Toby: Dunia's Back

So, the way things turned out last week made Memorial Day weekend more of a staycation than I expected. Instead of being on my way home to  North Dakota and trying to explain my absence, I was hanging around the Cortes house, still kind of shook from spending two days in an interrogation room and seeing my life yanked away from me when I finally did get out.  I was actually getting a lot of support, because a really crazy number of Dunia's friends and family apparently know what it's like to be in Federal custody for no good reason.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised about that by now, but I am; they're super-nice people and what they describe doesn't look nearly as suspicious as me having a missing person's property.

Dunia's father Hector had been hanging around the house consoling me in Spanish for the past few days - even though I've been mostly responding in English, something about the whole situation made him feel a little rebellious - and it was kind of a relief when he reluctantly went into work Monday morning because all the people messing up their cars on a holiday weekend were creating a backlog.  Dunia's friend Ceci texted and asked if I wanted to hit the beach, and after checking my phone for other messages, I said to give me a little time to shave my legs, since I'd kind of been lying around the house for the past week, and she responded with a thumbs-up.

I'd kind of been expecting a text from "Alicia", since Dunia had texted me Sunday morning saying It had happened, including photos, and asking if I had time to give the new Alicia a crash course starting Monday afternoon, because we were expected back to work later in the week.  I said of course, but hadn't heard back yet, so I figured I'd get a text at some point and I could make my apologies to Ceci and Ines and help someone else who'd been thrown into a weird situation by the magic inn out.  But I hadn't gotten it yet, so I drew a bath and got in, making sure my hair was up because I'd already spent time blow-drying it in the morning, and let the hot water open my pores and follicles or whatever before soaping up and scraping the hair off.  It's kind of nerve-wracking because it still doesn't feel like the right way to use a razor, and I don't know if girls freak out about shaving close to their pussy or if's just some leftover fear of cutting my dick off.  That last bit is real weird anyway, because I kind of want a neat landing strip even though I don't intend for anyone to see it.

So I do that, get dried off, and put on the American flag bikini that I imagine exists just for that sort of holiday, but I'm kind of ashamed to say I wasn't feeling it when I looked in the mirror, or maybe that's totally natural.  I was headed back to the bedroom to grab another one when I practically jumped out of my skin at the sound of the doorbell, followed by someone pounding on the door.  I turned back around so I could open the door camera app on the phone that I'd left in the bathroom, and when I saw Alicia & Gerard waving, I kind of forgot what I was wearing and raced down the stairs, throwing myself into the man's arms, suddenly crying.  "Oh my god, it's so good to finally meet you in person!  I really hope I haven't let you down too much!"

He gently pushed me away.  "Merci, but I think you are a bit confused?  I am not Dunia, she is."

I turned to look at the new Alicia, who was smiling sheepishly.  "Really?  What is it about this that makes people think it's something to joke about?"

She brought her hand to her chest.  "I swear, I didn't mean to - I thought I made it clear what happened!  Maybe that text didn't send?"  She started to move her hand toward her purse and then decided it didn't matter.  "I'm really sorry!"

I said it was okay, and then suddenly realized I didn't know anything about this new Gerard before getting all in his personal space, and what he might have taken from that.  "Hey, I'm sorry, that was really rude of me!  I'm Toby Watson, although I guess I'm going to be Dunia Cortes for a little while more."

He smiled.  "I'm Geraldine, which I guess will make Gerard easy to remember."  He/she started to reach out for a hug, but then seemed to wonder about it and offered a hand instead.  "But my new friend Dunia is right, you do wear her body quite well."

I suddenly felt self-conscious.  Girls walking around Miami in bikinis isn't that unusual, but were were saying crazy-sounding things, and I looked around to see if the were neighbors about.  "Do you want to come in, have something to drink...?"

Geraldine shook her head.  "No, I think I will let you two get acquainted.  I only came along because my two friends had things to discuss alone."  She turned to Dunia.  "Which way is the bus stop?"  We both pointed up the street, and laughed as we saw what we were doing.  She laughed, said "adieu mes amies", and started off while we waved and I led Dunia inside.

She stopped inside the doorway and took a deep breath, beaming at the lingering aroma of her father's breakfast.  "I have missed this place so much!"  She turned to me and grinned.  "Look at you, just answering the door in that swimsuit, and have you lost weight?  You look fantastic, if I'm allowed to say that!"

I blushed.  "Well, the job has me on my feet a lot and helping folks stow their luggage in the overhead bins; I guess you'll find that out.  And speaking of that, what the hell?  I thought you were supposed to be Gerard!"

She sighed dramatically.  "I know!  I thought I'd be able to talk the person into the next room into trading with me, but Geraldine was sharing a bathroom with her friends, and she was the only one of those lovely French-Canadian retirees who wasn't hitting on me, so I couldn't get into the room that way.  I tried pushing my bed right up against the wall and hoping for the best, but no luck."  She shrugged, and then smiled.  "But this should be fun!  I'm really looking forward to hanging out with you rather than us just going our separate ways, even if it's like this.  I mean, who gets to sort of watch their life from outside, right?"

I didn't know what to say (aside from Dunia taking this way better than you'd expect, Lambert was seldom this cheerful and it was weird seeing a bunch of new expressions on Alicia's face), but fortunately the phone pinged, so I could give it a quick look.  "Uh, Ceci's on her way with Ines, and I kind of decided I wasn't feeling the flag bikini after last week, so I'm gonna go get changed."

"Right, of course.  Hey, do you think they'd mind if I came?  I've got a swimsuit in my bag if nothing in the closet fits."

I suddenly felt awkward.  "I mean, I'd like it, but Lambert and I didn't really hang out much outside of work, and I don't think Ines and Ceci ever met him as Alicia, so I don't know how they'd feel."

It took her a moment to digest that before saying that they'd feel she was over 30 and white.  I said they'll like her, but that was maybe not the day.  She nodded and said that's probably true, and she should probably look at her new apartment anyway.

I told her she was handling meeting me way better than I had seeing Gerard, and we hugged before I went upstairs for a yellow bikini and she went "home".

It made for a weird rest of the day; I've been spending more time with Dunia's friends since New Year's and I'd just gotten to the point where it feels more like hanging out than trying to fool them, but that changes when you meet the real thing in person for the first time.

Gonna be different having her around.

-Toby/Dunia

Jordan/Yuan-Wei: Save the Date!

Working in the movie business is good practice for getting married - you have this big, powerful idea, and then you spend the next year-plus on figuring out the schedules of everyone you want involved, negotiating with venues and vendors, doing costume fittings, fretting over a ton of stuff you can't control, and then hoping that you don't lose the passion in the meantime, so that it hopefully still hits by the time you've got an audience.

It usually works out.  I know this - aside from attending Krystle's and Max's weddings last year, I've had summers here where I couldn't take a vacation because someone is getting married every. Fucking. Saturday.  How do I have so many friends?  Sure, you join some tight networks as a woman in this business, but it seems like a lot.

Anyway, step one is apparently sending out "Save the Date" postcards, which is especially important for us because we're inviting people from at least four countries other than Hong Kong - Mainland China, the United States, Canada, England, and maybe India or Australia, depending on what Kareena and Benny wind up doing in the next twelve months - many of whom aren't easily able to travel internationally at the drop of a hat, either financially or because Krystle and Max need to convince Inn-ignorant spouses that being at my wedding is really important to them.  I, personally, am ready to do this next week, but there are folks who might not be able to even get their passports renewed in time, let alone book travel.  It also helps us get a sense of the potential scale of the thing.  It's looking like it may be bigger than the family house which, ironically, I occasionally let out as a wedding venue in addition to tourists renting it.

(It also gives me some time to convince certain people to let me pay for their travel and stay!  I'm not like rich rich or anything, especially after Chen-Ai taking a fair amount of the money she figured she'd married into and how fucking everything since 2019 has been bad for what Yuan-Wei's father was invested in locally, but, fuck it, neither Doris nor I are attached to it, so what's a better use?)

Hell, it's going to blow way past that, so we're auditioning wedding planners but already sort of sniffing out venues and starting to idly talk about how Chinese versus Western we want it to be.  

Plenty of time, for better or worse.

-Jordo

Isaac/Ainsley: Violet

"Holy shit Isaac you're not gonna believe what I just saw!" wasn't a sentence I expected to be greeted with while preparing to walk SugarBunny at the godless hour of 8:30 AM on a Saturday. Heather sleeps past noon every chance she gets.

"Or, Ainsley? Are you still doing-- It's hard to keep track."

"Don't worry about it," I dismissed her completely reasonable question. "What's going on?"

"Violet's in Phoenix! Right now!"

"Violet?" The name did sound somewhat familiar, but I couldn't place it.

"Uh, my youngest daughter? I've talked about her plenty of times, don't tell me you forgot."

Right. Heather used to talk about her family and some of the drama surrounding her divorce a lot, especially earlier on in our Inn experience, but they came up less and less as Heather got settled in to Sara's life. That, or I got a lot better at ignoring it than I think I did. I mostly just let her talk at me while I paid the minimum amount of attention to get her to wrap it up sooner, but I remembered enough to know that Violet is about the same age as Ainsley and Sara, and it'd been over a year since Heather last saw her in person even before the Inn.

"I like to keep tabs on her Instagram every now and then-- don't look at me like that, I bet your mom does it too--"

"I don't have an--"

"And I saw she posted about being in town for a concert! Tonight! And I don't know why she's coming out here for it when she lives in LA and pretty much every artist also goes through there but she's here! It feels like fate. I'm never gonna get another chance to see what she's really like, on her own terms, eye to eye. I'm totally going."

I'd never seen her that nervous and that excited about anything. "Okay. Well, good luck with that. I'm gonna go walk the dog, so."

"Oh, you're coming with me."

"What? Come on. You know I'm horrible at places like that. Can't you get one of Sara's friends to go with you?"

"They don't get it. You're the only one I'm not gonna need to explain why I need to talk so bad to someone who doesn't recognize me."

"Heather..."

"I already got the tickets and I'm blowing off this guy I've been talking to for this. And, look. This whole time, have I ever asked you for a favor? I bet you don't have anything planned tonight anyway."

I hate how much of a pushover I can be, even without needing to uphold Ainsley's reputation.

We'd planned to arrive at the concert, which turned out to be some kind of EDM show with artists neither I nor Heather had heard of, early enough to be able to keep tabs on whoever entered the venue. That didn't happen because Heather felt like vetoing my outfit and insisting on letting her redo my makeup was worth the risk of blowing up her once-in-a-lifetime-chance. Between the leather shorts and sparkly, low-cut top Heather dug up from deep in Ainsley's closet, the (in my opinion) greatly overdone eye makeup, and the jewelry she had me borrow, I saw someone in the mirror who looked like neither Isaac nor Ainsley. It was... strange, and fortunately Heather provided the welcome distraction of rushing us out of there as if it was my fault we took so long.

One of the opening acts had already started by the time we finally arrived, and though the venue wasn't packed yet the crowd was still fairly sizeable. At least by my standards. I expressed my skepticism that two people would be enough to find one individual in this kind of environment.

"Relax," Heather replied. "I had to find my friends at concerts all the time, before cell phones! This is nothing. Been to plenty of shows wilder than this-- I saw Nirvana live, y'know?"

"You're always saying that, and I keep meaning to ask. Who's Nirvana?"

Heather went pale and froze, and for a moment I saw every decade she'd borrowed back from the Inn spill out onto her face. "...Ha! Good one, kid! Y'know, sometimes you're not so bad." I just let the moment sit for a little bit.

Heather eventually moved towards the edge of what was slowly turning into a moshpit, while I fanned out to keep being a wallflower. I tried to avoid the temptation to look at my phone instead of staring around like a complete weirdo, but after a few minutes I lost track of myself and my looking around became predictably half-assed.

I suddenly noticed a girl standing a few people away from me who matched the pictures Heather showed me earlier-- kind of tall, purple streaks in dark, short-cropped hair, a septum piercing. Damn it, I was really hoping Heather would be the one to run into her and I wouldn't have to do anything. But I knew Heather would never let me live it down if I blew this for her, and I made myself slowly approach.

"Hey. Uh. My friend's been looking for you, she really wants to talk to you." I didn't really make eye contact.

"Oh, I'm not poly, sorry."

"Huh!? What gave you--"

She gave me a closer look. I can't even begin to know what kind of vibe she got from me. "Why's your friend looking for me, do I know her?"

"...Sort of? She sort of... vaguely knows you. You probably don't know her. It's complicated, but she... wants to see you."

"This is some of the worst wingwomanning I've ever seen in my life." She snorted, but seemed to be in a decent enough mood that she wasn't actively trying to make me regret talking to her. "Is this about a commission or something?"

"Uh, I don't know. Maybe?" It'd have been easier to lie here if I knew exactly what type of commissions Violet was taking. "She just told me to look out for you, I don't really know what's going on with her. You're Violet, right?"

