Marilyn Vance/Juliana Nakamura: Family?

Where to begin?  I suppose with the obvious - a week and a half ago, I was your average white suburban mom, complete with all the tension behind the placid exterior; now I'm a teenager again, and from what I'm told and can see with my own eyes, a Japanese-American father and a Latina mother, crossing my fingers that my high school Spanish from almost twenty years ago will be enough for me to fake it.  My husband and son are in a similar boat, although I'm sure that they feel having a different gender is a bigger deal than a different ethnicity.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know the gist of it, although I suppose it's worth going back a bit to understand what I'm dealing with here, although I'll try to get right to the point:  My marriage to Lucas was basically over before all this, and it was kind of a relief.  The end was better than the long decay leading up to it; instead of worrying about not being enough or resenting how success for one of us always seemed to lead to sacrifice for the other, and then worrying about how all of this was affecting L.J., deciding to divorce let us be practical and start to plot a way forward.  We've even been closer to friendly since we started hashing things out.

There was a kid in the middle of this, one who is probably reading this as I've encouraged him to read the blog and maybe contact some of the other authors who have been through what he's dealing with now, and while we obviously couldn't have expected this, we knew that the split was going to throw his life for a loop.  So, maybe underestimating him a bit - L.J. is 15 and feels everything so strongly! - we planned one last family trip.  We used to visit the coast of Maine every summer along with cousins, but that changed when Lucas's job took us from Prince Edward Island to Vancouver six years ago, and we were looking to recapture that before telling him everything just before we flew home.  But the place we booked was the Trading Post Inn, there was leftover luggage in our closets, and...

Well, you probably know the drill.  I'd been doing a morning run for the previous week, so I had my phone's alarm set, and when it went off I sat up quickly, feeling surprisingly refreshed and alert.  At first, I presumed I was just having a good morning, and didn't notice anything particularly amiss as a silenced my alarm, looked over to verify that Lucas was still a stationary blob under his covers in the other bed, and walked to the bathroom.  My skin was a little darker, but I'd picked up some color over the past week, and I didn't notice that I had much longer hair, jet-black at that, until I pulled off the headband I sleep in.  By then, I had turned the light on and was taken aback by what I saw in the mirror.

I didn't scream - at first, I thought that this was a dream where I had to live out some sort of weird fantasy of Lucas's, but when I stomped over to his bed and ripped the covers off to show dream-Lucas that I wasn't putting up with this...  Well, I'll let him describe himself and how he reacted; same with L.J.  Our son figured out about the luggage in his closet first, and that's how I've learned about Juliana Nakamura.

She, Cora, and Leda are classmates at the Burlington Academy for Girls in Vermont, and had come to Old Orchard without their parents to attend a music festival before returning to school.  I won't "doxx" Juliana and her friends, but suffice it to say that they have seemed to handle their change as well as can be expected, faking a story about testing positive for Covid before flying home, editing the photos they hadn't uploaded to social media because they were just boring pictures of them in their hotel rooms and sharing them in support of this story, and somehow rigging things up so that they could text home from their computers until we arrived.  Their parents have obligingly changed their flights so that we would go straight from Portland to Burlington where they are apparently best friends and suite-mates, rather than returning "home".  We didn't do anything so advanced for the people taking over our lives, although we did send emails to our employers and school district about our own positive Covid tests.

We arrived yesterday, and we're still trying to sort out living arrangements - Cora apparently had the single room while Juliana and Leda shared the other, but we're kind of not sure whether I should let Lucas and L.J. bunk together, or if he'd be more comfortable in his own room rather than sharing with his parents, or if he'd rather have me with him in case he needs to handle female problems on short notice.  We haven't mixed a whole lot with the other students who have already arrived yet - I get the impression that this group can be a little clique-y - but I'm already worried about L.J. a bit.  The last week or so has been a lot for him to take in, from proper hygiene to just rolling up stockings like you've been doing it for years.  He doesn't want to put makeup on, but his bare face does not look like what Leda puts up on Instagram, and his idea that he wouldn't need it in an all-girls' school showed that he hadn't really absorbed how that sort of thing can be more important among girls than in terms of attracting guys.

The thing that is really making me question myself, though, is that while I know it's only been a week, it sort of feels like "Leda" takes advice from "Juliana" better than "L.J." does from "Mom".  I don't know if I can explain it, other than him addressing me by that name even when no-one else is around, to try and make it a habit, or asking "how would you try to blend in?" when I try to tell him what he should do.

That's my question to the other former Inn guests:  How do you stay someone's mother when you've got to be something else practically 24/7?

Andi/Andy: Made it past prom to summer!

Okay, actual summer is a week away or something, but "my" last final is on Thursday and then it's off to Maine and less than a month before I'm myself again, and then we start to put stuff back in order.

It could have gone a lot worse.  For the most part, my circle of friends and Andy's kind of merged, so it wasn't really weird for me to be around my actual friends, or for Andy to be around his, and it's kind of a weird thrill to not have them know who we are for real.  Not in a mean way, but whenever Shawna says "hey, tell Andi such and such", I kind of tingle a bit.  Same as when we switch phones in the evening and text for each other.  And Mom & Dad have never made a mistake or shown any signs that they don't trust us, even though we've got a lot more chances to mess things up now that we're driving ourselves.  They don't try to push Andy to act more girly or me to be more of a guy and redirect any comments someone else makes in their hearing off in another direction.

Still, some parts have been really frustrating.  I kept waiting for the thing with Andy and Len to fall apart and occasionally freaking out when they were out, because what if tonight's the night where they fuck, and Andy likes it?  Or he doesn't, and it's a huge rift and somehow all my fault?  Or Len decides that "Andi" is some sort of cock-tease and I've got to live with that reputation next year?  Nothing seems to have happened yet - I mean, I'm not checking to make sure my brother's still a virgin or anything, but I don't think he'd lie to me about this, and Len hasn't told "his friend Andy" anything about feeling like he's not getting anything he should.  I almost wonder if he's gay and is somehow sensing that it's really Andy in there, but I don't know.

It was still kind of a kick in the guy to see them go to prom, though.  As much as Andy had more or less avoided wearing any sort of really girly clothes for the whole school year, he didn't want to let Len down, so he sucked it up, had Mom and me teach him how to walk and dance in heel, spent time with Shawna shopping for a prom dress, and asked me to do his makeup.  He looked kind of great, and I did feel kind of weirdly proud.  We were both past freaking when Len kissed him by that point - Andy had kind of justified it as being like a high-five with the lips - although he did give me a signal to keep Len busy while he ran to the bathroom to regroup for a few minutes after Len gave him a deeper kiss on the dance floor.  Which annoyed my date, but big deal.

My date, unfortunately, wasn't Shawna - I awkwardly tried to ask her out sometime in January, but even if it wouldn't have been weird before, dating her best friend's brother while her best friend was dating her best friend's brother's best friend would have been more than she was in for.  She had a new boyfriend by prom, so I would have been out anyway.

Meanwhile, I somehow attracted Cindi Adams's attention.  I don't know why - both Andy and I are pretty average, and she's, like, blonde and gorgeous, with perfect skin and a pretty face and somehow at the top of the track team despite having the sort of boobs that should be messing with her aerodynamics.  We got stuck doing a project together in chemistry, though, and she decided that I was really funny, or maybe she'd just never not had a male classmate who didn't try to cop a feel and didn't make a big deal out of something like the time a tampon fell out of her bag and I got it back to her without trying to embarrass her.  Heck, that was pretty automatic; it happened as we were leaving class on a Friday I didn't even remember doing it when she thanked me on Monday.  She apparently decided I was going to be her new boyfriend a couple weeks later.

