One Thousand Words

Blood + Bone: A dark forest at night. Moss and cypress, blood and warm fur. A whisper of gunsmoke, and a drop of sweet resins.

I didn't grow up in pine forests. I grew up with oak forests and wetlands and prairie grass that grew tall and dry and very possibly had spiders in it so sometimes you got a face full of spider webs and you had to wipe that away and then when you got home you had to pull all the little burs and the baby ticks that lived in the grass off of you. "Pine" scents are linked to some pretty specific things for me: Christmas trees, floor cleaner, and building things out of (pine) lumber. Pine trees aren't hooked into the whole of my childhood, the being of my childhood, the way that the whispering sound of wind in oak leaves is - the way that oak leaves will whisper and rustle in breezes that don't reach you, that don't exist for you. The feel of oak bark and the crunch of acorns under foot is a different feel than the thick springy needles of pine trees, the way that pine cones roll underfoot. The sloshy squish of mud, the slick squish of saturated clay, the way your shoes can get sucked off your feet... that's different from the dry scuff of feet through dry shed pine needles.

I'm going into detail about pine because this scent smells like pine, but not like Christmas trees or Mr. Clean or that smoky hot scent of sawing two by fours. It smells like the thick of a forest.

Scent is so primal, so linked to our emotions and our memories. I spent a few hours today at a museum at a mold-a-rama exhibit. They had machines with molds I haven't had access to before and we tromped around the whole museum hunting them down. It was great. And the smell of the hot plastic injecting into the molds slams me back into childhood. That's what smell does. It acts directly on the brain. This particular plastic, when heated, smells like childhood and unlike a lot of my childhood it's just... pleasant. A pleasant and excited childhood. A treasured childhood.

"Blood + Bone" smells like someone else's memory. That someone could have been me if my family had stayed in Southern Illinois, had drifted to Kentucky like some of my dad's family did instead of drifting north to Indiana and the general Chicago area.

This scent reminds me of night. It just has a "night" feeling, like standing near a fire and looking into the darkness. I primarily picked up a complex resin-y scent at first, along with something that smelled/felt warm and furry. Smoke twists through it like a bay leaf in broth. This is another complex, round scent that tells a story and conveys an emotion and also smells great on my skin.

I've worn it for several hours, walked around wearing it, and there's something that's kind of... tickling a part deep in my brain. The gun smoke smell is stronger, but not overwhelming, and it's less furry. But it still feels deep and full and coiled.

This is inspired by the podcast "Old Gods of Appalachia" and it absolutely suits that podcast.

I wore "Here's the Thing: Fuck Everyone" again today and it was a much different experience. The smell is full bodied and far more complex, the amber playing more of a supporting role. The chocolate smell is good but more interesting than just, like, a square of milk chocolate. The amber is there, of course, and the dirt deepens the scent and adds complexity, makes it darker. The bourbon kind of laces through it all. I really like this after all.

"You're In A Cult, Call Your Dad": "Flannel, Sedona trees, bergamot tea, snickerdoodle cookies."

No.

No, absolutely not.

NO.

This scent is a resounding no.

This isn't an "ehhh, not really my thing" scent, it's a NO scent.

I was really excited for this because I've been actively looking for a bergamot scent and I enjoy the smell of bergamot tea. (One of my favorite scents is a beard wash that Nesko has that's bergamot, grapefruit, and black pepper.) I was wary of the "snickerdoodle cookies" part because cookie-related things can be SO sweet smelling. I have no experience with "flannel" or "sedona trees" as scents so I'm not sure if either of those are specifically to blame.

I've washed my arm three times and the scent lingers. I'll give these perfume oils that - they are tenacious.

This has a warm smell, but suffocating warmth instead of a rich full bodied warmth like "amber." There's kind of a toasty smell... not like toast. Not like char. But it makes me think "toasty" or "toasted," something that's been near fire. It's a VERY familiar smell and it took me about an hour but it smells a bit like female gingko biloba trees maybe? Or one of the other trees that emits a smell that's more funky than it is floral or green.

