Todd/Anne-Marie: Man of the house?

Now that it's been a few months, there are fewer and fewer times when I allow myself the luxury of totally freaking out. I know I made myself sound kinda confident in my earlier posts but it's very hard to pin down exactly how mortally terrified you are when you start walking around in someone else's body, let alone one with new equipment. But I found what you might call... coping mechanisms.

One obvious one is that I took an example from Bryan. Unnerving as her attitude toward the whole thing is - how easily she accepted the whole thing (and still waiting to see if she'll show up on this blog) - I was at least able to take a cue and think "Okay, better not be the weak one." Bry's attitude that "This is what's happening and we should just go along" is annoying until it becomes comforting, once you settle down and think "I can do this."

The bigger one, though, is my prevalent belief that this is not permanent. That I will not see Anne Marie to the end of her days. That I will not be cheated out of a decade of living as Todd Casey. That I will not see Hayley and Connor raise Anne Marie's grandkids. That there is a way back. And all I have to do is kill time and accept my lot until I can get there.

One of the bigger hurdles to feeling comfort was meeting Hal. He came home a few days after I did, without fanfare and with only a cursory "How was your trip?" He was hardly as panicked as Mrs. McClay.

I thought maybe he was hiding his concern. Then I thought maybe he legitimately didn't care about his wife's wellbeing. Then I realized, he was just being himself. That's just who he is. And after 12 years of marriage that's maybe what happens.

I didn't see much of marriage as a kid. I was born out of wedlock and while they tried to make it work, it just... didn't. I tried never to be bitter but you can imagine what a warped sense of relationships I must have, particularly married ones. One by one I watched my friends' parents get divorced and usually re-married while they struggled to cope with the breakdown of their parents' lives. I guess in that sense I was lucky. Never had any delusions.

Does that mean I think Hal and Anne Marie are heading for divorce? Not in the near future - not prior to the Inn and not on my watch either. I don't intend to shake up Anne's life any more than the bare minimum given the circumstances. I just think it's a cold marriage. A comfortable one. And thankfully for me - a sexless one. I dressed and undressed myself very privately for months until I realized that after a decade plus of raising kids, these people just plain aren't doing it.

And that's fine because as curious as I might be to find out what it's all about down there (don't judge me, you're all thinking the same deep down) I'm definitely not interested in this guy. He's a nice enough man, but... he's still a man.

I say he's a "nice enough man." He's kinda quiet, taciturn. He comes home after a day of drilling teeth and just wants to have dinner, drink a beer, and watch the World Series. (PS - was glad the Phillies schooled the Rays, given their triumph over his Red Sox. New England. I'm just waiting to see what Cito Gaston does for my Jays next year. But anyway.)

So... we struck up this kind of domestic balance. I cook the food (getting better thanks for the internet) do the dishes, the laundry... he provides the house and the car and the lifestyle, and nobody bothers the other.

I figure eventually it's gotta come up. One of us will reach a breaking point and I just won't be able to put it off... but until then, it's back to back in the queen-sized bed.

Once Hal came back, I fell into this quaint little routine. I'd get up in the morning around 9 or 10, well after he'd gone to the office. I'd explore the neighbourhood a little bit to get to know my surroundings... go for a drive or a jog, get a coffee, whatever. Then by the time I'd come home, Bry would be waiting for me there. Mostly we'd play Rock Band or Guitar Hero or any of the various games the kids have. Or we'd go for a swim in the backyard... I always used to envy the kids who had a pool.

Bry, by the way, who used to be over 6 feet tall, still looks ridiculous in a 14-year-old girl's swim suit. Maybe it's just the way she carries herself. She's all boyish angles with a figure that appears to be gradually morphing into 3-dimensions... if you catch my drift.

Meanwhile I've got the opposite deal. Anne Marie's no tubbo, but her body's been around a while. Put me in a bikini and suddenly - for the first time - I'm self-conscious about love handles and cellulite, and that little belly pouch that hangs over just a bit. Hmph.

After lunch, she'd usually just lounge around while I did chores, or tried to figure dinner out, or what have you. While all this is going on, I'm maintaining my (Todd's) online presence, making all the usual arguments about movies and comics on the various boards I'm on.

Anyway, back to what I was saying at the beginning of this post... how this isn't permanent. Well after a few weeks of feeling nervous of what became of my body, I got... the call. I was very adamant I wanted to hear from the "new Todd" and when I did, I felt happier than I had since this whole ordeal began. I remember looking at the caller display on Anne's cell and seeing my own name. I nearly dropped it in the pool.

I took a deep breath and answered. "Hello...?"

"Is this... is this Todd?" asked the somewhat confused and fearful sounding voice on the other end.

I hesitated. "Yeah... it is."

A pause.

"I'm sorry, your voice..."

"Yeah, I know," I grumbled, "Who is this? Who are you really?"

Timidly he explained himself - I'll leave the details for later, suffice to say our situations are not dissimilar and we're all very eager to get back where we belong. And once that piece fell into place, I began to breathe easy. Taking stock of my life, that is, my life as Anne-Marie, I decided it's not such a bad place to visit... I just wouldn't want to live here.

To be continued...
-Todd

Todd/Anne-Marie: Walking around like I own the place...

