trickles down your mouth into your hand

last night i dreamt that i was backstage at a really huge interpol concert—stadium, red rocks situation. people laid out picnic blankets on a hill. the openers were FEWS and the solo frontman of some other post-punk adjacent band; for some reason i rememeber this as mark lanegan although i'm sure it couldn't have been. well, maybe, i don't know, he doesn't have a lot going on lately. those are some weirdly realistic & specific opener choices that my brain came up with...

anyway, this dream contained two recurring, common themes: [1] the appearance of male celebrities i "admire" or at least hold in some kind of hostile reverence (i.e. i dream a lot about seth meyers and i don't like him), and when i meet them they are condescending, smiling politely at me but very coldly and haughtily and with some level of amusement and removal, which is basically how most celebrities would act in real life—however while i've met seth meyers a dozen times and he did act like he does in my dreams, i'm actually sure paul banks would probably be a lot more polite and garrulous. he seems generally chill in interviews & on social media although his lyrics seem to indicate something in his psyche i don't like. it's probably all the rape he talks about. also, i think those aviators he wears all the time are imbued with symbolic dream meaning. anyway, back to the two common dream themes, [2] i am going to be 10-30 minutes late to an interpol concert and i'm so stressed about potentially missing "obstacle 1" that i wake up. i've had that dream a few times. the reason i'm late is usually my own fault, which stresses me out even more. 10-30 minutes is a lot when you're talking about a concert setlist.

some other recurring themes:
* i'm dead and i can't tell anyone that i'm dead, if i try to write it down on paper it registers as chicken scratch or say it out loud the words turn into bubbles, etc
* i'm back in atlanta on a weekend trip and i'm trying to cram as much into the few days i'm home as possible because i'm homesick to death all the time
* JKBC used to show up in my dreams although he hasn't in a while. he's a lot more affable than the male celebrities who are condescending towards me although that's maybe because he's been nice to me when we've interacted or because i don't know if you can really count him as a celebrity.

i don't know why they're always male or if the condescension has to do with their being male, but i guess i don't really dream about female celebrities because i haven't fixated on any the same way. i will try to dream about hunter schafer and report back to you. it would be nice to dream about hunter schafer.

if i can think of any more themes, i'll append them to my next entry.

i should be working on my thesis instead of writing this. anyway...

1. very good girl by carolina herrera
i don't like that this is my favorite fragrance. i actively feel bad about it! the packaging, the marketing, the atrocious name—very good girl? you don't get to call me that, you don't even know me... but to be completely honest, if you cut me open this is what my blood would smell like. lychee! redcurrant! rose! i am made of these things! this is human catnip! bacchus would release this scent on the wind to lure me into the woods, from which i would never emerge!

2. unknown pleasures by kerosene
kerosene always smells kind of scary. i don't like that people call this "cozy" because it's nothing like other indie gourmands, which truly are cozy and complex and mouth-wateringly delicious (haus of gloi's vice, death and floral's the soft crunch of bread and bone, alkemia's silken tent...) but unknown pleasures carries its namesake album's darkness, all smoke and animal meat. or maybe i need to get my nose checked out. also this smells like bar italia.

3. baccarat rouge 540 by maison francis kurkdijian
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, it really is that good and kurkdijian is a genius, sorry, sorry, it doesn't even smell like "things," i get on a logical level that this is saffron and jasmine and ambergris or whatever, but this smells like the concept of sweetness, the cleanest, purest, most immaterial smell. this smells like light—a ribbon tied around your wrist.

4. debaser by d.s. & durga
i admire d.s. & durga but find they're mostly hit-or-miss, too watery or too thin. debaser is an accidental masterpiece. like, the best fresh scent i've ever smelled in my life. so bracing and so wild. philosykos could never...

5. eau capitale by diptyque
speaking of diptyque... ahh, this is my most mature fragrance and the grown-up present i'll buy myself at my first job. i didn't understand the appeal of chypres until i smelled this. i didn't even want to give it a chance until the diptyque salesman forced me to take the sample, and then i started wearing it and folded immediately. sour and beautiful.

6. not another cherry by fine'ry
my spark fragrance. the fragrance that got me into fragrances. devastatingly cheap, available at any target, and an intoxicating cherry/amaretto. i used to come home from my publishing internship and spray myself eighteen times over because no one would smell me all night anyway.

7. summer of 84 by kerosene
mouth-watering—smells like nighttime. like biting into an orange on a nightswept lawn while fireworks go over your head. this is possibly the most "delicious" fragrance i've ever smelled.

8. sweetly known by kerosene
what in the whole world is better than smelling like a burning match and burning sugar when you go out on the town? so perfectly "nighttime." see what i mean about kerosene?

9. chloé by chloé
it's a little boring—too direct, too linear?—but it's just a delicious, perfect lychee. my friend from florida gave me a free full bottle of this. i feel so luxurious and girly, and clean.

10. 500 years by etat libre d'orange
really, really delicious cocoa scent but without a "gourmand" feeling. i think i'm anosmic to the rose because all i get is a complex cocoa powder smell. in a few years i might treat myself to a bottle because i'd love to smell like this to other people.

all in all, the fragrances that i feel capture my "essence" the best are eau capitale, sweetly known, and 500 years, and—not on this list—rose atlantic by d.s. &d durga. basically, i like something fruity or sweet but with a twist. and i like rose!!! okay, goodbye.