Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Hi, Gene.

I recently had a cologne attack. A colognac attack, rather. Maybe you've experienced one. You're walking home from campus in a stupor, probably thinking about food of some kind or plotting an evil nano-robot scheme, when out of nowhere, a college-going man-child dashes by, leaving you in a cloud of confusion and putrid Aqua di Gio or whatever the hell he has marinated himself in overnight. This particular incidence was so severe I could taste the smell and actually started gagging.

Here are some tips for this guy and other poor saps:

1. Marinade is for chicken and other succulent meats. Not for people. Unless you are a cannibal and you think people meat makes a nice steak.

2. The amount of cologne you wear is not equal to the amount of girls who will immediately throw themselves on you like in those commercials. No one is going to take their clothes off because your cologne makes you an irresistible sex god. Check yourself-- can you even grow a good beard?

3. I would rather smell a consecutive stream of 25 elderly men bathed in Old Spice than taste the smell your pretty-boy brand of cologne that was all the rage with the spiky-haired kids in high school. Plus, grandpas are awesome and they tell me I'm pretty. You look down at me over your popped collar. You lose.

4. Spray once, put down the bottle. A little cologne isn't bad. It's very nice, actually. Here's a rule of thumb: If you can just
barely smell the cologne on yourself, that means everyone else can smell it quite well at a level that is unoffensive to the soul.

5. If it's me you're trying to impress (which it's not), you could easily squeak by with wearing some random aftershave you found in your underwear drawer. Wearing deodorant is a definite plus as well. But if it's me you're trying to impress, you would also have to be able to grow a beard and probably kinda dress like a lumberjack.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

C'est printemps!

I've recently taken up a fascination with people's trash. I'm not referring to the everyday, smelly garbage of banana peels and tampon wrappers, although that kind is very interesting and can reveal a whole lot of juicy stuff about a person, like that they use tampons or eat bananas. But right now, I am talking about trash in the sense of baggage. Extra stuff that people don't know what to do with. Stuff that sticks around because it doesn't know how to go away. Card tables and woodscraps, spare tires (either the metaphorical kind or the rubber kind), or emotional baggage left over from a bad break-up-- everyone seems to possess it. And every bit of it seems to tell a story.

Upon the first promising signs of winter thaw, I went on a walk and soon discovered how amazing trash seemed to me. The discarded. The residuals of life. The stuff people keep around because it's too difficult or painful to part with. But piled high in a disheveled heap eyesore, it seemed to have a melancholic artfulness to it, simply because I didn't know why it was there. Especially the bathtub that someone left out in their front yard by some towering scaffolding that hugged the side of the house. This sight made me think that perhaps these people are moving on and leaving the old behind-- spring cleaning, as it were.

I began thinking of my own spring cleaning. My own lingering baggage. The receipts, the endless laundry piles, the omnipresent dust specks that veil my room in a sheath of denial and forgetfulness. My mental pathways that have stirred negativity and spawned immaturity. My un-exercised body and the "love handles" that grace my small frame. Sure, it all tells a story, but it needs to go. It's spring, it's wonderful, and I've spent too long shrouded in winter, wrapped up the dirty gauze of my own self-pity. In my own covert, chilled little world, precious bits of life slipped by as I was sleeping.

I worry it is cliche to talk about "spring rejuvenation," but it's the first time it's ever made sense to me. I never saw spring cleaning as something symbolic. Now I see myself as its human embodiment. Now there's a mess in my living room and it's cleaning time.