Ande: Last Movember and the Last Summer Vacation

Hey, sorry to leave you all on that big "Movember" cliffhanger there, but I just got reminded of it because Griff and his girlfriend were arguing about his facial hair the other day.  He apparently really likes not just having a beard, but playing with it; he came out of November with a bushy thing around his face, and has been trying different styles ever since.  He had a goatee for a while, then shaved it off but kept a mustache that made him look like a cop until someone at No Kings pointed out that he looked like a cop, and has lately been using wax to curl the ends like some sort of French thing.  I think it was starting to do little Instagram reels that got Lucille's goat, saying this was embarrassing for her, and that they would follow him for the rest of his life, and did he want to be responsible for that ten years down the line?

For my part, I've got to admit, I enjoyed it on a sheer "man, there is no pressure at all for dudes to worry about their appearance" level - I'd spent something like five minutes every two or three days shaving in the shower, and then checking to make sure I hadn't left one of those little lines of stubble down my cheek, and now I wasn't even doing that! (well, I did kind of even things up when the left side of my face looked a tad shaggier than the right) - but as the month went on, where I gather some people start liking what they see and feeling more manly or whatever, I just saw less of me.  Andie and I were never opposite-sex versions of each other before the Inn, at least not more than any brother and sister - that's not really a thing because genetics don't work that way - but it just sort of seemed to be covering up the elements of our face we had in common.  I was glad to be rid of it on December 1st.

That was after Thanksgiving, though, where I flew home and dutifully let Mom, Dad, and Andie tease me about it.  It was fun, and Dad had decided to grow his own beard out too, although he's not fond of how much more gray there is there than up top.  Andie and I hung out with some old friends who also had a laugh, but it was nice.

Anyway, that's a whole term ago, basically, which means now I'm planning for summer break.  The idea of heading to the Inn is kicking around my head even less than it did last year - Andie and Chipper are planning on backpacking through part of Europe, and it's not like I'd want to become anybody else.  I kind of wish I had something like that to do with Hildy, but she's secured a super-cool internship at a radio telescope in New Mexico.  She's  really excited about it, as she should be, but I don't have anything like that lined up, so I'm probably just going to be working my little retail job all summer, trying to save up for after graduation.  I'd kind of like to take a cool trip or do a cool thing, but I'm not sure how to fit it in.

I'm working on a few things to fill the time, though - you're starting to see sign-up sheets for various summer activities, Hildy and I are researching when the best time would be for me to visit and not, like, spend the week hiding inside to avoid dying of heatstroke, and apparently they're cutting the price of the commuter rail in half for the summer to make day trips easier.  I don't exactly expect to be hanging around Massachusetts much past graduation, so maybe this would be a good way to check out some stuff while I've got the chance.  It might be more fun to go with Hildy, but she's an MIT girl and (pardon the stereotype) likes looking forward more than back, so she isn't quite so big on history as me.

Anyway, it's April, so we're into the semester's homestretch, and then just one more year of school before graduation!

-Ande

Ande: Movember!

Has any girl turned guy talked about shaving on this blog yet?  I haven't seen any, but then we're really outnumbered by the folks who went the other way, which makes sense.  I mean, it's hard losing a big part of your identity and all, but a lot of day to day stuff gets easier and who wants to complain about the creepy teacher not staring at your boobs, or claim that morning wood is more annoying than periods?  There's some hidden things that aren't great in terms of expectations and I still worry about losing my temper and losing control, but I know Andie got the more difficult situation. 

And shaving your face is pretty easy.  I haven't gone more than a day or two without doing it since becoming Andrew and by now it's just part of my morning routine.  At first, it was really important - neither of us wanted to be the guy who grows a full beard in high school, it was an unwanted reminder of my new masculinity every time I looked in the mirror, and it's just itchy and annoying when you miss a day.  Some guys get really into it, heating up foam and using a straight razor, but when I was a girl, I just took a bath rather than a shower and used a pink disposable every few weeks, since it's not like I was wearing miniskirts to school or on the swim team.  As a guy, I've basically been doing the same, just keeping a razor in the shower and doing it by feel while the steam and hot water has my pores or follicles or whatever open.  Don't even need shaving cream. 

