Jordan/Yuan-wei: My (Ex) Boyfriend's Back (to Normal)

You know what's kind of fucking disturbing?  I know that Jacky's recent trip back to the Inn (I guess at the same time Jenn became Paola) is the first in a series of events that is probably going to play havoc with my life as Yuan-wei, but my biggest question is when I became such a goddamn feminist?

I don't think it was in just the past week or so, although I kind of shrugged off the naked text Jacky sent after the change.  He was naked and erect, but whatever; I imagine if I'd gotten my dick back after a year as Deirdre, I'd have been pretty excited.  Hell, I'd probably be pretty excited if it happened tomorrow.  Especially since whoever the last Jacky was, they kept him in good shape, maybe not quite like Benny did as me, but that a high bar.  It wasn't like a picture with just a dick, and good on him for still feeling good about his body after the other perspectives he's been getting.  I sent him a thumbs-up, meaning congratulations.  He asked what I was up to that weekend, I sent a shrug emoji ("I don't know"), and went back to whatever I was doing.

Fast-forward to the weekend, where I'm trying to clean my house and there's a knock on my door.  The camera shows its him, so I decide too be mature and talk to him, because all this shit can do a number on you and make you make bad decisions.  I buzz him in, not really thinking about what I'm wearing (crop-top, shorts, flip-flops) until he's looking me up and down.  I look back a bit - I haven't had many boyfriend's, but I've learned from real girls that there's no shame in trying to see how they've done without you, and also trying to see what some time thinking he'd be stuck as Bingbing has done to his taste in clothes, grooming, etc.  Tough to tell.

"So," I say after offering him a beer, "got any secret intel on why Chen-ai decided to pull up stakes and run now, besides the protests?"

"No, fake-me quit the job and deleted everything.  Hell, I'm going to have to buy a new laptop when I get home and already got a new phone because he went at them with a hammer.  Maybe there's some hardcopy back in Hong Kong, but he seems pretty thorough."

"Fuck.  Chen-ai is going to screw me over somehow, I just know it."

"Yeah, but look at the bright side - your new mother probably won't care if we're together or not!"

I stopped, right in the middle of reaching for a bottle in the back of the bottom shelf, then straightened up.  "Wait, what?  Are you serious?"

"Hey, I get that you broke up with me because of all this weird stuff, and Chen-ai being in the middle is scary.  I was mad for a while, but now that I see how it can mess with a person I won't hold it against you."

"You won't hold anything against me?  I'm sorry, when all of this went down, which of us told the other person what was going on, and which of us kept quiet about who they really were and fucked their ex's brother for a year?"

You'd think he would have anything to say, but he did.  "I was just thrown into all of this and he seemed--"

"Dude, you know what?  I don't care why you did it.  I'm just not gonna be with someone who did, especially when they're gonna be on the other side of the fucking planet getting into who knows what.  I'm sorry, maybe it was just an extreme situation, but we're not going to be like that again."

I put the bottle in my hand on the bar counter between us, not sure what else to do with it.  It gave him a reason to step forward.  "Well, how about one for the road, just to make sure it's all in working order?"

What. The. Fuck.  "Holy shit, are you serious?  No!  It wasn't my job to make sure you feel like a man when we were together, and it's definitely not now!"

"C'mon, you owe me that much!"

"Dude.  No."

"You want it - look at you, you're totally DTF."

"Are you serious?  I didn't really think you were coming - it's just a hot day and I had some sweaty work planned!  Plus, how did you spend two years as a girl and not figure out they don't ever owe someone pussy access?  Was Max just such an incredible, always-around boyfriend that things never got uncomfortable with anyone?"

His hand tightened on the bottle a little, and I worried that maybe I had pushed it too far, counted too much on him being able to see a woman's point of view and not enough on his brain not having been flooded with this much testosterone for two years, but he relaxed a bit and pulled it toward himself.  He took a drink and seemed to calm down a bit.

I exhaled.  "I think you should go."

"Yeah.  I, uh, just thought maybe things could go back to normal."

I spook my head.  "Sorry."

He nodded and went out the door.  There wasn't any calling me a bitch or some colorful Cantonese equivalent under his breath, but I still paid attention until he was in his Uber and driving away, and let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.

I brought Annette's contacts up on my phone and was starting a text, but decided I wanted to hear her voice, so I hit the call button.  She answered, probably figuring this was some sort of emergency, and I told her about Jacky's visit.

"Wow.  Are you okay?  I haven't had many scary boyfriends, but there's always a guy or two."

"Yeah, it's just...  I was l kind of attracted to him because he seemed like me, you know?  Same hobbies, told some of the same jokes without prompting, doing the same sort of work, and--"

"Jordo, I love you, but you do realize you were the same sort of asshole, right?  Like, I heard you yelling at people while gaming as Deirdre, and who was that girl at the beach you said you were going to hate-fuck if you became yourself or Benny instead of Yuan-wei?"

"Tina Chen.  Fuck, I haven't thought about that in years.  Shit, was Jacky always like that without me seeing it?"

"I dunno.  It's tough to guess how a guy's going to handle being told no.  He didn't seem the type."

"Okay, now tell me when I started being the chick that lectures guys on that consent and agency shit?  I thought I was the fun bitch!"

She laughed.  "Oh, you are, but I've been a good influence!"

"Thanks a lot!"

"You're welcome, and congratulations on reaching the point in the story where, having learned how women want to be treated, you wake up from this weird dream a better man, confusing everyone around you!"

"You're a weirdo, you know that?"

She said she did, and then we started talking about her new job, apartment, boyfriend, and all that.

It got me spending a little more time looking in the mirror after slowing and changing to go out, though.  I always say that's still me, just in a sexier package, and even when I'm putting on lipstick or a push-up bra or whatever because I want guys to look at me, I figure that's kind of just biology too, but, shit, how much of the guy inside has changed over the past few years, and what would I be if I was suddenly myself again?

-Jordo

Jordan/Yuan-wei: Half a World Away

Been a while since I checked in, but I guess that happens to everyone - at a certain point, you are Jordan Lee Yuan-wei, recent college graduate with a job in the visual effects industry, and the fact that you used to be Jordan Chang, male and five years older, is less important on a daily basis.  Especially with my parents doing their best to act like I was born this way.  It was weird to get earrings for Christmas from my mom, but I'm not complaining.  Even though becoming a girl hasn't made me really into jewelry, that's her accepting a lot.