The thing is, she was a real bitch to me in junior high.  Made all sorts of jokes about me being the flattest girl in the locker room when we changed for gym class, joined drama the semester there was a part I really wanted to play and just walked off with it, always shoved me aside into the lockers when she was in a hurry.  I couldn't think of anything I'd done to her, and while it didn't really pick up after we got to high school, we mostly just didn't have our paths cross until she started finding reasons to be where I was as Andy.  I was civil - no need for Andy to wind up with her and her friends as enemies next year - but soon a bunch of Andy's friends were saying that their girlfriends had mentioned that Cindi liked me and wanted me to ask her out.  I figured we'd go out a couple times, I'd be a gentleman, it'd be a feather in Andy's cap next year, all that.  Prom just happened to be our third date.

And, okay, it did feel kind of good when I stopped by her place to pick her up and she was wearing a dress to die for with a great wave in her hair.  I admit, I kind of felt weird about the whole thing - was I thinking with Andy's dick or did I just appreciate the effort?  And she wasn't really awful; she didn't remember being mean to me specifically, acknowledged that she was probably kind of a general nightmare a couple years ago, but didn't really feel the need to single anybody (like me) out for an apology.  And she's not a bad date - she's secretly excited to try new foods, afraid that her friends will think she's some sort of nerd for it, for instance.  She can dance.  She likes karaoke as much as I do.  And, like as much as I have spent the past year not feeling like myself at all, she's both confident about everything related to her body and able to make jokes about it.  It's weirdly relaxing to be with her when we're just going to see a movie or something.

Which means that prom kind of had to be a disaster by design, because both Andy and I didn't want to get into a situation where circumstances just led to our first times because we got caught up in the moment.  So while in the bathroom after that kiss, he swallowed some laxative and something else that would make throw up.  I figured that insisting I bring him home rather than let Len do it would push Cindi away, because it would be clear "sis" was more important.

We got home without getting laid, and as we played Wii that night, we wondered if we were the first people to ever engineer that sort of escape from prom.  And Cindi was, admittedly, kind of cold to me for the next week, but she forgave me, although she didn't exactly push for us to sleep together since (not that she had, or seemed upset that I wasn't trying to get her into bed; maybe I'm a good boyfriend for not putting pressure on her, which is funny).

At any rate, we got through our classes with okay grades and he enjoyed helping build sets for drama while I didn't hate being on the tennis team in the spring (I might actually be better than he was).  Still, I am awful glad that we're heading up to Maine just as soon as Andy and I finish each other's last finals so that we can get this all sorted out.

Cary: Shh! It's her birthday

Just saw Jonah's post about celebrating Krys's birthday and wondered if maybe people might be a bit curious about how it was going on the other side.  It was, as you might expect, kind of a low-key event.  I took her into Portland for a nice meal just like last year, but it got a bit uncomfortable; the distanced tables and relatively quiet room has a way of letting you know you're doing something wrong.  Not that it really bothers Krys - as much as she kind of enjoyed the initial harder lockdown because it meant very little time pretending to be 13, she pushes hard against people who tell her what to do almost by reflex, and sometimes I've got to be the dad and remind her that it's not the world trying to make her feel like a powerless kid.  You can imagine how that goes.

That said, she's in a better place right now than she has been in a while.  You've probably never seen a young girl so happy to find her body changing - she whooped when she had her first period, she's grown fairly tall for her age, not quite the girl who's a head-and-a-half taller than every boy in her class but not far off, and she is already wanting to know when she'll outgrow her first training bra, only half-kidding when she says she's been researching which brands of chicken use the most growth hormones and to please buy that.  I tell her that her genes make it unlikely she'll ever get near what she had before, and she grumbles about stupid white-girl genes and how it's bad enough that she needs insane amounts of sunblock to go to the beach, and I generally avoid pointing out that they are also responsible for her red hair, which she kind of loves:  It's straight, long, curls easy, and makes her the center of attention wherever she goes.  I apparently got off very light in terms of black-woman hair care as Elaine, both by having her around and having it be fairly straight.

Aside from that, though, she's also reached a point in school where she's starting to find herself challenged, a bit.  You don't necessarily get amazed that someone who previously graduated high school finds themselves no longer able to coast when returning to junior high some fifteen years later, because the world moves and changes so fast these days, but it's been interesting to watch Krys grapple with it.  She's not really one for regrets, but she's smart enough to know that a lot of things could have gone differently for her.  I don't really know what her high school years were like at all, but I'm thinking she got the idea that she'd be able to get by on sex appeal early, and never really had someone make a case for other things being just as exciting.  You gather she also notices that even now, there aren't that many people like the real her in the books she's assigned to read, although it's getting better.

We're still trying to find something she really loves, though.  She took piano lessons for long enough to learn to play well enough that she can tap something out, and sometimes you'll see her fingers moving when listening to music (not that she listens to a lot of stuff with keyboards, so far as I can tell), but her teacher stopped giving lessons in the spring because of the virus and Krys hasn't been interested in picking them back up.  She doesn't think she'll wind up doing it for a living, so why should she spend so much time practicing?

You don't really have an easy time finding an answer for that.  She doesn't really want me to be her dad beyond making appearances, so I can't really use myself as an example and say that I became a jack of all trades and master of none, because she seems to think I'm doing pretty well.  You try asking if she'd liked dancing or if she just did it for money (not a comfortable conversation with someone who looks 13), and she starts talking about maybe doing cheerleading, which kind of seems like a path back to trying to count on being pretty.

It's hard to know what to do so much of time time.  With Elaine, the job was just to help her do the things people wouldn't let her do for herself, letting her look like a kid and helping her escape when being an adult in a kid's body made her uncomfortable.  That's all Krys says she wants from me, most of the time, but I also know that she doesn't want to make the same decisions as before, which means starting over as a kid, and kids need parents, and I don't know if I can be that for her someone who may be half my age but is still 28.

-Cary

Cary: Bored Girl Makes for a Busy Dad

I knew back in August that Krystle was going to be a different sort of Mackenzie than Elaine was, and I probably shouldn't compare them much.  It wouldn't be fair or helpful to Krystle, it wouldn't do me much good, and it probably wouldn't help my friendship with Elaine to thinking of her as a pre-teen.  So I'm trying not to do it, especially since they've supposedly got different goals - Elaine was always looking to return to her real life, while Krystle, not seeing that as possible, is trying to start from scratch.

(And what of the original Mackenzie Mahoney?  I gather she gained a few years, and when her parents realized they would change back but she wouldn't, some sort of arrangement was made for new identities, which apparently involved a clean-enough break that we'll never hear from the Mahoney family again.  Makes me kind of paranoid sometimes, because it's sort of suspiciously convenient.)

Starting from scratch is a heck of a difficult thing if you don't have to, though, and Krystle can't help but be very aware that her old life is going on just a hundred miles away, and the magic hotel that can make her not a kid is only a few miles down the road.  And while being a kid again sounds like fun, the loss of freedom can be a tough pill to swallow, especially when you consider that just a few months ago, Krystle was traveling the world on her own, and while there were certainly parts where she was looked at with some suspicion for being a young black man, being 11 puts a lot of other bounds on her, from where she can ride her bike to what music she can have on her phone when she's around real kids, and that was before school started.

And that's where things got tricky, because it turns out Krystle is pretty bright.  As much as I received a first-person lesson in how people underestimate you when you're black, a woman, or both, I still let myself judge her a bit by my first impression, although I also think she doesn't necessarily know her own capabilities.  She didn't pay much attention at school her first time around, I guess, and she still doesn't seem to really like reading that much, although she doesn't have much trouble with anything she's given at school.  From what she tells me, the fact that she was pretty decent at math during Jonah's senior year of high school is what had her thinking that if she went through school again, she could get into college and maybe do something with numbers when she's an adult again.

But she's bored, which is not a good combination with being used to more freedom and not exactly being able to connect with her supposed peers.  She hasn't exactly gotten in trouble yet - no detentions or me being called to pick her up from school - but her teacher told me she was starting to be kind of disruptive.  Good marks, and often had an interesting perspective during discussions, although she can be kind of pushy with them, but one student with a lousy attitude can derail an entire class.

Folks, it is not easy to have a talk with a 26-year-old woman to encourage her to behave better in the sixth grade.  She wasn't expecting anything like it when I got back, in part because Elaine told her that I more or less just showed up to maintain cover, and just looking at her, I have to guard against the 11-year-old I see dictate how I speak, even after two-plus years of knowing there was an adult in there.  When I said her teachers were worried about her attitude, she kind of laughed at first.

"Don't do that, Krystle.  I've seen bad reputations hang onto people for a long time."

"I know, it's just, when does this get worth the time?  I'm tryna pay attention, but it's so boring!  How did Elaine manage it?"

I told her that Elaine found things easier to accept when she had plans in place to return to her old life and could treat the year as a sort of learning experience, and that she also made a project out of helping me with the hot dog truck.  "Maybe you should just not worry about beyond this year; growing up again is quite a commitment."

She grunted, saying she would try harder, but looked kind of defeated the next few days.  I racked my brains trying to figure some way to help out, until I saw something on the bulletin board at the supermarket and dropped a card in front of her during dinner.  "What do you think of this?"

She read it and gave me a look.  "Piano lessons?  Ain't I little-white-girl enough for you?"

I'd actually looked up Alicia Keys' name to drop, but it didn't seem to much impress her.  "I just figured it was something you could start now that didn't involve other kids, and maybe give you something to look forward to.  I dunno, I'm trying to figure out what I'd do in your position.  Maybe try it for a week and if you don't like it, we'll try and find something else. "

She was skeptical, but she was kind of sick of going straight home after school and not really doing much until it was time to catch the bus in the morning.  I don't want to say she loves it, but she's at least busier now, and has something to look forward to a couple times a week.

It costs a bit, though, not just in terms of money, but time - it's a little bit too far to ride her bike, especially now that the days are getting shorter, and there's no buses or trains here.  So I've got to build my day around getting her to and from, which I can do.  The money's a bit trickier - Elaine and J.T. had an arrangement about her dipping into her bank account when she needed some cash, but Krystle doesn't have that with Jonah.  She has a bit of a college fund from selling someone the chance to be the new Jonah, but we haven't really figured out rules about dipping into that.

So I'm paying for this, and the new keyboard, and maybe a nicer one if she sticks with this through Christmas, but if I don't find a way to earn more money than usual this off-season, things could get tight.

I guess, in some respects, I'm going to have to be more of a parent than I figured on.

-Cary

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

Tyler/Judith: Suspension

Friday, I got a call from the school that Olivia had been taken to the Principal's Office and that I would have to come pick her up. I guess the upside of only working 2.5 days per week is that you don't necessarily have to interrupt anything important to do that. But it was a shock, since the Kid has only gotten more docile and well-behaved since being Olivia. Restless to get back to the Inn, sure, but a model student.

So I got to the office and found her and her friend Tyler being watched by the secretary. They were several seats apart, unwilling to look at each other. I could tell pretty much what had happened but I needed the details. When I arrived, she looked up, I could tell she'd been crying: "Mom!" She ran over and hugged me, burying her face in my chest.

Normally, the Kid just calls me Ty (to Kitty's consternation). Obviously, we're out in the world so she has to call me "mom," but I felt the emotion behind it. Something had happened that was going to require me to be very motherly. My stomach churned. I hoped I could handle it. I also felt a hot hatred for Tyler, if he did something to hurt my kid.

The Vice Principal, a stout black woman, opened the door to her office. "Come right in, Mrs. Walker. Bring Livie with you." Livie? That's what she goes by at school? Oh well.

I steeled myself. "So, what exactly happened?"

"There was a fight," the VP, Mrs. Thompkins said. "Between Livie and that boy out there, Tyler Chernobek."

"WHAT?" My eyes went wide at that. I looked over at "Livie." She was hanging her head.

"Livie was the aggressor," Mrs. Thompkins said, "But it was... in response to... hmm... well, Tyler stole some property of your daughter's."

I pursed my lips. "What did he steal?"

"He stole a pair of her underwear."

I felt sick to my stomach. That kid is two years older than "Livie," no matter how old Dylan is mentally. He's been in my house, he's been in her room.

"When she found out, instead of telling a teacher, she threw a rock at him and chased him down and bit him."

"You bit him?"

The Kid shrugged.

"We have to issue your daughter a one-week suspension."

"Oh, come on..." I rolled my eyes. "She's like eighty pounds, she's two years younger, this wasn't a fight it was..."

"There are policies in place, Mrs. Walker," she said. "Honestly, if it weren't for the mitigating circumstances, it could be a lot worse."

"Well, fine," I huffed, "Are you punishing that little punk out there?"

"The theft occurred off school property, and he didn't instigate the fight, but he will be forced to issue a formal apology."

"Great," I rolled my eyes. "He types out a note and you guys just... I, I'm sorry, this is a bit stressful, I know you're just doing your job." The words sounded like bitter defeat as I said them.

"I'm sure you're blindsided," she said, "Livie is a model student, her instances of acting out have really decreased lately."

I didn't want to say that seemed to be because she was making friends. I guess that's all over now.

I signed off on some stuff - trying to remember how to do my "Judith" signature - and walked Judith out of the building, past a very unapologetic-looking Tyler Chernobek.

In the car I mustered up a half-hearted lecture about using your words and not lashing out like that, but I was so worked up and offended by that brat's actions that I really couldn't justify it to myself.

At the end of it, all I could say was, "You really bit him?"

She shrugged and said bitterly, "When I was punching him it just made him laugh."

Savage, as the kids say.

At dinner, I had to update Kit about it, and I honestly dreaded it. Kit is so... ugh. He really tries to get everything to his specifications and to mold us into his model little family, I could tell he was not going to like this. And I was right. So first he offered a much more fiery version of the same lecture I already gave (ignoring me when I cut in with "I already said that, she already knows.") Then we sent her to bed early.

Then Kitty turned on me.

He wasn't angry, he didn't yell, but... man, was he pissed. "This is you," he said, "Your influence. You're like that, totally temperamental, won't let anything get in your way, don't know how to deal with pressure..."

