Elina asked me yesterday whether I was gonna pick up the copies of White Heat from the post office early this morning. I said, no. Elina asked, why not. "Because then I can't get the work started and the rest of day goes by just browsing the book." Jussi, a friend of mine, asked the same thing in an e-mail. I said he should admire my discipline and work ethics. (Actually I was a bit afraid to see what the book feels like. Maybe it's lousy. Maybe everyone laughs at me.)
Today it was raining like hell. No way of wanting to go out. But Kauto seemed like he could use some fresh air and started to act rather apish, so we put him some clothes on and headed for - no, not the post office. First things first: Uff had a move sale and all the clothes were four euros. Elina got a bunch of stuff, I found a neat jeans jacket from the seventies in a mint condition. (They'll be having three euro day on Wednesday and one euro day on Saturday! Can't wait...) And then we went to the post office.
Oh, the agonies of a writer! The box weighed over 12 kilos and I had to walk it home - in the pouring rain. I started to fear that the books would get wet through cardboard. (Luckily this didn't happen.) When we got home, I got the books out and said: "This looks like a Bible." (See it here.) I flipped through some pages and said: "Looks quite good." Elina backed me up and seemed proud. Kauto attacked me when I was at the sofa browsing the book and tried to eat the book. (Yesterday he peed on some books I hadn't yet put on the shelf.)
I've read the manuscript so many times that I won't bother now. And there were those goddamn errors and bad writing! Seriously, I'm not very satisfied with how I handle the genre system of the studio Hollywood. There are also some rather shallow pieces, with just some trivia thrown in instead of solid analysis.
When will I accept the fact that there are weaknesses in every book? Pentti Saarikoski said that the poetry collection is not perfect unless there is at least one bad poem in the book.
We were going to celebrate the book first by going out to eat. Then we came to the conclusion that it would be hell with Kauto being tired and hungry and wanting to run to the kitchen and take the chef's knife. So we went home. After I'd peeked at the book, I went to the store and bought some steaks and fettuccini, in order to make a good meal. But fuck no, the meat had gone bad and I couldn't eat it. We had to do with the fettuccini alone. I went back to the store and bought a frozen pizza (we ate it just before I started writing this). What a party, man!
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Next: synopses of our trips. Pictures to come.
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