Of course, I don't may have one mother now, and Yang Chen-ai has been anxious in recent weeks.

I know that not many Americans have been following the news out of Hong Kong (this country has its own issues to fill all your worrying about the world going to hell needs), but it's something I get asked about a fair amount because I'm from there as far as anybody who doesn't know about the Inn is concerned.  What's going on scares the shit out of me, to be honest, because there's not a lot of scenarios that don't have Lee Yuan-wei going back there for more than a visit at some point, and I'm scared that it's never going to be close to the place I know again.

On the one hand I don't know if Chen-ai really cares about that.  Maybe she does; even evil people can love their home, though I think she's mercenary enough to put up with anything so long as the business continued to bring money in.  On the other, well, she had had her husband killed with the intention of setting me or whoever else wound living Yuan-wei's life up for the fall, so who knows what else she's afraid of happening to her should China take more direct control over Hong Kong and start looking into things that had previously been ignored.  It's enough to spook her, enough to get in contact with Bingbing and hint that if she would like to go back to her real life, that could be arranged, if Chen-ai were to become her.

I'm almost angry that she said no, for a bunch of really fucking stupid reasons.

I suppose all of you that read this blog because you, not having been to the Inn, see it as a weird or kinky fantasy saw this coming, because it's the most dramatic way to fuck with me, but it turns out that the person who has been living the life of Chen Bingbing for the past couple years is, you guessed it, my ex-boyfriend Jacky.  The one I broke up with because Chen-ai promised to ruin our lives if I didn't.  Who then, apparently thinking that I wasn't upset enough by the whole state of affairs, proceeded to fuck and then get involved with my brother without telling either of us what was going on.

The whole finding out deal was weird - I guess Jacky found out that Chen-ai was sleeping with whoever was living his life (he was working as her personal assistant), figured that meant he was never going back, so came clean to Max.  They didn't immediately break up, but he told me, and...  Well, the whole thing felt gross, and for a while my brother and I weren't talking, but eventually he met another girl and decided he didn't want to be in a relationship that wasn't just about the two people involved.  Jacky/Bingbing graduated from college this May and went back home to HK, and we'd kind of figured that was it.  I wanted that to be it.

I asked him what he wanted, and while he said that he had come to accept the idea of being Bingbing for the foreseeable future, it wasn't like he'd put down roots, and I can testify that the call of "how things should be" is damn strong, even when everybody thinks they're probably better off.  So who am I to tell him that there's probably some major league catch?

It's got me stupidly distracted, though, to the point where people are noticing at work.  I can tell them that I'm worries about folks back "home", but the truth is, they really don't give a shit; they just can't have our team missing deadline on animating a swarm of monsters.  so there's been a lot of overtime and I probably haven't been doing my best work.

And I don't get it.  I've always had it in the back of my mind that Chen-ai might decide to leave her old life behind and become a generation younger, I always thought it would be to become Yuan-wei.  It's just so much fucking simpler!  Has she stayed liking me enough to not want to mess with my life, or does she see some other way to mess with me?

Who the fuck knows?  This shit doesn't matter as much as the rest of what's going on in Hong Kong, and I wish it wasn't my first concern about the whole thing.

-Jordo

Jordan: Reset Again

Tuesday

As you read from Max, things got a little heated between us a week ago; one of the things I really didn't think about with the Inn, at least for me, since I've turned into single adults both times, is that it reduces family drama a whole ton. I miss Max and my parents, but I'm a little glad not to have certain obligations, or them looking disappointed at me, or all the times Max made fun of my weight as a punk kid.  So not seeing them doesn't make me happy, but there's also things I don't miss, and when you drop into a new life with a clean slate, you don't automatically pick up someone else's issues to compensate.  Like, I didn't know what Yuan-wei's issues with Chen-ai were, but what-the-fuck-ever, I didn't need to make them mine.  Net drama level, lower, even if I missed people. 

So, fighting with him kind of sucked, and sucked more because I'd forgotten what it was like to fight with him for real, not just argue like we have been ever since he got turned into Elaine #3.  And maybe we would have kept fighting if Annette hadn't been there to meet us at the train station, but she was, hugging us both and saying she'd already scouted the Inn, and it was pretty much empty, which was to be expected since Brittany had posted on Monday.  It would have been tough to get hints about what I had in store for me anyway, as Room 7 is hard to see into from either the street or the beach.

She was looking kind of furtive as we walked down the street toward the condo I'd found on AirBNB, saying that it had been fun to not really flirt but still talk to Benny's cousin like they were old friends when she bumped into him on the street earlier that day, and boy, did guys start assuming that meant she wanted to fuck.  She asked if college guys were like that, and I had to tell her that, from relatively recent experience in both sides, they were worse.  She groaned about how she was not ready to jump right into her senior year like she knew what she was doing, either academically or as a girl who isn't even old enough to drink.

The subject changed when we got to the condo I'd rented - "only" two bedrooms but furnished and nice, right near the beach.  If I was going to lose Yuan-wei's trust fund in a matter of days, I figured I'd better get some use out of it until then.  Annette said that if this were a movie, that would be the signal to start a shopping montage, so we took a cab into Portland and did some of that.  I may not have had much reason to do it for myself, but Annette was into getting some new outfits, and even Max admitted that he might as well stock up, because he didn't know when he'd be working.

Wednesday

It was 80 degrees on Wednesday, so I declared a beach day, and Annette agreed, leaving Max out-voted.  Annette was a bit nervous about her swimsuit, but she looked super-cute, and the two of us even managed to cajole Max into one, saying that we should have one day as sexy girls together.  I'd sneaked a red one into a shipping bag the day before, and as he was changing, I told him through the door that it wasn't a big deal - I'd seen him wearing a Speedo at the beach before, so I knew it wasn't the near-nakedness, it was just feeling the bra part do its work, a constant reminder that you've got tits and dudes are judging you based upon them. 

Max reeked of fear more than I did as Deirdre at his 9-man tournament, and you could see it until Annette got the idea to give him dark shades, and then, daaaaaaamn!  He kind of looked badass even before he realized he looked badass, and I think he finally realized that this could be like a Halloween costume, that you can be yourself and this other thing, and maybe use that other thing to bring part of yourself out. 

