Of Shoes, Bees, and Perfume

Hilarious!

I went out of town this past weekend to visit my friend Marni, author of the awesome Awkward and upcoming September release, Decked with Holly. I came home with four more pairs of shoes than I left with. I don't know what it is about shoes and vacations with me, but I think over half my shoes have been purchased on vacation. It's as if, upon arrival, I immediately deem all my thoughtfully packed footwear options loathsome, inappropriate, unworthy.

I often have some ridiculous excuse, too. "Oh, is it raining? I didn't realize it would be raining in the Olympic Peninsula!" "Oh, is there walking required? I appear to have only packed heels and dress shoes." It's not like these trips are a surprise to me; I'm the one planning them. I think I will have to chalk it up to some sort of weird subconscious need for a fun setting to buy shoes in. I was certainly happy dancing around in the store in a pair of peep-toe pumps on Saturday before I bought them.

By contrast, I rarely buy perfume on vacation. I've only done it once or twice. I don't know why that is. In theory, I like the idea of buying perfume on vacation. I like the idea of associating a beautiful scent with a particular place and time. But then, when the vacation arrives, I never find myself hankering for a perfume store.

I think it has to do with my impulse to tie scents to certain kinds of weather. Let's face it: what I think works in sunny L.A. in July is not going to be a "go to" scent for me nine to ten months a year in Portland. Based on that premise, I'm always hesitant to buy a whole bottle that will take me years to get through if I'm not sure it works in my ordinary life, and not just in my vacation life.

Speaking of vacations, seasons, and perfume, here's a fun thing that happened this sunny Spring weekend. I was covered in beeeeeeeees!

Spring flowers!
So pretty. So deadly...

Okay, that's not really accurate. I was neither covered, nor was it fun. I was in beautiful Ashland, Oregon, sitting on a bench, minding my own beeswax when I got stung. This is not a big deal for normal people, but I have an allergy to bees/wasps/yellowjackets/hornets that required a trip to the local ER even after I used my epipen Saturday evening.

The worst past of this scenario was that the bee, after stinging me, would not leave me alone. It flew into my hair and I had to get Marni to fish it out so I wouldn't get stung again. Then, on Sunday, I was basically chased into my car by a second bee. I've been trying to figure out what I did, because I was in and out of doors unmolested most of the time, then other moments were positively fraught with peril.

Marni kept blaming my shampoo (which admittedly includes a strong honey base), but I wasn't stung or chased immediately after I washed my hair. FN1. Upon further reflection, I realized both my sting on Saturday and my near miss on Sunday almost immediately followed the application of perfume. Yep. Saturday I sprayed on Hermés Un Jardin en Méditerranée right before I went outside and got stung. On Sunday, DSH Perfumes Spring Moss was the attractor. I put some on, then went to my car to look for my keys and ended up cowering inside the vehicle until the bee gave up and buzzed away. FN2.

Exciting ER times were had!

This is an exceptionally troubling realization for me, dear reader. My allergy has progressed to the point that I really can't risk things like camping or hiking in places where it would take more than 15 minutes for an ambulance to get to me or for me to reach an ER. And while death by bee sting is not exactly the way I'm hoping to go, I love my perfume too much to give it up.

This is complicated by the fact that bees seem weirdly attracted to me (I've been stung 8-10 times over the last 26 years, which is a ridiculously high amount) and the college has decided to install bee hives in the quad outside the building where I live. For serious.  They have attached two hives to the building, one by each entrance. while I've pointed out (loudly and repeatedly) that I feel this is a negligence suit waiting to happen, I take little comfort in the notion that David will be well-compensated when the college accidentally kills me with its urban bee population support efforts.

So what's a bee-allergy-ridden perfumista to do, dear reader? Give up my juice, at least until we move? Demand a plastic bubble for all future out of doors adventures? Become a vampire and hide indoors during daylight? FN3. I don't relish any of these ideas, but I like them more than dying. Also, I have to go to work which requires leaving my apartment, so I don't know what to do about the bees outside my building.

Maybe I need to research the kinds of scents that are repellent to, or at least do not attract, bees, and then try to find perfumes that strongly feature those notes? I don't know. This is going to take some creative perfumey thinking. However, I feel I am up to the challenge. If anyone has any suggestions, please comment below.

