Isaac/Ainsley: Ungrateful

Incredibly, by the time Thanksgiving came around and I couldn't put off meeting Ainsley's family any longer, I wasn't all that terrified. I don't know whether that's growth or just numbness, or if the two can be considered the same thing at times. It helps that, as Ainsley's family lives nearby and "I" blew all my PTO in Maine over the summer, I had an excuse to only show up for a few hours on the day of.

It was basically a vacation compared to the wedding, and nothing really noteworthy happened why didn't have a worse equivalent at the wedding. I fielded Ainsley's parents' questions about how the job is going, if I'm back into dating yet, and why I stopped showing up to watch the Cardinals with them this year with disappointingly flat answers. Her family does the big extended family gathering type of Thanksgiving (it was at an aunt's house), which normally isn't my speed but it helped keep me from getting put on the spot too much by the people who know Ainsley best, again.

Christmas went much the same way, after changing out the food and decorations. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

As predicted the holidays made it difficult for Ainsley's friends to coordinate any more big meetups for several weeks, not helped by how Ainsley is usually the one doing the coordinating. I got talked into a holiday party where about two-thirds of them showed up, it went okay. The wedding gave me enough experience with these girls to settle into an uncomfortable but stable equilibrium where they're clearly baffled by Ainsley's lack of being in sync, so to speak, but I'm present enough that they've learned not to pry too hard. I eat and drink and wait for a conversation topic which gives me opportunities to speak in ways that won't humiliate me and count down until I get to leave.

Melissa is the exception. I kept my promise to see her again and we've gotten lunch a couple times. Whenever I interact with her it feels as if she's trying to figure me out (though with less openly stated desperation than at the bachelorette party), as if she believes if she cracks the code, she'll be able to tease the real Ainsley back out. More than awkwardness, I just feel terrible for her. She's genuinely charismatic and engaging to be around, even if we don't have much in common, and all she wants and deserves is something I don't know how to give. But I can tell, she'd rather have the illusion of Ainsley in her life than to have her vanish again. So it goes.

That all being said I drew the line at going clubbing with the group on New Year's Eve. I already tried doing the courageous thing and taking a big step out of my comfort zone at the bachelorette party, and you remember how that went. Heather also made plans so I had the apartment to myself for the night. It went pretty well, all things considered. I broke into Ainsley's wine stash and watched The Truman Show. I'd had worse NYEs.

The next day I got a text from Isaac Strauss.

Also known as Marvin Harrell. I've kind of avoided talking about the man in my body, and I didn't like thinking much about him, either. Once it became clear that my life requires relatively little micromanagement it just became, too uncomfortable to imagine someone else in my place. Easier to avoid it altogether, despite how irrational a fear I thought it was.

Hey man,

I've been wanting to tell you. I mentioned I'm a 35-year-old guy, but that wasn't the whole truth. I'm SUPPOSED to be 35. But I was in this woman's seventies before I ended up in your body.

I've been in a few seventies, actually. An eighties, once. Life starts to look different when you keep taking peeks at the end. Fucker steals my body 'cause some girl smiled at him at the gym and he thinks he's got some kind of soulmate, and every summer since then that place finds another way to take everything from me again. Eyesight. Strength. Independence. The future. Lust, and not just that kind but. The lust for life. One time the guy in my at-the-time-body's husband's life got a heart attack, and he barely lived, but man, he got to go back in the end. And the fucked up part is you get used to it. You start to forget what you've lost, 'cause there's no other way to cope.

And then I finally got a good roll and woke up in your body and, man. You're a scrawny young guy, maybe that chick you're in's stronger than you used to be even. But you're a young guy. Could've been made of toothpicks and you'd still have one thing I hadn't had in years. Potential. You've got problems, but with the time to solve them. When a guy your age rots there's either something wrong with him or it's by choice. And I'm watching you do the same thing to Ainsley's life, too.

I just wanna know, what's up man? If you asked me in the first couple days I would've been relieved at how little you've got going on but it's just. Sad. The more I thought about it every joint pain-free day, the more I looked at you in the mirror, the less it sat right with me. And when I couldn't take it anymore I started making some changes. It's not that hard, you've got free time out the ass. Getting a real haircut was one of the first things I did. Been hitting the gym for a while now. Tried figuring out how to take care of your plants but some of them keep trying to die on me, I'm working on it though. Started chatting with some people at the dining hall, been going on hikes with them every now and then. Not a bad time. I tried out for the improv club but ate shit at the audition. You'd think all this Inn stuff'd make us better actors. Oh, and I cut off that girl you're always texting. She's too nice to say it, but she's for sure tired of you dude. Being the only person you have. You've been holding yourself back, it's for the best. Trust me, I've been there.

So yeah, I'll let you know about Inn reservation stuff once that opens up but I just felt like I had to tell you all that. You've gotta appreciate what you've got before it's gone. I mean, can I keep your life? It's not like you were using it. Lol

-Marv

I had to replace Ainsley's phone after that.

Daryl/Zee: Period/Relief

I've been one woman or another for a while now, enough to know I shouldn't get too precious about my period, or act like it's some astonishingly brain-breaking thing if you were previously a man.  As Elaine, I apparently found it less trying than J.T. had, enough so that after the first time, I could be prepared and not complain too much; as Magda, I was post-menopausal; and as Zee, I have to admit that the cramping was pretty bad in the first couple months, but ironically, being an Inn person gave me a bit of a leg up on a lot of women:  I knew it wasn't this painful for everyone, so I made an appointment with my gynecologist and got a prescription for something to make them less intense.  It would have been nice to get into one of the typical viagra trials - apparently the same way that dilating your veins helps blood flow to your dick to get it hard can also help blood flow out to your vag without backing up and causing pain! - but it's not that bad.  Would have been funny if that's how i wound up on that particular medication, though. 

The point is, I recently got put on some new meds, and I've been even more aware of what's going on down there than usual lately.  I've been told to expect my period to be a little irregular for a few months, so I wasn't immediately worried about being a couple days late.  Eventually, I bought a test.

I'm not pregnant, thankfully - the way a watched pot never boils, I had my period two days after the test - but it was the first time that I really had to consider the possibility.  I'm not particularly anxious to be a mother, but I don't think that's got anything to do with starting out as a man.  I've seen how completely being a mom has become part of Penny's and Krystle's lives, for instance, and there's a former guy at a the regular Changeling meet-up who is actuality kind of fretting about potential infertility.  She's just a few years older than me (both since we were born and the ages in our current passports), so maybe my biological clock will start making more noise soon.  Which isn't to say I'm averse to having a child or would have immediately made an appointment at a clinic to terminate the pregnancy if test was positive; I think I probably would have kept it and enjoyed being a parent.  But then there's the matter of the father. 

That's Cory - we've been meeting up fairly frequently since Krystle/Mackenzie started college and the weather turned cold enough that folks weren't looking to patronize a hot dog food truck, and he's seemed to be very much at loose ends about what to do with his spare time sense.  So he'll wind up taking the Downeaster to Boston, I'd head north, we'd meet up, and we've ended up in each other's beds a few times rather than try to plan too much around the relatively few trains or finding parking.

