Harmon Keller/Alicia Polawski: Internet Famous

Jordan is extraordinarily lucky that my current rotation does not take me to LAX until July at the earliest, because I would be sorely tempted to murder her and then escape to Maine, allowing whoever winds up as Alicia next to deal with the fallout.  For all that being this absurd parody of womanhood has been a constant series of humiliations, this past week has been the most ridiculous.

As you may recall, I stepped in to assist Jordan last year when she required assistance in finishing her student film after her star quit, though I did not truly replace her, but rather played all of the duplicate robots that she would have played.  They were more or less mindless automata, so my work was mainly a matter of standing around in tight clothing and heels well taller than necessary to make up the height deficit with the average man or to appear tastefully fashionable, enough times that Jordan could combine the images.

It was technically impressive work, I suppose, although as somebody who knows all too well that her inspiration for a film in which a man's brain is placed inside a robot shaped like an anatomically-correct woman was not, as many would presume, about an ex-boyfriend who needed to learn a lesson, I cannot much disagree with her professors who apparently found it slight and somewhat juvenile.  It has not been picked up by any but the smallest film festivals, and not getting the best position in those.  This was something of a relief for me as I decided to remain Alicia for another year, and I soon paid it no mind.

Then, yesterday, as I arrived back at the "crash pad" after a flight from Dallas that had been delayed for hours (a delay for which the attendants are not paid!), I heard howling coming from the living room, and with the intent of telling the flatmates to keep it down, I poked my head in, only to see in horror that they were watching "I, Fembot".

I try to back away to write a furious email to Jordan, but I'm seen.  "Guys, she's here!"  Someone hits pause and then all four cluster around me.  "Why didn't you tell us you had a side hustle?  This what you were doing during your leave of absence? "

I took a careful half-step back.  "No, I was just..."  How to explain talking with other people who had lost their identities thanks to a cursed hotel?  "I was using the director's spare room - one of those services - and she had a panic attack about the other girl storming off the set, saying she'd step in herself but she would need far too much padding.  Well, stepping in to help was the only decent thing, although if I'd seen the costumes..."

"But that's the best part!  You look so hot in the outfits and it's so you to just go making guys horny without giving a shit!  Because even if they're programmed to respond, you know the sex-bot doesn't actually care."

"I hardly think that's an accurate--"

"Oh, c'mon, look at you on Insta!  Racking up the followers with all the selfies but never following back, barely responding unless someone comments on the museum or whatever you're in."

I groaned.  "I've told you, I don't take those pictures for 'followers'."

They arched their eyebrows and gave me variations on "sure you don't", but it happens d to be e true.  The only follower, or fan, that actually matters the slightest bit is Daryl, who finds it useful for me to have a social media presence when somebody asks "Magda" about her daughter.  Other than that, it's simply a convenient way for me to have some record of my time as Alicia after I finish it.  I cannot see myself becoming sentimental about this anatomy, but I cannot deny that the opportunity to travel has offset the job which requires it somewhat.  With this application already on Alicia's phone, and sharing the default, it should be a simple matter to extract that which I wished to keep.

Obviously, there was no point of explain that to the gaggle, so I just repeated that my photography was for myself and what others thought of it was irrelevant.  Then I said the shower was mine, ignoring the shouted question of whether a brain in one of those robots would have PMS or cramps simulated the way arousal was, because they wouldn't stick their boyfriends in one otherwise.

The shower was useful; though the Inn has made my body more resilient than it had been for some time, I had been on my feet for some time and just an hour in Texas can make you sweat in a way that sticks even under the perfume and deodorant.  Washing my flatmates' crude comments away was a pleasant enough side benefit.

Afterward, as I say wrapped in a towel, brushing my hair, Alicia's phone buzzed with some notification, and it reminded me that I had set Instagram notifications off, as I did not intend to interact on the platform (and, indeed, most of the messages it notified me of were just men saying how life-changing intercourse would be for the pair of us).  Out of idle curiosity, I brought the program up and looked at my statistics.

I had 20,000 followers.

They came in waves, it appears - some when Jordan "at-ed" me as he put his short online, but I apparently got put on lists as well, from the obvious ("flight attendants of Instagram") to the bizarrely, specifically hostile ("bitches who think they're too good to follow back but ain't all that").  It's more people than I've had students, quite possibly on a par with the number of people who have read my books or attended my presentations at conferences.  For doing little more than taking photographs of myself.

I looked in the mirror and wondered what a picture undressed would do to all that.  It almost seemed to be worth the experiment, just to see, especially since any reputation that came as a result would fall upon someone else in a few months.  If a younger person becomes the new Alicia, she might even find an account with thousands of followers a positive.

As an economist, I find the idea intriguing, creating something of admittedly illusory value from nothing.  The other side, though, is that it could wind up like Jordan's film - harmless enough at the time, but something I shall have to live with until I no longer have Alicia's face.

