...guess what my resolution is?
In only a few days, I'll have to make some reservations for the Trading Post. If every who stays there is as desperate to get their body back as I am, there might be a rush. I dread to think what could happen with imperfect planning. And me, I never been very organized. I'd hate to find myself in some other body halfway across the country powerless to get back. Given the choice between being Anne-Marie and rolling the dice... I'd have to play it safe. Your physical identity is nothing to play Russian Roulette with.
Fortunately, I've got an ally, and I don't mean Bryan. I never really talked about it I guess, because it's not really my business (even if it is my life) but the person who wound up in my and Bry's lives aren't exactly... the type of people who would want to be there. And I can't blame them, because as accustomed to our meager lives as we were, and as eager as we are to get back, they're not going to be someone's first choice. So when you consider who's been walking around in my shoes all winter, you'll understand why they'll be as glad to go back as me.
Given the appearance of the Inn, I would expect that most of the visitors are female. Sure, a whole bunch of us guys end up there and that's how you end up with all of us here on the blog staring down their own cleavage all of a sudden and thinking "I've gotta tell people about this!" But the room where Bry and I stayed was booked, along with a couple others, as part of a Bachelorette weekend. The Bride-to-Be was named Deb, she was a 40-something real estate agent from Jacksonville, Florida. She and her maid of honour Amanda (the 27-year-old receptionist at her work) wound up as me and Bryan respectively.
From my talks with Deb, she's a fussy kind of lady, very much a neatness/control freak type, with all due respect (I think she's reading this.) She'd been married once before and was really excited about starting over. Talk about a fresh start. Imagine her horror at being told she was now going to live in a cramped, crappy apartment where the furniture was covered in XBox controllers, clothes and porn. My life was a mess, and she had to clean it up.
She started by getting em a new job, since my income was hardly steady. She got one I wouldn't have been able to do if my life depended on it, baking bread at a bakery in Yorkville. I think Amanda kept doing Bryan's supermarket job. None of this is all that important, but we e-mail on a fairly regular basis. They lead an isolated, insecure life, trying to avoid my numerous sketchy acquaintences. Deb really wants to get back to the man she was supposed to marry (from what I hear, the wedding went on as planned although the new bride is probably none too keen.) And Amanda, I guess, is along for the ride... maybe she really is the female version of Bryan. Anyway, Deb's been really great about making plans, roping the new-her into going back and keeping me posted on things.
My main concern is for how s/he interacts with Alia. I had really hoped to rekindle things, and I think she did too, but... with a grown woman in my body, they're more like, you know... gal pals, which is frankly embarrassing, and probably slightly irksome to Alia given the apparent sexual disinterest there. Deb's reluctance to "dive in" is not all that much like my own.
Anne-Marie begged me to let Hal get the vasectomy. It'll put him out of commission for a few weeks, maybe a month or more, while he recuperates and gets tested to make sure it's taken effect, but... he's going to have some serious goddamn expectations when he gets off the injured list.
It's kind of a catch-22. Anne-Marie had been trying to convince him to go along with it for a year or so, confident she didn't want any more kids. Like many men, he saw it as a threat to his manhood: nobody is keen to get a knife down there. He wasn't deadset against it, but had a lengthy period of hesitation. If I, as Anne-Marie, suddenly tell him not to do it, it's like saying "I want another kid," so there's sex involved. Of course I by no means want that so if I say "Yes, get the vasectomy," it's like saying "Let's just have sex," so again, sex. I used to have to work to get sex as a man, and now I can't escape it. I thought married people just let their private parts go to waste after the kids were born.
Add to that the fact that Anne-Marie's body has been sending me some strong signals, and now that I know what they are, I can't bring myself to ignore them.
So what's a guy to do? He's scheduled the surgery for Monday. I don't know how wild Anne-Marie is about the idea that I might actually have to bang her husband, but I am starting to think she's more enthusiastic than I am. I guess I'll find some way to talk my way out of it. That could work, right?
I feel a bit like I'm on the uphill part of a roller coaster. Full of dread, but worried I might even like finding out what it's like on the way down.
This is... kind of a mess. I can't wait to get back to having regular people problems. This has kinda been a thick entry and I feel like I've just rambled a lot... I've been meaning to write in here more often, but I get distracted, and then things kinda pile up like this.
Oh well...
-Todd/Anne-Marie
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