Violet was ultimately curious enough that she agreed to wait for her secret admirer. Fortunately, Heather wasn't too caught up dancing to miss the text I sent her and she came over and joined us pretty quickly. I bailed not long after the conversation started, when Heather asked Violet if she was dating anyone. After only another twenty minutes looking at my phone at the edge of the venue and two rejected invitations from randoms to dance, Heather sent a text, telling me that she was leaving the venue and to meet her at the car. I didn't need to be told twice.

We got in the car, lit only by the poorly angled, hazy streetlights and what little colorful glows escaped from the tiny window on the door. A clearly shaken Heather finally spoke: "You know what she told me? She told me to stop asking her all these questions, that I sound like her mom!" She laughed a bit, despite herself. "Like, come on. I know she can't possibly actually think-- but, God. Am I that obvious?"

I've never felt like I'm very good at comforting people. "If it's any consolation, I think if my mom had gone to the Inn instead of me and ended up in the body of a guy my age, and she ran into me somewhere after not getting to talk to me for months, it would've ended the same way."

"So I'm just, Mom," Heather said, looking down at her lap. "No matter what I do, no matter how I look or how much I embrace being this person I'm in... With Violet, or Jack, or Morgan, it's just... they'll never see me any other way, because I just can't help myself? They'll never let me in?"

"I can't tell you anything about being a mom, Heather..."

"What do you think I should do?"

"I..." How should I know? "I, don't know? Here's what I think, I think that's the first time you've ever asked me for advice."

Heather laughed, just softer and wearier than her typical cackle. "Fair enough, kiddo. Let's go home. Violet deserves to enjoy being young and having fun without any more interruptions."

Tom/Kiara: From Worse to Bad

This blog has really got its hooks in me. I went a long time without saying much here, just trying to keep my head down and exist, but at some point, probably around the time it started to become obvious that Kiara is my future, I became a lot more invested in putting it down on paper.

At least in the time since last summer, I've gone from "Every day is a nightmare of body horror and other epic humiliations" to "Life has some mild inconveniences that I have mostly learned to navigate." There are even some extremely tepid wins sprinkled in there. For example, when I stopped breast feeding, and then pumping altogether. I actually kind of had mixed feelings about that... after the kid was no longer using them, the breasts were still there, as big as ever (and only very gradually less sore) and I'm going, "Jeez, I don't need these things anymore, what am I supposed to do with them for the rest of..." (and here's where I would trip myself up by thinking my life without actually wanting to mean it.)

Yes, I've reached an uneasy comfort with a lot of things in my life. The weather has been getting hot, so I've had to shed my trademark baggy sweats for items that are... lighter and more... revealing. Like the top with the deeeep neckline. Tank tops. Short shorts. It annoys me to wear these things, but the more I cover up, the less physically comfortable I am. I'm also cognizant that having a lot of hair on my head bottles in the heat. The only reason I never cut it up until now was out of courtesy for Kiara. but as the clock approaches midnight on my ultimatum to her, I'm thinking about salon appointments.

All this to say I've made my uneasy peace with the very, very likely scenario that I'm never getting out of this. That I am Kiara now and forever more. But I'm not throwing in the towel yet. I still message her regularly, and she hasn't blocked me.

But this isn't about her, or even me, except to say that I feel like I've said some things about my life these days that, if I didn't tell you the whole story, you might wonder.

So, when Cerie announced her pregnancy, I had a pretty negative reaction to that, mostly because, well, that's just common sense. I would really like it to have been none of my business, live and let live, let her make her own mistakes, except not only does there being another mouth under this roof affect me, I just couldn't let that level of foolishness go un-commented-on. 

I kind of had this realization that even though objectively, teen pregnancy is a bad idea and should be avoided at all costs, it's so baked into this family's DNA that to object to it is almost like objecting to her own existence. Like it's disrespectful to Jen, and to her, and to my own self, even though Jen, if you ask her, will say she doesn't want this for her daughters. She doesn't want it, but she will support it, because that's what she believes is right. It's kind of a crazy head-trip, but it makes a certain amount of sense. You want better for your kids, but you also have to take them as they are. And she's not in a position where she could give Cerie any different treatment than she gave Kiara. She's already established a baseline behavior. "We take care of family."

I gave up that fight. I'm only a few credits away from earning Kiara her GED, which I will be working on over the summer, so once that happens I might be able to get out of here and take Sierra with me -- assuming I'm still this person then --  but until then, I'm part of this family. So I swallowed my pride and went along with it.

So I was the only one around to take Cerie to her ultrasound, which was well overdue. Fine. Peace has been made. I take her, and I go to the waiting room to sit and scroll through my phone, and the nurse comes back out and tells me they need to contact mom.

Some crazy back-and-forth ensued, and they got Jen on the phone and they were able to tell her that it's an ectopic pregnancy. It's not viable.

And in all this, it falls to me to comfort Cerie, who is crying her eyes out. No, no, no!! she's bawling, she really wanted this to be real. And I'm trying to comfort her, trying to ignore the fact we both know, that I was openly against this pregnancy. 

I told her, "Listen, I know you and I have had our differences, but you're my sister, and all I care about right now is your feelings. so just let it out, it's okay."

I did everything I could to put my own feelings aside and go into caretaker mode -- which I've gotten reasonably good at over the last year -- and support her as she sobbed in fear, not just that she wasn't going to have this baby, but that something might happen that could prevent her from getting pregnant in the future.

We got through it, by the grace of whatever deity you happen to believe in. No, it wasn't easy, but it also appears there were no complications.

It was tough, and emotionally draining. Somehow, I think we got a little bit closer when the chips were down and we put our differences aside. The mood around here has changed a little bit for the better, even if there's still a dark cloud hanging over my sister.

Hm. "My sister."

-Tom/Kiara

Toby: Dunia's Not Mad

If I were in jail, she'd be mad, but she sounded more just relieved on the phone after not hearing from me during a big chunk of this crucial period, which is nice.  I'm not saying the past few days were more nerve-wracking for her than me, but it had to be close.

To cut to the chase, as of Friday, Lambert and I had spent a week doing the weird Miami to Boston to Old Orchard and back when we woke still girls route, by which time we were getting to know the other folks waiting to become themselves again a little bit, not really anxious but sort of wondering what was taking so long.  He and I sort of got better acquainted during the drives, and I was kind of blindsided when we arrived in Miami and the Feds were waiting for us again.  Or, more specifically, for me, searching my bag and finding my phone.  The one belonging to Toby Watson.