-Harmon Keller

Jordan/"Missy" Yuan-wei: Oops I Did It Again

Okay, "oops" is probably not the right word; to gender-swap one of the more memorable bits from Shane Black's script for The Last Boy Scout, it's not like I was naked in Ernesto's bedroom for no apparent reason only to trip and have my vagina land on his rock-hard dick.  No, it was a mutual decision, one coming from equal parts seeing each other constantly while we worked on each other's short films, deciding we needed to spend a couple hours drinking and arguing after our third time seeing The Last Jedi (he thinks it is perfect despite the casino stuff going on forever and do not mansplain Finn needing to know the real world in order to become a true rebel because I get it and it doesn't make the actual mission less stupid), and me just being sick of my vibrator with a song dash of knowing Chen-ai would never approve of him.  I fucked him because I wanted to and stayed the night because why go outside in this unless you absolutely have to, and there's only one thing that would have dissuaded me.

That, of course, being the knowledge that he had been sleeping with the star of my movie since day three of shooting.

Now, don't get me wrong - I've been enjoying the fuck out of working with Bree.  She's the only woman who really nailed the "not trying to be sexy but every move she makes is boner-inducing" aspect of the main character in the auditions, she's way more comfortable walking around a set in her underwear than I was, and she's genuinely funny.  I thought we were connecting even though, okay, she sometimes acted like she was doing us a favor consenting to work on someone else's movie because she was used to coming up with her own concept and choreography.  And, okay, I'm not paying a whole lot of money, so she can complain a little about it not being her most satisfying experience, I'll magnanimously allow that.  But, like, was being female supposed to give me some sort of sexual ESP so that I know the complete history of everyone that I go to bed with?  That seems unreasonable.

Almost as unreasonable as her fucking walking off the set.

Needless to say, I'm fucking pissed at Ernesto for putting me in this situation, even though there's still a huge part of my brain that also wants to say, yeah, bitches be crazy, and move on like nothing happened.  His comment that I shouldn't worry, because if she'd walked off a day earlier, we'd really be screwed, is annoying despite how accurate it is.

See, somewhere during the writing, I got the idea that the sexbot body our hero had his brain transplanted into wasn't the only one of that model his buddy had lying around, and another one was programmed to act as the nurse, another as the maid, and so on.  Kind of fun, right?  And aside from one scene which I think I can edit around, that's all that was really left - we kind of let Bree play the one character and then would do the others, even if it messed with our shooting schedule a bit, thinking this would get better performances.  So, okay, we just shoot with someone else, and grumble about how it didn't need to be digitally stitched together.

The only problem is, man, this is not a lot of time.  The insane cold of the last couple weeks made everyone late throughout the shoot (and the exterior shots miserable), I've only got the lab set rented until Monday, the costumes are made for Bree and my wardrobe gal is not really available for alterations, even if I found someone similarly curvy at the last minute (and I am burning up the phones and IMs to do so).  Oh, and I'm supposed to have company this weekend, an Inn person I haven't met and who are likely to be all "why are you busting so much ass on something you inherited from Missy?"

Something will come together, I'm sure of it, but, fuck, this has gone from something I feel really confident about to a potential disaster.

-Jordo/"Missy" Yuan-wei

Jordan/"Missy" Yuan-wei: And... Action?

As you might expect, I've gotten pretty damn comfortable with naked (or nearly naked) female bodies by now, both my own and others.  Not that I wasn't before I had my own boobs - I was down for naked chicks any time - but it's different now.  I still feel a level of appreciation that I doubt any girl who has never been a heterosexual man can truly understand when I wake up in the morning and see myself naked in the mirror, and when I'm in a changing room or something (but, like, not in a pervy way).  I've been naked with guys and found that I really like being picked up, squeezed, and given a little taste of a guy's strength - not really rough, but definitely not hesitant.  I don't freak out at guys' dicks, whether they're visible and erect or just a promising bulge, though that admittedly took a while.

And yet, spending two days in my underwear shooting my scenes for Ernesto's sort was weird.  I'm playing some sort of high-end escort, so I actually had to do way more with my hair than I usually do, with a wave and some chestnut coloring, on top of wearing my fanciest matching set of undies that isn't actually sheer enough to let people see my nipples or landing strip.  I also brought a nice dress to just sit in a heap on the floor (I'm half-tempted to send Ernesto the receipt from the cleaners).  The make-up lay not only did my face so that it would look properly lit on camera, but also so my lipstick would look like it had been super-red the night before but just faded enough now.  I have fun getting this body all dolled up, but the whiplash between folks treating me like a prop and then wanting me to show human emotion on a set is not really something I enjoy being on this side of.