It's kind of funny for me to be on this side of an age-gap relationship now, after being with J.T. as Magda for as long as I was, and a lot of my friends and co-workers scratch their heads when they bump into me with a white man twice my age as we're out on the town.  There's really no explaining that he gets me a lot better than most people I meet - not only have we literally both been the same person at times, but that red-haired college freshman daughter of his has actually been two Black women roughly my age, and he's been very good about learning from them rather than trying to force them to match their appearance.  Eventually, they see him being pretty cool about the things I love and knowing more than you'd think to look at him, and shrug.  We're weird, but we work.

I probably wouldn't hesitate for long if he asked me to marry him, even beyond how I'm on my fourth identity because I am way too romantic for my own good.  But raising a child with him?  I mean, I'm pretty sure he'd be a good father, even though he didn't really have to be a dad to Elaine & Krystle, just seeing him with kids buying hot dogs, and it's not like anybody knows what they're doing when they become parents.  Working moms could probably have many worse partners than patient semi-retired men who are pretty spry despite being in their sixties during those early years.  But Cory'd be 83 when a child born today graduates from high school, and that number's not going down.

So, we're both kind of relieved that I'm not pregnant.  But in a way, it just kicks a question we hadn't really considered down the road a bit, and makes it harder to deal with if it should come up.

-Daryl/Zee

Marc/Dustin: Questions Without Answers

In my last post -- in my rush to relate the situation between myself, Koti, Mary and PJ -- I made a few offhand references that I later saw raised eyebrows in the comments.

One was the nature of Koti's Christmas present to me, which will have to remain a secret.

The other was that Mary revealed that Koti had told her that I had pressured her into the relationship. Like I had somehow taken this otherwise unwilling straight-man-turned-girl and squeezed her into something sexual that they maybe weren't ready for. I'm not saying that my account of events isn't biased, but I think we all know the truth of that, considering John and I slept together when we were both men.

Mary was good enough to say that she hadn't given it any credit, which I think tells you something about the way John is perceived even by those who know him: that anything he says is going to be a bit self-serving, a bit manipulative, and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Which is to say, no, I wasn't angry. That was John being John, or Koti being Koti. But I think the bigger question is why wasn't I mad, why wasn't I hurt? Why do I expect the worst from this person I am currently in a relationship with? I keep her at arm's length knowing that, as much of a connection as we have, I take our relationship to be transient, something that will eventually end, something not to be taken seriously. Whatever she needs to do to feel comfortable, I don't think I care and I don't think if affects me.

Koti is good company and a willing sexual partner, and I'm not sure where it all goes beyond that. Ordinarily that would be well within the parameters for me to consider her a potential long term partner, but as you know this isn't an ordinary situation. And there's still the stumbling block of, in a way, she's still married. Separated, but not completely, from Mary. As long as we're all tangled together like this I don't know what kind of future we should have, so I'm "in the moment" with it and happy about it.

That's how I've chosen to survive this situation, right or wrong. And lord knows my compass hasn't always pointed true north in that respect -- ethically or from a "what's good for me" standpoint but... it's all I've got to go by.

With that in mind, we were happy in our bubble through January. Being young and hot and horned up is not the worst way to live your life. Being snowed in doesn't really make a difference when you barely want to leave your bed.

That changed on the 30th when we got word that one of Dakota's uncles had passed away.

The real Dakota, obviously, is not in a position to attend the funeral, but she asked that we go and try to comfort her mother who had just lost a brother. This involved helping a bit with logistics and providing food and just generally "being there." Koti and I both observed that it was weird to be so involved in the funeral plans for a man we'd never met, but it's all part of the role we play. We spent some time in Dakota's hometown where Koti did not want to let being under the same roof as her "parents" get in the way of our usual nightly routine (Sorry Mr. & Mrs. Culbert! Hope we weren't loud.)

The funeral was on the Wednesday morning. I wrote Dustin's only suit, Koti wore a black skirt with stockings and a cream-colored blouse with pearl earrings, looking very mature.

We went to the viewing, kept to ourselves, attended the service and about halfway through... Koti started to cry.

Obviously my instinct was to be there for her, provide tissues, but it was very strange. Koti is not an emotional person by nature (at least not outwardly) but here she was weeping at the death of a man she never knew.

I asked later how she was feeling and if she had anything she wanted to talk about, and she just snapped that it was right to cry at a funeral and to leave it alone. Fair enough.

The next day as we were packing to leave, she was feeling more open. She explained that it got her to thinking about death, of course, and how John's body is so close to the end, and she was wondering who we were going to die as. I reminded her that I was under the impression that she intended to go back to being John, and she kind of dismissed that as something that was nor guaranteed -- although she didn't explain whether that was because of her own doing or because the Inn does get its lines crossed sometimes.

"It's a little hypocritical," she said, "That you push me to get my body back, when you never went back for your own. What's stopping you from being Marc again? That was a choice you made, why don't I get to make the same?"

"I guess you've got me there," I said. "I left my body to someone who seems to enjoy it, and I guess... we're all just happier with the deal."

"You're happy like this?" she raised an eyebrow, skeptically. "Not knowing who you'll be next year?"

I sighed. "Living as Marc was not healthy for me, and I feel like I can do more good like this."

"How nice for you," she said pointedly. "And living as John is supposed to be healthy for me?"

"Two and oh," I acquiesced. "I can't force you to go back to being yourself, but you're the one who has to live with the ramifications of that. Why do I get the feeling there's something you want to say?"

She got a faraway look in her eyes and smiled as if a happy thought had just occurred to her. "Just wondering about where it all goes. How we end up. What happily ever after looks like for people in our situation." 

"Uh huh," I nodded.

She reached down for my hand. Her little one in my big one. She felt my knuckles.

"Look at me," she said, gazing up at me. I looked down into her crystal blue-green eyes. Her lips curled up into a smile.

Then she said: "I want to marry you."

My heart, my stomach, my whole insides sank.

"Koti..." I could only say with a sight and a groan and a grunt all at once. "What are you talking about?"

"I know it sounds nutty, but hear me out. Whoever we become whatever we are supposed to be laer, we always keep each other first in our hearts and mind. That we find a way to commit to this, to each other, through whatever life makes us into. For lack of a better cognate... a marriage."

She went on with barely a breath, "I want purpose. I want pleasure. I want a destination. I want a home. We could be that for each other. In every life, every day, every year forward. Not as Dustin and Koti, but as Marc and John and whoever we become."

"You're not thinking clearly," I said.

"I'm seeing this more clearly than anything I've ever thought!" she continued, "I think it's meant to be! You found I, we found each other again, and we could be the only good thing in one another's life!"

"No... no...!" I protested, "It's not right! It's not fair to anyone. Even if you leave aside your life, your body, your old self, we don't know who we'll be in the future, we can't make any commitments."

"Yes, we can!" she insisted, holding my hand tighter by the fingers, "That's what commitment is, sticking to something even and especially when it's tough! You are worth committing to! Fate could toss us to opposite sides of the planet and I would get by knowing that I had you to find my way back to!"

"There's no way," I continued, "There's no way to do it, there are too many unknowns."

