i heart in April

1. High Violet. Fuck me, the anticipation has been hellish, but the rewards worthy. If you didn't get a chance to listen to this on the New York Times website, be sure to buy the album on May 10th. For those of you who did listen, coercing you into CD purchases is hardly necessary. 
2.  The Gashlycrumb Tinies. I keep going back to these kiddos and the sinister ways in which they meet their ends. This enchants me, big time.
3. Vegemesta food served at Bar Loose from April 29th onwards! My favorite bar + my favorite fast food joint joining forces = fuck yeah. 
4. Terrace season. There's nothing quite like drinking outside in the sunshine. It's at the very heart and core of Finnish summer, i argue.
5. Jaqcues Cousteau hats. I've obviously missed the hipster wave on this one, but i like the hats almost as much as i was infatuated with the man himself in my pre-pubescent years. 
6. Melissa auf der Maur. Not only was interviewing her mighty cool, but she was also really charming (and i think i might now have a small crush on her).
7. I Walk the Line and No Shame at Nosturi. One of the most rockin' gigs i've been to this month. 
8. Tattoo Mystique by Angelique Houtkamp. Got this book at the Kaapelitehdas gift shop. Full of gorgeous photos, illustrations and tattoo flash. I'd love to order one of her prints, put it on my wall and admire it for a good while each day.
9. Onerva - Kaupungin naiset at Ateneum. Checking this out was the perfect pastime for a rainy weekday. The exhibition features clothes, maps, books, photography and the like from turn-of-the-century Helsinki. I especially liked how, among said paraphernalia, it featured all her gentlemen admirers as well. This was not a short list, either.
   
10. Festival lineups. Ah, it's looking good, kids. With the likes of The XX, Florence + the Machine, The Drums, Biffy Clyro, Against Me!, LCD Soundsystem and whatnot hitting stages throughout the country, there's a good deal of hot stuff to look forward to this summer.

Hiatus and Springtime.

Well shucks, it's been a while, hasn't it? Female Author (both blog and writer) have been occupied with a number of pressing matters which have seriously hindered all sorts of writing activity recently. The most time-consuming of these has been work, which has been nothing short of breakneck hectic for the past weeks. Another hindering, not to mention grievous factor, was the bitter end my macbook came to some weeks ago. This end, direly lacking in the shock and drama department, was a simple refusal to turn on one day. All my beloved computer would give me was a foreboding whirr and the occasional faint beeping sound.

The first thing the mac fixer-upper man said to me, as i ran to a service shop in a state of panic was, 'i'm sure you've got all of this backed up, right?'. Rhetorical question fail. 'Yessiree, every last bit of it; actually, my horoscope warned me i should anticipate all kinds of technological breakdowns and bitter ends to long-term relationships, so just last night i made sure i got every last friggin' document, picture and piece of porn (just kidding) transferred to my external hard drive. Phew, what foresight and smarts i possess.' Or not.

So some weeks later, a considerably emptier macbook was returned to me. Functioning, but void of everything it had previously housed. Which, in this day and age, i'm not shy to admit, was most of my life. Be that as it may, while i'm sad to have lost a lot of cool stuff (a shiteload of poems and stories), as well as some really humdrum stuff (like letters concerning electricity bills to my janitor in Paris), there's something quite liberating about starting afresh, even if it means having to download all apps again and building up a whole new, intricately organized bookmark library. It's the exhilaration of a new start and the seemingly endless possibilities offered by a blank slate.

And via this finely crafted tangent, i can digress from my excuses for lack of blogging to the actual subject i wanted to write about.

Which is spring (see how that hardly cliched, new start/spring tangent worked beautifully?). After what feels like seventeen months of winter, three months of darkness and rain, and a good helping of hail on sunny days, i feel like we might be getting somewhere with the whole spring thing. Which makes me happy. Somewhere in my psyche a primal urge awakes, encouraging all kinds of errant and eccentric behavior, no doubt brought about by the sudden increase in sunlight and the masses of people coming out from a dark, booze-laden mental state of winter. Rather than running around naked looking for a mate and some sticks to make a nest with, i've embraced this urge and swapped boots for all stars, winter coats for leather jackets, and trams for my rickety bike. i've braved the cold, not to mention the prolific mountains of dog shit, by opening the picnic season for this summer a week or so ago on a windy evening in Koffari. I plan on taking this a step further in a week's time by throwing myself headfirst into the lairy, reckless madness that is Vappu in Helsinki.

So here's to blank slates, fresh starts, new awakenings and all other spring-associated cliches that we love to hate, yet find ourselves embracing wholeheartedly the minute we first venture out on to the terrace, pint in hand, to sit in the sunshine and take in the promise of summer. Hell, i'll drink to that.

Things to do on a Sunday.

