Category Archives: flowers

On smells

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I was going to call this, “on odors,” but I thought differently–odors are all smells, but not all smells are odors. Being blessed (or maybe cursed) with a sensitive nose, I have often hesitated to share my perceptions about how the world smells. Cities are particularly full of diverse smells, and nothing speaks to urban spaces like the smell of unburned diesel in the morning. It’s not a smell I like, particularly, but it is familiar. Of course, people give off a wide variety of smells, but there is nothing worse than someone who has perfumed their unwashed body. Nothing speaks to decadence quite like the combination of old sweat, rank cigarette smoke, and stale beer–a sort of bitter vinegary smell. The secret for smelling good as a person is simple: bathe and then use other smells sparingly–that’s intoxicating. You catch the person’s clean smell mixed lightly with flowers, spices, citrus, and it’s an experience you soon won’t forget. A word to the wise: never wear yesterday’s clothes if possible. Anything fresh, except for excrement, usually smells pretty good; anything dead should get gas mask treatment. The smell in most funeral homes is, for me, a nightmare smell that is hard to get out of my head. I have to hold my breath when walking past a beauty salon because of the intense horrible smells of the chemicals being used. Same goes for those candle stores in the malls. I actually don’t mind most subways which are combination of mechanical smells, moldy water, and people. For some reason that combination comforts me and means I’m on my way home. My favorite smells? Freshly baking cookies and breads, cut grass, a recently cleaned house, clothing coming out of the dryer, bookstores, freshly ground coffee, milk, cheese, and yoghurt, jamón serrano (a Spanish delicacy), wine, whiskey, freshly cut cedar, cloves and cinnamon, roasting meats, pizza, lillacs (the actually blooming plant), roses, and the wilderness. Of course, the chemical smell of new cars is very popular, but not with me. I find movie theaters with all their sweaty people and greasy foods to be a little overwhelming and decadent. Chain restaurants are sickening for the same reasons. The worse smell ever? Vomit, of course.

On smells

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I was going to call this, “on odors,” but I thought differently–odors are all smells, but not all smells are odors. Being blessed (or maybe cursed) with a sensitive nose, I have often hesitated to share my perceptions about how the world smells. Cities are particularly full of diverse smells, and nothing speaks to urban spaces like the smell of unburned diesel in the morning. It’s not a smell I like, particularly, but it is familiar. Of course, people give off a wide variety of smells, but there is nothing worse than someone who has perfumed their unwashed body. Nothing speaks to decadence quite like the combination of old sweat, rank cigarette smoke, and stale beer–a sort of bitter vinegary smell. The secret for smelling good as a person is simple: bathe and then use other smells sparingly–that’s intoxicating. You catch the person’s clean smell mixed lightly with flowers, spices, citrus, and it’s an experience you soon won’t forget. A word to the wise: never wear yesterday’s clothes if possible. Anything fresh, except for excrement, usually smells pretty good; anything dead should get gas mask treatment. The smell in most funeral homes is, for me, a nightmare smell that is hard to get out of my head. I have to hold my breath when walking past a beauty salon because of the intense horrible smells of the chemicals being used. Same goes for those candle stores in the malls. I actually don’t mind most subways which are combination of mechanical smells, moldy water, and people. For some reason that combination comforts me and means I’m on my way home. My favorite smells? Freshly baking cookies and breads, cut grass, a recently cleaned house, clothing coming out of the dryer, bookstores, freshly ground coffee, milk, cheese, and yoghurt, jamón serrano (a Spanish delicacy), wine, whiskey, freshly cut cedar, cloves and cinnamon, roasting meats, pizza, lillacs (the actually blooming plant), roses, and the wilderness. Of course, the chemical smell of new cars is very popular, but not with me. I find movie theaters with all their sweaty people and greasy foods to be a little overwhelming and decadent. Chain restaurants are sickening for the same reasons. The worse smell ever? Vomit, of course.

