It’s funny.

I’m not a perfume wearer. An occasional spritz. Similar to my lipstick wearing, I’m non committal. Frankly, perfume gags me. Especially the sweet stuff. A man who wears a sweetish cologne vexes me. A man should only smell cloyingly sweet if he’s a baker. I would prefer no person wear any recreational scent, but this blog has already covered pheromones, so I won’t get into it again. Really, a man should smell like a man.

I have no problem telling even my mother, ‘yuck, roll the window down’ if we’re riding in the car together. Or calling her ahead and saying ‘I have a headache, please don’t wear perfume’. She’s religious about her use. She’s the one to recognize the brand a person is wearing, and will name it, always surprising the stranger. She is also adamant about how same perfumes smell differently on different people, and this I agree with because of individual body chemistry; again, pheromones.

vintage perfume vials

I love these little vintage perfume nips. They sit on my bathroom counter beside my big vintage wine box, which holds my make-up. Meticulously organized, but that’s another picture and post.

One time I dated a guy who held an affection for a particular smell, never precisely articulated. Being the transparent person I am, I was specific about which scent I find most repulsive. (still to this day) It is a musk smell by Jovan or Ashley something or Whispers or any and all variations of it. Wouldn’t you damn well know, the evening we go out to dinner with his parents, I get in the backseat of our shared ride to the restaurant and his mother is wearing it! Fucks-sake. I was mortified, cause the convo was still freshly on our minds. I also wanted to hang the entire top half of my body out the car window to breathe. The topic never came up again.

Now I work with a woman who works out during her lunch break, so when she comes back she’s reeking from the camouflaging attempt under perfume. It gags me to high heaven.

Back to what I find a bit humorous now, my year long coveting and pining for a perfume I’ve yet to purchase, only because it’s fucking expensive (my taste, of course!) -like the Hermès of scents expensive.

And I don’t want to be the person I’ve just been lamenting, the one you smell before their actual body appears in the room. My energy is another thing.

Seeing as though the desire still stands, I’m sure to cherish it and use it sparingly and appreciatively.  I keep telling myself ‘ok this paycheck, I’ll get it’, but since I also loathe the mall and would physically have to go to Neiman’s, I keep putting it off.

Then I’m in a friends high-rise apartment lobby and the magazines in the entrance are free. The September issue of Vogue is like the Bible to fashion people. Curiosity propels my hand to snatch a copy. I’ve gotten through a quarter of it cause another thing I dont really do (wear perfum, wear lipstick, go to the mall) is read magazines. Actually magazines repulse me more than perfume. As it stands, almost two weeks later and it still sits on the counter, a quarter gone through. It’ll go in the recycle bin soon.

In this first quarter of perusal, wouldn’t you know, I came across one of those perfume adverts with the scent flap. And I wanted to slather my body in another perfume. Yep. The universe laughs.

Another pricey investment, so here I am a year later reconsidering my previous desire for the first choice.

This is what consumerism is: desire after desire. Internal debate and perpetual dissatisfaction. I could disregard them both or get them both. This is my new place. I could get them both. They are literally a superficial thing. So now I haven’t decided on one, but I’m faced with debating two, and will probably get neither. Against my desire.

The things is, they’ll be there when I decide. One or the other. That’s what people don’t realize about satisfying cravings: it’ll still be there when you get to it, and the longer you put it off, chances are you’ll forget. Or not want it. And save yourself: the calories, or the money, or the regret.

This is also a metaphor for life: some decisions we can spend a lot of time with, the deliberation cost us nothing. Some decisions must be made immediately, before the opportunity passes, while the iron is hot kind of cliché. Fork in the road stuff. I prefer the spontaneous stuff, the NOW decisions, because gut instinct has never disappointed me.

Often the trivial holds larger insights.