Anyway, we had fun on the beach, played some volleyball, ate some pizza at lunchtime and fish and chips for dinner.  I actually ate a fucking lot that day, because while I've been pretty lucky to have a good metabolism as Yuan-wei, it's not like I can just shove as much down my throat as I used to and keep it up.  The good news is that, between vanity and changed taste buds, I like grilled fish and vegetarian meals way more than I used to; the bad news is that is not quite enough.  I don't have to actually go out and run to keep fat from selling in the wrong part of my ass just yet, but I kind of figured it would serve Carlotta right if she had a few pounds to work off.

Shit, I spent a few minutes in from of a barbershop, thinking about going in and having them cut it all off, but Max said they'd probably take it out on him.  Wasn't terribly impressed with my idea of getting my hair dyed blue to see whether Carlotta got stuck with it or if the chemicals stayed on my head, either.

Day had to end, though you couldn't tell my brain that; I was up until 4am dicking around on the Internet, trying to finish a book, and other shit until I finally passed out when the sunrise made a mockery of my apparent attempt to keep the next day from coming by not sleeping.

Thursday

It did, though, even if Max and Annette let me sleep until noon.  I didn't spend long writing a letter to go in my luggage - "Fuck you and your sister" seemed to cover it - but still put everything together and started dragging it down the street.  Picked up the key and coupon packet, and felt kind of jelly-legged as I got to the door of the Trading Post, glad Max and Annette were along for support.  We navigated or way to Room 8 and felt pretty fucking stupid praising before we opened the door, as we all knew from experience that there'd be nothing in there but a cheap-ass hotel room.

Wrong again.  Yang Chen-ai was seated on the edge of the bed, wearing an elegant traditional Chinese dress, legs crossed, a tablet right next to her.  I dropped the handle to my suitcase out of shock.

She looked at Max and Annette in turn.  "Ladies, I ask you - is it proper for a girl to go her entire summer break, her last one before graduating University even, without visiting her lonely widowed mother even once?"  Getting no response, she walked up to me, making me look up because she was wearing four-inch heels and I had sneakers.  "And you, you ungrateful daughter!  Did you never learn to talk to your mother when someone is bullying you?"

It would take Max and me a few minutes to figure out how to respond, but Annette's needs were simpler.  "Guys, what is going on?"

Chen-ai turned to Annette and smiled in a less sarcastic fashion, switching to English.  "Still don't speak Cantonese, eh?  Well, I don't blame you - Mandarin is the language of the twenty-first century, isn't it?"  She walked back toward the bed, picked up the tablet, and then turned around.  "That's what Carlotta was counting on, you know - that either Annette or Benjamin would wind up as Yuan-wei, and then by either staying in America despite the police wanting to speak to her or being unable to answer a simple question once she arrived back home, she would look guilty enough for the admittedly circumstantial evidence linking her to my husband's death to look damming.  They certainly didn't plan on the likes of Jordan Chang being able to come to Hong Kong and pass as Yuan-wei well enough to avoid suspicion, no matter how many anonymous tips they sent to the HKPD."

My mouth went dry.  "How did you know?"

The smile want friendly any more.  "Sweetie, haven't you figured it out?  If you're one in a million, it's almost unfathomable that two felons from the streets of New York's Chinatown would just happen to show up directly after a couple of teenagers from Hong Kong unless someone arranged it.  I arranged it."

Max was the first one to react, stepping out in front of me and seemingly ready to attack Chen-ai before Annette and I grabbed him.  "You did this to your own daughter?  What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Well, that's the question, isn't it?  I came to the Trading Post Inn in the summer of 1994, twenty-three years old and looking to paint lighthouses for a couple of weeks.  Well, you know how that goes; I wind up in Harlem, of all places.  My English isn't great, but I kind of think it might be good for me to be American for a year - you guys are all too young to remember what Hong Kong was like before the handover, but a lot of people were looking for a way out, scared.  I almost think it's fate, even, because the next year, the new Yang Chen-ai says she's having visa problems, but we book things for the next spring.

"That's when I find out I have a daughter, eight months old, who has no idea that I'm not her mother, no instinct saying she should be with someone else.

"I'm not asking for your sympathy here.  The rest of my life is good - Siu-wong has built the business, started cultivating contacts with the mainland, and don't get me wrong, if Yuan-wei was someone else's kid, I'd think she's delightful.  But I didn't have nine months to get used to the idea,  I didn't like how she was first in my husband's heart, and when Siu-wong updated his will to make her his primary beneficiary, saying it's just good estate planning, right around the time she announces that she wants to study in America, and I find out that Carlotta Wong has just gotten out of prison...

"Well, I suppose I should tell you about the Wongs, first.  Not that there's really a lot to tell - Chinese-American father, Italian-American mother, in trouble since they were kids, and they tended to make bigger bad decisions as they got older.  Not many people liked them.  But they hung out with the black girl who was more comfortable speaking Cantonese or Mandarin than English.  They beat the bastard who got turned into that girl's husband half to death when he tried to rape her.  I owe them as much as any of you owe each other.  More, because they helped me without any understanding of why I was so strange.  So when I saw a chance to give them a little of what I had, I took it.  They did far more to earn a comfortable life than Yuan-wei or Bingbing ever did.

"So I truly regret that it had to come to this."

She activated the tablet, jumped to a video app, and handed it to me.  Max and Annette drew in closer, and I hit play.

The image that appeared was the room we were in, lit by just the overhead light, but that was enough to see Max and Bingbing tied and cuffed to metal chairs, gags in their mouths, eyes wide open.  "Max" was already on the floor, trying to make his way to the door, but a chain between the chairs ran under the bed.  They were well and truly fucked, and then the change started happening.

It took a while - we had to fast-forward the recording - but when it was done, they were both Asian-American women about Chen-ai's age, but you could tell they'd lived harder lives.  Carlotta -the one who had been Max - was able to wriggle out of the handcuffs and push the now-loose ropes around her off, pulling her gag out and yelling "Chen-ai You Bitch--!"

She stopped the recording and took her tablet back from me.  "I should have seen it coming, of course.  They were always up to no good, and it's easy to get along when you all have nothing, but when there's something to fight over?  Things get ugly.

"I don't really hold a grudge against them.  But this whole deal, with Max and you and everything, it probably ends with them trying to kill me and inherit everything, and my gratitude for what they did for me only extends so far."

The three of us had inconvenient pulled a little closer together as she told this story.  I tried to stand up a little straighter, but my back want really feeling it.  Annette asked what she wanted from us.

