Hello, dear readers, and welcome to another Thursday! Apologies for the later-than-usual post today; the morning got away from me a bit.

It’s been a quiet week, for the most part. The fall weather has really arrived in St. Paul, which makes me happy (as someone who’s pretty warm-blooded but loves wearing sweaters and other knitwear, I live for fall/winter weather). I’m definitely feeling the pull to prepare for winter hibernation.

Sunday into Monday I had a headache that I just couldn’t shake. I ended up calling off from work on Monday after I figured out it was partially a photosensitivity thing and I decided staring at computer screens for 8 hours was probably not going to help. I ended up reading the entirety of The House in the Cerulean Sea while I was trying to distract myself from the headache – I’d picked up the book when we were in Duluth and I really enjoyed it! I’ve not been reading much this year and it felt really good to devour a book in one day.

Yesterday, I had an in-person doctor visit with a new-to-me doctor, and it was…shockingly affirming? Like, I left feeling like a human being and not a freak the doctor didn’t quite know how to handle. It was really refreshing to not need to educate my doctor on “Trans 101” or “BMI is Not an Indicator of Health” and honestly I’m not sure what I’m feeling more strongly – gratitude that this was my experience or anger that this isn’t the norm.

I have other news in the works, but I think I’m going to save that for a later post when it’s more official. In the meantime, I hope you’re all hanging in there, and I’ll leave you, as usual, with a Nova photo: