Hot Like Sweat

I seem to sweat a lot. Sweat is not sexy. Not on you either. Oh yeah, I was raised by proper hippies and I know it's completely "natural" and therefore a benign force of the universe. You can say the same thing about shit but no one wants to be dripping with that, do they? See what I mean? The weirdest thing is how sometimes my sweat smells and sometimes it doesn't. Why is that? I forgot to apply my deodorant this morning.* I didn't remember that I forgot it until I was drenched and dabbing myself dry with paper towels at work.

Yeah, I could have let it flow all natural style. I could have.

But I couldn't help thinking that customers might be put off if the sales clerk splashed them with sweat when turning her friendly face to greet them. I couldn't help thinking that a person like me, with a sweat streamed nose, might look more like a seedy desperado in a dusty hot western B movie than a delicate DRY flower of a lady. Who never swears. Ha ha.

I just gave my pits the sniff test (essential on days like this) and there is no off-putting acrid smell there. How can that be? I wonder if my sweat only smells when it's the sweat-of-fear? I have lots of sweat like that when I'm in uncomfortable social situations. Which is most of them.

On the other hand, the shirt I'm wearing is one of those cheap but surprisingly well made cotton ones you rarely find at Ross and are therefore super-stoked when you do and buy seven of the same one, well, the one I'm wearing today is about three years old and believe it or not, fibers don't last forever. Not these days they don't. What happens to old cotton knits that have a little bit of Lycra in it is that the fibers wear out. There comes a day when they just won't get fresh in the wash. They start to smell like unwashed skin. Yep. UNWASHED SKIN.

You might be interested (or not?) to know that I have a very sensitive nose. Towels eventually get to this point and I find it incredibly distressing to dry myself off with a piece of material that smells WORSE than I did before I washed myself.

That's what my shirt smells like. It makes me sad because it's been my favorite shirt for three years. That's why I have seven of the same one. All of them are the same age.

It continues to be very hot here in McMinnville. Tomorrow promises to be hot too. And I'm going to be canning dill pickles right after stooping over to pick them under the blazing sun. Obviously I'll be wearing sun screen. And a whole crap load more of my own sweat (which is certainly a lot better than wearing a crap load of someone else's sweat).

Someone once told me she thought man-sweat was sexy. I think my jaw may have dropped open and invited a flock of seagulls to land in it. She said she thought it was very "manly". Isn't it possible to be "manly" without stinking like a bitter stew of old nuts? What's wrong with deodorant? What's wrong with not smelling at all? Or how about just smelling like soap? I love the smell of soap!

Paris Hilton's namesake perfume is much worse than the smell of sweat because it smells like cheap aged urine.

So if it comes down to a choice between being engulfed in the smell of sweat or the smell of Paris Hilton's perfume I'm going to choose the sweat smell.

I wonder what my dog would choose?





*Tom's of Maine lavender. Supposedly natural but now owned by Crest or some other huge corporation. Dammit. I hate that.