"From you?  Not a thing.  Study hard, stay in school, or don't."  She turned slightly to face Max.  "Same for you.  I figure you'll want to get out of that body, and as you saw, Carlotta was right here--"

She pointed to a spot on the floor.

"--when she changed back.  I suspect you'll want to use your brother's reservation and maybe either drag the bed to this side of the room or just plant a chair there every night.  Unless you'd like to try being Bingbing for a while."

Max shook his head hard, and Chen-ai smiled before looking at me.  "As for you, it's pretty simple.  I want whatever I want, whenever I want it."

I swallowed.  "That's... vague."

She shrugged.  "Well, I'm not sure what the next few years might hold.  I often thought that I would take over Yuan-wei's life right after she graduated from college, but I don't exactly feel old enough to stop being me yet.  But maybe I get sick.  Or maybe I just want you to invest your money a certain way - Siu-wong was right about paying it straight to his daughter rather than allowing it to be taxed twice if it passes through me, especially if my daughter will do what she's told.  But let's start with this:  Get out your phone and send Jacky a text message saying that the last couple weeks were fun, but it also made you realize that the long-distance thing will never work out."

I actually staggered a bit.  "What?  Why?"

"Because your mother knows what's best for you, and it's important that you understand that, and it's important that I know I can count on you."  She walked over to the room's desk and opened up the designer bag that was laying there, taking out a phone and a piece of paper.  "I can get the men who brought my friends to this room here very quickly.  I don't want to - any damage they do to you will show up on the next Yuan-wei, and that's trouble I don't need, but I can probably figure out an explanation.  And I've got this."

After gesturing with and replacing the phone, she held up the paper.  It was heavy, with some gold leaf and embossing, and when I saw what was in bold letters on the top...  "Holy shit!"

"It's not that impressive - just one piece of voting stock for 'Trading Post Inc.'  I have more.  Not nearly enough to be majority shareholder, but having this does bring some privileges, like getting bookings canceled and rearranged at short notice, or even a spare key to surprise your daughter, if you know who to ask."  She changed how she was holding it, using her fingers on the corners to hold it flat.  "Happy birthday, Yuan-wei."

Annette looked from me to her and back as I nervously took the other corners as Chen-ai let go.  "Excuse me, what?"

Chen-ai looked at her, shifting to the outwardly-sweet smile.  "Look at the last three years, girl.  It does me no good to have a daughter actively plotting against me.  And I like this Yuan-wei.  She's smart in certain areas, but not hugely ambitious.  She's practical.  We can work together when need be, and I think we can ignore each other most of the rest of the time.  And while it's important she remember that, while she may have gained her life by chance but has it now because I think she should, it's also important she find it rewarding.

"Now send that text, honey."

I nervously got out the phone.  Max put his hand on my wrist.  "Jordan, don't let her--"

I took the phone with my other hand and started sketching characters.  "Better her than Carlotta and Giorgia.  Besides, is not like I was going to fucking marry the first guy I seriously dated, and I'm probably going to be looking for visual effects jobs in Hollywood this time next year anyway.  Think he's leaving Hong Kong and his family, even for a piece of ass this hot?  Might as well get it fucking over with!"  I held the phone up in front of Chen-ai.  "Good enough?"

She nodded.  "That will do."  I brought the phone back down and tapped send.  "Fuck you, 'mom'."

"I know you're upset now, but trust me, he would not have been right for you.  You're destined for more."  She placed her tablet in her purse and slung it over her shoulder.  "Now, seeing as I'm not in this time zone very often, I think I should fly to Manhattan and do some shopping.  I'd invite you along, but I'm sure you've got a fair amount of back-to-school things you suddenly find you have to do."  She opened the door and waved.  "Have a great year!"

Max interrupted.  "Wait - there's still one thing you haven't said.  Yuan-wei's father--"  He couldn't actually say the words.

"It would hardly make sense for Carlotta killing him to be my plan, would it?  Besides, despite his not realizing he was married to an impostor for two years, I never stopped caring for him any more than I stopped caring for Giorgia and Carlotta.  Really, you shouldn't think too much about this.  That all being a horrible accident makes the most sense."

She smiled and shut the door behind her.

We collapsed on the bed as soon as she was gone.  Staring up at the ceiling, Annette asked if it was weird that she was really happy for us.

"Yeah," I said, "but it will be less weird with alcohol.  Let's get out of this fucking place and let Max buy us some of the good stuff while he still won't get carded."

There was no argument there.

-Jordo/"Missy"/Yuan-wei  (still)

Max/Elaine: Third wheel, on my own, or set up

I'm trying not to be too judgmental, or jealous, or, you know, worried about Jordan having a boyfriend, that boyfriend being here, and the enthusiastic sex they've been having.  I don't like to think about the possibility of still being a woman three years from now, but I guess if it works out that way, I'd rather be content and getting laid than angry and frustrated.  At least, I think I think that.  When I think about that as a hypothetical situation in my head, I know that's the healthy way to look at it, even though I also think it's kind of healthy to recoil from things that are a big part of your identity - like being a Chinese-American guy who likes girls - being taken from you.

Heck, I've even gone through this post and corrected every spot where I referred to Jordan as "he", even if I can't quite bring myself to call her "Missy" or "Yuan-wei".  I've read all up on "misgendering" and "deadnaming", and I'm trying to apply it right here; my brother is a woman now, but she still counts "Jordan Chang" as her identity, not a way of denying who she really was,  and says she likes me thinking of her that way.  I'll probably slip up on occasion, but this seems right.

Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to call her "Jordan" very often of late because her boyfriend Jacky has been around 24/7, so we've got to pretend I'm just a normal 30-year-old African-American woman staying with her 21-year-old Chinese friend, as if that's not kind of unusual in and of itself.  I guess we're lucky that, having met "Yuan-wei" in Tokyo and then later having had a vacation with her mid-twenties gay friends from Montreal, Jacky just thinks that his girlfriend is a woman of the world who actually likes getting to know the people she meets online in person.  If he could have seen her back in her message-board-trolling days...!  It's too bad I haven't yet been able to think of a way to tell him one of those stories and make it sound like it applies to the girl he knows.

