Intermezzo

I'm behind with work. Deadlines are looming over me, I should be submitting three papers within a week or so and I've barely started. (I feel that to my defense, I need to add that I've thought about it all a lot.)
Some people say that I'm a genius. Or that I'm oh-so-smart and oh-so-gifted. It may be. The truth is that I'm a terrible procrastinator and that I read lots of divergent stuff so my only geniality is in being able to produce something sensible almost on the spot in three overnighters in a row.
On every such occasion, I swear to Jesus, Elvis and Buddha that next time, I'll be working continuously on whatever task Life may bring. Next time, Life brings something and I wander around, read, chat with people, knit a few sweaters, blend a perfume and generally do nothing overtly productive... and then the overnighters come. That leads people to another false assumption, that I'm industrious. As it goes, when I deny it all, humility is added to the list of my nonexistent virtues.

I think I'll leave Eau du Calvados as it is.
Helg says it needs more of top notes and proposed some pretty citruses. She also smelled truffles in it, and tea tree – which totally are not there. I, on the other hand, do smell citrusy notes in it. It's rosewood, I suspect, which is mainly responsible for them.
O. said that I'd better not touch it and that particularly citruses would totally ruin it. I'm meeting Mitzi today so I'll ask for her opinion and since I managed some self-promotion, quite a bit of it, in fact, there are a few other people at the perfume forum who are interested. Since they are what I'd dare to call qualified public, I'll blend another batch and I'll wait for the feedback. I personally am totally content.

I fished out the tiny aluminium jar that used to hold hand cream and put a bit on. I'm on the train and it's rather hot and humid day. For technical reasons (read Total lack of both practical and theoretical knowledge on the matter) I used beeswax as a solvent, creating a solide in stronger-than-extrait concentration and put a bit on.
I know that one's own children are always the best but, yeah, I'm content. The scent is lush and juicy and cooling, evoking a misty October day in an apple orchard, an abandoned one where some of the apples stayed on the trees for birds and squirrels to feed on and some fell in the high grass and are crushed under one's feet, releasing that rotten yet intriguing smell. It's the less than perfect apples that are used for fermenting and distilling, after all.

Helg gave me the idea of Vieille Réserve. I gave it a few thoughts – one picks the apples, processes them to 60% brandy and forgets about the barrels in the cellar. Twenty years later, on a dreary misty October day, someone stumbles upon the last barrel of this harvest... but that would make another story which is already crystallizing in my head. But first, I need to get out that Italian floral I've been thinking about.