"That's what makes it right! To be each other's one certainty in an uncertain future! We can transcend the so-called curse... we already have!"

"Absolutely not," I said, pulling my hand back, "That's not what this is. This is what works for now and someday it won't and we both know that. Whether it's this summer or next, we have an end date."

"So did Mary and I," Koti said, seemingly having ended that marriage sometime between conversations -- possibly without Mary's knowledge. "That doesn't mean that was never real, and it doesn't mean that we aren't real. I love you, Marc."

"No, you don't," I said, with a huge lump in my throat. "You think that because it's easy and fun right now, but you and I both know -- or at least we should -- that this is not a permanent situation."

"Is it because you're afraid of commitment or because you don't love me?" she whimpered. I had hurt her. I'm not sure I've ever hurt John/Koti in that way in our lives.

"It's because we can't, and it would be insane to try," I repeated.

"It's insane to drift through life with nothing to hold onto, Marc. I give you purpose. Don't lose that. Don't forsake it. Don't throw it away."

Long silence.

"I'm sorry Koti," I said, a catch in my voice. "This is not how I see things going."

She set her jaw out. Now was a more recognizable version of Koti -- the pissed off one.

"Okay," she said. "Fine."

Tense ride back, and then every night since she has slept in Mary's room while I'm upstairs wondering just what the hell kind of future she sees for us... and what I see for myself.

-Marc/Dustin

PS: Let's not get into the irony of running to her literal wife when things get tough between us...

Tom/Kiara: A North Carolina Christmas and a Not-So-Happy New Year

You've got me at my more lucid. There are days I wander around barely able to string two coherent sentences together. The kid is mostly sleeping through the night but she still requires a lot of focus and energy. She's weaning, taking solid foods, but my body still produces milk. I've stopped feeding her on the breast but I do pump because it's a hell of a lot cheaper than formula. Overall I'm so emotional and dazed that it's hard to remember the time before I was here, before I was this. I feel a little broken in that sense. You haven't heard from me because I simply don't have the mental energy to write, which is like a form of death to my original identity.

I grouse, but there are times I don't hate it. I'd have to be made of stone not to see at least some of the beauty in giving and sustaining life, largely with my own body. There are times I think it's a miracle and I cry. There are times I think it's a curse, and I also cry. 

Christmas: There actually isn't all that much to tell. Most of Kiara's mom's attention went to the baby, as it frankly should, and then to the younger kids. I don't mind being a little "forgotten" -- I don't want to be here, I don't belong, and Kiara kind of forfeited any natural attention she should have gotten around the holidays when she added another mouth to the household.

I did get a couple of bucks from Grandma Kelly and some aunts. I told them I was going to buy concert tickets, which is half-true. I set some aside for an outing I was planning early in the New Year. I spent the rest on a rabbit, which was discreetly mailed to me a few days later.

Before you all drop your jaws to the floor and think I'm some kind of gross weirdo sex fiend for masturbating and then talking about it, let me explain my thinking. Kiara's body is prone to fairly intense period cramps. At least, they feel intense to me, a man who didn't grow up with this sort of thing. In my research, I learned that masturbation (or orgasming in general) can help ease these symptoms. I can confirm that it helps a little bit and feels very good overall, and hey, don't I deserve a little joy in this hectic life? Sexual gratification is a good thing, I don't think I'm the first reporter to break that story.

Over the Christmas break, I came to a few conclusions.

One was that I'm screwed. As determined as I was to keep working on my story, undaunted, I woke up in the middle of the night and it struck me how many cards my foe holds. I'm connected to way too many people and who knows how long their tentacles are? They did this to me, what could they do to my loved ones? Of course I mean the Nishimuras, but it's not like I'm callous to what could be done to my adoptive family as well. I don't just mean tricking people into going to the Inn and messing with their lives. There are plenty more ways to screw someone over.

The other was that if I can't convince the original Kiara to take her life back, then I have to keep it.

As much as I am very much not a natural at parenthood, I have been learning as I've gone along and I've adapted. There could be better people for this role but there could also be a lot worse and I see no reason to toss the coin on that. I'm not even worried about what becomes of me. I'm fully willing to take a chance with my own life. If you're well enough to go to the Inn there's a good chance I could stand being in your shoes, based on what I've done in the last six months. But for the baby, I won't take that chance. Only one person deserves this life more than me.

And that brings me to January 2. Just before the start of the new school session (we don't have "semesters", we have six-week sessions with two courses.)  I made an overnight trip over the state line to Knoxville. Armed with an ID from an older cousin who kinda-sorta looks like Kiara, I got into this dive-y honky tonk bar. I treated myself to a Miller Lite. I haven't drank a lot lately, not necessarily because of lack of access but because of the milk situation. The band took the stage at 9, and I was already kind of wiped but I stayed. The singer, Lisa Brown, was all decked out in a sparkly cowboy hat and boots, tight skirt, half-unbuttoned top. Pretty face. Wholesome but still kind of glamorous. If she had a stylist, they could probably really make her into something. I'm not saying the next Taylor Swift, but maybe she's got a future in this, you know? Good voice. Poised. I don't know a lot about music but I can spot a performer on the way to learning her craft, you know?

They played for a few hours. Mostly covers, some stuff I knew but a lot that the crowd sure did. Kacey Musgraves. Carrie Underwood. "I Miss Me More." They did a couple of original songs, which I didn't think much of. One was a ballad, it went "You changed me for the better / even though we're not together / Anymore..."

I hung around a while after the set. The crowd started thinning out. I ordered another Miller and asked the bartender if a $50 tip could help him facilitate an introduction to the band, because gosh I was so impressed.

I went back there and found the band. Lisa was on a couch, chatting closely with some short-haired woman, who I noted with academic disinterest, had huge breasts. The rest of the band were also busy, but pretty much all of them paused to take note of this strange creature that had just entered their space.

My eyes were fixed on Lisa, and hers on me.

Finally, I spoke, gushing. "Lisa, I just wanted to say, I'm a huge fan. I follow you on Instagram. I came all the way from __________ to be here tonight, ever heard of it?"

"Hm," she pondered, "I think I know where that is, maybe. That's pretty far."

"Oh, it was worth it," I grinned. "I was wondering if you were thinking of touring up north this summer? Maybe New England? ...Maine...?"

Lisa's eyes shifted to her friend as she drew in and held a breath, then back to me. "I don't know..." she hemmed in her very twangy, almost performative-sounding southern accent, "This is kind of our... home base. Not sure we have an audience up there."

"Oh, country's popular all over, you know," I smirked, "They're starved for a new act like you. I mean... weren't you living in that area as recently as last summer?"

She furrowed her brow. I could tell she was fuming. Embarrassed, she said, "Maybe we should talk somewhere private."

She kissed her friend on the cheek as she stood and led me to a quiet alcove near the back of the bar.

"How did you find me?" she hissed.

