filigree_shadow

Although I like my in-laws, sometimes I feel very uncomfortable in their house. I get tired of being interrupted mid-sentence to be told, "Let's talk about something else," or "New topic!" It appears that new additions to the list of things not to be discussed in front of them are: human anatomy, common cold symptoms (I'm not talking snot here, I mean saying that your throat feels dry and scratchy), and dogs accidentally becoming pregnant. If anything could be construed as even slightly gross or possibly related to sex in some way, apparently it's entirely off-limits. My husband's mom asked me how my classes were going, and when I started talking about the anatomy paper I wrote about macular degeneration, she asked what causes it. I began to tell her that it's often caused by blood vessels bursting or leaking, and oh no, that sounds AWFUL, I can't talk about that. While we were having this conversation and she was telling me that she didn't want to hear anything that "sounds awful," she was tearing apart a cooked turkey with her bare hands and splitting it up into storage containers. I shit you not. Look, I've got no problem with being proper and avoiding certain topics. I don't waltz in there and start describing the way my dog's poo has looked strange lately or give graphic descriptions of gunshot wounds. But it's gotten to the point where I feel like every time I open my mouth they tense up and wait for something even remotely unsuitable to come out so they can shout "New topic!" at me. They really pride themselves on having what they think are good manners. Thus the restricted conversation topics. At some point I will probably tell them that their methods of telling people that a topic is inappropriate are exceedingly BAD MANNERS. A cultured person would gracefully redirect the conversation or excuse himself or herself and go to another room. But, these are the same people who hang up the phone without saying "Good bye," blow their noses at the table, and drop quotes from Rush Limbaugh into the conversation. They think it's perfectly fine to attempt to correct an adult's behavior the same way you'd correct a child. His mom knows that I like crossword puzzles and has seen me working on them about 80 times, and yet a couple of days ago she felt the need to go on for five minutes about how crossword puzzles are a complete waste of time and she prefers words in sentences arranged in a book. So probably I expect too much.

Yes, wine. Mmm. I'll have to smuggle some into their house next time.

I think I need one of those Zen calendars.

Heh heh. Actually I bet they think I'm dumb. Their kids are all off-the-charts smart, and conversations at their house run to the stilted academic side. Heavily. Heaven forbid anyone mention anything even remotely human, like excusing yourself to use the *gasp* bathroom, or being so unfortunate as to have some sort of medical condition. Even talking about LOVE is a no-no. They don't touch or hug each other. Talking about whether my husband and I will have CHILDREN is bad. If it's something you read in a book, something suitably innocuous like the plotline of a fiction book, then it's probably okay. But if it has to do with real human stuff, they don't want to hear about it. It's very odd. I feel like they have no interest at all in me, they are only interested in hearing about what I've read. You know, I do think that I will eventually become a sort of silent bystander at family get-togethers, like you have. I imagine that if I ever get to become a pathologist, I will never be able to talk about work with them. As far as diseases go, macular degeneration is nowhere near the top of the gross-out list. And if I can't even talk about that, well... One of the reasons I want to be a doctor is to save people's lives, or at least help them live more comfortably and in better health. It seems like that would be something my in-laws would be proud of -- but I'm never going to be able to tell them about it, and they'll never know that I'm pretty damn good at what I do. The one thing they might actually respect about me is one of the things I'm not allowed to talk to them about. That seriously sucks. /rant off

I love Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe books. I think I've read almost all of them. They're funny and clever, and I like the characters. My husband recently bought some Nero Wolfe TV shows on DVD -- apparently this was a series that A&E produced at some point in the last few years. When he told me that he was getting them I raised an eyebrow and expressed skepticism. I told him that I seriously doubted they could find any actor who could pull off Nero Wolfe, and since Archie Goodwin is my favorite Stout character I didn't want to see him butchered by some Hollywood ignoramuses who probably never even bothered to read the books. What a surprise. I love this series. The guy who plays Wolfe (Maury Chaykin) does a fantastic job. He's a little more shouty than I pictured Wolfe, and he's also not quite as heavy as I pictured Wolfe. But other than that he's very good. Archie Goodwin is spot on. Timothy Hutton plays him, and he's also one of the producers. I think he does some directing, too. This guy, obviously, has read these books. He's perfect as Archie Goodwin, too. He looks like Archie and talks like Archie and is basically exactly right. I'm very impressed. On top of all that, they stick to the stories as perfectly as they can in this format, and they even use Stout's dialog. They don't take many liberties. And the whole thing is very pretty. The sets are beautiful and the lighting is lovely. All in all, this is a highly successful adaptation. Apparently A&E cancelled it after only a couple of seasons, which is a great disappointment. I would have loved to see a lot more of these.

