Winter Blues

By Tom It's the "fag end" of winter as Lee puts it, and as much as I would like to review something new and pithy, I can't bring myself to, really. I know it seems churlish at best to complain about our winter when parts of the rest of the country are digging out from snow or dodging tornadoes; I know it's petty and silly to complain that we've had another day of showers and haven't seen sun for two weeks, or that the temps are firmly in the forties. But invariably at this time of year I start to feel deep ennui; I want to take to my bed with a couple of books for about a week. I want to watch Netflix and eat stinky cheeses and get weepy watching "Now, Voyager" and in general be really, really self indulgent. That Pansy, how does he remain single? In any case, this mild case of seasonal affective disorder cannot in real life be taken care of by hiding in my apartment, taking frequent bubble bath and plotting how to finance my first face-lift, I need to work. I need to go to my office and answer questions and make sure the freelances get paid and the billing gets uploaded into the system, the everyday stuff that actually pays the rent and keeps me semi-welcome at ScentBar. So, I have been wearing the most comforting scents I can manage to the drab, fluorescent-lit soulless 70's joint I toil in. The olfactory equivalent of jammies with feet. Sables is one that I've been dipping into lately, in this drab grey wet weather for some reason it's dried out and rather than being syrupy-sweet is warm and woody, with just a touch of that maple-cured goodness. I am glad that I am finding it that way, because I've worn it enough that my duvet might per permanently imbued with it. Miller Harris L'Air de Rein is another. Colombina described it as "existing in an attractive and strange world of a wistful and vivid dream". While some think of this as being as forbidding as a bowl of musk-soaked razor blades I find it wonderful; suddenly those drab rainy days have been graced by the air of old tweed, leather-bound books and tea with a drop of peaty scotch. But the one that I have deeply dipping into is thanks to Patty: Lostmarc'h Lann-ael. This is an odd scent, it really does smell like Froot Loops. Well, it smells like what I remember Froot Loops smelled like. I certainly haven't actually tasted any cereal that didn't guarantee to build strong bones and teeth while whisk-brooming my digestive tract in the past two-hundred years. I read her review and happily found that a sample of this had magically migrated to the top of my sample pile; its milky sweetness has been keeping me as happy as a nursery. The weather outside is frightful, fifty is no longer a vicious rumor, and well, the rest is boring. I've ordered a large decant of this for to help me through the rest of the "fag end".. Anyone know where I can get jammies with feet that will have a 34 inch inseam and size 10 footies? Oh, and bitchy Oscar aside: did John Travolta color his hair in with a sharpie?