Andi/Andy: I Don't Believe This!

I'm trying not to be too mad at Andy, because it's not really his fault, but I can't help it.  It's just so frustrating!

We decided to spend the weekend hanging out with Krys and her friends (who call her Mac because Inn), having a beach day while we both had the bodies for it.  Krys's friends are a grade or two behind us, but whatever; it would be a lot weirder when Andy looked like some guy in his thirties.  It wound up being a little chillier than expected - New England basically decided to remind folks that it's not officially spring for another few days - so it wasn't really great weather for walking about shirtless, which I'd been weirdly excited about and scared of.  Like, yeah, I haven't had breasts for months, but even doing track & field, I've kind of had the tendency to change quickly and not take my t-shirt off during practice even when I'm getting really sweaty, because who knows, forces I don't understand are involved, and I could just suddenly change back, or I don't want to get into the habit for when we turn back.

Anyway, Andy was happy, because I guess he associates Len slipping him some tongue during prom with wearing a dress that showed a bit of cleavage, and he wasn't really looking forward to wearing a swimsuit, even a one-piece.  He was pretty glad to be able to have shorts and a t-shirt over it the whole time.  He kind of wasn't in the mood for much Saturday, and then yesterday he kind of waved us off and went back to the hotel room early in the afternoon, leaving me alone with Krys.

Which was fun, but weird - she was flirting with me pretty hard, and I kind of didn't know whether she was teasing or if she was trying to make something happen before I turned back.  And there's part of me that would kind of like that - like, what's the point of being a guy for the better part of a year if I don't get to try at least making out with someone, especially someone like Krys who has some experience.  A lot of experience, to hear folks tell it.  As both a girl and a guy.  I mean, I could learn some stuff.  But then I also get freaked out by just how Krys has been able to get all that experience and still look younger than me.

So I said good night after we got some pizza at Lisa's and headed back to the hotel room.  There was no answer when I knocked on Andy's door, so I figured he had already left so he could be at the Inn if the change happened overnight.

He wasn't, though - I heard groaning from the bathroom when I woke up this morning, and then a thunk as he fell.  I rushed in and saw him him struggling to sit up.  I helped him to the next room and got him on a chair - yay for being bigger, I guess - and asked if he'd been drinking or something and didn't realize how it would affect him at my size.  He said no, he just felt like he got hit with a truck the afternoon before, came back to the hotel suite to have a nap before heading to the Inn, and didn't wake up until morning.

A light went on in my head, and I said to stay right there while I ran to the nearest drug store and bought a couple of Covid tests.  We both took one, and I tested negative while he was positive.  Crazy; we've been together most of the past week or so, and it's not like I was that much better about wearing a mask than he was.  I got him back into his room right away, opened all the windows, and then headed out to the sidewalk myself.

I was about to call home when Krys rode up on her bike and asked how Andy was.  I asked how she knew and she shrugged, saying that ever since Cary started leaving coupons, a lot of people would come to the hot dog stand for explanations and such after they changed, and I looked at her in horror.  "Andy wasn't there - Covid knocked him flat yesterday afternoon!"

She looked at me wide-eyed and moved back a step.  "Are you...?"

I shook my head.  "Negative, for now, but you should probably get a test, too."

"Yeah, of course, but what about the curse?  You've lost a window!"

I hadn't even thought of that, really - seeing Andy with my face looking so sick didn't leave room for much else in my head.  I said I'd have to figure out what to do about that, and then called Dad and told him what had happened.

He gasped but managed to get me calmed down a little when I started talking fast and frantic.  He wanted to know first and foremost whether Andy was all right, and I said he seemed really tired and weak, and shouldn't it all be more mild because we're vaccinated?  He said nothing was 100%, which is why they still told us to wear masks and get outside as much as we could, but that Mom would call him right away to see how he was doing first-hand.

That's when I brought up that the Inn had done its thing without him, so what were we going to do?  I said I figured maybe I could head over there starting tonight, and then he would probably be well enough to take over after I changed, and that would gave us plenty of time to arrange to stay an extra couple weeks or hope that maybe we could squeeze another change in - it's not unheard of for enough people to hang around the Inn during peak vacation time long even after they change so that they change back before the next two-week block - but he said to stop and slow down and think about it a little more.  I wouldn't know who I was turning into, and if we couldn't finagle that extra change somehow, it would be a whole year in a life I knew nothing about.  That as much as me and Andy switching places was weird and uncomfortable, it was sort of a best-case scenario for us.

Then he said to hold on, that Mom just got off the phone with Andy, and that we were to isolate in separate rooms, wear masks indoors, all that, and not to mess with the Inn until we were sure we could extend stays a couple of weeks.

I don't have a good feeling about this, and the fact that I may have more chances to go shirtless doesn't exactly help.

-Andi-with-an-i

Marc/Chantelle: Getting a little help

"Happy" Friday!

This morning a special delivery came to my house: Always pads, a bottle of Midol, a hot water bottle, chocolate and a few other items.

"This should help a little, but if it's as bad as it sounds you should consider seeing a doctor. - Love, Laura"

I'm a little too proud to go running to a doc over every little thing, although there's a voice in the back of my head saying that I don't really know what's going on with this body and it couldn't hurt to check it out. Being estranged from your own body really is a wild ride because we all take our baseline health and wellbeing for granted and I'm now spinning out about: what do I not know? It's not like Chantelle could have provided me detailed medical records from day one, and so far she has been incommunicado. I feel strangely anxious about reaching out to say "Hey, are your periods always this much of a nightmare??"

It makes me wonder. I don't exactly feel like I have been set up for success in this body, but then again there's something so suspicious about me being a former lawyer and being in the body of a lawyer -- two entirely different facets of law, but still transferrable skills. Things easily could have been worse.

The pills helped, the hot water bottle helped, the chocolate wound up feeling like the best chocolate I had ever had in my life. I texted "Damon" to say thanks and got no reply. My wife is ghosting me. How do you like that. Talk about mixed messages.

I can't believe women walk around feeling like this though.

Andi/Andy: Back!

Well, back in Old Orchard, at least, although we should be back to ourselves soon enough.  Since the luggage we found in the room belongs to a guy, the plan is for Andy to stay at the Inn first, and then when he turns into this "Arnold" person, I take over the room, turning back into myself as soon as there are 13 guests (which seems to be how it works), then having him take the room, and become himself again when the curse hits again.  Kind of sucks for Arnold, who's going to have like two months of his life being out of circulation and a lot to explain when he eventually gets it back, but you can only plan so much where there's a cursed inn involved.

While one of us is at the inn, the other is staying at a place a mile or so down the road.  It's a suite, but most of the time, only one room will be occupied for the most part, because Mom and Dad can't get enough time off between them to have one of them there all the time.  Mom flew out with us to check us in, but both she and Dad have in-person commitments for their work today, so we've been on our own since she got into the Lyft for the airport this morning.

Are we excited?  Hell, yes!  Mom and Dad aren't exactly over-protective, at least not when we're ourselves, although they've been keeping a closer eye on us this year than they might have otherwise, although once they saw that we didn't need help or excuses and weren't going to screw up each other's lives just because we got mad about something, they stepped back a bit.  Still, when we got back to the hotel room after dinner, she sat us down and pointed out that she and Dad were putting a lot of trust in us, even though they knew how important this was to us.  She said they were going to be checking the activity on our debit cards and to call immediately if there was any problem.  But when she left, we seemed to be in a different world.

We spent the morning sort of looking for stuff to do on our phones - there's an amusement park and the beach, but what were we going to do here for six weeks?

Our first stop on our own was the hot dog truck, and we waited until the line was finished before we walked up.  Krys was working, and she looked at us for a few seconds before her eyes lit up.  "Andy and Andi!  You made it back!"  Before we could even consider ordering, she was out the back door and hooking her elbows around our necks, even if it meant pulling my head down.  Then she looked back and forth.  "Your folks?"

Andy said they had to work so we were on our own.  She was like "really?", then whipped out her phone, took a selfie with the three of us, and sent it off to Cary, saying some people have guardians who trust them, although she also said he wasn't really that bad.

We all looked each other over.  She'd gotten taller than Andy was/I should be, especially with her shorts cut off about as high as they could be.  She still had the freckles, and had a red ponytail coming out the back of her baseball cap.  And then there was the way her t-shirt hung.

She caught me looking and laughed.  "Hey, I'm not gonna be mad - a spent a while with a dick, too, ya know!"  Andy and I blushed, which just seemed to encourage her, clasping her hands and twisting them so that her arms pushed her breasts out.  "I don't think they're done growing yet, but even if this is as big as they get, it's such a relief!  So many redhead white girls wind up 'petite' and 'slender', by which they mean 'flat', and that wasn't me!"

