grown in rwanda

Lowell interviews Nyirahabimana in Gisagara, Rwanda.

Minsi myinshi (long time), Nosy friends! I have missed you. I apologize for this fallow period. I've had a lot of trouble accessing Blogger from Rwanda, where I'm still happily sniffing the best coffee on earth and burying my nose in my scarf against burning-tire smells. I've also neglected this space some in favor of finally finishing a big draft of my novel, which I hope smells like the air before a summer thunderstorm. Though I haven't been posting much, I'll return to the U.S., thanks in a major way to my Kinyarwanda-speaking partner (pictured in the field above, eliciting the laughter that "What do you, yourself, think you smell like?" was usually met with), with heaps of really amazing Nosy Interviews that I'm so eager to share with you. (We've collected nearly 100! I'm also sitting on a small but marvelous backlog of interviews from sniffers in the U.S. and other parts of the globe--I haven't forgotten you either!).

Look what grows in Rwanda (floral arrangements by Ru, one of my very favorite visitors)

We return to the U.S. this week, and once I catch my breath I hope to deluge you with so many smells you'll be dizzy. Apologies to those who have provided such lovely interview responses only to have them languish for this long (fermenting nicely!), and to you, if you've come here lately hoping for some fresh smells only to find me wishing you a Happy New Year/Valentine's Day yet again. I do hope the first half of your 2014 has been fragrant, that beautiful flowers are blooming wherever you are, and that you'll stick with me even after this sorry stretch of blog-anosmia. A sneak preview of some of the smells people here have shared stories about: snake's breath, the flower that kills luck, clean riverbeds, sun-dried laundry, warm milk, and every smell you can imagine (and some you haven't yet) relating to cows. 

blown-out birthday candles

Screenshot of Google Nose^BETA  

Even if you share my rigorous vigilance for April Fools' Day jokes, didn't you move your face a little bit nearer to your screen, hoping? Even in its scentless state, I wish Google Nose would've lasted past yesterday, and expanded its "people also sniffed" options.  I "sniffed" wet dog, fear, and campfire, but didn't even see horse manure!

No joke, Nosy Girl is three! How should we celebrate? 

happy new year

fresh year at Fresh Pond

Happy New Year, dear Nosy readers! How is your 2013 smelling so far? I wore Avignon plus some dainty dabs of 7 Billion Hearts (the perfume absolute version) to ring in the New Year, and my smell felt solemn, human, and true. 

chartreuse + champagne

I also wore sequins (pictured above), as one should when ushering in a new year. But January rarely feels fizzy to me; it's a serious month, usually a cold one, and I think more during these short (but thankfully lengthening) days of loss than I do during January's neighbors.

I've been, and will probably continue to be, a bit remiss with regular posts. But Nosy Interviews (the best part!) will be back next week, and I'll continue to post those consistently, even as I otherwise hibernate a little bit to work more on my novel, to open fewer tabs in Chrome, to cook with greater care, and to strive to be as I smell: true, true, true. 

smellgiving & thanksmelling

I baked (& ate) this for you.

Are you still eating Thanksgiving leftovers? I have leftover thanks to give, too, that I meant to offer last week. Thank you for reading! I'm so grateful to you, and to the nosy interviewees, who have indulged my curiosity over so many weeks, and who make me think about smell in sharper, better, weirder ways with each passing day. Thank you for reading, for lurking, for sharing, for commenting, for sending me smelly links, and for supporting me as I use this space to think out loud about smell in my sustained and scattered way. I go through the days more attuned to my sense of smell than ever before--more appreciative of pecans caramelizing in bourbon and brown sugar, more alert to the way that smells poke out like loud noises or beautiful faces, and still more fascinated by what we say about how we smell--and I have all of you, in no small part, to thank for that. 

Nosy Interview: Your Nominations

Your magnificent nose in the Celestial Still Life © Leonardo Julio & Carlos Milovic

If you're reading this, I'm curious what you smell like, and what you like to smell. And I welcome your nosy nominations. Whose smell experiences are you nosy about? Whether you've been interviewed or not, if you have suggestions of people you'd like to see sniffing in outer space, please get in touch.

It's been one year since I wrote Nosy Girl's first post.  Since then, I've shared forty-four Nosy Interviews in this space! And I'd like to keep getting all up in the olfactory business of dear friends, talented writers, internet crushes, inspiring perfumers, friends of friends, artists of all kinds, renowned weirdos, relative strangers, and actual strangers for years to come. (I really would like to conduct Nosy Interviews on the bus if it didn't creep so many people out to be asked about their odor by a nosy stranger.) Thank you all for reading, smelling, and sharing.

nosy about (again)

Sometimes I think the best reason to have a blog is to see what sorts of things people search for.  I told you before about being tickled by the search for "my brother picking friend nose" but here are two more recent lists: 

I wish I could offer more insight as to how to be interested in a girl's life without being nosy. Ask questions! But don't read the texts on her phone. 

This list is a whirlwind! Barely pregnant to interspecies friends playing with childhood toys, to those manure girls again (I'm starting to get too creeped out to google them), to monkey balls nut--so many smell possibilities--to what must be among the finest ways to end any list or evening: sharing a beer with Tim Riggins.

nosy about

Above is a list of how some Google-users recently wound up visiting Nosy Girl.  Welcome, fellow fans of Josh Charles' nose! It is I, your captain, Manure Girl, unsure how to vor-mag water, but very curious myself about that last string of search terms. Was the searcher concerned about her brother picking his friend's nose, or was she hoping to find video footage of such an activity?