooth. Although, can it be a brain tumor if it's in my jaw? Head tumor? Jaw tumor? Neck tumor? Anyhoo, that's probably what it is. So when I start the radiation I'll have a legitimate reason to shave my head.

Hope ya'll are having a better weekend than me!

Gourmet sandwiches and toothaches

Today's NOT the day for full post but I have things on my mind so...let's get to it:

• I discovered a new and amazing grilled cheese sandwich option yesterday...or was it a day before? I ran out of ham so I was looking at my fridge and thought to myself "What could I use instead?" and it came to me: Mushrooms! So I made one with basil (gotta have my new favorite), oltermanni cheese (YUMMY) and sauteed mushrooms. I am a culinary genius, I gotta admit.

• When you have a toothache from hell though, eating that sandwich is not the easiest thing to do. In fact, chewing of any kind is kinda hard. And hurts! Looks like I'm gonna be high on painkillers tonight. This came out of nowhere so I am trying to wait it out but I might have to go see on-call dentists this weekend if this doesn't subside. The painkillers are helping with the throbbing pain but touching the tooth hurts...touching that side of my mouth hurts...biting down hurts.  Good times.

• You know when you go request a song from the DJ and she nods and says "old skool r&b"...kinda makes you feel old! At Tampere Pride I went to request either Christina Aguilera's "Dirrty" or Mis-Teeq's "Scandalous" and that was the reception I got. Mis-teeq was hot either when I was in my late teens or early 20's so it's not THAT long ago...and Dirrty was our go-to song in the summer of 2003 when me and Laura spent the summer in Swansea "practical training"...aka partying hard! 8 years is not enough for "old skool"... 

• Not sure how many days I've been doing my shuffle through now but I have 1900+ songs down...about 1600 to go! 

And the song of the day: Shakira "Illegal"

Music and food

Those 2 things seem to be the only things going on in my life right now. Whenever I'm thinking about blogging, it's either about music or food. But right now it's 1:30am so I won't write much...except:

I'm in the middle of a shuffling through my iPod. I'm now through 1500 songs and still about 2000 to go. I have little over 4100 songs in my iTunes but I haven't updated my iPod yet because I want to listen to every single one of them on my iPod so that I don't have to start from the beginning.

There are 2 albums I'm listening right now that I don't think have single song in them that I would skip over. Adele's "21" and Jenni Vartiainen's "Seili". If you are in Finland you should absolutely buy that CD. And if you are anywhere in the world, you HAVE TO buy Adele's CD. I also listen to Colbie Caillat and Taylor Swift but Colbie's latest CD is not on my iPod yet so it's not playing in my 3500 shuffle through right now.

I am too lazy to go over to my diet post and look what all I said in there but I have some updates to my list. If you can't get smoked salmon or don't like it (or don't like it on rye bread), you can always add either feta cheese or BASIL. Or both. I have seriously fallen in love with basil. I have added it to basically every food I've eaten in the last 5 days and it makes my fridge smell great plus it seriously is to die for! If someone could invent basil smelling perfume...I'd probably fall for that person. I'm crazy, I know...and have issues. But seriously...if you haven't tried those combinations, you should. And if you noticed I used the term "feta" instead of "Mediterranean styled cheese" or other bull crap we're supposed to use. Greece owes us a lot of money so I'm just gonna go right ahead and call that cheese feta. It's my  prerogative to use that word as a bailor so that's what I'm gonna do.

Speaking of food...I have made some interesting milkshake try outs. I love mango-melon flavored ice cream so I figures I'll buy cantaloupe melon and mango and try to make a milkshake out of them. It was good but not the best. Maybe I should try with flavored ice cream instead of vanilla? Except that they don't sell mango-melon at the stores. Only ice cream stands. boo. I've also made banana blueberry, which was good and one from nectarine flavored baby food! Now that was good! I have wanted to try to make mine from fresh fruits just because supposedly it would be healthier but have found out that it's a lot of trouble. My usual is just banana. I love banana. And of course strawberry. But I haven't bought strawberries so I'm using what I have. I also bought canned pineapple and peaches so those are next on my list. That blender though...it's not on a vacation, I tell you that much!

Maybe time for bed...maybe.

Night night!

Guess I was lying

One of these days I'll post something more substantial, like pictures from Tampere Pride or about Holjat this weekend but right now I'm gonna do what I did last time and share the song of the day. I'm into 1300+ songs of ~3500 and this came on:

I don't know why but this always puts a smile on my face. You can't stay grumpy or mad or sad when you hear this song.

Aretha Franklin & George Michael: I knew you were waiting for me

Song of the day

I promise to actually do some blogging next week instead of 1 or 2 liners or just video's but this just came on on my quest to shuffle through all 3500+ songs on my iPod and it spoke to me and so I wanted to share. 

Matchbox Twenty "Leave"

You

You know you ruined everything, right?

Celebrity

I'm sure by now everybody knows how I feel about celebs without merits. "Turhajulkkis" as we call them in Finland. Celebs like reality show cast members who say stupid things, shop all day, drink all night and really do NOTHING to better this world. As a music lover, sports nut and TV/movie lover I understand to a degree actors and musicians being celebs. If you can act or sing or write songs, you are bettering this world. If you stand in front of camera and think you're better than others because your mom or dad or other family member is famous for actually being great at something and you're there for the ride... not so much!

With that being said....I LOVED LOVED LOVED the real housewives of New Jersey. It was the only housewives franchise we watched because we were in New Jersey at the time it started and they were filming not too far away from where we lived. Actually kinda close to T's bff's neighborhood. So you know, we might have actually seen places we've been to etc. And lets face it...those women and their cat fights were crazy entertaining. And we saw Danielle Staub at the Pride Parade in 2008 and I took pictures. She was and is great LGBT supporter and even toyed with bi-sexuality during the second season. So when I saw this article just now  and saw the description of Sheila, all I could do is ROTFLMAO! Priceless! Especially the part about singing... And here's a sample of her singing.

 
Hope you enjoyed it!

(Insert evil laugh here)

Intercontinental break ups suck!

Intercontinental trash talk is FUN!

American Football season is upon us and Philadelphia Eagles are making themselves known as a serious contender this season. Most of my friends and former family members are Giants fans... with few Chiefs, Cowboys, Jets etc thrown in the mix for good measure. What's better than trash talking with them when their teams have done nothing in this pre-season? NOTHING!

Internet

Internet is the beginning and end of all things evil. It takes up all your time. It consumes your life. It entices you. It lures you. It seduces you.

EVIL, I tell you!

Oh no!

2/3's of my tattoo gets bad publicity (Or maybe just 1/3 since the heart wasn't mentioned)

Saw this on facebook just now. I think it's pretty clear how I feel about organized religion (beginning of all evil in this universe) but it's not my place to tell people what to do. So just like with any straight people announcing their support for gay rights and gay marriage is always appreciated, so is any people who claim to be religious but are still open minded enough to see that LOVE IS LOVE, or as Miley said ALL LOVE IS EQUAL. I think it's great when an 18-year old with almost 2 million Twitter followers openly supports our right to marry. I don't think she should get her head bit off for it. And by non other than her fellow christians... judge much?