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FN1. Chased is an exaggeration. It feels like chasing. It's probably more like random bee meandering in my general direction, which makes my bee-related hypervigilance kick into high gear. I fear I have, at least temporarily, transferred said same hypervigilance to Marni.  Sorry, Marni.

FN2. The keys were later located in the trash, because all the medication from Saturday night still had me totally whacked out. 

FN3. This last option is particularly appealing to me for a number of reasons, but since I am already on a heavy daily dose of Vitamin D because of my lack of sunshine, it's probably not the best idea.

Lax.

I know. I'm a neglectful fool, slack and lazy with your attention and hearts. I have no real excuse other than pleading busy. In the last three weeks I've had work plus: a public debate on reproductive freedom against a priest and a professional anti-choicer; gave a two hour lecture on the history of American feminism and the internal conflicts it still faces; and an eighty-person surprise party for my lively husband yesterday, which was a complete success thanks in equal parts to my lovely friends who pitched in and my ability to sustain a series of increasingly complex cascading lies. Apparently these people whom I love and have spent most of my adult life with had no idea I could carry a lie (I suppose knowing little to nothing about being both an an alcoholic's enabler and a domestic violence victim from the moment of conception) and were both a little frightened and impressed.

One friend: Well, I guess you are a lawyer.
Me: Yep. I have a doctorate in lying. (laughs) Actually, I've always been a good liar. That's why I don't do it anymore.
Other friend: Because once you lie once, you have to keep lying.
Me: No. Because it's so easy. It's so much easier to tell people what they want to hear. Once you start doing it, it's hard to stop. The truth is harder. That's why I don't care if people think I'm kind of a pain in the ass. I'd rather tell people the hard truth than lie to them. It's just my way.
*crickets*
Me: More drinks?

I have no perfume reviews for you yet, sadly. I will tell you that I wore L'Artisan Vanilia to the party (it was a bright, airy, afternoon thing) and for evening cocktails switched to slumberhouse Rume.

And to keep you tided over until the next few days when I can give you some reviews, I'll offer this: If you are missing out on either Downton Abbey (first season on Hulu Plus and Netflix Streaming) of Smash (Hulu Plus), you're missing some pretty entertaining hour long drama.

Downtown Abbey trailer






Smash trailer





They are both great shows with interesting characters and dynamic scripts.  You should check them out.

Also, I need to announce the winner of the Hunger Games drawing.  Without further ado:

____________________________________

True Random Number Service
List Randomizer

There were 4 items in your list. Here they are in random order:

Beth
Solace
Ines
Monster
Timestamp: 2012-04-09 05:40:25 UTC

Congratulations Beth! Please email feminine(dot)things @ gmail(dot)com with your mailing info so I can send out your package.

Thanks all for hanging on while I run around like a chicken with my head cut off.  Later this week I'll have review for you, along with questions about long distance moving and road trip travel suggestions.

Some thoughts on "Post-Abortion Trauma"

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Saturday Mix: Idealized Into Powerlessness

Saturday Morning Musical Musings...


This Is What Makes Us Girls - Lana Del Rey





I can't find the album version anywhere I can post for you, but this is still a pretty awesome version of Lana Del Rey, "This Is What Makes Us Girls."

 I love this song for a bunch of reasons, but mostly because it reminds of this quote by Evelyn Cunningham: "Women are the only oppressed group in our society that lives in intimate association with their oppressors."

This is not to say that any one man in particular is the oppressor (though some are), so much as all of them are, to some degree, the unintentional (at at times entirely ignorant) beneficents of the things that are routinely taken as for granted as to be their purview, and to challenge that paradigm is to be at war. As women, our loving relationships with the boys and men in our lives, and even our fairy tale fed aspirations for that kind of life,  often separate us from other women  whom we come to see as taking from our coupled-units/the men we love, instead of seeing the shakes and quakes of change not as a threat to 'our' men, but rather a threat to the systematic dominance of women.