I was insulted, but I tried not to let it show - contrary to the picture he was painting of me. Hey, I said, don't blame me, I've been a good woman. Nice, patient, calm. I'm different and I impart that on her. You're the one ranting and raving.

He went on and on about letting my upbringing influence my "parenting" more than I know. I clenched my teeth and told him he didn't know what he was talking about and I'd be sleeping in the spare room tonight. He said I misunderstood and was taking it all the wrong way, but I told him it was too late and I needed to be alone anyway.

In the spare room, Dylan/Olivia came to me saying she couldn't sleep and she had something to say. She asked if I was mad at her, and I said no... honestly I couldn't blame her but I couldn't tell her that was the right thing to do. Then she said she heard what Kit was saying to me and said it wasn't fair...

"It's like he forgets you guys aren't my real parents. I've been like this for a while, sometimes I just... lose it. I've got my own shit going on. None of this is your fault."

"Thanks."

"It's my fault."

I said not to take it too hard.

Then she elaborated: "I knew he took it. I didn't say anything because he was my friend and I didn't want to make him mad, and the more I thought about it the more I thought it was kinda cool. I didn't know he was going to show them to everyone at school. All the boys I mean. Suddenly, it was not so cool."

I groaned. "Dylan... did you have a crush on Tyler? Were you trying to... entice him somehow?"

"Ew, no," she scoffed. "I don't want that. This body and him? Me? I don't like anybody, boys or girls. I just wanted to like, be friends. Honestly, if he likes me that way in this body there's probably something wrong with him."

"Well, I can tell you," I said, barely able to hold back a laugh - despite being confused, exhausted, angry and annoyed at this revelation, "That's not how you make friends. OK?"

"Yeah," she said. "OK."

We hugged it out, and she went to bed, and the mood improved between us. It took longer for me and Kit to hash things out. I basically just said "Forget about it, it's over, let's move on." If we can, of course.

I mean, part of being in a relationship is getting through these little flare-ups, right?

The last thing I had to do over the weekend was to call Mr. Chernobek and let him know what his son was up to (of course he did hear all about it) and that his son wouldn't be welcome over here in the future. He said of course, that makes sense.

He said he was going to have a talk with his son about other people's property and privacy, and I said that was good, and hopefully he can improve his respect for women.

He was a bit more dismissive about that, just saying "Mmhm, well, you know, boys will be boys."

That tensed me up, and I told him that this was a serious violation and the whole "boys will be boys" attitude needed to change where these matters were concerned. He curtly thanked me for my opinion and cut our conversation short.

After the conversation, that really stuck with me. How much shit did I get away with as a kid because "boys will be boys?" Maybe in the grand scheme of things, that's how I wound up here to begin with...

Tyler/Judith: Back to school problems

The last time I had to deal with "back to school" stress, I was on the other side of it... sometimes it feels not that long ago that I was Lauren, facing a year of high school. Sometimes I really feel how it was "two lifetimes" ago. I've come so far. Which is scary, since it also means I'm that much further from the life I started out with. Don't think I haven't occasionally eyed that "Tyler" I keep putting in my subject line with dismay, wondering if it's time to put it away... even if I become male again, I will never be that person to the outside world. But if I delete it, that leaves me as merely "Judith," which I'm not ready to say I am, either.

This time the stress is an entirely different beast. Not only did I have to take the lead in getting "Olivia" ready to go back to school - started at her new school, that is - Kitty and I also had to have some uncomfortable conversations about what that even means.

Let's face it, the kid is a 12-year-old boy at heart. You can convince a man to behave like a woman if that's how he looks (it's shockingly easy, I've found) and you can convince a grownup to tap into their high school years and go along with their lot. But a 12-year-old kid being forced to pretend he's two years younger? When all he wants to do is grow up and get on with his life? That's downright painful. I wasn't excited about the idea of slotting him into the fifth grade. but Kitty made the argument that being around Olivia's friends would help "socialize" him, because instead of making new friends, he would have ready-made friends who already had a bond with "her." Now, I don't think I would have bought into that argument much if it weren't for the fact that Lauren's friends actually did sort of help me adapt to my time as her, but I don't think that was as big an advantage here.

Think of the alternative, though: skipping him ahead, maybe even two years? That feels like it would make him an outcast twice over. The boys would see him as a girl. The girls would see him as a 10-year-old pipsqueak. It's a no-win scenario.

Kitty suggested a compromise: put Olivia in the sixth grade. I told her that would be the worst of both worlds: he's still repeating, and separated from Olivia's friends. Plus there's a whole web to untangle if the real Olivia gets back to her life and isn't prepared for what she missed... although that's low on our list of priorities right now, I'm sorry to say.

Kitty is very much into "Olivia" carrying on the life she appears to have. If that means Dylan has to suffer through the fifth grade again, so be it as far as she's concerned. He wants her to be a perfect little daughter, playing with the hopscotch other girls or whatever else a fifty-year-old woman imagines kids do.

But when I look at Dylan, I still see a rough and tumble boy who wants to explore and get dirty. He's smarter than a ten-year-old would be, by a lot, and more self-aware. You can't just plug him into someone else's life and say "tough luck, kiddo." He's going to ask questions about why it has to be a certain way.

And I know that, because in our first week as these people, he took me aside and said "Judith, why do girls have to pee sitting down? Why can't they invent a thing that lets them pee standing up?"

I told him that those things did exist, and that we could get him one if he wanted it, but most girls don't see the point in carrying around such a device everywhere they go. He understood that. I don't think that was him complaining about having to be a girl, I think he was just more interested in the theory. That tells me he's willing to accept the situation, but he needs a bit of reasoning.

So we sat down with him - under Kitty's protests because of course she believes parents have dictatorial powers and kids don't know what's best for themselves - and asked: what makes the most sense to you? Stay in the fifth grade, with Olivia's friends, and risk being bored learning things you learned two years ago, or skip ahead and risk feeling like an outsider?

When he's faced with a tough question he gets this blank look on his face that tells me he might not actually be exceptionally bright for a 12-year-old, but he wants to understand, and he wants to decide.

Even though I was rooting for the opposite outcome, I did note that with everything going on, it could be tough, and I would understand if he wanted to take the safer option of fifth grade.

Dylan deflated that pretty quickly by saying "Why would I wanna be stuck with a bunch of babies all year?"

I tried to supress a smile - any time Dylan sides with me over Kitty is a bit of a victory but I have to make sure not to get too outwardly. excited about it.

Kitty bit her lip and ran her hands over her head. "Okay, okay, fine. But if you're having a hard time, you let us know and we will make it right."

Afterwards, Kitty expressed some annoyance that we could never seem to get on the same page with the Kid, that I was just giving him whatever he wanted and earning his favor.

I thought that was a bit paranoid, but in retrospect she may have had a point. Kitty took him back-to-school shopping and, over his protests that he didn't want to swear anything with flowers, anything pink, preferring shorts, jeans and t-shirts, Kitty bought a bunch of dresses and skirts, some with pink floral patterns.

"I am not permitting any child of mine to go to school looking like... Huckleberry Finn! Male or female! It reflects poorly on us and on her. She'll be taunted endlessly. Nobody ever makes fun of a girl for dressing like a girl."

"What's the point?" I asked. "Why turn every morning into a battle of wills? Let the kid dress how he wants and the kids at school will react how they're gonna react. If he has his own sense of style he might make friends quicker."

