Day Eight: Three turn-ons.

[threeplusfire]

Day Eight: Three turn-ons.
What kind of turn on anyway? Things I love in movies, in books, at home, in the world? Or just the basic physical cranks? I tried to think about things that carried over into all aspects of my life. Maybe that is too boring. Maybe I should be writing about sex instead. But my heart wasn't really in that, so to speak, right now. So I tried to think of things that would excite me about living, people, things.



1. Words - Eloquence never stops exciting me. I fall in love a little every time I read a well crafted phrase or an elegantly structured piece. I love layers of pithy symbolism and sharp, succinct statements. I love metaphor and inference, sly nods to things we share. I love beautiful writing, in blogs or journalism or novels or essays or letter or anywhere.

2. Swimming - I don't trust water I can't see the bottom of in general. So I always feel a little uneasy in the lake and the idea of cruise ships kind of fills me with dread. I can't open my eyes underwater, no matter how hard I try. But I love swimming, especially in the burning summer. I love the cold water, bobbing along in defiance of gravity. I love the easy sense of movement, the weightlessness. I love stretching out on big limestone rock or a deck chair afterward, drying in the sun and feeling the world in shades of white and green and blue behind my eyes. Swimming is full of contrasts - solid ground and water, wet and dry, cold and hot. I find it uniquely, profoundly pleasurable.

3. Perfume - I have far more perfume than anyone person probably needs. It's all so varied though, because there times when I want to smell like gin and blueberries and times I want to spell like roses and tobacco and carnations, times I want to smell like cedar and vanilla, times I want to smell lie peppermints and limes. Every smell is a very specific story, a specific idea, a person, a moment. I'm chaotic that way. Some people have a specific scent and never change, which can be beautiful too. But I love the variety and richness of a box of possibilities. (The majority of my perfume comes from the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab.)


Day One: Ten things you want to say to ten different people right now.
Day Two: Nine things about yourself.
Day Three: Eight ways to win my heart.
Day Four: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.
Day Five: Six things you wish you’d never done.
Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever).
Day Seven: Four turn-offs.
Day Nine: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day Ten: One moment

Comments

[splix.livejournal.com]

I loved everything you wrote here. And I have never, ever bought a perfume without smelling it, but I just took the plunge and bought Cathedral, because I've been looking for a "church" scent forever, but the only ones that looked appealing were James Heeley's Cardinal and Etro's Messe de Minuit, and they're both way out of my price range. So I hope I like it, and thanks for the rec!

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Oh I'm so glad. I've worried this is even too narcissistic a habit for LJ. Haha.

The strangest, most wonderful thing about BPAL is that the scents smell just like these crazy descriptions. But of course, for buying something online, there's an enormous fan site of reviews. Plus if you end up hating it, you can always try to swap it our for something on the fan site or one of the LJ communities. The secondary market is quite active.

[splix.livejournal.com]

Oh, nifty. Thank you!

[the-brown-bunny.livejournal.com]

the descriptions of your perfumes are very sensuous... and makes me wish i had more money for lovely fragrances.

more often than not i rob my boyfriend's cologne. it's a habit i've had since i was fifteen. my mother's perfumes were always so over the top (opium, channel no 5, poison), so i opted for my step dad's more modern, somewhat unisex colognes (curve, CK1, cool water). to this day i have a preference for men's fragrances, but sometimes i will find a woman's fragrance i like.

i thought theirry mugler's angel and womanity were fantastic. but admittedly i don't have a very refined sense of smell. you seem to be very savvy in this area, probably picking out top notes and such ha ha ha ;)

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Everything I have learned about perfume has really come from reading about BPAL. (And really, I would not know nearly so much if they were not such an affordable vice.) I just have learned what I like pretty well through the forum and swapping.

I love CK1 because it reminds me of the mid nineties and smelling the strips in copies of Rolling Stone. That crisp smell mingled with paper is swoon worthy.

[the-brown-bunny.livejournal.com]

i love the words you use to frame collective memories. yes, i totally remember that. thanks for expressing that so sentimentally... you should be a magazine writer! i know it's a kind of compromising careers, writing to promote things and people, usually... but you'd be sooooo good at it!

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Journalism was my first real love, career wise. I decided not to pursue it for a number of reasons but I can't help thinking in that way sometimes.