slimy madeleine cookies

I am sick. Running nose / spinning head / a slight headache / a cough. This state has a certain proustian impact on me. All of a sudden, I remember lots of things. I remember the Twin Peaks Christmas when I was a kid. We ate home-made fudge and I was sick throughout the festivities. Dale Cooper and The Log lady, Jerry Horne and the man from another planet. We attended the obligatory (it still is) visit at our Aunt's and then we watched four more episodes. Our grandmother was still alive then and she was visiting but at that point she was mostly quiet or she was in a hazy, nervous state. I listened to The Beatles, early Beatles. I remember the cold winter almost ten years ago when I attended religious studies courses. I bought myself a pair of sturdy boots and headed out in the snow. A crowd of drowsy people might or might not have gotten their heads around Hjalmar Sundén's role theory or Nathan Söderblom's distinctions with regard to mystic experiences or the relation between the inner and the external symbolic order. (I have never been able to forget, obviously.) After the eloquent Prof. N.G.H. called it a day I shambled home. I took a nap. I lived next to the hospital. The sound of ambulances and helicopters. There was always some repair work in the building. I got used to the sounds. In the afternoon, I sometimes headed for Humanisticum, where philosophy lived at the time. There were always people to talk to there and some of them were just sort of hanging out amongst those mouldy coffee cups and all the rubble, among the books, in that purple sofa or in those green chairs. So did I. I remember the days in Hong Kong when I was sick and it was hot and I forced myself to do things even though my head felt like it was absconding towards a sphere of its own. We were walking along the harbor, gazing at the movie star strip and the barge boats with colorful containers. Some signs read: "Mind your head". I tried the best I could. I coughed and looked at the skyscrapers with a feeling of unreality in my stomach. We walked up a hill, the market area, the hipster area. The perspectives were tumbling around and my shirt was covered with nice patches of sweat (I fitted perfectly into the picture of groaning colonialist). We argued wordlessly. The same jokes repeated over and over again, both of us sounding like broken records, both of us irritatedly and placidly and amusedly anticipating what the other was to say. I ate an English fudge cake but couldn't feel any taste. I remember having a severe cold, being twelve years old, spending the day in a quiet house, walking from room to room, sinking in to that peculiar stillness that transformed the house into something rather magical. Reading books in bed / cat in lap / checking out the contents of the refrigerator: saarioinen's pizza / watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom for the 15th time / half-heartedly executing a parent's order: fetching logs from the shed, cursing the fluffy snow drowning the wheelbarrow into its white depths / watching the afternoon light through the dirty bedroom window, watching patches of sunlight and dust dance on the green wall-to-wall carpet. I remember high school afternoons. Boring lectures. Too sick to focus. Lolling around in the endless corridors. Talking shit with friends, listening to other kids talking about innebandy games and the latest trip to Stockholm and the secret crush on Markus or Andreas or Björn. Guys referred to each other by family name. GrünérMattsonIsakssonPenttinen. Girls never did. They were dressed in white jeans and so was I, but I had no clue so I wore them with a nice orange shirt. Attending another lecture, centripetal force, shmentripetal force. Learning new words in Russian, different species of fish and a thousand aspects of going and coming and returning. A vague feeling of unease and dread, intermingled with comfort and the narcotic conviction that nothing special will happen anyways. After school we walked a few blocks to our favoirite café, the Black Cat. Coffee in giant mugs. Talking shit about teachers, the Dragon (who taught Finnish and was feared and respected by all for her stern ways with konditionalis and illatives, no joking matter, that), new words in latin, the UFO, the latest gossip, the old gossip, the cruel gossip. Listening to other kids talking shit about their teachers. You drove us home and B.B King was always playing in your car. Always. When I got home my grandmother made me dinner and it was sjömansbiff or kotlett or kalops.

Now: essays I should write but I don't / I venture out; after a few steps my heart is beating and my head is pounding / Fritz Lang / Julee Cruise / barrels of coffee / glögg / more movies, crappier movies / For Carnation / yes memory serves for the flies / bad conscience for the essay / Joseph Condrad: Heart of Darkness / the voice of Mr Kurtz / the snot wriggling and swelling inside the head / ailing conscience xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx / Fazer's Christmas chocolate.