I am rediscovering New York and falling in love with it over again. Now, come to think of it, I'm not sure whether I ever in fact was in love with it before. I moved here when I was 17, coerced. My first reaction to NY was that I didn't like it. It scared the hell out of me. But I was running away from my demons in Finland and decided to take the leap anyway... Not surprisingly, within a year, my demons followed me here.

Throughout the years, my fondness for New York grew. It has been a fun-loving friend with all of it's bars, restaurants, clubs and shopping. But that was pretty much all I was concentrating on for a long time. And that experience became exhausting to me within the last couple of years. Like humans, this city has layers. And those layers I had yet to discover.

I had to reinvent my relationship with the city. I had to claim it for myself; to understand why the heck I'm still here after all these years. And there is a reason--beyond the nightlife!
It is Prospect Park. It is Central Park. It is the Rose Center, MoMA, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, hotdogs, Brooklyn Bandshell, outdoor movies in Bryant Park, the subway, the cafes, the people! I'm experiencing it all now, and making sure that I keep doing that, to keep this love going. This is my personal experience, and it has very little to do with my love for any man that lives in this city. I love the city itself. And I'm loving myself for living in it so well.

This has been a week of empowerment for me, starting with killing a humongous flying (!!!) cockroach on Sunday night. It flew on my bed!!! You don't understand--these things have always given me the HEEBIE-JEEBIES. I say it in caps, because I really mean it. I have never killed one of these big guys myself before. But I'm proud of myself and happy to report that such creatures, will not have long life expectancy, if they ever set wandering tentacle in my house. In conquering my fears, this one was huge!

Other demons--similar monsters, I have fought and won inside of me this week. As a result, I am experiencing a calm I haven't felt for years. Everything is connected, I'm discovering... Us human beings, complex as we are, are really pretty simple after all. A lot of our irrational, debilitating fears arise from the same origin. Find the origin, and empower yourself.
And in case you're wondering....no. The origin is not the cockroach. :)

My album came from the print on Wednesday and it looks beautiful!!! Phew! Printing a record is risky business, as something usually goes wrong. My first album Oma Planeetta had some weird color defect and it showed all the powder on my face in the most intricate detail...The photo was supposed to look translucent, apparently. Not so.
My second album cover Savyja was just an incredibly horrible design. I shudder when I see it... (This time nothing to do with printing..) And I have plenty of other bad experiences as well.

Anyway, my point is...It is nice to be proud of a package in its entirety. God is in the fucking detail. Really, if you're gonna do something--do the whole thing well! Know that you are doing your best, and really express yourself! I am tired of dealing with people who don't have real passion for what they do. What a turn-on it is when they do!

And yes, as I'm preaching to you, I'm preaching to myself a little bit too. There are plenty of times, when for one reason or another I end up half-assing things. But I'm gonna try my darnedest to be aware of myself, and change that. Because, what's the use of doing things, if you're not putting yourself into it completely..? And while you're at it, don't even do things that your heart's not in! .....@#$%#, man. Still learning this one....

The 12-year-old inside of me has really been enjoying the activities that I've been engaging in this week: swinging on swings, eating way too much ice cream, laying face-down in the grass, hanging out with pug. I feel like through all of this, I have been regaining my sanity, which was lost long ago. Ha. You think I kid, but I'm being honest.

To top off all this healthiness, I spent today at the Rose Center for Earth and Space/Hayden Planetarium. My science geek-ish friend and I were remarking, teary-eyed, after seeing the Journey To The Stars-show: who needs all the burning bushes and the arks, the fire-breathing dragons and mermaids, when there's so much wonder in the universe around us!?
Even the 12-year-old inside of me agrees on this one.

Our reality. A reality we can grip and grasp, and still wonder about endlessly. Magical, awe-inspiring galaxies and nebulas and planets and stars, and God knows what else... Our existence within this world, so random and meaningless, and yet so full of meaning. Man. If all that doesn't give you perspective, I don't know what will.