Have a Nice Guilt Trip Read Online Free PDF

into the phone.
    “No, it was funny! He’s a really good mimic.”
    The rest of the way, we stayed safe at sea level. We even found a cute park to cut through, which was lovely save for the giant rat that crossed our path.
    I wasn’t so grossed out by that, because initially I thought it was a small cat.
    We strolled the rest of the way along the river, with the Lite-Brite skyline of New Jersey twinkling from across the Hudson.
    “That’s better,” my mom said.
    “We did see two people shooting up. That was sad.”
    “ What? ”
    Actually, I didn’t see them, my boyfriend pointed them out once we were past.
    “He joked that he wanted to show me ‘Old New York,’ isn’t that clever?”
    My mom was unamused.
    “That aside, it was a perfect night.”
    “Geez.” She laughed.
    See what I mean?
    Charmed.

 
    The Scent of a Woman
    By Lisa
    My house smells like dogs, but I smell like gardenias.
    And wisteria, grapefruit, and tea roses.
    Also opium. At least that’s what it says on the bottle, and I’ll take his word for it, since he’s Yves St. Laurent.
    I’m an Opium addict.
    Today we’re talking about perfume, and I’ll explain why.
    We begin when I get together for a weekly trail ride with my pals Nan and Paula. We call it a trail ride, but it’s more like a trail sit. Nan is an expert horsewoman, but Paula and I are too scared to go faster than we can talk.
    Horseback riding is great exercise, when other people do it. When I do it, it’s excellent conversation.
    The three of us talk about our kids, our lives, and our diets, but somehow this time, the subject turns to perfume, and as it happens, I’m the only one who wears it every day. They’re both surprised, and come to think of it, so am I.
    Loyal readers will recall that I’m your favorite dirtbag.
    To be specific, I have confessed in these pages that I shower only every few days, wear the same black sweatpants throughout the winter, and have been known to sleep in my clothes.
    With dogs.
    Impressed yet?
    The only excuse is that I work at home. If I’m doing my job, I don’t meet anyone all day, except two thousand new words.
    So naturally I don’t wear makeup very often and if I go out to food-shop or run errands, I don’t bother with mascara or eyeliner.
    I was never a girly-girl, and now I’ve aged out of the category.
    But the one thing that I always do, even at home, is wear perfume.
    Every day.
    I’m not quirky, I’m fragrant.
    I think it started way back, because Mother Mary always wore perfume. She also smoked, so most of the time she smelled of Youth Dew and More 100s. I used to borrow her clothes in middle school, and I smelled generally older and wiser, or like a pack-a-day habit.
    But a habit was born, which was being aromatic.
    So I tried to sell Nan and Paula on wearing perfume. It makes you feel pretty even if you look like hell. It makes you feel elegant in a T-shirt. It makes you feel young when you’re, well, my age.
    Our sense of smell is one of only five senses, but it gets the least love.
    We worry about what we look like, but little about what we smell like, and we can’t even see what we look like. Fragrance can be for others, but it can also be just for us.
    Perfume is personal aromatherapy.
    So the next time my girlfriends and I went for a trail ride, I brought along three bottles of my favorite perfumes, like a taste test for women. I brought one that smells like roses, one that smells like spices, and one that smells vaguely powerful. We mixed and matched and had a great time, spraying ourselves before we got on the horses, right in the barn.
    The horses were not amused. They’re used to us spritzing fly spray, not perfume, which, oddly, worked almost as well at repelling flies.
    I’m hoping men don’t feel the same way.
    Anyway, the horses were repulsed. They kept looking back at us as we rode, and Buddy The Pony threw his head high and curled his upper lip. This is called pflamen, which is something horses do