Someone walked up to get a hot dog, so she ran back into the truck, served the customer, and came back out.  I had to admit, I was kind of amazed at how loose she seemed.  We'd met her last year, while we were stuck in Old Orchard while waiting to get our bodies back, and while Mom and Dad weren't entirely comfortable with us hanging out with someone who was really in her late 20s, she was also the only person we could hang around with who would believe who we are.  It was kind of weird spending time with her - it must have been like sitting at the kiddie table and being expected to have something in common with the pre-teens for her, except that when she forgot she should look at us as kids, she and I had actually did a lot of the same things in school.  Andy, not so much, but he found her super-cute, even if she scared him.

We lost touch after the Inn screwed us up and we went home; most of what we wanted to text each other about was weirdo transformation stuff and neither of us were really good at explaining the messages when the phone notified us - and, again, Mom and Dad thought me having a friend twice my age was weird.  So I hadn't really seen any pictures or talked much until we got there, and was kind of surprised at how everything seemed to be coming so natural to her now.

I told her that and she laughed.  "Well, Cary says I never really grew up the first time, which pisses me off sometimes, but I dunno, I did go through a bunch of men and never lasted at a job and spent a lot of time drinking and smoking weed and never settled down.  Maybe he's right, and I just needed my body to get to where my head is at.  I dunno.  It's funny, though - I decided to become Mackenzie after Jonah stole my life so I could have a sort of second chance, but it really feels like I'm just getting that second chance now, y'know?"

I didn't, really, but I was glad things were starting to work out well for her.  It got busy for her again soon, but she gave us some tips for what to do with the afternoon and said we should hang out with her and her friends tomorrow.

I really hadn't realized how badly I'd wanted someone I could talk to about this that wasn't Mom and Dad.  I've gotta remember not to fall out of touch with her when we're just two girls who had some weird experiences.

-Andi-with-an-I

Marc/Chantelle: If the shoe fits (and all the other stuff too)

I've been in Chantelle's body for weeks now, but this was the first week I was in her life. Getting up at six AM, making a tentative stab at makeup, dressing myself, going to the office, walking around in her (uncomfortable) shoes...

...watching everyone's eyes on me as I pass, afraid to make eye contact, wondering what they think of this person they see before them, not wanting to be here in any sense of the word... trying not to stumble in my heels and trying to walk tall with my chest out without looking like I'm, I don't know, trying to put the "girls" on display...

I nearly tumbled down the stairs to my apartment when the toe of my shoe missed the step altogether. Only a reflexive grab for the railing prevented me from doing worse than a slightly sore ankle and a momentarily pinched back. I walked around the block -- click-clack-click-clack -- to try to walk it off. Wound up with sore toes. I get why women wear runners up until they get to the office.

I haven't worked in an office in a few years, and my memories were very not fond, as you can imagine based on the fact that I left a field I had spent a lot of time and money getting into (and was comparatively quite lucrative.) By the time I quit my job I was utterly disillusioned with the idea of  the 9-5 grind, especially because it was more like the 8-8, bordering on 7-9. In the days leading up to my return, I was dreading it, and guess what that got me. Chantelle's hives. Evolutionarily speaking, I don't understand these things... being stressed or nervous makes me itchy and irritated, and then the itchy irritation proceeds to make me more nervous and stressed and the whole thing creates a feedback loop of discomfort and dread.

I wonder if there's some kind of medical treatment -- a cream or a pill I can acquire -- but if the root is psychological, I may be suffering them for a long time because my already fractured psyche has gotten a lot worse since waking up on the wrong side of the uterus. (More on that later.)

On the weekend, I sorted all my clothes according to whether I thought I would actually wear them, in an attempt to determine my "outfits" for the week. The problem was, once I got down to it, my original selections had left me with very few options. It isn't that Chantelle's fashion sense is somehow outrageous, it's just that it's, well, decidedly feminine, and that was not something I was prepared to process. I had to recalibrate my standards and accept that showing my arms, or a lower neckline top, was not going to kill me, nor were shorts with ruffly accents, sheer parts, colorful patterns, or other things that I would not conceive of myself as wearing as a man recently transformed into a woman. Also early on in my adventure here I placed an order for about 18 pairs of underwear replicating what Chantelle already had (after checking labels and seeing where she bought from and what her size is) so that I can at least feel clean and fresh and not like I'm wearing someone's hand-me-downs. The order arrived within a week or so, thankfully, right ahead of my "return" to the office. Thank God, clean undies. (For now -- see below.)

For the first two days of the week I wore a pantsuit, figuring it would be the most familiar thing to wear, but the truth is, the pants not fitting like menswear, on my decidedly not menswear-ready body, made the feeling even stranger. I made note of how some of the other women in the office wore pencil skirts and decided, with some reluctance and a little bit of curiosity, to join them. Others wear full-on dresses but that just seems like a bridge I am not ready to cross.

When I first put on the skirt, I rued it. Here I was squeezing myself into a sausage casing, which leaves nothing to the imagination and only goes down to my knees, leaving my now-smooth womanly legs bare, and showing the world every curve on Chantelle's body -- back, sides and front (I've got that little... belly thing women get right at the waist?) It's the kind of thing where I would never wear something so tight as a man because I would be bulging out of it in the wrong way, and I had to mentally get over that hump because I don't remember ever judging women for wearing clothes this tight. It's very strange to keep reminding yourself that when people look at you, they emphatically do not see a man and as strange as it feels, to the outside world it looks "normal."

On the other hand... it's been warm, and being able to wear what amounts to an even breezier version of shorts while I work has been an unexpected pleasure, as long as I can stop worrying that if I cross my legs the wrong way I'll give the world a glimpse of what's beneath. Then there's struggling with accommodating the office's temperature, which is brisk compared to the outside (probably because of all the men in here wearing slacks -- something I never thought of when I was one of them!) I am almost ready to join the league of blanket-wearing office ladies.

The tops can be pretty snug too, straining against the breasts, I feel like if I exhale too hard I'm going to pop a button, not that there are many of them... on some of these tops the neckline goes way down. I'm not judging Chantelle or anything, it's all within bounds of professional attire, but as a man in this body I feel very exposed. Also the buttons are on the wrong side just as a fun little reminder of who wrong this body is.

I mentioned the shoes. At the end of the week I screwed up the courage to wear a pair of open-toed strappy sandals with only a little bit of a heel, which gave my feet a bit of breathing room, but having my toes out there for the world to see seemed perverse -- on top of, you know, the boobs, the underwear, the hair, the everything. But I guess I'm supposed to have my toenails painted if I'm going to do that, to add some sort of visual interest. I've thought about whether I want to try to do that myself (I painted Laura's nails once or twice) or pay $65 for some other woman to do it for me.

Something that's not totally unexpected... the difference between doing corporate law in Boston versus real estate law in Albany. It's not exactly a challenge -- here's the boilerplate contract, here are one or two provisions that the clients made -- but not having to kill myself at all hours is very liberating. I go home at 5:30, kick off my shoes, open a beer, and... just forget about it. Dinner for one, Wheel, Jeopardy, Netflix documentary, bed at 10. Even rideshare driving didn't leave me feeling this mellow.

The office is a decent place too. Not a huge operation, maybe a dozen or 15 folks. People welcomed me back with a mixture of empathy and curiosity because I was supposedly sick for so long. Weirdly they seemed to indicate that Chantelle has spent a lot of time sick, and I can't figure out if they meant it in a suspicious way or a sympathetic one. I didn't speak much because I really don't know how Chantelle would be in these situations. And besides, one or two of the conversations took a very strange turn.

"You and... Damon Schmidt, right? You were both stuck there?"

Damon -- aka my wife Laura -- doesn't work in my office, which is something of a relief, as much as I wouldn't mind having an ally here. He's a real estate broker affiliated with the firm, which is a job Laura doesn't know much about having never even bought a house, so I'm not sure what it means for her. I suppose if she wanted to talk about it she would post here but she is keeping her distance, much to me frustration. He's also married. And yes, he disappeared while on a getaway that also included Chantelle.

People will talk.

I'm being tactful. I honestly don't know whether Chantelle and Damon had a fling going on. It might very well be none of my business. I'm simply going to deny and play it down, and when Damon and Chantelle aren't seen in public going forward, the rumors will drop off.

That said, I really do feel like I'm walking on eggshells. I don't want anyone to look too closely at me or what I'm doing. I want to get through this and find a way back to...

To...

Hm... what am I supposed to be going back to?

Lastly, in the middle of the day yesterday this body visited me with my very first period. I had a sense it was coming because from the weekend I was feeling a severe pain that I had never experienced before and I put two and two together. Of course I couldn't be in the bodies of one of those women who get mild menstrual symptoms, these were damn near debilitating. I wanted to post about it but I didn't want to be called wimpy for not being able to handle what might be the "normal" amount of pain for a woman but I really think this was abnormal. The bleeding itself wasn't overly traumatic, it was just "Oh, there goes a decent pair of underwear, and now I have to figure out how to... take care of it." And once that started the painful symptoms trailed off to a dull throb.

There was a tampon dispenser in the washroom, as well as a few spare ones rattling around the bottom of my purse but I never thought to bring it to the washroom, and anyway I wasn't mentally ready for that. I dashed over to Walgreen's for pads, but uh, I don't think I'm a "pads gal." Feels weird. I've got to figure out a solution that works for me.