Plus, you're half-naked around a bunch of people.  It's a student film, so there aren't a bunch of assistant directors and stuff, and there's only one other cast member in my scenes.  He's a local professional - I suspect that student shorts are a non-trivial part of his income, along with local indies and whatever he can scrounge up in New York - and is odd going from flurry to businesslike and back when Ernesto says "cut!" or "action!", especially since I get the feeling he thinks I've only got this part because Ernesto is fucking me (and correcting him to "no, it's because Ernesto fucked me once" would just undermine someone who is nervous enough).  Even besides him, though,  there's still a lot of people in the room, and that is okay for them to be watching me intently while the camera is recording, but kind of looking away until I've got my robe on while everybody sets up and tasks about what we might try in the next shot, is kind of screwy.

Annette laughs at me feeling weird about that, since she figures is about what I deserve for "I, Fembot" being such a super-sexualized thing, which is rich because she got me to pull a bunch of stuff out as more creepy than sexy.  Maybe she's right; I know the first auditions, before I did that little acting gig, had me really enjoying that I could ask a girl looking for a job to show me her tits, on how sexy she could walk in stiletto heels, that sort of thing.  It's part of the story, sure, but as someone who used to get told to fuck off by hot girls on the regular, it feels really damn good.  And it led to hiring someone who I think is going to kill it, even if she's done way more work as a burlesque dancer than an actress.  If nothing else, I know that nobody is going to watch her scenes in my movie like they might watch mine in Ernesto's and be like "meh, whatever, she's like a six" (probably because they just don't like Asian girls).

And that carried over into casting the other roles (aside - even casting a short film is fucking agonizing, since you've got to do it for every damn person in the foreground and there's like a thousand people and lining up schedules so that people can read together is a pain in the ass and the only thing worse than the idiots who can't figure out what you want from the character are the smart ones who find something you miss that means you might have to adjust everything else...).  Like, I don't need to see the best friend's cleavage or the abs of the guy who gets killed twenty seconds in, but I wanna, especially if I've just been looking at guys to play the nerdy inventor and trying to determine if they're just the right amount of schlubby.

And that's before you take into account all the producer crap I've taken on because, I dunno, it seems like cheating to hire someone to do stuff and I get a certain amount of satisfaction in spending Chen-ai's money.  After haggling with a building owner who should be fucking thankful that I want to rent his lab space for a few days, or putting what seems like too big a deposit down on lights, I deserve a few perks, whether it be checking out a hot girl or seeing if one of the guys would like to discuss his part further over drinks.  I start to understand where Harvey Weinstein was coming from until you remember that he would bend me right the fuck over a table and probably not bother with a condom.

So I'm trying to be better than that, but, honestly, there are days when, after cramming so much of getting ready to make this movie around my actual classes, I honestly wonder how Ernesto manages not to be a dick on set without having to worry about that scenario nearly as much.

Ah, well.  Shooting starts the day after Christmas, which means I've got an excuse not to go back "home".

-Jordo/Missy/Yuan-wei

Jordan/"Missy" Yuan-Wei: Baring It All

I told myself I wasn't going to be doing the acting part of this film/television major I'm working on now anymore, but Ernesto came to me begging, saying the script he had for his senior project had something that was perfect for me, and while I think there are probably plenty of Asian-American actresses he could find, it's fun to be asked, and I'm almost certainly going to need some of his help in making my own short film.  I may have changed my major because I felt more drawn to this than the original Yuan-wei did, and I certainly like acting less, but I've got so much less experience than guys like Ernesto who have been picking up cameras and making homemade movies since they were ten that I'm way behind in practical terms even if I do sometimes breeze through class like someone who's five years older and had some real-world experience with things the rest don't.

It's a good distraction, though - as much as I'm not really thinking of fucking Ernesto again, it's weirdly enjoyable to be working on something with a guy I have slept with right now.  The boyfriend-shaped hole in my life that I probably won't be allowed to fill until Chen-ai finds some advantageous fuerdai to marry me off to isn't completely filled with Ernesto, but the fact that I know he likes me and probably would be my boyfriend if I made the right move is something to lean on, as is just keeping busy on my own short film project and other stuff.

Some of that "other stuff" involved a quick weekend trip to Montreal so that the new Bingbing and I could talk to René and Romain in person.  I met her in the airport and still have a hard time getting a handle on her.  I'm pretty sure she was a guy before, just from the effort to dress plain and avoid makeup and stuff, but the secrecy is weird.  Most of us are so glad to have people with whom we can be ourselves that we're giving out life stories before someone else finishes mentioning the Trading Post, but she knows Chen-ai put her in this position, and probably figures we won't trust her completely anyway.  Still, I invited her along because she and René deserve the chance to meet, and if she is any sort of representative of Chen-ai, then the guys deserve a chance to ask her a lot of questions.

There isn't really a good spot to do this sort of thing - not their apartment, not our hotel room, not a restaurant, not a park.  We choose one of the last in the list, where we could be away from other people if things got a little heated, but I did wonder as we met there if the hotel had conference rooms we could rent.  I mean, I guess you could call this a meeting, as it's kind of a formal discussion even if it's not business.  But I didn't think to ask that while making the reservation.

