Is it beautiful or is it sad? Maybe it's both.

I have a problem with my five senses. The smell, taste, hearing and feeling are a bit in overdrive. Okay, so maybe I only have this problem with four of my five senses considering I need reading glasses for small print.



The possibly beautiful:

My husband and I, years ago --
I had a potted palm tree in our living room. It was a saw-toothed palm and I told my husband I could hear it growing. He said, "Huh?" I turned off every noise in the house and told him to sit by it and listen. Then he heard it, too. Tiny little snapping sounds as palm fronds stretched to open. I could also hear the electricity running under the house in the same conditions if I put an ear to the floor or to the sofa, which rested on the floor. It was a low level hum. Huuummmmm. I once heard a scrunched up and discarded cellophane candy wrapper expanding in the trash can in the next room. One time I also knew there was an insect on my kitchen floor because, while seated in the living room, I heard its nasty little legs scratching the tile on the kitchen floor as it walked. Sure enough, there was an insect on my kitchen floor. I knew because I heard it. One day when I came home from work, my husband was amazed when I told him how I assisted a building inspection with only my nose to guide me. The building inspector, though very good, missed it initially. But I smelled the rot and insisted he find it. He did, and it saved my buyers thousands of dollars. Everyone was shocked that I rooted out the rot with my nose when no one else could smell anything. My husband thinks I should get a job as a bomb-sniffing dog. :-)



The sad:

I can taste it when I get a fountain drink right after a restaurant has cleaned its equipment. It tastes bad. I can taste trace amounts of some sort of antiseptic. I can also taste other drink flavors when they share a dispensing nozzle. I don't like that either. Also, I can feel, and even HEAR in some cases, internal bodily functions that I know others are oblivious to in their own bodies. I wish I could be oblivious. Hearing and feeling everything makes me very anxious. Today my husband and I went to lunch and sat at a table along a wall. I felt weird vibrations and was very uncomfortable. I sensed the vibrations were coming from the table. I put my palms on the table and felt it. I told my husband I wanted another table. One that wasn't vibrating. He put his palms on the table and I saw his face transform in amazement. He agreed, to his own surprise, that the table was indeed vibrating and that he had not noticed it and would not have noticed if I had not said anything about it. Other diners eating along the same wall had the same reaction. They felt it, too, but said they had not noticed until I mentioned it. Turns out there was a lot of electrical equipment on the other side of the  wall. The occasional person notices and doesn't want to sit there. I want to be like the carefree people who don't notice the vibration. I want to be the person who doesn't care. I want to be carefree. Just for a fucking change. If I could have anything right now, it would be that. I just want to be comfortable.