I Want a Girl With a Mind Like a Diamond...Well, Sort Of

*Current Fragrance: Vanillary Solid Perfume by LUSH
*Currently Listening: Poison Arrow by ABC

....and by "girl" I mean fragrance, and by "mind" I mean inside, and by "diamond" I mean calcite, pyrite, kaolinite, sphalerite, millerite, barite, dolomite, limonite, smithsonite and quartz. Most likely it would be quartz.

"People are like stained glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within." - Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

So, I'm a little obsessed with geodes. We had a good deal of them that fund out around trees in my front yard growing up. I talk about them a good bit in this entry. "Wait...what's a geode?" you ask. OK, I'm going to grant you a pass if you actually asked that. Hell, I don't know....I grew up with a father who taught 7th and 8th grade science and we scoured the ground for interesting "Earth goodies" for fun. (Yep. Strange child was I.) I also said really odd, yet COMPLETELY endearing if you ask me, things - like, "a spider left a delirious rash on my right thy." Needless to say, never really hung out at the cool kids table, but that's really here nor there.

A geode is a sparkly (most times) mineral compound inside of a more dull shell (chalcedony - which is a cryptocrystaline form of silica). They form in cavities of sedimentary (normally limestone) or volcanic rock. If this phenomenon took place in a "crack" rather than an "cavity", it'd be called "vug" not a geode. 

Wow, that sounds boring and dorky even to me when I read it!! Here's a little geode math, Cadbury style. Consider the Cadbury Cream Egg (just think layers and not relative thickness here): foil wrapper = sedimentary or volcanic rock, chocolate = chalcedony & creamy filling = most likey quartz.

I think this really shows the distinct parts quite well.

I've always been enchanted by geodes. On the outside, they just look like a rock, just an ordinary rock, but inside - that's where the magic is, all the sparkly-ness lies within. I identify with this. Actually I think just about all of us, in some form or another identify with the geode. But before I go into the poetic/ooey-gooey-ness of this sentiment, just think of what an incredibly cool feat of chemical compounding and perfumery it would be to compose a scent that emulates what a geode does!?!? You'd have to bury the aldehydes and any other sparkly notes on the inside of everything else. The perfume would read backwards, or inside out. How freaking cool would that be?!?!?!?

While I have grown through a long process of self acceptance about my looks as of late (now, I don't want to be "thin" or "like other people", I just would like to be "healthy", and it's a process); I wasn't always that way. Elementary first it was my eyes. They're pretty small. Between my dad's small eyes and my mom's high cheek bones that I inherited, I was SCREWED. In Jr. High (pre-Chi-era) it was my naturally frizzy-curly hair. (My Mom would actually iron my hair with an actual iron, iron on the ironing board. Violet, you're turning violet, Violet!) Then in High School and early college it was the size of my breasts. Yeah, yeah....we all have our crosses to bear. 

As part of my acceptance of physical things I didn't like about myself, I try (life is an ongoing process) to think of internal qualities that I developed around the same time as feeling insecure about my exterior. Elementary school: I'm a tender and caring heart (Yes, I STILL AM! The bitchy, aloofness is a facade people!) Jr. High: My quick and acerbic wit that is best used in tension diffusing situations. High School, College and beyond: The realization that anything difficult I've gone through in my life gave my the empathy and understanding to be very helpful to dealings with others in their times of need. Also, I have my Mom's "No really. Tell me your life story" stamp, scrawled across my forehead as well. Perhaps this all explains the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross quote at the top of the post a little better.

Talking about my insides being far "superior" to my outsides (in my mind anyway), really touches on why I love perfume so much. For the younger me it would make me feel so pretty when I would spritz it on. "I smell, therefor I am"?  Then during my more troubled times I would find the sunniest scents to counter-act some very dark times. A type of olfactory "fake it 'til you make it." Now, at a much more balanced time in my life, I think it's a good mix. Sometimes I spritz how I feel, how I want to feel, to match the weather, to go with a color I'm wearing, to go with a song I'm into. It's my skin...I do what I want! *MUST BE SAID IN CARTMAN VOICE!*

Back to my idea about the geode inspired perfume: I just think geodes are f'ing cool! Both literally and metaphorically. I think it would be awesome to have a scent that would turn the (and I'm using this term loosely) "basic structure" of perfume inside out as well as something that would on an olfactory level represent how much of us (I think there are quite a few of y'all nodding in agreement) really view ourselves. Who's with me?

I find this one to be ESPECIALLY beautiful!

 *Currently Listening: Ding-Dong! the Witch Is Dead by Harry Connick Jr.

**Photo Credits: 1) allencentre.wikispaces.com, 2) 2gstratus.org and 3) thecrystalrockstore.com