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In a shocking plot twist I'm sure that no one was expecting I have actually gone to a doctor today. (An orthopedic and hand surgeon, I skipped the GP.) Verdict: tendonitis, which I was expecting, and also a prescription and a referral to an occupational therapist in town, and he'll write a letter that I can pick up later as a referral to a hand therapist in the UK, if I can find one. (There has to be one somewhere in the country.)

My hands have actually been way better since I came home: I don't know if it's that my desk is at a different height, if it's the climate, if it's the Blue Emu oil my mom has been making me use (this stuff actually does seem to work, I'm just mildly weirded out because it comes from actual emu and you know how I feel about birds), or what. I guess the real trick is going to be if I go back to Leicester and my wrists get bad again.

Obviously I came home, opened a magazine (Prevention, which my mom gets) while the tea-kettle was boiling, and the first thing I see is, "Women suffer more from chronic pain than men," and then a whole article that I stared at going, "Yes, this." ("Getting a diagnosis is such a relief because it means it's not all in your head." Also, apparently painkillers work differently on men and women -- you may have known this, but I did not -- but a lot are only tested initially on male rodents.)

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Meanwhile I am still (slowly, it's my secondary book right now in that I stick it in my purse if I go somewhere) rereading The Fellowship of the Ring, and man, I have forgotten so much of this book. Ah, Frodo thinking he's so clever, and then Merry and Pippin and Sam are like, "ahahahahahaha, oh Frodo, it's lucky you're pretty, we have figured everything out. By the way, we're coming with you. Here is a dramatic musical number we have prepared."

I am still remembering just why I had such an intense crush on Merry when I first read the series. MERRY. <3 <3 <3 So competent. So sassy.

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Kind of going a little ebook crazy right now. I've been reading fic on my computer for the past thirteen years, it's like I finally realized that reading profic is no different. So terrible how it's so easy to buy, though. Whoops.

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My dad and I have very different political opinions, which occasionally leads to very awkward slash awful conversations where I try and decide if running out of the room is actually a viable option. (I hate arguing.) The other day he tried to tell me that American men don't commit rape and also that he was more in touch with the men and women of my generation that I am. HOO BOY. (Like, okay, leaving aside the WTF of that statement, my undergrad university had one of the highest percentages of reported rapes in the nation when I was there. If you went to a frat party, you were pretty much expected to get roofied. Even at my HIGH SCHOOL, there were guys (regular guys!) that the girls side-eyed and were warned not to get caught alone with. And I went to a small high school where everybody knows everybody and everyone's parents.) I just...argh.

I picked up one of my dad's books the other day, by one of our mutual favorite authors, read about thirty pages and then put it down again, and my dad asked why. "Well, because it starts out with kidnap, rape, and torture of the main female character, and I don't want to read that." "Other stuff happens!" "Yeah, well, I don't really want to read through all the rape and torture to get there."

Sometimes I wonder how my dad and I can be so alike and yet so, so different. (Does he seriously not understand how my mother and I can be so upset when he says there are too many women on TV beating up men, it's unrealistic? Or that it's a sexist society, we just need to learn how to deal with it? Etc., etc. I love my father, but dear gods.)

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I made s'mores brownies the other day. They were yummy. (Still are, actually, since there are still some left.)