I wouldn't mind so much if it was just tennis. I like that a lot, although I'm probably hurting Millie's chances of being noticed by the scouts looking for the next girl who could be a teenage champion, which seemed a whole lot cuter and more exciting when you're just watching the Williams sisters crush seasoned vets on TV and marveling at kids being prodigies than when you're simultaneously that kid having practice eat your weekends and her mother worried about if this is hurting her in school or making her miss out on being a child. Oh, and that a bunch of adults are looking at a kid and seeing her as just one of of many their hedging their bets on, abandoning the ones they can't exploit. Millie and the other girls mostly seem to enjoy the attention and the praise from knowledgeable adults, but I obviously can't get into that mindset. Maybe it will be a good thing if my being just pretty good means she doesn't get recruited into a big program, but i can obviously never, ever say this to her after we get back to normal. All apologies!
But that's tennis. Millie's winter sport is cross-country skiing, and I think I hate it. Aside from it being constant endurance and knowing how to pace and push your body, it requires a lot more talent in terms of reading the trail than I've developed. One thing I've learned as Penny, and which the original has learned in his second life as well, it's that there are physical activities where it's fun to go all out and others where it's better just doing enough to burn some calories, and cross-country skiing isn't even that.
(Oddly, I kind of enjoy using the Nordic machines at the gym - it's like a good run except your breasts don't bounce as much - but once you're out in the snow, it just kind of sucks!)
But I think I could endure that if it was just not looking the activity, because as both Millie's mom and an Inn person not wanting to leave someone in the lurch, I want to return her life to her just as she left it. But, God, why are boys like this?
I haven't talked a lot about having to dress like a girl Millie's age, because I really haven't figured out how not to sound like a creep or uptight mom or hypocrite. There's lots of wearing leggings like they're pants and midriff-baring tops in warmer weather (or when you know you're not going to be outside), and I absolutely have become the sort of woman who thinks that sort of thing is okay to wear when working out but not when hanging out, even if you're doing both in the same city park. Girls this age are also starting to experiment with cosmetics, and not only am I not ready as a mom, but I'm actually kind of too good at it: I had to study hard and really drill myself to make it second nature, and it kind of takes the other 13-year-old girls by surprise when the tomboy whose dad especially doesn't want her putting anything on her face blends her makeup like she's been doing it longer than they've been alive. Harmon giggled when I told her that I'd said my mother taught me because anything worth doing is worth doing well, and living up to that layer is going to be annoying.
But I digress. What I'm trying to get at is that, while tennis is just skirts that aren't that far off from regular clothes, skiing is spandex that shows that my chest and bottom have filled in a bit over the past few months. I'm still more tall and rangy than curvy, but now a whole bunch of middle school boys who didn't realize Millie had breasts or a butt are taking notice and finding reasons to "accidentally" brush up against them, and, god, it's so uncomfortable, because I'm not sure what to think. I know that, despite having a whole lot more life experience, I am a nearly-14-year-old girl on a certain level, with a whole bunch of hormones, and while some of these boys are leering like creeps (and let us not get into their dads!), some are just having their attention caught and are probably perfectly nice, and the sort of boys Millie would like. Hell, I kind of like them, and I can't deny that I sometimes feel like I've acclimated to this age more than I'd like, when I feel patronized or come up against something in school that I didn't encounter in my previous lives or pick up some pop culture thing that Ray and Harmon don't know. But, yes, hormones are flowing, I'm feeling very frustrated by the fact that I haven't had that sort of intimacy as part of my life for six months, and I sometimes think that maybe I should get myself a little boyfriend, just so that Millie doesn't look weird skipping another dance or have rumors swirl around her that she has to deal with when she gets back. I won't, but "tween" does come from between.
And then, of course, there's the racism. Yes, there have been a lot of Asian and Asian-American folks doing very well at the Olympics over the past couple of weeks, but there are still a lot of folks out there (mostly parents) who think winter sports are just for northern-European people like they don't have snow anywhere else in the world and have depressingly little filter about Millie participating in them. Official school sports is pretty good about not putting up with that nonsense, but you still here it before people get escorted away, and during vacation-week invitationals, there's usually less enforcement. This isn't my first go-round as an Asian-American, so it's not out of left field, but I must admit, I kind of figured Elizabeth might have been someone who brought out the worst in people and they reached for the worst possible thing - I'm not proud of ever having had the mindset of a white guy who thinks there must be some sort of explanation for vile racist shit - but that's definitely not the case with Millie. That some of it came from a 15-year-old boy that looked like might become something and that Millie might like, well, that was the icing on the top of a terrible dessert.
So that kind of sucked, and being stuck in the apartment alone with Ray and Harmon today has been a pain. The city's big enough that we can all kind of go our separate ways when things get uncomfortable, but Harmon decided to be flirty today. I guess she teases Ray a lot when I'm not around, and he always says it's really inappropriate, but he got mad today, and Harmon giggled when he went in the restroom to relieve some tension, then outside to shovel.
Needless to say, I'm very ready to get back to being myself again. I've had another card from Millie that sounds like she's feeling the same way, at least, but it can't come soon enough.
-Arthur/Penny/Millie
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