I do feel jealous and annoyed, though, and not so much because I see a little less of the Jordan I know in Yuan-wei when Jacky's around but because of what we're doing; it's no longer all friend or sibling stuff, but the last week has been like one long date, with me the third wheel, trying not to bring things down.  It's mostly been what seem like little things - if Jordan is putting on make-up, I kind of have to as well, and that means she has to help, because a side-issue with Jacky being here is that she doesn't have a lot of time to teach me how to do this stuff for after when she changes into someone else, and it makes me feel stupid for not being able to do it on my own.  And then there's the dressing thing - before, if Jordan dressed kind of nice, and I just mean like a skirt and a silk top, while I just wore loose-fitting jeans and a-shirt, we kind of looked like an odd pairing, but so what?  Now, I'd be bringing the average down, making Jordan and Jacky look bad, especially since I look like the oldest member of the group who should look more sophisticated.  I shouldn't care, but there's something really annoying about Jordan, who lived in sweaty t-shirts and holey sweatpants (or jorts, weather permitting), getting complimented on her outfit while people just slip into awkward silence when they look from her to me, especially when you can just hear them thinking "no wonder she's alone".

So I've been making a little bit of an effort, and it's not all bad - aside from the tension from remembering to cross your legs, a skirt and sandals are a lot more comfortable than what a guy can get away with wearing in a semi-nice place on a warm day, although when you add a tank-top to it, it feels like there's this line where you send the wrong message to avoid.  I don't like makeup, though, and the hair was driving me nuts!

That's why I told Jordo and Jacky to have fun Thursday and took Elaine's advice to find a hairdresser that specializes in handling black women's hair to get something more manageable.  It was kind of uncomfortable at first - by avoiding looking directly down, I can spend a lot of the day not really noticing the racial aspect of things, but this place was just full of voluptuous African-American women with elaborate nails and hairdos, talking loud and making me feel really out of place even though they all assume I belong.  As if that wasn't intimidating enough, there were a bunch of magazines and stuff to look through, because just saying "shorter" is not enough.

That was, in some ways, the most brain-twisty part about it - I'd look at those pictures and try to mentally replace the face with Elaine's, think "that looks nice", then ask if I wanted to deal with looking that nice.  I eventually settled on something that looked simple enough, but turned out to require an hour of sitting around with smelly chemicals in my head and then being told I'll probably want to keep some hairspray on hand like this is totally normal.  Apparently it is - my hair is going to be high-maintenance until I'm myself again - which is why so many people were chatting and hanging out at the beauty shop like it's a bar rather than someplace you go every once in a while and encounter random folks.  This hair takes work.

Jordan appreciated it, at least, half-whispering that a the boost a nice new haircut gives a woman's self-esteem is triple what it is for a guy.  I said I didn't really feel that, although having everything cleaned up and not past my shoulders was better.  The ladies at the salon at least knew their stuff - on Elaine's advice, I'd asked for something I could shower or swim with without much issue.  I'm not sure I felt more confident while waiting for my food at the movie theater that night, though - Jordan and Jacky has already headed in, but stupid me wanted some chicken tenders, and a woman standing alone is something guys just zero in on.  After being honest with the first one that I was going to see Wolf Warrior II only to find that a Coco into kung fu movies was cool, I took to saying I was there for Girls' Trip.

BTW:  Wolf Warrior II is really damn weird to watch as a Chinese-American man in the body of an African-American woman.  As much as I like Wu Jing as a martial-arts star, the regular digs at the U.S. rankle, and maybe I wouldn't have given much thought to how everybody in Africa is either violent or needs to be rescued by Chinese saviors, but now that my own skin is black...  Well, it's weird.

At least the ballgame was informal as can be, and kind of fun once I was able to find that place where I wasn't thinking about what had happened to me but had taken Jordan being Yuan-wei for granted.  Then, I could not only enjoy a pretty exciting game - not quite so much as Jordan, who denies that two years in Boston had made him a Red Sox fan as opposed to just a Yankee-hating Mets fan - but got to enjoy the sight of her trying to explain baseball to someone who did not grow up on it as the game was going on.  I still headed under the stands quickly when it started raining - not only did I not want to test how waterproof my new hairdo was, but t-shirts get clingy awful fast.

So Friday was good, but then Saturday, Jordan knocked on my door and asked for a favor.  The new Benny, who had stayed at the Inn after Annette, was coming down to look for a place to live, and she was just as freaked out about being a man as I had been in the first few days after changing, so if I could hang around with her, point out anything she hasn't thought of or was worrying about too much, that would be great.

Oh, and also, she had booked dinner at a really nice restaurant that night, a table for four, so if "Benny" and I could dress appropriately...

So that weighed on me day, especially since "Ben" was a weird experience from the start.  Part of why she wants to move back to Boston is that she's from the area, but though she won't talk about herself much, I gather she was pretty well-off before.  She admitted to going to an English boarding school when I asked because of her weird accent, and the way she looked at places that were in her price range implied she wasn't impressed.  She didn't seem to have taken the subway too often for a local, although maybe being from New York makes me wonder how you can be confused by Boston's pretty simple public transportation system.

It actually took us a while to get back to Jordan's place for how far from Boston proper we got, although that was easy enough for her - not only did she only have to put on a suit, she knew how to tie a tie better than I do!  I'm putting on my first dress, and the one Jordan put out on my bed maybe doesn't quite fit like a glove, but it certainly shows my figure and an inch or so of cleavage.  Even though I know Ben's really a girl, her helping we with the underwire thing is really embarrassing, and panty hose inside of high heels just made me feel extra rickety, like my foot couldn't grip my shoe, much less the ground.

It did feel kind of good to have Ben tell me I looked good and could handle this as we got out of the cab in the North End, though.  She would know, right?  I've been changed longer than her, but she knows what a woman with poise and comfort in her own skin looks like better than me.

I must admit to being kind of stunned seeing Jordan when we're escorted to the table.  She's gorgeous - she's curled her hair, put on a dress that makes me feel weird about thinking mine shows off my chest, but somehow looks both excited to show off and classy.  For a minute I remember how I first felt seeing Yuan-wei without knowing who she was, and while I get over that soon enough, it's amazing how natural she and Jacky look as she giggles walking him through eating his lobster, which he'd never tried before.  I was spending enough time watching them that it didn't really dawn on me that Been was acting like a guy on a date until the third time her hand found its way to my knee, always trying to use whatever Jordan and Jacky were talking about to make herself sound good and try and get something out of me. 

I kind of figured it was just kind of play-acting, at least until we were sharing a cab back to her hotel before I took it back to Jordan's place, and after she got out, she turned around and asked if I'd like to come up.  I'm like, uh, why?, and she says I must have felt it, and I'm saying no and telling the driver to go to the next stop.