This is what makes us girls:
We all look for heaven and we put our love first.
Somethin' that we'd die for, it's our curse.
Don't cry about it; don't cry about it.
This is what makes us girls:
We don't stick together 'cause we put our love first.
Don't cry about him; don't cry about him.
It's all gonna happen.

If I Were a Boy -  Beyoncé Knowles





Released as the b-side for the hit single, "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)," "If I were a Boy," was written by BC Jean, and is the only song on I Am...Sasha Fierce that isn't written in any part by Beyoncé. The videos were released simultaneously.  Though very low production, the "Single Ladies" video became iconic.  The Video for "If I Were a Boy," fell by the wayside in the wake of the "Single Ladies" success, though Knowles acknowledges putting more time and money into the latter in interviews. I think the song/video is an incredible commentary, particularly visually, of the kinds of behaviors that seem normal for men but would seem off-putting and inappropriate for a woman.  It allows us to look at the behavior and see in a vacuum, that is inappropriate regardless of the sex/gender expression of the person in that role.


One Girl Revolution - Saving Jane

Yeah, I love this song. This video is a live-performance, which I find particularly powerful.

"Raise your hand if your lipstick

doesn't make you a dumb chick.

Raise your hand if the shape of your hips

Don't compare to the shape of your mind...

I'm here to start a one girl revolution.

I'm not a barbie doll, shopping mall, silicone substitution.

I thought I told ya: I'm a soldier

and I'm not leaving til the battle's over.

One girl revolution."

Stronger Woman - Jewel

This is from one of Jewel's later albums, but proves that even as a pseudo-country rocker, she still has interesting things to say. I like the imagery in this, the official video, (though I'll be the first to admit that the obvious effort to be multicultural may not land in the positive ways I think Jewel was hoping for) particularly the locks on the corset.

No Man's Woman - Sinead O'Connor

Older, but still totally appropriate and powerful.
"Women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness." -- Erica Jong.

Perfuming The Hunger Games: Scenty Thoughts and Drawing!

Thoughts, Perfumey and Not, on Suzanne Collin's The Hunger Games, Part 2

Part 2: Hunger Games Related Musings, Olfactory and Auditory

So, now that I've said all that about Katniss and YA and Feminism in Part 1, let's talk perfume, a little music, and giveaways, shall we?

I've been thinking about what sorts of scents I would associate with the characters, because if I try to imagine the perfumes that would actually appear in the word of The Hunger Games, all I can imagine is horrible, fake, overly sugary fruity florals scents coating the Capitol, like the worst collection of boring celebrity scents in history. Seriously -- can't you just see someone suggesting to Cinna that Katniss needed a celebrity scent of her own? She's be as offended by that as by the idea of a Katniss Barbie. FN1. FN2.

He smells like food....hmmmmm...

No, instead I'm focusing on scents I think capture some of the spirit of the characters and world. It is hard not to think of L'Artisan Bois Farine when you see fans wearing buttons that read, "I heart the Boy with the Bread." I also think of it when I think about the District 11 gift to Katniss during the games, which sadly did not make the film. FN3. My other option was the intensely sweet marshmallow of By Kilian Love because I always think of Peeta as kind of soft and sugary. I don't mean that in a bad way; softness is a rare and delightful find in any man, and particularly here in a romantic lead. Even if that softness is worn away somewhat by circumstances, it is wonderful to think of the Girl on Fire ending up with the boy who frosts the beautiful cakes for the bakery windows. He isn't even the stereotypical bad boy baker/chef. He's sweet, vulnerable.

As for the Girl on Fire, I skip directly to CB I Hate Perfumes Fire from Heaven, which I once described as possessing a kind of "holy fire" and is therefore connected with my notion of Katniss as a warrior-saint, the Joan of Arc figure Lawrence referenced. Other options I think of are Comme des Garcons x Artek and Crazy Libulelle Encens Mystic, a solid perfume that was once recommended to me by a reader that I have since enjoyed (and can still be found with a little hunting). FN4. I also sometimes think of DSH Perfumes Festive, but that reminds me more of the triumphant girl on fire than the one strapping herself to trees to sleep and running from fireball cannons.

