I haven’t had a cup of coffee in a week now. Somewhere around Monday it stopped tasting good; I don’t know what happened. We make french press coffee from good beans, so it’s not like we’re swilling Folger’s or use a 20-year-old drip machine. I just couldn’t drink what was in my cup. Normally I’m a 16-oz kind of guy; a cup on the way to work and then enough to top off when I’m there. I’ve gone up to as much as 2 and a half cups for short durations in the last couple of years but then I don’t sleep. After suffering a massive migraine during the procedure to put in my port, I’ve been drinking half-caf, so when I went off the horse completely I didn’t wind up with headaches.

Coffee and I have had a long, lovely relationship since my junior year of high school, when I got a license and a car and was finally able to drive myself to school and work. In our podunk little town the 7-11 was the center of the social scene and the only good place to get a cup of coffee for cheap. (Later I learned of some delis in town that made far superior coffee, but this was 1987). I suddenly found that coffee was the ideal way to get myself moving in the morning and stay active enough to handle the pile of after-school activities I’d signed up for.

Along the way it took time to learn how to make good coffee on my own; somehow the knowledge I learned as a short-order cook didn’t extend to coffee. I brought a drip machine to college but never had the discipline to keep fresh milk handy, so I survived on the swill at the student center.

Later, as I did a lot of camping, I bought a percolator and that was my go-to brewing solution until it fell and the glass bulb cracked; the strong, gritty flavor of percolated coffee reminds me of windswept mornings at Assateague before hitting the beach. When Jen moved in with me she had a genius little one-cup drip machine that was the soul of simplicity; simply sticking a mug under the filter was all one needed. Eventually it died and we had to go to the french press, especially since Jen now drinks decaf and I don’t.

I wonder if I’ll want coffee again on the other side of this. Most foods still taste good (Jen did go and get me another burrito yesterday, BLESS HER HEART) but I’m off certain things until my body sorts out what’s going on.