This is my life.

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.

Marc/Chantelle: Don't pretend you didn't look

I decided today was the day to leave the apartment. I haven't been seen in public since I got to Albany, basically settling in and coping with the situation but this morning the sun was shining and I desperately felt the need for a coffee other than the stale Maxwell House in the pantry (in my house we always kept coffee in the fridge but I guess Chantelle and I differ in that way.)

As compared to my last outing, I've had time to get accustomed to this body. I know well that I have boobs and a butt and that most of the weather-appropriate (gorgeous spring we're having) clothes don't obscure that fact, although loose-fitting jeans appear to be "in" for young single ladies. I think they're ugly but if I can get away with them then I am on board. Finally, fashion designers are thinking of the much-overlooked "women who are secretly men with odd relationships to their new bodies" market. 

The trade-off is that these jeans have gaudy big holes all down the leg. I guess I'm old enough to say "who would buy jeans like that?" while still young enough to look at women ("other" women?) wearing them and feel satisfied that I am fitting in. I topped that off with a light top and a cute little jean jacket, because why not?

Of course nothing could make me forget that under those jeans, and the light top, were ladies' underthings. I still can't get over the fact that I have this body and am wearing these clothes, it is so wrong and yet, it just makes me laugh. Little old me, with girl parts.

Being out in the world was a very strange experience. I suddenly became very aware of myself, how I walked, stood, carried myself... do I stand with my shoulders back or slouch? What do I do with my hands when I talk, or when I'm idle... fold them under my boobs, stick them in my (shallow, un-usable) pockets? When drinking my coffee do I sit up straight or lean back? When I walk down the sidewalk, what does my butt do? These are not things I ever gave a thought to before. I sat in the cafe and watched everyone, men and women, and made mental notes on what I saw, just for comparison. Is there a natural "feminine" way to stand, hold your arms, walk? And do I want to aim for it or somehow defy it and just "man" it up?

The downside of all this people watching was... it's a two-way street. I think I'm used to being more or less invisible out in public as a very vanilla, very forgettable-looking guy. If anyone ever noticed me on the T or in a bar, I sure didn't notice them noticing me, and I had Laura as deflection anyway. I had that was located near the exit of the shop, so after three or four guys noticeably angled their heads to look at me -- including guys who had come in with girls -- it became impossible to ignore the pattern. After about a half hour, I mentally calculated the odds of some guy asking to sit across from me -- or worse, not even asking but just doing -- and decided I had had enough of being out in the world, and left.

I'm not totally ignorant, I know what it's like for women out in the world, they get all sorts of attention they don't want. I'm not special, I probably wasn't even the prettiest girl in the place. But imagine never having that in your life and not wanting it, and one day you wake up and it's your reality, like it or not? I'll have to get used to this idea very fast.

What worse, I was guilty of it too. I was people-watching all morning, paying special attention to the women. I had so many weird thoughts about that... comparing myself to them, their bodies, their fashion, their energy, and usually feeling like I was coming up short. Then I would notice the guys they were with, and think, "Really, him? He looks like a gorilla..." or at best have very neutral feelings about them.

As I walked home, I kept my head tilted down, and put my earbuds in, not making eye contact with anyone. I had had enough looking and being looked at for the day. I spent a lot of the afternoon on my phone. I've noticed that if Chantelle's sisters don't hear from her often they razz her pretty badly, but I still don't know what to say as her so I respond to a lot of their texts with reaction gifs and hope I've captured her essence well. Seems to be working.

Jonah/Krystle: Reconnecting

Hey, how's everyone?

Gotta admit, I thought I was done with this blog, that I was just Krystle Kamen, single mom, climbing enthusiast, more tomboyish and church-going than anyone who knew her in high school would ever expect, and I was kind of okay with that.  It's not a bad life, and I figured it would become more and more mine.  After all, I talk to a whole lot of people in their twenties who seem to have basically left their before-college life behind, especially those from abroad - you meet a fair number of them in this city when Covid doesn't have everything shut down - and other single moms whose pregnancies didn't necessarily meet with their parents' approval.  I'll never really think of my life as normal, I don't think, but it kind of is if you choose your starting point from after I got pregnant and ignore that there's a pandemic in the middle of it.

So what's up with today?  Well, it's been a heck of a weekend, with a lot of stuff that involves me having started out as Jonah Glass, and I don't know where else to get it out.

As longtime readers know, I've been estranged from my parents, and while the pandemic has at times at least had us texting and calling a bit more, since it hit people of color in customer-facing jobs fairly hard and that's me/Momma Kamen/Karla, on top of how Little Moira couldn't get vaxxed until just a few months ago.  The original Krystle wants no part of me, and I don't blame her, and after some initial reaching out, communication with June petered out as he lived his/my life.  It's been kind of lonely, but it's helped me focus on giving my baby as normal a life as I could, and that's a silver lining, I guess.

June - "Junah", as some folks call him - reached out to me a couple weeks ago.  He was graduating from college as Jonah Glass and thought that I might want to be part of that.  He'd checked with my parents, and wanted to invite me to the barbecue they were having, if that wasn't too weird.  I wasn't sure what to say at first, but really wanted to go.  My parents and I may disagree about a lot of decisions I made, and there's nothing in this world that can mess with you like the idea of someone being better at your life than you were, but these are all really important pepole to me.  

Still, I was nervous when I said yes.  My dad came down to pick us up that morning, and we had about an hour to drive, and I tried to ask him about a few things quietly as Moira played with a doll in the back.  He looked a bit hurt that I'd ask, but he seemed to understand, and basically said that he hoped we'd be able to put things behind us.  It was good to hear him say that, and we talked about basketball the rest of the way.

I could kind of hide how nervous I was when I arrived by introducing the suddenly-shy Moira to Gramma Glass, who she hadn't seen since she was a baby.  Still, facing Mom was nerve-wracking.  I get my hair straightened these days - it looks "more professional" at the climbing center with the mostly-white customers - and I'm in pretty damn good shape, but I'd spent a lot of the previous two days worrying about how masculine or feminine to present myself.  Like, the boobs can't be hidden, and it's not like I wear summer dresses with a lot of cleavage regularly, but I kind of also didn't want to look like this being my life was something I hated.  I wound up in capris and a camisole, praying that I wouldn't wind up changing into a swimsuit because Moira wanted to go in the pool.

It went okay.  We hugged, she mostly said she was sorry for how things went down (Moira's namesake views "I wish we could have handled it better" as not really an apology, but I'll take it), and she was delighted by how Moira was already carrying favorite books around and how much she looks like both her parents.

We didn't have long to ourselves; another car pulled into the driveway while we were still talking, a hybrid model that kind of looked nice but still had a few miles on it.  From where I was standing, I initially just saw Junah in the passenger seat as it passed and then noted the Black Lives Matter bumper sticker, though I was half-surprised when the driver got out and was white as heck, a 22-year-old redhead in booty shorts without any booty and a crop top that made it clear she'd never had a baby between her tiny waist or the bee stings on her chest.  She gave me a couple furtive glances before going over to Mom, leaning down with an "and you must be Moira!".

I raised an eyebrow at June.  I kind of knew what he looked like from social media, but it was odd looking at him.  I could recognize my old face, but it was a man's face now, and not just because he'd grown a beard and settled into a sensible half-inch of hair on his head.  I don't know that anyone who didn't know about the inn would peg him as, I dunno, conservative if not in a Republican sense, but he to me he really looked like someone more settled down by time than a black man in his early twenties would.  "So...  Who's she?"

He chuckled.  "Oh, that's Alana.  She's great.  We've been seeing each other a year and, well, you know how dating for folks like us is, right?  Am I attracted to her because she reminds me of myself, or because she doesn't, am I trying push too hard on what I figure comes naturally for this body, does she sense who I am underneath or just like what she sees on the surface, all that, but it never felt like there were questions with her."

I shrugged.  "She's cute, I guess."  I felt like I should maybe feel some attraction or something, but didn't; she did less for me than the average girl in the locker room.  "Seems really young for you, but I guess she's my real age and how old people thought I was when..."  I let it trail off.

"Yeah, but it works."

I shrugged and went to collect Moira, asking if she wanted to help make lemonade.

Folks from around town arrived.  Some I recognized, though I had to be told who others were.  Four of the other members of the youth group I went to the inn with were there.  One had a baby of his own and another was pregnant.  She didn't bring a husband and had a lot of questions, and I honestly couldn't remember how she'd treated me when I said I was staying as Krystle, but watching me play with Moira seemed to reassure her, that if a former guy like me could handle this, so could she.

Dad grilled, we all ate, and it was really nice.  It was most awkward with Alana, who saw me as old - nearly thirty! - and probably kind of a creep for how old Jonah must have been when Moira was conceived.  Technically true - I was way too young and the guy who knocked me up was a monster - but really misdirected.  Having an adorable kid shields you from a fair amount, though, and Moira is super-adorable, at least until it gets to be around two or three and she's dragging but insisting she's too big a girl for naptime.