Ugh, this scent is oppressing me. Depending on how long ago Nesko ordered it I might be able to return it. But even if I can't these were only like $8 each.

I want to go someplace and spend a few hours sniffing individual scents and taking notes about them. That'd be really cool.

Update:

I used some rubbing alcohol to wash this off. It's still very slightly present but not much at all. I think some rubbed onto my laptop. Scents tend to... I don't know if they linger in my nose or I just smell certain things and keep remembering having smelled them. So the faint presence might be that, too. I'm not sure.

Anyway, on to the next scent.

One of my Christmas gifts was a small sampling of perfume from sucreabeille.com. Today I'm trying out Here's the Thing: Fuck Everyone and it's not really working on me.

The scent notes are "Bourbon, rich chocolate, dark amber, and a touch of dirt."

The amber is coming through IN SPADES. Just spade-fulls. Spades of amber tossed into my face. I haven't noticed any bourbon or chocolate. It's sweet, but not sugary. Maybe a little bit of honey? I'm able to detect a bit of dirt if I got my nose right up in the site I applied it (inner wrist) but I need to jam my nose against my skin. I can allllllmost smell petrichor, perhaps?

There really is no complexity to this on me. It's just HELLO YES AMBER, full and warm and round and taking up space that other scents could be in. It's not BAD, it just doesn't play well with my chemistry I think.

I'm going to work my way through the other vials and see what works better. When I come back to this I might find I like it after all.

Edited:
I had worn this under my watch, which has a plastic band, and that MUST have impacted the smell. I used to always wear scent on my left wrist, but habitual watch wearing is very recent so I hadn't considered it before applying it and putting my watch on yesterday morning.

I scrubbed my hands/wrists very well before eating dinner and noticed the smell was different... more chocolate notes. The smell is still present after sleeping all night, and after washing 2 loads of dishes by hand, although it's faded. I'd like to remove it entirely so I can try it again, or try a new one.

After time and a lot of hot soapy water the smell is primarily a soft, smooth chocolate and a very slight trace of earth. Not very dark chocolate - very dark chocolate can smell (and taste) like dirt and has some sharp jaggy notes that this doesn't have. The chocolate and the earth smell are different... not quite distinct, but melded together while still being separate if that makes sense.

I'm looking forward to trying this again, and will be sure to apply it to my RIGHT wrist, like I should have done initially.

Christmas is next week and we have the tree up but the only decorations are lights and garland. I like to take it slow and easy when it comes to tree decoration. I've put hooks on a bunch of the ornaments so all I have to do is haul myself up and off the couch and hang them but instead of sitting around drinking coffee and considering busting out some anise-flavored cookies to go with said coffee.

My kid enjoys chocolate but doesn't consider it "candy" and gets upset when the only "Halloween candy" they get is chocolate. So I'm looking around trying to find "Christmas candy" that isn't chocolate AND isn't peppermint because they don't enjoy peppermint either. Regular ass candy canes sit around literally all year without being eating unless one of us has a stomach ache or wants peppermint hot chocolate or something. I've given up on candy canes on the tree... at least, traditional peppermint candy canes. We get jolly rancher or sour patch kids or whatever flavored candy canes. And because I enjoy the white and red stripes of a peppermint candy cane I've started getting hand crafted glass ones from actual human beings who blow glass. They are beautiful. Thank you, Etsy.

There has been Discussion in my house about What Christmas Cookies To Make, If Any. Kid wants sugar cut out cookies, which I hate making but will do for them because I love them more than life itself and also I don't want them to put me in a shitty old folks home when I hate 85. I only have one kid which means this basket right here only has one egg in it.

ANYWAY, sugar cut out cookies. I work from home on Wednesday which means I don't have an hour long commute, which means I can use that hour to make cookies with them. My kitchen is absolute ASS so we'll have to roll out the cookies on the dining room table. I am not looking forward to that. But, again, that's what parenting is: making a big mess and hurting your back while doing so.

