Blogging: Freebie Phobia

This blog is small. Tiny. Amateur. Part of its amateur nature is the fact that I don’t initiate relationships with perfume brands, and when a brand reaches out, I do a lousy (perhaps better phrased as “nonexistent”) job of maintaining that relationship. I am blogging as a normal consumer, when I’m not blogging as a chicken glutton.

Why am I raising this subject? Because I’m about to wear some samples that I did receive from a brand representative. For free. Two, maybe three, years ago, a nice person (See how I don’t remember the name? See how bad I am at these relationships?) from PureDistance offered me a bottle, and I declined but said that I’d be delighted to receive ordinary 1ml samples. Only after that did I realize that, oops, PureDistance’s “ordinary” samples are a pretty fancy production, costing a non-trivial bit of money. I felt so guilty that…I never reviewed them.

No, there is no semblance of logic there. But the history was in my thoughts as I was going through my “interesting samples I’ve never tried” drawer and ran across the fancy PureDistance samples. Which I will now sniff. And, if words come to mind, review. Now that they’re no longer new releases and nobody cares.

You see, again, why I am not a bigger blog? There are plenty of other reasons, including my frequent digressions on chicken skin and cucurbits, but this is part of it.

I don’t know why I’m not comfortable with a free-samples relationship for me, when my reaction to it for every other perfume blogger is, “Well, of course. How else could they possibly review all those perfumes without going bankrupt?”. Now, other perfume bloggers are free of Postal Regulation Phobia, which is why free bottles are just fine for them (because they can give them away again, the way they do) and not for me. But it doesn’t explain my issue with samples.

When I analyze all the details, I can only conclude that I trust those bloggers not to be influenced by freebies, while I don’t trust me. I think I should be offended at my opinion of myself.

Meanwhile, I’m debating the fifty dollars for a sample pack from Thorn & Bloom. Whee!

(Catcatcat picture.)

Image: By juanedc. Wikimedia Commons.

Perfume: Words and winter and stuff

So, I was going to sniff a perfume and write about it. I rummaged through the Largeish Decants drawer, sprayed on Vetiver Tonka, and waited for words to come.

Um.

"Medicinal."

That's all I've got.

This happens. The lack of words. Comes and goes. It may be part of the season change; it's hard to tell.

Now, Vetiver Tonka has never been one of my favorite perfumes. I don't adore it and I don't hate it. That could be part of the issue.

And I suspect that it's a late-winter perfume for me, rather than early winter. Right now, I'm craving oily, animalic, smokey perfumes. I seem to recall that as winter drags on into spring, I crave scents to sweep out and sanitize all that fur and sweat and smoke. So I'll return to Vetiver Tonka in, oh, March.

Meanwhile, what are the sweaty things that I'm seeking?

Caron Alpona has that smell of freshly-bathed cat, with oranges. Serge Lutens Fumerie Turque is lions prowling around the campfire. Robert Piguet Bandit, the modern version, is musky, if far too polite, rather like a tiger got an MBA and turned up in a double-breasted suit. Papillon Salome, now, that's a a fine batch of skankiness. Daim Blonde is  a very clean nest of white fur. I suspect that I'd like to bury myself in Aftelier Cepes & Tuberose, but the bottle is too tiny for truly enthusiastic drizzling. Oh, and the thought of Tom Ford Velvet Gardenia, and MCMC Kept are appealing.

Aside from the honey in Kept, I'm not, it seems craving the food fragrances. No syrup for me yet. Not even any tea; the thought of Tea for Two does nothing for me. When I check blog posts from previous years, this appears to be off kilter; a few years ago, I was enthusing about Ayala Moriel Guilt.

Hmm.

Image: By Tomitheos. Wikimedia Commons.

NaNoWriMo: Again the confusion

Day two and strategy three for NaNoWriMo: I went back to fiction. Whee!

3,566 words.

And, cat picture.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

NaNoWriMo: Starting

So, I started NaNoWriMo. Not a novel; I'm working on that unnamed nonfiction idea that I had a while ago. I got 1725 words in, or fifty-eight above quota. But it's not going to work. Not for NaNoWriMo, that is. The book is intended to be a series of essays, and I failed to consider the amount of mental fermentation they would require.

So I think that the goal of this year's NaNoWriMo is going to be: Write 1667 words, on a single topic,  one that isn't directly dependent on the context of my blog, every day. On whatever. An essay today. A really long perfume review tomorrow. That sort of thing.  Just use it to form a writing habit.

Maybe.

We'll see.

Meanwhile, cat picture!

Image: By nsleep6. Wikimedia Commons

Writing: A WriteOrDie NaNoWriMo?

I type 110 words per minute. Last time I tested.

That means that if you abandon things like, say, thought, I could do NaNoWriMo in 15.15 minutes per day.

Hmm.

There's a tool called WriteOrDie--application version and website version--that stimulates you to keep typing at top speed, and tortures you if you don't.

I could add a very, very small ration of thought and do NaNoWriMo in thirty minutes a day inside WriteOrDie.