There's some downsides to this, of course.  I'm basically doing it blind and shaving the sideburns off entirely rather than have them wind up uneven, and that wasn't really a big deal at first, and even desirable - I was still thinking of myself as a girl and didn't want 'em - but now I'm starting to look a little more baby-faced than I really want to, and it kind of feels like the sort of thing a grown man should be able to do. 

So, when a couple guys in one of my study groups came in looking a bit scruffy and mentioned that they were growing their beards out for "Movember", I figured what the hell?  If I don't like it, I can shave it off, and it's dumb to not see what I look like now that I've more or less accepted that this is who I'm going to be .

Right now, I look like a caterpillar is clinging to the very bottom of my upper lip for dear life. 

It's apparently hilarious. 

Don't take my word for it; Hildy apparently didn't even see it the first time she leaned in for a kiss and came away saying yuck, although she then said it was promising for just a few days' growth, with only a little detectable insincerity.  Griff was walking by and asked what was so funny and said he would try that.  He woke up the next morning with more than I'd managed in three days.

And I just got off a Zoom call with Andie, who saw what was on my face and then immediately started laughing, putting her head down on her desk to smother it, holding up a finger after a minute to say she needed another few seconds when I asked if she was done, and then letting out one last snicker when she sat up straight again. 

"Sorry, man, I just feel like I dodged a bullet, you know?"

"Har har.  But did you?  Do you think I might suck at growing hair because of some Inn thing, like it didn't make me male enough?"

She snorted.  "If it worked that way, I wouldn't get the cramps I do."

I allowed that, and talked with her a bit more.  She insisted on taking screenshots to show Mom & Dad, and that reaction will probably be interesting.

-Ande

Ande: First Anniversary

So here's a kind of funny thing:  Andie and I both had our first-anniversary dates about a week ago, and it's kind of funny how sometimes we're in sync like that, even though we're in different parts of the country.  I mean, we should be - we're twins and we've exchanged lives! - but things don't quite wind up lining up quite so often as we'd like.  

She and her boyfriend did fly out this summer, though, to see the fireworks on the Fourth and get a chance to hang out with me and Hildy.  The spare room they used has since been filled with Griff's girlfriend - they really like having their own space - and I like Chipper.  I don't think I would have dated him myself, though Andie does think about what might have been when hanging around Hildy, but he seems like a pretty good guy who likes Andie a lot.  I'm also glad to see that long Covid isn't completely kicking her ass these days, though she shows symptoms often enough that we didn't bring up the idea of switching back.

Strangely enough, I may have felt more pangs for my old life during the anniversary date.  Hildy and I don't dress up much when we go out, to the extent that she was making jokes about how completely buried her one pair of heels were in her closet, but she clearly spent a lot more time than usual, curling her hair, doing her makeup, waxing her legs, all that.  On the one hand, it kind of sounds like a real pain in the neck these days, but in the other, my heart kind of jumped into my throat when I met her at her place.  Sure, I was wearing a coat and tie,  but it wasn't the same effect. 

The date itself was fun - we had a nice meal at Legal and then went to a show at the A.R.T., then got snacks at Insomnia Cookies because we didn't really want to mar the night by not being able to talk or way into a bar.  We spent the night at her place (we didn't want to get the stink-eye from the new roommate either).

Andie texted me a selfie overnight, saying she knew it was weird for me but if she was wearing garters and stockings and had a big old slit practically all the way to her butt, plus a push-up bra, she was showing off.  I laughed, saying she looked good and I don't know if I would have had the patience, and she said, yeah, probably not, but sometimes we both overcompensate.  I asked how I overdo it, and she said she couldn't help but laugh at how short my hair was in July  especially since I had to wear a baseball cap in order to avoid sunburning my scalp. 

