In search of consistent food

[mrissa]

I couldn't finish dinner. It kept changing flavors on me. I had one baby carrot go from tasting like the things you bite down on to get your mouth x-rayed to tasting like aluminum. Baby carrots are three bites if one is being dainty. None of those bites tasted like carrot. I should eat something before I go to bed, so that I don't wake up at 4:30 tomorrow morning ready to chew through my pillow and/or pass out on the kitchen floor. I have no idea what I will be able to eat, though. I am entirely out of ideas, because whenever I think, "that would be good," my brain continues, "if it would stay still."

There are worse things to have going weird on you, but I really don't recommend this one, if someone gives you the choice.

It was a pretty good day with some highlights that were better than that, up until around suppertime. I don't mean to say that the whole day was bad and upsetting. Just the latest bits with food in.

I am in the middle of packing to go to scottjames's wedding this weekend. Dorothy Dunnett, The Book of Reykjaholar, Gil's All Fright Diner, Selma Lagerlöf, Orca, and Sean Stewart. Yes, the obvious Sean Stewart: Galveston. (It, like the Brust, is a reread.) Also some clothes and stuff. markgritter and I have both been to Chicago, and while we haven't seen even close to everything there, we also have limited energy and a half-trained dog to mind. So...take-out Chinese, some local park, and the interior of our hotel room, is the basic plan. It claims to have free connectivity, but I have no idea whether that means I'll be on lj like crazy or once for five minutes Saturday morning.

I didn't make the perfect auxiliary wedding present for these two. We've already sent their real wedding present, but if I'd had time, a loaf of Guinness gingerbread would seem really appropriate. But I don't have time, or rather, I don't have time plus energy, and I figured they would rather have me in non-zombie form than bearing tasty Guinness gingerbread.

I could be wrong about that, though. It's awfully good stuff.

Comments

[redbird]

No, you're right about that. You can always ship them gingerbread later.

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

I suspect I am one of the few Sean Stewart fans on earth who did not like Galveston. Nonetheless, I didn't.

Night Watch and Perfect Circle are where it's at for me.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Can the problem be alleviated with food stronger-tasting than your usual? For example, if you cooked the carrots with habenaro peppers, would the flavor still keep changing?

[ksumnersmith.livejournal.com]

And here I was just pondering the opposite: I wonder if it'd help if the food was as bland as physically possible? (And doesn't that sound appetizing.)

Course, if this keeps up we're all going to be reduced to ridiculous suggestions. Have you tried eating upside down, M'ris? Have you attempted to drown all other flavours with unhealthy amounts of salt? What if you numb your mouth before eating? Are you *sure* you're not pregnant? Not even with an alien baby?

[ckd]

Those all sound like bizarre hiccup cures to me.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I first read Galveston with a high fever. Whether this enhanced or detracted from the experience, I could not say.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Strong-tasting foods, bland foods, strong smells, weak smells: I have tried it all and seen no useful correlation.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Blandness, as I suggested in my comment to dsgood above, is no help. Alas.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I've had bad hiccups before, but nothing extreme enough to make me want to get knocked up to stop them.

PS

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I mean, sheesh. I thought "my insurance suddenly won't cover birth control pills" was a bad reason to have a kid, but "I got these hiccups..."? Oof.

Re: PS

[ckd]

Well, I can at least see a theoretical physiological reason it would work...extra pressure on the diaphragm (no, not that diaphragm, that would prevent the hiccup cure, y'know).

OTOH, perhaps just vigorous attempts would cure the hiccups.

[jry.livejournal.com]

Maybe cultivate a head cold? I'm assuming the old "hold your nose" is insufficient.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

Anyone who does that is going to be really sorry when the *baby* gets the hiccups in utero. Inadvisable.

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

I don't have any suggestions on the dysmosia thing. I am completely stumped by this weirdass symptom and defintely relieved that you've already had your brain checked. I hope it just goes away.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, while there are plenty of weird-ass things I'd rather not have, brain tumors and MS are pretty high on the "no thanks" list, so whew.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Holding my nose has never made me smell nothing. It's just made me smell my nose and fingers, at best.

Re: PS

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

From what I've heard, the pressure on the diaphragm sometimes has the opposite effect, at least with my relatives.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

I first (and thus far only; I want very badly to read it again, but the new books keep shuffling it back) read Galveston while camping, huddled up in my tent with the dog during a rain storm.

I don't actually believe the book _causes_ storms and fevers and various other strange and interesting situations. But if any book did, that'd probably be the one.

[dreadmouse.livejournal.com]

/delurking/

It's seems very unfair that you're getting lousy tastes out of this when there are so many potential benefits. If life were fair, you would be eating bland rice cakes and having them taste like Belgian chocolate, or water would be tasting like your favourite wine.

My wife is pregnant and during her first trimester everything tasted like itself, she just didn't like those tastes anymore. Her preferences changed sharply and her perceptions sharpened, but she didn't experience anything like what you are going through.

/re-engaging lurkshield/

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I liked Galveston and *really* liked Mockingbird but then I lived between Houston and Galveston (Clear Lake area) for 7 years. Didn't like Perfect Circle quite as much; Houston in it was closer to the real Houston which I didn't like, rather than .... well, I thought Mockingbird's Houston was to the city I lived in as Logres is to England in That Hideous Strength. The one I really love is Nobody's Son, though.

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

When I pack, I always spend more time planning which books to bring than which clothes. I try to guess what sort of moods I might be most likely to be in, and then pick a few books to cover the bases. Last time I tried to figure it out, I gave myself a headache. *wry grin*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Packing books is an art form. I have to admit that sometimes I pack books I've been avoiding but theoretically want to read, on the theory that I won't be able to avoid them in a confined space. So far I haven't been reading like that this trip, though.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think that having rice cakes taste like Belgian chocolate would be only limitedly good -- I mean, better than having them taste like sewage, but part of what makes good chocolate so good is the mouthfeel. So even the things that are tasting like other moderately pleasant things are alarming because it's wrong and it means there's something wrong with me.

If I had a diagnosis, maybe I could relax on that aspect of it, but maybe not. Who knows.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

Just to put an end to all possible doubt: non-zombied Mrissa's are better than tasty Guinness gingerbread. Even though I am quite a fan of both Guinness and bread. So there.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, and non-zombied Mrissas go on to make Guinness gingerbread later, whereas the zombied kind might get lost in Wisconsin and never be heard from again.