Tuesday, July 20, 2010

The Smelly Girl


I understand other people have pictures or visuals of some type in their head that correspond to memories, I however have smells. Out of the clear blue sky I will smell a smell that I have not smelled in years, and has no chance of belonging to anything in my area, but does belong exclusively to a person, place, or thing in my past. The thing I always remember most about people or places or things is their smell. For example I still remember vividly how my best friend from 7th grade smelled. Rebecca Willis, she smelled like a warm cotton blanket that just came out of the dryer. I even remember how friends and relatives who have passed away smelled, hows that for strange? When I have memories of them, I smell dead people...

Today in class I smelled Sysco brand cracked black pepper that has sat in a hot kitchen above a stove and has started to funkify, and I thought of my beloved family deli in Queens town Maryland. This place, was for all intensive purposes, hell on earth. Then I smelled Hebrew National brand kosher hot dogs and thought of my little Brian who I made work the hot dog cart all summer long, and I remembered how much he hated me for it.

Thankfully the next thing I smelled was not a memory of corned beef or evil stepsisters or hot dogs, it was the slight ammonia smell coming from my sweat soaked towel telling me I need to increase my carb intake.

People always ask me if Bikram smells bad from all the people sweating, and to be honest it is rather organic and wet smelling, like warm moist moss you would find in a cypress dome in August.

The main thing I think of is that the humidity in the room is made up in part by the sweat particles evaporating into the air from everyone around you, which means you are actually breathing in tiny pieces of everyone in class. That could be rather disturbing or endearing depending on how you think about it and the people in your immediate vicinity.

Today after three days since my last double, when I walked by the front door on my way into class and smelled the warm wet air wafting out of it, it smelled like heaven.

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