She's got a point, I guess. 

Anyway, it's kind of worth noting that I've been doing my thing as a guy long enough to have an anniversary that's more about being happy about something in this life rather than thinking that i can't believe I've been a guy long enough to have dated a girl for a year. 

-Ande

Ande: Shipping Down to Boston?

Is seeing Dropkick Murphys at Fenway Park (well, the connected music hall) on St. Patrick's Day weekend the most stereotypical college male thing imaginable?  Maybe.  But my roommate Griff bought four tickets last fall, but that turned out to be super-optimistic:  We actually lost a roommate over winter break - not lost like "dead", but like "his grades were terrible and he figured maybe he'd be happier as an electrician than an electrical engineer" - who was going to use his second pair, and asked me if I'd be interested.  I wasn't, at first, but Hildy thought it would be a lot of fun.  So we said we'd take them a couple weeks ago, and he put the other one up (purchased for the girl who got back with her high school boyfriend over Christmas) on SutbHub or something, and I didn't think a lot of it.

Then, at around noon on Saturday, I get a text from Mack, saying she's at Alewife, and was I up to anything?  Hildy was doing something with lab partners, and while I had figured on studying all afternoon myself, I was already looking for excuses not to, since it was kind of a surprisingly nice day, so I said why not; we'll meet up at the Common.

I was scrolling on my phone when I heard her call out and looked up and did a little blink.  It's been almost a year and a half since I've seen her in person, and she sure hit me different now that she's seventeen and I've kind of accepted that I'm probably going to live out my life as a man who likes women.  She was wearing blue jeans that had rips up and down the legs from how tight they were, high-top sneakers, a white crop-top and a full-zip hoodie tied around her waist.  Maybe a bit too much makeup, but her short haircut was cute.  "That's not a college-visiting outfit."

She laughed.  "Yeah, like I'm getting into some fancy Boston college!  Nah, just down for a concert tonight."  She grinned for a second like she wanted me to ask what before blurting it out.  "Don't laugh, but I'm seeing the Dropkick Murphys."

I folded my arms, kind of suspicious.  "Really."

"I know, it is so white it has bagpipes, but look at me.  I am in fact just that white, as far as anybody can tell, and not only did a guy in my class put them on a playlist for me, but I should probably make some effort to get in touch with the Irish hooligan roots everyone will assume I have when I go off to Springfield on my own."  She shrugged.  "Besides, Jonah is getting married to a great guy i would have met if I'd been staying with Momma during quarantine, and every once in a while the invitation on the fridge makes me want to scream.  It's good screaming-at-injustice music."

"And you didn't know I was going to the same concert?"

She started to open her mouth to reply, but held it like that for a while.  "I think you might actually have put it on my radar by putting it in the group text, but aren't they playing all weekend?  Anyway, we're probably on opposite sides of the building."  Without it needing to be said, we pulled our phones out and brought out the ticket apps.  She started laughing even harder when she saw we were two seats apart.  "Oh my god, what are the motherfucking odds?"

"Yeah, my girlfriend's going to find this hilarious."

She gave me a look that seemed to be trying to imply she was wiser than her years.  "C'mon, Ande.  I may have been that kind of bitch before, but I haven't been in a long time.  And you're still a kid to me."

"Is that what you thought when you offered to, you know..."

Her eyes went as big as they could, and then she shook her head.  "Damn, I did offer that, didn't I?  I mean, mostly it was about making sure you didn't miss out, but, let's be honest, the teenage part of me did have a crush on you.  You are good-looking and it would be nice to be with someone who knows, but, honestly, I've had three high school boyfriends and it's great fun until they do something that makes me go 'that's so cute', and you're kind of doing that right now."  She folded her arms and smirked.

I raised my hands in surrender, we declared a truce, and then went to find ice cream before hitting Newbury Comics and other places around Quincy Market for the afternoon.