Kitty grabbed his temples, miming a headache - borderline offensive given my stated headache issues as Judith - and said in a hushed voice, "Olivia is a girl. Stop confusing things... Judith."

I was not in the mood to be called that name at that time, so I stormed off, locked myself in the can and drew a bath. Lit some scented candles that are supposed to be calming. If I'm gonna be treated like a woman, I might as well treat myself the way one does.

I was still mad the next day, when it was time to take the Kid to the hairdresser. Kitty just wanted the ends trimmed, and "maybe some bangs if they feel she has the face for it," but Dylan was pushing me to let them cut it all off, and I was miffed enough at "Adrian" to let them do it.

I immediately regretted it, figuring the potential fight was not worth it, that I should work at making peace instead of stoking the flames. I was all set to apologize when I brought the kid home, but he rushed ahead of me and Kitty saw her and...

"Oh my God... talk... about... adorable! Was this their idea? Because I love it! I would never have guessed she would look so cute with a pixie! I mean, it's not even in anymore but... wowza!"

I sighed in relief, unclenched a bit, and said it was a spur of the moment idea and that we thought she was going to be mad.

"I don't want us to hate each other," she said. "We're in this together, for better or worse... right?"

Well, that sounds suspiciously like... marriage vows. I mean, I know we're "married," but I still haven't decided how seriously to take it.

"Sure," I said with a smile. "We're in this together."

It almost feels like we're on the verge of making this work. But at the same time, if we don't figure out what "this" is, we might have some problems down the road.

-"J"

Tyler/Lauren: Bare truths

The First Night

One thing I have to say about Lauren's room is that it was neat. It was a study in how many ways there are to store clothes, because there are two dressers, a loaded closet, shelves, a shoe rack, a cosmetic table, and bins that contain her winter clothes. The fact that she even differentiates between winter clothes and summer clothes boggles my mind. The only non-wearable possessions she seems to have are technology: a laptop and of course her phone. This girl seems to own no books, no CDs, no DVDs... although in a day and age where iTunes and Netflix are the norm, I can see why she wouldn't. People just don't own things anymore.

I haven't sorted through the entire wardrobe yet, having carved out a small number of items I feel comfortable wearing: t-shirts and pants. It's too hot for long sleeves, and this body seems to react to extreme heat something fierce. From what I've seen, most of Lauren's clothes are designed to free up as much skin as possible, highlighting her figure.

The overprotective brother in me thinks this is not okay, and girls that young shouldn't show off their bodies so much, but the part of me that is dying of heat exhaustion thinks it's fine. I wish there were some middle-ground between "loose, breathable summer clothes" and "modest coverage" for this girl. But there isn't: I'm looking at a summer in pairs of shorts that are smaller than what I used to wear for underwear.

When I first got here, I finally came to grips with the fact that three days of just living had made me grimy as hell. This issue was already lurking in the back of my mind from the time I read Lauren's letter, but I made efforts to rationalize it: I'm a caretaker of this body. I'm going to have to look sometimes, to touch.

The sliding door of her closet is a wall-sized mirror, so no matter where I go in the room, if I don't have my back to that wall I can see myself. Have to see myself. I walked close to look myself in the pretty blue eyes.

"Hi Lauren," I said to my reflection, "My name's Tyler, I'll be... you, for a while. Sorry about this."

Closing my eyes, I pulled my t-shirt over my head at the neck - I reckon sooner or later I'll get used to the extra drag created by my hair. Then I slipped my thumbs under the waist of my sweats and pushed them down to my ankles - beneath, I had actually been wearing a pair of my own jockey shorts, which slipped off on their own, being that there was enough room for two Laurens in there.

I clasped my arms around the delicate regions and pointed my eyes at the ceiling to open them. Slowly, slowly I brought them down until I was staring myself in the eye. Then I let my gaze scan from my reflection's bare feet up along my legs, crotch, torso, breasts, and neck until finally I was looking myself in the face again. Modestly, I cupped my breasts with my hands and, in a vain attempt to complete the coverage, tried to crook one leg over the other to guard my, er, lower half.

I know this has been my body for a few days, but I couldn't get over how frail and helpless I looked under my clothes. I started to shiver and shake.

You've never seen something so pretty looking so unpleasant.

I decided to focus on little details. The freckle above her lip, her perfectly straight, white teeth, the little intents where she has her ears pierced, the little crown of eyelashes encircling her baby blues. I tried to force my grimace into a pained smile. The girl looking back at me was pretty, but you could tell she was sad and not hiding it all that well.

I wrapped myself in a bathrobe and headed for the shower, which did not have the finest pressure I've ever felt, but I get it. I took my sweet time, rinsing my sweaty parts, hairless legs and underarms, behind my knees and ears, dumping loads of shampoo into my hair. I was trying so hard to be thorough and functional about it that I must have spent forty minutes in there before turning the knob off. I feel like someone should have checked to make sure I was still alive, but that's the benefit of being a teenage girl: nobody thinks twice if you're in the bathroom forever.

I made the mistake of trying to dry my hair in the washroom, which took way, way longer than I'm used to, which is when the door opened on me... and I met Lauren's 11-year-old half-brother Kevin.

So, I guess those locks on the bathroom are just decorative.

I stood there slack-jawed. I probably could have covered up better, because at that point I was still buck naked with a shower casually slung over my shoulder, not particularly covering anything. I could have shrieked at him for not knocking, pushed him out, done anything, but I guess I was still deep in self-absorption that I waited for him to back hurriedly out, after presumably getting way more of an eyeful of his sister than he ever expected.

Wet hair and all, I slumped back to "my" room to comb out the tangles. I changed into some pajamas, laid on my side and curled up into a ball, feeling like I could use a drink.

That's the moment I've been thinking of since I got here. Less than an hour in, I had already embarrassed myself and potentially traumatized a member of Lauren's family.

School

One of the first things I did after discerning what had happened to me and Meghan was to notify the real Lauren that we had "landed" so to speak in their bodies. This was accomplished by leaving her a lengthy, rambling, disoriented message swearing up and down that her life was in good hands, and then confessing it was probably odd to hear all this in her own voice and maybe it would be best to communicate through e-mails.

As it happened, she and her stepsister had wound up in the body of a couple from Austen, Texas - what's with people coming from all over to go to Maine? (Well, I guess I did.) So I guess making a visit is out of the question. As Alice Delacroix, she's supposed to be a personal chef, but is more suited for dishwashing. Her husband, Clay, aka Tasha, is an investor of some kind, which seems like a high pressure job, but I don't know what's needed to make a go at that.

She gave me the passwords to her various online accounts, and told me she would e-mail herself all the relevant homework she had been sent on vacation with, which she had special dispensation to turn in late. That was lucky, but that leaves the final exams for the year, which I have no idea how I'm going to tackle in her place. Cram hard, I suppose. Then, if I pass all those, I still have to live through her senior year.

So Tuesday morning, I woke up in my little Lauren-shaped divot in bed to the sound of an insistent knocking on the door. I slumped downstairs to find a busy breakfast scene, with Susan, her husband Albert, and the twins Kevin and Kylie, having a free-for-all. Susan looked at my ragged sleepclothes and immediately noticed something off: "Honey, you're usually up for hours by now, are you ok?"