On Valentine’s Day

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Perhaps we might invent a holiday that torments single people and makes them feel isolated and alone. Wait, we already did that with Valentine’s Day. I think marriage was invented so that the vast majority of people would not have to worry about getting a date for that day, or not getting flowers, or not going dancing, or not giving away chocolates. The pressure is always on during the days leading up to Valentine’s Day. Single people are tormented by the endless parade of happy people, their flowers, their heart-shaped balloons, their romantic dinners, their Valentine’s Day cards. What if you don’t get any? And romantic music is like a stake in the heart for a vampire. For those lucky folks who find themselves paired up during the Valentine, the holiday in mid-February is a wonderful time to love stuff, but for those folks who have recently broken up with their significant other, every loving couple is only another reminder of their own loneliness and failure. Every Valentine’s Day party, every bouquet of roses, every couple dining in a romantic setting, is a reminder of their own solitary condition. This is supposed to be happy occasion, and for many people it is, but the irony is bitter, difficult to swallow because solitude is the only part of the human condition for which there is no solution, unless it be other people. I don’t know which part of Valentine’s Day I hate most–the stuffed bears, the bunches of balloons, the red, frilly hearts, the roses, the chocolates, or kissing couples. The clichés are not endless, but they are repetitive, and they are boring. People in love just make me sick. In another lifetime I might not have felt this way, but the years have tanned my hide, so to speak, and any romantic bone that I might have ever had has long since petrified, cold and unfeeling. Yet, this strange red and pink-hearted holiday is about an ideal after which most of strive at some moment in our lives. Our crushes, our loves, our obsessions all come home to roost on Valentine’s Day when we remember, perhaps ponder, our emotional attachments, the loves of our lives. What most bothers me about Valentine’s Day is how the multi-national corporations that sell Valentine’s Day have turned a sweet, emotional fun day into an out-of-control consumer nightmare of buying and splurging and spending. One is delinquent if one has not bought a diamond or chocolate or roses or lobster or mink or electronics or whatever. Since when is love about money and spending a whole bunch of it? I am often disappointed in my own culture’s inability to find meaning and value in something without attaching a monetary value to it. Savage consumerism has wrecked this holiday, and there is probably no way to save it from unbridled spending and uncontrolled materialism. Materialism is the dialectic opposite of love, which is a self-less emotional response to another human being. Things, stuff, can only get in the way, and are often the cause of so many break ups. Perhaps love can only survive Valentine’s Day when it is not controlled by a capitalistic market that is marked only by dollars and cents. Diamonds are not the solution to Valentine’s Day, but real emotion might be. Valentine’s Day, the way it is sold in stores, is fake, phony, a waste of time. Valentine’s Day really only exists in the heart, and that is the only place where it will ever be found.

On Valentine’s Day

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Perhaps we might invent a holiday that torments single people and makes them feel isolated and alone. Wait, we already did that with Valentine’s Day. I think marriage was invented so that the vast majority of people would not have to worry about getting a date for that day, or not getting flowers, or not going dancing, or not giving away chocolates. The pressure is always on during the days leading up to Valentine’s Day. Single people are tormented by the endless parade of happy people, their flowers, their heart-shaped balloons, their romantic dinners, their Valentine’s Day cards. What if you don’t get any? And romantic music is like a stake in the heart for a vampire. For those lucky folks who find themselves paired up during the Valentine, the holiday in mid-February is a wonderful time to love stuff, but for those folks who have recently broken up with their significant other, every loving couple is only another reminder of their own loneliness and failure. Every Valentine’s Day party, every bouquet of roses, every couple dining in a romantic setting, is a reminder of their own solitary condition. This is supposed to be happy occasion, and for many people it is, but the irony is bitter, difficult to swallow because solitude is the only part of the human condition for which there is no solution, unless it be other people. I don’t know which part of Valentine’s Day I hate most–the stuffed bears, the bunches of balloons, the red, frilly hearts, the roses, the chocolates, or kissing couples. The clichés are not endless, but they are repetitive, and they are boring. People in love just make me sick. In another lifetime I might not have felt this way, but the years have tanned my hide, so to speak, and any romantic bone that I might have ever had has long since petrified, cold and unfeeling. Yet, this strange red and pink-hearted holiday is about an ideal after which most of strive at some moment in our lives. Our crushes, our loves, our obsessions all come home to roost on Valentine’s Day when we remember, perhaps ponder, our emotional attachments, the loves of our lives. What most bothers me about Valentine’s Day is how the multi-national corporations that sell Valentine’s Day have turned a sweet, emotional fun day into an out-of-control consumer nightmare of buying and splurging and spending. One is delinquent if one has not bought a diamond or chocolate or roses or lobster or mink or electronics or whatever. Since when is love about money and spending a whole bunch of it? I am often disappointed in my own culture’s inability to find meaning and value in something without attaching a monetary value to it. Savage consumerism has wrecked this holiday, and there is probably no way to save it from unbridled spending and uncontrolled materialism. Materialism is the dialectic opposite of love, which is a self-less emotional response to another human being. Things, stuff, can only get in the way, and are often the cause of so many break ups. Perhaps love can only survive Valentine’s Day when it is not controlled by a capitalistic market that is marked only by dollars and cents. Diamonds are not the solution to Valentine’s Day, but real emotion might be. Valentine’s Day, the way it is sold in stores, is fake, phony, a waste of time. Valentine’s Day really only exists in the heart, and that is the only place where it will ever be found.

