smell

My Deodorant Has a Smell!

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OMG OMG OMG.

This morning, I weighed myself, and was down three pounds from last week. But that's not the amazing part of the morning! It did, however, take the edge off the blue that's been surrounding me for the last week, which is nice.

After weighing myself, I jumped into the shower, and realized, as the water hit my hair, UGH, my hair smells of barbecue smoke. It was from last Friday's lunch, when I went to St. John's with wet hair, so I'm unsurprised, but wow was the smell overwhelming. So, I squeezed a good sized dollop of shampoo into my hand and started washing my hair, the shampoo smelling very shampooy and soapy. And then it hit me.

I CAN SMELL.

MY NOSE IS REGISTERING SCENTS!

OMG OMG OMG.

The smell of apple

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Years ago, I lost my sense of smell, later regained it, then lost it again. I hadn't been able to smell much of anything or taste anything, much less anything amazing, for a couple years now.

I say "hadn't" because last week, I realized my sense of smell was back. I was excited to be able to smell something, anything, and everything I ate was the Best. I. Ever. Had. Chocolate, which was nominally unappealing because I was sick, was incredible, even the crappy stuff.

Sure, there were downsides (hello, kid poop!), but, wow, being able to smell, yeah. It's something no one really appreciates until they can't smell any longer. I often wonder how bland food is for smokers, who typically have a diminished sense of smell. Their sensory experiences must be boring.

Given that my sense of smell returned when I was in Canada (in particular, away from my house and the dogs), I now wonder if the loss of my sense of smell is the result of a low-grade allergic reaction to the dogs. The timing fits. The reaction somewhat fits.

With my sense of smell back, though, a whole load of memories have begun returning as I catch the scent of things remembered. I pulled an apple off the tree today to eat. As I lifted it to my nose, I was overwhelmed with the smell of apple, and the memories of my grandparents backyard, of eating apples dipped in sugar at their kitchen table, of walking with my grandfather, of picking apples off the ground and tossing them into apple bucket.

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Another set of good memories returned with the sense of smell. I'm tempted to stick my nose in all my flowers and all my clothes and all my plants.

That shirt

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A few weeks ago, I regained much of my sense of smell. It came back suddenly, and I am quite pleased with its return.

I noticed the return on a Saturday, when Kris and I were working outside. It seems like we're always working outside on weekends now, trying to catch up with the weeds, maybe actually conquer them. Maybe with a small army, we'll actually succeed. Maybe.

That day, I noticed the smell of the citrus flowers. Those flowers were the most pleasant, most wonderful flowers I think I have ever smelled.

That evening, with Kris asleep as I crawled into bed, I snuggled close to him, buried my nose into his neck and inhaled deeply. The smell of Kris is the most wonderful, most incredible smell ever. Ever. It's the one smell I desperately missed when I lost that sense. I was thrilled to have it back, and fell asleep holding him close.

A week or so ago, a teammate loaned me a shirt after practice. He had worn the shirt at practice, so it, too smelled. Since I used it at the end of practice, I brought it home to wash. It surfaced Mt. Laundry tonight, so into the washing machine it went. When I took it out of the dryer to fold clothes, I brought the shirt up to my nose, mostly out of curiosity: had I washed the shirt well?

Well, it didn't smell clean.

Instead, it smelled like a man who successfully competed in an athletic endeavour. It smelled of sweat, and effort, and success, and, well, let's just say, if I weren't with Kris, I know who I'd be trying to have sex with tonight.

Reason #128 of why a sense of smell is a good thing

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Today, for dinner, I popped something into the oven to heat up. I didn't think much about it after that point, and went off to work on some website or email or post or something that involved sitting in front of my computer, wiggling my fingers and making magic happen.

After a while, I had the sense something wasn't quite right. Tapping gently into the outside of my awareness, I heard an odd sound in the house I couldn't place. Both dogs were asleep on the couch, so they weren't the source of the noise. Neither of them perked up at the noise, so the source was unlikely an intruder.

Was the sound from the kitchen?

Puzzled, I walked back into the kitchen, and looked into the oven. My meal was heating up, but there was an odd, highly metallic smell blasting from the oven.

I opened up the door, and glanced at the melting thermometer on one of the oven racks. The cookie sheet was warped into bands of screaming aluminum, twisted into death throes as the paper around my meal was smoking.

The thermometer read 525°. I had set the oven for 350°

I quickly pulled everything out of the oven, turned the dial to off and left the door open, hoping it would cool into something other than a giant slag of metal.

Great, just what we don't need: another big expense. Time to go oven shopping. Maybe Megan wants to take me with her the next time she goes shopping for her new kitchen.

Clearly a good sense of smell would have triggered a quicker reaction. Trips to the steel mills of Gary have embedded that intensely metallic smell into my memories as HOT HOT HOT DANGER HOT!

Regaining my sense of smell

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So, yeah, I lost my sense of smell a couple years ago. Before the loss, I had a very good sense of smell: I could smell Kris' morning coffee on him at bedtime; I could often smell what he had for lunch in the evening, too. The smell of Kris was (is) one of the most wonderful smells in all of the world.

Turns out, I didn't complete lose my sense of smell. Instead, I lost my sense of smell for good things. I could still smell crap: the dogs' crap, their stinky butts, the offensive woman at OSCON, the dog poop at the park, the old lady at the bank. Yeah, the bad stuff, but not the good stuff.

I mentioned that I had lost my sense of smell to my naturopath, who had suggested a natural remedy for sinus problems: essentially penicillum shot up the nose. Nearly desperate to try anything, I used the homeopathic solution, to good success.

For about a week.

And then my sense of smell started disappearing again. The root cause wasn't solved, so it was just a matter of time before it disappeared again.

A couple weeks ago, when I mentioned my lack of smell to Heather, she commented that I really should look into the problem. Head trauma and stroke, as well as other underlying physical causes much worse than dog allergies can cause a loss of smell, and finding the root cause is important.

So, back I went to the naturopath. Back I went to snorting penicillum. And, thankfully, back came my sense of smell.

Happy, happy, joy, joy! I can smell! For the first time in over half a year, I can smell Kris. I can smell the morning air.

With the sense of smell, however, comes the downside to scent. The smell of Annie's butt. The smell of Bella's breath. The smell of the neighbor's cigarette smoke.

And, then there's today's little incident with a coworker, a pair of feet, and a desk top.

Yeah, my sense of smell is back. Let's hope it lasts longer than a week this time.

Sing with me, people, "I can smell clearly now, the rain is gone!"

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On the way home today, I decided to stop at the bank and deposit my paycheck. Not a big paycheck, but the payroll services messed up my direct deposit, so I had to go to the bank. Oddly enough, the same company messed up both of Kris' automatic payroll deposits, giving me even less confidence in the company.

So, I dashed into the bank on the way home, check in hand. As I walked up to the center counter with all the deposit slips, I noticed an old woman standing there.

I noticed her about 12 feet away from the counter. With my nose.

She had let out the most amazing fart, managing to stink up a 12' radius around her with a normal but very strong fart smell. I originally walked up to stand next to her to fill out my deposit slip, but managed only about 2 seconds next to her, deciding to walk to the other counter quickly.

I left laughing at the whole experience. Apparently my sense of smell is coming back.