I thought about telling them that no, I wasn't okay, but Lauren had missed plenty of school and it fell to me to sit in her place. I sucked it up and said I was just wiped after the vacay.

"Sounds like you've got a frog in your throat," Al piped up, commenting on my conscious attempts to grumble my way through having a girl's voice with a southern accent.

"It'll pass," I said, pouring myself some corn flakes, to the astonishment of the rest of the party.

"Since when did you eat breakfast?" Susan asked.

I shrugged. The old Lauren may have starved herself, but I don't intend to. I ate quickly, then dressed once again as grungily as I felt like I could get away with. To wit: I still didn't touch Lauren's underwear drawer.

I walked the kids to their school, which was on the way to mine, which I found only through the magic of GPS.

At 8:30, I made it to the doors of Eisenhower High. 12 minutes later I was 12 minutes late for Biology. Something about my first class in my newly de-aged now-female body being biology feels like it should be delightfully ironic instead of just sad.

After taking the only remaining seat and getting a strong talking-to from the teacher, I settled in for 40 of the boringest minutes of my recent existence.

And so it begins... more to come.

Tori: Someone around here needs to get laid

And for once I'm not talking about myself.

Don't get me wrong, it's absolutely frustrating having your boyfriend halfway across the country, but at least I have someone to talk to (slash show my girly parts to via webcam) but Raine has been moping around the house for weeks after a few really negative experience with the opposite sex. When I was a guy, I was of the belief that it wasn't hard for a woman to find sexual attention -- and that's not wrong -- but it's about finding the right guy.

I feel bad, since Raine was pretty instrumental in getting me and Buddy together, so I'm thinking about paying her back. I'm doing something I would never have thought about until recently: I'm fixing her up.

Okay, this is where it gets tricky, since I haven't blogged in a while, you're not really up to speed. I started day classes in tech services last month. It's an 8-week course (I may have accidentally said 6-week in my earlier post) and it's pretty intensive. It's also almost all dudes -- some young guys, a few middle aged guys, and some middle-aged ladies. The reaction I got when I walked in was... well, it's the sort of thing I've got accustomed to over the last few years, but amplified since this is a crowd of computer enthusiasts. I'm striking, but in most contexts not unusually attractive. Here, they just did not know what to make of me.

They're pretty straightforward lessons, with hands-on assignments. Some people have been partnering up, but I'm mainly left to my own devices. It's the first time in a long while that my looks have made me feel like an outsider. It didn't help that the minute I got my hands on a harddrive, my introverted Cliff tendancies reactivated and suddenly I wasn't a pretty girl, but a skinny guy without a date.

For a while, I tried to make myself more accessible by dressing down, with plain white button-ups and cardigans, but I guess it was in vain. I don't know why I was so desperate to socialize with these folks, I just wanted them to accept the fact that someone who looks like me might be interested in computers.

Finally, in the middle of the second week, we were doing an exercise and I was having a bit of trouble. I used to be very good at my job when I did it, but it does require constant updating. I don't feel like I've lost knowledge, but I'm out of practice and much of what I know is a bit behind the times, even after only two years. This guy I'd noticeed with shaggy black hair and a hoodie -- heh, he kinds reminded me of the main guy from Questionable Content came over to me and asked if I needed help.

Embarrassed and self-conscious about seeming like a helpless girl, I declined and went back to studying the problem but he just stood there. "Look," he said, "I was having trouble with it at first, too. Let me show you what I did."

I rolled my eyes. "Okay, help me out here."

He showed me what I was doing wrong and I felt a little flush because of how obvious it was. He introduced himself as Alex. I shook his hand and said "Tori." Suddenly I had made a new friend.

I was a bit wary, though, so when I saw him the next day, I was sure to work into conversation the fact that I have a boyfriend. "We use Skype a lot, I like computers, he's in Houston right now," blah blah. It probably came off as really forced, but I pushed it out there because I didn't want to mislead this guy. Maybe he wasn't even attracted to me, because he didn't seem very put off by all this.

He's funny, he's smart but not too smart, and not overly shy... he's got kind of a Paul Rudd level of jokey confidence, which I think most girls should like. So after a few weeks, when I decided he was still going to be my friend once we were done learning about computers, I began to hatch this scheme to fix him up with Raine. I haven't told either of them about it yet, so we'll see, but I feel good about helping. Raine's been such a good friend to me since I got here, it's time I do something for her.

Todd: The High Road

I almost named this entry after a song by Matthew Good, "Us Remains Impossible." It doesn't literally describe the situation between me and Alia, but it's... it's not far off.

We've been sheepishly nudging our way back to coupledom for weeks, but between her trying to get her life back on track, me working, and the beginning of the school year, there's very little time for fun in Toddworld.

I'm back at University, trying to work off those last few credits to earn my bachelor's degree. There's no desperate need for this. I don't think it'll help me go further in my career, whatever it ends up being. If anything, it's just a way to stall for time while I figure out what I'm supposed to do with the rest of my life. I wish I had a more positive view on the situation, but some old negative feelings have been bubbling to the surface since I've re-enrolled. A lot of doubt.

Not to mention, Bry and I are still trying to work on musical pursuits. We've actually been working on a few new songs, and Bry in particular has had a burst of creativity apparently since getting back from the Inn, dating Crystal, and everything. Most tellingly is the refrain to his latest composition, "Temporary:"

You knew the deal
it wasn't real
it was onlyyyyyyyyyyyy
temporary.

I'd give you more, but I wouldn't want to spill too much, since it's a work in progress. He howls those lines with a kind of bitterness that suggest he's trying to convince himself. I haven't discussed it yet with him, but I suspect those are his feelings about Crystal. He's even more commitment-shy than I was, and it seems to be him raking himself over the coals for pushing Crystal back to the Inn. The riff he came up with is pretty intense.

Anyway, we've been working on stuff, rehearsing covers and the like, but I guess we're not ready to start begging for gigs yet. Bry doesn't want to do any shows unless we have a drummer, but most of our usual drummer-friends are otherwise engaged or not interested in the drama that seems to follow us around. Can't say I blame them, and they don't even know the half of it.

I should probably quit the music store job. It would free up a lot of time for school, music and of course Alia. But as painful as it is to keep doing a job you hate... it's money (which of course equals freedom and potential) and when I'm at that noisy, busy, chaotic-ass store, I feel more centered than I do anywhere else.

So basically I've taken this time to tell you "In case your wondering, life's tough." Suck it up, Todd. At least you're not anybody's mom anymore.

Haha, yeah. In my weaker moments, I fantasize about running away to the inn again, getting dropped in someone's life who already has their shit figured out. Old, young, male, female, I feel like at this point I could handle anything. Fake my way through a career. Become one of those "traveler" people Alia was describing back in July. Part of me could do it. Part of me would want to.

But that's the easy way, and for once I don't feel like doing that. I'm here, I'm committed, let's do that.

Oh, and Tori-- congratulations. This song's for you, girl. Whatever you end up doing with yourself (or others) in your time as Tori, that's your call, and don't let yourself forget that. you're in control, and I'm glad to see you acting like it.

-Todd

Marc/Betty: Repeating a grade.

Having heard from both teachers, it's probably worth hearing from the one of us who became a student, right? I meant to post something about it last weekend, but we'll get to why as the time comes.