For some reason that situation sounds alarmingly familiar to me... Oh, right, that's because my husband and I have the same conversation as your parents about twice a month. Usually it's when he's calling me from Costco to tell me about AN AMAZING PRICE on some DVD and how it sure would be great if he could get it at this price right now. However, I have to give him credit on the Nero Wolfe ones. These are actually good.

Resurrected version: Although I like vetiver, I don't like quite this much vetiver. It was really strong at first. And then it smelled like powder and vetiver. I found out from other blends that red patchouli is not my friend, but I wanted to give this a try anyway. I discovered that the feud between red patchouli and me is apparently still going on. Ah well. I'm sure this bottle will find a nice home.

Oooo, I loved Poison and wore it for several years. Opoponax is one of my all-time most favorite notes. I'll second the Venom comparisons -- it's similar. If Venom came back I'd buy 3 bottles of it. Queen of Spades is wonderful and similar to Poison as well, but even harder to get than Venom, I think. However, from the general catalog definitely try Bathsheba. Frumious Bandersnatch is similar to a certain extent, too. You might need to layer it with something a bit darker and muskier to get the right feel though. I had the same problem with Blood Countess that you had, so I know what you mean about it smelling kind of like soap. If you're going for the overall feel (dead sexy) but it's okay if it's not quite the same scent, I'd recommend Mme. Moriarty, Misfortune Teller. Also Vixen. Try something with red musk in it. Maybe Scherezade.

We actually have less swaplifting than we used to. I kind of hoped that would be the result of the swap feedback forum, so YAY! I'm nosey, and now that we have the capability I look for bad feedback even if it's someone I've never swapped with. So now I notice swaplifters whereas before I never knew about it unless someone told me. ETA: SCHOOL'S OUT!!!! A textbook will not be open in my house until the first week of January. YAY!!!

That sucks about losing your CT bottle. Mind if I ask who it was? I really like the new(ish) swap feedback section here, but there's one feature I wish it had: an easy-to-access list of all the users with the worst swap ratings. I'd like to be able to see at a glance who the problem people are, rather than having to look through each letter category. But I'm glad that people are now publicly accountable for these things. It seems like often after a couple of people give them bad feedback, they disappear from the forums. But I wonder whether, before we had the feedback system, those people would just continue to do stuff like that because forumites at large had no idea they'd swaplifted other people. Swaplifting seems to be going on fairly frequently lately, and I'm not sure if it's just always been that way and I didn't know because we didn't have the swap feedback system, or whether it has picked up recently.