It's essentially a stunt, but, somehow, I'm kind of liking the idea. I'm not sure if I have time for NaNoWriMo otherwise, and sometimes when I'm typing at full tilt, interesting things come out.

Hmmm.

Hmmm.

Of course, it's late. And I've had three caffeinated beverages and several pieces of early Halloween chocolate. Sanity may return tomorrow.

Writing: NaNoWriMo or no NaNoWriMo?

Can't decide.

I could work on the novel that just got darker. I've already started on it, but I'm usually a NaNoWriMo rebel anyway.

I could do the "NaNoBlogMo" thing where I try to blog fifty thousand words. Not fiction. Babbling.

I could just ignore the whole thing.

I could just set some other goal, like writing or blogging every day, but not the 1667 words that NaNoWriMo calls for.

It occurs to me that the purpose of NaNoWriMo--at least as I interpret it--is to encourage one to write willy-nilly, without worrying about any discipline other than pumping those words out. It's a goal that I approve of, for those who are inclined to perfectionism and won't call a piece of writing finished until it's polished to a high gloss.

That is not my problem.

So I could reverse the whole thing and try to force myself to write something coherent and somewhat polished, every day for a month. Not long and coherent and polished; there's a limit to the madness here. But something that isn't diary-like and isn't dependent on the context of the blog. My history with Girl Scout Thin Mints one day, thoughts about Kamandi, The Last Boy On Earth the next, that kind of thing.

The odds of that happening are low. But I kind of like it.  It could be a plan for a very ambitious NaNoWriMo Rebel whatsit next year, if I pre-planned thirty topics. But I don't see it happening this year.

See, the above is only 240 words. Can I really write seven times that much every day for a month? It feels iffy.

I could just write free-association fiction:

Janet collapsed on the beanbag chair and stared up at the ceiling. Acoustic tiles. She started to count them, first across, then down, but lost track twice. How was that possible, after only two glasses of wine? Maybe they... ah. The doorbell. 

"Chinese food is here!" she shouted. " Can you get the door? I've fallen in the beanbag and I can't get up."

But, see, there I'm stalled. And it's just 61 words.

Can't decide.

Image: By Extraordinary. Wikimedia Commons.

Rambling: Sunday Randomness

No, the picture has no significance whatsoever.

I still don't understand Twitter.

I fried two kinds of chicken. Actually, three. (Italian breadcrumb chicken fingers, panko crumb chicken fingers, and wings.)

I'm averting my eyes from the work week.

I may be catching a cold.

I'm watching Wonderfalls. It's a really good TV series. Sad that it didn't last longer.

The novel that I'm threatening to write just got darker, a decision that un-stalls several things but moves it away from the cookies-and-balloons novel, with friendly mild conflict between well-meaning people, that I was imagining. It's not as if I'm a cookies-and-balloons writer anyway, though.

I just bought several yards of toweling (the kind for nice dishtowels, not terrycloth) to make napkins, an apron, and some harvest bags.

I should fold some laundry. But I don't wanna.

I also made cookies. This is not the healthy nutrition weekend.

The current Wonderfalls episode is talking about cheese. You'd think I couldn't get hungry any more today.

Well, cheese and the Devil. Not directly linked or anything.

Y'know, I really should like Twitter.  It's short-format, immediate-feedback writing, and I used to like that in online roleplaying games.

The second picture has no significance either. I'm just adding free-association photos to the free-association babbling.

The third one looks like he thinks he's significant, right? Those bug eyes and all.

We were going to go harvest the pumpkins from the farm this weekend. It didn't happen. Maybe tomorrow.

I did harvest the melons. The ones we grew on the Farm. They're occupying an entire refrigerator shelf. I should eat them. Or give them away. Or reject them. The first one we ate was merely adequate.

I should plant the shallots. That was supposed to happen this weekend, too. Also the garlic. My garden plans are behind, because my knee got angry. I'm not quite sure what I did to it, but I think it was that Saturday when I tried really hard to get a shovel into really hard soil. It's getting better now. And the rain is coming soon.

Bug-eyed cat looks doubtful about something, doesn't he?

That might be all.

First Image: Wikimedia Commons
Second Image: By Pluton76. Wikimedia Commons
Third Image: By Julia Volks. Wikimedia Commons.

Neighborhood Sample Pass: The Sequel: Round One: Two Faces of Serge Lutens: Chergui and Bas de Soie

A lot of colons in that title there.

So if you're a regular reader of my blog, you may be saying, "What sequel? I've never heard of this Neighorhood Sample Pass thing." If you're a participant in the previous Neighborhood Sample Pass, you may be saying, "Blog? What's this blog thing? Are you going to try to make me click on ads and buy a vegetable chopper?"

If you're both, hopefully you'll be un-confused instead of doubly confused.

No ads. No vegetable chopper. I just figured, I write for the sample pass,  I write for the blog, why not combine them?

Clash of worlds! Aiieee!

Ahem. OK.

