It is an autumn Sunday evening
Yesterday Jyri, Eemeli and Joonas stopped by to say hi. Jyri and Joonas were on weekend leave from the army (a six-month minimum military service is mandatory for men in Finland). Anna spent the night on Friday and had been cooped up in the house all day with my little brother Joel while Elexa and I were taking exams. Anyway, she was antsy to get out. I really didn't feel all that hot about going anywhere, but I caved in. We had the usual problems deciding what to do and where to go, but in the end we decided to take our chances and joined Jyri, Eemeli and Joonas, who were going to sauna at Petteri's house and then go to hear Knucklebone Oscar at Friday, a bar in downtown Helsinki.
We didn't really know anybody at Petteri's and it wasn't really a party so Anna and I ended up sitting outside freezing our butts off and smoking a lot of cigarettes. Anna was really bored when I went to the sauna and enjoyed a rare luxury in Finland, a jacuzzi. Right when we left, I pointed out that she could have watched us boys in the jacuzzi through the curtains. Needless to say, it was much to her chagrin that she hadn't noticed the see-through curtains in time.
Friday, the bar where the band was playing, was packed. Friday was celebrating Rocktoberfest, so it was free entrance. I'd never been to Friday before, and I'm guessing that one of the reasons for that is because it serves a bit older clientele. We were just about the only twentysomething (and I use that term lightly) people there. Knucklebone Oscar is an old band, so that might explain the audience consisting of people in their thirties and fourties. An age limit of 22 at Friday also points to an older clientele, but I wouldn't giove that argument very much weight, because half the bars and clubs in Helsinki have an age limit between 20 and 24. In Finland the age limit for alcohol is 18, so higher age limits are mainly to keep out badly behaving teenagers.
I hadn't seen (or heard of) Knucklebone Oscar before, so boy, was I in for a treat! He was magnificent, awsome, excellent! Oscar is a diminutive guitar-slinger and he really puts on a show. We enjoyed the show but the smoke-saturated atmosphere started getting to Anna. I had a headache already before we left, so I didn't really mind leaving a little early. It turned out to be a good idea because I started feeling much worse. When we finally got home I made a beeline for bed and fell asleep immediately.
Around 5 o'clock in the morning my headache woke me up--a first for me. Only once in my life have I had a worse headache. I couldn't get back to sleep again no matter how hard I tried, so I took some crappy pain killers that I'm convinced don't work. Anna would have had some stronger gelcaps that I didn't remember. I was hit by waves of hot and cold over and over in rapid succession at such a rate that I couldn't keep up with them with my blanket. I would sweat profusely and feel suffocated but before I could stick my feet out from under my blanket and pull the top off my arms, I was cold again. This went on for what seemed like hours, with Anna stroking my hand all the while. At some point I sunk into blessed unconsciousness and didn't wake until 11 this morning. With a headache.
I still feel a little shaky, but right now I'm okay, thanks to the drugs. I have a bunch of studying to do tonight but right now I'm going to curl up with a giant cup of tea and relish a few lazy puffs on a cigarette. It is an autumn Sunday evening, after all.
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