Nausea

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had been to Marshall's and they had a pretty good selection of deals on perfume in opened boxes. My nose got all confused and I wound up buying Azzaro Pure Cedrat instead of Christian Lacroix's Tumulte, which was a mistake. It makes sense, since they're both cedar smells. But one is cloying and the other (I hear) is not. I will be near that Marshall's in three days. I hope they still have that box of Tumulte.

INTERJECTION: I discovered that the word Cedrat does not mean cedar. There is no translation in English. It is a bit lemon, a citron, and most definately not cedar. No wonder I thought it smelled wrong!

I'm wearing Aura Cacia "Root" at this moment and I'm not liking it much. I have a craving for the scent of wood shavings. I had it on my fingers that day I sneaked a few sniffs from those opened boxes at Marshall's but figured it was the Pure Cedrat (pure cedar, no?)

There's something almost disgusting about this Aura Cacia oil. It's not subtle. But what does it smell of, exactly? This is one of those times where a scent is making me nauseous, literally, and because of that, I can't really say anything about it except it's making me ill. In fact, I am going to go scrub it off right now. I'll be right back.

I used the Caldrea Italian Cypress Pear liquid soap to wash away the oil. It was probably a poor choice, considering it has such a strong woody smell itself. I do feel nauseated.

This has been a nauseating week in a number of ways. I began my phlebotomy course on Monday. On Tuesday, I drew blood for the first time. We looked at the vials of blood after they were centrifuged.

Then I came home and ate steak. I sat and relaxed before I did the dishes and felt rather squeamish about the platter the steak had been on. It was coated with coagulated blood and fat that had turned solid, as fat does when it's cool. It looked too much like the blood in the vials. It's interesting how I wasn't bothered at all by drawing blood out of a person's vein, analyzing the vials of blood or talking about some objectively horrific subjects involving severed limbs and the like. The dirty platter was the thing that made me queasy.

I used to be squeamish. Then I became a body piercer and a tattoo artist and discovered that I wasn't at all. But a funny thing happened along the way. I started to become over-sensitive to the smallest accidents that occurred to people that I care for. If a friend had a bad scrape from, say, falling off a bicycle, I would feel a shiver go through me. I would feel almost faint at the sight of a small cut on my boyfriend. I can not look at these little wounds on those I like. This has now extended to myself. I cut myself with a knife a few months ago while doing dishes. It was not a big cut. I didn't need any stitches. I thought I was going to faint.

I've tried to understand why I changed because it's a bit disturbing. What I figure is that since I put my feelings on hold completely while "working", they're coming out at other times, when it's not important. But the reason it's disturbing to me is that it is important, for if I needed to help a friend (or myself) I might wind up passing out instead of actually doing something.

Ugh. The smell of the lingering Root and Cypress Pear is not a good smell. I can't get it out of my nose. I ate an apple, which usually helps settle my stomach. I think I'll go rub my hands liberally with Booth's Honey and Almond Body Butter and see if that helps mask the smell I don't like. It usually does the trick. Let's hope so. I really feel sick.

Note: That Booth's product really works. It's a bargain, too, at six bucks. It's a bit waxy and greasy, but it has a warmness that is nice. The smell is not quite right, as far as "accuracy" goes. But it does seem to just about always work to neutralize a scent that's bothering me. I do have very dry hands, and so, even though I generally don't like feeling greasy, I like this product. Now, I know I said I wasn't going to write "reviews", but this sure sounds like one. Please don't hold it against me.

And lastly, if you were thinking I was going to be writing about Sartre's "Nausea", I'm sorry you've been disappointed. However, I can steer you to an article entitled "Sartre and Camus: Nausea and Existentialist Humor", which I started to read and found decidedly unfunny, but I'm not an academic. If you read it, let me know how it turns out.