I didn't have time to say anything to Jordan or even text Ben before he showed up with donuts on Sunday to apologize and start the next round of house-hunting.  She's sorry, but I looked good the night before, she's not used to being alone, and Annette said I would probably be in the same boat in her letter.  I told her I was really not looking for that, especially since this was temporary for both of us (right?).

She said she understood that, but I think I may have just friend-zoned my first guy.  I'm so glad that Jordan is dropping Jacky off at the airport right now so we can get back to "normal", at least for the next week and a half.

-Max/Elaine

Jordan/"Missy" Yuan-Wei: Best Possible Way to Twist the Knife

I'm not sure exactly what Annette said to Max whole we were up in Maine or if it's just a matter of seeing that people can, eventually, get back to who they're "supposed to be" and maybe have learned something or other along the way.  Whatever it was, Max hasn't started trying to find a shade of lipstick he likes yet, but he bitches a lot less than he did before.  I've spent a little time showing him what Agile is and we're staying to look at job listings so that he can get a feel for what he'll be able to handle after I stop being Yuan-wei and he's potentially flying solo as Elaine for a few months.  It's kind of tender when we have to acknowledge that, and he's got me promising that if I land in a life that is compatible with Elaine's, but I don't know how likely that is, since I kind of think the Wongs are gonna try to fuck us over.

He's started to kind of embrace this as "summer vacation", though, so we've been able to have a little fun.  We've hot a bunch of the touristy spots that I kind of avoided as someone who lives here, seen some baseball, both at Fenway Park and on the Cape, and made road trips around New England.  It's kind of annoying that Max gets to drive, but they don't rent cars to 21-year-old girls on student visas with Hong Kong drivers' licenses no matter how much insurance she can pay for, generally speaking.  We didn't go that far Thursday night, just to the House of Blues on Lansdowne, although that's still a bit of a hike in the heels I was wearing, causing Max to have a good laugh at my expense (I usually keep a pair of flip-flops in my purse, but I forgot).  Why I got an apartment at the top of a hill, I don't know.

As much as my legs were hurting by the time we got to my place, though, I was still able to run a bit when I got there and saw someone waiting outside.  "Jacky?!  Oh my God, what are you doing here?"  Heck, I was able to jump and wrap my arms and legs around him, too, though after a couple seconds the main support came from his hands cradling my ass as we kissed.

We came up for air a minute or so later, and he lowered me to the ground.  "Couldn't go all summer without seeing my girl, even if she did have a class to take."

"You are so..."  I heard a bit of shuffling behind me and stepped back a step.  "What a thoughtless bitch I'm being.  Jacky, this is my friend Elaine Preston; Elaine, my boyfriend Jacky Lau."

Jacky extended a hand and looked at Max curiously.  "You speak Cantonese?"

I hadn't even realized that I had slipped into using that language when I saw Jacky, but I guess I had.  Max tried to manage the handshake without getting his hand crushed while joking that he used to speak it better than me, but it looks like I've been practicing.  Didn't make much sense to Jacky, but he laughed, figuring "Elaine" either didn't speak the language well enough to make the joke right or it was some sort of (African) American humor he didn't get.

We went up to my apartment and I gave him the tour, telling him to put his shit in my room since Elaine had the spare.  Jacky said he could take the couch, but I pulled him closer, shifting his hand back to my ass, and said fuck that before slapping his butt myself.  Then I asked if he wanted a drink or something to eat after his flight, eventually getting some beers from the fridge and heating up some leftover General Tso's Chicken and explaining that "Chinese food" over here often meant "Chinese-American", but, hey, that's cool, just another sort of regional Chinese cuisine.  He wasn't sure about that, but he was hungry, and sucked it down while updating me on what was going on back "home".  Max ate it up, although we both kind of tensed up when Bingbing was mentioned in passing.

Jacky had been on a plane for a while, so we let him take his leave, and then Max scored forward in his chair so he could tall a little lower, in English.  "Pretty quick with the 'my friend Elaine' there."

"Dude, I've been living double lives and hanging out with people who aren't themselves for three years.  You expect me to stumble over your fucking pronouns for the next month?"

"I guess not.  It's just...  I don't know, it's weird to see you've actually got a life as Yuan-wei.  Like all I can think about is becoming myself again and you've just moved on."

"What am I supposed to do, spend all my time sitting around being miserable?  I tried that as Deirdre.  It fucking sucked."

"Yeah, but..."

"Max, there's a guy who flew halfway across the world to see me in the next room.  Don't fucking 'yeah but' me!  When I knew I wasn't going back, it was either go forward or fucking kill myself or something."

"Yeah, but you chose not to go back and now I'm--"

"Nope, not again.  Not dong this a-fucking-gain, especially not with Jacky in the next room."  And with that, I got up and headed to my bedroom.

Despite wanting to slam it, I closed the door quietly, then stepped out of my heels and let my dress fall to the floor.  I was about to undo my bra and put on a night shirt when I saw Jacky was awake and smiling, so I just got into bed behind him and held him, eventually moving my hand down to his groin.  I could feel the raised eyebrows rolling through his body, because he jokes that dicks are the only thing I'm really dainty about - I've got no problem with them in my pussy, but I don't like to look at or touch them otherwise, and just fucking forget about getting that thing in my mouth.  Still, sometimes you don't want to wait for the hard-on to just happen.

But then, something I am really going to miss about Jacky is that, even though we don't see each other that often and he can't understand some of what's in my head, he knows my moods pretty well, and when I'm feeling kind of conflicted about being Yuan-wei, he picks up on it and does a lot of foreplay, making sure I feel good about every inch of my body as it is, with a lot of tickling and laughing and just making me feel good and right before he puts on the condom and then takes it to the next level.  I don't know what he thinks I'm having doubts about when he picks up on that, but he does his level best to fix it.

That and the jet lag wiped him out, and I fell asleep soon after, not waking up until the next morning when I smelled something good.  Pulling on an oversized t-shirt but not doing much else to clean up, I went to the kitchen and saw Max making a bunch of French Toast.  His hair was kind of all over the place - Elaine and Cary had warned him that his perm was about at its expiration date but he wasn't up to hitting a beauty salon yet - so he looked kind of funny.  "What's with this?" I asked.  "First time you've cooked since the change."

"Nothing!  Just hungry and figured that after all that you and Jacky were, you know, doing last night, it might be a while until you woke up."

