Book of Jamez

55 y/o malcontent, something of a writer

Category: Jamezrant

  • Ooooh That Smell

    For a while now I’ve had super sensitive sense of smell. I think it’s getting worse… better… more intense maybe is the word I’m looking for here. Sometimes it affects what I’m tasting or maybe it would be easier to say that I can taste things in foods and liquids that others don’t. A few examples are listed below in no particular order.

    • Mildew on towels (fresh from the dryer or clothes line or hanging on the towel rack for however long)
    • My cats litter box is on the second floor of the house, I can smell if she’s used it from anywhere on the first floor or when I first get home
    • friends and strangers have bad breath that I’ve asked others about but they say they didn’t smell anything
    • perfumes and colognes can be detected strongly from a train car length away or a good block if the wind is blowing properly
    • something in my house smells like chicken, I can’t find it and I’m not sure what it is but I have lots of scented candles and odor eater things placed about to make the smell less evident
    • there is a tree near my house that smells horribly like stale beer
    • I can’t walk in the middle of the prepared foods part near the deli of the grocery store the smells of the foods in the buffet part is well, too smelly
    • dogs and cats – just touching them and I can smell them on me for hours after and I LIKE dogs and cats
    • sometimes when I’m sitting or standing next to someone I can detect that they’ve either been wearing the same underwear for a few days or don’t wipe well
    • there are things that I would have never considered to have a smell at all that have a smell
    • feet, gas, fish, body odor – none of these things would I consider to smell good anyway, but they seem to overpower my senses

    If that’s not disgusting enough for you, some of the taste things include water or tea where I can taste sewage in them (what does sewage taste like? just like what it smells like) and milk starts to go bad to my tongue a week before the expiration date. I can actually taste when food I’m eating has been touched by something that isn’t on my plate – onions, peppers, fish – or maybe the preparers didn’t wash their hands in-between touching the items.

    The smell of things can be so intense that I’ll stop walking down the street to avoid scents coming from someone, or move to entirely different cars on the Metro. At meetings I try to distance myself from smells. If someone comes into a restaurant and their perfume or cologne is too strong my meal can end up tasting like what they are wearing. It’s not every scent, it appears to be just some scents and I’m sure there is a pattern I’m missing somewhere. It sounds crazy.

    When I smell something so strongly I often look around wondering why none of the people near me seem to notice and ask others if they can smell it – they say no. If you were Superman or Wolverine you’d go crazy being able to smell the things they can smell hell, I’ve been crazy a long time and I know this is driving me crazier. When I talked to my doctor about this he actually suggested I might be turning into a superhero – sniffing out crime… I like my doctor, he’s funny.

    Friends have suggested I might be pregnant as they’ve experienced an enhanced sense of smell then, but the condoms have been intact – I know they are only 99.9% effective, but I’m fairly certain I’m not pregnant.

    So after my doctor and I talked he talked to colleagues who didn’t know what this was either and then I had an MRI last week. The results of the MRI were normal or “non specific white matter change in some part of the brain, which is normal and doesn’t explain the smell symptoms” – but it does confirm that I actually have a brain in case you were wondering.

    So if I offer you a breath mint or a stick of gum – you should really take it, especially if you want me to keep talking to you. If I don’t want to shower at your house or spend the night – it could be that I don’t like people but really it’s probably that your towels smell mildewy or that you have a pet who’s smells overtake all my other senses.

    You might see me breathing out of my mouth a lot – yes I’m a mouth breather. I’ll be a mouth breather when I have to be and apparently I have to be a lot right now.

  • Do You Know Where Your Towel Is?

    Today my friend Rosy turns 42, it’s a special Towel Day (25 +5+12 = 42) and Men In Black 3 comes out – I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there were Vogon ships headed our way right now preparing to read poetry to us before we’re demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass, it could happen… I’m sure of it.

    DON’T PANIC!

    … a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: nonhitchhiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.  Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

    The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is one of my favorite books, I re-read it probably once a year and laugh out loud several times.