I'm procrastinating studying anatomy right now. Again. So here are my thoughts about the glorious update! Wolf Moon. Winter air, Terebinth pine, juniper berry, dusty orris, deep amber, white sandalwood, black musk, blue cedar, and tonka. If this smells anything like the previous version, I'll like it. I enjoyed that cold and sort of aquatic feel to the first Wolf Moon -- it was good with the musky scent. Got a bottle. Lycaon. A monstrous, brutal, and bloodthirsty blend: blackened myrrh, crushed olive leaf, black musk, spikenard, frankincense, cypress wood, opoponax, white ginger, and patchouli. Sounds monstrous for sure. I have no idea what to think of it. Spikenard is probably the ONLY note I can count on ALWAYS hating. Ick. However, I really like opoponax, myrrh, and patchouli, and I think that crushed olive leaf would be interesting too. Got a bottle of this too, but I think it was kind of a risky choice. The Salon!!!! I honestly could not afford to get all the bottles I want right now (Christmas coming up and everything), so I just got an imp pack. The Arrival at the Sabbath and Homage to the Devil, Antoine-François de Saint-Aubert. Bourbon vanilla, benzoin, caramel, Mysore sandalwood, aged black patchouli, carnation, and iris florentina. Holy moly. Um, yes please!!! If I could have picked just ONE bottle, this is the one. The Cup of Death, Elihu Vedder. Peach blossom and peach tree leaf, Mysore sandalwood, French lavender, bois du rose, myrtle, and blue yarrow. Hmm. Possibly too feminine for me, and maybe too herby. I don't know what blue yarrow smells like in perfume, but I know what yarrow smells like in the wild. I think the myrtle and yarrow combination might make the whole thing smell a bit too weedy for me. Cupid Complaining to Venus, Lucas Cranach the Elder. Apple blossom, fig, white peach, honey absolute, red sandalwood, and wild thyme. What is honey absolute? I've never seen that. Everything in this sounds fabulous except the thyme... and maybe honey absolute wouldn't smell like play-doh on me like honey usually does. Fingers crossed! The Ecstacy of St. Theresa, Gianlorenzo Bernini. Frankincense, iris, white gardenia, Roman chamomile, amber, and agarwood. I bet this smells breath-takingly lovely. Sigh. Blends like that make me wish that I was breath-takingly lovely so that I could wear them. Unfortunately, scents like that are usually at odds with my Dr Martens' boots. Garden Path With Chickens, Gustav Klimt. Damp grass, ivy leaves, morning glory, daisy, rose geranium, heliotrope, white gardenia, climbing roses, peppery nasturtium, phlox, begonia, verbena and sun-warmed herbs. I know people are going ga-ga over this, but I will tell you a secret. I hate chickens. I've hated them since I was a little girl on my grandparents' farm. And this blend sounds like it'll be way too flowery for me anyway. The Great He-Goat, Francisco Goya. Haitian vetiver, Egyptian amber, carnation, black musk, pomegranate, patchouli, and smoked ginger. This one, on the other hand... yeeeessss, that's more my style. This one's gonna be a doozy. The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed With the Sun, William Blake. Daemonorops, vanilla, Indian sandalwood, Mexican copal, hyssop, muguet, sweet pea, amber, hazelwood, galbanum, hiba wood, and orchid. I'm concerned about the sweet pea but there are so many other notes in there that I love. I have high hopes for this. Itasô Kansei Nenkan Jorô No Fûzoku, Wada hori Yû. Osmanthus, white honey, ti leaf, hibiscus, and sugar cane. I've got no frickin' clue what this will smell like. I can't imagine. Can't wait to try it! Judith Victorious, Lucas Cranach the Elder. Chestnut blossom, lily of the valley, King mandarin, French magnolia, and golden musk. This is going to be glorious and triumphant, I just know it. If I had been able to choose bottles to buy, this would have been the one that I picked because it sounded so good even though I couldn't tell what the combination would smell like. La Mort Qui Danse, Félicien Rops. Black pepper, white ginger, Calla lily, and lily of the valley. Oh... sad and funereal. But white, and clean. My favorite kind of floral! The Lantern Ghost of Oiwa, Shunkosai Hokuei. Black tea, cherry blossom, ho wood, calla lily, rice wine, and white mint. There are only a couple of blends with mint that I like, and I honestly think this is going to be one of the good ones. That whole combination just sounds fabulous. Les Anges Déchus, Edouard Cibot. Khus, blonde tobacco, life everlasting, orris root, black currant, cabreuva, Spanish moss, leather, and ambrette. I love this painting. And I want something that has the ingredient of "life everlasting." Even if I'm unsure of the Spanish moss. Lot and His Daughters, Hendrik Goltzius. Indonesian black patchouli, petitgrain, brandewijn, incense, saffron, lemon peel, myrrh, skin musk, bourbon geranium, and tangerine. This painting makes me feel uncomfortable. I think this blend will make me feel that way too. Melancholia, Albrecht Dürer. Blue lilac, white sandalwood, stargazer lily, paperwhite narcissus, ylang ylang, delphinium, and cypress. Blue and sad. I bet this will be a lovely shade of blue though. I have my fingers crossed for this one as well. The Sailor's Den, Félicien Rops. Orris, bay rum, palm, coconut meat, oak wood, tobacco, linen, blue lilac, and leather. Woohoo! This one's a shoe-in for me. I can't imagine that I won't like this. Bet it'll smell great on the hubby, too. Three Gorgons, Gustav Klimt. Egyptian amber, mandarin, tangerine, black pepper, tobacco, and vetiver. Oooo. Dark and smoky with bright tangerine top notes. I bet I'll like this one. And... of course, Shub-Nuggurath. A blend of ritual herbs and dark resins, shot through with three gingers and aphrodisiacal spices. Pass! Guess I'm the only person in the world who didn't care for this one. Ginger's tricky with me, and I like Gingerbead Poppet a lot better than Shub.