So we met.  René have me a hug, while Romain offered a handshake.  René also leaned in to stare closely at the new Bingbing, appraising what he would look like if he hadn't been to the Inn three years ago.  We sat on the grass, and I related everything Chen-ai had told me.  René and Romain both looked shocked when they found out that Chen-ai had sent them to the Inn deliberately, and René took Romain's hand when I told them about how Chen-ai had been someone else when he was born, then started crying when I said it looked like his father had been killed.

Then he took a deep breath and let it out shaking.  "I guess that's good to know."

René kissed him on the cheek.  "I'm so sorry."

"No, it is good.  I mean, it's a hell of a thing to hear that the woman you thought was your mother resents you and your actual mother just abandoned you, and the person who stole your life may have murdered the parent who did love you, but it's kind of freeing to know that all you'd really have to go back to is money, and Mom is probably after that, too.  I mean, this life isn't perfect, and I'm not sure I'm really happy to tell Jordan here 'good luck with that', but...  I do like Romain's folks, this is a pretty nice city, and...  It's not like I've forgotten being a Chinese girl, but this is like my whole adult life."

I tried not to look too happy about him saying that, because it would be really inappropriate, but it was kind of a relief not to be worrying about pressure from that side, even if it was a shitty way for it to happen.

Bingbing looked at René.  "And what about you?  I'm not planning on making the rest of my life."

René shrugged.  "Nous sommes unis.  We're together."

"Oh. Okay."

We took early flights home on Sunday, with Bingbing apologizing that she would have liked to get to know them better, but she had homework and she was still having a bit of a challenge working in English since it wasn't her first language like it was for the Wongs and me.  René said he got that - he had to get used to English and French when the Inn dumped him in Quebec - but that it would get easier.  And that next time we'd have to meet in a fun way, maybe finally making that trip back home to Hong Kong.

I finally opened Ernesto's screenplay on the flight home - I'd kind of saved it during the trip so I could give everyone the attention they were due - and immediately noticed that my character was in the opening scene, in bed with the hero, and the stage directions had her putting a bra on with her back to the camera but not actually finishing getting dressed until after their conversation.

It wasn't the makings of a bad movie, but I kind of snickered reading it, not calling Ernesto that night.  He was in my first class Monday, after all, so I just sat down next to him and leaned in.  "You know," I said just loud enough that he'd be afraid of other people hearing it,  "most people who want to see me naked just send me gross messages on Facebook."

He went red.  "It's not like that, I just thought, you know, that it would really let you show that you're smart and funny as well as pretty."

"That's sweet, but, come on, you know I'm a shitty actor.  You just want to get me in a bed and see what happens now that I'm single again."

"Wait, you broke up with Jacky?  What happened?"

"Thing with my mother.  Be really glad you've never met her."

"Oh.  I'm sorry, if faking that sort of intimacy is going to be hard or awkward--"

Suddenly it hit me.  "Oh my God!  You don't want me for this because you're attracted to me, but because you're not!  You can just have me take off my clothes and it's like my tits are just props and you won't be thinking about fucking me at all!  Holy shit, I didn't think chicks could get put in the friend zone!"

"Sssssshhhhhh!!!"  Other people had started to come in and pretend not to take an ingest in our conversation.  "No, it's not...  Look, it's not that I don't like you like that - trust me, there's a good chance I'm going to spend the rest of the month obsessing over whether you just happened to mention you were single on purpose to send me a signal - but I got really nervous just writing that scene, and this movie is going to be a huge part of my grade, and the student films are the first thing anybody looks at when we go in for interviews, so, like, I don't want to blow it and I know I can work with you!"

"That's... really sweet."  I honestly couldn't think of anyone saying that to me before Chen-ai, and having Ernesto say it made me feel a hell of a lot better.  "Fine."  I gave him a peck on the cheek.  "I'll get naked for you.  But you're helping me make a brain for my film!"

He tried to shrink into his chair at that,  so he didn't ask me when he'd get to see my script.

Which was good, cuz it fucking sucked.

Naturally, I didn't realize it sucked until I showed it to Annette over pizza at my place, and she asked if she was allowed to be honest.  I said sure, and she immediately printed it out, got out a pen, and started crossing shit out, circling the occasional thing, and making a shit-ton of notes.  "So, I get that you want to do a guy-turned-into-a-girl thing while it's still relatively fresh in your mind and all, but, dude, come on, look at this thing.  It's all gay-panic bits and transphobic stereotypes, and, c'mon, folks like us really should be able to do something smarter than that, and even if we didn't have our unique point of view, the people who will be grading this probably won't be into something that's just broad gross-out comedy.  But there's an idea here..."

So we've spent the lady couple of weeks rewriting, kind if changing the script from "this guy has his brain implanted into the body of a female sexbot and isn't that gross?" to "not only is his brain in a sexbot body, but its operating system pops up a bunch of augmented reality stuff that basically hit him with all the messages a woman absorbs about how to dress and behave to please men at once".  We've had to cut a lot of stuff I liked out of it, even some of the stuff that Annette didn't think was trash, but it's probably a better script because of it.

