I’ve been walking around more lately, even in the heat. Partly I’m walking to keep myself healthy. Partly I’m walking to get my sense of smell back. I read that exercise is supposed to help. I couldn’t smell anything for about three weeks this summer when I had a horrible cold. It’s come back very slowly, but it’s still not the same. It’s hard to smell things that aren’t directly in front of my nose. It’s weird to walk through the world knowing that certain scents are missing. Fresh-cut grass. Honeysuckle. I miss even the bad smells, like skunk and full garbage cans that have been sitting in the sun too long. I feel like I’m not the same person if I can’t smell like I used to.
I’ve been knitting a baby blanket for a friend. I spend a lot of time deciding which colors to choose and how to line them up. There’s a pink in there I’m still not sure about. I have to make myself use pink. I can’t get over my aversion to the color which is all about everything pink is supposed to represent. I was not the kind of girl who liked pink. I am not the kind of woman who likes pink. Which is it’s own kind of stupid constraint I’ve put on myself. I don’t judge other women for liking pink. I should be able to like pink if I want to without it meaning anything about who I am. But I can’t bring myself to go there.
So I’m not sure about the pink. And I spend a lot of time wondering if I should put the two shades of purple next to each other. Then I wonder about the sociology of color schemes. I suspect there are social class dimensions to what colors look “right” to me. This may also be part of what makes me nervous about the pink. It’s not a pale, subdued pink. It’s a bright, almost neon type pink. It is a “trashy” pink. I shouldn’t be thinking this, either, but there it is. Our aesthetics are all wrapped up with who we are, including how much money our parents made and how long we spent going to school.
I stole an idea from a writer friend of mine (I might have stolen the baby blanket idea from her, too, I can’t remember), Leesa Cross-Smith (she has a novel coming out in March 2018, Whiskey & Ribbons, which you should pre-order now because it will be amazing) and ordered this mug. The mug is personalized with the announcement of my book deal on the side. I have an agent and a book deal and those are two things I wanted for a very long time, so I’m trying to make myself stop and enjoy it. The book is called Gender: Create-A-Path and it teaches you all about gender and sexuality using the format from old choose-your-own-adventure books. It’s like bringing my gender classes out into the world, which I think will be a good thing. It’ll be available from Sourcebooks in Fall 2018.
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