you threw off my groove!
(advisory: i'm too tired to be funny today.)
when your life is ruled by your hair conditioner, even the slightest deviance has the power to really throw you off your groove.
let me back up and explain: i put conditioner in my hair every morning. i use the big old, white old, cheap old bottles of suave, which generally means that i use the same bottle of conditioner for months at a time. day in, day out. there are a few different kinds of suave, by which i mean, they make your hair look exactly the same, only they smell different.
this is the crucial part.
the three smells that i've noticed are rosemary, coconut, and 'i just came out of a hair cut store so i smell like that weird water stuff they spray on you.'
anyway, because conditioners are such a constant part of my life, and because i use the same one for long periods of time, they have somehow become extremely potent Nostalgia Machines.
for example, my tenth grade year i used rosemary all winter. not by design or anything, that's just how it happened. i haven't really used it since. lately i've been using 'i smell like a haircut store', which is rather bland.
but today the random bottle i grabbed for happened to be rosemary, and as soon as i started combing the stuff through my hair, i was hit with the great Wham-O of memory package: shivering all by myself in the dressing room of mt. mary's theater (i was in the production that winter, the theater had no heat), excitedly dressing up for one of my favorite concerts (february 14; i remember the entire day), sitting outside in single digit temperatures singing into a tape recorder (i had just started recording then). all of a sudden i remember the clothes i was wearing, the music i was listening to, and, i'm not joking, the things i was worrying about. it's like a little memory capsule of my brain. i start feeling the way i did then; i was really freaking out about running the soundboard for the production, and i was really excited about the concert and the books i was reading. so i spent the winter in a constant state of anxious, restless excitement.
which is extremely bracing to have thrown at you first thing on a friday morning, two years later.
when your life is ruled by your hair conditioner, even the slightest deviance has the power to really throw you off your groove.
let me back up and explain: i put conditioner in my hair every morning. i use the big old, white old, cheap old bottles of suave, which generally means that i use the same bottle of conditioner for months at a time. day in, day out. there are a few different kinds of suave, by which i mean, they make your hair look exactly the same, only they smell different.
this is the crucial part.
the three smells that i've noticed are rosemary, coconut, and 'i just came out of a hair cut store so i smell like that weird water stuff they spray on you.'
anyway, because conditioners are such a constant part of my life, and because i use the same one for long periods of time, they have somehow become extremely potent Nostalgia Machines.
for example, my tenth grade year i used rosemary all winter. not by design or anything, that's just how it happened. i haven't really used it since. lately i've been using 'i smell like a haircut store', which is rather bland.
but today the random bottle i grabbed for happened to be rosemary, and as soon as i started combing the stuff through my hair, i was hit with the great Wham-O of memory package: shivering all by myself in the dressing room of mt. mary's theater (i was in the production that winter, the theater had no heat), excitedly dressing up for one of my favorite concerts (february 14; i remember the entire day), sitting outside in single digit temperatures singing into a tape recorder (i had just started recording then). all of a sudden i remember the clothes i was wearing, the music i was listening to, and, i'm not joking, the things i was worrying about. it's like a little memory capsule of my brain. i start feeling the way i did then; i was really freaking out about running the soundboard for the production, and i was really excited about the concert and the books i was reading. so i spent the winter in a constant state of anxious, restless excitement.
which is extremely bracing to have thrown at you first thing on a friday morning, two years later.
posted by fudge at 7:22 AM
11 Comments:
Every so often I come across someone who wears the same perfume as my mom. It really freaks me out.
Songs from the early 90's that come on the radio will remind me of the computer games i played obsessively when they came out.
Ah, SimCity... oh the memories...
Here's a scary one:
I was doing a house call a few months ago. After I looked the guy over and told him he'd live, I noticed this music in the background. It sounded very familiar. It was going on and on and on.
The parents of the patient began to notice my trance-like distractedness.
"What is it?" they asked me.
"I think it's...AGE OF EMPIRES!"
Fudge, I do the exact same thing with, of all things, bodywash. There's a particular spring line by Mary Kay that my mom picks up for me occasionally, as well as an "ocean", that make me seventeen all over again like Janis Ian. But I wouldn't have thought to articulate it, which is why you rule.
Doc, you do HOUSE CALLS?!
Don't tell anybody.
why not? everyone round these parts knows.
that's interesting...i never thought of radio reminding people of computer games before...but i guess it's all part of the same thing. what's woven into your memory, the little background pieces you only notice in retrospect.
parce: the body wash does not surprise me - probably works the exact same way. little things like that, bordering on the inane, are abut ninety percent of what's racketing around in my brain (;
(the other ten percent is counting calories.)
I just read Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins. It had been a number of years, so I had forgotten all the stuff in that book about the brain, memory, and the sense of smell. Interesting stuff, though, in light of this conversation.
I am so glad that you COMB that conditioner through your hair. Just make sure you get plenty where the sun shines down on your head. My niece was throwing her head over and not getting any where she really needs it.
parce: i mean to check out that book. that sounds interesting.
(glumly) if i ever have time to read again...
jc: ah, but let's not get ahead of ourselves here. us curly haired people cannot use actual combs or brushes, we have to use our fingers. otherwise, we just have world-class afros.
Or you give up, Fudge, and get dreads like the Parce.
But your dad would come after me with something a bit more mayhem inducing than a water gun, I think, so don't do that.
Post a Comment
<< Home