Background:

In 2012/2013, I organized the original Neighborhood Sample Pass. I made up ten(?) little baggies of fragrance samples and decants, each with a theme, and gave each one to a friend in my neighborhood. (My often-discussed Postal Regulation Phobia ruled out including friends not in my neighborhood.) Said friends sniffed for a couple of weeks, then passed their baggie on to the next person in the rotation, until the baggies had made it all the way around, and the first pass was ended and I announced my plans to start a new pass.

Time passed. And passed. And passed some more. And suddenly I want to do it again.

This time I'm doing it as a sort of "perfumes of the month club". (But I'm sticking to the original name anyway.) This time I'll choose two or three or four perfumes and make up sample-sized decants for all participants, so that we can all talk about the same perfumes at the same time. This involves far less bookkeeping, and is nicely flexible.

First round! Bwahaha! Only two scents, because I'm temporarily short on decant bottles.

The Perfumes: 

Serge Lutens is both a man and a Paris perfume house. In my mind, the house balances on the line between niche and mainstream. Many of the fragrances have the delightful strangeness of niche creations, and when one of them is not strange, that fact often results in criticism from the online perfume wearing community. But the line is fairly frequently sold at department stores, which makes it feel not so much niche to me.

Now Smell This classifies Serge Lutens as niche, and I don't argue with Now Smell This on matters of definition. Or much of anything else. You can read their background for the house here. They also have a page (here) on Christopher Sheldrake, the nose behind many (most? all?) of the Serge Lutens fragrances.

Marla, in Perfume-Smellin' Things, asked "So do you like the warm, North-African amberfest Serge Lutens, or do you prefer his cold, austere, Northern European perfumes?" Inspired by the question, I've offered one of each.

My first choice, Chergui, is classic Serge Lutens. To me, it's pipe smoke, honey, leather chairs, and musty house. It's complex, spicy, syrupy, very popular, and moderately strange. And Lutens is supposed to be strange.

I discussed it here, and then went into the old-house vibe that it gives me, here. It's also discussed at (links! links!) Bois de Jasmin and Perfume-Smellin' Things and Perfume-Smellin' Things again and The Non-Blonde and Parfume da Rosa Negra (scroll down for the English version) and Perfume Patter and Now Smell This and Kafkaesque Blog and Olfactoria's Travels and Australian Perfume Junkies and The Fragrant Foodie and EauMG (video!).

The second fragrance, Bas de Soie (translation from the French: "silk stockings") is far less strange. It's a floral, primarily iris root and hyacinth, and it's pretty. Normally, pretty does little for me, but this one... When I first sniffed it, I classified it as one of the house's "well, they have to produce something conventional if they want to pay the bills" scents. Meh. And then, the very same day, it dragged me back; I couldn't say why, but I had to have it. And it keeps doing that to me; sometimes I shrug, and sometimes I want to dive into my own scented skin and I wear it for days on end.

My main, enthusiastic but short, post on this fragrance is here. For more detail, try (more links!) The Scented Salamander and Grain de Musc and Bois de Jasmin and Perfume Posse and Cafleurebon and Perfume Shrine and Perfume-Smellin' Things and MakeupAlley and Now Smell This and The Fragrant Foodie (scroll down) and I Smell Therefore I Am and The Non-Blonde and Megan in Sante Maxime and Olfactoria's Travels and EauMG.

First image: Wikimedia Commons.
Second image: Wikimedia Commons.
Third image: Wikimedia Commons.

Wordless...Monday? Mary Tyler Moore

We're watching the special.

(Yes, six days late.)

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Rambling: Bits and Thoughts

Write. Write write. Write.

What about?

I'm debating whether to do NaNoWriMo this year.

The tomatoes are still tomatoeing. When I said that they were petering out, I was wrong.

We have a dozen pumpkins. A nice even dozen. Unless a little one's hiding under the leaves.

The seed garlic and seed shallots got here. Gray French shallots. The ones that I faintly remember are/were/will be removed from Hortus Fourth? Or did I make that up?

I'm reading three books simultaneously. How to Fly a Horse: The Secret of Creation, Invention and Discovery by Kevin Ashton, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz, and Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Make a Difference by William MacAskill. And I read Felicia Day's You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost). I suspect that if I dug in the book stacks, I'd find more books in work.

We saw The Martian. Pretty good. A movie with science and no obvious "Seriously?!" errors. I didn't know it was a book. Heh.

This is not the most engaging blog post I've ever written.

I'm just saying.

And, worse, I didn't actually write it today. On Sunday, that is. I wrote most of it several days ago, didn't like it, left it to get stale, and came back today.

I do that a lot. I checked, and I have ninety-nine "draft" posts in this blog's queue, and another nineteen in Rambling Chicken's queue. Remember Rambling Chicken? I sometimes wonder if it would have been better to merge my blogging over there, instead of here. Rambling Chicken is a slightly less whacky name than ChickenFreak's Obsessions. I keep wanting a less weird name. Or a more cleverly weird name. Or something.

I'm looking through the draft posts. One consisted, in its entirety, of two sentences:

"Yesterday I fried chicken. Today I wore Cristalle."

You'd know that was me even if it were unlabeled, right?

OK. That is all.