I guess I'm not supposed to find shopping that much fun as a guy, and I know that when I'm getting stuff for myself, I'm kind of happy to just see what's got a good price at Marshall's (when I'm not at home), but i don't know if that's all I need as a straight guy or if I know how much fun I could be having and don't want it to bring me down.  I haven't really had a chance to be "dragged along" with Lindy yet, but I had a good time with Mack, and I don't think that because she was giving me some sort of treat.

Somewhere around or four I texted Lindy that I'd run into a friend who was also going to the concert, so maybe we could grab dinner.  Mack suggested a Mongolian barbecue place after seeing that all of her other go-to places from when she lived in the area were gone.  She was starting to say something about that when Lindy arrived and gave us the look I'd been dreading.  "I didn't realize 'Mack' was a high-school girl."

"Oh, yeah, my family wound up vacationing in her hometown for a couple summers in a row and we wound up hanging out."  It didn't sound weird to me, and Lindy shrugged it off.  Eventually, Griff showed up, we ate, and wound up at the show

Which was a lot of fun!  I'm not sure I would have been into the band as Andi, but Mack's right in that it's the sort of punk you can yell with but still be having fun because, like, the first song of the concert was some sort of Revolutionary War-era thing about making out in the servants' quarters or something like that and they've also done deep-cut baseball songs, although Griff said they didn't do either of the big ones that night (unless you count "Shipping Up to Boston", which, I guess became a pitcher's entrance music because it's about dismemberment).

Griff and Mack hit it off, at least, although I didn't realize how well until I realized Mack was still heading to our apartment while I turned off to head to Hildy's because her roommates were still on spring break.  She had an early morning call with some overseas classmates, so I went back to my place in the morning, where I found Mack making coffee in her crop-top and panties.

"Fun night?"

She smiled.  "Let me tell you, 19-year-old boys don't really know what they're doing, but they can do it all night!  Trust me, I know from both sides of this!  Anyway, want a cup?"  I nodded, and she poured two.

"Cary going to be worried?"

"Nah, he knew I'd be staying over somewhere, probably here, although he'll tell anyone who asks that I found a hotel room when the concert didn't finish before midnight."  She smirked.  "Kind of hoped it would be with you, but you really like your girlfriend."

I stopped drinking my coffee but still held the mug in front of my face.  "What?"

She sighed.  "I'm awful.  I told you, I get frustrated about my boyfriends being kids, but I tell myself that the real problem is I hate lying to them - which, let me tell you, is kind of new, because I absolutely was that bitch the first time I was in high school - and I figured, hey, maybe Ande will get me.  But, no, you're really into Hildy, which is sweet, but, annoying."  She took a sip.  "How do you do it?  Like, ever since that first time at the Inn, I've always been with people who knew I wasn't really the person they see, but now I'm looking at college in Springfield, and while I'm kind of psyched to be the first person in my family to go, even if it's the long way around and Momma and Karla will never know..."  She held out her arm.  "I mean, look how pale I am at the end of the winter.  Am I just going to start thinking of myself as a white chick once I've got nobody who remembers me being otherwise?"

"There's worse things to be."

"Oh, you know I don't mean it like that and you're my favorite white girl!"

"Whose dick you were after."

"Right!  Where am I gonna be if I don't have people bringing me back down to Earth?"

I laugh.  "I know.  Maybe you could come to First Thursdays, after you graduate?"  I told her about the regular meet-ups at the Changeling.

She seemed about to say something when Griff came out of his room, and we looked at each other a bit disappointed that we were going to have to start talking like normal people, improvising together on the fly when he asked why we'd never hooked up.  Girff asked if we wanted to do brunch, but Mack said she kind of wanted to drive, so she got her pants on, let me walk her to the Hynes station, and gave me a little peck before heading to Park then Alewife then points north.