Now I've just got to find a cast, locations, a crew, and equipment; shoot the thing; edit it; and then do a bunch of special effects because, like Ernesto says, this is the first thing people will look at on our résumés and I'm not sure whether I'm going to actually want to manage a shoot after this but will probably always like rendering VFX, so I should have s bunch of that in there even if mousy of my classmates are trying to be realistic.

No problem, right?

-Jordan/Yuan-wei

Jordan/"Missy" Yuan-wei: Montreal Meet-Ups

Well, here I am, back for another year of college, refocused and really feeling like I can make Yuan-wei's life mine.  There's some ironic foreshadowing going on here, but even with what I'd learn later, I still feel weirdly confident.  It tales a bit more than time to make a new life yours, but don't underestimate the power of a few decisions combined with the world just getting used to you.

I can't say that Hong Kong completely feels like "home" yet, though I have enjoyed the last few months there. I've spent enough time hanging out with Yuan-wei's friends that I don't really have much trouble calling them my friends, especially since Jacky is all mine.  We go out a lot, both because Jacky and Bingbing are both a lot of fun in their own different ways and because I don't know if I'll ever fit into Yuan-wei's childhood home.

See, as much as it's fun having a lot of room and a staff and all, it's very much Chen-ai's place, and from what I gather, she and the original Yuan-wei weren't really close.  Ideally, I'd seize on that as a thing I could improve, but it's like when Benjamin goes to see Benny's family on holidays and stuff - I just wind up missing my own folks more and not wanting to substitute her.  I've also always been a city kid, and this place is on the outskirts.  I've been biking a lot more, so that's probably a good thing, but there are times I want to ask about maybe renting an apartment downtown.  It's stupid, since I'd only use it a few months out of the year (not that this had stopped other bananas actions in the HK real estate market), but going back to live with parent(s) is something I never figured on and which occasionally seems less right than all the other weird stuff the Inn has forced on me.

So, even though it meant an insanely quick round trip that involved a lot of time on am airplane, I was really excited to fly out to Montreal for the film festival where our short film was playing.  Well, Cesar's, because the director gets to be the author as far as the world is concerned, but Ernesto and I played the two main roles and I had a lot of input into Ernesto's script (with Benjamin's help) and did a lot of the makeup and effects, so I feel like it belongs to all of us.  It would have been a lot different if they'd hired another actress, at least.  

What that meant, practically, was that when we had our premiere as the short playing before the main feature which itself was playing in the smaller of two theaters devoted to the festival on a Monday afternoon, Cesar got called up to say a couple words and mentioned that the cast was in the audience, and Ernesto and I waved.  I knew it wasn't really going to be a big-time thing, but it was a little less than I was expecting.  I mean, shit, why wear a nice dress and heels for that?  Well, I guess it did help me make a good impression on the festival programmers and stuff we talked to right before, so hopefully they'll remember me in a couple of years when I've got my own movies to submit.

I didn't have time to ask Ernesto why he was dragging a suitcase until after the show, when I was scanning the lobby for someone else. He said that he and Cesar got kicked out of their AirBNB; apparently the real tenant had not been paying his rent, and "I'm not him, I just sublet it on a site that does nothing to check on if this is allowed" does not fly with a landlord looking to evict. He was naturally pretty upset, since he and Cesar had plans to attend the last few days of the festival and then see the city, but cash was tight enough that they would just barely be able to afford switching their flight back to Florida unless their money was refunded right away.

That's ridiculous, I said, and got out my phone and my check-in receipt, saying I'd handle it. Cesar grabbed the phone out of my hand and said no. I said that was ridiculous, but he just turned and walked away. Ernesto ran a couple steps toward him, looked back at the suitcase I was holding, then said "wait a minute" while coming back to get it, only Cesar didn't.  Ernesto looked a bit frustrated, but also sort of glad he now had a moment to apologize and explain. "Sorry, Missy, but you know how he is. Whatever happened with you and him freshman year still has him pretty upset."

Ah, shit. I didn't even think that there might be some inherited reason why Cesar didn't like me. "Not much I can do about that now, but... can I at least get you a room? You were so looking forward to this!"

"I couldn't..."

I tried not to roll my eyes. It's a weird thing, just suddenly having money; you try to use it to help out and folks act like it diminishes them somehow, even though you feel like an asshole when you just sit on it. Still, I had another idea, and pulled the second keycard the hotel gave me from my purse. "Look, I've got a suite. The couch doesn't fold out, but maybe being a little uncomfortable will counter any shit you feel about accepting charity."

"I couldn't..."

"Of course you could. If Cesar gives you any shit, tell him that I wouldn't stop talking about my boyfriend and how he's the best fuck I ever had."

