Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Nosy Interview: Wilson Diehl

 Wilson in The Antennae Galaxies in Collision, © NASA

Wilson and I met in a conference room, in a beautiful brick building in Pioneer Square. Our work-friend to real-life-friend transition was probably inappropriately speedy, and solidified by a marathon phone date that took the place of a coffee date made impossible by a rare Seattle snowstorm. Join Wilson for some virtual-friend tea-time yourself at Not Quite What I Expected.

What do you smell like?
Wow--that's a surprisingly hard question to answer. On a really good day, I'm pretty sure I smell like melty butter. Salted butter, just to be clear. Not margarine. Definitely not margarine.
 

I have a super-sensitive nose (not as precise and perceptive as yours, nosy girl, but still pretty persnickety) and find most scents-in-a-bottle too olfactorily overwhelming to put on my body. That said, I recently discovered this rosewater hand cream (yes, I'm a 36-year-old granny), which I love so much I apply it to my neck and upper chest region to make sure its warm, slightly sharp rosy splendor is as near my nose as possible. Why don't I just apply it to my actual nose? Unclear. Acne anxieties?
 

One semester in college I bought some cheap but delicious honeysuckle lotion from Bath & Body works (the worst!), and numerous strangers stopped me to tell me how good I smelled. It was almost as exciting as the two times in my life I was told I had a nice singing voice.

What do you like to smell?
It's so much easier to say what I don't like to smell...patchouli, incense, scented candles, dogs, cumin, lilies, the inside of my summer clogs, any garbage can anywhere, rat pee, my rat-filled garage, old coffee grounds (which smell like rat pee), stinky diapers, decay, Tacoma. When I was pregnant the smell of my husband's peppermint foot lotion and (non-peppermint) hair gel made me want to die. Same with the smell of smoke, fish, soap, the compost bin, and my favorite leather purse. Worst of all was the smell of coffee, which is a real problem since I live in Seattle and there is, in fact, a Starbucks on every corner.
 

I like to smell bread, muffins, cookies, pie (notice a trend?), nutmeg, rosemary, just-cut wood, roses, vanilla (again with the baking!), and bacon. When I'm not pregnant I love the scent of smoke, leather, and coffee, too.
 

I like to sniff my baby's head, even when she's three or four (or six) days post-bath and her head smells like wet dog. When she was tiny and exclusively eating breastmilk, her poo smelled like rhubarb, and I liked to smell that, too.
 

When she was just-born she smelled like brown sugar (even my husband with his less-refined sniffer agreed), and it was the best smell in the world. I've been trying to find a close approximation in lotion form, so far to no avail. For some reason every cream that's advertised as smelling like sugar smells like sweetened lilies. Why, nosy girl, why?

14 comments:

Unknown said...

It turns out I was (just barely) pregnant when this interview occurred... Hence my obsession with the lovely smells of baked goods and the hideous smells of rats and garbage. Perhaps Nosy Girl will interview me again when I'm not possessed by another being and my answers will be more well-rounded? In the meantime, I'll be dodging compost bins and garbage trucks and, of course, rat's nests.

Beth Mattson said...

The trend continues of everyone having an amazing smelling baby! Except for me. Again I say, he's great and love his stink, but it is not the amazing rainbow unicorn sparkle that others report!!!!

nosy girl said...

And not just babies, but their poo! Beth, I think it was you that pointed out how there have been a decent number of Nosy Interviewees around these parts who have praised the smell of sweet baby poop. I wonder, though, do others acknowledge this early-days baby-poop smell as pleasant? Or is it just the parents' of the baby in question?

nosy girl said...

And Wilson, of course you're welcome back for a second non-possessed round!

Unknown said...

Two things:

1. Forgot to mention--I looooove my backdrop!

2. It is definitely only parents who enjoy the scent of their baby's poop. And it's not like we stick our nose in the waste bin for kicks--it's more like a pleasant surprise that for a brief, breastfed while, their shit truly don't stink. (It certainly does now, though.)

nosy girl said...

Nevertheless, thank you for that visual of doting parents, noses in the diaper bin, grins wide.

Preets said...

Actually -- and I'm sorry because this will probably make Beth feel even worse -- I've smelled the poop of lots of other breastfed babies (other than mine), and I do think it smells pretty great. Like rhubarb, yes, with a hint of vanilla and a milky note. I mean, it's basically yoghurt, that poop, so how bad is it going to smell?

Beth Mattson said...

Update: I let Charlie lick cream cheese from my spoon last week (never mind why I had a spoon full of cream cheese), and he didn't poop for two days, but when he did, it smelled *exactly* like cream cheese (despite looking standard), and I will *finally* count that as a pretty good, sweet-smelling baby poo!

And, Wilson, I like your interview for other reasons, as well. Isn't pregnancy-related sniffing strange and cool and horrible??? :)

honest company reviews said...

Although I did like it when they were cheaper, honest diapers are still my favorite. My 3rd child is now in these & out of 3 kids never have these leaked!!! And I love the orgainc material that just makes it better to use them!!

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