I've got to admit, it's been hanging with me the past week, especially when I looked at Andie's pictures of herself in a bikini at spring break and thinking how she really doesn't have much reminding her of her old life when Mom and Dad aren't around, and maybe that's better that feeling I'm lying to Hildy.  It doesn't happen very much - although I kind of wonder how she parses me being happy to talk about my family but not really telling any stories from more than a couple years ago - but it does, occasionally, and, heck, sometimes I wonder what Mack thinks of me always calling her "Mack" when I know she's Krystle, and whether I'll wind up somewhere where I'm just this guy and nothing else to anyone else in a couple years, to the point where I might try and do something I know is wrong to not entirely disappear inside being "Andrew".

-Ande/Andy/Andi

Ande: Could I even handle going back?

I've been reading a lot of election coverage, like everybody, although I suspect it's a little more stomach-churning for me than it is for a lot of folks who are not nearly so directly affected.  Even in the People's Republic of Cambridge, Hildy says, there's been a little shift in attitudes among some on the MIT campus.  Go back a generation or two and girls like her (that is, girls) would be something of an oddity there, and while it's not quite the sausage fest it used to be, there's still more guys than girls, and some of them are not exactly great at dealing with women.  There are ugly male stereotypes for a reason, especially guys who probably had to really focus in on being great at one thing to make the cut into an elite college at the expense of a lot of dealing with other people stuff.  No-one's felt okay with threatening her yet, but who knows.

Obviously, I've had a lot of "that could be me" thoughts, and when I feel relieved, I also immediately feels scared, because it kind of still is me!  My twin brother who became my twin sister is dealing with it, and she's both at a state university in a state that is not exactly Massachusetts and more politically active than I am - for my first semester here, I was trying to pretend like I was her/him/them and taking a lot of classes that pointed toward a career in government and maybe politics.  I've been calling and texting with Andie a lot, and she's, well, she's ready to fight harder.

So, that's that, and I hope that what a lot of people took from it is, yes, I asked Hildy out, she said I sounded like a non-creep, and now we've been dating for a month and a half.  At some point it kind of occurred to me that I'm not exactly dating myself, but who I hoped to be a couple years ago - cute girl with an engineering major but a pretty big carve-out for artsy stuff.  She's looking at materials engineering and busks while I'm trying to make a theater minor work with EE, but broad strokes.  We've gotten here through different routes so we don't get into the weird, creepy finishing each other's sentences or anything, but I've apparently got way more Taylor Swift in my playlist than any other boyfriend she's had and she was very excited when the Connecticut Sun played a game at the TD Garden, even though you wouldn't peg her for a sports fan.

She just asked me if I'd be interested in spending Thanksgiving at her family's and I'm inclined to do it, although it makes me wonder when I can introduce her to my folks and what that will be like.  I can sort of settle into just being Ande who is what he appears to be with her, but what would it be like to drop her in a group that knows Ande & Andie are Andi & Andy?

I almost want to take her to First Thursday Club for low-stakes practice, but an outsider would be a vibe-killer and the fact that I'm one of the only guys there might seem really weird to her.

It kind of does to me, to be honest.  I haven't met the infamous Lenny yet, but I think this week, there were three women who were back in their original bodies, five women who used to be men, and just me and one other guy who used to be a woman.  I wasn't exactly stunned to see the in-person meet-up match what the blog is like, but I was still kind of surprised, because it seems like male-to-female and female-to-male should be balanced, right?  Of course, once you've gotten together, you realize that it feels dumb to complain or say you're facing challenges; the other guy in my boat had a story about being listened to more as a male intern than a woman who had been at a company for five years, and, yeah, you can reach things on the top shelf and there's never quite such a line at the bathroom and it is way more likely to involve peeing standing up, which is fun, than dealing with a period, which is not.  It feels bad to bring this stuff up, and more so that I wasn't going to feel unsafe taking a couple buses back to my apartment with some walking on either end.