I've run down other cookie options with my husband, and am going to make turtle bar cookies (also called millionaire shortbread but look, it's shortbread topped with caramel, pecans, and chocolate - it's turtles all the way down). I have those chocolate drop cookies that are dead easy to make and I should make more often, I'll probably make those. And possibly snickerdoodles although I'm the only one in the family who really enjoys them. There's peanut butter cookies with chocolate in the center... for the past several years I've used hershey kisses, but Back In The Day I used Brach chocolate stars which are incredibly hard to find now. There's those chocolate cookies that crackle and you sift powdered sugar over them. There's thumbprint cookies that I make using a friend's recipe that are utterly amazing and perfect and time consuming as hell. Spritz cookies. There's so many options!!!

But I'm also thinking of making my grandmother's fudge.

My grandmother was many things - a teacher, specializing in what now would be considered special ed but back then didn't really have a name; a Union organizer heavily involved in forming the Chicago Teacher's Union; a communist; a single mom; and an excellent cook/baker.

She got the recipe from a friend, the friend's name listed on the top of the little piece of paper she wrote the recipe on. I wrote that name down, too, and sometimes do a search for her online to see if anyone's ever mentioned her. I've never found her. The fudge recipe is one that I never saw online, either. It involves marshmallow creme, but not in a way I'd seen other recipes call for. I posted it on my blog a few years ago and recently... I've found that recipe on various cooking blogs, sometimes with instructions very similar to the ones I wrote. And, you know, there's only so many ways to describe stirring something. But it feels weird. And any sites that may have lifted the recipe from mine? They sure didn't credit the woman my grandmother got the recipe from, a woman mentioned by her husband's name and not her own. And that feels kind of like a special kind of betrayal, that she's been erased in every possible way. And, hey, maybe she got the recipe from a newspaper and passed it on and wasn't the person who originated it, or maybe my grandma got the recipe from a newspaper and noted the name of the woman who submitted the recipe. I don't know. But it still feels like erasure.

And eating that fudge tastes like Christmas.

I don't have anything against Christmas- in fact I actively participate in it both as a minor religious celebration as well as a capitalist spendathon holiday. I resent the fact that it spans well over a month, approaching two months at this point, although it ends abruptly for most people in the USA on the 26th at latest. Three Kings who? I don't know them.

But I'm reluctant to decorate my office with Christmas stuff because... why? It is, again, a very minor holiday in comparison to Easter, and I also don't feel it important to display the trappings of religion. But there's peer pressure, you know? There's always peer pressure, and also the lurking fear that someone might "be helpful" and put decorations up FOR you.

Which I also hate.

I was going to pick up some glittery paper snowflakes at the dollar store after work today but due to a miscommunication I got to the train station ahead of Nesko. I crossed the street to the grocery store (which had no glittery paper snowflakes) and got some stuff for dinner instead.

I've been having some (shriekingly awful, movement limiting) back pain in a weird area that I realized is most likely the result of me not consistently doing physical therapy for me... knee. You see, when your little stabilizing muscles get too stressed out they pack up and quit, or at least go on vacation, and then your big movement muscles take over and holy GOD they are not used to all this work. So then you get deep deep muscle pain that's like... muscles beneath muscles. So I've started doing my knee exercises again and that's been helping and also I walked around the grocery store a bunch today and... now my thighs hurt! Because I'm out of shape and anemic and haven't been taking care of my injured knees! Well, I've sure learned my lesson (and will promptly forget about it as soon as my knees et al start feeling better)!

Our office moved locations from a very convenient one to a less convenient one that involves me taking different, more expensive public transit. It also involves me NOT getting off the train a block away from a gym that also has a swimming pool (although the swimming pool ladder has rungs too far apart for my to climb! I can't lift my short legs/bend my knee that much!! It's an issue!!!) so I fell off THAT wagon pretty quickly and it's been about a year since I was really working out regularly. And I keep saying "Oh, I don't NEED a gym, I can do SUCH AND SUCH and THIS AND THAT at home!" and then I don't do it.

