(no subject)
Right, so everybody's parents are en route back to NC, which is a bit of a relief to be honest. I haven't gotten a chance to be alone for the past several days, and it's been a little tiring. Things are going quite well anyway, there's no need for all of us to be down here. J's parents are coming back when he gets moved from the hospital to the hotel, so they can help me with that transition, which will be good.
My parents packed up almost all of my books to take back to NC-- one less thing to worry about moving back when we move back. And they bought me some new pants.
Jeremy's stepmom gave me a Heinlein book-- Citizen of the Galaxy? I'm really enjoying it. I was totally bonding with her over BPAL, too-- she's gotten into it recently and tried a ton of stuff already-- as she has more money than me and is also in that initial whee-must-try-everything stage, whereas I am seasoned enough now in the ways of BPAL not to fall for, e.g., this. I did the Naughty/Nice Inquisition last Christmas because I couldn't resist the thrill of it all. Now I am old and curmudgeonly and "thrill" doesn't even register on the scales against "fifty bucks" "t-shirt I would never wear" and a cold-blooded breakdown of the scent descriptions, to wit:
A super-sweet, glittering mountain of crushed hard candy: watermelon, pink lime, lemon, strawberry and piles upon piles of crystalline sugar.
Pink lime is mildly tempting if it would smell like fresh cherry limeade, but the piles upon piles of crystalline sugar... great. Jolly Rancher perfume. No thanks.
A fine confection for discriminating trick or treaters: a fig meat, coconut, and buttercream bonbon rolled in orange rind, mint leaf, cardamom, clove and ginger, dipped in milk chocolate.
The orange, mint and spices sound gorgeous, but everything else is much much too sickly sweet for me to wear. "Foody" perfumes are invariably transformed by my skin chemistry into "scented plastic doll" if I'm lucky (did anyone else have the Cherry Merry Muffin doll? The original one, whose friends were Apple Amy and Chocolottie and Banancy? Like that) and playdough if I'm not. And I just don't even like the smell of coconut anyway, leaving skin chemistry totally aside. I'd take a chance on this one for the sake of the spices and orange, if it were GC and I could get an imp, but I'm not spending $50 for a 25% chance at something that will probably make me smell like someone spilled suntan oil on Chocolottie.
A double-dose of seedy that oozes rough-and-tumble sexuality while promoting vice-driven profitability! Volcanic red musk, vanilla bean, Queen Elizabeth root, red ginger, skin musk, black leather, honeycomb, honeysuckle, magnolia, and patchouli.
This actually sounds pretty good, and I'd definitely sample it if it were GC. I'd probably take the plunge and get a bottle if it were just a normal LE for $20 or so. But for $50, it isn't perfect enough. I love red musk, red ginger, honeysuckle and magnolia, and I'm 100% good with orris root (apparently aka "Queen Elizabeth root," *eyeroll*) and skin musk. But leather and vanilla can both be iffy on my skin, and BPAL honey and patchouli are usually notes of doom. Taken altogether it sounds good, but dude-- $50 is a lot of money. Also and furthermore, Chrysanthemum Moon has musk, red ginger and pretty flowers plus sweet resin-type notes that are better than patchouli and orris root while being in roughly the same scent family, and I have a bottle of Mum Moon on order, so I need this not.
Lurid, licentious, and lucrative: pomegrante, tobacco leaf, patchouli, wild berries, pine pitch, oak-aged vanilla, and pink pepper.
See, again nothing really wrong here except the patchouli and vanilla, but dude. $50 is a lot of money. For that amount, it better be, like, The lingering scent of gentle domestic magic: a spice-cabinet swirl of cinnamon, clove, cardamom and ginger dusted over smoldering frankincense and myrrh, cooled by gentle wafts of blue sage, peppermint, pennyroyal, rosemary, and opium poppy from the windowsill garden. Now that, I would pay $50 for. I would call it "Kitchen Witch" and it would be my signature scent forever.
But honestly, my amused tolerance of Black Phoenix Trading Post is starting to morph into dislike. Their prices are just... offensive. And, well, I guess the thing is, both BPAL and BPTP have a "goth" aesthetic going, but BPAL has way more variety and flexibility and can therefore appeal strongly to a pink-gingham-sundress sort of person such as myself as well as to gothy types, whereas all, and I mean all, of the BPTP merch is ultragothy and dark and depraved, and none of it appeals to me, and it sort of pisses me off because it's all just... very ugly and depressing, to me. And hideously expensive. Which, I guess I should be grateful as it's one less place for all my money to go, but I like getting all excited over awesome things, and I wish I could get excited over something at the Trading Post, or at least enjoy looking at the pictures. Obviously not every store has to cater to everyone's interest-- it's just that when everyone is raving about all the gorgeous new BPTP merchandise on the BPAL forum-- well, I'd love an "official" imp box, or scent locket or artistic bottle-topper or whatever, but they're all (to me) horrendously ugly and expensive, and it's rather disappointing, really.
