I don't know what the sensation of smell is like. No matter how you put it, I will never truly understand it, just as I would be at a loss to explain a sunset to a blind person or a symphony by Beethoven to someone who was deaf. I don't know what it's like to smell roses nor what the odor of a fart is like. So, apparently its both a good and bad thing. I think what makes it easier to swallow is that I was born like this and didn't lose my sense of smell over time; that would have been really bad I think because at least I don't know what I'm missing.

Growing up, I thought I just had a really, really bad sense of smell. I thought Scratch N' Sniff cards were a sham, but it never even crossed my mind to question whether or not I actually had a sense of smell. It wasn't until I was about fifteen that I found out that I had no sense of smell. I was in the doctor's office and the doctor, for some reason, decided to ask me if I could smell and I thought about it and said, "not really well." From there my life spring boarded into a direction of new self-awareness. Everything just clicked once I found out and made all those odd times in my life when I couldn't smell things people brought to me clear. People would often offer a shoe or a shirt or cookies or something else, asking if I could smell the odd odor they sensed and I couldn't sense it. Maybe I had a constantly stuffed-up nose? Now I know that it wasn't due to my sinuses, but because I possess no olfactory bulbs. For those that don't know, your sense of smell is due to these things called olfactory bulbs, which are located just above and back of the nose.

The first thing that people usually ask me when I tell them that I can't smell is if I can still taste things. Yes, I can. That is why there are five senses of the body, and not four with smell and taste lumped into one category. I can tell the difference between water and milk, salt and sugar, lemons and limes, etc. The areas on the tonge that dectect sweet, sour, bitter, and salty are in perfect working condition. I will say that my sense of touch in my mouth is greatly sensitive. Whether or not it is more sensitive to yours can't be known since unless some person decides to surgically remove their olfactory bulbs from their head and report back to us if there is an increase in the sensitivity of the mouth.
KIDS TO NOT TRY THAT AT HOME... UNLESS YOU HAVE ADULT SUPERVISION.

One thing of great annoyance is that once I start to tell people that I can't smell, they start to check themselves when they refer to smells. They will ask me to smell something and then say "sorry" because they feel like they aren't being a good friend by forgetting that I can't smell. From my point of view, them saying "sorry" is yet another reminder to myself that I'm different. I would rather people just treat me like a normal person and to stop apologizing for talking about smells. I have seen programs on TV where people would apologize to a blind or deaf person for saying things like "see what I mean" and "this record sounds so good." Those characters would also hate it when people would correct themselves so I guess I sort of know what it's like to be blind or deaf on that level, of the annoyance of normal people tip toeing around us. I sort of find that funny and ironic (if I understand the definition of irony correctly) that five-sense people annoy us less-sensed people more when they are trying not annoy us.

Let me be redundant to help get my point across.

The Wrong Way:

Annoying Person: What is that weird odor in this room, do you smell that?
Me: No.
Annoying Person: Opps, sorry.
Me: (Roll of the eyes and big sigh that you now treated me like non normal person)

The Right Way:

Less Annoying Person: What is that weird odor in this room, do you smell that?
Me: No.
Less Annoying Person: Oh, well, it's bugging the shit out of me. I wonder where it is coming from.

...and scene. Did you notice how "Less Annoying Person" didn't even mention my limitation in the olfactory area? Good. If there is one thing I want you people to get from this journal entry, is to treat people like they are normal people, cause that's they way you would like to be treated and that's the way we would like to be treated.

This totally leads into the discussion I truly want to talk about, and this is thinking about the world in someone else's shoes. I think the world would be a little better off if everyone would stop and think about how other people are feeling if they were in their shoes. Maybe then there would be less hate and suffering in the world; although I'm not immune to this since I have become hardened by pan handlers asking for money. I know I'm a bit of a dreamer and an optimist but I believe it better than the alternative.

Although I was raised to think in these terms since I can remember, the book that drilled in the lesson into my brain and seal the deal was the book "To Kill A Mockingbird." To this day it is still my favorite book of all time although I do admit that I'm not really a book reader and the possibility of finding a better book out there is out there. I read it in my sixth grade English class and it was such a great thing. I have only read it once, back then, and have not picked it up again, but the lesson is still there in my memory. Two things to note that relate to this book: 1) in my senior year of high school, I was given the nickname Dill from a teacher who said I reminded him of the kid that played the part in the movie and 2) the Playground team I am on is named Atticus Finch.

I am a white male and I know that this group has held all the power in governments in most of history. This means that it would be easier for me than someone else who is different to make it in the world. Women have had to make great struggles to gain the natural rights they have. So have blacks and gays and Hispanics and all the other minorities in the world controlled by "the man." I have known this since I was knee high have been sensitive to others since then. This has shaped my political beliefs, which are more to the left than most of middle America. This helped my assimilation into the theatrical world a little easier but also of note is that I have become friends with more Republican minded people through theater than when I wasn't in it.

In addition to wanting to treat other people with respect, I wanted to treat the planet with respect. (Note: the past tense is used only to say that I was more concerned with the environment than I am now, which IS still concerned, just not as much.) In the late '80s Environmentalism was pretty big in the school systems and I got involved in C.A.R.E. (Conservation Awareness Research and Education) and I had my parents subscribe me to the Zoobooks series. My research projects in school were about blood types, snow leopards, and the Ebola virus. I was very proud that my family was part of the recycling program and I even tried to draw a design for the Schaumburg municipal government. They wrote me a letter saying they already had a conservation design but thanked me for my interest in the program and said they would put it in a file in case they needed it for a later project. Admittedly, the design was really bad but I still wonder if it really is in a file somewhere.

That's neat, I start off talking about having no sense of smell and it leads to talking about conservation; my brain is weird. Anyway, this relates to improv in that it helps me in character work. I am naturally curious about the lives of other people and how they think. I have noticed that everyone has a story and some ugly things in their life. No one is "normal" in the sense that they have no strife in their life. Don't think anyone else has gone through what you've been through? Think again. Don't think someone else can't smell? There probably is someone out there that also can't smell. So when I get really into a character, or when I am writing characters, I put in something horrible in their life that they don't tell anyone about, not even their friends; a secret, a subtext. I'm still working on doing it every time I walk out on stage but I'm still a beginning improv student in Chicago.