About Bedrooms

The thing about bedrooms is that their personality is distinct and instantly obvious once you break the intimate seal of the door -- Donna Karen Talc, diffuser oil, Old Spice, candles -- lovely smells and images rush in as you suck in the first breath of the room. Sometimes when I open my bedroom door, it smells like shirts waiting for starch or brown sugar lotion waiting for hands. The other day, it smelled like a dog lying on a new quilt and on another it was freshly watered dirt and Swiffer Wets. The beneath scent is always a blend of sweat and sex and dogs.

I used to think I wanted it to smell like Tiffany's on Fifth Avenue in New York, but when I tried to step inside to get a sniff, the doors were locked. Tiffany's likes the smell so much that they lock it inside and never let it out. You have to make an appointment to get a whiff of it. I bet it smells like new carpet and besides, who wants a deadbolt on your bedroom door?

Then I thought I'd like our bedroom to smell like Bath and Body Works, but the last time I went there I left sneezing and a woman stopped me to say she recognized me when I spoke at the prison. It was awkward. I don't want to think of felons when I do what I do in my bedroom.

Tonight I changed my mind and thought I'd like a Pottery Barn bedroom of dark wood and eclectic pillows and whatever scent that type of bedroom would be. The smell of this month's catalog would smell like birds and weathered lanterns, but next month, I'd have to change the scent so it smelled like balls of rolled up vines and weathered candlesticks. Changing the scent every month overwhelmes me. I just can't do it.

Somewhere I heard that your bedroom should be feminine. I think it was Maxum magazine. Feminine because you want your woman to feel her sexiest in the bedroom. I am about the most butch heterosexual woman around but I have to agree that things like that matter. There is just something like lace and goddesses that make a bedroom just about perfect. I slept in a bedroom that has angels and flowers for a few days this week and it made me feel lovely and because of that, I think it made J.D. feel lovely too.

I'll say it one more time, I'm giving up anything that doesn't bring me joy. It's a very slow process deciding what those things are because first, I need to figure out what doesn't bring me joy. Sometimes that's hard to recognize. I'm trying very hard to be aware of every thing I do, see, and smell, and what do you know, dirty Ingido jeans and dog beds bring me joy!

If you don't know me, you may have expected me to lie and say that joy is happy, happy pictures of brooks and trees and the smell of campfire marshmallows and lavender. But if you know me, you know that blueberry-sage candles are nice, but the scent of a fresh shower and shave smells devine. The woody scent of the ficus tree from Brent's funeral  that has grown to be eight-feet tall mixed with slippers and Vicks and douche is what makes my bedroom the best.

I love a new quilt, a pillow case washed in Clorox, a bottle of J&J lotion and Just Like Me, and a bottle of water on the night stand. I love dog beds, a ficus tree, and Old Spice to wake me in the morning just a few minutes before the alarm goes off. And I love it when a bedroom smells like LIFE instead of a magazine