    Share and Enjoy

    Mostly Harmless

    So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

    This was basically just a meaningless post meant to fill the void of internetness and remind you about Towel Day. I hope you’re a hoopy frood and know where your towel is today!

    #towelday #DONTPANIC #42

  • Journey to the Midwest 2012

    When I make trips to visit folk in the Midwest for whatever reason, this reason was my niece Tabatha graduated from high school and asked me to come to her party, I try to see as many people as I can see while I’m in the area. It really seems like the longer I’m alive the more people that want to see me when I’m in the area – I think there might be something wrong with the water up there. This visit I saw folks that I haven’t seen in 20 years – which was nice. I may not have gotten a chance to see you, I may not get a chance to see you next time – but hey, if you want to see me you could visit here. You know I live in the Nation’s Capital right? Tourist Trap of the East Coast – and if you came out here you’d get to see more of me than just a 20 minute visit in the Midwest, and trust me it’d be more exciting. I can’t promise anything, but one group of friends that came out to visit were just inches away from Sean Penn when we went out to eat… didn’t do anything for me, but they were excited. So if you want to see me hey come visit – I’ll pretend to have as much interest in meeting you here as I pretend to there. 🙂

    My flight to Minneapolis on Wednesday was fine, the old couple next to me kept interrupting my reading by asking me questions about the iPad and other technology – it’s like I have a sign around my neck “Ask Me About Your Computer Problems”. I do my best to look mean when I travel to avoid just this kind of thing – motorcycle boots, sleeveless shirt showing tattoos, leather wrist band, penis earring… but they still ask me. Maybe I need a big nose ring.

    My good friend Tina picked me up at the airport and we headed off to my hotel in downtown Minneapolis, The Marriott City Center, the boss had hooked me up with a good room – top floor of the hotel, it was a two story room wow, had a nice view too. Tina and I had a nice chat before she had to head off to an appointment.

    I then headed off to Boneshaker Books, where my friend Tim volunteers, little store but lots of interesting books. Check out their site and make a donation – it’s a non-profit. Tim and I took the light rail, Minneapolis’s commuter train, into the city for dinner – after all the years that Tim’s lived there this was his first time on the train, he would usually ride his bike everywhere. We ate dinner at a place called Hell’s Kitchen which had good food, not too loud and close to my hotel downtown. Tim and I had good conversations about politics, old friends, old times and just nonsense. It was great to see him.

    Thursday morning I had breakfast with my friend Randy and then wandered around the skyways exploring here and there, I had some things explode in my suitcase that I needed to replace and it was nice to see how it all worked too. Then I had a lunch date with a guy I’d met in December while I was speaking, it was ok. Thursday night I went to the Central Pacific Group meeting where I frowned when I was called up to share, but would have obsessed for the next hour had they not – yep, I’m sick. Afterwards there was fellowship and then Tina dropped me at my hotel. A nice night.

    Friday morning I took the light rail to the airport to rent a car for my foray into Wisconsin, its scary to think I finally don’t get lost getting out of the airport area and into WI. The drive was uneventful, got to Pat and Brenda’s and then went to get a quick bite at Taco John’s before checking into my hotel. That night we had steaks and corn at the Isenbergers and chatted here and there. Nice to see everyone.

    Saturday morning Pat and I had breakfast at Perkins, then coffee at Starbucks, before I headed off to do other things before going to …

    Tabatha’s Graduation party was held in a park in Fall Creek, by the lake. Lots of folks were there including Tabatha’s dad Jeff, who I haven’t seen in ages. Lots of folks I didn’t know too, but it was nice to be there for Tabatha and have one central place to see the siblings, even though most of the time they aren’t talking to one another they managed to behave. Good food, great weather and memories – it was nice.

    Saturday night for dinner the Isenberger’s and I went to Dragganettis for dinner, where my friend Nicholas works, had a nice time and it was my only opportunity to see Nicholas too. Dropped them off and went back to the hotel for TV and bed.