We both wound up staying the night, and it turned out we were both early risers.  I was making Moira some pancakes when June came into the kitchen and sat at the bar.

"I thought you ought to know - I'm going to ask Alana to marry me."

I froze.  "Okay."

"She's already got a job waiting for her with her family's business, so we're moving to Colorado, and if I'm going to that, I might as well really tie myself to her, right?"

I shrugged.  "I guess?  I mean, you've got way more of that sort of experience than me."

He chuckled.  "That's true.  For example, right now, she knows I'm going to propose, because she's no fool, but she sort of convinces herself that she doesn't, because even ladies of your generation don't want to be pushy or have the moment when I do ask be underwhelming.  But she thinks about the possibility.  And since she only found out about 'Krystle' and Moira a few weeks ago, it's heavy on her mind."

"I don't see what it's got to do with her."

"Look at it from her perspective.  We're about to move across the country from where we've been, and it sure looks like I've got something major tying me back here.  So she wants to know what the arrangement will be."

I groaned.  This conversation was the one I'd worried about and asked Dad about when he picked me up.  When I told my friends about this invitation, they all warned me that it wasn't exactly me who was being invited, but Moira, and that maybe I should be kind of wary because for as much as I've been able to get away with having no formal custody arrangement while my babydaddy was in school, this could be and attempt for him and his parents to get some control over Moira's life.  I told most of them that I didn't think it was like that, but I couldn't really argue with Karla's personal experience.  I figured I'd escaped the whole conversation, though.

"There's not going to be any arrangement.  You're, like, technically Moira's uncle or something.  The twin brother of the man who, you know, did the deed."

He chuckled.  "I guess that's one way to look at it, but Alana doesn't know that, and she wants to be the good stepmom, even if she doesn't want to be that full-time.  She wants me to be able to see my daughter, and she doesn't want to make an enemy of you, but she absolutely will take it personally if you say that the two of us can't be part of Moira's life.  And I'll be honest, I don't want to be seen as the bad biological father who ignores his daughter, especially since...  Well, you've probably got some idea of what folks like her parents think about broken Black families."

I laughed nervously, expecting him to join in, but he didn't.  "This is stupid."

"It is, but here we are."  He took a sip of coffee as he heard stirring in another part of the house.  "So, anyway, when she brings the subject up at some point, and she will, don't totally shoot her down."

At that point, Alana came into the kitchen, asked if she could help, said hi to Moira, and then Mom and Dad, so there was more breakfast to make, and we all kept busy enough that the subject didn't come up before they left to get back to backing up their apartment in New York and Moira and I hugged Mom goodbye so that Dad could drive me back.

I gave him a slimmed-down version of the conversation, and he said something about how much simpler it would have been if Krystle and I had just gotten back to our right lives.  I asked if it would be better for Moira, and he said "God only knows", not in the offhand way a lot of people do, but as someone who would really like Him to share that information.  He said he really hoped that it didn't come to a situation where he and Mom didn't have to choose between supporting their actual son or the person everyone saw as their son.

Not exactly the complete support I would have liked to hear, and though I didn't say that, I asked him if maybe I should have declined the invitation.  He admitted that might have been the smart play, but that he was very glad to see us.  Maybe, he joked, we should have waited for a different occasion.

Maybe.  Still, given that we haven't found the right occasion at any point in the past few years, it was probably better to not wait for the perfect one.  Even if this one did end on a reminder of what a tangled mess the Inn can make of your life.

- Jonah/Krystle

Marc: Playing the cards we're dealt

The good thing about these days is that when you need to disappear for a little while, everyone understands it. I've had some communication with Chantelle's office and they've been able to put some of her work onto others while I, the person who'll be living her life, get settled in. I did sense some pressure to go in, which I'm feeling like I will have to bow to sooner than later.

We spent a few days at the hotel, conferring with the other transform-ees about their status. Seems like the place has been mostly a couples getaway since that's who people were and what they remained, although we were not the only ones to have their genders remixed (or their partners...) Since there's room for 13 at the Inn I guess there's one solo person but I didn't meet them and I guess it doesn't matter. All through that time we went through periods of quiet reflection on the situation, punctuated by the necessity of eating and flipping through my phone for distraction, ruing the fact that this place has no cable so I had to miss Celtics-Warriors game 1. Laura went out for a walk once or twice to break the boredom, but I couldn't let the world see me like this.

Obviously I was going to have to eventually, but I wasn't up for doing so recreationally. Get me from point A to point B as quickly as possible, please.

When we left Maine, I was wearing a scoop-neck tee shirt and jean shorts without a lot of give to them, basically the most casual travelling outfit I could piece together from Chantelle's luggage, even if it did display a lot of skin. I made a note of how different the temperature of the air felt on my body, and the fabrics... and of course, having no male equipment to get bunched up in the shorts. I had big sunglasses on to obscure my face, and even though very few people are wearing them anymore, a mask. I wasn't initially planning on wearing a bra, but after seeing how my breasts felt and looked without one, I gave in, and partially as a result I now know what it feels like to sweat under your boobs. I borrowed some of Laura's underwear, the idea of wearing this strange woman's panties seemed very wrong to me so if I was going to wear someone else's garments it might as well be my wife's. I won't lie, there was something a little... kinky about that, as by the time we were ready to go my opinion of this body went from "get it out of my sight" to "hm, let's look a little longer, what's the harm?" Laura also put my hair in a bun, explaining to me what she was doing as she did so that I could replicate. 

I have to admit, there was a strange intimacy to her doing this, even though she is not in her own body. It was part discomfort part connection. Knowing that my wife is in that body, and yet she was very close to not being my wife anymore, and that body not being a familiar one or something I find myself physically attracted to, gives the whole deal a weird push-pull that I would rather not deal with, so I tried to subtly keep her at arm's length.

There was something we didn't want to talk about... her being in the body of a married man.

"Marc," she said, trying to put as much feminine sympathy into her voice as would go, "I have to... you know..."

I didn't necessarily want to hear it. I couldn't wrap my brain around it. A two year saga of therapy and hard nights and fights and reconciliations and unanswered questions, and this is what it comes to? The universe reassigns our sexes and splits us up? I'm supposed to let my wife go be with someone else... as a husband?

I know she isn't excited about it or anything, but she feels a sense of responsibility. These are peoples' lives. We can't just toy with them, it's not right. How would we feel if...

I stop her. We've both had the sense for a while that I didn't care what happened in my life.

I say, "It's too heavy, it's too much. We'll talk later." I focused on Chantelle's phone, trying to catch up with her work e-mails and personal texts, of which there are many, especially from "Emma" and "Amanda," who seem to be into telling Chantelle everything about their lives. Their group chat is called "Carey Babes" so I assume they are sisters or relatives. 

I spent a lot of the ride fidgeting in my seat. Between my new underwear riding up, my bra digging in, and certain other unique facets of this body, I was scratching and pulling at myself too much for Laura's liking and got scolded for it. Women have entire lifetimes to get used to these sorts of things, can you please give me a week to be a gross, awkward weirdo before I rejoin society?

(This may be TMI but we're all friends here: Chantelle's pubic hair is seemingly just growing back in after being shaved or waxed, and it is very itchy down there. I recognize that I should probably not address that in public, but we weren't near anyone on the train and it was driving me buggy.)

We took the Downeaster back to Boston, spent some time tidying up the apartment and gathering a few personal things and spent the night there before proceeding to Albany in the morning by rental car, an awkward drive.

I took myself home, although being on my own, in this body, in a strange city -- even just in the back of a cab -- was eerie as hell. Chantelle has an apartment to herself, and an orange tabby that was staying with a neighbor lady. The cat's name is Hardy and it seems to particularly enjoy pressing on my boobs, sometimes with its claws out. Cats are evil.

The place was neat and very much more decor-oriented than any place I lived on my own, very much a woman's apartment. I felt like a guest walking in, with the distinct fear or messing anything up. Having been in a relationship for years, I am pretty well-acquainted with a lot of the trappings of womanhood. If I were a man on his own -- which I guess I am now -- the place would be minimal. Almost nothing on the walls (not since I outgrew the need for band or Spider-Man posters) no vases or trinkets. I don't even know if I would own throw pillows without a woman's influence in my life. I think about whether I'm going to make this life suit me, or I'm going to change myself to suit this life. After all I've had years of not being that "minimalist" guy anymore. Maybe Chantelle's life is closer to what I'm used to.

After a hot day in transit, I decided it was time for a shower. The water and suds felt good on my skin, although it took me a while to figure out exactly what was the right water temperature now since a good "hot shower" may not involve cranking the knob all the way up anymore. I'm trying to embrace scented body wash since that was what was on hand. I'm not going to pretend to be more sheepish than I actually am -- it's my body, I might as well do what I can with it. If that means spending extra time soaping up my breasts on my first day on the loose, who can judge me? I'm a man, I'm curious what things feel like and while I may not have my proper equipment, there's something pleasurable about it all. Facing it and, in a way embracing it, is a good way to process.

