Weirdness Such as This

I have to say I get very nervous when the super taste buds and the blood hound nose show up. I feel like a uselessly bizarre action hero who can smell and taste things no one else can.  The smell they usually catch sooner or later, but no one tastes food like I do.

Which is probably good since the flavor trends toward rancid with a side of dead rodent. (Or rather I imagine that's what a decomposing rat would taste like.) It's like I taste the life cycle. I get the intended flavor, the freshness I was aiming for when I chose the recipe, but then it keeps going until decay covers my tongue and I wonder if the meal I cooked might actually be poisoning people.

"Does the food taste okay?" I will ask my husband in a hushed whisper.

"It's great. I love this new recipe. Make it next week." Then he shoves in big forkfuls of whatever it is we're eating while I nibble at mine trying to convince myself I don't have to listen to my tastebuds.

(Note that ice cream always tastes fine. Imagine that.)

"Do you smell that?" I ask almost ducking as the cloying scent of flowers hits me. The lilac bushes are a good thirty feet away, but the scent is akin to some deranged ENT cramming the buds up my nose and into my brain.

My husband looks around and shrugs. Oh that crazy wife of his! Why can't she just hear things like all the other regular crazy people? "Smell what?"

Five minutes later, when we are right under the lilac bush he says, "Oh I smell it now."

It's moments like that when I wonder what my cortisol levels are like. Who knows? Not me!

So it's been a month since I posted.

Where the hell have I been?

I was not sick. I did not die. Other than my super sensory powers, I'm doing okay. Not perfect but as close as I can get to it.

My book sales did tank however. They fell faster than a balloon attached to a lead weight and launched off the Empire State Building. It's an arbitrary bureaucratic issue on the part of the booksellers. I could go on about algorithms and search engines and reader/market manipulation, but that would bore you.

So I have been dealing with that to the exclusion of all else. Barring illness that keeps me from trying to salvage what I can and rebuild, I probably won't be posting any time soon.

You know my email. If you need me, you can reach me, but there will probably be a lag of several days before I respond.

I'll be back at some point.