Dude. THREE MORE DAYS. As of Wednesday night, the quarter is officially over for me too and I am officially on HOLIDAY for a MONTH. And yes, I should be memorizing the muscles in the upper limb right now. But I'm not. Because if I SEE another stupid index card right now with my anatomy-related crap written all over it I think the blood vessels in my eyes will pop. No more flash cards!! Sick of the anatomy flash cards!!! AAARGH! *deep breath* Three more days, three more days, three more days...

In the bottle: A very odd plastic-y grape scent. Wet: Nothing like the bottle sniff at all. Mostly purple flowers with a bit of juiciness behind it. At first I didn't look at the notes, and I thought it was freesia or maybe a combination of violet and something else. I think what I was smelling was violet and wisteria. Dry: Well, I've worn this twice now on two different areas, and I got two results. When I wore it on the inside of my elbow, I got a floral scent with strongly grape overtones. When I wore it on the back of my hand, I got a rather hazy (the myrrh comes through) semi-floral with what seemed to be a dark fruit underneath. I wouldn't necessarily have pegged that fruit scent as grape. Rather like a juicy and more complex version of Blood Countess. Very nice. I like them both, but I prefer the back-of-the-hand version of the scent. Wonder how I can get it to always behave that way. Hmmm....

I usually get a drink from the vending machine when I'm at school. More specifically, I usually get a Mountain Dew. I like the taste, and the caffeine keeps me awake during class. Tonight, I decided to be a grown-up. I'm 35 now, after all. Probably time to stop drinking sodas. I'm afraid I'm at the age where I can no longer tell myself that I will address my bad habits when I'm older. I am older now. So... I chose the Diet Lipton Green Tea with Citrus instead of the Mountain Dew. And get this: It was good! I mean, spectacularly good. I really like it. I feel kind of stupid for drinking so many Mountain Dews when I could have been drinking this tea drink instead the whole time. The taste is great, and it has zero calories and no carbonation. (One of the reasons I like Mtn Dew is that it seems to have fewer bubbles than other sodas. Not a fan of the bubbles.) I'm never going to like carrots as much as potato chips, but I wonder how many other healthier things I can find to replace other bad habits. I did already replace most of my cheeseburgers with Boca cheeseburgers (yummy!), and now I've found this diet green tea drink instead of Mountain Dew. I think I'll make an effort to try new things for the next few weeks and see what I find.

At first I mainly smelled lily, but as it dried it became mostly rose. As rose scents go, this is a pretty good one. It's sweet as opposed to being green. It also seems, to me, to be overtly feminine. When I sniff this I get an image in my head of a pretty woman in a white dress and hat walking through a garden. Hmmm. I expected not to like this, but I do. That white rose is really growing on me.

Imp sniff: Mmm, smells like vetiver. Wet: Wow, dark and dank. Same sort of musty basement kind of feel as in Sloth. I like it! Dry: This ends up smelling like the kind of smoke you get when you burn green wood. I'm not sure how else to describe it. It's a heavy smoky scent. Although I really like this scent, I'm not sure it's something I'd wear as a personal fragrance. For giggles I tried layering it over Black Ice (that one didn't end up being as dark and smoky on me as I wanted it to), and I think that together they are more wearable than either one alone. So I think Devil's Claw will be a good one for layering with others, too.