He laughed, said Cesar would totally buy that, took the key, and pecked me on the cheek before heading down into the Metro. I found a wall to lean against and sighed, not noticing the woman who had been keeping a bit of distance but then walked up once the drama was over. "Boys, right?"

I laughed, recognizing her from her picture and so knowing she recognized me.  "Don't make me go to old-lady jokes, because I am not above that at all."

She doesn't look like someone past sixty, of course, but rather about half that age.  She's Marie Desjardins, née Louisa Torrence, someone who Benjamin met at The Changeling a couple months back and a one-time fixture on this blog, and Benjamin said I had to meet her while I was up here.

I give her a sort of abridged version of what all that was about as we walk to a nearby restaurant.  She nods, saying that moving "back" to Montreal has been a minefield for her, because both the original Marie and Elizabeth Kim got to know a fair amount of people, some kind of unpleasant, back in the day, but it's been worth it, because it's hard to live without some kind of roots, even if they're not actually your own.

We get to the restaurant and get seated on an outdoor patio.  I get this brief feeling of nervousness sitting down because of my dress; despite having been a woman for two years now and embracing it for one, I still tend to sit by sliding down the back of a chair, and in a dress as short as the one I was wearing that day, I have to catch myself doing it pretty fucking fast in order to avoid giving a panty show.  That at least reminds me to cross my legs, I guess, although I'm still crazy paranoid when wearing something strapless, feeling like I've got to be Watt more attentive to avoid a boob popping out than I really do.

We had a nice chat, although I have to admit that meeting new people who have been to the Inn isn't nearly as cool for me as it is for, say, Benjamin.  I don't know what I'd do without keeping up with Benjamin or Benny on an everyday basis, and Jonah is okay, but I really like being Yuan-wei right now, and I don't exactly want to define myself as not being her.

Not that I said that to Louisa at any point, especially since that's not an absolute thing; I do like having friends that call me Jordan.  I was kind of surprised that she resisted the urge to mother-hen me (see what happens when I think of her mainly as "actually old" rather than the life she's living?), and instead talked about the movie.  I could tell that it wasn't really her thing, but she let me go on about doing special effects and how we shot it.  It was her first time at this festival, although she says she cuts out of work early a lot during the jazz festival.

We had a pretty leisurely lunch, enough so that when I got back to the hotel room and kicked off my heels and ditched that dress, I forgot that Ernesto might be there,  so of course he waddled out of the bathroom in time to see me just in my panties.  I jumped back and squeaked a little but resisted the urge to Cover My Nipples At All Costs.  It's not like he hadn't seen me naked or close to; we've done quick costume changes backstage, he applied prosthetic makeup to me while shooting that sort, and, oh yeah, we've had sex.  I also just don't feel like my body is something to be ashamed of.  My tits are awesome and I don't want to get in the habit of pretending otherwise.

I didn't wait around to grab a bra out of my luggage, though, and threw a t-shirt and some shorts on pretty quick rather than parading around topless to mess with him.  I asked what was up with Cesar, and he said that Cesar was upset that he was sticking around with me but not really angry.  Maybe I should have acted more surprised by how the two weren't going to let a girl get in between them, but Ernesto doesn't expect me to be a feminine stereotype.

We spent the next few days hanging out, with me keeping a running tally of how many times as many minutes our "Cast & Crew" badges were showing us to see compared to our eight-minute short.  Looked at that way, we got a pretty good return on investment, although that doesn't exactly factor in travel, accommodations, and the time we spent actually making the thing.  It's also amazing how useful just standing in line between screenings can be - the badge-holders line has press, other filmmakers, and programmers at other festivals, several of whom said they saw our short and might want to program it.  Not a bad situation for a few college kids, and since they met me and Ernesto rather than Cesar, we're the ones they'll remember in the future.  Might have been worth letting me pay for a goddamn hotel room, that.

Seeing all those festival movies didn't leave a whole lot of time to just explore the city, unfortunately, which is too bad, because even if it's no New York or Hong Kong, the folks at the festival who don't live there seem to love visiting and Louisa obviously likes it enough to move here even when it could be a minefield.  We basically got to spend a morning in the Old Port and a couple late nights hanging out with the folks we met during the day at St. Catherine's Street bars.  Fun, and if we do this again, I'm definitely springing for a longer stay, even if it means I've got to fight the urge to eat all the poutine (someday I'm going to have to write about what a fucking challenge it is trying to stay skinny, but today's not that day).

Instead, we stuck with the original plan of heading back Thursday morning - he to Florida, me to Hong Kong.  The first leg of that was just the Berri-UQAM station, since that's where the bus to the airport (amusingly numbered "747") starts.  We were just about to get on when a guy rushed up and grabbed my shoulder.  I jumped, and Ernesto got between us, asking this guy what he wanted.

