MADE FOR YOU AND ME 2: hive Being (Stanzas 2017--part 92)
scent of the day: Oud Sultani Surira, by Ensar Oud
Sour tart earthy vanilla with a whole lot of salt—almost like salt made into a resin. This has that Pink Papua marine vibe but much more in an ocean water turned resin way than an ocean water still liquid and full of florals. like a companion of Pink Papua. purple coral scent in blue water but with a leathery castoreum base—and even a cypriol-like facet tgat lasts through the whole life of scent—lacking in pink papua. surira gets a sort of arctic air, subtle mint too—also not present in papua.
The malaysian oud here, I believe, is from the peninsular side (west malaysia that share border with thailand to north) and not the east (which is in the northern part of Borneo island), which tends to be more salty mineralic. Orris mineralics are commoin to both peninsular and non-peninsular Malaysian ouds—that is, the West (thai side) Malaysian and the East (borneo side) Malaysian. I do get that here definitely. But I get more of the peninsular side vibes: leathery metal (like a clean castoreum) and humid mineralics—smoother than Hindi, less honeyed than Cambodian, and—with the resin-rich mugginess I get here (reminiscent of a Terengganu, an oud fromn this peninsular rergion)—definitely denser than Borneo.
Sri Lankan oud is used here too. And that explains the yuzu-meets-vetiver impression precisely while also, given that Sri Lankan get briny as well (almost like a lemon-herb-tea twist on a blue oceanic), explaining—when combined with the pestled-orris-and-ambergris impression of the Malaysian—the super salt quality of the whole and the unexpected resemblance to Pink Papua—only more the rainsoaked bark of a jungle than the lily pad in a salt-water zoo pond, which in itself is hair-splitting. But what seems to make thwe difference, and one will especially notice this as this scent ages (many say this is one of the few Ensars that age badly, becoming a vanilla-spikenard drone with less development from teah like elegance in the beginign), is the musky-mossy influence of spikenard that synergizes with the peninsular Malaysian to heighten the impression of wet bark that has not yet began to rot but for some strange reason—and here is the influence of the orris—has a brown purple hue.
MADE FOR YOU AND ME 2: hive Being (Stanzas 2017—part 92)
ashram Wi-Fi
the blind feeling out messages in unplanned bumps
equatorial tanning salons
sea-salt beards
waiting for the I-changed-my-mind call
male benevolence as the only assurance of a woman’s wellbeing before the gun is a lie
to become enraged at the man who killed your child is to let him wound you twice—unless, of course, rage dips deep enough into analgesic eros to be worth any time
the one in whom you wanted—you needed— to confide about your pain from the divorce was the very one from whom you divorced
the task persisting in the face of certain defeat, that is the story of everything—everything but the eternal core of the self-sprung wellspring
going into an experience thinking you already know what it is to have it—the tragic gift of teachers, coaches— means being blocked from having it only in one sense
a plastic bag caught in a cactus, unable to do its wind dance
ethnic restrictions in an open marriage
desperate for the world to be better once you create a child
despair over so much time wasted on religion is a sunk-cost pull to come back
youths yelling on the subway, itching to rage out were we to say “Quiet down”
African cab drivers not wanting to pick up African American customers
failing to profile by race or gender, or by power of locution or whatever, is a slander to the Holy Ghost that gifted us wisdom since we were ocean critters, but it is also a slander to remain closed to exceptions to the rule or to the call to revise the rule
how do you not feel scared when experience— the boots on the ground of Locke, of Hume— has trained you to think they are dangerous?
what you know to be just a gorgeous robot will still unbalance you with adrenaline even better than jump scares in a horror film
rather than planning out how to act, circling what-ifs, trust that you will handle the situation— terrible advice for the antipode of the worrywart
falling for your own pillow talk—meant to make the asymmetry lean the other way
fancy words put reality at a distance, but the richness of reality deserves being approached from all perspectives
dwelling on what will happen next helps us prepare and ultimately keeps us hooked
to life, but it takes us out of the moment—well, since we are always in the moment,
better to say “out of the sanctioned moment”—and opens us to anxieties as well
depression is a con-artist: it cons us into normalizing three naps and makes us ashamed to admit having been its victim
tester shots of Fentanyl to see if this batch will result in wooden chest
stuck for life in what you are so good at
the game of sitting at the feet of a guru wrapped in a blanket
your own child killed in the school massacre do you step up as that neighbor parent for survivors, or do you avoid eyes with them?
that greenlight question: what does it matter to throw away a mere day of sobriety?
squeamish about tapping phones and going into war at least while the responsibility for protecting the members of your country do not fall on you
feeling invulnerable to cheating on your spouse makes you think deep friendships pose no threat, enabling that subtle slide to an emotional affair
burpees in solitary
digging out the pockets of alley life
too wasted by substances or life
to be responsive to your kicks
towns from the past constructed— payphones, vintage Firebirds— for those stuck in that decade
hypnotizing yourself to believe the lie
mere safety regarded as happiness among immigrants
the chemicals we must add to us to be who we are
having capitalized on a calamity does not mean having planned it
underwear toe-flicked into the hamper with pride
survival competitions among robots
professional humiliators hired by the high powered
cry bullies enabled on campus
hearing “Mommy, what’s that?” when the that is you
is it more the overgrown weeds or the one buried below them that calls you to the cemetery?
