Jim's diary, Part 6

Helsinki Day

Drinking coffee at the blue villa's terrace. Töölö bay is at its best with sunny and windy weather. It is Helsinki Day today.

I think it was a Helsinki Day quite a while ago when my godson was about 5 and he pulled my arm and said: "Daddy, daddy." Just about the best feeling I've ever had. Although he was just kidding. I told him I would be the happiest man if I had a son like him. Maybe he wasn't feeling too bad either.

Such things happen on Helsinki Day, too.

Jim's diary, Part 5

Good Monday morning.

Sometimes people are allowed to do some crazy stuff at nights. It is now actually Sunday night half past two. So I am using that as an excuse for publishing "Some Notes" after all. Instead of putting it here, it is now as a Google document available behind the link below:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhmrmvrq_15cghbhwfm

It has an original true ending for "Mary and me". On this blog will later continue an imaginative "Apple tree alley". As I did not follow good writers´ advice to stop writing while the going is good, I find myself now with a piece of a blank paper. What goes around, comes around...

Have a nice week - u 2!

Jim's diary, Part 4

Deception

I am not sure if this is a deception of some kind.

A short story, which I might send to Hay on Wye Short Story Contest, is called "Some Notes". Yesterday I thought now I am going to put "Some Notes" here on my blog as well. I copied the last version of it from another file and pasted it on my blog. Just the headline came out. A very short story indeed.

I had an idea, that maybe it was not supposed to come out yet. This morning I lost also the headline. A very short story gets shorter and finally disappears. Well, no deception about it.

But maybe trying to put "Some Notes" on this blog of mine was some kind of a deception at the first place. Who knows?

Jim's diary, Part 3

Question

I beg your pardon, my laptop. I am cheating you. This is coming from Anna's computer.

I do not do many good things in my life. I quess, I am quite a cynical person. This time I am trying to make an exception - and tell you about it.

The question I was supposed to ask from a professor would have been about a writing contest. I had a small piece of text, which was in my consideration to be sent for a short story competition. The thought of participating in something with such good means fascinated me for a change.

There is a small charming town Hay-on-Wye in Wales with many good quality second hand book stores, which has this Hay Short Story Contest, I am telling about.

If interested please check the link below:

http://www.hayshortstory.com/

Maybe in the near future I am emboldened enough to publish the short story here as well. I am not that sure if my intentions towards this are all good. Actually I do not have an idea, how they would feel about this.

This was the question, which I was supposed to ask from the professor: Could you check this text of five pages and tell me your opinion, if I am doing something crazy?

Never asked it.

Jim's diary, Part 2

Lazy crazy bastard

Half past three Monday morning. One lazy bastard I am. I don't know, if I can make it ´till the evening, when there would be a course about history of Finland at the Helsinki University. So stupid I am, to write about this. It would be a course for 8 days and an essay to do.

Just about the only reason, why I should attend the course is, that I have a question to ask, which has nothing to do with history of Finland. Probably, if I manage to get the course done, which shall not happen, I cannot ask the question. One lazy crazy bastard I am. We shall see - starts to be a motto of some kind.

See you, my laptop, later today.

Jim's diary, Part 1

The night between the 1st and the 2nd of June

It is now 02.10. The time, not the day - thank God. If it were the 2nd of October every one in this country would be :-(. Now it is the night between the 1st and the 2nd of June and just about everybody is :-). Especially the ones, who are asleep or drunk.

I think in Finland all people have a license to be sad, but in Summer Mr. Melancholy is just around the corner. I don't know, but I could bet my last cents, that the most suicides happen in Finland around October. I really do not know, never tried one. Well, the most deathly accidents occur definitely during Midsummer festival, but that's another "happy" story.

Maybe such a happy subject came to my mind, because I heard good news from a friend on Internet. The guy is writing his second book, although the first will not be published until next year, and has written 71 pages in 3 months. I was on Internet at night when he kicked out the first three parts. I hurried to comment those and soon we had another crazy discussion in non-or-some-dialect Finnish language of ours. For the first time we introduced ourselves by real names and changed email addresses. So Elias, if you read this, it´s for you - and for literature and art.

The three of us

We had been a couple from the first of December 2007 and it was early Summer 2008 when we got the news. Mary was pregnant. Yaba-daba-doo! We will have a baby, if everything goes well. I could not believe it. I was so happy. For a long time Mary had wished for it.

We started long conversations about possible names. Mary gave me her permission to publish the possible names on my blog as well. I think if it is a girl, one of the names could be Julia and if it is a boy, maybe Marcus. But I may change my mind and Mary may have the final word. Elias is another name I like. We shall see. Nothing I hope more than it will all go well.

