Question of the day.

   What have you never done? 

   My answer: 

   Probably more things than I have. 😀 But one that comes to my mind that a lot people do at least once in their lifetime that I’ve never done and have no desire to do is I’ve never smoked a cigarette. I have smoked weed  with Olek and my Mum on their birthday this year (yep, their birthdays are on the same day), because my Aquarian curiosity was stronger than my fears and other aversions, but I’ve never smoked tobacco. Weed was a very interesting experience, but because of several things I don’t think I’m likely to do that again either, or at least I wouldn’t like to do that regularly. As you guys probably know by now, I have emetophobia=fear of vomit, and when I was a kid, I heard someone say that smoking cigarettes  caused her to vomit. So that instantly became a future no-no for me, and even though I now don’t think it’s a very common thing and rationally doubt it would happen to me (plus it didn’t happen when I was smoking cannabis, which I suppose is generally more emetogenic and can apparently even give you something called chronic hyperemesis syndrome so basically constant vomit if you use cannabis regularly) the idea of smoking cigs still puts me off. Other than that, probably as a result of my allergies and asthma (which is episodic and very mild but still is there nonetheless) I seem to be quite sensitive to cigarette smoke, so I’m really glad that no one in my family smokes regularly and if they do, it’s hardly ever at home. Because when people smoke around me, or even if I go into a room where someone was smoking not long ago, I get congested and wheezy quite quickly. It’s just mild, but still rather unpleasant to deal with, and it was very similar when I tried weed as well. My Mum also has asthma and whenever she smokes, she coughs and wheezes so much as if she’s been smoking loads all her life. So that isn’t very encouraging either. And then there’s that weird thing with me and smells, because I cannot feel most smells, I can only feel some very intense and chemical ones and even then it’s more just like a sensation of a yucky, bitter taste in the back of my throat rather than a proper smell I guess. So I hate any sort of perfumes, sprays and yeah, smoke is something I can feel too. Which is probably good, as unlike most anosmics, I’d sure know if something around me was on fire. But that’s just another reason why smoking anything just isn’t fun enough for me to want to do it regularly and to be able to like it. Weed is slightly more fun because you can actually get something out of it, it makes peopling a lot easier and you can have a lot of laughs and weird deep convos like we did (before that I don’t remember when was the last time I talked with my brother properly), it makes you more creative and I really liked the way I was thinking on it, but it’s still not enough for me to risk chronic vomit and make myself feel wheezy voluntarily, and I don’t know if the second time I’d try it, it won’t actually result in me feeling more anxious or sluggish-brained as is the case for some people. But with cigs, there’s absolutely nothing in it for me. 

   What’s such a thing for you? 🙂 

Y Bandana – “Dal Dy Drwyn” (Hold Your Nose).

Hey people! 🙂

Today, I’ve got quite a quirky song for you. As some of you perhaps remember, Y Bandana is a band fronted by Gwilym Bowen Rhys – my most recent major faza subject. – He was the vocalist and guitarist in it, and apart from him there were also his two cousins – Tomos Jones on keyboards and Siôn Owens on bass guitar – and Gwilym’s school friend Robin Llwyd Jones on percussion. – It was something they were doing in their teens and early twenties, and the band is no longer alive, however it shows in such a cool way how musically versatile Gwilym actually is. For those who don’t know – albeit I write so much about my fazas that I’m not sure there is someone reading this who doesn’t know already – Gwilym’s main musical interest evolve around Welsh folk/acoustic music. Even in this genre alone, he can be very flexible, but it’s fun to see that he’s also had some experience with pop-rock like this and they were really good at it. They had very characteristically catchy songs, and usually somehow mischievous/humourous lyrics. And that’s definitely the case with this song. I really regret that I can’t translate it to you so that you’d have more of a context but my understanding of it is a bit patchy so that probably wouldn’t be the best idea, however I do know enough to say that it’s all about another person being very smelly. I like when people are inventive with song topics, even when they’re sometimes a little gross like that. :DIt really made me laugh when, after having listened to Y Bandana for a while already and starting to learn Welsh, I started picking up some bits of lyrics and figured out very roughly what this song is about, that really made me laugh. It’s funny when listening to music in other languages that you barely know or not at all, to realise that something you’ve been listening to concerns such a fascinating topic.

Question of the day (2nd December).

Time for some questions of the day catch-up finally! I’ve found some interesting would you rather questions, and I thought I’d use these.

Would you rather lose your sense of taste and smell or be red-green colour blind? (if either applies to you already, would you rather see all colours/have the lost senses or win 1/4 of a million dollars?)

My answer:

This is a funny and interesting question from my perspective because I actually do not have the sense of smell, I don’t even really know why, or in any case it’s very, veeeery bad and I can only smell very strong things which are usually things like perfumes and the like and even then it’s more like I can feel them at the back of my throat while they’re being sprayed or shortly after rather than actually feeling the smell because I wouldn’t even really be able to distinguish between them and say what they smell like or not precisely. I used to think for a long time that perhaps I just don’t know how to interpret the olfactory stimuli or something, but is that even a thing? Can someone have a perfectly functional sense but not know how to interpret the stimuli? Sounds totally absurd whenn you think of it, and my Mum says that she doesn’t think so. I don’t think so either but that doesn’t mean it can’t be so. There is something that feels creepy to me about the idea though, don’t know why… I am also totally blind so that includes colours, naturally. 😀 So, hmmm, assuming I have any sense of smell left, I could happily give it up ’cause it’s not really useful for me at all, but since the question says smell AND taste, that’s out because I would never give up my sense of taste. I love my food and I think I have quite a good sense of taste and life without it would be super bland (and just think of it… living with two senses?! that sounds miserable 😀 well I know we actually have much more than just the five senses but still…) but more importantly I am a synaesthete with multiple different types of synaesthesias, as you may already know, and one of them is auditory-gustatory and lexical-gustatory (it sounds oh so fancy! But I like it and I like the way lexical-gustatory tastes) so when I hear something, especially a word, it has a taste for me. And I love experimenting with my synaesthesias and finding sensorily satisfactory sounds, words, tastes or tactile textures, and all my synaesthetic experiences can often bring me a lot of pleasure. So it would suck if the whole gustatory element was suddenly excluded.

Since I can’t see colours, the colour blindness or lack thereof wouldn’t change much in my life at all, especially that I also have no actual, physical experience of seeing colours, even if I have some idea about them which apparently makes sense from the sighted point of view. Also because I am blind since birth and there is a limitation to at what age your brain can learn to see, even if I was to somehow technically be able to see colours now, I still wouldn’t be able to recognise/interpret all the input because my brain hasn’t learnt how to do it. But I’d much more happily lose whatever in my eyes should technically be responsible for seeing colours since it ain’t working anyway to keep my sense of taste.

Considering the other part of the question, which is probably more applicable in my case, hmmm, I’d like to be able to experience all the different smells people feel but mostly just out of sheer curiosity. I haven’t ever found that my lack of sense of smell has ever been disabling or limiting to me in any way, so I don’t really miss it or really wish I had it. Seeing is too abstractive to me to actually want it, and if I were to suddenly start to see it would turn my life upside down and I have no clue how I’d handle the change, I suppose it’d be quite shocking. So, yeah, definitely 1/4 of a million dollars for me, yay! You can always make use of that, or if you have no ideas or needs, you cann share with people or something. That appears the most useful option to me. 😀

What do you choose? 🙂