There are only two ways, in my opinion, that I differ from most people.

The first way, and this really only applies to "most people on the internet", is that I don't think I'm very different from most people.

The second way is that I smell things that aren't there.

I used to hear things that weren't there as well, but I grew out of that in my teens. Now I just have phantom smells.

I know what they are not. They are not synaesthesia - I am not smelling sounds, sights, or tactile sensations. They are also not a symptom of Petit Mal - I show many symptoms of Petit Mal, so for a long time I thought that the smells were part of it, but apparently the phantom smells of both Petit and Grand Mal are either burnt toast or an unidentified smell, and neither of those fit my smells. The most common hit I get when Googling "phantom smells" is for "olfactory hallucinations" and when I follow those links they are all to do with both forms of Mal.

By the way, though I show some symptoms for Petit Mal (and also some, but fewer, for Grand Mal), I am glad to say that I have been diagnosed as not having it.

I just smell things that aren't there. I am about 95% sure that they are related to my mental health, and so I am only prepared to discuss one particular phantom smell in public.

When I am depressed I smell over-ripe or slightly rotten oranges. In the past I have torn (metaphorically) my home apart searching for these oranges and found nothing vaguely resembling a citrus fruit, over-ripe or otherwise, so nowadays I make do with checking the most likely spaces and then moving straight on to combating the depression itself.

I won't go into why I get depressed, and this entry is only being written because I don't smell oranges right now.

I have some theories about why I smell oranges when I'm depressed, and why I smell phantom smells at all. These theories are only semi-scientific, in that I 1) do only sporadic research on the whole phenomenon, 2) don't get keep strict records of my depression, and 3) am very unwilling to experiment on myself. Yes, I can, and do, think of a hundreds of ways of qualifying and quantifying my phantoms (I'm a tester, for fuck's sake, I do this for a living), but right now, I'm just going to tell you my current conclusions.

Conclusions are: I am smelling my own pheromones, and putting my own interpretation on top of what I smell. With much handwaving around the word "pheromones", since I don't know what else to call the smell given off by the chemicals in my brain. Oranges, because of when the smell of oranges became important in my life, which was right about the time that I first became depressed. Why a smell and not a sound? There's a lot of literature about how the sense of smell is the most primeval of senses, and how it is the most likely to trigger memories, but if that explained why I got phantom smells during depression surely there would be more documented cases of others having the same experience, right? Partly, I think that it is because I have a good sense of smell - in fact, the best sense of smell in my family, so when a child I could smell things that the rest of the family couldn't, and therefore dismissed as only in my mind*. Maybe I am just scent-dominant (from a theory by ozarque), and so few other people are that we are just ignored.

Whichever or whatever, this is still a very real phenomenon for me. Only last week I could smell the oranges everywhere, and my other, undiscussed, phantom smells are still around. And I wanted to share, in case people find it interesting, or have ideas of where I can look next time I am motivated enough to research it.

* About it being in my mind - I get really pissed off when people dismiss things as being "only" in the mind. There are huge numbers of things that we take as reality that only exist in our collective understanding, our collective minds agreeing that something is so - this is behind a lot of cultural misunderstanding, for instance, where the Irish collective understanding of what constitutes good manners clashes with the Finnish understanding of good manners (to take a trivial example). But that rant can be left for another time.

Current Mood: okay

Not according to plan, I've been on sick leave since Tuesday. I'm trying not to think of how far behind in my work I am, and how ridiculous my estimates and commitments are going to look - yesterday was deadline day, I am the only tester on the project so I couldn't even delegate. I even left a test running on Monday evening when I left the office, so I have to go in there today or tomorrow to check the result, and pick up my laptop for a trip to Oslo on Monday.

Anyway. finnbear was sick as well, so the dog has been going mad with neither of us being well enough to take her for more than the shortest walk. When I finally took her (name of Tesla, by the way) out yesterday afternoon (ill-advised on my part, I felt horrible when I got home) she dragged me down to our usual meadow, and ran around in circles without pausing for about twenty minutes.

That's about the most exciting thing that has happened all week. I can't wait for life to start up again.

Current Mood: discontent

I'm in Copenhagen for the day, at an intensive meeting for one of the projects I'm on. I hate these one day business trips, getting up early, seeing a city through taxi windows on the way from the airport to the office, and then back again.

Still, it's nice to be in Denmark for a change. Most of my business trips are to Riga, flying AirBaltic in a Fokker 50, bouncing over the Baltic Sea in a deafening roar of engines and what I can never forget is outdated engineering. By comparison, the flight this morning felt like we were hardly moving, and extraordinarily quiet.

My eyeballs are rolling only because of the early morning I had. There was a half hour conversation about "variable enclosures" that got merged into a CSI influenced dream I was having, and I only just stopped myself from adding a comment, half-asleep, about my new insights. Luckily, my colleagues either didn't notice, or are kind enough not to embarrass me.

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We're on a break now, hence the update.

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Once upon a time, taking a plane was a Huge Deal, involving much preparation the night before, weeks of panic over lost passports and tickets. Now, what with the ease of checking in over the net, just taking a laptop bag, it's similar to an ordinary commute to the office, with a stricter schedule. A couple of months ago I was in the taxi on the way to the airport for a Riga trip when I realised that I had forgotten my passport - since then, I just keep it in the laptop bag.

I also no longer have maps, or even the faintest clue of where I am actually heading to. I usually travel with a very organised project manager and one or two architects, and us techy types just rely on the PM to have the details, pay for everything, and shepherd us about the place. In that sense, it is even easier than my usual commute (although my usual commute is sometimes beyond me, it must be said, and I end up on the wrong bus or train due to stupidity or absent mindedness).

But anyway. Back to work we go. Can I make the rest of the day without quoting Hamlet? I doubt it.

Current Mood: tired

Has it really been a year? And is it really October already??

That's disingenuous of me, I think regularly about making an entry, but when you get out of a habit it is difficult to get back into it again.

I was going to make an entry with a list of all the net-related projects I have started and then abandoned - but I abandoned that idea.

I was going to use this as a book blog, but it's October now and I have read about 70 books (which is amateur level compared to some on my friends list, but still more than I thought I read) and I couldn't be bothered to try and write something about all of them.

I was going to do an update on all the things that have happened since my last entry, so that everybody is up to date and I can start regular entries again, but that would be a huge entry, and I might slip out of the habit before I could finish the entry.

I was going to start making quick entries with just a couple of lines about amusing / interesting /strange things that have happened, but the problem with that is as soon as I start writing about them they seem a lot less amusing / interesting / strange, and the entry gets abandoned.

I have never and will never make this is a meme-result only journal - even I'm not very interested in what precious metal / Sopranos character / etc I am, and I know that nobody else is either. Own up, as soon as you see a meme result, the only thing you think about is what your own results would be.

So given that all those plans are off, does that mean I'm giving up on this journal entirely?

I hope not. I don't want to, but I can't promise anything regular, unless and until the LJ habit comes back. One factor making my return more difficult is that I no longer have the time at work to do anything other than work, or rather I am motivated enough at work to not seek distraction on the net. The reason I'm here today is that I have some work to do this morning, and I'm waiting for some tests to finish running.

But let's see! Is this entry my swan song, or the herald of a glorious comeback?

Current Mood: awake