We went for a cup of coffee the other day. I suggested an old fashioned café near Apple tree alley. Mary decided a modern WTC café in the city centre. I had nothing against it so that was the place to be.

There we were sitting and chatting quietly like holding a special secret. As a matter of fact there was the biggest secret of life in Mary´s stomach. An unborn baby. I wonder if the baby was listening to our chat.

Every once in a while we had a glimpse in our eyes like we were the only ones who knew about the baby. In those short moments I felt it for the first time. We were a family. One of the best feelings I've got.

After coffee Mary asked me to walk with her to the sea shore. On the way there were some nice parks where we stopped for another talk.

As we reached the sea shore we sat on a bench beside floating sailing boats. Then suddenly a sea gull threw its mark on my trousers. "I am hit", I remarked calmly. Mary found it funny and did not try to keep straight face at all.

Nearby there was a restaurant called Carusel and there my trousers could have a drop of a drink too. Then we headed slowly back home.

That cup of a coffee the other day took 3 and a quarter of an hour. That well we enjoyed each other´s company. The three of us.

Apple tree alley, Part 2

Move in

It was white all over. The whole apartment - painter's white. We wanted it to be full of life. We painted the tiny kitchen red with beech cupboards. The living room we made yellow. The corridor amber with a beech closet and the bedroom light blue with a beech wardrobe. All that made it so lively. The bathroom we left as it was: white and light blue ceramic tiles with a birch wooden roof.

Mary's double bed was brought into the bedroom. Our bedroom was so big, that there was enough space for my cherry tree desk beside a window with a view to a office building.

My mahogany bookshelves were carried into the living room. The dinner table was put on the best spot in front of the living room window with a view to the sea and the very same sofa, where we became a couple, was at the end of the living room also with a sea view.

Mary's laptop was to be in the bedroom and mine in the living room. That was everything we at first had.

Apple tree alley, Part 1

Our first home

It was maybe the year 1999 or 2000. No, now I remember, it must have been the year 2001. The winter when there was a doping scandal - approximately at that time I visited the place for the first time. There was a funny friend of mine living there, who put his pants on his head, when we went to the balcony for a cigarette, because it was so cold. I told him to put dirty pants, that way it might be even warmer. He did not, maybe he was not as crazy as I am.

Have not heard about him afterwards. Do not remember his real name either. But he had an eye, which made a peculiar noise. I mean, when he pushed his eye gently with his hand, there was a clear sound. An extraordinary fellow. Anyway, that was when I visited the place for the first time. Apple tree alley 22. Already at that time I sensed something special about the place.

Everybody seemed to know each other. On the ground floor there was an artistic couple with a pretty teenage daughter. And an elderly man, whose wife had died couple of years earlier. The man was quite lonely and liked to invite others for a drink. On the second floor there was this funny friend of mine. And a bitter old Bulgarian witch, who was terrorizing the whole neighborhood. Always angry like she would kill someone. Who lived on the third and on the fourth floor, I can not recall. I do not even know, if I ever saw them.

Everyone had to move away sometime between 2003 and 2005. The house was totally renovated. Apartments were made smaller, so that there are now three apartments and a laundry room and a sauna on the ground floor. On the other floors there are five apartments on each.

My good friend Aura lives on the second floor. She told me there is now an apartment available on the top floor. Mary and I have been looking for a flat for some time. Aura asked us to come to see the apartment on the top floor of her house.

When we went to see the place, it was a sunny day. About eleven o´clock on Wednesday the 7th of May. Birds were singing beautifully as we walked along the Apple tree alley. Cool wind from the sea made the day not too hot, but there was a clear feeling of coming summer.

Almost something magical about the atmosphere. I don't know if it has something to do with the nearby cemetery, but the feeling you get, when you arrive to the Apple tree alley, is so peaceful. There is a gentle balance between man and nature there. Squirrels and wild bunnies playing right in front of the house.

The house, Appletree alley 22, is a yellow-white-coloured Art Nouveau style building and the apartment on the top floor has a small kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom and a living room with a view to the sea. About fifteen minutes walk from the city centre and ten minutes walk from where I got a new job. Mary works in a neighboring city. There are really good connections by subway and by bus.

It is a perfect place for a couple like us. Mary loves the place too. Apple trees on both sides of the street and a large garden on the backyard. A peaceful area almost in the heart of the city centre. Quite expensive but worth every penny. Even a pool table in the cellar.

There was no need for many questions. We took the apartment immediately. Our first home.