The Friday Five are at home, on the couch, lounging, and relaxed...

[magnetic_pole]

1. Is there a smell that will immediately sicken you? Hm. Not really. Though it might be important to point out here that I have a really terrible sense of smell generally, and there aren't many things that smell good to me, either.
2. When you want quiet, where do you go? I *always* want quiet, so I look for it everywhere. But the quiet that's nicest is the quiet of being by yourself in public, at a coffeeshop or walking in the street, when others are chatting in the background but you're very much alone.
3. Do you need/prefer total darkness when you sleep? Ideally. More so as I get older and sleeping well becomes harder.
4. What is your least favorite taste? Fish sauce. Blue cheese. The errant tomato in my sandwich. (I'm not a big fan of raw tomatoes.)
5. How heavily do you rely upon your sense of touch? Not heavily. I'm a bit touch-averse, actually. Everything is in the head or on the screen for me...except books, where the feel of the page is everything.

Comments

[ancientreader]

1. & 4. Hard-boiled eggs, oh dear Lord. I can't even be in the same room with a hard-boiled egg without gagging. I have an excellent sense of smell and am also a supertaster, attributes that help me to be a good cook but that have a distinct downside.

Also, happy Friday! ETA: Er. Sunday. Saturday. Whatever.

[magnetic_pole]

excellent sense of smell and am also a supertaster

I didn't know this! (And had to look it up just now, to be sure I understood what you meant.) So interesting. What have you noticed about your preferences or desires to eat certain things that sets you apart from normal tasters?

Sorry about the hard boiled egg smell aversion. They are probably easy to avoid eating but difficult to avoid altogether. M.

[ancientreader]

I learned only recently about being a supertaster -- the discovery explained a lot, like for example why, even though my tastes in food are pretty catholic, I can't tolerate certain vegetables (radicchio, broccoli rabe, endive, chicory) that other people enjoy. In general, though, I gravitate toward strong flavors.

Spouse likes hard-boiled eggs and is permitted to make them for herself provided she shuts the kitchen door, opens the windows, and washes out the pot she used. She can store them in the fridge in a closed container. It's a little less cray-cray than it sounds -- I was obliged to eat h-b eggs regularly as a child despite already having a pronounced dislike for them, so over time the aversion got orders of magnitude worse.

I'm curious about your touch aversion. Do you not notice, say, the feeling of certain fabrics, or the textures of various foods? What about being touched by people -- is there anyone you do like being touched by? (For me, it's Spouse and a few of my close friends.) Is there anything at all that you enjoy touching? (And, obviously, if these questions are too intimate, ignore them!)

[magnetic_pole]

So interesting about the super taster/average/low taster phenomenon! Radicchio, endive, etc. Hm. Salads must be fraught territory for you.

Re: touching: I don't dislike touching or textures so much as I'm just perpetually overstimulated, I suppose. Keeping noises down and contact with people and things relatively rare helps with that. That said, I'm also a big believer in hugging friends and relatives, so I do it anyways. :) M.

[ancientreader]

Oh, I think I kind of know what you mean about overstimulation. I can deal with a fair bit of background noise (I live in NY! It comes with the territory), but if I don't get sufficient time alone and not interacting with anyone ... well, the result isn't pretty. Is there such a thing as an air high-five, like an air kiss? Air high-five, then!