I don't even think about this as potentially dangerous any more, although I do sometimes notice girls calculating stuff if a party runs late or the like.  Every once in a while, I wonder if I'd have the nerve to back to that, on top of how being a guy is now, what, 20% of my life or half of what I can remember, and that while it was kind of easy for Andie and me to cover for each other in high school, our knowledge and experience has diverged and is only going to get further apart.  She's not 100% health-wise, but doing better, but I'm starting to wonder if I could handle what she deals with after a couple years on easy mode, and if I'm cowardly for not wanting to even consider it considering that he refused to change if it meant I got sick.

Just a reminder that there are a lot of ways women are tougher than men, and maybe I'm in the second category there.

-Ande

Ande: Off-campus and In...

Well, infatuated at least.  I think?  It's weird feeling like this about a girl.

Anyway, first things first - I'm back at Northeastern for the fall term, although instead of a dorm, me and three other guys have an apartment a couple miles away.  I'm not yet sure whether this is more concentrated testosterone or less than being in a dorm, but it's probably more.  Like, it's only been a week and I'm already resigned to being the one that's going to be cleaning the bathroom, because I came in to wash my hands and could spot two distinct types of facial hair in the sink.  Apparently I'm weird for choosing to shave in the shower?  And the pubic hair!  God, the pubes! Like, i know it's a cliché that I can't handle mess because I used to be a girl, but my friends are disgusting!

It's not a bad place, though - the guy who's local scouted it out over the summer, since all leases in this area run September to August because of students, and it's pretty convenient to the school.  A bit to the south, because Boston is expensive, but it's an easy enough walk and a block away from a bus stop that goes right through three campuses, at least.

Anyway, that's where I saw her, wearing an MIT t-shirt, jeans with the knees worn out, short black hair with a streak of purple in it, and I might have ignored her except she suddenly broke out laughing and her smile was something else.  She saw me looking, said "what?", and I found myself tongue-tied enough to just ask what was so funny.  She named the podcast, the bus came, and as she moved to the back I stood up front, both because I was only going a couple stops and because standing next to her made me tense.

Found the podcast, though, and, yes, it was pretty funny.

I didn't see her again until Friday, because class schedules change day-to-day and the #1 bus either comes every five minutes or gets weirdly delayed and then three come at once.  The latter was happening, I wound up on the bench next to her, said I liked the podcast, and we talked about it a bit.  I managed to sit next to her as far as Northeastern while she continued on across the river.

Anyway, her name is Hildy, she's cute as heck, says the weird way I spell my name will help her remember me, and I don't know if a boy ever made me feel like this when I was a teenage girl.  Like, for a moment I felt like some bit of internal bracing was kicked out of place and I couldn't figure out exactly what did it.  I'd barely heard her speak and just barely spoke a few words to her, she's pretty but there are a lot of other attractive people out there who didn't do this to me, and, somehow, every other guy around me didn't seem to be reacting the same way!

This didn't happen with Cindi.  She decided she liked me - and it did kind of feel like she decided it, rather than having something about "Andy" capture her attention in a way that didn't let go - and I went with it for kind of the same reason, because you're supposed to have a boyfriend/girlfriend, it felt like something Andy would do, and I was kind of flattered, even if I had my issues with her.  It built into something more than just playing a part, but I don't know as any moment of it was that intense.

I kind of daydreamed in class a lot on Friday, and I wonder how many people get into that sort of state trying to figure that whole thing out but not really aware of it the way someone who has tried to work out what it means that all their hormones and brain chemistry has changed does.  And it makes me think about how I can get really mad, just ready to lash out in a way I never did in my original life, and all the guys who haven't given that much thought, or even been encouraged to not give it a lot of thought, and how many of them won't be able to handle being told that the girl isn't interested.  I'm pretty sure I won't be that guy, but I also sort of recognize that, while we've talked a couple times and I'm hoping to see her every time I ride the bus, she hasn't given me a last name or an address yet.  I probably could find her online, but I'm kind of worried about the line between curious and stalker.

Anyway, here's hoping we meet again soon!

-Ande