Category: Distill My Heart

The TPE Ultraviolet G&T – Includes Recipe!

I’ve been brainstorming my There Plant Eyes Ultraviolet cocktail for over a year. Interviewing  writer and booktail mixologist , Lindsay Merbaum, for Aromatica Poetica plus the paperback release of There Plant Eyes on Aug 30, finally pushed me over the creative edge… The Ultraviolet Inspiration Ordinarily, debut authors don’t have a lot of say in the design process behind their… Read more

Drinking Monarch Nectar, AKA Milkweed (Asclepias), Essay 12 of #52essays2017

On the day of the hydrosols tasting with Cathy Skipper and Florian Birkmayer (offered through New York Institute of Aromatherapy), my daily hallucinations were painted blue, an electric blue that did not want to let go its hold on my visionscape. In recent years, I’ve found that strong scents can change my visual palette almost immediately, but somehow that blue… Read more

Adulterated Rose or, The Smell of Regrettable Youth, Essay 7 of #52essays2017

The guy with the hard metal name was beautiful in my degenerate eye. Beautiful with a girlfriend. And a Volkswagen bus. This was around the time of the earthquake of ’89, when the influences of flower power still loomed large in San Francisco. I’d been pining for so long and then he said they’d broken up. We climbed into his… Read more

Ylang-Ylang: Calming the Panic of Love & Memory, Essay 5 of #52essays2017

When I first read about ylang-ylang (Cananga odorata), I’d no smell associations, but I was intrigued because it is included in so many aphrodisiac blends. It is both relaxing and stimulating, which is a fabulous combination when you’re trying to get it on. Then I smelled ylang-ylang out of a labeled essential oil bottle, and I realized I’d smelled it… Read more

Distillation Installation: With All Four Senses and Remembered Sight

Seventeen years of living in a three-bedroom Astoria apartment distilled into one art installation: so much lost and gained; so many things dismantled and recreated; so many memories… I lived and worked in every room of that home. Beginning in the front room with my first guide dog and the boyfriend whose munificence allowed me to remain long after us,… Read more