Americans smell more than they ever use to now. I don't necessarily mean they smell bad, they could smell good, but virtually everyone has a scent on them now that is overtly noticeable and frankly offensive. I didn't ask to smell you the heavy perfume or cologne that you put on; I didn't try to make bodily contact or have anything to do with a random stranger, but there's your own personal smell, bursting in on my senses rudely without my permission. (It might have been better during Covid to have lost one's sense of smell).
I use to brace myself to enter into an elevator because I don't want to be standing too close to others due to social distancing and chance of Covid, them not wearing a mask or I'm not wearing a mask....but now even if the elevator's empty I brace myself.... for the scent that someone has left just from their own body. It seems the range nowadays is to douse oneself with certain scent so that everyone within a 15-foot radius knows what you smell like. I could be outside on a clear day, open air, and be trailing behind someone and from quite a distance away know what they smell like. And yes, some of the smells are theoretically good, but eventually even good smells because pungent and just dull, like eating too much cake. I get the idea of deodorant to mask the smell of one's body odor, but when that DEODORANT is stronger than the body odor itself, it's too much. It's also usually the more inconsiderate people who wear that much perfume too: I was at a classical music concert: Vivald's "Winter" of the Four Seasons, and three twenty-somethings (how I envy their youth but marvel at their ignorance now that I'm not amongst their ranks) walk in of course 10 minutes after the performance had already started, force other people out of their seats even though the theatre has plenty of empty seats, make a fuss about sitting down, and promptly sit right in front of me for the whole concert. The most important thing I notice, of course is how they smell. It's a nice perfume, but it's too much, especially if they're about to be sitting in front of me for an hour and a half. Oh and of course they're one of those who clap between movemetns of a piece (you're not supposed to even though some people do it out of habit, just like you're not supposed to smile for your passport photo) and they talk during the brief pause about how they thougth they were coming for The Nutcracker. Sigh.
Poor MJ, who has better sense of smell than I do: she must be even more overloaded with fragrance overkill than I am.
Speaking of sensory overload, I finally saw the movie Avatar last night. No, not Avatar: The Way of Water, the 2022 movie, I watched Avatar: the 2009 movie. I saw it on my home computer on a Friday night after a REALLY long week of work, but even on the Acer basic model the sights and sounds of Pandora were incredible, so I can't imagine what a visual masterpiece it must have felt like in 2009 when the movie first came out. I guess I missed out on a piece of moviemaking history. It's kind of incredible how much of history I've missed out on not just from not being alive pre-1987, but even while actually being conscious and present in the world since 2000 (I'll give myself a pass for pre-teenage years) but holy cow, I had the Internet, the news, and everything, and can't believe some of the stuff I missed due to being obsessed with good grades, sports, language learning, and being in my little bubble all these years. I missed a HELL of a good show called The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, I missed Sam Bankman Fried's meteoric rise in the business world due to crypto and didn't hear about him until October 2022 when it all came crashing down like a house of cards/crypto, I'm embarrassed that I had to ask someone who David Bowie was when I heard of his passing in 2016. There's ignorant but I guess I was blissfully ignorant of anything pop music-related back then. Now that I've joined civilization and kept up with what the world is doing, I feel the sensory overload overloading my circuits.... sometimes there's too MUCH going on. What I do appreciate is the overload giving me hope with people like Mr. Beast giving out money for people who need it, and St. Jude's Children's Hospital for providing all healthcare free for children with cancer. That's exactly the right thing to do and I wish I had thought of that sooner.
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