Eh, whatever. It's not like I don't have enough pretty things to covet. Just when I had saved up almost enough in my Paypal account for two Halloween/Dracula BPAL bottles and an imp, this pops up. I've always liked the Gratitude pieces, but never had one grab me like this-- there's always been something about each one that seemed off to me, or that just didn't appeal. But this one is just so perfect. And a Gratitude piece seems like such a perfect thing to get to commemorate the events of this week so far (knock wood). I would cherish it. But that would be all my money. But the Halloweens are up until December first, so I could wait... hmm. I can't wear perfume to the hospital anyway...
Decisions, decisions.
Here are the lyrics to a song I've been listening to lately.
I'm not afraid of you now
I know
So I climbed down
From the bunk bed this slow
I can talk back to you now
I know
From a few things
That I learned from this TV show
You can work late, till midnight
We don't care
We can fix our own meals
We can wash our own hair
I go to school before sunrise
In the cold
And I pulled the alarm
And I kicked up the salad bowls
Since the time we meant to say much more
(Unsaid things begin to take their toll)
After school we shovel through the snow
(Drive upstate, in silence, in the cold)
You can remind me of it
That I was lazy and tired
You can work all your life, as
I'm not afraid of you anymore
If I loved you, oh a long time
I don't know
If I can recall
The last time you told me so
Here in this house in Pittsfield
The ghost
Of our grandmother works
At the sewing machine post
Hiding the bills in the kitchen
On the floor
And my sister lost her best friend
In the Persian Gulf War
There was a flood in the bathroom
Last May
And you kicked at the pipes
When it rattled, oh the river it made
Stand there, tell me that I'm of no use
(Things unspoken break us if we choose)
There's still time to wash the kitchen floor
(On your knees, the bath, the sink, once more)
You can remind me that I was tired
You can work late and do yourself honor
Now that I'm older, wiser, working less
I may regret having left the place a mess
You can remind me
That I was lazy and tired
You can work all your life, as
I'm not afraid of you anymore
My parents packed up almost all of my books to take back to NC-- one less thing to worry about moving back when we move back. And they bought me some new pants.
Jeremy's stepmom gave me a Heinlein book-- Citizen of the Galaxy? I'm really enjoying it. I was totally bonding with her over BPAL, too-- she's gotten into it recently and tried a ton of stuff already-- as she has more money than me and is also in that initial whee-must-try-everything stage, whereas I am seasoned enough now in the ways of BPAL not to fall for, e.g., this. I did the Naughty/Nice Inquisition last Christmas because I couldn't resist the thrill of it all. Now I am old and curmudgeonly and "thrill" doesn't even register on the scales against "fifty bucks" "t-shirt I would never wear" and a cold-blooded breakdown of the scent descriptions, to wit:
A super-sweet, glittering mountain of crushed hard candy: watermelon, pink lime, lemon, strawberry and piles upon piles of crystalline sugar.
Pink lime is mildly tempting if it would smell like fresh cherry limeade, but the piles upon piles of crystalline sugar... great. Jolly Rancher perfume. No thanks.
A fine confection for discriminating trick or treaters: a fig meat, coconut, and buttercream bonbon rolled in orange rind, mint leaf, cardamom, clove and ginger, dipped in milk chocolate.
The orange, mint and spices sound gorgeous, but everything else is much much too sickly sweet for me to wear. "Foody" perfumes are invariably transformed by my skin chemistry into "scented plastic doll" if I'm lucky (did anyone else have the Cherry Merry Muffin doll? The original one, whose friends were Apple Amy and Chocolottie and Banancy? Like that) and playdough if I'm not. And I just don't even like the smell of coconut anyway, leaving skin chemistry totally aside. I'd take a chance on this one for the sake of the spices and orange, if it were GC and I could get an imp, but I'm not spending $50 for a 25% chance at something that will probably make me smell like someone spilled suntan oil on Chocolottie.
A double-dose of seedy that oozes rough-and-tumble sexuality while promoting vice-driven profitability! Volcanic red musk, vanilla bean, Queen Elizabeth root, red ginger, skin musk, black leather, honeycomb, honeysuckle, magnolia, and patchouli.
