So today I had sour cream over beans with corn chips for brunch. Sour cream is so tasty. And so fattening. Dairy is so not very good for me. My GOSH it was delicious.
I love food. I love tasting it, I love smelling it, sometimes I even love cooking and baking it. Tasty food especially. Flavorful. Savory. The tastes found in mediterranean cooking tend to be my preferred flavors, but I enjoy anything bold and savory or sugary. I go nuts for ranch dip, black olives, french fries, almost ANYthing made of potatoes, breads white and wheat, Pizza, many kinds of fish, bacon, Meat in general, onions, apples, green grapes, nectarines, sugar in almost any form, and of course anything chocolate.
Unfortunately most flavorful things are also high in sugar, high in fat, or both. I have to make conscious effort to discipline myself into not just eating these particular things. But they're sooooo Goooooooooood....
Given the chance, the purely physical side of my Self will binge or savor-spree on anything that is enjoyable to the senses. With food this can get me into trouble.
I am hypersensitive. To what you ask? To EVERYTHING. Supposedly this is linked to my Asperger's Syndrome. I can dull things down by familiarity or conscious training or effort, but for the most part I have all five senses running on high power. Sometimes I hear noises humans are not supposed to be able to hear, like bird-deterrent sound devices outside of buildings. Crazy huh?
Now extend that kind of sensitivity into the other senses, too: Sight, Touch, Scent and Taste. I can taste the dyes in some foods. I prefer to wear polarized lenses on bright days and my vision is 20/20 or better. I depend on my sense of hearing, touch and smell so much that without them I get very skittish because people or things take me by surprise- I unthinkingly tend to judge the state and positions of people in a room by the sound of the ambient noise off of them and the walls, their breathing and motions, and sometimes their smells.
How cool to have, like, superpowers? Can I do neat tricks like always hear everything people say an' stuff? Nope. It has its Pros, but there are balancing Cons that people like Daredevil don't have unless it serves plot, because they're comic book heroes. Frequently I can't hear a word someone three feet away is saying because I am also hearing everyone else for forty feet around and any carrying sounds from as far as a hundred feet on top of that. I don't go to rock concerts or even most dances because the noise level is physically painful. I don't enjoy very spicy food because it burns us, Precious. Wearing clothing made of too much artificial fiber drives me nuts. I don't like most perfumes. And as I mentioned above, if I get a cold and my hearing and smell sense are gone, I am drastically less aware of my surroundings and it makes me jumpy.
The Pros to being hypersensitive? For one thing, I'm never without entertainment. I've become a habitual eavesdropper mostly because I can't help it, and Americans talk really loud in public. It's also fun for me to play with the kaleidescope I got for Christmas, or similar sensory amusing children's toys. Acoustic music is a fulfilling and multifaceted experience. And food? Oh wow. The right food is positively sensory HEAVEN.