It shouldn't have been there!  Lambert and I had taken our phones north and left them in a drawer at the Inn, power drained, specifically so that they couldn't be tracked, but I was really tired Thursday night and while I was messing with the bureau, I must have taken it out and put it on top of the charger instead of Dunia's phone, so it charged and then responded that it was in Boston's Logan Airport when my mother did a Find My Phone thing, as I guess she's been doing every day for weeks.  It got passed on to the FBI, who remembered me and Lambert, and so they were waiting for us when we landed.

I guess I'm lucky I didn't wind up in ICE's hands, but they held me as long as they could.  They didn't throw me into a cell, at least, but 48 hours in a small room with a one-way mirror on the side is insane, especially since they won't let you fall asleep and will keep you well-hydrated until you're begging to use the restroom, so they can offer to trade basic dignity for some information.  The lawyer put a stop to that so I didn't actually wet myself, but even then, I sometimes felt like he wasn't entirely on my side - I don't think he wanted to get on the FBI's bad side, so he kept asking me if I had something I could tell them, or at least him, so I could help negotiate.

And I kind of wanted to!  Like I said back in March, Ma raised me to respect that sort of authority, and the way Dunia's friends and family are much more skeptical isn't entirely something I feel in my bones yet.  And even though I know that their comments about how I'm keeping Ma and Lambert's family from finding peace weren't true, they still made me feel bad.  But time was running out, and while there are a lot more stories about people being held indefinitely (mostly when ICE is involved, though), the lawyer said they could only hold me for 48 hours, and running out the clock was the best way to get back to Maine and actually solve the problem.

Just about 48 hours later, they let me out without any explanation whatsoever.  I stumbled out into the street a sweaty, smelly mess, wanting to fall asleep in a bathtub more than anything else, but it felt really good when Dunia's father wrapped me in a bear hug just outside the Federal building's door.  He said something Spanish that I was kind of too frazzled to understand, although it was pretty clearly that he'd been worried and was proud of me for something.  I didn't really know what that could be, but I figured I could ask him later after that bath and a good night's sleep.  I didn't even notice anyone else around us until he turned around and said something about putting me in an impossible situation.

That's when I looked up and saw Lambert - not Alicia, but Lambert.  And... me!

The guy wearing my skin bowed his head, apologizing for what sounded like not the first time, but it was really bizarre.  I guess none of us really have a good idea of what we seem like from the outside, but he was always rushing to get the first word in instead of thinking it over, and maybe suppressing a grin, like everyone thinking he was someone else and looking to him for answers was sort of a rush, and having to come up with a story made it even more exciting.

Obviously, I had a ton of questions, but Mr. Cortes was guiding me to his car, away from them, and spent the whole drive home cursing about how those blancos had caused me so much trouble until we got to the house.  A shower made me feel at least a little better and perked me up long enough to get some food down, but I reached the bed more or less on autopilot and slept until about 10am the next morning.

Even then, it was the noise that woke me up.  Mr. Cortes had gone to work but left a note on the bedroom door about coming home immediately if I needed anything, but otherwise to rest up from my ordeal.  Dunia's phone was so full of messages I couldn't even scroll.  And outside the house, getting an earful in both English and Spanish from the neighbors, Lambert was sitting in the driver's seat of that Porsche that got us into this mess, honking like crazy, while "I" leaned back against the car.  Fed up, I made a throat-slashing motion so that Lambert would cut the noise, and then planted myself just out of grabbing range of the other guy.  "Well, I guess the Inn did its thing.  Who the heck are you?"

"Why, I'm Toby Watson!"  I gave him a glare, not really in the mood.  "Sorry.  My real name's Gerard, I know that was in bad taste, but I couldn't help but say it once it was in my head."

Lambert had gotten out of the car.  "Gerard's got a real problem with saying anything that pops into his head," he said bitterly.

"You said to sell it!"

"I meant that we were embarrassed about the whole thing, not that we had been part of some gay nudist polycule!"

Lambert was about to argue, but I was like "wait, what?" first.

Gerard sighed, and then put his arm around Lambert's shoulder, gesturing in the air with the other.  "Picture it:  Driving across the country, spending all day in that hot car, and then nights in small motel rooms.  It awakens something in us, something we never expected, until we give in to our passion, again and again.  We spend the entire two weeks in Old Orchard Beach, not ready to return home to where nobody understands, and by chance meet up with another couple.  They've got a cabin on an island off the coast of Maine where they hole up for the winter, and invite us to join them.  Excited, but afraid we'll be tempted to back out, we give our phones and the keys to the cars to the nice flight attendants staying in the Inn after us, asking them to keep our secret until we return!  I never imagined that you would be so committed to protecting our reputations, even after our cover story collapsed and we were gone far longer than the few weeks we initially indicated, or when that huge storm in the northeast might have put us in real danger--"

Lambert was shaking his head.  "Like, I was just being vague and hoping folks would get the idea and not press us about something clearly humiliating, but Mr. Improv here has to keep yes-anding!"

Gerard raised an eyebrow to me.  "For someone who gave a wistful sigh when a certain married pilot walked through the airport, he's being needlessly uptight about me making sure his vague story holds up."

I was about to make a comment about how "Alicia" breaking things off with Brock was about him being married rather than something sexual, but cut it off.  "Okay, fine, whatever, I'm grateful you got me out of jail and we can figure out how to fix this later, but what did you tell my mother?"  There was an awkward pause.  "You have talked to my mother, right?"

Suddenly, Gerard was tongue-tied.  "Uh, I texted.  It, you know, didn't feel right to try to explain all this, uh, not in person."

"Well, maybe tone it down when you do!  I don't want to have to fix you coming out to her when we're ourselves again!  And she's, like, Midwestern, not some East Coast person who's okay with all that!"

He rolled his - my! - eyes.  "You say that like there aren't bisexual people everywhere."

"C'mon, man, my life is already going to be messed up by having this eight-month gap in it, don't make it worse!"

He looked like we wanted to say something, then reconsidered it.  "Hey, I'm not looking to cause trouble.  I maybe got a little carried away with the cops, but seeing you, knowing you're supposed to be this, it kind of drives home what a big deal this is."  He reached in to wipe away a tear I wasn't even aware of.  "Just tell me what you need me to know, okay?"

I nodded, then invited them in.  There wasn't as much to tell Gerard as I might like - so many of my high school friends had left town or dropped out of touch - but I made sure he had Dunia's number so that I could hopefully be as helpful to him as Dunia was for me, though hopefully not for as long.