"I just need to talk with Yuan-wei..."  It was pretty clear that English want this guy's first language, although most of the French-Canadians we meet during our stay spoke it pretty well.  He seemed a little embarrassed by it, but the way he compensated surprised me, rattling words off in Cantonese more fluent than my own.

Ernesto didn't understand, of course, but I was taken aback, and not just because he didn't look like he'd know that language.  I stammered something about how maybe we should talk after all.  Ernesto acted kind of protective, asking if he should join us and take a later flight, but I said, no, it wasn't dangerous or anything.  I couldn't be sure of that, but given that he said "I know we decided to just live our new lives, but I really want to know how things are back home"...  Well, that's not the sort of thing you can walk away from.  So I told Ernesto I'd be okay, let him hug me, and waved as he got on the bus.

Then I turned to this guy and asked him who he was.  He looked really confused.  "You know this; we exchanged pictures a couple years ago.  I'm René, but I used to be Bingbing!"

My jaw dropped, as a ton of ramifications suddenly went through my head.  "That's not possible - she hasn't been to the Inn, unless you don't mean CHEN Bingbing?"

The confusion deepened for a moment, and then he figured it out.  "You're not Carlotta.  Oh, shit, why would she--"  I started to explain, but he held up a finger.  "Not yet.  Romain - Yuan-wei - should hear it first."

He pulled a phone out and hit the first number on the list, and started speaking in French.  I couldn't catch much, but he seemed to be arguing with the person on the other end.  The call ended, and he let out a sigh.  "Sorry, he's got a new job and he didn't want me talking to you in the first place, but I convinced him to meet us at Place des Arts for a bit."

Place des Arts is the spot showdown that serves as the hub for many of the festivals in a city that has dozens every summer, but it's also just a nice spot to grab some take-out, eat, and talk.  We'd just arrived when another young man joined us.  Though both were white and looked about the same age - somewhere midway between the 21 I appear to be and the 26 I actually am - their styles were different, with René wearing beat-up jeans and a t-shirt and probably not having shaved in a couple of days while Romain was in khakis and a logo-free polo shirt, with a nice new haircut.  They kissed, although Romain was upset enough not to really be into it, and then René started to make introductions despite a lack of information:  "So, uh, this is..."

No, I said, you don't.  Nervously, I reached out my hand.  "I'm Jordan Chang, although I became the new Missy Lee Yuan-wei about a year ago."

Romain looked horrified.  "Why would Carlotta go back to the Inn?"

I shrugged.  "I'm not exactly sure - I'd always assumed that she was, well, you.  That's how her letter made it sound, and she said she'd fallen in love with the person she went to the Inn with, who was going back to his old life.  I think now that it might have had something to do with your father--"  I stopped short, not sure how much these two had been keeping up with their old lives.  "You did hear about that, right?"  I did not want to be breaking the news of his father's death on top of everything else, but he nodded.  "Anyway, after the police asked to talk to me earlier this year, I wondered if maybe she, who I thought was you, felt guilty and decided to stay someone else because of that.  Maybe she still had a hard time living with it."

"Maybe I would have," said Romain, "but Carlotta never struck me as the suicidal type."

"What do you mean suicidal?"

René looked at me like I was completely ignorant.  "Going to the Trading Post Inn multiple times is dangerous!  Your body becomes unstable after the first time, so doing it a second time is just too much - Carlotta and Giorgia said someone in their group who said he had been there before just melted and they only found this smelly goo in his room!"

"What?  That's bullshit!  I've been there twice, I've met people who have been there even more often, nobody's just fucking liquefied!  Most people keep in touch so that they can arrange visits the next year in reverse order so they can get back to normal."

I said that like I was wrong on the Internet, just intent on correcting some obviously wrong people, not prepared for the gut punch it was to them.  Romain actually dropped to his knees, René catching him.  It was René who seemed to recover the power of speech first.

"Those. Bitches."

We all saw what seemed to have happened - two people suddenly become young, attractive girls with money and their whole futures ahead of them, and the idea of going back becomes unbearable.  Sure, there's not much that can force them to go back to the Inn, but if you're an asshole, you assume everyone else is, so you might as well pull some big-time asshole shit to nip it in the bud.

"Not just them - us!  We told other people about the melting!  All the other people we met at the Inn - they might have been able to get back to normal, but..."  Romain looked like he was going to throw up, but held it in.  He looked at me strangely.  "You're happy as me, right?"

Not where I expected the conversation to go.  "It's fun, I've got my first boyfriend, we did that movie and came here, but, like, easy come, easy go, right?  I mean, if you wanted, you could probably go back to acting as well as producing, though you might need a new faculty advisor..."

He didn't even seem to hear the last part, just saying that was good, and telling René he needed to go back to work.  René said he was in no state, but Romain just kissed him and said he'd be fine, and shook my hand, saying it seemed his life was in good hands, and started walking.

René dropped into a bench.  "I shouldn't have said anything, but I thought, if he had seen Giorgia during one of his shifts volunteering at the festival rather than vice versa, he'd have told me, and now he knows all this.  Damn it!"

