often seen in the street without a hat

Yesterday was more needles. First off I had Hep B in my right arm. That stung. The others weren't too bad last week, though since my arm was still a little sore from Hep A, it probably met more resistance. Then two hours later I had my implant removed from my left arm. This was a much lengthier process. First of all I had to have a local anaesthetic jabbed into me, which is ow, and very stingy. Then we sat around and chatted about hair for a bit, and then the doctor prodded me to see if it was okay. Unfortunately I could actually feel the scalpel in me, so we waited further. Then there was an exciting bit where she said something about "oh well, it's not really sterile" and I thought that such thoughts could be left unvoiced when you're about to carve someone up. Eventually we proceeded, with a paper towel under my arm to catch blood. It took forever, because the implant had moved down below the insertion place and seemed to have been a bit embedded. She struggled for a while, and I could feel the flesh of my arm being squeezed and manipulated. At one point she asked for forceps, and really, the point of the implant was to avoid the need for forceps. But then she got it and it all came out.

Last night I could not sleep because of not being able to lie on either side due to various degrees of WOUNDEDNESS and got to the point where I tried to retie the bandage myself so that it wasn't quite so pressurised. This was far more difficult than I had anticipated to do one-handed, as I was trying to hold it steady with my chin, and kept getting my hair caught. Now I've taken the bandage off my arm because it was far tooo uncomfortable, and it looks rather horrifying. There is a large purplish bruise, and then the bit above that looks like some of the flesh has been gouged out. S'all right though, I have four steri-strips holding my innards in.

I had a lovely lunch with nerdcakes today, although neither of us could understand anything the waiter said, and kept half answering the question we thought he'd asked, and they having to ask him to repeat it. We ate pizza. There was a huge amount of rain, and I am still rather damp.

Extras tonight! And it's the Orlando Bloom one, and I'm terribly excited. I went to see if there were any Will Turner figures in Woolworths yesterday and all that was left was Johnny Depp. Orlando! TV! Also starring Keith Chegwin, oddly. IT GETS BETTER! Liza Tarbuck! Lovely Liza Tarbuck is going to be playing someone in it as well. This makes me a tiny bit sad that she's not famous enough to play herself, but still, she will be on-screen and I am thrilled. (Sarah - I think that you were saying that there was other good TV, well, Extras is to be followed by The Mitchell and Webb Look, and from the Radio Times, the characters include "a pair of self-doubting Nazis".)

(I cannot decide between "your body is a battleground" and the woman with pins all over her, so instead I chose this.)

One of my guilty pleasures is those fics where it starts out as either an anti-Mary-Sue, or a parody, and then it turns into the most Mary-Sue character EVER. The kind of person who would outshine even Ayla's originality and adventure. Picture, if you will, an "average-looking" woman (because if they're not beautiful then the author has clearly managed to create a clever and original character!) with all the canon characters standing to one side with their gazes fixed upon her in various stages of platonic love, romantic interest, panting lust, rueful admiration, and probably one rather jealous looking woman. Then, to the other side, there is Ayla, with a thought bubble reading "no really, this is utterly unbelievable". I LOVE IT. It is even better if the author responds to any comments mentioning the Mary-Sueness with rolled eyes and an exhortation to read the summary, which will explain that this is not a Mary-Sue. Duh. I am re-engrossed in one that I thought had finished last summer, but it turns out is now finished, and has a sequel! A sequel that was updated a mere few days ago, and looks set to continue!

In the first piece, Our Heroine finds herself dragged to Middle Earth by some kind of magic. Oh, how tawdry and overdone. But wait! It is not her magic! There are two actual Mary-Sues who have (inexplicably) brought her along without her consent to be their sort of serving girl. And made her beautiful. There is a wonderful bit where the magic wears off and the Fellowship (naturellment) are unable to understand how happy she is to look normal. Things continue in this vein. Clearly she is Not a Mary-Sue. You should not be distracted by any of the following things:

Her quick wit that has everyone respecting her.
Saving Boromir.
Winning over every single character.
Becoming a sister to Boromir and Faramir, and a Lady of Gondor.
Elladan and Elrohir teaching her knife-fighting.
Being put in command of a regiment of men and teaching them about swordplay. And gender equality. (But not so much to respect girliness. She is rather Down on the trappings of femininity.)
Marrying Legolas. Yes, MARRYING LEGOLAS.

In the sequel, she somehow ends up in Hogwarts. With Legolas in tow. They are all rather bemused at this turn of events. Hermione has read The Lord of the Rings and is very bright about it all. Our Heroine teaches Harry to throw knives. She becomes a teacher at Hogwarts and gives them lessons in armed combat, during which she gets to rough up Draco. She is wise because she has already overthrown one Dark Lord, so has handy tips on how to deal with Voldemort. Mrs Weasley knits sweaters for her and Legolas at Christmas. Suddenly the other LOTR characters are also in Hogwarts. It is revealed that Our Heroine is a princess! But she doesn't like to mention it. This is because she is Not a Mary-Sue. Other evidence includes her fear of heights, which prevents her from playing Quidditch. Ah, such a sad loss to the British team. So. Our Heroine, Legolas, Elladan and Elrohir, Thranduil and Gimli are all in Hogwarts. There are rumours of Japes afoot between E&E and Fred and George. But things are not all amusement. There is Danger. Our Heroine is roped into the Order of the Phoenix (largely at her own insistence, because she is Wise Beyond Her Years), and she has to take Harry, Hermoine, Ron and all the straggling Middle Earthians to America. AMERICA. I am SO CLOSE to emailing her to ask her to get them to call in on JUMP! Street for some assistance. It would make my entire life.

I'm going to be sitting here, obsessively clicking refresh until the next chapter is posted.

(Also, my latest PhD draft proposal is apparently a really big step forward, and I can see where I'm going with it. But frankly, I don't really care as long as I have such fic in my life.)