He actually went back to the car before Lambert, which suddenly seemed really awkward.  We actually had talked a lot over the previous week about what we wanted to do when we were ourselves again, and what we'd learned about women, and he'd had a chance to clean up at the hotel overnight, and it suddenly crossed my mind that we'd shared some tight quarters and changing rooms as girls, but he was a man again now.  I think he was having similar thoughts realizing that Dunia was actually kind of pretty, because he blushed a bit.  "Are you going to be all right?  I almost thought of not going back up there until you could come with me."

"Yeah, but then we both might have ended up stuck and who knows how that would have turned out?  I mean, Gerard seems okay, at least."

He smirked.  "You just think he's cute."

"Gross!"  I shook my head to try and purge that thought.  "Well, keep him out of trouble if you can.  I'd hate for anything to happen to me before I got to be me again!"

He laughed and said goodbye, standing in the street for a bit to take Miami in one last time before heading home.

After that, I sighed and called Dunia.  She picked up the phone immediately.  "Toby?  Are you okay?"

"Yeah, although I've got some bad news."

She knew what it was - with just a few days before the second group of folks arrived at the Inn and most of the people going there in early May looking to change back, she probably figured my not texting in three days meant something had gone wrong, and I think she was relieved to hear that I was all right, even beyond joking that she certainly wouldn't want me hurt in any way that she'd have to deal with later.

We sat in silence for a bit after that (what can you say?), and then she cleared her throat.  "Well, my plane leaves Thursday, and I promised this guy his life back, so I guess we'll see what happens.  I guess being Gerard wouldn't be so bad; I've gotten used to being a man and he sure sounds younger than I am right now.  Plus, that makes us a nice tight little circle for... later."

I agreed that probably made sense, and then we tried to chit-chat about other things, although it all seemed really small in comparison to my staying her for at least another month or so and he becoming someone else soon.  But she doesn't seem mad; I was kind of half-expecting her to come up with a list of things that Lambert and I should have done as soon as we changed, but either she didn't have any or figured it wouldn't do us much good now.

So, another few months, at least, as her.  I'm lucky that there are worse people to be, I guess.

-Toby/Dunia

Tom/Kiara: Tears

After my dalliance with Donovan, I got to experience the awkward dynamic of being the girl in the equation after a one-night stand. I certainly wasn't going to text him, and I knew it would be easier if he didn't text me either, but every day that passed without a message left me feeling a bit sour. What, was I not good enough?

I don't want to have feelings for a guy, or be in a relationship of any description, but I'm also pretty prideful, and plus I let him have hi way with this body, so perhaps some communication was in order, even if I kind of astral projected out of it and don't remember what it fully felt like. Sorry, it turns out sex isn't a mind-blowing experience for everybody all the time on this side.

Then he actually did message me -- three days later, right on cue. I was bathing Sienna and helping her play with her rubber duckies when the phone buzzed. Just a simple 'hey what's up.' Despite anticipating this, I had no idea how I was going to respond. What was I supposed to say? He doesn't know I have a kid, and I don't want him to know. I could say that I'm looking after my sister. I could say that I'm the one in the bath, if I wanted to drive him wild.

I literally just said 'nothing, having an average night.'

"Yeah, same, just thought I'd check in."

Okay, then. What am I supposed to do with that? What would a girl who wanted to date do with that? What do I, who should not date, do with that? Do I tell him my big plan for the night -- after I put the kid to bed -- is to finish my homework and masturbate?

I told him nothing. I flat out didn't answer, I had to pay attention to the kid. I toweled her off and put her in her jammies. I let her walk around the house to say good night ot everyone...

And then, when we were in the kitchen saying good night to Mama Kelly, she was using a chair to stabilize herself and she fell flat on her face.

Now we have a problem. I've seen this girl crash plenty, but it always hurts me to see, because that moment when she erupts in tears -- which I know are going to take a while to calm down -- breaks my heart. Makes me feel like a failure, even though it happens to every kid that age, it's part of experiencing the world. But I'm supposed to protect her, I'm supposed to keep her steady. I can't all the time, but every time I fail I feel, well, like a failure.

Crying, crying, crying, wailing, I'm fanning her, offering her a soother, rocking her, she's squirming and fussing and won't go to bed. And that's my night. and I'm cursing under my breath the whole time because at times like these I remember I'm not supposed to be a parent!

When she finally did settle down and nod off, I barely had any time for homework, let alone the other stuff I'd planned. I looked at my phone, at the abortive conversation between me and Donovan Decent Guy, and I thought, that's about right. I can't bring another person into this. No man should get caught up in this mayhem. There's no room for dating or self-serving anything.

I see it all laid out before me. I take whatever low-paying job this town has to offer, I raise Sienna on my own and hope to heaven she turns out better, that she has a fighting chance. The kind thing for me to do is keep everyone else at arm's length at least for, oh, the next ten to fifteen years.

The fact that Mother's Day followed shortly after that just put me into a deeper spiral. The day was a total blur, not that anyone really acknowledged me with Cerie's pregnancy being the headline.

I never did hear back from Kiara/Lisa about taking her life back. It's appalling in a way, but if I was a 18-year-old with a chance at making it big, I might feel the same way. If you can live with the guilt, it doesn't sound like a bad deal at all, even if she doesn't become the next Kacey Musgraves.

There's still about two weeks for her to change her mind, and if I don't hear back, I guess that will be the end of tagging these posts "Tom" because he'll be gone forever.

Until then...

-Tom/Kiara

Toby: Dunia's May schedule

I've kind of been wondering how we were going to return to the Inn and our own lives without losing Dunia and the next Alicia these jobs, especially Dunia, as I/we haven't been employed long enough to have a lot of slack.  I'm not sure that what we've hit on quite works, but it's the best we can do:  Basically, we've managed to get assigned to the Miami/Boston route for May, and somehow managed to work out that we're overnight in Boston most of the time, as there aren't many red-eye flights going that direction.  We rent a car at Logan, drive up to Old Orchard, hopefully arriving before whatever happens overnight happens (I guess it's usually around 2am), and then drive back to the airport the next morning.  With any luck, we'll text the airline about how we're really sick, and hopefully that will get us to the week or so that we've blocked off on the schedule, during which Dunia and a new Alicia will return to normal. 