If I get to work early tomorrow I can spend 15 minutes doing exercises in the stair well which is basically the opposite of exciting but also is stuff I need to get done, and after that 15 minutes I can be more or less sedentary for 7 1/2 hours until it's time to go home.

Hopefully I can pick up some Winter Celebratory Glitter Snowflakes after work.

This Plant Changes Shape To Look Like Other Plants
Great article on a plant that can imitate the shape of other plants near it, and just how it might be able to do so. Can plants see, with essentially what are eyes? Can they think? Make decisions? Can trees talk to each other? Probably not! But what plants can do is still incredibly neat!

"Effortless" Femininity
I have rarely identified less with an article. I was somehow able to opt out of traditional American femininity at a young age due largely to being obtuse and also not having parents who enforced it. I'm effortlessly a woman because I put almost no effort into it. I bathe, I try to dress neatly, and that's about it. I do this while also extremely aware of the fact that my appearance, and gender presentation, are more heavily policed because I'm fat. And at the same time I'm aware that because I'm white I don't face the same pressure to conform to established feminine standards as women who aren't white, and as a cis woman I don't face the same as trans women do.


I'd normally share this kind of thing on Twitter.

I have a skin condition called hidradenitis suppurativa (note: explicit medical photo at link) that causes abscesses to form on certain parts of my body. I have one that recurs fairly regularly on my waist, a little toward the back. I'm very careful about what kind of clothing I can wear because friction can aggravate things. Too-tight waistbands, belts, etc. can really do a number on me. However, it also flares up on its own regardless of what I do or don't do which is one of the big frustrations of this disease.

Sometimes I get absolutely searing pain in my back not too far from that area, and then a few days later I develop a very large abscess that sometimes needs to be treated with very powerful antibiotics. Other times I self-manage it with antimicrobial soap and topical ointments, heavily bandaged. The inflammation from the abscess often causes pain through my body, especially my joints, and leaves me feeling drained.

I'm afraid that this back pain means I'm about to sprout a truly awful abscess. I'm going to try and make an appointment with my dermatologist on Wednesday for an evaluation and discussion about antibiotics and also going back on Humira. I also need to schedule a skin check.

But it's also possible I just... pulled a back muscle while tucking in my shirt, just as I once tore my meniscus while putting on a pair of pants.

Human bodies just suck.

I've been tired my entire life and I've also been anemic my entire life and POSSIBLY there is some kind of connection there, I don't know, and apparently none of the doctors I've seen know.

Anyway, due to A Catastrophic Health Thing that occurred a year ago I had to see a blood doctor. She stole FOURTEEN VIALS OF BLOOD from me. You know that little plastic carrier that has a space for each vial to slot in to, that they can hook onto the arm of the chair they strap you in to? She needed two of those.

FOURTEEN VIALS.

Look man, I only have so much blood in me and they took like half of it.

Extensive testing on half my blood revealed that:

1) my blood is good blood

2) I don't have enough blood

My blood VOLUME is fine, as far as I know, but I'm anemic and all out of iron.

So I'm taking an iron supplement and if that doesn't work... I get to enjoy baby's first iron infusion.

I've taken iron supplements before and I've never had a problem tolerating them. Instead they just... don't... seem to do anything. So we'll see what my next blood step is.

I've got a bad case of rustyguts or something, I don't even know.

I described our little office to someone today as "the complaints department... because we sit here and complain!" and that was kind of funny if super corny.

I try to be professional at work and not gossip and not complain but sometimes you just need to complain a little bit.

Heading into work this morning I saw someone walking a dog and they had one of those poop bags that was really holding a load and, you know, I miss having a pet sometimes but I really don't miss having to clean up poop. I miss having a toddler sometimes but again, don't miss the poop. And yes, I do miss the 2-5 years, they're great years. Keep your chubby infants and their sniffable heads. Give me the snot-faced hell-raisers who look you straight in the eye while defying you and also calling you ugly. They are DELIGHTFUL.