Grace Notes @ Snarkattack

Sorry, an obscure and clumsy reference to one of my favourite Apollinaire poems.

A dear friend from overseas sent me a sample of a fragrance I was very unlikely going to be able to try, and I had sampled it on Saturday, promising to list its notes.

It’s Fresh’s Pink Jasmine eau de parfum, which claims to be ‘…strikingly beautiful and completely romantic’. I rather agree with the latter. It took the entire day for this lovely, slightly fresh floral to really develop – kind of like watching a flower open or bloom, you know?

Here are the notes:

The top notes of a fragrance are the ones you smell instantly upon spraying the fragrance onto your skin. I instantly got the orange rind, it was nice, not too citrusy and slightly bitter. When it did develop, it’s hard to tell if it was the lilac I could smell, or the peony and possibly magnolia. Lilac and peony can be very…typically ‘perfumey’ (think obnoxious English traditional ‘grandma’ scents). I think it was actually just the lilac and peach I got. Magnolia, peony and jasmine can get ‘faecal’ or but I do taste some of that woodiness and creamy floral (magnolia and peony). What the hell do you reckon ‘precious woods’ smell like?! A bit fanciful? I think so.

Have yet to try the cream, that will bring out the florals, I suspect. I do hope my Fragrant Elf pal is reading this and is as excited as I am!

I also had some fun with makeup, might later on put in a swatch of what was used.

all MAC I think…
Non-Conformist fluidline as eyeliner on upper and lower lashlines
Sunday Best e/s as base
Iris Print on outer corner, blended towards middle of lid, and finishing there (so that base e/s shows on inner corner of eye, or was supposed to, at least)
Flirt and Tease sheer shimmertone blush (this was really nice)
Dervish lipliner
Glamoursun lipglass, my new love! It has this slight neon green pearlescence – very slight, nothing scary, promise! Love!!!

Well, not quite.

Last week had been one of panic, disappointment and most of all, deep denial.

Back in the good ol’ pre-breakdown days, that meant reading/studying/writing/playing music like a nut.

And, having some weird return to previous form, that meant the week consisted of writing like a complete nut. With a post-breakdown bonus: I was starting to remember bits and pieces of the cultural theory I’d come across in some of the classes I was less able to participate in.

But…there were still gaps; the things that came automatically, now seemed to have been lost in the bowels of my mind.

I’ve been working on 2 posts for the main blog, one of which is finished and not yet typed up (in fact, I suspect it might even account for my admin getting in touch with me…which is both sad and good) on me hating Melbourne. I was having a bad/near-panic attack, ok? So lay off. The second post was way more fun – about collections, and I needed to discuss certain consumption habits on lipstick for this.

I could find some of the relevant source material in my copy of Lindy Woodhead’s War Paint, but could not find where Estee Lauder claimed that a woman would purchase another lipstick despite having only used 40% of an existing tube. Next, I needed the name of the fellow who wrote the Surrealist Manifestos. Zilch. Mind was a blank. But I studied this stuff in such great detail! Hell, I did 2 subjects taught in French that discussed this extensively. How the hell had I managed to forget?! Wikipedia, despite having some facts wrong about the origin of the word ’surrealism’ (at least, I swear that is not what we learnt and surrealism came up in many other subjects I did, taught in English) put me out of my misery on that one.

However, that bastard Frederic Jameson, Marxist postmodern theorist extraordinaire, proved to be my academic death. My first serious boyfriend was a cinema studies tosser, and in his course reader was a short essay by Jameson – one I wanted to quote for this second post I was furiously writing. Problem was, I didn’t know the name of the essay/chapter, or from what larger work it came. An internet search proved fruitless. NMD offered some small relief – suggesting it may be from a book of essays on art, with ‘Van Gogh’ in the title. This was super-helpful given I’d found a bibliography of this theorist’s work. Or…not. I can’t seem to find it. The only way to get the quote would be to trawl through my uni notes and papers and find my modern drama essay where I quoted it in my introduction. That much I remembered. Christ, I reckon I’ll do it too.

The last nutcracker – trying to find the article about that political science professor who was denied tenure largely on the basis that he engaged in blogging, though that would have not been the official reason. I had to rely upon my colleagues at Blogcritics and our Yahoo group to help me with that one. Ah, sweet relief. I hate my brain when it fails me, which is often.

…for the sensory pleasures.

Man, rough week. I decided to haul some of my neglected girlie stuff out to cheer my spirits.

Yesterday’s shower was a foody one, I used Philosophy’s Vanilla cupcake 3-in-1 as my shampoo (so it smelled cakey) and Philosophy’s Hot cocoa 3-in-1 as my shower gel – this stuff really smells like cocoa! It reminds me of Ovalteenies. I wonder if they still sell those in the foldable foil packets? They were delicious! Then I applied my MOR Pistachio body butter which is delightful. It has something else in it scent-wise that isn’t pistachio – perhaps it’s more accurate to say it smells of pistachio gelati, mmm…conjures up trips to Brunetti’s in Carlton. Yum.

