No, Amy, I feel fine.

Sometimes when I'm getting sick I get what I call "sick mouth," when nothing tastes right.

I know a woman who had gastric bypass surgery (some iteration of it, I disremember which type) in January, and now the taste of everything is turned up to 11. Like, she was a normal taster and is now a supertaster, or close to it. I knew there were physiological things that change after gastric bypass, but that one is new to me. She's on a hunt for bland sausage, because she said breakfast sausage is too spicy now. I told her "bland sausage" is probably just ground pork.

I guess I could see describing that as "no opinion" though

No, no, she has *no* opinion. She doesn't know if it's fine for other people, or something that gets her juices flowing, or makes her want to vomit, or should be illegal, or should be okay if the horse really really likes you. She has *no* opinion. Like, no reflexive reaction, no examination of that response, no abdication in the face of the complexity of the issue. Just abdication because she has no opinion.

You have an opinion on everything, though

You'd think, only the stuff I say I have an opinion about. If I don't have an opinion, I ask questions or skip the conversation.

Unlike, you know, some people who showed up to say "I have absolutely no opinion about this topic. I have given it no consideration, nor had a knee jerk response. Just thought you should know."

I rarely talk to them, after all.

Ah, but do you talk of them to others? That is another useful reason for them to have names.

I told my parents that someone (else's husband) had named my breasts. They took it reasonably well, all told.

Why is breast-naming okay and cock naming to be hidden, flea? What if I've named my vagina? Can I talk about that in blackfont?

Kidding! Why would I name my vagina? My vulva, on the other hand...

I told my parents that someone (else's husband) had named my breasts.

So out of curiosity, and only if you don't mind answering, what did he name them?

I know somebody who refers to the girls as Truth and Beauty.

Medications can do strange things to taste -- I recall hearing about metallic taste as a side effect of drugs.

Huh. The first time I heard about beastiality, I had an opinion about it in under 5 seconds.

Hm. No, the only drug I've taken is the usual: Advil. And less of it than usual, too, thanks to Mirena.

It's just weird.

I'm not a big namer. I've never named a car. I had to be prodded to name the laptop and my first MP3 player. I don't always see the reason to name cats, since they don't come if you call them.

Okay, Mayim Bialik in this Old Navy commercial is just weird.

I read something recently (possibly the NYT? Or NPR?) that said they've actually determined that it's not just pine nuts from China, it may also be the ones from Italy, and there's no way they've discovered to predict it. Which kind of sucks.

Ah, here it is.

[link]

Speculation has long raged as to whether the culprit is a Chinese variety of pine nut, Pinus armandii. It wasn't traditionally eaten in Europe and the United States, where most cases of pine nut mouth have cropped up, but has made its way into the global market in recent years.

Still, there's no firm evidence that P. armandii is the culprit. So scientists at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration tried to solve the mystery by running pine nuts through a gas chromatograph, and testing nut DNA, a la CSI. They used 45 samples, including 17 that had been associated with cases of pine nut mouth.

*****

Adding to the mystery is the fact that it's still unclear if it's the nuts or the people that are causing the problem. The scientists say it could be both.