I got Room 1015 Power Ballad through Scentbird for my October choice. Click the link for my referral if you’re interested in trying out the service.

The midterms have gotten me particularly emotional for one reason or another. I’m just a little bit closer to it this week than I have been, I guess. Shout-out to the girls I met from Alabama when I was canvassing in Washington Square Park who were not exactly hopeful but certainly were not giving up on their home state. Shout-out to the felons whose rights in Florida whose rights have been restored, and to the ones in New York and New York City whose rights have not yet been relinquished to them. Also to all of the very nice people who are not US citizens who wished me and us all luck when I bothered them anyway.

We lost a few battles but we won so many that it doesn’t feel fitting to concentrate on the losses this quarter. 

Image from Fragrantica

It’s old-school and frayed, like bar soap you were too much in a rush to wash off. It doesn’t smell complete. The musk is stanky, but also creamy and round like Dial on bass. Like you are a pencil-wielding author who showers as a health necessity and not a pleasure and while bubbles were still running down between your breasts, you just knew where you wanted to take your idea next and simply had to jump out and write it down before it all went down the drain. I get cedar for sure, but the leather seems to be reclining in the corner somewhere.

The extra rush of water on the way to the elderly community center was enough to pull out more of the cedar and the juniper in Room 1015’s Power Ballad, or at least the ink and wood smells of the polling room overpowered the musky tones of the warble on my cold skin, taking away the sweetness and imitations of humanity, the debaucherous and idealized version of it, and emphasizing the “power.” Cold hands burning writing on paper, circles and write-ins alike. And that room had power.

Every patient, tired-eyed, organized person who sat at those tables and stood at the front of lines and the back of lines and the middle of lines had power, who held arms and canes and crutches and got wet with rain off of coats and umbrellas and clouds, who helped navigate wheelchairs, who informed and spoke and had conversations, who deliberated and thought. The act of throwing scarves over the shoulder had power. Taking off hats. Adjusting glasses. Excellently maintained suits with shoulder pads that settled perfectly on slightly shrunken arms. Smiles and frowns and squints alike.

I admit I always walk with shyness in the presence of great power. Dripping through the tiled floor, wearing a scent called Power Ballad did not change that.