I spent a few days in a bathrobe, or not wearing anything but a pair of light shorts and a t-shirt from the band Twenty-One Pilots, slowly coming around to the idea that I have to be this person. I busied myself by cleaning out the fridge and scrubbing the bathroom. I spent long moments gazing at my new face in the mirror, examining her, trying to get to know her and who I am supposed to be as her. I don't really see myself in it, which is a strange feeling. I took a few selfies, trying to get a feel for what people were seeing when they looked at me, what I might look like when I smile, frown, make a joking around exaggerated expression, etc.

At times, I have thought about where this is all going -- facing the reality of being another person -- and I've been seized by hives, itchy red patches on my arms, neck and chest. Physical manifestation of my own nervousness. Great, just what I need, among surely other fun surprises this body has in store for me.

I still have a suitcase full of clothes to put away.

Bras, panties, skirts, dresses, tops, tights, jeans, shorts... four pairs of shoes. Accessories, hair products, skin products, makeup. The buy-in for womanhood is so high, and I know a lot of it's elective but in certain fields it's not. I wake up and my hair is in knots and I have to brush it out. I'm learning things to do with it. I thought about cutting it off, but... I actually don't want to? I've never had long, flowing hair before and I think it goes well with this body, it's just very hot all hanging off my head and seems like it might be the devil to upkeep.

I don't know where to start with makeup. I think I look okay without it?

I do think I will trim these nails, which are very difficult -- in my male opinion -- to type with either on a keyboard or on a phone. It's very strange to me that women wear long nails and work around them instead of doing what's sensible.

In the three-page double-sided letter I received from Chantelle, I was directed to a very specific nighttime skin care routine that I have adhered to. Following this instruction has added some normalcy to my life. Someone, just tell me what to do. Maybe I'll do it, maybe I'll do the opposite, but either way I'll have a direction.

Laura -- or is it Damon now -- and I have texted a little bit since parting at the train station, but I'm keep her/him at arm's length. I wonder if a clean break is best, as gutting as that is to me. It's true that I was, at times, nearly as ready to end the relationship as she was, but not like this. Now I feel like I need her more than ever and yet I feel it is not right for us to have a lot of communication, and maybe it's not wrong for me to go it alone.

This is my pouty face.

Marc:

I've had a few days to process this but it's still got my head spinning. The idea that my world has been "turned upside down" doesn't even begin to cover it... inside out and backwards too.

All weekend we were somehow revitalized. It was like we were kids again, all over each other. Like I said, any problems we've been having, it was like we totally agreed to leave them back home and be our best, most loving selves. We made some truly lovely memories walking along the beach and seeing the town and just getting back to being the versions of ourselves we loved most.

It was Wednesday, right in the middle of our week away. We came home from the bar, tipsy and falling all over each other -- honestly, tearing each other's clothes off.

We got into bed and turned out the lights and started messing around. I was on top of her, doing, well, what I do, when I suddenly felt strange. I thought maybe from the booze, maybe something I ate, I didn't know. But something happened to me that is never a good sign. I kind of... fell out of her.

She asked what was wrong and stammered, "Oh, just a little off rhythm or something, let me..." you know, you get to a certain age, you become a little self-conscious about performance and making sure all the equipment works. Hey, it has happened before. But in my head I'm trying not to freak out, but I know that this is not right. I'm raring to go.

I've gone totally limp... I reach down and realize... it's not even there anymore.

"Babe?" asks a strange voice. My own voice freezes in my throat in response.

The light clicks on and Laura's there, but... she's changing. Her hair was suddenly short-cropped -- it's like it's been sucked into her head. Her facial features were shifting too, her nose and jawline widening, her breasts flattening into her body. Her shoulders are starting to look, comparatively, like a linebacker's pads.

It happened slowly yet quickly. Suddenly long dark hair was flowing down from the top of my head. I realized I didn't have a dick anymore...... and she did.

She -- or is it he now? -- grabs me with a thick paw. My arm is like a noodle.

"Marc," she says, her voice now a low baritone. I'm frozen. I know what's happening before I know what's happening, but I don't believe it because it's not possible. The hair on my chest tingles as it fades away and my pecs -- soft as they are -- begin to sag into a pair of breasts.

"Laura...!" I gasp, my voice clearly not my own. I'm shaking, I don't know what to do.

I collapse into her arms and we just... hold each other until it's done.

It's a few hours of shivering in the dark before I realize I have to pee badly. I try to convince myself it's all just some weird dream but the situation won't let me. I disentangle myself from the person who was Laura and stand. My legs are wobbly. Oh God, I think... I don't really have a dick right now. I try not to think the word "anymore." This could be... temporary... somehow?

Biological needs come first. I relieve myself, very reluctantly obeying my new physiology. With every step across the room I can feel a pair of unfettered breasts bobbing around my chest, reacting to every slight movement. I sit, rest my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands, combing through my abundant new hair and try to get a handle on what's just happened.

I go to the mirror and... she's pretty, if not any sort of beauty queen. A young, bright-green-eyed woman with good cheeks. I realize my hips are very wide and my breasts aren't small either, I've got an hourglass shape.

I throw up, just barely making it back to the toilet, with chunks landing in my new hair. Yuck.

Laura sits up in bed and calls out to me. Her new voice is rough and sandpapery and hard to associate with the person I married. She has salt and pepper hair and looks significantly older than I do now.

"I found something," she says.

A woman's luggage and a note written in rather impressive penmanship, from Chantelle Carey, 26-years-old from Albany, NY. Single, no kids...

Fresh out of law school. I gulp.

I'm trying to work out what is worse, being a woman or being a lawyer again. If I'm being totally honest, lawyer wins by a country mile. Unexpected tears fall down my face. I give in, curling up in the fetal position. After everything from these last five years, this... this is too much.

It wasn't until the next day that we ascertained Laura's identity, Damon Schmidt, 46, also from Albany. His luggage was in another room so if they were here together, they weren't trying to make it look like they were.

He's married. I ask Laura if she's okay with that, and she only asks whether I see a choice.

I tell her there's always a choice, a mantra of mine from when I quit my job. She makes a sour, scrunched face, which, on Damon's, looks very weird and not as cute as when she did it.

We've had a few days to wrestle with this.

Tomorrow, we embark.

Marc Green: I never expected to find myself here

Here as in Maine. Here as in this weird old "Inn" that looks like it's seen better days. Here as in... staring down divorce shortly after my 35th birthday.

Laura and I haven't completely thrown in the towel yet, but things aren't looking good. We've been together for ten years and I don't know how else to put it but it simply feels like the relationship has... run out of gas. We've become strangers to each other. We seem to be happier apart. We fight over really stupid things and just walk around pissed off. I think the resentment has just built and built because of certain decisions that I made, but if she can't understand where I was coming from with them, then I don't think it was meant to be. We're several years into this situation and nothing's going to change, besides getting worse.

Someone wise once said if you do what you always do you always get what you've always gotten.

When Laura met me, I was finishing law school. I was clean cut, upwardly mobile, and energetic. She was a budding entrepreneur, and, same as she is today, the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. We had something of a tempestuous dating period, broke up, got back together, got married, and decided to try to find our way together.

The usual sticking points -- where to live, whether to have kids -- troubled us, but there was always love. But I didn't feel right in my life. 80-hour weeks were killing me, I cracked. I quit my job and became a rideshare driver while I tried to figure out what was next.

She didn't approve. That makes it sounds like she's some kind of harpy, but she had a point. We had a certain standard of living and I had pledged to support her business, which was now reasonably successful and self-sustaining but not "lucrative." She chided me for putting in long days on the road making less money than my long days at the desk had.

Then the pandemic hit. You can fill in the rest.

We decided to take this trip... I'm not sure why. Either as a last ditch effort to see what we love about each other, or as a big send-off before we file. I'm trying to be charming and sweet, and take her out to dinner, go dancing, see the beach, whatever she wants to do. Let's leave Marc and Laura's problems back in Boston. There's a celebratory air here, with people hoping for the first "real" summer in this sleepy resort town in years. Let's try to catch it.

Andi/Andy: Weird Christmas Break

For those who feel like I left my last post on a cliffhanger, Andy's date with Len was, sadly, not a disaster. I'm mostly happy about that, I guess. As much as it puts them on a path to having sex before we switch back, it's not like I want Andy to feel like his friend is rejecting him, and I sort of like the idea that he might find me attractive, even if a lot of it comes from actually clicking with his friend. It kind of took talking to Mom and Dad about it to think about it that way, and I don't know if I really fell it, but it could be worse. Andy isn't really that hot on getting that intimate with a guy anyway, so he'll probably be able to take it slow.

Plus, it's created more excuses to hang out with my friend Shawna.  Andy kind of likes to have me around when he and Len are out to kind of cool things off and warn him when he's getting out of character, so we find a way to invite her to keep anyone from feeling like a third wheel.  At first, it was super-awkward - she knew what was up in general, if not the extent of it, obviously, and didn't know what to say to "Andy" when "Andi" and "Len" were focusing on each other, but, hey, she suddenly realizes she can talk to "him"-slash-me.  It kind of works out.

