"At the edge of the world, looking up..."

Internationa​l nomad, lifelong pen pal junkie but... ambivalent (always) about jumping back into the hunt for new pen pals. Too many people are out here looking to collect people, too many people are doing things that annoy me (yeah, I admit I am easily annoyed, but I am seeing a proliferatio​n of things that irritate me more than other things, like reuse of stamps. Okay, stamps are an expense. If you can't afford stamps, don't write letters. I can't be bothered to return your stamps to you to illegally reuse them quite honestly). I have always been shy and not inclined to speak my mind. In recent years this has changed, and I have begun to be much more direct about what I think, feel, want and expect. Thus, I am seeking like-minded people... we don't have to have everything in common, of course, but I would like to think I am exchanging letters with people who would be the type I would want to hang out with in reality if it were possible. That I am exchanging thoughts with people who are good listeners, feel open sharing their thoughts with me and we can share these ideas regardless of whether we have things in common or not. We acknowledge meaningful differences and can learn from one another (potentially​).

I don't want to be too restrictive about this because I am open to all kinds of people from everywhere, but in the end, it is possible I will be more discerning about those I end up replying to. If you send me a thoughtful response I am more than willing to start a friendship and will even write the first postal letter as a gesture of goodwill.

July 2008 -- Moving to Norway.
September 2008 -- Moved to Norway but totally unsettled. If you were expecting to hear from me and have not or if you have written to me recently and did not get a reply, this is why. My time is limited for right now and have no fixed postal address yet... I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Postal letter pen pals (preferably)​ from everywhere. I prefer letters from intelligent people who write from the heart.

Economics/se​lf-managemen​t, ergonomic furniture, Finnish design, Scandinavian​ design, literature, sustainabili​ty, cinema, baking, being calm and grandma-like​, sexuality, politics/gov​ernment/publ​ic policy, travel, languages

Martha Wainwright, My Bloody Valentine, Dolly Parton, Elvis Costello, Kristin Hersh, Throwing Muses, Stone Roses, Tori Amos, The Melody Unit, Maktub, Sinead O'Connor, Neil Finn, Crowded House, Split Enz, The Fall, Guided by Voices, Catherine Wheel, Lush, Royksopp, Sigur Rós, Múm, Bang Gang, Aimee Mann, Hector Zazou, Air, Ride, Everything but the Girl, Cousteau, Serge Gainsbourg, Slowdive, Emiliana Torrini, Fiona Apple, Robyn Hitchcock, Straitjacket​ Fits, The Chills, Asha Bhosle (general Bollywood sounds), Saint Etienne, Eskobar, Aislers Set, Anjali, The Fitness, Hunters and Collectors, John Wesley Harding, The The, Beck, Belle &; Sebastian, Belly, Blur, Charlatans, Hole, Beta Band, Bolshoi, Curve, Portishead, Goldfrapp, Coldplay, Björk, Sugarcubes, The Fatima Mansions, Pizzicato Five, Badly Drawn Boy, Sleater-Kinn​ey, Blondie, The Hardhats, Wire, Tom Jones, New Order, REM, My Jealous God, Breeders, Pixies, Pulp, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Townes van Zandt, Cowboy Junkies, Alison Krauss, Velvet Underground,​ Muzsikás, Marta Sebestyén, Varttina, Lee Hazlewood, Mary Timony, Isobel, I Am Kloot, Elastica, Idlewild, Kent, Lasse Lindh, The Cardigans, Kings of Convenience,​ Patsy Cline, Primal Scream, Laibach, Camper Van Beethoven, Gogol Bordello, Sonic Youth, THE WEDDING PRESENT!!!!,​ CINERAMA!!!!​, Low, Yo La Tengo, American Music Club, Ed Haines, Dead Can Dance, PJ Harvey, Radiohead, Cornershop, Dusty Trails, Elliot Smith, The Doves, Ruby, Luna, Galaxie 500, Go Betweens, Park, Joy Division, Stereolab, Let's Active, Sam Phillips, House of Love, Happy Mondays, His Name is Alive, This Mortal Coil, Cocteau Twins, Jesus and Mary Chain, Nine Inch Nails, Jane's Addiction, Madder Rose, Manic Street Preachers, April March, Echobelly, Magnetic Fields, Mansun, Mazzy Star, Hooverphonic​, Kahimi Karie, Carla Bruni, Shirley Bassey, Salad, Scott Walker, The Smiths, Mock Turtles, Jacques Brel, Eleftheria Arvanitaki, Pale Saints, Shonen Knife, Space, Tanya Donelly, 50 Foot Wave, Shivaree, Snow Patrol, Interpol, The Fugees, Postal Service, Muse, Patti Smith, Beth Orton, old Liz Phair, Bright Eyes, Grandaddy, Placebo

Underground,​ Lars von Trier's Riget (The Kingdom... technically television but that's not how it was released in the US), Dogville, Dancer in the Dark, Breaking the Waves, Idioterne, Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou?, The Story of the Weeping Camel, Urga, Burnt by the Sun, Trois Couleurs: Bleu, Blanc, Rouge, Au Revoir Les Enfants, Flirting with Disaster, In the Company of Men, Your Friends and Neighbors, Moulin Rouge (don't know why, ok? Give me a break!)... and undoubtedly 50 million others I am forgetting to mention

Some films seen in 2007-08: Lars and the Real Girl, The Bridge, ****, Sicko, Paradise Now, Goodbye Bafana, Death of a President, Zoo, Away from Her, Notes on a Scandal, Blood Diamond, Half Nelson, Sherrybaby, The Black Dahlia, Match Point, Babel, Shortbus, Le Pere Noel est une ordure, Das Leben der Anderen, The Last King of Scotland, Little Children... many more... just a sampling...

Arrested Development,​ Mad Men, The Wire, Flight of the Conchords, Six Feet Under, Dexter, Swingtown, Deadwood, The Sopranos, Big Love, Huff, Weeds, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Shield, Nip/Tuck, 30 Rock, Twin Peaks, Battlestar Galactica, Friday Night Lights, Rome, Sleeper Cell

(General literary preferences)​ Anna Akhmatova, Ingeborg Bachmann, Marge Piercy, Haruki Murakami, Ryu Murakami, Yevgeny Yevtushenko,​ Halldor Laxness, Wislawa Szymborska, Anna Swir, Urszula Koziol, Ewa Lipska, Dubravka Ugresic, Slavenka Drakulic, Nadine Gordimer, JM Coetzee, Jose Saramago, Marina Tsvetaeva, Derek Walcott, Eeva-Liisa Manner, Louise Gluck, Janos Pilinszky, Novica Tadic, Pentti Saarikoski, Yehuda Amichai, Mahmoud Darwish, Gyula Illyes, Seamus Heaney, Miklos Radnoti, Masahiko Shimada, Natsume Soseki, Yukio Mishima, Howard Zinn, Ales Debeljak, Adam Zagajewski, Radmila Lazic, Bella Dizhur, Odysseus Elytis, Nina Isrenko, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Tatyana Tolstaya, Elena Shvarts, Nina Cassian, Mihai Eminescu, Yannis Ritsos, Julio Cortazar, Pablo Neruda, Claribel Alegria, Gabriela Mistral, Blaise Cendrars, Richard Brautigan, Vesna Parun, Jacques Prevert, Anna Hajnal, Osip Mandelstam, Nadezhda Mandelstam, Patrizia Cavalli, Henrik Nordbrandt, Natalya Gorbanyevska​ya, and certainly others I am forgetting..​.