Lane/Kari: Having Reservations

It took a few weeks longer than I would have liked, thanks to a higher than anticipated heating bill, but I've got my reservations for the middle of June in room 7 at the Trading Post Inn! Even better, the reservations right before mine are in the name of "Lane Van Hoekstra", meaning that I'll get my real body back, Jennifer will get hers back with little more debt than she had wanted and Kari will stay after me to get back to her own life. I don't know much about the chain after that, just because I didn't have time to organize it completely.

I've read every post on this blog. I know about the best made plans of men-turned-women when the Inn is involved. I know nothing is guaranteed and I'm not taking anything for granted, but all I can think about these past few days is that I'm going to be me again soon and it's starting to affect how I live my life. Kari's life. I need to remember to think of it like that.

There is still five months until I go back, so I can't just sit on the couch until I'm me again, but I'm closer to my return date than I am to my initial visit so it feels kind of downhill. That's begun to weigh on my decisions that I make. I ask myself "Could I do this and not have to be around for the consequences?" as well as "Should I do this even though I'm going to be gone in a few months".

I am so tempted just to eat like a pig. Whatever fast food I want whenever I want. Not to mention the homecooked recipes that Pilar makes. Ashley and I head over there some Sundays for dinner and her homemade tortillas are amazing but they, like most of her food, is basically a fried carb. If I ate that every day I'd have to buy a whole new wardrobe for June. I don't particularly want to be fat though, even for a few weeks, and whatever I eat Ashley eats as well for the most part and I wouldn't want to make the childhood obesity epidemic any worse in this country.

The same thing goes for drugs. The other night we were at the bar and someone offered me and Rosita some Molly, and I kinda really just wanted to swallow a pill and ignore all my problems for awhile. Then I remembered that I'd have to deal with the hangover and dehydration as well looking like the world's biggest hypocrite after the speech I just gave Ashley a few weeks ago.

One thing I have started mailing in is work. It has become clear that I could be a bad receptionist or a good receptionist but it wouldn't matter as long as I kept screwing the boss, and yes I'm still doing that no I would not like to talk about it. It's a lot easier to be a bad receptionist than a good one, so I may take extended breaks and let phones ring longer than they should while I'm texting. It's not making me a lot of friends around the office, but the rumors are flying again and the ones that don't hate me for sleeping with Latherman are the ones who want me to screw them as well. Oh well, it's not like there's a lot of promotion possibilities at that company for a girl without her GED.

Speaking of academic achievement, one thing I've kept at was my promise to help Ashley in that regard. She takes the ACT in April and I've bought her test books and prep materials. I've even been helping her with the math portions she struggles with, leading her to wonder where I learned algebra when I couldn't be bothered to help her freshman year. I kept quiet and didn't mention that I knew calculus.

My impending departure is also making me overthink things with Darius. I've said before that I was setting things up with him so that Kari could date a guy like him when she got back. Some of you doubted that that was my long term goal, and the more I think about it the less I think it's doable. Darius never met the real Kari, only me in her body, so he doesn't know what she's like or even if they have anything in common. One of thing things I love about being around him is that I can be me, or at least as much of me as I can be in this body, because I don't a history to live up to. If we switch back and Kari is what, as far as I can tell, her standoffish and rude self, he's going to be in a for a big surprise. He might even get his feelings hurt.

We're going out for drinks this evening, maybe our first time doing something that doesn't revolve around sports, and I'm wondering if I should de-escalate with him. But if I did, I wouldn't have his friendship and that's something I'd really miss over the next few months.