Perfume: A Life Story

"A perfume is like a piece of clothing, a message, a way of presenting oneself, a costume that differs according to the woman who wears it."

- Paloma Picasso

Elizabeth Arden Sunflowers - This perfume feels like the last time I felt comfortable in my skin until I was 30.  This is summer time.  This is wheat fields.  This is swimming in the Ablah's pool and listening to Matthew Sweet.  This is dying your hair bright red with Manic Panic.  This is feeling like the best version of yourself while wearing cut-off denim and a t-shirt.

Calgon Hawaiian Ginger body spray/patchouli oil/Jovan Island Gardenia - The dabbling years. High school wasn't that much fun.  I wasn't bullied.  I had friends.  I did well in classes.  But it just wasn't fun.  I was lost.  I had an idea of the person I was, but I felt trapped by what everyone else thought I was.  I loved makeup and clothes.  I could recite Shakespeare's Sonnets by heart.  I loved romance and adventure.  But I was the serious girl who always wore a dark blue hoodie.  I didn't think anyone would be okay with the riotous springtime that was happening inside of me.

Romance by Ralph Lauren - I think I wore this because I wanted to be the kind of person who wore this.  I wanted to be softer.  I wanted to be inviting and lovely.  I had spent the four years of high school building a "barrier of barb and check" around myself.  I wanted to tear it down after high school, but I didn't know how. So I wore this perfume, but it didn't change anything. Eventually I just gave up and built the wall higher. To the sky.

Pink Sugar by Aquolina - This was an attempt at frivolity in my mid 20s.  I am frivolous in many ways, but frivolous in a sort of dark carnival way.  This perfume is pure cotton candy and pink cherubs playing The Carpenters on lutes. When I wear it now it feels oppressive and like a person who doesn't understand herself.

Angel by Thierry Mugler - Body chemistry is a weird thing.  This perfume smells good on me.  On some molecular level this perfume hits my body and becomes something better. I've had to prove to other people who also wear this perfume, that this is what I'm wearing. Diablo Cody calls this the ultimate stripper perfume in her memoir Candy Girl: A Year In the Life of an Unlikely Stripper.  I like that.

Flower Bomb by Viktor & Rolf - This choice says a lot about me.  Not the scent though.  The scent is good, but whatever.  But the fact that I found my perfume...  THE PERFUME...  and then decided I should try something else because the something else seemed more interesting and distinctive says plenty.  I tried to force myself to love it, and I still wear it occasionally when I want to switch it up.  I'm just not this girl.

Angel by Thierry Mugler - This is the perfume I will be wearing when I die. Most likely causes: eating too many cheddar bay biscuits or a freak carnival ride accident.


Weird question... do you guys look in the mirror when you put on perfume?  I do, and I don't know why.

Feelings Ghost

A couple of months ago I read a paragraph length review on Tumblr of Lykke Li's cover of Fleetwood Mac's Silver Springs that I really liked.

I really like the song too.  It's beautiful.  You should listen to it... here.

But this part of the review really got to me:

“Let’s take the best shy girl singing about being a shy girl in 2k12 and make her sing this fucking classic song about being bad at love and turning into a feelings ghost,” they said.

Something about that phrase 'feelings ghost'  really hit home for me.  

As a person who loves to write, is in love with language, and collects words and phrases the way others collect porcelain figurines, I love finding a phrase that really manages to encapsulate an entire state of being in a succinct, perfect way.

I would struggle to explain to you what 'feelings ghost' means to me because it would be hard to define it without using the phrase 'feelings ghost'.  Sometimes a writer finds such a perfect way to describe something you don't know how to explain it without just repeating the phrase back, but with slightly different emphasis.  Like repeating the same word over and over in a slightly louder voice to a person that doesn't speak English, as if volume was the key to making them understand what you meant.

So instead of shouting the phrase 'FEELINGS GHOST' at you over and over, I thought I would share some music that make me feel like a feelings ghost in the hopes that you might understand some glimmer of what I'm struggling to say.

Björk - Hyperballad

"I go through this before you wake up so I can be happier to be safe up here with you."

Sarah Jaffe - Clementine

Death Cab For Cutie - Marching Bands of Manhattan

"Sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole. Just like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound. But while you debate half empty or half full, it slowly rises. Your love is going to drown."

New Order - Temptation

Van Morrison - Sweet Thing

"And I will walk in gardens all wet with rain, and I will never, ever, ever, ever grow so old again."

A Recipe From My Mama

Last night my mama made my favorite supper from my childhood... Porcupine Meatballs. So I thought I would share the recipe with you.

I never have to think very hard when people asked me what my Death Row Final Meal would be... it's pretty simple.

That's a big ol' heaping plate of Great Plains childhood right there.
And a miniature sombrero from Cozumel.