This actually sounds pretty good, and I'd definitely sample it if it were GC. I'd probably take the plunge and get a bottle if it were just a normal LE for $20 or so. But for $50, it isn't perfect enough. I love red musk, red ginger, honeysuckle and magnolia, and I'm 100% good with orris root (apparently aka "Queen Elizabeth root," *eyeroll*) and skin musk. But leather and vanilla can both be iffy on my skin, and BPAL honey and patchouli are usually notes of doom. Taken altogether it sounds good, but dude-- $50 is a lot of money. Also and furthermore, Chrysanthemum Moon has musk, red ginger and pretty flowers plus sweet resin-type notes that are better than patchouli and orris root while being in roughly the same scent family, and I have a bottle of Mum Moon on order, so I need this not.
Lurid, licentious, and lucrative: pomegrante, tobacco leaf, patchouli, wild berries, pine pitch, oak-aged vanilla, and pink pepper.
See, again nothing really wrong here except the patchouli and vanilla, but dude. $50 is a lot of money. For that amount, it better be, like, The lingering scent of gentle domestic magic: a spice-cabinet swirl of cinnamon, clove, cardamom and ginger dusted over smoldering frankincense and myrrh, cooled by gentle wafts of blue sage, peppermint, pennyroyal, rosemary, and opium poppy from the windowsill garden. Now that, I would pay $50 for. I would call it "Kitchen Witch" and it would be my signature scent forever.
But honestly, my amused tolerance of Black Phoenix Trading Post is starting to morph into dislike. Their prices are just... offensive. And, well, I guess the thing is, both BPAL and BPTP have a "goth" aesthetic going, but BPAL has way more variety and flexibility and can therefore appeal strongly to a pink-gingham-sundress sort of person such as myself as well as to gothy types, whereas all, and I mean all, of the BPTP merch is ultragothy and dark and depraved, and none of it appeals to me, and it sort of pisses me off because it's all just... very ugly and depressing, to me. And hideously expensive. Which, I guess I should be grateful as it's one less place for all my money to go, but I like getting all excited over awesome things, and I wish I could get excited over something at the Trading Post, or at least enjoy looking at the pictures. Obviously not every store has to cater to everyone's interest-- it's just that when everyone is raving about all the gorgeous new BPTP merchandise on the BPAL forum-- well, I'd love an "official" imp box, or scent locket or artistic bottle-topper or whatever, but they're all (to me) horrendously ugly and expensive, and it's rather disappointing, really.
Eh, whatever. It's not like I don't have enough pretty things to covet. Just when I had saved up almost enough in my Paypal account for two Halloween/Dracula BPAL bottles and an imp, this pops up. I've always liked the Gratitude pieces, but never had one grab me like this-- there's always been something about each one that seemed off to me, or that just didn't appeal. But this one is just so perfect. And a Gratitude piece seems like such a perfect thing to get to commemorate the events of this week so far (knock wood). I would cherish it. But that would be all my money. But the Halloweens are up until December first, so I could wait... hmm. I can't wear perfume to the hospital anyway...
Decisions, decisions.
Here are the lyrics to a song I've been listening to lately.
I'm not afraid of you now
I know
So I climbed down
From the bunk bed this slow
I can talk back to you now
I know
From a few things
That I learned from this TV show
You can work late, till midnight
We don't care
We can fix our own meals
We can wash our own hair
I go to school before sunrise
In the cold
And I pulled the alarm
And I kicked up the salad bowls
Since the time we meant to say much more
(Unsaid things begin to take their toll)
After school we shovel through the snow
(Drive upstate, in silence, in the cold)
You can remind me of it
That I was lazy and tired
You can work all your life, as
I'm not afraid of you anymore
If I loved you, oh a long time
I don't know
If I can recall
The last time you told me so
Here in this house in Pittsfield
The ghost
Of our grandmother works
At the sewing machine post
Hiding the bills in the kitchen
On the floor
And my sister lost her best friend
In the Persian Gulf War
There was a flood in the bathroom
Last May
And you kicked at the pipes
When it rattled, oh the river it made
Stand there, tell me that I'm of no use
(Things unspoken break us if we choose)
There's still time to wash the kitchen floor
(On your knees, the bath, the sink, once more)
You can remind me that I was tired
You can work late and do yourself honor
Now that I'm older, wiser, working less
I may regret having left the place a mess
You can remind me
That I was lazy and tired
You can work all your life, as
I'm not afraid of you anymore