It's not really a great plan; it kind of relies on the idea that the first couple groups at the Inn will be folks trying to get their lives back and will show up the first chance they get.  It also probably wouldn't work at all if the lady who is living as Alicia's mother Magda hadn't gotten a promotion that put her in the scheduling department.  Or if folks from Canada were visiting Florida as much as they used to (I guess a lot transfer at Boston) and they needed us for more than just one round trip a day.  Honestly, I kind of wonder how many folks get changed and then stuck in their new lives because they just can't afford the trip back.  If someone has become me, there's a good chance that, once the reservation is made, gas money is tight and they're not exactly enjoying the Maine restaurant scene while they wait for something to happen. 

But it's the plan we've got, and so far, it seems to be working out.  Nothing happened last night, but we aren't really expecting the place to fill up before the weekend.  Heck, so far as we could tell, there were only five out of 13 there, and it was kind of a weird vibe. It felt like we should have breakfast together or compare notes or something, but nobody really wanted to dwell on the lady seven or eight months, and there was a lot of fretting about explaining how and why we'd been missing.

It is kind of strange being with Lambert outside of work, though.  You might think we'd have bonded or something over all this, but that never really happened.  Instead, we were mostly quiet on the drive north, before taking turns in the bathroom removing our makeup and changing for bed.  I kind of kicked myself when I saw what a big nightshirt she was wearing over loose boxers with a drawstring, while I was wearing the same panties and belly shirt as when I'm sleeping in Miami.  I can joke about how my butt may wind up smaller when I'm a white guy again, but other parts of those panties would squeeze and I'd probably shred the top like the Hulk or something.  I suppose i could sleep in the nude, but boy would that get uncomfortable with a roommate! 

But, nothing happened, so we showered, got dressed and made up for work, and I've been writing this during the drive back to Boston to try and tune out Lambert's podcast.

It's crazy that we probably won't be friends after we get back, but I'll know there's someone in town who went through the same really weird thing as me. 

- Toby/Dunia

Arthur/Penny/Millie: So Happy and Furious

I was going to just use this post to talk about some book stuff, which I've kind of neglected over the past year because talking about writing and publishing is boring for other people.  Basically, I write two books a year:  There are the Lynn Ashford mysteries about a lady sportscaster who has a bad habit of running into murders when she blows into town for the Olympics, the Women's World Cup, the NBA Finals, whatever, which I've been writing for almost as long as I've been Penny, and I've usually got some other, more fantastic series going on, generally pitched toward young adults and often involving identity and transformation to some extent, sometimes under a pseudonym (or a different one, considering what you think of "Penny Lincoln").  You may remember Annette liking the Pygmalion series; after winding that down I did something more science-fictional whose second of three volumes is due out in August, and I've been trying to work on a comedic high fantasy since then.  It kind of started from a joke about how dragons don't hoard gold so much as they shit it out because they expand their cavern lairs by eating rocks that pass through their alchemical digestive systems, with the hero a princess who got swallowed whole and winds up a muscular Adonis after traversing the monster's intestines.  As you might imagine, it's been kind of tough writing that one in my current situation, although I've had a ton of ideas for age-regression stories!

Anyway, this year's Lynn Ashford is World Cup of Murder, and while I think it's pretty good, the lead time on publishing novels is enough that I had to deliver the final draft for this story meant to tie into the 2026 World Cup being held in North America in late 2024, when we were pretty certain that Kamala Harris would be president, and everything even vaguely related to the border and boycotts and foreign relations has made my book with its international cast of characters look more and more like it takes place in some far more pleasant fantasy universe.  It's not the first time this has happened, even recently - the publisher was insistent I not mention that Covid quarantines happened in my last one - but it means that the release and tie-ins got a little more low-key.  Truth be told, that's been the case generally over the last few years - making less from writing is why I took the job as an English teacher in my daughter's middle school, and that makes it a bit harder to do publicity.  It's kind of a self-reinforcing loop, but what can you do?

What that all means is that the release has been relatively quiet and the "book tour" has mostly been New England bookstores during April vacation, when schools of the region, or at least Massachusetts, take a week off around Patriot's Day.  Without a lot of sports practice taking up my time that week, I'd been "assisting" Harmon on these stops.  Part of it's the usual things that adults have their kids do to keep them busy at events like these - fetching water, having a fresh pen ready, getting books open to the title page and passing them over - but also interrupting in my best annoyed teenager when someone asks a question Harmon can't answer.  Everyone laughs and finds the kid who remembers stuff better than her mom adorable as opposed to Harmon alienating fans by not having read my entire output.

Anyway, we were doing an event in Harvard Square when a couple of college students made it through the line to the card table, and I'm kind of half-zoned out making a little pile of hardcovers ready to be signed when I hear Harmon snort-laugh at something, which isn't necessarily bad reader interaction, before she shakes my shoulder.  "Oh, Millicent, you've got to hear this - this guy says he saw new layers to my work after staying at a hotel in Maine!"  I look up and see this boy of about twenty with an extraordinarily silly mustache sweating bullets mouthing something like "you call her Millicent?", his girlfriend standing behind him with her arms crossed, kind of keeping him from fleeing.  My eyes go wide in realization and I shift into Mom Voice for the first time in months.  "Oh, we've got to talk, young... man!"  I slam the book he was getting autographed and drag it to the side, walking to the door, knowing that they're following me without seeing, vaguely hearing the rest of the line murmur in confusion.  I pull the phone out of my back pocket and dial Ray's number on my way out the door, saying a curt "Millie's at the signing, get down here now!" when it goes to voice mail.

When we get to the sidewalk, I turn around and take them in.  They both look even more nervous, and the knot in my gut tightens a bit as I see that the young woman is wearing a Northeastern University sweatshirt.  At that second, they're looking over their shoulders at Harmon chuckling at the commotion in a way that's not very maternal before turning back to me.  "Wait, are you--  Mom?"

I look up at him (her) in frustration.  "Of course I'm your mother!  What, did you think I was going to let just anyone step into your life and decide that they just might want to keep it for their own because you're so pretty and talented and have such a bright future?  That your father and I would just trust some stranger with your well-being?"

I hadn't really meant to attack the other person, but she turned a deep crimson.  "I'm sorry, I was under the impression that she had been communicating with you--"

I pointed vaguely down the street.  "I will deal with you later!  Right now I have things to discuss with my daughter!"  The other person nodded and backed away, and I crossed my arms to await an explanation.

