contact dermatitis is of the devil

I cannot believe it has taken me two whole months to think of using topical cortizone cream on my contact dermatitis. I mean, its purpose is to stop itching. And often itching specifically related to environmental irritants. I only bought it in the first place when I was having hideous itching problems that I think, in retrospect, were an allergic reaction to my deodorant.

So using cortizone to counter dermatitis caused by lack of humidity? OBVIOUS, RIGHT?

And yet, it only occurred to me this morning. *headdesk*

On the upside, it seems to be working! Half the problem with the dermatitis is that even when I use moisturizing lotions to combat the dryness, my hand still itches like I have fire ants under my skin and I cannot always consciously stop myself from scratching. Scratching is only a temporary relief. In the long term, it exacerbates the problem -- raises the welts, distorts skin texture even further, creates open wounds, etc.

Today, my hand has not been itching. :-D

online housekeeping is a pain

In the interest of functionality and readability, I spent last night and this evening reorganizing my LJ and DW master fic lists to split "miscellaneous fanfiction" into "minor fandom fanfiction" and "miscellaneous fanfiction." The former list includes BtVS, my FF7 Mercverse AU stuff, Homestuck, Inception, and Star Trek. The latter list includes all the other random stuff it always did, starting with American Gods and ending with Yu-Gi-Oh!

I also alphabetized the fandoms in both posts while I was at it -- they had been organized in descending order by the date of the first story written in each fandom, but that was of no use to anybody who was trying to find something, and was not even of use to me as a record-keeping device since I already note the writing/posting date of each story anyway.

...

That is over three hours I could have spent writing, which is an annoying loss of time, but the chore needed to be done sooner or later.

[Fic] "The Guardian in Spite of Herself" chapter 15 -- Naruto

(A recent reviewer on ff.net reminded me that it's been nearly 14 months since I updated this story, and apparently I am in a "yes, go, let's write stuff!" mood, so hey, have the next chapter! The final third is not edited at all, since I just wrote it tonight, but what the heck! Yay story!)

"The Guardian in Spite of Herself" is the sequel to "The Way of the Apartment Manager," which can be found in final form on ff.net, or in beta draft with comments on my journal. It also has fanart.

Chapter the Fifteenth, in which Naruto and Sasuke play cards, the Volcano Country border is treated with greater respect than it possibly deserves, Hidden Cloud requests a more detailed report on the circumstances of their agent's death, and a supposedly deserted patch of forest turns out to be a remarkably popular tourist destination. (4,700 words)

( The Guardian in Spite of Herself, chapter 15 )

Like I said, the final third is completely unedited, and I am not wild about the first two thirds either -- one reason I stalled out for such a long time is that I think the balance of story progress vs. world-building and people talking for no real reason is out of whack. The chapter is also a bit longer than I really like, so if you can think of ways to tighten it, I would be very grateful.

As for the geography, topography, and... biome? of Volcano Country, I have decided that I don't especially care about the manga and I am going to design them however I damn well feel like it. At the moment, apparently I feel like northern Minnesota with random Mt. St. Helens looming in the distance. Whatever, live with it.