Or I hope it does.  If she's trying to send me signals that I should ask her out...

At least being on break means we're not dealing with school right now.  It looks like there's another round of Covid chaos coming up, but at least it's not spending all day worried we'll get called out for not being nearly as knowledgeable in the classroom as we are on our homework - we try to write our own essays and stuff even if we can't take our own tests, hoping like heck that schools aren't going to weight SATs much because we can't fake that.  It's really stressful trying to be both Andi and Andy depending on the hour.

Especially for Christmas!  Since Mom and Dad know the truth and we weren't Zooming with the grandparents to start the morning, we must have looked weird under the tree, with the guy psyched about the Taylor Swift album on vinyl and the girl whooping at some football player's bobblehead (we're not total stereotypes but we're not exactly the opposite of what you'd think if you saw us with our normal bodies).  Mom and Dad like taking reaction pictures, which look screwy, although we kind of had fun recreating them so that they could have some to post on Facebook.  We kind of hammed it up a bit.

Still, the calls with the grandparents were awkward.  They'd mailed us presents from Florida and wanted to watch us open them, so I fake looking excited at what they got Andy and he acts like the hat with the pom-pom on it is way cuter than it is.  I mean, it's pretty cute, but he's not exactly into cute for himself, so he overdoes it a bit.

Lying to them sucks.  Lying to everyone sucks, but lying to them sucks more, and I hate that I'm kind of relieved that they couldn't fly up for the holidays so that I didn't have to be lying to them full time.

-Andi-with-an-I

Jordan/Yuan-Wei: How Did I Become the Voice of Reason?

I hit "new post" to offer some advice to Andi after reading her post, but just doing that made me pause, because who the heck am I to offer expertise?  Like, I fell into a situation where it seems like I know what I'm doing and have the resources to cushion my stumbles, and every once in a while I get Jonah asking me something like I'd know better just because I graduated college a couple times and now I'm acting like I can just jump into Andi's issues.

But, you know what, I kind of can.  At least enough to say it's okay to be freaked out.

I mean, you look at the way people stop posting individually or sometimes the entire blog gets real quiet for months on end, and you might think that when there's no relationship drama or external circumstances messing with chances to get back to the Inn, you're supposed to just have completely acclimated after a few months or whatever, but it's been seven and a half years for me and it's still weird as hell sometimes - fuck, it's weird more often than not, both because or in spite of being able to let family and friends in.

Anyway, I can speak to her specific situation a bit - go ahead and let a guy suddenly having an interest in Andy-as-you throw you!  Maybe you never though of him that way, but he sounds like he was a big deal and it's totally natural to have trouble with the idea that someone else is being a better you than you could be.  Benny dropped a huge chunk of fat that I'd just accepted and had girls looking at him in ways that they never looked at me, and even before Kareena, I had a lump in my stomach about fucking that up and then was mad about what he'd taken from me.  Yeah, I relinquished it willingly, but I had to, or else I'd be the asshole, right, and in a really bad situation with a good person.

So, it's probably a little too late because your brother went on his date while you were posting, and maybe it was a comedic disaster that will never be repeated.  But if it's not, tell him it bugs you so that he can slam on the brakes before it gets too late.  He's your brother, and I as much as Max would probably be pissed at me for horning in on his dating life just because it intersected with my life, I'm pretty sure he'd listed.

It's probably going to be nothing, though.  I mean, yeah, you see some people get all caught up in their new hormones and rewired brains and meet someone new or see someone with different eyes and just fucking go for it, but most of the time, diving into a relationship is hard.  Like, I enjoy getting laid and even going on dates, but when it becomes something else, I'm still trying to figure out how to make it work.  A lot of my not posting this year was because I met a guy and it was going well enough that I didn't want to jinx it, but it still never clicked.  I'm not trying to be the guy, exactly, but never really seemed to click as the girl, and a month ago he got frustrated with something stupid and we ended it.

Then again, you guys are teenagers and probably crazy with hormones and he might dive right in thinking he's just going to hang with his best friend and gets really caught up.

Probably not helpful, that last bit, but you've got to consider the possibility.

See, I suck at this.

-Jordo

Andi/Andy: Help!

Do I have the order right for my names?  I was born Andrea, but now I've got to be my brother Andrew, and since we're twins, our folks always made the effort not to elevate one of us over the other, but it always trips me up in stuff where order is important.

I don't know if I'm going to become a regular poster here, but I lost contact with Krystle-slash-Mackenzie when I changed "back", and I'm hoping that she reads it or her foster dad does or something, or maybe someone who has been in a situation close to mine, because I need some advice and Mom and Dad are being no help whatsoever.

So let's start from the top:  My family went to the Trading Post Inn at the start of summer - me, my brother Andy, my mom and my dad - and you know the drill; we got changed into new people, another family like us, who I guess were locals who had stayed at the Inn while some repairs were done on their house.  It was weird - Mom and Dad became Dad and Mom, and we had to get used to new faces - but mostly I was a year older and Andy a year younger, so I got to do some bonus college visits, but Winona's life was enough like mine that I could handle it, and Krystle was around if we wanted to talk to someone who wouldn't think we were crazy.  And since there weren't a whole lot of people making long trips and stuff because of Covid, we were able to do the backwards-reservation thing during the same summer, meaning we could put it all behind us, although we had to tell the school we'd gotten positive tests while we waited to switch back.

That should have been it, but SOMEONE put mine and Andy's luggage on the wrong sides of the room, and we woke up as each other!

Now, don't get me wrong, I love my brother.  We used to say that we were best friends even before we were born, although we've each got our own friends now and don't even have a lot of the same classes because he's weirdly good at social studies while I'm better at math and stuff like that.  He's also almost a foot taller than me - or I guess I'm a foot taller than him now - so I woke up with my panties digging into my hips and everything else that goes with it, and we both really freaked out when we looked under our shirts and pajamas and stuff.  But we instantly knew we were each in the same boat, so I wasn't mad at him or the other way around.

So, we went to our parents and said this had to get fixed, but they pointed out that there wasn't enough time to do it before the Inn closed for the season, so we'd have to spend our junior year like this.  Which sounded gross, although they said that experiencing life as the opposite sex had been good for them, which sounded REALLY gross, but we at least kind of understood what they were saying in theory.  Still, that's a whole year!

We made it kind of a game for a while.  We may have each had our own friends, but we all still knew each other, so we didn't trip up, and the fact that we have different strengths made it a bit easier to make excuses, because we each had to work a little harder at school to keep up, so not a whole lot of extracurriculars, and neither of us were stars anyway.  If I kind of suck at soccer, whatever, Andy was only on the JV team and wasn't counting on a scholarship or anything.  He bombed my audition for the fall play, but I've never had a big role, and he likes doing tech anyway.  We kept busy.

Somewhere in there, we started having to deal with health-class stuff, which was nasty, but we handled it pretty well, if we do say so ourselves.

Which kind of gets us in the general area of what I'm writing about.  Last week was our birthday, and though we hadn't really had joint parties for the past few years because that feels like kid stuff, Mom and Dad suggested we do it this year, and we liked the idea.  It winds up being kind of lame - it's cold and even though we see each other at school all the time and know that we're all vaccinated, folks get nervous in basements when we're not masked and it's weird when we are.  It breaks up kind of early, with just me and Andy's best friend Len hanging around playing some video game while he's giving my friend Shawna a ride home.

"Hey," he says, "I'm gonna ask you something and you don't have to answer if it's weird."

"Trust me," I say, "I'm okay with weird."

"So, I never thought of your sister this way, but for the past couple of months, there's been something different about her, and I was wondering if you'd freak if I asked her out."

I dropped the controller, obviously.

I don't want to make it sound like I've got a crush or anything - Len's been just Andy's friend for as long as I can remember, and I got so used to him as Andy's friend that I never started looking at him that way even when our bodies changed.  And his sure did change - he got tall quick, he's kind of got a perfect physique for the swim team, and he has to shave about twice as often as I do now.  He dated girls a year or two older than him freshman and sophomore years.  Even if I wasn't Andy's twin sister, he'd be out of my league.

Not that I'm unappealing as myself or anything.  I always figured I was average, but I could be a bit more if I put a little work in - my skin and hair were good and I wasn't totally flat or anything.  A little makeup, a lot of brushing, etc., etc.  Andy hasn't been one of those guys you read about on this blog who dives into girly shit or anything and hasn't really developed in a way I hadn't yet - he's maybe in a little better shape than I was before because he enjoys running, but it's not like he's wearing shorts and belly-shirts to show it off, just wedges and chunky-heeled boots on occasion because he feels short - so it's not like he's suddenly the sort of girl that Len notices.

I stalled, saying that "Andi" was her own person and all that, the kind of thing I'd say to Shawna if she suddenly decided my brother was hot, but it kind of felt like it wasn't me talking.  Len left soon after, saying not to tell anyone, but obviously I grabbed Andy when he got back and told him everything.