On yellow

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Perhaps there is no color odder than yellow. Okay, fuchsia, but I don’t know what that looks like. Sponge Bob, need I say more? Bananas, mustard, the middle light in the stop light for which no one stops, yield signs, taxi cabs, high-lighters, school buses, lemons, some butterflies, butter, baby chicks, corn, sponges, the sun. What I like are yellow cars that are of a yellow that is so strange that one must wonder what kind of good deal that person was offered so that they would buy that odd-looking car. I imagine that yellow is used to get our attention, and one will hardly miss a bright yellow Corvette as it roars by. People will often wear yellow raincoats–so they might be seen with greater ease? There are some naturally occurring yellows, lemons, for example, or apples, which seem healthy and normal and not at all strange. A yellow rose can be a thing of beauty and not the least bit odd. Dandelions are yellow, and they were always a sign that perhaps winter might be over for a few months and that the parka might be stowed away until maybe October. I do not own (nor should anyone) a pair of yellow jeans, bell bottoms or otherwise. Wasn’t the smiley-face logo yellow? (From the category, “Things I wish I’d never seen in the first place.”) According to the Beatles (a small ’60’s rock band from Liverpool–strange names and funny hair), traveling on a yellow submarine was really where it was at. I was never offered a ride, although my cousin Kent has a yellow Sunbird, probably one of his more forgettable automobiles. Of course, never eat yellow snow, a nice bit of advice and a catchy aphorism for those who live in snowy climates–Texans need not worry about this particular reference. Gumby was a freaky blue-green color and I have no idea why he made it into this note other than the fact that he is just odd in general.Some dish soaps are yellow, but blue or maybe green might be more appealing. I’m sure a marketing director somewhere has data on why yellow dish soap sells at all. Why “Yield” signs are yellow is an existential mystery that no one will ever resolve. No baseball teams, excluding the Oakland A’s, have contemporary uniforms that are purely yellow, although I think that the Pirates, and maybe the Padres, at some point in their history has had a mustard color road uniform–enough said on that subject. Baseballs are still white although faux-baseball, softball, is now played, occasionally, with a fluorescent yellow ball that looks quite unnatural and not at all like a grapefruit. Some pills are yellow so that you might distinguish them from the blue ones, or the pink ones, or the white ones, or the brown ones. There are one or two soda pops that are yellow, but I’ll pass on saying anything else about yellow liquids. Grapefruit are rather yellow, but I really like the pink variety better, sweeter, less bitter. Are canaries really yellow or is that a stereotype? Would you ever be caught dead in yellow shoes? Only if I was wearing yellow pants with the matching yellow suit coat. Yellow ties, on the other hand, offer some interesting possibilities. Why are the yolks of eggs yellow? My favorite color of pencil is a greenish blue, not yellow, although 99% of all #2 pencils seem to be yellow. A couple of more yellow things: stickies, legal pads, sunflowers, PacMan, daffodils, pollen, Tweety Pie, Big Bird, the Yellow pages, the leaves on some trees in the fall.

On honey

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An old food, our hunter and gatherer ancestors probably figured this one out right away. Getting it away from the bees might have been a wholly other problem, but it was sweet and they were hungry. One of my favorite foods, I used to take a honey and butter sandwich to school. I guess there is nothing written about taste, especially when you are dealing with an eight-year-old. One of my absolute all-time favorite snacks is freshly made bread, toasted with butter and honey. The bees do work hard and tirelessly to produce this strange and sticky product. Odd how we can just separate it from the comb and it’s immediately edible. I mean, bees are insects, and we can eat insect food? Bees and their hive mentality and social community is a little creepy. Their love of six-sided forms seems a little obsessive, if not overly geometric. Their precision is only matched by their remarkable ability to repeat their structures ad infinitum. Bees do not bother me although all the other winged stinging creatures do, especially the wasp and hornet varieties, which really don’t produce much good any way you look at them. Bees, on the other hand, just seem obsessed with making honey and more bees. This is the natural way of the world, but honey seems to be a wonderfully capricious and haphazard by-product of these hard-working striped drones. Beekeepers, such as Sherlock Holmes, usually use a bit of smoke to tame these gentle creatures. Make no mistake, if you rile them up, be prepared for a trip to the emergency room. If enough of these little guys sting you, your life could be in danger. Yet, if you leave it to the experts, you can enjoy this simple sugary pleasure on your toast or in your tea. The taste varies according to which bees are making the honey, where they are living, and which flowers they have from which to chose. The honey can pick up the taste of wild flowers, or orange blossoms, depending on what is growing in the area. So I love honey, and it doesn’t really bother me that I’m eating insect food extraordinaire.