OK, first off, I usually don't like white musk or strawberry. Grapefruit is a maybe. So even though I love red musk, I didn't think that one of the notes could save the whole blend for me. And I was wrong. This is awesome! It reminds me a little bit of Shango, not in the scent but in the feel of it. There's that lovely dark musk, and then there's the strawberry leaf smelling squishy and round (rather than artificial, which is what strawberry does on me). The grapefruit gives it a bright, kind of humorous kick. Like that sexy red musk is laughing. I really like this. It's not too serious, but it has an element of power to it. I'll be adding this to my bottle list.

This is very floral to my nose, and that green fig sure is green. It's doing a very sweet powdery thing that I don't care for very much. Just... whew, too sweet. I'm not sure what's making it so sweet, usually only frankincense does that on me. This isn't going to work for me, but florals usually don't.

I agree with the previous reviewer that this is similar to Tamora and Katharina, although it's not as bold as Katharina on my skin. It has the subtleness of Tamora, but it's more complex. To my nose, the peach blossom is the prominent note, and it also smells a bit creamy. Not like cream, but soft and full like that. I can't really pick out any of the other floral notes -- I'm concentrating pretty hard but I can't smell any rose, lily, or wisteria. Very pretty blend. Will be great to wear in the spring.

When it was wet, I thought it smelled pink. Kind of like a sugary syrup. It smells like it would be sticky. As it's drying, it doesn't smell quite as sugary, but it's still very sweet. However it's not really a foody kind of sweet, more like dragon's blood sweet. It's really hard to describe... it smells soft, velvety, and very feminine. There's a slightly planty green undertone to it, but it's barely there. When I'm sniffing at it, it smells floral and pretty over the top, but when I inhale deeply, I can smell something daker underneath. Really well done. I like this a lot -- it's now one of my favorites in the Garden.

From the description, I didn't expect to smell any flowers in this, but that's what I smell when it's wet. Some kind of purple flower. I'm not very good at picking out floral notes, but it reminds me of lilacs. Chilly lilacs. As it's drying I think I can maybe sniff a tiny bit of vetiver in there, but I'm still not getting any smoke. When it's dry I don't smell the flowers nearly as much, but I can tell there's something in it making the whole scent vaguely sweet. Still no smoke. Hmm. I had been hoping for something chilly, dark, and kind of gritty. That's not what this smells like to me. I guess I'll try it again on another day.

Hmmm... evergreen trees for sure -- it smells cold, too. The fruit in it is making it a bit sweet and more complex than just a snow/forest scent. As it dries it doesn't smell quite so cold, but to me this is definitely a winter woodsy scent (rather than fall or spring). When it was wet I thought it smelled similar to last year's Snow Bunny, but when it's dry that cold snowy note isn't as prominent. Also the fruit comes out more when it's dry. Very pretty!

Right now I have Pulse Points on one wrist and Debauchery on the other, in order to compare the two. They seemed very similar to each other for the first half hour or so; in fact, I was thinking that Pulse Points smelled like Debauchery Lite. But then Pulse Points got a soapy scent to it, and I didn't like that very much. That lasted for about an hour or so. Also at one point it smelled a little bit like band-aids, but that was only for about 20 minutes. It's been a couple of hours now since I applied the oil, and right now it smells like a nice, gentle floral with a little bit of civet behind it giving it some depth. It's pretty, and I probably would have thought I liked it more if I hadn't done the side-by-side comparison. However, to my nose, Debauchery is the winner. ETA: I just read slave1's previous review and saw that she said the same thing about the soapiness and the band-aids. We must have similar skin chemistry.

OK, don't laugh at me for only commenting on the armpit part of your post. I haven't thought about this in a while, so it's thanks to you that I'm thinking of it at all. A guy I dated for a few years shaved not only his armpits but basically his entire body with an electric razor with the shortest possible guard. (He has no chest hair, so he didn't bother with his chest.) And what did he have on his head? Dreadlocks. Maybe he thought the rest of his hair just couldn't meet the standards his head was setting, so he got rid of all the rest of it. Who knows. It never bothered me at all; in fact I liked it. Except when his legs were all prickly.

This evening I was reading articles about clinical trials in the New England Journal of Medicine for a research paper I've been working on. After reading two of them, it suddenly dawned on me that this is the first time in my life I have understood enough about medicine, medical terminology, anatomy, and physiology to even have an idea of what they're talking about in those articles. In the past it's all been way over my head. Today, I got it. This has been a good day.