It's possible that in seeing Katniss only as "The Girl on Fire," I'm playing into a media-centered stereotype, and in turn I miss Katniss in her complexity, Katniss the sister, the daughter, even the lover. The Katniss that exists after she finally lays down her arms, and begins to love. The Katniss who hopes. That girl I want to give something vulnerable, something still innocent. But maybe I'll save that for later.

As for Prim, I like to think she smells of the herbal tinctures and salves that she and her mother use to heal the injured brought to their door. Medicinal but general, a little floral sweet, not foodie sweet.  Pretty, but not beautiful.

I think of JoAnne Bassett's Enchant, though that seems a little to adult in some ways, as is Serge Lutens Borneo 1834 EDP, though that also has a sweet/medicinal/earthy quality I'd look for. What little we see of Primrose is so young and innocent in the first book, I want to put her in some sort of delicate rose scent, something young and sweet but possibly edgy, like Juliette Has a Gun Miss Charming?

Speaking of innocence, I have to give Rue a little love, mostly because this will be her only appearance. I love how clever she is, how every part of her life is used to her advantage.  She's a wonderful character, perhaps one of my favorite minor/side characters in all of YA.

For Rue, perhaps, something sweet, smart, acceptably youthful and light but...special. Maybe CB I Hate Perfume Wild Pansy or Borsari Violetta di Parma? I keep wanting to go floral with Rue...perhaps because of Katniss' impulse to honor her with wildflowers.

Generally, when I think of District 12, I cannot help but think it might smell like Olympic Orchid Perfumes Kingston Ferry, because it smells of woods and dampness and hard work to me, though wasn't exactly what Ellen Covey intended, I'd wager. FN5. I guess another way to go would be L'Artisan Al Oudh, which also reminds me of a walk in the woods, but on a dry sunny day...maybe the memory of an almost happy day Katniss spent with Gale hunting, the kind of memory she clings to during the Games?

Which brings me back to Gale. I don't know what to scent Gale as. Is there a scent that captures, in turn, angry, desperate, defiant, lost? I don't know. Maybe Esscentual Alchemy Lumberjack Man? Better to save him for later.

Interestingly, I found a perfumer who has been similarly inspired. SaraWenn Perfume Art popped up in my Hunger Games swag-related searches, and on sheer impulse I ordered some. There are three Hunger Games-inspired scents coming my way: Run Away With Me, Girl on Fire, and The Baker's Boy. And not just for me, dear reader. FOR YOU!

That's right. Once again, it's drawing time here at Feminine Things. Winner will receive a sample of several of the perfumes referenced above, plus a sample of SaraWenn Perfume Art's Girl on Fire, along with a Hunger Games bookmark, mix Cd of songs that remind me of Collin's stories, and yes, even a custom made hammered silver bracelet made by Serenity Storms that reads, May The Odds Be Ever In Your Favor.


Perfume! Music! Jewelry! What fan wouldn't want that kind of swag?

So come on: what scents do you associate with Katniss and her band of rebels?

POST A COMMENT ON EITHER PART 1 OR PART 2 OF THIS PIECE talking about Katniss, YA books in general, feminism, perfume, whathaveyou on or before 11:59pm PST on Friday April 6, 2012 to enter. Will ship internationally.

I will leave you now with this, an oldie but goodie, and a song I always associate with Peeta and Katniss.




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FN1. This comes on the heels of Lionsgate sending a cease and desist letter to Oxfam/HP Alliance for trying to use the series' popularity as a tool to fight actual hunger because, you know, Hunger is not a Game. And can I just say, thanks HPAlliance! "The Weapon We Have is Love!"



EDITOR'S NOTE:  It appears Lion's Gate has since changed their minds re: OxFam. ('Hunger Games:' Lionsgate relents in charity kerfuffle, LA Times Blog.)

FN2. And before you ask, yes Bella already has a Barbie. In fact, she has two: normal and bridal. Sigh.

FN3. This is what I wore to the release.

FN4. I really need to do a round-up post of solid scents, which I have some of enjoy, and never talk about.

FN5. Reading the books, I kept thinking of The Capitol as being pretty recognizably in the location of Denver and District 12 more like being in West Virginia. Did anyone else think that? I know they filmed in the Appalachia, so I guess Gary Ross did, too. I just wondered.