At first, he looked like he was going to puke, and we laughed at it, him eventually saying it was a terrible idea.  We decided that we'd play it cool - I'd say I was okay with it as him, he'd say it was too weird for him as me, and nobody gets hurt.  We just made one stupid assumption, that Len would ask him one-on-one.

He didn't.  Len asked my brother out in front of all my friends, who of course all said he had to say yes, so he did, and now they're out having dinner before seeing West Side Story (that he's seeing it before me despite me being the real theater girl would be so annoying even if Len wasn't involved!).

I don't really feel like I should be too worried about anything happening tonight, but are we doing the right thing here?  Is this the start of a slippery slope, or something that just messes with our heads even after we change back?

-Andi-with-an-I

Eddie/Theresa: Being Theresa

As impossible as my life has been for the last three weeks or so, I can't imagine what it must be like for the vast majority of people who go to that place and wind up tossed into a new position which is not only out of their experience, but which itself has been left in the lurch, with nobody to help them except maybe someone else who is equally confused.  As much as it's still a shock each morning to wake up as Theresa Moreau and reacquaint myself with all the female things that I'm not yet taking for granted, I at least grew up in her hometown, and was at least a passing acquaintance, if only because I was a little better in school than people expected and was on the same sports teams with the kids who had some money.  I was even kind of friends with Austin, at least during baseball season, so there's a part of me that wants to forgive him for doing this to me, although I mostly just want him to fix it and make this as painless as it can be.

On the other hand, the people who took the place of Austin and Theresa during the past two years?  They are the literal best.  I didn't mention it in the last post or two, but I get the impression that they were an older couple, and just fantastically organized.  It's not just the new underthings and stuff, but the bedrooms had slip cases containing three-ring binders which themselves had printouts slipped into plastic sleeves, filled with pictures, maps, and relevant information side-by-side.  Even though they must have expected the real Theresa back, the information that they would have found useful - that Theresa's friend Lana had twins named Gil and Phil, or that the frozen custard place had to run a fundraiser not to close permanently - is still helpful to me.  They also seemed to anticipate something possibly going awry, including some more basic information, or putting little tabs in the textbooks Theresa used to study for her realtor's exam so I know what's especially important (although I guess they could just be leftover from when the sub did the same).

(Speaking of subs - I've had emails from the new me.  He seems nice enough - or would "they" be more appropriate, since he or she is uncomfortable enough with sharing information about their real life to the point where they haven't even volunteered that much information? - but I try not to think too much about what they're doing on a daily basis)

All that preparation didn't mean that my first week "back from vacation" wasn't difficult, but I'm trying not to imagine how it would have gone if I didn't have Austin doing my makeup or if I didn't know where Cedar Woods was.  I still got seemingly good-natured jokes about my mind still being on the beach when I was a little slow to respond at times, and certain things about showing houses and condos still elude me, let alone the exact current zoning regulations for when somebody asks about putting a deck on the back of a place.  I've rented ever since graduation, so all of the talk about offers, escrow, and closing feels like a test I'm constantly studying for and having to pass.

That's at least something that can be studied, and I can apply myself.  I've had jobs where I was kind of learning on the fly before.  It's the moments in between, when the phones aren't ringing and the four of us in the office are just chatting that are often the hardest to navigate.  I expected the other young woman to have the strongest opinion on me staying with Theresa's natural hair color, but it's actually the other guy, a few years older than me, and it makes me really uncomfortable.  He's got a girlfriend, and I suspect Theresa turned him down some time ago, so what's it matter to him that my hair is "drab"?  Is he going to be checking out my ass constantly if I ever start wearing skirts and heels?

That's not happening any time soon, though, if only because I kind of feel lost with Theresa's clothes on the weekend, and Austin's helping is sometimes not helping.  The first Saturday, I figured it was the weekend, so I grabbed some shorts and a t-shirt, but it didn't quite look or feel right (beyond the question of how ladies' jeans fit, whether they go halfway to the knee or to the ankle).  I was expecting dressing for work to be tricky, but I suddenly realized that I had thought about women's casual clothes even less.  I just knew a girl looked good or real good, but never paid attention to why, or where the line was between what she wears to a club, a concert, or just hanging around.  We haven't been doing a lot of "hanging out" - needing to read up on this other life is a handy excuse - but Austin's parents have been known to drop in, there's occasional shopping to do, and the Fourth of July was last weekend.

And that's where it gets super-weird.  From the way he describes his last couple years, Austin spent a lot of time on looking good as a girl, but if you think it's kind of creepy when a guy tells his girlfriend to wear, triple that for when that "girlfriend" is actually a guy not totally sold on "sexy" and the plan is to hang out with Austin's family, including his big brother who likes to make jokes about how if they don't get married soon, he's going to steal Theresa from him.  I'm just glad the weekend of the holiday was rainy and unseasonably cool, so I could wear jeans and a long-sleeved tee rather than the U.S. flag crop-top and the tiny shorts that go with it.

I suppose that I'll find a way to be Theresa that also lets me be myself a bit over the coming months - most folks either seem to manage that or get completely swallowed by their new life, and I still can't imagine that.  It's still hard to imagine finding the right middle ground right now, though.

-Eddie/Theresa

Harmon Keller/Alicia Polawski: Assets

The obvious puns that come with my trying to ascertain the value of Alicia's identity are crude, but fitting.  My current measurements are enviable, or desirable, depending upon one's perspective, but how does one properly value them?  I began asking this not hypothetically, but practically - I planned to use relinquishing this shape to one for whom it perhaps came more naturally in order to both start the next phase of my life in a more financially stable situation and to perhaps have more ability to select that next phase rather than have it happen randomly.  One might not believe that the Inn is a marketplace, but it is, much as any place where money is exchanged for a product is a marketplace.  It is simply a highly irrational one:  Most people who arrive at the Inn for the first time have no idea what they are actually purchasing, while the vast majority who return put such a high value on returning to their previous situations that they fail to weigh any other factors at all.

There are those who do treat the Inn as a marketplace, though getting in touch with them can be difficult and the data one gathers scant enough that it becomes difficult to build a model.  Youth, as one might imagine, is the primary variable; though few of the people I have surveyed admit to seeking immortality per se, they will when pressed say that they want as much time as possible should circumstances prevent them from later revisiting, aside from the physical robustness that correlates with youth.  Financial stability is high up there as well, although not so much as one might expect - those who are concerned with it can liquidate assets and place them in a numbered account, after all.  It is a far greater negative influence - nobody wishes to be poor - than positive one.

Sex complicates matters - by and large, there's a noteworthy bias toward male identities being more valuable, at least in this market.  It's not hard to understand why; the biological nuisances and reductions in social status on average can certainly be frustrating.  But appearance can cause great variance, as can things like relationships, real and parasocial alike, more so than men.

"Alicia" is rather well-equipped on those accounts, now.  Although this particular silhouette has never been the one I favored among female companions, I cannot deny that its rounded bosom and buttocks are certainly able to grab another person's attention, particularly when I made an effort to showcase them.  I was, admittedly, ashamed of having this form when I first started living Alicia's life, but over my time as her, it's become easier.  What's the harm of showing some cleavage or using some high heels to accentuate your gait, if it makes men (and women!) more attentive?  One must learn how to set boundaries without actually sounding like one is ruling anything out, but I feel I have done fairly well by that.  Indeed, there are days when I wonder if I have done so well in that area that becoming a man again would have a steep learning curve.

Aside from that, there is the "vlog", which had seemed to have plateaued last fall but which has been gaining audience steadily since then.  Perhaps it has become more useful as people start to seriously consider vacations (or, based upon what I see during the day job, actually travel more), rather than as just a way to experience such things vicariously.  I have also become a better hostess - as much as I have grown more comfortable using my physicality, I cannot deny that my interview skills have improved, and Barbie and I have become better at editing the pieces, on top of my existing skills as a researcher.  We have put together a reasonably popular "show" for the resources we have; it's not unheard of for a new video to get a hundred thousand views in a month.

This makes "_______ with Alicia" an asset that is growing in value, and I am not the only person who has noticed it - various "content networks" have made inquiries, both about the series as it exists and what they envision it to be.  On the other side, I have had others approach me with offers to "professionalize" the series.  Sometimes it is local camera operators, other times editors, other times "producers" whose imagined roles range from the nebulous to the specific and useful.

That is on top of the people representing themselves as "agents", many of whom I suspect are less than legitimate, and other "content producers" who have seen either my series or Jordan's short film and would like me to appear in their videos, generally for "exposure" (looking at the scripts they send, the double-meaning is obvious), but sometimes for money.  Indeed, some of them even appear to have ambitions beyond online videos - short films like Jordan's which they would submit to film festivals, and even a feature-length presentation or two, although I have my doubts those would ever play a theater.