"Uh-huh."

"Yeah.  Cause you really like it..."

"Well, duh.  We've still got an express connection to the pleasure center down there, you know."

"No, I mean, you like it, like, all over the bedroom."

"Oh, yeah, it's kind of fun like that.  I don't know if I'd like it so much if I hadn't been a big guy, but I think that made someone picking me up and tossing me down on a bed or holding me in the air kind of exciting, ya know?"

"Uh, no."

"You've got a year as Elaine coming, so you will.  Unless you decide to act like a nun or something, and you're too sexy for that to be anything but a fucking waste."

"Are you sure?  What if it's just you, and deep down you, like, wanted something like this?"

"What, you think I was some sort of woman in a man's body before?  No fuckin' way, bro.  It's just the Inn.  Near as we can tell, it won't make you stupid or, like, give you a learning disability or anything - it won't downgrade anything in your brain - but it doesn't consider what pheromones you respond to an upgrade or downgrade, so you get what the body's got.  For a curse that's been around decades or centuries, it's pretty fucking progressive.  You may think you still like chicks now, but that's just the last twenty years of being told you're supposed to and the last ten associating us with boners.  Your brain catches up with your body eventually, though, if you let it."

"That's terrifying."

"You wouldn't say that if you were in my positions last night."  I grinned and stabbed at some eggy bread.  "Anyway, what do you think we should show Jacky first?  I know I've been trying to make these few months fun-time for us, but I how you don't mind sharing me with Jacky for a week or two.  Guy's got an ugly breakup coming, so we should both try and make the most of it while we can."

He didn't have a whole lot of ideas right then, and we stopped talking about Inn shit because that's about when Jacky woke up and joined us and we decided to hit the Aquarium and a Duck Tour.

I don't think Max really likes the idea of Jacky yet, but he's at least being polite and bit complaining about the noise coming from the bedroom.  Which is good because that ain't going away until Jacky does.

-Jordo/Yuan-wei/Missy

Jordan/"Missy" Yuan-Wei: Boyfriends

I don't have any records of how long I ever lasted with any chick in my original life, but I think Jacky Lau may be the longest relationship I've ever had.  Benjamin suggests that this should have an asterisk, since roughly half of that time has had us in different hemispheres, but I kind of call bullshit on that.  After all, if we were living in the same city, he wouldn't have the chance to forget just what kind of body he could be waking up next to.  Temptation increases with distance, right?

It makes the reunion more exciting, too.  I wouldn't exactly say it was sexual torture being away from him for the fall semester, but it did feel damn good to put on a push-up bra, fuck-me heels, and a tight dress to go down the arcade, where Jacky had just talked about hanging out, though I don't think he minded heads turning to his girlfriend and him at all.  I'm admittedly not at my best gaming in that outfit - even now, when I get in front of a fighting game, I kind of want to take a wide stance and use my size to establish dominance, for instance - but it pepped him up and made it very clear what the real highlight of the night was going to be.

I introduced him to my "mother" Chen-ai the day before Christmas, and I don't know whether she was more being playful or trying to do something to break us up when she asked if Ernesto knew about Jacky.  Yes, I said, my classmates know I've got a boyfriend back home.  It got a bit weird when she kept pressing the point, especially since she seemed to suspect I had slept with him; did she just assume that's how it went on a set?  Jacky didn't rise to the bait, not even when she mentioned that Inspector Yee had visited a few weeks ago, although she assured both of us that she made sure to mention my carelessness, so that it would be clear that what happened to Father was at worst an accident.

I blew up at her after Jacky left, something that felt like it was a long time coming, wanting to know just why the fuck she would say that to her daughter's boyfriend.  She tutted about how I was so rude these days, that America must be a bad influence on me.  I was tempted to give her the "you have no idea" line, but instead hit back with something about how, maybe, me being over there made her realize just how alone she was always going to be before storming off to my room, trying to calculate the time difference to Montreal to figure out whether I should call René or email.

I wound up emailing to be on the safe side, then heading back into the city.  I tried to phone Jacky on the way but it went straight to voice mail - he can get more tunnel-vision-y than me when gaming - so decide, fuck it, I'll just go dancing myself.

Benjamin thinks I should feel sort of bad about hitting a club solo now that I've got a boyfriend, but for me it's kind of a practical thing more than disloyalty.  I may just be there to dance and drink and show off, but lots of guys don't necessarily see buying me a drink as fair payment for getting to look at me in that dress as opposed to a down payment on getting it off, and even being with a string bean like Jacky or another girl will cut that shit down.  You've also gotta watch your drink like a hawk, because stuff that didn't seem like a big deal when it was my fraternity brothers doing it is not flying with me these days.

Despite all that, I still like getting sexy and flirting; the knowledge that I could fuck any of these guys if I felt like it rather than maybe settling for someone's less-hot friend if I'm lucky is almost as intoxicating as the booze, and sometimes you just want to bounce around to music even if you're by yourself, just as a release.  I probably didn't have that much to get out - who gives a shit what some woman I've seen like four times in the year and a half I've known her thinks just because she gave birth to the original Yuan-wei? - but it felt good, right up until I saw Bingbing inhaling some guy's face and figured, fuck it, might as well force the issue after months of trying to be tactful electronically.

So I downed my drink, put a smile on my face, and was like "Chen Bingbing?  It's been forever!  And who is this kind of decent-looking guy?  I don't recall hearing about you and my brother breaking up!"

Bingbing looked annoyed, but close to match my bitchiness.  "Wow, what a weird thing for an only child to ask, Yuan-wei!  Keep up with these delusions and people will think you're nuts!"

I held my phone up.  "Well, if Max doesn't exist, then I guess this text message and the YouTube link inside it will just get bounced right back to me!"

It was a bluff, but Bingbing didn't seem to know that.  "Fine, let's go have a smoke."  She started walking to the door, telling her dance partner not to wait, even if he really is better than kind of decent-looking.  After a quick stop at the coast check to get her purse, we stood out on the sidewalk.  She quickly lit up, took a long drag, and blew the smoke in my face.  Bitch move, but I coughed a bit anyway.  "So," she said, "what do you know?"

"The real Bingbing says you're Giorgia Wong, and if that's the case, Google says you're 44 years old, come from Chinatown, two time loser, divorced three times, no kids.  Facebook suddenly takes a nosedive and switches entirely to English in 2014.  The person using it now says you've basically abandoned your old life.  Good match for you and your sister pulling the ultimate dick move and convincing René and Romain that going back to the Inn will kill them.  Whose idea was that, you or Carlotta?"

