In the year 2525

Everybody's been doing these memes in which you mention 25 random things about yourself. I did this in Facebook and thought I'd post it here, too. (I should be doing a Forgotten Book post, but...)

1. While I'm doing this, I'm editing an article that's supposed to appear in the next issue of Ruudinsavu (Gunsmoke), the official magazine of the Finnish Western Society. The article is about Alan Ladd's little-known western movies. [Of course I'm not doing this anymore.]

2. I would've loved to be a pulp fictioneer. I believe I would've been a mediocre, but occasionally amusing adventure writer targeting at low and middle markets, maybe for the Spicy magazines or even shudders.

3. At the same time I would've tried to write some serious poetry and failed at that.

4. I also would've loved to write an Ace Double. Or even a Beacon or a Nightstand. Or hundreds of them.

5. I think I've written enough bad pulp imitation to fill an Ace Double. [I think I've actually written at least three Ace Doubles.]

6. I've also written a 20,000-word novel in a week. That's the best I could do. But I also wrote some other things at the same time. [This will probably end up self-published.]

7. I love the sound of a typewriter in the morning. Or in the night. Or during the day.

8. I once wrote with a typewriter in a train.

9. I've said once or twice that cooking is one of my hobbies. Nowadays it comes down to putting cinnamon in tomato sauce. Asked "what shall we have for dinner, dear?", I say: "Sausage and pasta."

10. Sometimes I replace tomato sauce with cream.

11. I've tried to diminish my eating of meat. I feel for the animals, but the main reason is that I try to avoid increasing the climate change.

12. My breakfast is usually oats, raisins and almonds in pineapple juice, with lots of pineapple chunks, and yoghurt. Lately I've gone for soy yoghurt.

13. I don't drive a car. I don't know how.

14. My son, who's four years old, always asks me to carry him around. He sure can walk, but I've thought that with this I can help him understand that men also can be helping and caring persons.

15. I also carried my daughter when she was four. Maybe even when she was five.

16. I've been known to carry both of them at the same time. It was one of my rare macho moments.

17. I didn't carry them very far.

18. I didn't go to the army. I think I would've gone crazy in midst of the other men.

19. People think I'm a good organizer and a good worker, but basically I'm lazy and anything but organized. My economy is a mess and I think I've done tax frauds.

20. Even though I learned from Quentin Crisp that one should stick to his or her own style, I think I've developed three or four that I change from time to time. I have different styles for Summer and Winter. Then again, who doesn't?

21. That I don't stick into one style is visible also in my writings: I've written about cinema, western writers, pulp fiction, traditional Finnish food, Mika Waltari, forgotten Finnish authors, fostering children, children's literature, Mickey Mouse handkerchiefs, the ideology of collecting, boardgames, novelizations, comics and graphic novels...

22. I always wanted to be a writer. I told my teacher in the first grade that I'm writing a book. It was about two cats having an adventure.

23. I had two cuddly cat dolls when I was a little boy. Their names were Miisu and Maasu.

24. Lately I've been collecting vintage cuddly toys with my wife, Elina. My favourite is a Pink Panther who looks like he's been in a series of foster homes and is now retired at our place.

25. I've also collected Scandinavian plastic ware, vintage swimming trunks, men's suit jackets, ties, seventies collar shirts and T-shirts, old handkerchiefs, dandy overcoats, and lately lycra biker shorts from the eighties. My favourite garment at the moment is a terrycloth overall which makes everyone else laugh but my wife. She thinks it's cute. My wife has a similar garment and I think it's hot.