"It wasn't easy," I said. "There were a bunch of women's names in the guest book before yours, but most of them were accounted for. You -- or, Lisa -- only signed L.B. I had a lot of connections to wade through to try to figure out who that was. But from the handwriting I gathered it wasn't Larry Bronstein." When I found out that Lisa Brown of Providence, Rhode Island was now working as a singer in Tennessee, it wasn't hard for me to put two-and-two together. Kiara left a guitar and lots of music posters on her wall, journals full of lyrics attesting to her desire to get out of her one-horse town and try to make it big.

Then she got pregnant and it seemed like that dream was dead.

"How did you get to Maine?" I asked her.

She heaved a sigh, like she really didn't want to talk about it but felt cornered. "When Sierra was 3 months old, I was getting desperate. Not that I didn't love her. Not that I wasn't going to be a good mommy, but I could already see everything I wanted for life getting away from me. I was gonna have to drop out of school, learn cosmetology, and just... become my mom."

"Your mom wouldn't let you drop out of school, trust me," I said firmly.

"Whatever," she sneered. "I found an ad for this talent agent. I sent him some videos of me playing, which I now realize were horrible. He said they were great and there was a workshop he could get me into... in Maine."

"And there was no workshop."

"I guess not. The first night I was there I transformed into Lisa. A property manager from Providence. I figured, I've got a bit of money and freedom now, so long Rhode Island, and hit the road. Wound up here."

"Does anyone in your, uh... circle... know?"

"Jennette," she bobbed her head toward the back, "She was Byron, a 36-year-old computer something-or-other."

"You and her, uh...?"

"Yeah. Don't judge."

"I wouldn't dream of it," I said. "She's cute, if a little butch for me." 

"He's nice-- she's nice. Very grateful, you know?"

"Sure," I said, laughing darkly.

"You were a guy," she discerned. "You kinda sit like it."

"Yeah, well, I haven't put a lot of effort into debutante lessons," I said. I explained a bit more about who I was and how I came to be her.

Her face went cold. "So... what now?" She dropped the corny accent.

"That's the million-dollar question, isn't it?" I said. "It doesn't seem like you're ready to go back."

"I'm really not. I've come too far to give up on my dream, Tom."

"How does the real Lisa Brown feel about you using her body to pursue your dream?"

"She's a CEO now," she shrugged. "Too busy to care."

"What about your little girl? You left her with a stranger. I could be anybody."

"You seem okay," she winced.

"That's not the point," I said. "I have to think about myself. I'm stuck mopping up after your mistake."

"Don't call her a mistake!" she hissed.

I fumed quietly at that. She had no right to be so defensive, in my opinion.

"Look," I said once I had my bearings, "It's clear you never meant to abandon her or anything. You were tricked like I was, like so many others were. You can have the life you were meant to have. And it's not like going back to being Kiara is going to ruin your chances of being successful."

"I can't do it as Kiara," she insisted, eyes darting around to make sure nobody was listening. "No offense, but look at you and look at me. This is my chance."

I gritted my teeth. I did not like the way this was going.

"Maybe... in a little while..." she said, tentatively, "When I'm stable, we could... I don't know.. share custody somehow."

"That's terrible and it makes no sense," I said instantly. "She needs stability, she needs a full-time mom, and where would Kiara even meet Lisa Brown?"

She became increasingly agitated. "Give me... two years. Two years to make it. Get a record contract. Get on my feet. Then... I'll adopt her! Yeah! Nobody will blame you, you're young and overwhelmed, and Jennette and I can't have our own anyway. She won't even remember this part of her life."

Regardless of whether this even made sense to consider, it turned my stomach. I was just supposed to nurse this baby through the hard times and then hand her over to someone who left her behind? Last summer she may have been tricked but this was her decision.

"I don't think I can agree to that," I said coldly. "Look. In a few weeks, I'm going to be able to book a room at the Inn. I'll book you after me. But if you don't tell me by Memorial Day that you're coming, I won't go either. And then this is over. You can't have it both ways, I'm sorry."

"You can't do this to me," she gulped, "That's my baby!"

"Yeah," I said, standing and downing the last of my beer, "I know."

I walked out of that bar into the cold, feeling like the ground had dropped out from under me. I had hoped for the best and tried to prepare myself for the worst, but it hit hard.

My future was starting to take shape.

-Tom, Kiara

Isaac/Ainsley: Not Like Other Girls

After all that, I learned it's not that hard to dissociate your way through a wedding.

So much of it didn't require a lot of social effort. Yes, the other bridesmaids looked at me weird when I met them in the hotel lobby the next morning, and I gave Melissa a probably unsatisfyingly-flat reassurance when she asked me if I'm okay again. But after that it was easy. We all got our hair and makeup done; I let the other girls handle the obligatory small talk with the hairdressers and obviously we couldn't talk while our makeup got applied. Afterwards, everyone was too focused with helping Cayley navigate her big day to worry about me, besides the occasional concerned glance from Melissa.

We got Cayley into her dress and I silently watched her fiancée get his first opportunity to gawk over her. The wedding photos were a breeze; I just had to turn my brain off and do whatever the photographer said. He gave me a couple of reminders to smile more, which is a typical comment for me to get in my own life during the rare occasions I've had photos taken professionally, but he had criticisms and suggestions for several more of us so I didn't stick out there. The whole experience had the opposite dynamic from how it used to be when I went to weddings and bar mitzvahs as a kid: I now prayed for busywork and scheduled activities instead of facing the terrors of getting a break and being responsible for my own choices. Basically, I preferred the role of bridesmaid to the role of Ainsley.

The ceremony all went according to script, aside from the ringbearer faceplanting and some guest leaping out of his aisle seat to catch the rings before they hit the ground. Good thing the venue was indoors, I suppose. I cheered and clapped for the bride, fake-laughed half a second after the other bridesmaids whenever the maid of honor referenced some sorority story or in-joke in her speech. I mostly occupied myself strategizing exactly how long I had to stay at the reception before I could go home without causing suspicion, but to my surprise I actually found myself caught up in the ceremony a handful of times. Teared up a little. I think it's because I'd spent the last couple of days seeing a lot of Cayley and she came across as a shy, very nice person who deserves her happiness. Not that I didn't feel weird about it once I realized what I was doing, nor did it make me any better at shouting and cheering for her when the time came.

Finally the reception arrived. Just a few more hours before I got to relax. We had dinner and I made sure to focus more on eating my food when the conversation turned to subjects I was less able to respond to. When the bridesmaids all got up to dance, I activated the plan I'd come up with for avoiding a repeat of last night's disaster: I'd let the talkative groomsman I'd been paired with for the ceremony dance with me.

That certainly wasn't something I would've done fresh out the Inn a few months ago, but if there's anything I've learned since then it's that people who actually know Ainsley are far more terrifying to interact with than anyone who doesn't. Still, I found myself reminded of one reason I was so terrified to go out in public at first. It hit me after I'd already allowed him to invite me to the dance floor just how infrequently I interact with men anymore for more than fleeting moments; Ainsley's friends are all women, and so is the one person stuck in this misadventure with me. (Not that she'd consider herself stuck.) Really there's only the men at Ainsley's job, and her office is decidedly majority-female so being around them isn't especially nerve-wracking. This guy, on the other hand. He didn't do anything wrong. But everything about being around him-- the leading questions he asked me, the occasional comments, how he held onto my waist during the slow dance and how big his hands were, the way he kept scanning my body-- made it hit me that in this body I'm a woman, in a way that wearing bras, having a period and spending a weekend as a bridesmaid didn't. The sheer difference from how I would've interacted with him in my own body. And that is, deeply uncomfortable to have to think about.