She didn't actually answer, just pointed out that I said "the real Bingbing" when I was just talking about her, but when the changes involved both of us, the people in Montreal were suddenly "René et Romain".  I started to explain, but she cut me off.  "I'm just saying, you did the same thing when you got that hot little bod that I did - you saw a chance for a fresh start way ahead of where you were at Yuan-wei's age and fucking took it.  Sure, Carlotta told you it was okay, but so what?  You chose to be yourself instead of Deirdre when you first went to the Inn, you made a choice, and we choose to have good lives rather than the ones we had which sucked.  And if we have to lie a little to do it without hearing them fucking whine about it for the rest of our lives, so be it!"

"And Max?"

"Well, at first that was just me being pissed off - Carlotta was going to transfer to NYU at the same time I did so we could be classmates, but she goes and freaks out over Yuan-wei's father, and living in Hong Kong, and, like, how kids in their twenties do all that social media shit and abandons me, and then I meet the brother of the guy who took her place?  Watching you fall all over yourself to hang out with us but having your skin crawl every time Max looked at your tits was just funny! Although, let me tell you, if you ever come around on not being related any more, and want to get close, I wouldn't blame you - he's really sweet and his dick--"

She went on about that subject.

"-- so tell him.  I'll just say I was lonely and sorry and call you a bitch for stabbing me in the back like that.  He'll feel great that I chose him over a lifelong friend and he'll fucking hate you.  Trust me on this, I've known how to get men to do shit longer than you've been alive."  With that, she flicked her cigarette butt into the gutter and smiled.  "God, it felt good to let that all out!  I just never get a chance to do that now that Carlotta is spending all her time being a good 'Sandy' since you outed her.  We've got to hang out more - call me when you figure out your New Year's plans!"

Yeah, like hell.

After that, I decided I really needed to get the hell out of Dodge for a while, even if I had booked a flight and hotel so that René and Romain could visit HK for the first time since they went to the Inn.  I guess I was kind of lucky that they apparently were a little nervous about that themselves, because when I suggested that the for of us (me, them, Jacky) head to Australia instead, they liked the idea.  Jacky thought it was kind of weird, since I don't get much time at "home", what with going to school in America, but how to explain how little it was feeling like home that week?

I booked René and Romain a round trip that would basically fit in between their flights from Montreal, so we met at the airport, but didn't have a lot of time to talk; owing to the last-minute nature of the reservations, we wound up scattered throughout the first-class cabin, and then a crowded bus for our ride from the airport and hotel in Melbourne, then...  Well, by then it was evening and Jacky and I opted to take advantage of not having mothers or roommates nearby.

One side effect of going to Melbourne instead of staying in Hong Kong was that there was a lot less time for chatting with René and Romain about how to handle actually knowing about each other; if we'd stayed in HK, there would have been times when Jacky was just of doing his own thing or at home, but making it a couples' vacation meant he was always around.  Normally, pretty nice, but it meant I didn't really have a moment alone with either of the other Inn people until the third day, when we're sitting on a beach and Jacky & René run off to fetch us some ice cream.  Romain and I are both in swimsuits, but I don't really feel like that's rude or anything until he says I'm looking good.

"Well, I did inherit some good genes."

"You don't have to say that."

"It's true!  I watched the guy living my life drop a hundred pounds, and by the time I was done being Deirdre, I'd gotten kind of soft.  It's different this time.  Maybe I'm still enough of a guy that I like the sight of a naked hottie in the mirror every morning, but that can't be all of it."

"Mm."  Way he looked at me was different, and not just because he's gay.  He was studying me the way I do Benny and wondering.

"Look, if you really want--"

"Of course I want that!  I mourned that body when Carlotta said there was no going back, and ever since meeting you, I wake up every morning trying to figure out how to arrange it, and if it were just me...  Have you ever been in love with your best friend?"

"I've, uh, had a crush."

"Me and René is crazy - we were kind of disgusted that the Inn made us into a gay couple, but we had no-one else, and, like, now I can't be without him, and I've spent the last few months coming up with ways we could go back, but even if you don't back out, only I can, and then, what, we hope he lucks into becoming a straight guy where the fact that his English isn't nearly as good as his French, Mandarin, or Cantonese isn't a problem?"

"You guys could probably make something work--"

"We're making this work, but I know what I could have had, and been, and I kind of hate that you and René get along, because what if he actually kind of likes girls a little?  What if that's why he was so supportive those months I was doing the drag thing...  Then I think of my Dad and how the police are still poking around even though the case is closed, and I think about getting my life back and going to jail..."

He stopped there, and we looked at each other, both kind of thinking that we weren't getting what we wanted it off this conversation.  Like, we were going to sit down, talk, and he was either going to say "oh, I'm too in love with René and settled into this life to ever think about getting the life I was born with back, enjoy fucking Jacky and spending my money with a clear conscience!" or him making an argument that has me saying "ah, well, easy come, easy go".  No, instead the situation is still complicated and we both know it.

At least Romain's face seemed to legitimately light up when René got back, and is weirdly cute to watch two guys whose bodies are in their mid-twenties goofing around with their ice cream like they were actually what I look like.  Jacky started getting a bit uncomfortable when it became kissing, to the point of asking me whether all that time in America got me used to that, and I kind of wanted to say, dude, I grew up in New York, but, obviously, I can't.  It at least got him feeling kind of competitive, though, and while we didn't quite wind up making out on the beach, he did pick me up and toss me in the water.  It involved a little huffing and puffing and promising to work out a bit more,  even if I wouldn't see the results until Spring Break.

Anyway, the rest of vacation was cool - there's lots of signs in Chinese around Melbourne, so Jacky and René could keep up with Romain and I without a whole lot of trouble, we all did little girly squeals meeting koala and kangaroos and penguins (okay, maybe not Jacky), and we got to celebrate the New Year before anyone else, practically.  There's a ton of good food and streetcars and museums and stuff, too.  I highly recommend the trip.  Heck, I won't lie; I might start thinking about it long-term after graduation, depending what my Hong Kong and American situations are.

It was a bummer that it ended; knowing I'd only talk to Jacky, René, and Romain online during the spring semester sucked, although I've been kept busy enough for that not to be a huge problem.

-Jordo/Yuan-wei/"Missy"