And before that...

Today the bathroom smells like roasting chickens, which solves our little mystery I guess. Somehow, ventilation from the cc2 cafeteria kitchen is emptying out in the 3rd floor women's bathroom. I can only hope, with every germophobic hope muscle in my body, that the reverse is not true.

Two bostonians have called bullshit on my report of the smell of baking cookies on the red line, but i stand by my assertion. Except reading Kevin's thoughts on the subject, I've come to dick around with the idea that maybe what I smelled on the red line had something to do with the Necco factory.

The Necco (or New England Confectionary Company, affectionately) factory is right outside Central Square in Cambridge Mass., blocks from the original Fig Newton factory (now condos) minutes away from the Squirrel Nut factory (a magical construction whence Squirrel Nut Zipper candy is begat). The Necco factory makes things out of sugar. Sugar, and colors and a little bit of flavor. That's about it. Necco wafers, most commonly used by catholic children under the age of 7 to "play communion," are circular sugar wafers with a touch of color and flavor, wrapped in unimaginative cylinders of wax paper, and given to children for whom theme candy (treats shaped like dinosaurs or nasal products) is a touch too stimulating.

Necco is also responsible for the lion's share of valentine's heart candy.

For about 2 years, whenever I passed the Necco factory, it was in a moving vehicle with shut windows, so it was merely a curiosity. Then, somewhere in my third year in Boston, I was in the middle of a very specific depression that manifested itself in walking abnormal distances with absence of a good reason.

At the climax of this depression, I took a walk home from the Middle East in Central Square to my apartment at the edge of Allston on Commonwealth Ave, and for safety (as well as a satisfying increase in duration) I took the ultrafucking long way, all the way down Mass Ave, over the bridge, to Commonwealth, and all the way down to Allston (rather than just going straight through cambridgeport).

Within the first few minutes of this walk I encountered the Necco factory the way it is meant to be encountered. No windows, no car, a few minutes from end to end on foot, and with a healthy human nose. Spinning sugar, new england summer night air, bottomless time, and that special brand of factory structure that has completely unintentional heart to it, more earned than planned.

The smell of heating sugar had everything to do with being candy, being a treat, being rare and extra overwhelmingly good, an assault on my inability to feel pleasure at the time.

Candy good.