I felt like I was expected to say I was sorry, but also like I hadn't done anything wrong.  So I just fidgeted.

He forced a smile.  "So, what about me?  How's Chen Bingbing doing?  I haven't heard from her in ages!"

"She's...  She's good, I guess.  Going to school in New York.  Dating my little brother.  Not sure how the fuck I feel about that now!"

"He cute?  Maybe I should take the train down and check it out."

"I, uh, don't look at him that way, even if, you know, I have started liking boys and we're not biologically relatives any more.  Him looking at me just creeps me out."

He nodded, trying to imagine that, then clapped me on the back.  "Well, this had been interesting.  You wouldn't mind unblocking us on Facebook, would you?"

I didn't even realize the profile is inherited had certain people blocked, but I said yes, and asked if I could send his contact info to Louisa, since she had been through the Inn and was local to them.   He said he'd like that.

I offered to stick around, but he said he knew his boyfriend and that he'd need some time to think.  So we said goodbye, with more huffing than strictly necessary, and I stewed about that all the way back to Hong Kong.

Coincidence that "Bingbing" had to leave for New York early enough that I didn't catch up with her in Hong Kong?  Probably.  But maybe that's okay; I'm not sure what I'll say to her when I do see her.  I've asked Benny to watch her like a hawk, though.

As to me...  Well, until I hear back from "Romain", I guess nothing's changing.  I'm just glad I'm old enough to drink in America now; this whole situation is going t to require a lot of drinks at The Changeling.

-Jordo/Yuan-wei/Missy

Jordan/"Missy" Yuan-wei: We made a movie!

It's not a feature or anything, and I don't really know what it will look like when all the past-production stuff is done, but that thing Ernesto asked me to work on was actually a ton of fun!

I have to admit, I was kind of thinking of backing out.  Ernesto is the first guy I've fucked where I would be seeing him again whether I liked it or not, and based upon how hook-ups with people I know went for me in my original life - usually terrible, both during and after - I want sure that spending that much time with him was something I wanted to do, especially since that last week or two of fall term was uncomfortable.  That time in Hong Kong was a good reset, though - the fun pays were crazy and intense enough to make me certain that I could handle anything friggin' Boston could throw at me, and the scary parts...  Well, shit, what's hanging out with a guy you've had sex with compared to that?

It was a fun thing to bring to life. Ernesto had written a script about a guy and a girl on a date that's not going well, so as things go on, Ernesto (he played the leading man) starts to see me as some sort of vampire succubus and I start to see him as a zombie.  Something seemed a bit off about it to me at first, so I asked Benjamin to take a look at it, and he said that the cynicism was too simple, that we should still see each other as tempting and desirable. We could still wind up fighting, but it would be more interesting.

Ernesto wound up liking the idea, although the director took some convincing, telling him something about not letting his little head do the thinking. Ernesto and Cesar have been friends since they were kids and I get the impression that I'm not the first girl whose opinions he's dismissed, especially when they arrived via Ernesto. That this advice was coming from a girl who used to be a man after consulting with a man who used to be a girl would probably melt his brain.

Once we got Cesar onboard, it was a lot of fun. Really hard work, though in a completely different way from the play:  Where that was a nerve-wracking marathon for me even though my part was tiny, this was an often-frustrating series of long nights and weekends and afternoons when enough of us didn't have class, doing the same thing until Cesar thought it was good enough, then doing it from another angle. Then, the next day, we do it with one or both of us wearing prosthetic makeup, then switch it up. There are folks on set making sure that all the little details match from day to day, right down to how tight the corset I had stupidly agreed to wear when I was supposed to be a complete sex demon by the end was.

I kind of loved it.

I fucking get the whole deal where you run something, get the bugs out when it fails, and then run it again. And the tech was so much damn fun - one of the producers somehow got a Red camera on loan, and while that made the shoot really tight - along with basically only being able to shoot the restaurant scenes from nine to midnight and the other restrictions - We could only shoot the restaurant scenes from nine to midnight along with other restrictions - it was amazing how good everything looked.

There's still a lot more work to do - Cesar and Ernesto are still editing a month or so later, someone's writing a score, and I've used some of Yuan-wei's money to buy a pretty killer graphics workstation so that we can add some more blood to a few scenes. I usually hate CGI blood, but it's kind of fun to work on, and apparently restaurant owners' charity only goes so far, and they don't like arterial spray all over the place.

Hopefully I can get that finished soon - Cesar was kind of upset that I didn't get it done by spring break, and now Ernesto is already teasing me about how Cesar's going to want to oversee the rest of the effects work personally, and use my new machine to work on the editing, saying he'd have to keep an eye on me to make sure I didn't fuck my way into a bigger role.  Not really bitter, but kind of poking at me to see just how much my brain runs in that direction.

Or maybe jealous.  Kind of neat, that.

-Jordo/Missy/Yuan-wei