Add a slice of blueberry pie, and send me off to meet my Maker.  I can die content.



Porcupine Meatballs (serves: me)

1 lb. ground beef
1/2 c. regular rice (see note below)
1/2 c. water
1 small onion, chopped (or a handful of dehydrated minced onion)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp celery salt
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp pepper
1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
1 c water
 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce (see note below)
1/2 c to 1 c shredded mozzarella cheese (see note below)

Mix meat, rice, 1/2 c water, onion and seasonings. Shape mixture into 1 1/2 inch meatballs.

Place meatballs in ungreased baking dish, approximately 8x8x2 inches. Mix remaining ingredients and pour over meatballs. Cover with foil and bake in 350° oven for 45 minutes.   Uncover, sprinkle with mozzarella, and bake uncovered for another 15 minutes.



Notes:

- My brother (who, just like me, hated meatloaf, but looooved these) made these with minute rice.  This enables you to make larger meatballs.

- One time I didn't have any Worcestershire sauce, but I did have A1 steak sauce so I swapped it and it tasted awesome.

- Now the original recipe for this never called for cheese, and most porcupine meatball recipes don't call for cheese, but one time my mom threw some shredded mozzarella on this on a whim, and my brother and I were hooked. So I highly recommend it... and when I make this sometimes I go way overboard with the cheese, but 1/2 c to 1 c of cheese should be sufficient. 

Life Lessons

I turned 30 a little over a month ago and therefore I have a lot of wisdom, and I was thinking about what lessons I've learned in my 20s that I wish my present self could pass along to my just barely 20 year old self many moons ago.

Here's what I've come up with:

1. Someone is always going to be better than you at something you want to do.  Ignore them.  Just do it your way, because if you try too hard to be like someone else it comes off that way... like you are trying way too hard, and people find that obnoxious.

2. Go to college, stay there until you are finished. It's simple.

3. Ask for help sometimes. You are not the only one that feels lost and unsure right now.

4. You don't have to carry your identity from high school into adulthood.  So you were a kind of a quiet, boring goody-two-shoes in high school, but now you can be a loud, awesome, goody-two-shoes in your 20s or whatever you want to be. People won't think it's weird, they will just think "Wow... Jess is really coming out of her shell!", and you will have so much more fun.

5. Throw that fucking hoodie away. (Note: Guess what I'm wearing right now as I write this. Hypocritical much?)

6. And maybe do something with your hair.

Summertime

Barefoot in Folsom from ben joyner on Vimeo.


You guys, everything about this video makes me painfully hungry for summer. But, lesbianest, my summers... all of them... look more like this:

Or maybe this, if I'm lucky:

And my summer montage video would be me guzzling coffee while driving to work at 6:30 am and then driving home alternately glaring bitterly and rolling my eyes at young people out having a grand ol' time on their summer break.

But you know what... I aspire to something better, and this summer I'm going to pull it off. Some how some way my summer is going to look like a Ralph Lauren/Levi's/Abercrombie and Fitch commercial.

Except for the diving... I never learned how to dive and I'm not all that upset about it.

An Open Letter to 15 Year Old Jess

Hey you!

Yeah you... the wild haired girl who looks like she's in a competition with herself to be as unattractive as possible.

Would you switch off that movie you keep obsessively watching for like 5 seconds?

Also, for the love of God, do yourself a favor and take off that effing hoodie sweatshirt.  It's truly awful.

I need to talk to you about some stuff.  Some stuff that is going to happen in the next 15 years and some stuff I need you to know in advance... a little friendly advice if you will.

First of all, you need to know that the world isn't divided up into packs of Jocks, Cheerleaders, Goths, Creeps, Band Kids and Weirdos.  There are only 2 groups: People Worth Knowing and People Not Worth Knowing.  The thing that's gonna be hard is  figuring out which group people belong to, because it turns out it has nothing to do with what music they listen to and whether or not they shop at The Buckle.  Don't limit yourself.  It's way boring.

Next, you need to try to be braver.  Like a lot.  This is going to suck for awhile, but it will be completely rewarding.  Don't be invisible.  Join things, talk to people, participate.  I know it sounds pretty lame, but you will never ever regret the things you tried.

Another thing, you need to get over comparing yourself to others right now.  Here's a news flash: you're a late bloomer.  You will probably always be this way. And I'm not talking about boobs... you got those early.   I'm talking about those momentous life landmarks we all think are inevitable: love, careers, marriage, babies, etc. You can stop comparing your life progress to everyone else's.  They've got their own mountains to climb, your mountains are completely different.  It's okay.  Just relax.

And last of all, in your senior year when everyone tells you that you will someday regret not going to prom, they are 100% absolutely WRONG-O.  You will never regret not going to prom.  So don't worry about it.

Carry on my wayward son...

Your pal,
Jess