The first day, at least to start with, was almost too hectic for me to focus on what was going on. We got back to Newton late on Labour Day, and had to stay up late going through the mail that had piled up in the past month, looking for the things that directly pertained to us, with Arlene forging the signatures of Don and Jillian as necessary. The Daves were no help, although I can understand their perhaps being more focused on sleeping arrangements. Little Dave was trying to push the single-bed plan, while Big Dave was having none of it. She (pardon me for this, but not having met Big Dave/Jillian before, it is hard for me to describe her as a man, no matter how decidedly unfeminine she acts) was trying to get him to rearrange the bedrooms so that Arlene and I were sharing a room that night, but he was tired and we pointed out that maybe they didn't have to get up the next morning, we did, so why not save it for tomorrow?

Then they started arguing about who would take the couch that night. It was, I suppose, kind of darkly funny, with "Jillian" saying that "Donald" should do it because he's the man, and then "Don" riposting that she'd spent the entire weekend saying she wasn't really a woman. Finally I said I would do it, just so I could get some sleep. I got everything I figured I would need out of the spare bedroom, set my alarm, and somehow got five hours of sleep before getting up the next morning and having Heidi drag my half-awake self drag me through the process of getting ready.

Getting to school wasn't too hard; Heidi had left instructions on how to use both Newton's own bus system and the MBTA to do it. We arrived a bit early, and then she arranged to tag along as the vice-principal gave me a quick tour of the grounds, since Betty hadn't flown in from Africa for orientation like new students or attended for two years like Heidi had. It was, I had to admit, impressive, far more so than the public school I attended outside Montreal twenty years ago - we certainly didn't have a swimming pool, a separate science building, or a miniature food court in the cafeteria. She was pleased to meet me, but noticed that my accent was different from some of the other Nigerian students they had hosted in the past. I'd done just enough online research to bluff my way through an explanation that Nigeria had as many if not more regional languages as an equivalent area of the U.S. I think she expected me to be harder to understand, but having lived near Montreal all my life, where it pays to be bilingual, I speak English fairly well, even if I still think in French.

The school day itself was mostly like I remember from my own high school days, only in English. The differences were striking, though. I felt odd standing for the Pledge of Allegiance, although I hope that at some point the unease will fade and I'll just be able to laugh at the absurdity of me, a French-Canadian man pretending to be a Nigerian girl, standing while the rest of the class intones this speech in a quite frankly frightening monotone. Most at least understand my not putting my hand on my heart and reciting, since I'm foreign. It at least means I don't have to spend that minute feeling uncomfortable about touching my underage breast.

The biggest change, I think, is that most of the students, "Betty" and "Heidi" included, have traded in spiral notebooks for laptops. I've got one of those miniature ones, "netbooks", that actually feels like it's about the right size because of my smaller hands. I'm still not used to taking notes that way, and neither is Arlene. Some of the kids just open them up, use the camera to record the lecture, with the intention of transcribing it afterward. For us, it feels wrong not to take paper notes, so I tend to jump between the two, occasionally writing my blog on Tuesday during classes I knew from long ago... Like French, my first class on that day.

Even though we know a fair amount of what we're being taught, Arlene and I are both putting in the time after school to study and read our assignments. We haven't heard from either the original Betty or Laskers, nor the new people taking up our lives, so I've got to make being Betty work; though I doubt they'd deport me for failing my first chemistry test, why do anything more that might move me closer to having first-hand knowledge of what Nigeria is like?

I also must say, I don't know whether to be impressed or alarmed with how clever Arlene is in terms of insinuating herself into Heidi's life, especially since I appear to be one of her primary tools for doings so. For example, last weekend, I'd been planning on just resting, maybe getting into contact with the other transformees in the Boston area or even catching a train back up to Old Orchard to see if we could meet the new us or learn more about the Inn. Instead, though, she decides it's important that we hang around with Heidi's friends.

I say she should have fun with that, but she says it's important I come along - after all, even if the Inn's curse keeps people believing that we're who we appear to be, it doesn't give us any information. But, stick a stranger in the middle, and Heidi's girlfriends will explain every little detail. So now Arlene's got the lowdown on who Heidi was dating, why they broke up earlier in the summer, which members of the cheerleading team were bitches and which weren't, and similar information about the teachers.

Useful, I suppose, although it's rather creepy when, on Sunday night, the sweet-looking young girl combing her hair tells you how it's just like reading johns, figuring out how to get them to talk about themselves, fill you in so that they feel like they're making a connection. She's quite matter-of-fact about that, and it's a little scary, to be honest - as much as the new body situation is freaking me out, she is genuinely enjoying being young again, and sees a new life laid out ahead of her as a blessing rather than the frightening situation it seems to me, but there are moments when it's very clear that she certainly hasn't put her old one completely behind her.

-Marc

Bryan/Ellie: Nothing between us

It's nearly 2 AM and I can't really sleep. I'm stressed out of my mind.

For a while things were pretty good. I was hanging out with Emily plenty, but was getting less and less jealous when she'd ditch me for her boyfriend Mike - since I had Leanne to turn to. Leanne was becoming my secret little affair. I let myself believe it was a healthy arrangement.

I dunno if Ellie - the real Ellie - would be into girls. That's not my place to say. But I am. And I was in a position to have one when I needed one, when I needed to prove my manhood (even though she only liked me if I was a girl.) It's a shame that being a girl doesn't make it easier to deal with them.

I'm keep Leanne a secret, based on the reasoning that Ellie is young and possibly confused, why make a big coming out deal when I'm not even gonna be her in a few months? But until then, I want my fun. So on nights when Emily won't care whether I'm around, I head off to Leanne's place for a little study session.

It has been great having someone else to relate to. Emily's great and all, but I feel like there was only so much of myself I could share with her. Leanne...... she gets me, as much as anyone could without knowing my whole story. And she's in a better position to understand Bryan-as-Ellie than Todd, no offense, because Todd is a grown woman and getting laid regularly (whether she likes it or not -- and part of her defs does, no matter what she says.) Until Leanne I had nothing but sexual frustration.

Now I've got some release... but also some guilt. Because I care about this chick, but I feel bad for lying to her. I'm making out with her under false pretenses. If she knew what I really was, she'd probably be disgusted.

I never thought I'd say this, but it feels... wrong to take advantage of this.

But every time I try to man up and end it, I just take one look into those eyes of hers and they take my breath away.

And then I get so wrapped up in Leanne that when Emily's relationship with Mike goes rocky - the girl is a walking drama bomb - I'm not around to be her counselor, and then a rift forms between me and her.

I mean come on. I've got to have room in my life for more than one friend, right? I was a pretty popular guy as Bryan, I was in high demand. but between the secrecy of my relationship with Leanne, my girltalk with Emily and my occasional meetings with Todd - not to mention boys who still want to know me because they think I'm on the market, and the band we've sorta formed, it's exhausting as hell and I don't feel like I'm as satisfied as I ought to be. It should be easier! I'm overeating, not sleeping (as I already said) and getting zits.

Fuck it all! Too much drama! augh!

This has been... sorta helpful... but maybe I've gotta get something done for once in my life (like homework? Fuckkkk my marks are low.) I can't get out of here soon enough.

