This blog has been observing Lent,

hence the silence.

A bird had made an angel in the snow

If "women's matters" make you go queasy, look away now

I had the dog "done" on Saturday - my beautiful dog girl, the wonder Ms Dogot. Watching her convalesce with a cone on her head and an overhanging bewildered depression has not left me feeling all that well disposed towards man as a species, with our weird way of feeling entitled to decide such matters for members of other species, and, in particular, towards myself.

This state of affairs has led me to take a trip down Imaginy Lane and think about how it would be if it was me instead of her. This is what I see: myself, tricked, utilising my love and trust, into an involuntary hysterectomy, now with a great big long wound down my lower tummy. So I wouldn't fiddle with the stitches, I'd have to wear a cone, too, but obviously, since I'm more likely to use my hands for this, my cone would have to be much bigger, at least past my elbows so I can't bend my arms to scratch where it itches. But for a cone to disable my arms, it would have to be attached not round my neck, like hers, but under my arms, across my breasts (squashed ridiculously, laughably, either inside the cone or just below it). I'd have to wear a harness, too, for the cone to be attached onto, and obviously both would be fixed at the back so I couldn't unfasten them.

The more I think of this, the more it sounds like a butoh performance.

From these thoughts, my mind now makes an associative leap into a documentary I watched the other day - since Ms Dogot's operation, I've been watching more telly than I've watched in the previous eight years put together, as I spend my spare time mostly lying on the floor with her and this seems to invite television. So, one of the things I've watched to lift my spirits was a documentary I'd recorded a few days before on female genital mutilation in West Africa. A jolly old topic, no? So they interviewed various people, and then got to interviewing a - mutilator? A woman of unguessable age, anything between thirty and seventy, I'd say, she's first asked to display her instruments. She brings out a razor blade. She explains her trade.
You snap it in half, lengthwise, to make it more accurate. Then you remove the sharper corners to make the operation easier.
The viewer - me - yelps. Her fingers are chubby and work the blade expertly.
Women in my mother's family have always been circumcisors. My mother was one, my grandmother was one, and so I became one, too. I was my mother's assistant. People pay money for this, so I did it.
Yes yes yes. I'm finding it very easy to think about hating this woman.
Then when I was married off, at eight, I continued to do it in my new tribe.

Oh. Oh. Oh God. I, um, see, I think, or rather, I don't see, I can't.

Anyway, as documentaries on this unspeakability go, it was rather an optimistic one, focusing on the work of Tostan, a grass-roots organisation working towards changing attitudes and practices. I don't generally go for charities in a big way - forgive me for this, but I worry about bureaucrats in Europe lining their pockets with money intended to go to the starving or whatever (although weirdly, Red Cross I find more trustworthy than the others, for no proper reason except maybe the documentary on Rwanda I watched on youtube where the Red Cross guy spoke very highly about his organisation, how they never left him alone when the UN turned their backs blatantly on their guy, with, shall we say, unfortunate results). But this particular charity - the name means "Breakthrough" in wuluf - might be one which I might support.

Q:ing and A:ing

I have been tagged by Reading the Signs (thank you, Signs), who is a wonderful friend and a BWIM (Blogger Whom I've Met), a poet and a scream, a multi-talent in many ways, but count she cannot, for she called this thing "Three Things About Me". I make it twenty-seven things and that's what you're getting. If you feel you're given too much information, feel most free to pick and choose three items in this post which you want to read.

(Man, this is really a bit unnerving, you know? For I haven't done a tag post in ever such a long while, and while I know it's totally unnecessary and probably even uncalled-for, tag posts always have me suffer a serious honesty-attack, so that I feel that I am somehow divinely required to disclose painfully exposing things about myself. Or at the very, very least, not lie. This feeling is not eased by the fact I took a day's break, and returned round about here. No, not one bit.)

Three jobs I have had in my life: My first job was at a tiny clothes store on the second (British first) floor of an old market hall (photo pinched from somewhere online, but nobody's personal site such as flickr or whatever).