A friend sent me a sample of a fragrance I was dying to try – Fresh’s ‘Pink Jasmine’. Damn, I don’t have the card with the fragrance notes.

Guess I’d better get back to deleting stupid spam comments and hoping my admin will let me know what hours have been set aside for me, sigh.

…like you’re just waiting to explode?

I have a fair idea of what’s causing me to feel like this, but gosh, it’s so weird to be pulled in so many different directions that you feel like you’ll actually be torn to shreds.

That’s today: the aftermath of yesterday, which I’d planned to write a proper blog post on, but I’ve been up since 7am this morning communicating via e-mail with various people thanks to obnoxious bullshitters. I don’t mind mean people, I don’t mind dumb people, I really have no pity, patience or tolerance for mean, dumb people that actually spread lies about you, when they barely know you?!

Does that seem bloody fair to you?

Eh, what do you care, you’ve probably got more of a life to be reading some idiot’s whines online. I’d best get on with fixing my life before the weekend comes and I realise I haven’t got one any longer. *gulp*

So…I’m a bit nervous, but apparently my first post on Blogcritics is up and I was just reading this review and was very tempted to make a facetious comment on the review but in regards to Bush’s brain, that being the following ditty I attempt to use to cheer myself up from time to time:
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Sheesh, and for once it seemed like a half-normal day!

I woke up at a half-decent hour, and of course wanted to know where Dear Puss was so opened up the patio door, to my mother watering down the concrete (somewhat illegal in water-restricted Melbourne) causing me to roll eyeballs in disbelief.

A bit later, I call out for Dear Puss, the dialogue as follows:

“Woooo-llllll-fieeeeeee!”
Pause.
(faintly) meeow!

Take 2: “Woooo-llllll-fieeeeeee!”
Pause.
(faintly) meeow!

Take 3: “Woooo-llllll-fieeeeeee!”
Pause.
(faintly) meeow!

Take 4: “Puss?”
No answer.

“Are you there?”
No sound.

I try this a few more times, and come to the conclusion that my cat is answering me. And I think I know why: he’s stuck somewhere. I explain this to my mum, who looks at me wide-eyed and realises that he apparently dashed out before she had a chance to close the under-house door – it’s really small, and she’d reclosed it not considering that Puss had sneaked down there. It just seemed too odd that he was answering me: he’d just come when called.

Turned out, I was right, the poor dear had been holed up (not for long thankfully) and had cobweb dreadlocks all over him. Bless. Thank goodness he was ok!

Next crazy thing? Oh those wacky Canadians… Why? One word: Screech. I looked it up for a Canadian friend who was given some and apparently it had hit her for 6. So…what’s with the kissing the cod fish? Erk. Must be the cold, does something funny to their brains. But hang on, they’re the good North Americans…hmm…

Was hoping to have posted on Blogcritics by now to brag to you all, but some finishing touches need to go on the review, but keeping checking here for news and braggart-like behaviour.

So yesterday, still not quite over seeing my massive Sir Thomas Wyatt-inspired work appearing in print in Chelys Australia, I wake up to even more good news: I’ve just been accepted as a reviewer for the online Blogcritics site!

Such mirth! It also means I have to get writing, and perhaps delay the upcoming post I’ve nearly finished typing…

I’m still very groggy however so this will be a test of sorts, and I’ve not forgotten I owe some dear people (including O who I cancelled on, shame on me) communication of some sort, which I promise is coming! Starting to think I might need uppers! Joke…

Still a sleepy monster. But for once, with some good news.

I received a copy of the yearly journal of a society I’m a member of and – must have completely forgotten about it – it had a lengthy piece of mine published. It was sort of scary to see it in print, perhaps because to my mind, it still had so many flaws. But still, it was kind of cool, too. I can think of a few people I can’t wait to show it to. It does also mean I can’t submit it to another journal that it would have been very suited to. Eh well.

I also got my first spam comment. Yea. It had me a bit confused. I’m officially significant enough to spam! Eh. Not to mention some spam snail mail from the University of Torture (no, I mean the one I went to).

Having a bit of a possession dilemma…have this odd urge to get rid of a whole bunch of girlie makeup things I have, in a mass exodus. The time for comfort spending is drawing to a close, and it might also have had something to do with the fact that I was reading about Ayurveda on Wikipedia. Feeling very wasteful of late, even though I’m not actively wasting anything.

Gosh, getting sleepy again! At least it means I was able to write another blog post which will be ready for publishing really soon. Writing in the middle of the night has its benefits, even if it means you end up going nocturnal. A cat nap is in order, methinks. Please let tomorrow be normal! There are so many things I really should have done at the beginning of the week, groan.

It’s not really totally musical but because music is a large part of it and I can’t put miniblog posts in more than one category, it’s in this one.
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Woods, that is.

At the beginning of the week, my irritable bowel syndrome was activated by the humble artificially flavoured jelly sweet. I didn’t realise they had that crap in it, which is very nasty for sufferers of IBS, as I found out a few years ago, even before having a mental meltdown. It just cramps up your bowels and forces EVERYTHING out of them. Solid, or liquid, it matters not.
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