the smell of progress

I'm surrounded by the smell of progress these days, but progress in
Africa isn't such a great smell all the time. One of my aromatherapy
candles quit quickly and the other was stolen from my coffee table,
leaving behind the tangy ammoniac smell of partially cured goat hide on
my new stool mixed with the turpentine of the varnish on the door which
I commissioned to serve as a basketball backboard. I'm inordinately
proud of this altered dwarf-sized door (short and fat) which may
represent the first major work I have ever knowingly ordered from
anyone, but the smell of varnish is particularly overpowering,
especially when I'm laying on my concrete floor already partially
overcome by the paint fumes of the Brilliant Green for the tennis court
that shredded 6 pairs of gloves and made my hands look like the
Incredible Hulk. I've been trying to scrub off this green hue with my
recent purchase of soap from the BOMA (the grocery store burned down
last month, remember, so everything's local purchases these days) which
is colored black and smells like cough drops. There's little more
disheartening than trying to scrub off green paint with black lather,
which leaves behind a disgusting black soap ring around the bathtub and
a smell of pharmacies without much improvement in the green cracks of my
knuckles or fingernails. But progress is progress, the dead-goat smell
is fading, and the tennis court is (mostly) rain-proof and ready for the
re-inaugural match next weekend.