    Sunday morning I was up early and drove to Galesville to see Ma and Rhonda. I think I was here before 10 and then we headed over to Cory and Danielle’s to to spend time with them and the boys (Charlie and Patrick). It was really nice when we first got there, and we were all enjoying the day but all the sudden it got pretty cold out and before you know it we were all shivering. Ma, Rhonda and I left and headed to the Whitehall cemetery to lay flowers on Pa’s grave.  I still get a little emotional thinking about him there, and seeing Ma’s name on the stone when she’s standing right next to us. We then went to dinner at what used to be Geno’s Supper Club in Whitehall, can’t recall what it’s called now then I said farewell to them and headed up to Pigeon Falls to see Tony and Laurie, friends I haven’t seen in about 20 years. It’s been a long time.

    Monday I drove up to the Twin Cities in the afternoon and got on my plane. Landed in BWI around 9:40 and it took them almost an hour to get us luggage, pretty sad.

    I had a great trip, it was nice to see everyone and I look forward to the next time I see folks – probably wont be anywhere cool though, just the Midwest.

  • X Smokers Soapbox

    I didn’t want it to come to this, I didn’t want to become this person… but I have. I’ve become the preaching x-smoker that is going to preach at current smokers. See, I managed to finally quit in January, it was one more attempt and for whatever reason this time it took. Who knew.

    Now what bothers me most as a non smoker is the smell of current smokers. I had no idea it was that bad, I would have quit years ago had I realized how bad I smelled. I don’t normally notice, maybe I don’t hang out with too many smokers now that I’ve stopped… but on a recent plane ride I sat next to an obvious smoker…. O MY GOD… well, she had some fashion issues too, but the smell was almost unbearable. I found the smell to be an excellent deterrent when I get a craving… just walk by a smoker and you’ll see what I’m saying.

    I think if a smokers sense of smell were more aware they would not be smoking at all… but alas that is one of the things to dwindle when you smoke.

  • Fish Pride a.k.a. Ohio Trip

    I went off to Cleveland (or so I thought) for the weekend. To spend time with my friend Julie and her family: Chris (Mr. Olsen), Hannah, Sam (Sam Opossum), and Ollie (the dog).

    My trip started with a rather uneventful flight, but the characters tended to be well worth forgetting. There was a “lady” a couple of seats from me that talked the entire flight… and when I say entire I mean from the moment they let us leave the gate until we got to baggage claim. Not only did she talk too much but she was wearing these revolver shaped dangling earrings and was probably a “W” supporter.

    Julie was at the airport right on time to pick me up, it was a pleasure to see her again. We went off to pick up Hannah at her horse riding lessons, when Hannah saw me she gave me a big smile. Mr. Olsen cooked us hambërgers (how Sam pronounces it), I got sick that night… lets assume Mr. Olsen wasn’t attempting to poison me (the kids didn’t get sick). Sam started to express his obsession with refrigerators, we don’t know why he’s obsessed with them, he just is.

    Friday morning Hannah went off to Pony Camp (Hannah is obsessed with horses) and Julie, Sam and I went off to the local shops to do some window shopping. We appeased Sam by stopping at a few places to oggle at the refrigerators… hey, he’s 4. We did manage to get Sam a balloon at the Trader Joe’s which we lost at the Target (yes, then there were tears). Mr. Olsen brinned chicken and we had a good cook out.

    Saturday, when Hannah returned from Pony Camp, we could have gone to Cleveland’s Gay Pride, but we instead opted to travel to West Virginia…. no wait, Vermillion, OH for Fish Pride… I mean, the Fish Festival. The kids had a wonderful time, and us adults had a few laughs too. We lost two more baloons and had a few more screams and tears. Don’t ask what happend with Sam in the backseat on the way home… I was traumatized.

    Sunday was pretty relaxing and it was sad to say goodbye. I had a wonderful time in Cleveland (or wherever I was) visiting my friends. The plane ride home had three 4 year olds… God help me… and everyone wanted to ride the shuttle back that didn’t have any. One of the baggage bins on the plane was holding their balloon animals… that’s it, just their balloon animals.

    To see the pictures click the link below.

    FISH PRIDE