Until You Walk a Mile in Another Man's Moccasins You Can't Imagine the Smell

I know, I've been lagging in my posts lately. That's because I'm glued to this computer 24/7 and not in a good way, i.e. to blog, comment and/or check the myriad of crap celebrity gossip sites I have to visit in one day just to attain that right level of smugness about Moi's own life.

And when I'm not working, I'm reading. Specifically, this:


Those who know me well know I am totally scent-obsessed. It started when I was a little girl. Because I had a habit of constantly wandering off on my own, when out and about my mother kept me near to her at all times by holding tight to my hand. A move that put me right in line with her own hand and wrist. (And by the way, helped my mother to develop some freakishly ambidextrous skills).

But other than keeping me safe, my mother's grip also introduced me to something else: her perfume. For years, she doused herself each morning with Ma Griffe, and for years I associated that smell with my mother. In fact, it would be a long time before I realized that her smell actually came from a bottle and not, as I'd assumed, out of the pores of her own skin. Which meant I could smell that way, too. Only I wasn't allowed. Perfume, she said, was not for little girls. To this day, I cannot smell Ma Griffe without being instantly reminded of my mother. Sometimes, if I'm really missing her, I'll drop by our city's local perfume shop and have the sales assistant spritz me some Ma Griffe on a scent card.

I'm sure you all have had similar experiences. Because, male or female, scent is one of our most powerful senses. And yet, our most profoundly mysterious. I never realized how much until I started reading The Emperor of Scent, which is, in a nutshell, the story of a man who tries to come up with the first scientific explanation for how and why we smell. Seriously. No one's ever been able to do it before. It's our greatest molecular biology mystery.

So, if you do nothing else within the next couple weeks, expand your brain by going to the library and reading the first chapter of this book. I don't know about you, but I love being reminded on a daily basis what complex, freakish organisms we human beings really are.

That's all. Go. Read. I'll be back.