Peppermint and Lead

I've been reading the October Daye series of urban fantasy books. Found one in a "please take some books" pile, was just intrigued enough to try out sample chapters via Kindle and you know how it goes. I wouldn't call them great, I'm not even sure how much I enjoy them, but they are page-turners.

In those books, each person has a distinctive "smell" to their magic (in Toby's case, at least, this is as much part of her powers to read the nature of other Fae as it is actual scents). These scents are often appropriate to the kind of Fae and the personality thereof; Toby's magic smells of copper and blood (or at least it did, when she thought she was a half-blood Daoine Sidhe. Spoilers!) Tybalt, King of Cats (a little Romeo and Juliet reference there) smells of musk and pennyroyal. One villain smells of oleander and (!) sulphuric acid.

I'm still tasting peppermint and lead. I'm actually a little disappointed. There's a whole pallet of interesting sensations people have reported from the contrast agent used for a CT scan, and I got almost none of them. Even the "metallic taste" was muted (even if it lasted for far too long).

So far every test to try to track down my mild anemia and not-so-mild attacks of fatigue has come up blank. I've definitely got a low RBC count, with no explanation for why, and my cardiologist is seeing just enough in the various stress tests to want to discuss further (and more invasive) tests with me.

My current approach is to just work through the spells of fatigue. Not fight them (that usually ends up badly), and not give in to the urge to rest (unless it is the weekend -- explaining why I've been reading so many paperbacks). Experience says I'm going to hit a day when I can't even get out of bed, but until then it's pretty much just feeling tired and run-down from the moment I wake up each morning.

It is working, though. I'm getting my hours in at work, getting a little violin practice in every few days (when I'm not so exhausted I spend break hunching over a cup of coffee) and even a little writing on the weekends.

But I'm putting the last Holocrons on indefinite hold. Just trying to compose a post for the RPF that will lay it out honestly without being a bid for sympathy.