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  • What a day

    Lost a friend today, because I am an idiot. Not sure what to, just cry I guess.

  • On A Walk

    Was walking down a street downtown, enjoying the earth and woodchip scent from the mulch, and all of a sudden was like "wow something smells bad" – Then I turned around he corner and found the exit to an underground car park.

    Dogs must live in an entirely different world. The kind of spatial awareness of scent is like nothing else. Right now (with my whole three days of practice) it’s closer to how distant sound is perceived, there are things ambiently in your environment it draws your attention to. You know the presence or absence of certain things, even if it’s not clear where. Smell hits different when you are trying to focus on it as a first-class perceptual tool.

  • The Smell Today

    It is raining, and the air smells of petrichor.

  • Some Search Engines

    Noting down odd search engines when I find them:

    https://www.dogpile.com/ https://www.metacrawler.com SearXNG instances: https://searx.space/

  • Downtown by Scent

    As an experiment I am trying to navigate downtown by smell, to get me more in the animal headspace. This is the second day so far that I have done this, you can see the scent navigation tag for more details.

    • Getting off the streetcar, I smell food: Pizza, maybe? Somewhere in the distance. The wind has largely blown it away, as soon as I’ve moved.

    • "Mall smell" is a thing. Nearby, however, I found an outdoor food court, by following the smell of something fried and spicy. Nothing vegetarian, but interesting find.

    • Spice World! Closed, but I can still smell the anise from behind the door.

    • I’m astonished by how much I can detect people. Cologne, body spray, fabric softener, sunscreen, you name it. People leave sort of a trail behind – By walking through it, you can detect it, and it’s long! At least a hundred feet, if the wind is favorable.

    • I can also tell the overall air quality is better today, there’s less "dusty" smell from passing cars on the streets. Still, there is a trash can somewhere that needs to be emptied. Not interested in tracking that down.

    • There’s a slight… warm? gradient to the locations of food. Following the nicest smells has led me to the same food cart pod, the one I visited yesterday, which has a ton of different smells happening. I don’t know if its air conditions, or placebo effect, or what, but I feel like I’ve actually improved at this since yesterday. It’s less awkward to hold my sinuses open, and I feel like I have better scent resolution and identification: I’ve not detected anything truly new, but I haven’t needed to. Increased resolution has done a lot.

    • This burrito is great – It’s pretty generic, but the increased focus on smells has also come with an increased focus on taste: I’m getting 100% of this salsa. The smell has also convinced me to try some kind of fried Chinese dumpling: delicious, but too small for the price. This has, however, convinced me to come back to only order appetizer-sized items. I want to try more of these carts.

    • Unfortunately, the food may have ended the exploration portion of the smell adventure – I can smell some intense smokiness from a downtown street fair, but the lingering aftertaste of burrito, beer, and bing is interfering with accurate navigation. I wonder if dogs have this problem.

    • Fashion forward = you smell like lotion. I don’t make the rules, I just smell them. I did pass someone who had a lovely floral scent, but "you smell nice" is a weird complement for a stranger to give, so I kept quiet on that one.

    • Arriving home, I notice my apartment has gotten stuffy, in a way it usually is but that bothers me somewhat now. Opened a window: Hopefully it won’t get too cold at night!

    Anyway, I love doing this, and I highly encourage others to try at least once. I don’t know if I’m going to keep posting about it, but its been a fun way to get myself putting out text, and I think that’s a healthy place to be. 🙂

  • Scent Navigation Pt. 6

    Interesting places on the way home:

    • Vietnamese restaurant putting out some sort of roasted meat smell. I would take my dog here.
    • Mattress store that seemed to have an in-store scent?? Overly sweet.
    • Park fountain, detectable about 2 blocks away. Quite pleasant.
    • Florist shop, closed. No scent. 🙁
    • Safeway: Bakery section.
    • A burst asian restaurant smell, which was deicious but that I was unable to find. Pursuing the trail led me to a different one (American food). It was, however, successfully following a scent.
    • Crossfit: smells like floor mats.
    • A general increase in floral scents as I get into my neighborhood.
    • My house: Smells like me 🙂

    #ScentNavigation

  • Scent Navigation Pt. 5

    Realizing the sort of earthy smell I’ve been detecting is… well, the Earth. This makes sense in retrospect, the strongest scents are going to be from wherever you are, and if there’s nothing strong around you it will be dominated by the ground.

    It’s somewhat abundantly clear that very little attention is paid to the scentscape of cities. It’s not that it’s bad, quite the opposite: The mixing together of all the random odorous objects is surprisingly pleasant. It’s also quite grounding, I feel like I have a different degree of awareness of the places around me.

    But, on the other hand, no concern had been given to ventilating streets, or planting flowers, or encouraging restaurants to put out food scents. I can imagine the last one to be a matter of regulation, it may be too strong for casual downtown pedestrians.

    #ScentNavigation

  • Scent Navigation Pt. 4

    Stepped onto a grassy area by the waterfront, and can immediately tell. Can also smell the nearby fountain!

    It’s surprising to me how localized some of these are. I wasn’t able to smell the grass until I was basically on top of it, but now that I’m here it’s quite strong.

    I think I may not be paying enough attention to wind direction: There’s not a lot, but there’s enough to affect what smells are found where. It’s a powerful effect, it will change the profile completely, and quickly. The air can smell completely different in under a second.

    Also interesting: I’m noticing certain people around me more. More specifically, I noticed a man behind me who was a smoker, and also a woman who holy crap was using a lot of body lotion.

    #ScentNavigation

  • Scent Navigation Pt. 3

    Scientology building: No scent.

    #ScentNavigation

  • Smell Navigation Pt. 2

    I have tracked down the food smells to a collection of food carts, which explains why it seemed like there were so many ambiguous scents. Lotta french fry smells by the tables, and an Indian cart giving out some nice curry vibes by the entrance. There’s enough wind that most dissipate within about 50 feet, but in front of the individual carts is much stronger. Passed in front of a fried fish stall and it was way too strong if I pay attention to it. Change your fryer oil!