Millie was crying, and I felt bad about that - neither Ray nor I are big yellers and she probably hadn't been hit with this for the past year.  "I don't know what I was thinking!  I just heard you say you might not really be my mom and that it had something to do with that Inn so I figured I had to get to the bottom of it even though I didn't know what I was going to find there!  And then it did this to me and I was still so mad that you'd kept something so important secret..."  I kept staring.  "Okay, I should have told you, but then it felt so good to be grown up and have people trust me..."  She sniffled.  "And then, every time I came to look at how the new me was doing, maybe offer some help, it freaked me out that she... you...  that nobody would be able to tell that I was gone or different!  You didn't seem to need me so I just threw myself into being Griff--"

Despite myself, I snickered.  "Griff?"

"Yeah, Angelo Griffin; everybody calls him Griff, which I guess is better than 'Angelo'.  He found a flyer for the place in his roommate's mail--"

Something clicked.  "Ande.  You're roomates with Ande."

Her eyes went wide.  "You know Ande?"

"Yeah, he comes to this little thing Auntie Ashlyn does at the Changeling was a month for Inn people.  He used to be his twin sister."

"That maybe explains something--  Wait, does that mean Auntie Ashlyn...?

"Used to be a guy too, yes."

"Is anyone we know who they're supposed to be?"

I gave it some thought.  "I think that's it.  Although, don't ever imply to Auntie Ashlyn that she's not who she's supposed to be!"  And though I thought it went without saying.  "And don't ever even think that I'm not supposed to be your mother!"

I guess she really needed to hear that because she grabbed me for a bear hug, which was kind of awkward because this Griff guy is taller than I am as Millie, but then, the other moms who aren't freakishly tall women say that's just part of having your kids grow up.  We got a lot of concerned looks from people on the sidewalk, but fortunately that was when Ray showed up, panting a bit as he ran from wherever he'd parked the car.  Millie still had her face buried in my hair when he said "is this...?" and I nodded, so he grabbed us both. 

Millie turned to look at him.  "Are you mad?"

"So mad.  But more relieved.  We love that you're stubborn and want to handle things yourself, but you have to ask for help with something this big!"

She nodded and said she had help, which is when we finally relented and waved "Griff's girlfriend" over.  She seems nice, and has done what she could to keep Millie's head above water.

We considered going to grab something to eat and maybe invite Harmon along, but Millie decided she didn't want to see her looking like me more, that it's different seeing your own face or hearing your own voice, because she doesn't really spend that much time looking in the mirror, and I get it.  We've at least been able to text and email recently, so that all the arrangements for turning back could be made.

It's been a tremendous load off our shoulders for the past week, though!

-Penny/Millie

Tom/Kiara: You up?

The week after my birthday was pretty much a cycle of freeze-outs and shouting matches between myself, Cerie, and Jen. Personally, I don't want to have any feelings whatsoever: if she wants to ruin her life the wait Kiara was going to -- and the fact that she felt the need to run away and seemingly stay gone indicates she does think she ruined her life -- it's technically none of my business. She's right that she and her as-yet-unborn baby have as much right to be a drain on the house's resources as Sienna and I do. I think that's the frustrating thing, that I don't have a leg to stand on, even though in principle I'm right that we shouldn't have any more babies in this house.

But it's what she wants, and for some reason her no-good boyfriend, Kiara's babydaddy Byrd, is supportive, even though he's already putting nearly every dime he makes into an account for our little rugrat. I feel like every day brings some new twist on this nightmare. I wish my biggest problem was that I don't have the sexual organs I'd prefer.

So I let Cerie and Byrd take Sienna for the weekend, even though it was not Byrd's weekend, because they want all the practice they can get. I don't love that it's my baby being used as the crash test dummy for those little idiots, but what are you going to do?

They and the baby being out of the house Saturday night gave Jen the opening to tear a strip off me and tell me to get in line, and to stop acting like a brat. I told her I was being anything but a brat, that I was the adult in this situation... which I didn't say, but may have included Jen herself. She said that whining and crying and calling Cerie "irresponsible" might feel good but it doesn't do anything for the reality that this baby is coming. Okay, fair enough, but I need to make myself heard.

It probably doesn't come across in text like this, but I really notice sometimes how these female hormones, especially the ones that cause me to produce so damn much milk, probably color my ability to keep a cool head in times like these. Like, sorry if that sounds sexist but I am now a woman and I am a lot more demonstrative of my thoughts and opinions than I used to be, and I suspect those two things are connected.

Anyway, I told her that now that I'd said my piece , I'd do my best to help the little dum-dums, although in slightly kinder words than that. It was something of a diplomatic achievement, but I was so rankled I just had to leave the house.

The problem is: I didn't have anywhere to go. My entire life in this town is under this roof, or at school. My "friends" are a much older married Indian woman (who is very sweet but probably doesn't need her disaster-teen classmate dropping in on her) and some people whose home lives are probably even less stable than mine.

There was one name in my contact list that I do have something of a personal relationship with, and I had to bet that he was available on a Saturday night: Donovan. I hadn't been in touch with him since our little encounter a month earlier, because I was both a little disgusted and a little afraid of initiating a snowball effect. But I have to admit every so often on nights when I hate life, I find my thumb lingering over that name, like, "Hm, maybe this would help things." From the night we had together, he seemed all right, non-objectionable, stable, a far cry from the types of people Kiara is meeting in her world. I could do worse, right? If nothing else he seemed to be capable of conversing.

I had simply never quit gotten to that threshold though.

So I messaged him, "Hey, this is probably kind of weird, but are you doing anything right now/tonight? Need to get out. Even just to drive around or whatever."

After I hit send, I realized, holy shit, that sounds so pathetic and desperate, and like my life is so chaotic and sad. Which sucks, because I am pathetic and desperate and my life is chaotic and sad.

After a moment, he said "Sure, where can I pick you up?"

Damn, I thought, the plan had already worked too well. I didn't want this guy to come to my house. So I told him we should meet at the coffee shop and go from there.

So we went, and we had a drink -- he a decaf americano, I a machiatto. He politely asked what was up that made me want to call him out of the blue. I told him I didn't really want to talk about my home life or anything like that.

"Okay, what do you want to talk about?"

"I don't know. The Holy Roman Empire."

"It was neither holy, nor Roman," he noted.

"And not much of an empire," I added. Shit, we were on a wavelength. Was it wrong to consider screwing a guy for the first time because you both knew the same corny old joke?

"What would you be doing if I hadn't texted?" I asked.

"Probably the same thing I did last weekend," he sighed, "Trying to work things out with my ex."

"Oh, I see," I nodded, somehow put off that he had an ex in the picture. "How's that, um, going?"

"Not great," he said. "Between the long distance and her boyfriend of six months, I think it might actually be over between us."