But at the end of the day, my plan worked. I could respond to all his small talk and when it came to dancing I just let him lead me. I never had to live up to any expectations besides those related to the immediate setting. And nobody interrupted me to ask me if I was doing okay. As uncomfortable as it was, it solved the problem I'd hoped to solve. After I was satisfied with how long we'd been dancing I even let the guy have my number when he asked, as a tip of sorts, not that I plan on being prompt with any responses. And with that, I said my goodbyes to Cayley and the bridesmaids, made sure to hug Melissa and promise to see her again soon (we'll see. The upcoming holidays provide me with a lot of convenient excuses but I really did mean it), and went on my way.

I noticed an open window as I parked in front of the apartment, and when I walked in there was Heather, on the couch, a lit joint in hand. I was relieved to see her, which mostly only happens when I'm exhausted from trying to be Ainsley. It's never a great sign about how I spent my day, or my weekend in this case. "Welcome back, girlie", she told me. I looked down at myself in my bridesmaid dress and sighed, standing there for a few moments.

"Heather..." I asked, "Do you think there's something I'm missing, some obvious piece I've overlooked for why I'm so much worse at pretending to be... these lives, than you, or the people on the blog?" I had a lot of time to dwell on the drive back home. "Like, there's people who can but choose not to because they don't care, or there's horrible situations like kids in adult bodies who really can't do it. But I'm not in a position like that, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to. Can I figure it out and it'll just click into place, and I'll slap myself wondering how I could've been stupid enough to overlook it? Or is there something wrong with me and I'm just that different from everyone else?"

Heather thought for a little while. Answering that question probably wasn't the way she'd planned to spend her chill Saturday night indoors. So she didn't. Instead she scooched over on the couch, shrugged, and silently offered me the joint.

I hesitated, but not long enough to change out of the bridesmaid dress, before I sat down and accepted.

Isaac/Ainsley: Average Nightclub Experience

The wedding rehearsal amounted to a relaxing break. I just had to sit there and be quiet, walk up to the stage when told, and then stand there and be quiet except for some clapping and congratulations. Tolerate walking back to the table next to some talkative groomsman whose name I'm not bothering to remember. It's like the paint-and-sip was, just with a much higher sense of dread in the background.

I barely paid attention to the rehearsal dinner; it was basically the same situation as the bridal shower regardless. The real gauntlet awaited me at the end of the night: the bachelorette party. Below I am going to provide a helpful bulleted list of everything I disliked of what I knew I was likely to encounter:

• Nightclubs
• Dancing
• Loud music
• DJs
• Packed, crowded indoor spaces
• Dancing where others can see me
• Strippers...? (Nobody said anything about it, but I wasn't about to discount the possibility that the maid of honor had a couple surprises up her sleeve.)
• High heels
• Being expected to seem like I'm genuinely having fun with all of the above
• Dancing where others can see me in a packed, crowded indoor space with loud music, in high heels

Pacing back and forth across my room at the hotel attached to the venue, in said heels, just highlighted how unprepared I was for this-- how unwilling I was to prepare for this. I can match faces to names, memorize wedding schedules, plan outfits, even practicing makeup feels kind of rewarding, but I couldn't bring myself to make more than a couple of token attempts at walking in these things.

I stared into the mirror at the still completely unreal sight of this self in a little back dress. She only looked ready for the club from the neck down; actual night-out makeup is another thing I hadn't bothered touching. Eventually I came to the conclusion that it'd be more embarrassing to slip and fall in front of everyone all drunk than to show up to the club in sneakers. Hell, that wouldn't even be remotely weird if not for the whole bachelorette party dress code. And I knew, I knew I'd get drunk. That'd be the only way I could possibly take all this.

Being second-to-last of the group to arrive at the hotel meant I didn't leave much time for anyone to ask why I looked so out of it. I held my tongue from criticizing how Cayley and/or her parents paid for a limo, but I'll admit the inside was kind of cool. I caught myself thinking the girls looked prettier than me and wondered why I'd let Ainsley's appearance matter to me for anything other than reputation-preserving reasons. I tried not to spend too much time looking out the tinted window.

Too quickly we arrived at some sort of small nightlife-heavy strip that looked like it's pretending to be a downtown. We went to a couple of bars, first a dive-ish sports bar that was fairly uncrowded for a Friday night, then a busier, classier wine bar. Each time, I positioned myself so I'd be one of the last of the group whose orders would get taken and copy what one of the girls in front of me got. (This was my first time taking advantage outside a grocery store of being drinking age months ahead of schedule.) I made the best small talk I could, attempted to balance getting drunk enough to survive this with how little I knew about Ainsley's tolerance, and fiddled with my BRIDE SQUAD sash.

I'd never spent longer than twenty seconds in a nightclub before but nothing surprised me about the place. Maybe a little less crowded than in my nightmares, the music a little louder than I remembered. Grit the teeth. I was hoping to spend as much time clinging to the wall as I could get away with, but a couple minutes after we walked in the DJ gave Cayley a shoutout and put on a song the maid of honor submitted days ago, and we were all rushed out into the center of the club.

This is what I was most afraid of. Everything else can be tolerated, but I can't dance. Not even in the sense of not knowing how to dance though that's also the case. I genuinely can't dance. I'm not able to let myself go in the way dancing takes. I can do very structured dances with instructions (there they are again), or things like slow dancing with a partner where there's a very limited number of movement options and I don't have to think about what to do with my arms, not that I've done even that much since high school. But free-form, nightclub dancing? Jumping around and cheering? Shaking your ass? All impossible for me without looking stiff and robotic. Like a parody of the concept. I don't know why I'm like this, someone who can't cheer, who can't scream, even if I were in a situation where I really felt like doing either, let alone in that nightclub. But I've always been this way, and Ainsley Thomas hasn't.

I tried anyway, for Ainsley's sake. Maybe I was wrong, and some combination of alcohol, peer pressure, and the possibility of an Inn-related brain structure change helping me out would let me fit in with these girls. No juice. I couldn't bring myself to move without half-assing it. Seriously, what am I even afraid of? Does it go deeper than fear? The girls mostly paid attention to Cayley or the DJ but whenever any remembered to take a glance at me I got a few raised eyebrows. Nobody said anything but I think they just didn't want to ruin the vibe. The longer it lasted the more worried I got that this humiliation ritual was bad enough that some stranger in here might be recording me for cringe compilation material. It was probably under ten minutes in when I finally announced, to no one in particular, "I'm going to go get another drink." I didn't know if anyone heard me over the thrum.