-Bry/El

Bryan/Ellie: No frills

I don't write here much because obviously Todd is the writer between the two of us. I try sometimes, when I can't sleep, I'll open up my laptop and log in and start trying to talk about life and stuff, and then I just hate what I come up with and delete it. It's not even really anything anyone would be interested, more about being in school than being Ellie. Todd's posts are more interesting, my life is boring. Ellie's life is boring. Whoever's life it is.

But I've been having a shitty day so I thought I'd at least try.

There's this supermarket in Canada - No Frills. It's a discount place, where poor people and cheap people buy discount no name stuff. It's where we did most of our shopping in Toronto and I both hated and loved it. The prices were low enough that you could get some good mileage out of your dollar (when you were a broke ass like me) but the atmosphere was... well, it was no frills. Like shopping in a warehouse - brightly lit one with yellow signs everywhere. It hurt my head. And the aisles were about a cart and a half wide so if you saw some soccer mom or old lady coming the opposite direction it would be a tight squeeze. Anyway though, that was my life and I liked it - no frills. Crappy apartment, cheap groceries, dirty clothes. Did all my shopping at Valu Village, where old people sell their clothes so they can be re-sold to hipsters. A good place for old t-shirts, frayed jeans, corduroys, jackets, plaid shirts, the kinda stuff I loved wearing. My life lately has been the opposite.

Day in day out I have to wear the private school uniform - white blouse, plaid skirt. Ridiculously short plaid skirt. I don't even get it - is the principal (or whoever makes these decisions) trying to drive the teenage boys crazy? I went to a public high school just at the dawn of the thong craze. When a girl wanted to dress slutty, it was by choice.

But that, I can handle. Not having to make decisions about my clothes is fine by me. And I'd be cool wearing granny panties all the time too, if Ellie had any, but no such luck. This is where I weed out the pervs, talking about a 14-year-old's panties. Most of them are too fancy for my care and it's not like anyone's ever gonna see them. But laundry gets down and I've gotta go through em all.

My friend Emily has been trying to get me to dress up more on the weekends. I usually favour like, a hoodie and jeans. Basic stuff. A few months ago I ran up a big tab on Trudy's credit card at Snorg Tees so I could have some clothes I liked wearing. She was annoyed but allowed it. Trudy's a champ like that, except when she's being bitchy, which is just about always. What a bitch.

Emily is starting to get really cozy with this guy, Mike, and it's pissing me off. I'd explain this to her but then I'd have to come up with a reason why. My first theory is that he's just a dick and I don't like him. He's a teenage boy trying to bang my friend. But then I thought - so what? I was a teenage boy once and I tried to bang plenty of girls. I can't blame him for that. Then I thought, he's coming between me and my only real friend. It isn't that Emily's the only friend I've got... I've made some progress with Ellie's old pals. I just prefer Emily because she didn't know Ellie (which is probably gonna suck for her once I'm gone.) So yeah, that must be it, right? Because she's spending all her time with him and we never hang out at lunch. Except actually, she keeps inviting me over for dinners and movie nights and sleepovers, and when we cancel, I'm the one who is pulling out. So if anything, she's being the good friend! And I suck!

Todd was no help either. "Aunt Annie" was basking in the afterglow of her sexual awakening when we talked about it, and she suggested I actually liked Mike. And I'm just like "dude, don't even go there." I really don't think that's the case.

I mean, okay, I did kinda cheer her on when it came to the whole Hal thing. But I mean, come on, she was sleeping in the same bed as him, and Anne Marie's been around the block. I go to school with about a thousand gross teenage boys. I don't give any of them a single look.

So I came home late, frustrated, and hungry, and Trudy won't let me have a snack because dinner's on the way. So I got up to my room and got caught up in this flame war on a forum about whether the new Springsteen album sucks (it doesn't,) and whether the new season of Lost is any good (it is.) And dinner's still not ready and the cat won't leave me alone and my tits are driving me crazy and I just spent about 15 minutes beating the shit out of Ellie's stuffed animals, pillows and mattress and crying my fucking eyes out. And Trudy didn't come up to ask what was wrong, and I don't want her to, but I think it's shitty that she didn't.

So yeah. There it all is. Life sucks.

I dunno man. Maybe you'll hear from me again later? Peace.
-Bry/El

Bryan/Ellie: School days and suburban nights

So... hey. I guess I should introduce myself even though you guys kinda already know me through Todd. He's been good enough to share some of the details of my life with you guys cause he knows writing isnt really my thing, but obviously he can't tell you everything about my life since he's busy being Aunt Anne and really we don't get to see each other often enough. plus alot of the crazy stuff he has yet to actually mention here.

So yeah, as you may remember (I know I haven't forgotten) I've spent the last few months as a 14-year-old girl. It's....... interesting, in the way a really nasty youtube video is interesting. For every good thing there's plenty of bad. The good parts tend to focus on having rich parents, and not being so pretty that boys are paying a lot of attention to me (as far as I can tell.) The bad part involves the usual physical, uh, complaints, and constantly being surrounded by bitchy high school girls and awkward high school boys. Also my chest is rally sore and I've noticed since I've had this body it's starting to fill out a little bit. I really dont think this is something I should be around for.

So Ellie goes to this upscale private school that is a lot nicer than the public school I went to in Canada. The floors are clean and there's a lot of windows, but I have to wear the skirt for the uniform. Yeah, Todd told you about the Mercy Mamas, but it's not like wearing a skirt was something we liked doing for its own sake. It was a show and at the time it was fun. Anyway, Ellie's friends... I try to ignore them, and they've kinda ignored me, so it's hard to tell who started it, me or them.

The exception is Emily Sinclair, who was new to the school. Lucky enough, we met in the first week when she was all shy and stuff (sitting alone is kinda a giveaway) and I decided to be her friend. She's pretty cool for your average teen girl. I'm trying to mould her into someone I would actually want to hang out with, since she's at that impressionable age, so I'm introducing her to some good bands, showing her rock goes a little deeper than Nickelback and the Killers. But there's another reason I've stuck with her... she's friggin' gorgeous.

I dunno if she knows it... she seems nervous a lot of the time when boys pay attention to her. And me, I like her because it makes me feel like people aren't gawking at me. I look normal but I still don't... feel normal. But I like being around her because I know I can just be the, like, average-looking friend.

Anyway, we were supposed to go see that movie Twilight last weekend. It looks kinda dumb but all the other girls were loving it and I had this in-character moment where I agreed to go along. Until the parent-teacher conference.

I dunno how smart Ellie is, but she must be decent because her grades have been slipping a bit since I took the wheel. What can I say? How can I possibly care? I learned most of this stuff, then forgot it when I found out it was all unimportant... why should I bother to study again? I'm not gonna be in this body in six months (fingers crossed) so I don't want to, like... put all this effort into it that I don't need to. But try explaining that to the McClays. "Mom and dad" were really pissed... I dunno if I'm grounded or what, but I used it as an excuse to not see that vampire movie. I was also glad to get out of it because, well, it was supposed to be a double-date. Emily was a lot more upset than I was, because she got so nervous she called the thing off at the last minute, and now there's a big high school-type mess between her and the boy and the guy who was supposed to be my date. Whatever.

I dunno. I guess this didn't really have much of a point, except to get some stuff off my slowly-developing chest. I have a lot of time to go stir crazy in this room and if I wasn't able to write this stuff, maybe I'd forget who I really am. Unlike Todd, I've got a lot of people calling me Ellie all day long. And that really messes with your head.

Whatever.
-Bry/El