Scent Diary, Oct. 18-24, 2010

Monday, Oct. 18: Temps in the mid-70s… I sure wish for some rainy-windy weather.  It’s lovely for talking walks, but everything is getting dry and crunchy, and I don’t mean just the leaves.  SOTD: Laura Tonatto Eleanora Duse.  I have been getting out alllll my violet samples and wearing them.  I was surprised to get about 25 minutes’ worth of wear out of Eleanora Duse (I almost abbreviated it ED, but we watch enough sports around here that I am sick to death of the commercials for medications that treat erectile dysfunction).   Last time I  wore it, it lasted at least three hours.  Huh.  Wonder if I underapplied. 

I think I’m getting sick with Bookworm’s virus thingy – I may have missed out on the strep throat, but I have gook running down the back of my throat and I’m coughing those deep rattly coughs that hurt your chest.   SOTE: Alahine.  Sigh, then smile.

Tuesday, Oct. 19:  Low 70s today, expecting rain this evening.  SOTD: Stephen Jones for Comme des Garcons (or the other way round, I forget which).  I hope to wear this often enough to get a handle on it and write a real review.  It is a freaky thing.

I also broke down and bought a small bottle of Moschino Funny! on eBay, after using up two samples this summer and still loving it.  I’ll be putting it away for some time, since it will probably be a birthday present in January and winter would surely suck the life out of this happy grapefruit-rose-tea scent.

Wednesday, Oct. 20: Wet morning in the mid-50s, dry afternoon ten degrees warmer.  SOTM: Serge Lutens Chergui.  Which I don’t like, and which I keep trying because I keep expecting to love it.  I still don’t.  I officially give up.  There are only a few scents I keep trying, hoping that the beauty that others sense in them will someday be mine, and Chergui is one.  The other is Mitsouko.  I think I may hang on to my small decant of Mitsy edp, and retry once a year, but then again I may get sick of the whole fruitless, bootless pursuit. 

SOTA: SSS Tabac Aurea.  Mmmm.  One spritz on my inner elbow, and I have Virtual October 1985 escorting me around everywhere.  “That’s interesting,” Gaze commented as I breezed through the room on the way out the door to pick Bookworm up from cross-country practice. I had put it on about twenty minutes before getting her, and when she got into the van she commented, “You smell weird.”  Oh yeah? I asked.  “It’s not bad or anything, just… strange,” she explained.  Interesting, weird and strange?  Not really.  It’s the far-off hint of cigarettes, mossy forest floor, leaf mould,  leather bomber jacket, gingersnaps, a perfect golden autumn afternoon, old bonfire, and the warm skin of your beloved.  If a man walked by wearing TA, I’d follow him down six miles a’ bad road.  At least.  (Sadly, The CEO has refused.  He has no idea what he’s missing.)

Thursday, Oct. 21: Sick.  Coughing my head off.  I didn’t really want any perfume until later in the day – I eventually thought it might cheer me up.  Although my nose is running, and I’m coughing and sneezing and blowing my nose every third minute, I actually can smell somewhat.  So I put on Cuir de Lancome.  Delicious.  Such a smoky smell, I always think, the P:TG review notwithstanding. 

Just checked Incendiary, the novel by Chris Cleave, out of the library.  Saw the movie on DVD, and Michelle Williams is extraordinary as the unnamed Young Mother whose bomb-squad cop husband and four-year-old son are killed in a suicide bombing at a football game, while she’s at home rooting around on the sofa with the neighborhood journalist/playboy (Ewan MacGregor, by turns really sexy and loathsomely selfish, the sexy part surprising because I’ve never found him attractive before).  Her guilt and grief and loss of purpose drive her to extreme ends.  Added into the mix is her husband’s former boss (Matthew MacFadyen, who like Michelle Williams is an amazing actor – his performance here is a blend of vulnerability, self-righteousness, and irrational stalker behavior, and it set me to actually squirming in my chair from the creepiness), and what he did or did not know beforehand about the bombing.   Excellent, disturbing movie.  The ending, while not exactly Hollywood Happy, is satisfying.  I cried.  (If you’ve seen the film, please mention whether or not you picked up on a David-and-Uriah sort of reference, or whether you think I’m reading too much into it.)

I ran across this line in the book, and have been thinking about it all day – the Young Mother, thinking of her son, writes, “His room smells of boy.  Boy is a good smell it is a cross between angels and tigers.”  Boy is a good smell, one of my favorites in the world, and I especially love the smell of my sons’ and nephews’ heads when they’ve been outside running around.  “Sweat,” my mother says, but that’s not entirely it: wind, leaves, skin, candle wax, and – yes – a bit of skin and sweat.  It’s been a great sadness to me to realize that as Gaze has gotten older, he’s lost that boy-head smell.  Now if he goes outside to play football with Taz, and they both come in and hug me, Taz smells of boy head, and Gaze smells sweaty.  (Well, Taz’s armpits smell locker-room sweaty – but his head is still young.) 

Little girls smell good too – but different; they keep the sweet baby smell longer but never develop that outdoorsy-boy-head smell, no matter how long they play outside.  

Friday, Oct. 22: I feel a little better.  I was scheduled to work the concessions at the football game tonight, as a band parent (what do the football parents do to raise money, or do they not need to?), but since I am still hacking like Doc Holliday, The CEO offered to step in for me.  Sweet man.  SOTD: SSS Champagne de Bois.  I thought surely someone would tell me I smelled nice, but no one did.  However, they might have been simply staying a safe twelve feet away from me and my runny nose, and thus could not smell me.

The CEO related to me something that happened while he was working the concession stand: a kid named JT that he recognized from Gaze’s baseball team walked up to buy a hot dog, accompanied by a couple of other kids, and they were talking to each other: “That’s Gaze Woodenshoes’ dad!” “Yeah, really?”  Then JT asked, “Hey, aren’t you Gaze Woodenshoes’ dad?”  The CEO said yes, and one of the other kids said, “Gaze is awesome!”

Well.  Well, yeah.

Saturday, Oct. 23: Beautiful weather, sunny and 75F, with a bit of breeze.  State marching band festival at the high school.  Left the house at 8 am, spritzed with my darling Le Temps d’une Fete.  Picked up 32 hot dogs at the grocery store as the sophomore band student’s contribution to the day, then helped set up and run the registration table.  I did get to see our band’s performance today and thought they did very well; however, they didn’t score the Superior rating they were aiming for.  Bookworm is an excellent marcher: crisp and precise, with a good sense of place and turns so sharp you could cut your finger on them.  I’m proud.

Sunday, Oct. 24: More beautiful weather.  SOTD: L’Artisan Parfumeur Orchidee Blanche, candy-sweet, innocent little thing.  Pretty, but has not captured my heart like Iris Poudre did for “just pretty.”  (Sigh.  Iris Poudre… I want some.  Somewhere, my lemmings have started a demanding chant of DE-CANT, DE-CANT, DE-CANT!  Which would be bad, actually, because if I had it, I’d get used to wearing it, because it’s seasonless, pretty and comfortable, and the more I wear it the more I like it.  And then I’d want a full bottle.  Of a Frederic Malle.   Ouch.  And it’s not even complicated or terribly unusual, it’s just pretty.  Really, really pretty.)

Image is Vintage perfumes from pas89 at ebay.com.  (No, the auction is no longer live. )