At the bar, which took some time finding a relatively uncrowded path to, I ordered a gin and tonic. There's not really a demographic that looks weird for ordering a gin and tonic, far as I can tell. I sat there with my drink and scrolled through Ainsley's Instagram looking at old pics in which it seems like she's genuinely having fun. Comparing oneself to the highlights-only side of other people's lives they post to social media never makes anyone feel better but it's much worse when you're wearing the very body you're looking at and knowing, maybe, you'd be theoretically capable of doing those exact things, if you were different. A tall guy slid in next to me and asked if something happened between me and my friends or if I just wanted to get away for a bit. Said a girl as pretty as me shouldn't have to feel this way. Offered to buy me another drink. I looked at him for a moment, silenced the lingering trace of Ainsley trying to give me a reason to at least hear him out, and very theatrically downed the rest of my drink. "Excuse me, uh. I have to go to the bathroom," I declared like I'm having a conversation with my manager about why I come across as less passionate about my work than usual. And I went in there and found an empty stall and cried.

Crying, that's something I'm not blocked off from doing for unknown reasons. I didn't do it much as Isaac, but I could, and as Ainsley it's way more intense and honestly kind of cathartic. Still silent, though. I don't like to make noise. I sat there on the toilet for who knows how long, catching up on some plant blogs I've neglected following for a while and overhearing women talking about things refreshingly unrelated to my problems even if often they also weren't having a good time. Until I heard the door open and someone shout, "Ainsley? You in there?"

It's Melissa. Back to reality. "Fuck I hope she didn't leave the building." She moved slowly across the bathroom until she arrived at my stall. "I know those sneakers, Ainsley, open up." Damn these flimsy stalls. I thought about ignoring her but that'd just give me more consequences to deal with whenever I saw her again later in the night, or at the hotel or the wedding the next day. Plus, ignoring her would only confirm that I'm actually Ainsley; if I could change my voice on command convincingly it might get her to back off. I opened the stall.

"Hi," I told her. Melissa blocked my view of the mirror, but I didn't need it to know my makeup would betray that I'd been crying.

"Yeah, hi," she added, clearly hoping I'd have a little more to say. "Are you okay? There's a right answer, by the way, so don't BS me."

"No." She got me there, how else could I even respond?

"Good choice." She allowed herself the tiniest moment of satisfaction before the facade broke. "Okay seriously Ains, you have got to fucking tell me what is going on with you. For the last few months it's like, like the life's been sucked out of you."

Oh, god. It's this conversation. The blog archives warned me this could happen but there's nothing that really prepares you for it being sprung on you, especially if you've had a few drinks.

"You stopped going out with the rest of us, you stopped asking how we were doing... You hardly even talk to me anymore and I'm really worried about you! I know Jaysen was, you know, a lot for you. And I get it. I've been there. You helped me through there! But right when it happened, you were feeling awful but you still kept us in the loop. You told me everything, Ains. So when you don't, I..."

Now she's crying, too. "I owe you so much, you saw how much of a fucking mess I was when we first met. All those hangovers you got me through back at the house, the, the whole thing with my dad... You've been there for me no matter what, and I, whatever it is, I can't let you go through it alone! You're Ainsley Thomas and you deserve better than that!"

"Melissa, I--"

"And I don't wanna make this about me but, it hurts, seeing you like this. Not being able to talk to you, that you've gotten so distant. So please, please just. I need you to know I'm still here. I care about you. I love you. You've always told me everything, before. So, if you can at all, please..."

I took a breath, knowing this was unlikely to be a satisfying answer. Also I had to stop myself from outright sobbing. "Mel, I, I... love, you? Too. And I'm not. Having a good time lately. You're right. But I can't tell you, I know, I feel like shit, but I can't. And it's not Jaysen, it's, I really can't, okay?"

I grabbed onto her arm, not really knowing where that came from. "Mel, if you want to help me, I need you to trust me. Please."

Melissa looked to be in disbelief. Her face tensed as she clearly readied a plead over why Ainsley's being so difficult, why her best friend won't tell her what's putting her through so much pain.

But she caught herself. Anger replaced with simmering resignation. "Okay," Melissa said. "I'll see you later, then. When you're ready." And she walked out of the stall, leaving me to confront it all myself.

Isaac/Ainsley: Sorority Initiation Rites

Finally getting up to the point in November where I really had to start living Ainsley's life, between the wedding and the holidays, among other things. The wedding saga was long enough to split into several posts, so bear with me here.

Purple pastel V-neck midi-dress which conforms to the aesthetic of Ainsley's previous bridal shower visit but isn't the exact dress she wore to that. Slightly more eyeshadow than I'd wear to work, plus bronzer. A million reminders that everyone looks worse on a phone camera than in a mirror and that's why I don't look exactly like her past photos rather than me screwing up somehow.

Well, at least I look the part.

It was the day I finally couldn't escape, the day where my shame over ruining a borrowed life defeated my anxiety in a situation not directly related to keeping financially afloat. The day I actually see Ainsley's friends instead of trying to not sound too fake in the group chat. The bridal shower, which is merely an appetizer for my bridesmaid duties next weekend. One thing about having all your bridesmaids be sorority sisters who still live in the area means you can get away with things like a bridal shower a week before the wedding since nobody's going to have to pay travel costs, but it's. Well. I try to optimistically tell myself that it's better than just being thrown right in once I show up to the rehearsal dinner.

That's why I've been practicing my makeup even harder, reading through the group chat logs, anything that can be converted into a discrete problem with an actual goal. Something I could put on a spreadsheet, and did. Focusing on the practical elements of a problem to make the situation seem slightly less bad even if they pale in comparison to the painful reality has been my coping mechanism my whole life. This just raises the stakes.

So with that in mind I drove out deep into the Phoenix exurbs, throwing on one of Ainsley's playlists to hopefully distract myself enough to put me in a mindset closer to her. (It's really not bad. Lot of Fleetwood Mac in there.) I arrived at the tract townhouse precisely on time, which would give me a few minutes to ruminate over my situation and work up the courage to leave the car. I don't like being one of the first to arrive to anything, it makes me feel like I've been put on the spot. So I wait patiently, breathing in and out, calculating exactly the right moment I need to--

"Holy shit Ainsley is that you!?"

Before I knew it I'm pulled out of the car and into a tight hug. I was prepared for the hug but not the abruptness. It's Melissa, Ainsley's best friend from her sorority days. I owe her a few lunches.

"It's so great to see you! Seriously, I know I keep talking about it but, I'm glad to have you around, y'know? I really hope you've been doing okay."

She obviously doesn't think I've been doing okay. I blink. Remember to smile.

"...Wanna see some dog pics?"

Greeting the rest of Ainsley's friends went more or less the same way. Inside the townhouse were bride-to-be Cayley, her fiancée, mother and teenage sister, and the six bridesmaids, myself included. I had to reassure them that I'm not dead and try to dissociate enough to not look like I'm panicking. Fortunately the nature of the event meant I wasn't the center of attention, though Cayley came across like she's generally a fairly shy person who'd normally expect other people to drive the conversation. People like Ainsley Thomas. I know I kept getting looks from the other bridesmaids expecting a response that often wasn't coming. Even Cayley's mom did this a couple times. (Has she met Ainsley? I should research that before the wedding). Melissa was more than willing to pick up the slack, though, and so was the fiancée when he wasn't keeping to himself. I wonder if I'd feel more or less out of place here in his position.