What to do with these?  There seems to be little question that accepting the proper offers would make "Alicia Polawski" a more valuable commodity, but so many of them seem to be very risky, and also time consuming, enough so to make finding a time to actually transfer this life to another difficult.  Already, it seems impossible to do in 2021.  And it also sets up a possibility that I may find ironic should it come to pass - that I might build "Alicia" up into something so valuable that the next iteration would seem to be trading down.  I've occasionally been bemused by some of the younger victims of the Inn deciding to stay as they were after a mere year or two, because they could no longer imagine returning to their old lives - as someone older than most of them, I cannot say that being Alicia yet feels normal enough to make my previous life seem alien, just in terms of the weight of experience - but the idea that I could become attached in the process of building these assets up to their peak value sometimes seems both frightening and amusing.

-Harmon Keller

Eddie/Theresa: Hair, Wardrobe, and Makeup

The second time waking up as Theresa was in some ways even stranger than the first, because not only was there an alarm jolting me awake, but I was in someone else's home and bed, completely disoriented.  I didn't even know how to silence the alarm on Theresa's iPhone right away, making me nervous that it would wake Austin up and he'd offer to help.

There would be no avoiding that, but, still, I wanted an hour or so before he was awake to myself.  He'd been either in the room or just out of sight for the past 24 hours, and I was already starting to feel a bit smothered, and though I wasn't really thinking in terms of it being a guy-and-girl thing, the fact that we were in his life and he had experience with both the Inn and being a woman had him tending to take charge.  I don't necessarily feel like I have to be the guy in charge, but between not seeing anyone for a while and the pandemic, I hadn't been spending more time with anyone than a thirty-minute rideshare, so it had felt like a lot.

I stood quietly in the bedroom after I'd silenced the phone, listening to hear if I'd woken Austin.  Apparently not.  I got some of the new underwear out of the drawer and a robe from the closet, and made my way as quietly as I could to the bathroom, quietly shutting the door behind me before looking in the mirror.

Either Theresa gets bedhead too, or there was still some part of me there.  I'd never seen her like that, but seeing half my hair kind of puffy and one side pressed flat made me feel a little more myself.  It inspired me to make a few faces in the mirror, which was kind of reassuring, because I thought maybe Theresa's face wouldn't make the right expressions or something and I'd just look blank instead of looking like I was thinking.

Then it was time; I pulled the t-shirt I'd worn to bed off and saw what I had in the way of breasts.

Given how many people on this site talk about being really big, I guess I am lucky or unlucky, depending on how you look at it.  I'm not quite flat, but I don't look like I've got something attached to my chest.  I had a pretty clear tanline, although my skin wasn't that dark.  I gave them a little poke and even pinched at a nipple a bit and was glad when I didn't just immediately melt into a puddle or anything.

I still avoided looking between my legs more than I had to before taking a shower, which wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.  Yeah, there's a weird moment or two at my chest being soft and I kind of forgot just how much water and shampoo hair can hold when it's this length, but mostly it felt nice to get a couple day's worth of sweat off, even if it meant I was touching things I had no business touching that way and a little unnerved as I felt my breasts squish and move as I scrubbed.

Drying took a little while, and my first time putting on a bra was a challenge, but I didn't want to ask Austin for help.  I'm don't know why the clasps aren't in the front in most cases - is it an engineering thing, or just a women's clothing traditionally having fasteners in the back?  Seems like that would make things a lot easier.

I brushed my hair into a shape that looked more or less okay, put the robe back on, and took a breath as I left the bathroom.

Austin was awake by then, and looked me over critically, said "Well, you look nice, but not work-nice," and then led me to the dining area, where all of Theresa's makeup products were laid out, and apparently the first lesson was mascara.  And it was weird.

Not just the makeup - although using semi-solid gunk to extend your eyelashes is really weird - but the way Austin seemed to change while putting it on me made me wonder what months of being Theresa would do to me.  He had said the day before that he'd enjoyed being a woman and had wanted to be the one to become Theresa, but it had just been a thing he said - he'd seemed to fall back into being more or less the guy I remembered from high school quickly enough, in terms of voice and mannerisms and stuff, but as he went on about doing this to me, his voice was a bit higher, and he seemed to light up a bit.  And it didn't really feel like envy - he really seemed to enjoy just doing this thing and seeing the results that made me look prettier.

I guess it could be worse.  He didn't really seem to be trying to recreate me as someone he'd be more interested in having sex with, and I guess a lot of people who go to the Inn find themselves on the receiving end of lessons in femininity from people who don't look like they should know anything about it, after all.  Just weird.

The whole morning was like that, and much of the week.  He's been pretty good about starting me slow with the clothing, in that I've managed to stay in pants and flat shoes for almost two weeks, although I think he's dropped by to take me out to lunch a couple of times less to ask me about how things were going than to see how the women in the office were dressing so he could suggest that maybe it's time for skirts, heels, and maybe a different color of lipstick, although he's also pointed out that some of them go with a lighter hair color, like the one in the box on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet.  He also seems to take his time figuring out which earrings and stuff go with which outfits.

I'm starting to get the hang of it, but I also get the impression that he's not terribly worried about that beyond my being able to touch it up in the afternoon - that aside from brushing my hair, he's pretty content to be in charge of getting me dressed and made-up in the morning.

That's handy.  But weird.

-Eddie/Theresa

Jonah/Krystle: Not Exactly in the "Never Going Back" category, but...

 ... I've probably pretty close to waiting my last table for a while.

(You thought I meant the Inn, didn't you?  Well, that too, but...)

It's not that I had a bad experience at the Changeling - Moira is still my best friend and Ashlyn is sometimes the only person I can talk to when the feeling of being a huge phony comes over me - though I know that there are a lot of people who were pretty badly exploited in that business.  I'm lucky that Moira, having grown up in her parents' pub in Ireland, brought the idea that servers should be paid a living wage here with her and it's one of the conditions she had on partnering with Ashlyn to open the place.  Lord knows others haven't been so lucky.  Still, they could only pay an hourly wage and shifts were relatively scarce until very recently, especially if you don't have a car with which to do delivery, since it took a while to be at 100% capacity and that means both fewer people working and fewer people to tip per person.  On top of that, tipping has become a real all-or-nothing situation lately:  The folks who demanded that restaurants be open in the middle of a pandemic are lousy tippers, while the folks who are easing their way back into it to the point where they don't take their mask off until they're ready to take their first bite will regularly hit 25-30%.

I'd been picking up what I could when I got a call from the gym, mentioning that they were re-opening and if I'd like to renew my membership.  I wasn't facing the nagging sensation of getting out of shape that Jordan was - you can't slow down that much with an energetic four-year-old - but I wanted to get back to climbing pretty badly.  Sadly, I told them, I couldn't really afford it right now.

I got the feeling that they'd heard that a few times from the sigh on the other end, but then the lady on the other end surprised me by first asking if I was vaccinated and then if I'd like to apply for a job.  I kind of laughed, saying I'd only been climbing for a few months before the pandemic hit, but she said that was good enough for making sure people were strapped into their harnesses properly and, besides, they'd probably start me at the front desk anyway.

So I applied, and I've got an interview tomorrow.  In a week or two, I could be doing that on a regular schedule and even getting benefits.  And the regular schedule sounds pretty good, especially if I can work it around school hours in a couple of months.

That's right, school - Little Moira turned four years old in January, and in Cambridge that means that she is eligible for "junior kindergarten" starting this fall.  And that whole experience has been kind of crazy!  Just forget that I technically never finished high school and it kind of feels like I should have some sort of graduation behind me before having my kid start, but the fact is that I grew up in a fairly small town with one elementary school, so it was one-size fits all, but here there's a lottery and you're expected to make decisions about what direction a four-year-old's life is going to be set on.

It's nuts!  More nuts for me, because if faced with the same decisions, my parents certainly wouldn't have had any way to know that they should prepare their baby boy for being a single mother that everyone thinks used to be a stripper, and here I am, trying to figure out what I want for my little girl even though I know there's just no predicting where life will take her.  It feels so random at times that I can see why some people are tempted to just take care of now and put their kids in the most conveniently located school.

I'm trying not to do that, though.  I suspect that our applications were all kinds of a mess but that it really doesn't matter that much, since I intend to be involved and attentive and all that.  Still, there will be chances to switch things up when we get a better idea of her interests than "she really likes Legos so maybe she'll be an engineer someday."  I'm a little disappointed that she got wait-listed for the Mandarin-immersion program, and hope it's not some "why would a lower-income black girl need to know that?" thing.  Maybe it is a silly bit of ambition I'm putting on her, but Jordan says that languages like that are a lot easier to learn if you start young, and it seems like the sort of thing grown-up Moira could use in 2035.

Listen to me.  2035.  I'm trying to make decisions that will affect another person's life in 2035, when I got here by just falling into a situation randomly and then making one desperate decision that had the exact opposite effect that I intended.  But I guess that's why I'll probably never be going back to the Inn, at least not before 2040 or whenever she graduates college, because it's entirely possible that she may wind up with someone somehow even more ill-suited to all this than me!

-Jonah/Krystle