"Oh, you can't think like that," I said, "Maybe she'll wake up tomorrow and realize you're what she wanted all along."

"Maybe," he said, "If I woke up tomorrow an entirely different person."

"Don't even joke about that," I scolded reflexively. When he raised an eyebrow, I said, "I had an uncle who had, um, a brain injury. One day he woke up and... woosh. Totally different guy. Less racist, though."

Uncertain how to react, he said "Um... sorry... about your racist uncle? I guess?"

He was still kind of new in town so he asked if I knew any attractions. I said not really, but I saw they had just opened up an escape room in the next town over, if that was something he'd be into. He said that sounded kind of random for a first date, and I said luckily this isn't a date.

So we went, and unfortunately you're supposed to have a group of four, so we linked up with two random strangers. It was a crazy haunted house situation, with, like spring-loaded ghouls jumping out at you to give you the next clue or whatever. It was surprisingly fun, and he was good at interpreting the riddles. I'm a little more spacey, which I'm tempted to blame on baby-brain, not that I wanted to tell him that.

After that, he asked if I wanted to go to a bar, and I said I was sure there was beer at his place, so there we went.

And again, it was not exactly the tidiest, most impressive place. A handful of dudes in their twenties living together -- I get it. I remember it.

He cracked us a couple of beers, and took me into his bedroom, and we sat on his bed. He had his hand on my thigh, and there's a very small, Tom-Shaped part of my brain going "This is not right at all!" but a larger Kiara-shaped one going "Girl, just do it, don't be a chickensh**."

We start kissing, and his scratchy stubble is messing with my head a little bit, but I'm also kind of enjoying the "man" smell, and I'm dizzying myself wondering who I am and what I like and what is even the plan here. While I'm having an identity crisis, he's got his hand up my shirt and -- eventually -- he gets my bra unclasped and starts tentatively feeling around.

And then suddenly... it's like he found the 'on' switch.

Fuck. Fuck. My nipples, dude, are so sensitive. I didn't realize that would happen, but I guess with a night of warming up and just the tiniest bit of alcohol, all the tumblers fell into place and unlocked me. I was ready to spread wide open. My body was purring. "Yes... yes..." I whispered, surprising myself.

Before I knew it, his pants were off and so were mine, my legs wrapped around him like my life depended on it. I was barely even thinking -- I mean, I had the presence of mind to make sure he put a condom on first, but after that it was like a whirlwind of limbs and appendages mingling. Something was making me feel pretty good inside, and the part of my brain that was aware it was attached to someone else -- a man -- was on the fritz. All I remember was thinking "It's happening, it's happening... and I don't hate it..." I mean, yes, I've toyed with myself, but having another body there changes the game.

And then, before I could get another notch up the ladder from "I don't hate it," it was over.

(Price is Right trombone of sadness.)

We disentangled ourselves and I had this very sour, unfulfilled feeling. A lot of positivity suddenly evaporated. It was sobering. Oh crap. I just had sex with this guy. It was dangerously easy. And part of me suspected this might happen when I began the night and part of me was sure I would come to my senses and bow out. Even afterwards, I was trying to do the mental calculus on it to confirm I had actually, literally, just had sex as a woman, because on paper I sure did, and I know what it felt like, but my brain wouldn't compute that what had happened to me was sex.

Anyway, the spell as kind of broken after that. He was apologetic, and I had to kind of be like, "Don't worry about it, it was good" which was kind of a lie, although for about 30 seconds or so we were soaring, yeah.

We cleaned up and got dressed and I had him drop me off a block from my house, which I could sense he wanted to say something about but was probably too embarrassed.

And I went home and laid in bed and just stared up in the darkness wondering what the hell had just happened.

I don't know. Part of me felt like not doing it was a way of staying "pure" and, I don't know, male by proxy. Part of me felt like on the off chance I am going to return to a male body -- which I'm not counting on -- it would be sad not to have an experience like that if it was available. And part of me just wanted to get some understanding of what lies in my future if and when it turns out that I'm staying as Kiara.

Reality check: I'm in the body of an 18-year-old mom deep in the heart of Dixie. I'm not particularly wowed by most of the males I have encountered in my time here. Until recently I genuinely had not had occasion to consider what might happen if I wanted to do this, and in the end, I just followed my body's lead.

Then I look over at the empty crib and I think about what "following this body's lead" has gotten us.

I guess that's a macrocosm of life. We're all just doing out best, and we can have ideas how we'll behave in certain situations, but you never know until it happens. I'm not mad, I'm not sad, I'm not relieved, I'm not happy. It's just a fact. That happened.

I'm keen to pretend it simply did not.

But there are worse things in life........

-Tom, feeling Extra-Kiara Today

Marc/Dustin: Heading Out On My Own

With our return reservation to the Inn still months away, I was thinking there has got to be some way to fill the summer besides punching the clock at the front desk of the gym.

Dustin's ambition in life is to be a phys. ed teacher. We agreed at the outset that there was not much point in me doing much to pursue that on his behalf -- sure, it might feel like a viable shortcut for his resume but it doesn't help his development. So I've been fairly idle this year. But we managed to put our heads together to try to figure out something I could do that would suit "him" without taking experience he should be having for myself.

We wound up finding a youth soccer program I could coach. There's a two-week training course, which of course I will be needing because I've never coached anything in my life, before the kids arrive. It's a weekend-and-after school thing until school lets out, and it runs until July, meaning I'll be free of commitments by the time we go back to Maine.

It's not the world's greatest career opportunity, and without the financial backing that my not-so-bottomless war chest provides, it probably wouldn't make sense to do, but it's fine.

Thing is, it's kind of a ways away -- over state lines -- meaning that to work there, I'll have to move out of the house.

And that's fine! Aside from Mary, who has assured me she will be okay, there isn't anything there for me. I'll miss hanging out with Ifena and Charly watching cheesy reality shows and procedurals, but it's best if I find a reason simply not to be there anymore.

It just feels a little weird to have been bunkered down for so long, and then to leave just as we're getting close to the end. I'm moving on Thursday, so I have a few days to get settled in before training starts.

Koti, meanwhile, has been incommunicado. Which is worrying to me, because I can never speculate where her head might be at, if she's going to do something a little out-of-pocket as the kids say. I've let her know what's up with me, signaling that it's safe for her to return to the house, which I would love because it would mean that one of us, Mary, could keep tabs on her until it's time to go back. I'm hoping that this shakes something loose in that situation.

That's all for now

-Marc/Dustin