It went moderately okay. The most frequent conversation topic was the upcoming wedding, which I could keep up with decently as the group chat had been pretty active about it for a while. Whenever I'm in a large group conversation with people who know Ainsley I feel the obligation to talk a certain percentage of the time so people don't get even more weirded out, so the wedding topic provided ample opportunity to dig myself out of conversational debt, so to speak. They talked about ASU's football season (going okay but not great, apparently) and Vince Gilligan's new show (I was bailed out of having to talk about it since I wasn't the only one who hadn't seen the episode).

I got some raised eyebrows when I gawked a bit about how much the last-minute catering switch cost. Ainsley is apparently well-known among her group for wanting an enormous wedding, which I instantly realized I'm a dumbass for not realizing that yeah, that sounds like her. And I dug myself even deeper with the only excuse I could think of: saying the breakup made me not want to think about weddings for a bit. My own wedding, I clarified to Cayley before she could say anything.

"Hey. Are you... How's that going for you, anyway?" Someone asked. "Does Jaysen still try to talk to you these days?"

"...No?" That was a lie. Every few weeks that guy will text me some bottom-tier meme that I'll just ignore. Not even a "hey bby missing u u up to anything tonite?" text, just the meme. Usually a poorly cropped TikTok screenshot. But I was so eager to end this part of the conversation that I didn't even want to divulge that much.

"Uh huh. And you still don't want to, right? 'Cause I swear, if that fucking guy--"

"No. Believe me, I'm done. I don't need him in my life right now and I don't really care if he tries. I'll just ignore him." Okay. Now time to smoothly navigate my way out of this conversation. "Oh, hey Cayley, can you tell me the kind of wine you got for this? Big fan."

Everyone stared. Melissa chimed in through awkward laughter: "Ains, I've known you for eight years now, and that's the most apathetic I've ever heard you sound."

I took a sip of wine.

Somehow the conversation moved back to normal topics. But now, after a long drive home full of replaying that moment in my head on loop, I can only think: I've got a whole weekend of this.

Toby: Dunia's Amigas

One thing about my schedule as a flight attendant being kind of random and longer than the number of hours I get paid for is that it makes finding time to hang out with her friends and family difficult.  I missed the family gatherings for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and though I talk with her friends online (at first at the real Dunia's prompting but more on my own these days) I don't see them in person very often.  I've gotten better at it (there was apparently a thing going around group texts back in October that Dunia had become a high and mighty bitch because I didn't compliment someone on her new hairstyle because I didn't recognize her with her new hairstyle), but I stopped worrying about it after a while, just thinking about the number of high school friends I've drifted away from since graduation even though we still live pretty close to each other.  It just happens, right? 

Maybe.  But other things also happen, like New Year's, which Dunia and her friends have been ringing in on the beach since high school.  Even though I've been living here and flying to other warm-weather cities for a few months, it hadn't totally sunk in that it was still summer weather - in my head, it just hasn't gotten cold yet.  But right around Christmas, I started getting texts from Ceci, Danica, and Ines asking what my schedule was looking like, and after a quick check in with Dunia, I checked her social media history and saw that they did in fact hit the beach every New Year's Eve. 

In bikinis. 

Now, I've gotten kind of used to having a Dunia-shapes body by now.  I still have a minor panic attack on the first day of her period, but what i see in the mirror or while taking a shower every morning doesn't shock me, and I've more or less of come to accept that what's in the closet makes a certain sort of sense.  It's got enough that you want some skin exposed to sweat from, the colors I thought were ugly at first look pretty nice on my darker skin, her wedge sandals are comfortable and give me a little extra height, and I'm even okay with my breasts being pushed up and together by her bras and halters.  The heels do make my ass sway, but I keep telling myself that it made Dunia feel confident and maybe I'll feel the same by the time spring comes. But I still mostly avoided even touching the drawer with swimsuits or the racks with club stuff.

No avoiding it, though, and I knew from experience by then that a girl takes a while to get ready, especially given that I still so a lot step-by-step from checklists on the phone rather than having any real instinct for it.  I spent a couple hours painting nails, doing makeup, and fixing with my hair before sending outfits to Dunia and being told that she wouldn't necessarily have chosen the belted skirt and crop top combo herself, but that it was probably okay for someone as nervous about things getting loose or coming off as me.  By the time I was done, Ines arrived to pick me up.  Ceci was already in the passenger seat, and Danica would join me in the back. 

They hadn't seen Dunia/me for more than a passing word since September, and wanted to know all about the glamorous life of a flight attendant, so I could apply plenty of small talk amid all their relationship drama.  They pulled no punches when it came to how their ex-boyfriends were pigs (you hear about how guys have no idea how dirty or frank fields talk when we aren't around, but it's still an earful!) while also making insinuations about what Dunia's was doing while overseas.  I defended him, although I've only really talked with him online, tentatively because his hours don't really line up with Dunia's and I'd rather consult her before saying something that could mess things up.  Maybe he's dumb enough to cheat on Dunia (not getting into the looks I've inherited, she's pretty cool), because I can say from experience that guys will do really stupid things off the opportunity comes, but if Dunia doesn't think so, I'm not acting like I think so. 

At least it let me say "I've got a boyfriend serving overseas and I don't think he'd like that" more that night than I had for the rest of December.  Most guys were pretty chill about it - there were a lot of girls in the club showing way more skin and looking more eager to hook up than I was, including Dunia's friends.  Ceci seemed to be the one most eager for some sort of rebound fling, too the point where Ines was asking me to help keep an eye on her, while Danica was more looking for the best dancer, because she's really good, to the point where she seems to almost get bored just casually bopping around and shaking her butt.  She's got an eye for the guy who can pick her up and spin her, for example, and sometimes the rest of us would just stop what we were doing and watch. 

By the time we headed for the beach, there were a couple guys in tow - Ceci hoped in her new friend's passenger seat and I moved up front so Danica and her guy could make out.  That left me chatting with Ines, who seems pretty cool, before we got to their favorite public beach. 

I had enough rum in me (aside from Dunia being Cuban-American, it's something I don't feel too girly ordering but which doesn't seem too masculine for her) that I was pretty bold bringing my handbag with the little green bikini into the bathroom stall.  I figured that I'd put on bra and panty sets dozens of times by this point, and the only difference was that I just wouldn't continue getting dressed.  But by the time I had my hand on the door latch so I could go to the sinks and touch up my makeup, I either suddenly sobered up a bit or something, because even with a matching wrap on my hips, my ass suddenly looked twice as huge and inviting as usual my boobs seemed super bouncy, and the thought that any of the knots I had twisted myself to tie in ways you don't learn in the spots could either come loose on their own or at a guy's slightest pull was echoing through my head.

