morning_breath raze every relative i had gave me cologne for christmas every year when i was growing up. it wasn't because i smelled bad. it was because it was a gift that didn't require any thought. i built a whole fortress of the stuff on my dresser: stetson, drakkar noir, aspen, intuition, british sterling, polo, english leather, and others i can still see, but whose names i've forgotten. i probably wore stetson more than anything else. it made me feel classy. i drank it once. i wanted to know how it tasted. i cut it with water, of course. every good bartender knows you don't want to drink cologne straight from the bottle. that's a recipe for a bad time. i filled a glass with water at the bathroom sink, added some stetson, and watched what was clear turn muddy. i took a sip. it didn't taste like much of anything. like anyone, i wake up with a dry mouth sometimes, but i don't seem to have morning breath. i think i killed it the day i drank that pretty-smelling oil dissolved in alcohol. 211014 ... kerry i love this for several reasons. first because the names of colognes and perfumes are absurd, even more so when listed this way (intuition??). then there's the thoughtless gifts--yes! when i was a teenager my grandmother a bunch of plastic beads in one of those promotional cosmetic pouches. and the same valentine's card a couple years in a row. and then there's the obvious. drakkar noir on the rocks, anyone? 211015 ... raze i feel like there's a whole blathe about thoughtless gifts we've been given that's waiting to be written. ha! my favourite: one well-meaning aunt gave me the exact same sega game gear game every year for christmas. i've never owned or had access to a game gear in my life. i must still have at least three copies of that game buried at the bottom of a box somewhere. 211015 ... tender_square michael came toward me and offered a few quick pecks to say hello. i liked the way his stubble felt against my face and how our soft lips brushed. i held my hands to his face and let my kiss linger. he pulled away from me when i thought we were having moment, when i've been desperate to connect. i went back to making my salad and asked, "why did you pull away?" "have you been flossing?" "yeah," i said. "i flossed this morning." it took me a beat to realize what he was really saying. "wait, are you saying my breath stinks again?" "that's why i pulled away," he said. "i haven't eaten anything recently, i had my granola bar earlier..." i trailed off. i clammed up. i went back to making my lunch. "now i feel like you're mad at me." he stood in the hallway waiting for me to absolve him. "you get mad when i do, and mad when i don't." about a week or so ago, he first mentioned my breath while we were watching tv in bed. his tone at the time struck me as abrasive; he asked me the same question, if i had been flossing. when i answered in the affirmative, he said, "well, i don't think you’re doing a good enough job; i watched you this morning and you just took the string quickly up and down your teeth. we have to be careful because we haven't gotten cleanings in a while." we haven't had cleanings since before we left for ohio two years ago, then with covid we haven't felt safe enough to go back to the dentist. naturally, i was upset when he told me this. "how long has this been going on?" "about a week or so," he said. "you waited a week to tell me this?!" i kept trying to smell my own breath. i couldn't smell anything. "well, it wasn't all the time, it was only here and there." i got up and brushed my teeth immediately. i flossed with greater care than i had been. turns out, there was a piece of food stuck between two of my molars, either a string of celery or seaweed that i had eaten almost a week prior. i told michael he was right and asked him not to keep it from me if it happened again. but when he said it today, it rankled me. i smelled my breath repeatedly. i couldn't smell a damn thing. we fought about it again later. "how else would you like me to say it?!" he was so exasperated. "i don’t know, maybe with a bit more tenderness?" i joke with him when he has bad breath. "oooh! you have *coffee breath* my love" after he kisses me. then he teases, asks if i want to smell more of it and brings his mouth closer to my nose while i shout "no!" "tell me *exactly* what i should say!" he threw his arms at his sides in defeat. "i don't have an answer for you," i said coolly. i left the room and began making dinner. for some reason "cath" by death cab for cutie suddenly came into my head and i played it on my phone. ben gibbard sang, "your heart was dying fast and you didn't know what to do." michael was sulking after. "i'm just dealing with so much right now and then you add this to it," he said. "okay, but when you say that, it makes me feel like i'm not a priority to you because you’re 'dealing with everything else.'" "but you are the priority! everything i do is for you!" "in an abstract way, yes, i know that is true. but in a concrete way, i'm not so sure." "i'm not trying to hurt you," he said. "you know i would not intentionally try to make you feel bad. why would i do that?" "i know. but i'm just telling you how it feels." michael claimed that as a sensitive person, he thought that maybe i was being too sensitive. "i hear what you're saying," i managed through a half laugh, "but now i just feel like you're trying to put it all back on me like it's my issue only and it's not.” * over dinner, a breakthrough? "life just isn't where i thought it would be right now," he said. i asked him what he meant by that. he was silent and he started bringing his finger to each of his eyes. i moved quickly to be beside him on the couch and began to rub his back. as the tears fell and he cried, i wrapped my arms around him and cried too. "i finally figured out what i'm supposed to do with my life and my mom's not here, and my brother is off the deep end, and i have no social group to support me." i held him and we sat there for a while like that. i didn't know what else to do. "maybe you need to hear the same thing my therapist said to me: 'you're grieving; let yourself grieve.'" i said i thought he was all blocked up with grief, that he had been inaccessible to me. "you're a feeling type," i said. "i don't understand where all this has been." we have talked about all the losses before, yes, but talking and feeling are two very different experiences. "it's not that easy to bring it out," he said. i forget that i'm more extroverted with my feelings than he is. he talked about feeling resistant to emotion these days, which is probably why we were fighting so much about mine. "maybe i'm bringing out what you need to confront," i offered. "maybe i'm doing that with you," he said. we laughed because there's truth in both. i said, "this has been going on for a while, and generally i've been good about rolling with it, but now i'm digging deeper into my feelings" — he scoffed here because he already sees me as being pretty deep with my feelings — "i'm becoming aware of how it's affecting me and i'm telling you about it." on our walk after dinner he told me he appreciated me bringing it all up. "when people don't talk about what’s bothering them, that's when the real problems start," he said. 211015 what's it to you? who go blather from