Sometimes i think i fail to adequately appreciate the awesome feeling of waking up on a Sunday without a hangover. Personally, a lethal headache coupled with vertigo-inducing nausea and an aversion to light to rival that of Dracula's keep me from accomplishing much on a hung over day. Unless the aim is to lie paralyzed on the couch, unable to tear your eyes away from the Sunday marathon of The City assaulting you from MTV, and dream of a pizza you can't muster the physical strength to order. And let's face it: this is rarely the aim of any day. 

So this morning i awoke to the sun streaming into my apartment through the blinds, the icon of sobriety and spring cheer. And spent my day doing cool things, a few of which i've compiled in a list below, aptly entitled:

Cool things to do when you're not hung over on a Sunday.

1. Read a book in bed. I'm currently on Kingdom of Fear by Hunter S. Thompson, and must say my Sunday got off to a good start with a concise depiction of the stupidity of a past U.S. president, entitled 'Jesus Hated Bald Pussy'.
2. Bake scones for breakfast. Super easy to make, delicious to eat. Not as good as getting breakfast in bed, but probably the next best thing. Enjoy with the Sunday paper and extra strong Earl Grey. 
3. Write. I never seem to find the time to write non-work related stuff during the week, so i took the opportunity to get some words on paper today. What came out was a short story about a lonely recluse of a taxidermist. 
4. Listen to your Sunday playlist. You know, the one that's got all the right songs for a lazy Sunday. Mine currently includes The Drums, Midlake, Ella Fitzgerald and The Cranberries. There's nothing like singing in the shower with Dolores.
5. Venture outdoors. I went on a treasure hunt of sorts today. To the graveyard. The reason for this (apart from my graveyard fetish) is an old book i found at Hagelstam's some months back, which maps out the entire Hietaniemi Graveyard in terms of the most historically and culturally significant grave sites, and tells you who lives under the tombstones. Which is awesome. So there i am, amidst the headstones, breath fogging and book in hand, just before sunset. What i didn't take into account was that there's been so much snow recently that it's hidden half the headstones from sight, as well as blocked all but the main pathways. So i didn't get far on my graveyard adventure, but i did get to see a pretty sunset. As far as Sundays go, i'm not complaining. 

Valtsu Flea Market

It happens at least once a year, sometimes more frequently. It starts with you looking for your Horrorpops t-shirt. You go through your closet, pulling out piles of jeans, t-shirts and long johns. You know it's in there somewhere, but you can't find it. Instead you find your ex-boyfriend's socks, a ridiculous torn top proclaiming you're on a pub crawl, and a pink-and-silver striped cardigan you haven't seen in six years (and wish you hadn't come across now). By the end of this useless scavenger hunt, you know it's time. You call your friends (who, curiously enough, often have coinciding cases of losing favorite clothes into the seething black hole that is one's wardrobe), and set a date. And before you know it, you're hauling numerous blue Ikea bags of stuff into a tram at a ridiculously early hour on a Saturday.

This is what i found myself doing not too long ago. Bleary-eyed, tired as hell, i got off the tram at Valtsun kirppis, looking like a deranged bag lady suffering the after effects of a previous night's drinking. Which was more or less the truth. I blow on my fingers, which, in fingerless gloves, are already blue. Hoisting the bags higher on my shoulder, i venture into the building and find our table. 

Valtsu flea market, at Vallilan Makasiinit, is the biggest flea market in Finland that's open all year round. On the weekends, it's a hub for peddling grannies, vintage-hunting fashion-aficionados, thrift-store-favoring students and seedy old men on the lookout for back issues of porn mags (okay, maybe i made the last one up. maybe not. whatever). The premise is to get there as early as possible, with as much stuff in tow as you can manage, and leave in the afternoon with as little stuff and as much cash as possible. For some reason, what frequently happens in my case is that i end up going home with no money, but just as much stuff. (new stuff, tho. or other people's old stuff, but still.) Which is pretty much what happened this time, too. 

This time, i managed to get rid of some of the ugliest shoes i've ever owned (with the added bonus of the lady who bought them being over the moon with her purchase), some really awful clothes (a black top, curiously rubber-looking from afar. And up close, too, actually.) and some jewelry circa 1999. What i managed to find for myself was way cooler: a black tie and pearls, a very Kurt Cobainy grunge dress, and the perfect smoothie glasses. 

I think i went home with about a tenner in my pocket, while my good-spirited, amicable and easily-approachable friends sold item after item, pocketing some serious coinage. So on my part the money-making goal wasn't quite realized. Neither were my well-rehearsed, fool-proof sales skills and marketing techniques or pleasant demeanor. Ladies, the boozy, blue-fingered, haggard-looking bag lady would like to offer an apology. Next time we do this, it'll be a sunny summer day and we'll be by the seaside, at Hietsun kirppis instead. Where bag ladies (and other folk) can counter last night's drinking with ice cold pints from the restaurant terrace just meters away. Ah.

Valtsun kirppis at Vallilan Makasiinit on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays from 9-15.

Book a space online here. Prices about 26 euros per day.