Didn't happen, thankfully, and we had a good time - we don't really have food trucks in North Dakota like they do here, there was a lot of great music, and there were fireworks.  I guess that's more "big city" than Miami particularly, although we probably wouldn't have been wearing swimsuits if I'd wound up in Minneapolis!  I did kind of find my head spinning because of it, though:  Girls in bikinis was always exciting and full of potential and distracting (Ma would go on about how I shouldn't let them distract me or make me give into temptation), and here I was, walking around the beach, getting fried plantains and the like, and it's kind of a head-trip that I'm hanging around with three girls who are acting like it's not really sexy at all most of the time, just talking about their lives, and the fact that I can sort of slip into just chatting and not really be thinking about what dudes are thinking of the show I'm offering, or even feel like I'm putting myself on display, but then I'll notice just how amazing Ceci's rack is and look away embarrassed and wonder if guys are looking at my ass.  I mean, obviously, some are, because they will come right up and tell me, sometimes in Spanish, which sounds even weirder, but more on that another day.

It was probably the most fun I can ever remember having on New Year's Eve, though, even if it did end with me being driven home by a very hot girl while we were both wearing bikinis but nothing beyond that.  Apparently Dunia coming home practically naked isn't a big deal to her Dad, who was asleep in the recliner until I maybe closed the front door too loud, which I guess isn't a big deal, but, like aren't fathers supposed to be more paranoid about their daughters running around half-naked?

Anyway, I'm glad I did it, and I'm feeling less nervous about answering Dunia's friends' texts now, even if my weird schedule legitimately has me not able to meet up with them that often.

-Toby/Dunia

Rusty/Monica: Is dying my hair really unprofessional?

It looks really silly writing it out like this, but Dad, Katey, and Jonah all think I look silly, and it was kind of impulsive, but I think it works for me and it's not some crazy blue color or anything, and I just felt like changing things up a little.

It wasn't really a hard holiday season, really - Dad, Jonah, and I went out for Thanksgiving dinner while Katey went with Omar to his family, and then I went and visited the original Monica's family again for Christmas.  They're nice folks to be connected to on social media but once a year is kind of the right amount to see them.  Monica's an only child but has a bunch of cousins, who are cool, and her parents are nice.  Having a mom and a dad feels almost excessive in some ways, although they're not being my mom and dad makes certain things weirder.  Like coming out as aro-ace.

They probably would had an easier time with it if I'd told them I was gay, or trans, or a 16-year-old boy who had been turned into a copy of their daughter by a cursed Inn a year and a half ago.  People really don't get it when you say you're not interested in having sex or particularly worried about pairing up, because it seems to occupy a really staggering amount of most people's thoughts, especially once you say it's not a big deal.  I kind of get it, because I did think about girls a lot before becoming one, but sometimes it feels like it makes people dumb or crazy. 

Of course, that means I was the odd girl out when hanging around with Katey, Omar, Dad, and Jonah on New Year's Eve.  We had fun bar-hopping, but being with two couples meant every guy and a surprising number of girls thought they were helping by hitting on me, like I needed someone to kiss when the ball dropped and wanted to start the year with a stranger grabbing my butt.  Anyway, after the ball dropped, Katey and Dad both decided to start the New Year's at their boyfriends' places and I went home.  I hadn't even gotten out of my party dress when I saw we were out of toothpaste, so I went back downstairs to grab some from a convenience store, then grabbing a couple Monsters so there'd be a couple in the fridge when I woke up, then somehow winding up in the beauty aisle, seeing hair dye was on sale, and grabbing a box.

I wasn't dumb enough to try it before going to bed, but did decide it would be a fitting first thing to do in the new year, so I went for it.  It's a pain in the neck and I went to my phone at one point to see what it would cost to have a salon do it (not cheap!). But once I got all the foil things out and took another shower to rinse, I looked in the mirror and really liked what I saw.  I was just getting out of the bathroom when Dad came home and stopped dead in her tracks.  "What have you done?"

"I dyed my hair red!  Not, like, fire-engine red, I'm still pretty obviously a brunette, but now you guys can call me Rusty again!"

"It's a little late for second thoughts about being Monica, isn't it?"

"I'm not having second thoughts; it's just that I just spent a week in California and seeing pictures of her on the wall, and afterwards talking about Monica's family and Monica's old friends, I kind of thought it was a shame I couldn't really get people to call me Rusty, or that it would be weird to suddenly ask to be called Nicky or whatever, then when I saw these on sale...  Well, I was a little drunk, but it still wasn't a bad idea!"

"Not a bad idea?  You've got to find a real estate broker who will hire you and sponsor you for your license, and you've decided that's the time to look less serious?"

"It's not a big deal - like, someone meeting me for the first time might totally think it's my natural hair color, even though I look a little Asian!  It might help me stick out!"

She just shook her head, taking off her heels and only half-closing her door as she changed into a t-shirt and sweatpants.  "I just don't see why you'd do it!  It's one thing to try to do all this nonsense with your looks for work or to get someone's attention, but you think you don't care about guys and this isn't the sort of thing that seems likely to make a positive difference."

I left to go to the gym while Dad tried to figure out how to find bowl games on streaming, and when I got back Katey was there, and she just didn't seem to think the red suited me.  Neither of them has started calling me Rusty again, though it's just been a couple days.  The folks at work barely noticed, though, and I haven't had an interview since doing it.

I dunno, I kind of like what I see in the mirror right now, but is this a crazy thing to do while trying to get a new job where folks will treat you like a professional?

- "Rusty Monica"

Arthur/Penny/Millie: A Christmas Card!

The big news first - we got a Christmas card from Millie!  Ray and I were kind of paranoid about whether it was the real deal at first, because one of his current cases is an identity theft thing and we would be very easily catfished in this situation.  Fortunately, we've got some of Millie's handwriting to compare, and it looks the same, albeit bigger.

It doesn't really say anything that helps us find her, except that she's "visiting family" for Christmas and the downtime is really making her miss home.  It also means we can't tell much from the postmark, since she's not where she usually is. 

It was kind of a relief, though, because Christmas has been a lot of going through the motions, as Ray, Harmon, and I didn't really feel like shopping, but Ray and I have friends who like hitting the holiday fairs with us, and Millie is still a kid, albeit a teenager (or "tween", I guess), which means her friends are very excited but there's a lot of eye rolling at what they get, so we kind of did it anyway.  I wound up doing a lot of shopping for Millie saying I was shopping for friends, and kind of hoping she won't mind if it's lightly used when she got back, and also for Ray and Harmon. 

Christmas morning was kind of strange, obviously, because none of us wanted to act things out for the others, but Ray did get me a couple things, and then there was Harmon.  It would seem rude not to get her anything, but the things she's been dropping hints for are outfits and accessories, because apparently her time as Alicia has her thinking I haven't really been making the most of what I have.  We try to make it clear that this is kind of inappropriate, as she may not be able to take it with him, but she shrugs out off, saying you've got to live for today.  I've mostly gotten her books and such anyway. 

We've also spent the last week splitting the work of grading midterms, which had been interesting.  I'm a lot more sympathetic to some of what the students do that would probably have rubbed me wrong a year ago, and we both have different skills when it comes to spotting when students use AI.  It's kind of an uneasy truce situation right now, because she's discovering that junior high will wear you down, no matter how energetic, and also groaning about communicating with my editor and setting up signings for the new book.  I think she thought that school vacation was going to be vacation for her as well, but, ha!

Still, heard from my daughter, so I can't get too upset.

-Arthur/Penny/Millie