I went to work in the morning, unlocked the shutters, decorated the place by hanging some items on the shop front, opened the shop, sold what I could, counted the till at the end of the day, took my wages - if memory serves, it was 15% of sales - locked up and went home. There were no lunch breaks or anything, but you could ask the shopkeeper at the stall opposite to keep an eye on your place for a bit while you nipped downstairs for a smoke. The owner was in his forties, I'd say, and I suppose he must have either had seamstresses working in a cellar for him, or have bought the stuff from somewhere. He would come to the shop unannounced and irregularly, and apart from having a go at me for doing the shop-front decoration not to his standard, would also grab my bottom and say inappropriate things. It was a sunny summer, the summer of 1982. I remember feeling very grown up. I would be fifteen in the autumn.

My second job was at a restaurant which was owned by a friend and her mother. The place was minute and totally lovely. It was the first of a string of waitressing jobs, and I was to work there, on and off, for a couple of years. I started out being totally terrible but landed up being pretty good. The place was on what is commonly agreed to be the prettiest street in Helsinki - Huvilakatu, "The Villa Street", beautifully illustrated here by French flickrist Dalbera whom I don't know from Adam but who hopefully won't mind me linking to his wonder picture. In later years, I moved away from Finland, I moved back to Finland, and my friend and I made contact again. Her mother had had a stroke and there was no more restauranteuring for either one of them. A place called La Petite Maison operates on the premises nowadays. They take online bookings, if you fancy eating there. I haven't, but the menu looks nice and I have meant to, for old times' sake, if nothing else.

My third job (and I realise these didn't have to be the three first jobs, alright? I have listed them that way through choice, and am lengthy because I can't help myself) was at the now-demolished, iconic Helsinki punk dump Lepakkoluola, where I sold tickets, manned the cloak room at overnight parties, cleaned toilets after overnight parties (the medical students' dos were the worst), sewed curtains for the back of the stage in the Black Room, played pinball and pool, saw bands, spent most of my spare time, and where I met and fell for the first of my great loves-I-couldn't-have and got too drunk on too many occasions, and generally wasted my youth and fresh beauty. I'm sure I received something in return. Experience? Tarnish? Memories?

Three shows that I watch: Right, I will certainly try to keep it shorter now - should be easy as I don't watch all that much TV (which this must surely refer to). I try never to miss an episode of House. Last summer I watched and greatly enjoyed a Russian ten-parter of Master and Margarita. With my younger son - in fact, because of my younger son, I sometimes watch atrociously dreadful shite. Too atrocious, in fact, to be named here.

Three places where I have lived: West Wales. Hawai'i. A small island, not unlike these, in the Sipoo archipelago, not that very far from Helsinki, which is also a place where I've lived. But only in the summers (the island).

Three places where I have been this week: At the opticians. In the sauna. In despair.

Three people who email me regularly: Three good people whom I care about in three different ways.

Three of my favourite foods: This is difficult. Let's just have three of my favourite ingredients, because I don't know what my favourite foods are, and ingredients is difficult enough. Food should not really be prepared without garlic, except maybe porridge and cake. Fresh basil and fresh coriander compete for the coveted Sexiest Herb status (coriander is currently winning, but basil has had its day, too). Wild forest tastes, like mushrooms and wild raspberries, satisfy the places other foods can't reach.

Three places where I’d rather be: Very difficult, this. By a sea which would feel like mine. Travelling on a train through somewhere beautiful and poignant, endlessly. In heaven.

Three friends I think will respond to this message: I'm sort of hoping that three people will read this and feel compelled, to do it, and will let me know that they are. In fact, I'm going to think very intently on three people - three specific people - and see whether my thought provocation works.

Three things I am looking forward to: Becoming someone else for a change. Growing. The return of the light, the light of the summer evenings and nights.

We interrupt the writing of that tag post due to news just in

It has been brought to my attention, only moments ago, that John Martyn's died today. I saw him live nearly twenty years ago, which I hadn't thought about for years, but for the strange fact that I've only just been talking about him on a comment thread a little way down this page.

I feel strangely responsible, you know. Sorry, John, I never meant it to end this way.