I could risk running myself ragged these days. When I'm not pretending as Anne-Marie, doing chores, running personal errands, conversing with Bryan, asleep or simply trying not to go insane, I'm poring over the archives of this blog and writing bits and pieces of my own entries. I want to tell as much of my story as I can manage, both because I'm a storyteller by nature, and because, mortifying as it has been, it's the kind of life experience that can't go unexpressed. I have this theory: the first thing our minds forget are routines. I know the saying goes "old habits die hard" - two and a half months later I still unzip my jeans standing in front of the toilet but routines are different. Every time I had a new schedule in school, I would find it hard, after a few months, to remember what it was like only the semester before. We evolve, and we adjust.

That, of course, won't stop me from working toward my ultimate goal of getting MY life back. I would like to adjust OUT of this life as easily as I evolved INTO it. and when that happens, all this will be like some long ago ghost story. SO I want it all on record.

In reading some of the early posts on this site - back when Art and Jake became Liz and Ashlyn - I've been noting some of the distinctions between their situations and mine. They were, like, older than me, but became younger. I went the opposite direction. They were kinda lucky and frankly I don't blame them for taking the hands they were dealt. The idea of restaging a transformation seems like it leaves a lot of room for error and even thinking about going back there gives me the willies. Look at what happened to Art. I'm a little lucky I guess because I've met the new Todd - not in person but we've spoken - and unless I'm being lied to, the new Todd and Bryan as eager to leave our lives as we are to reclaim them. That doesn't mean it's foolproof though, and we have a lot of time to just hurry up and wait. I'm stuck in the life of Anne-Marie Adkisson for however many months. Could be worse, but could be better...

The house was empty when we got home. It was a relief and kind of a nightmare since I knew I'd have to meet Hal and the kids sooner or later and I didn't want to just sit alone in this big empty place. So I invited Bryan in. We rang up Ellie's parents - the McClays - and told them we were home and that "Ellie" would be spending the night here. They wanted to know why and I just kinda fumbled my way around a vague excuse involving travel weariness. They accepted it - it was nearly midnight - and told me to have her home as soon as I could. Your daughter disappearing for two weeks is probably going to put you on edge, so I didn't hold their curt tone against them.

We went around turning on light switches, opening doors, trying to get a feel for the place. The basement is partitioned into a living room/TV area, a game room with a pool hall, dart board and beer fridge, a computer room and laundry room. Upstairs there is a very dainty living room with lots of, like, fine china in glass cases, a fully stocked practically gourmet kitchen, another TV room, and the big foyer. There are five rooms upstairs, one each for the kids, the master bedroom, guest room and Hal's office. I did a few laps around the house so that when people started coming home, I didn't look like this was the first time I'd seen the place.

After surveying the whole place, Bry and I settled in the basement. She started channel-surfing. "We got anything to drink?"

I shrugged, "There's probably some Coke or Sprite around here."

She glares at me, "Yeah, but, like... how about an MGD?"

I flopped down on the couch and rubbed my temples. "I don't know about that, dude. You're like, 14." She rolled her eyes, "You know that's not really true." I told her how irresponsible it was for me to just grab a beer and hand it to a little girl and she kinda flipped out on me. "What are you, my mom? You were all too happy to smoke up with me in Maine, now you won't even let me have one beer?" Well, the effect of that one joint I mentioned was way more drastic than I'd ever seen. I wasn't eager to repeat it. 14-year-old girls do not have strong constitutions.

"Look," she stood up, "I just want to relax. I'm not going to drink a whole case, I'm not even going to make this a regular thing. Tomorrow I have to start acting like a little girl. Just let me have this one thing."

She walked over to the fridge and grabbed a bottle. She held the twist-top in her hand. I said nothing. Fsst. She opened it.

"Wait," I sighed.

"What?"

"...grab me one while you're over there."

This is why I should not be allowed to be a parent. I remember when I was 14, out at parties with the older kids, getting lit for the first time on Captain Morgan. And I don't even have any regrets about the shit I got up to. So how can I tell this comparatively mature, reasonable person she can't have one beer? In good conscience, I mean.

It didn't really matter, because she took one sip and got this sour look on her face. "Oh, man. I forgot how bad beer tastes when you first start drinking." I laughed. There was nothing wrong with Annie's tongue. Bry sipped along anyway.

"This is gonna be a long trip," she groaned.

We fell asleep on the couch in the basement. I woke up a few hours later and draped a blanket over her. It was kind of adorable, since, while asleep, you'd never guess that just a few hours earlier she'd been reminiscing about the time in high school when she nailed Cindy Cortez behind a Petro Canada.

I staggered up to the bedroom. It's a big bedroom, it's got a big bed. And a nice bathroom. I took off my top and shorts and tossed them in the hamper. I changed into one of Anne-Marie's nightgowns. Putting on an item of someone else's clothing for the first time is a weird feeling, especially when you've never worn such a garment. So I changed out of it and into some cotton PJ's - it was hot, so I used a light shirt and short shorts. Then I got under the covers, and...

...bluh.

Some of you probably get it when I say how hard it is to fall asleep when you're TRYING to. I couldn't get comfortable, I couldn't stop thinking, after three days, about my anatomy, and when I wasn't thinking about that, I was thinking about Anne-Marie's life and how messed up my situation was. I started to sweat and shake and feel the pressure and get paranoid. Every moment brought me further from sleep. So I got up and found the answer in the medicine cabinet. There was half a thing of Ambien in there. I don't like pills - that's a long story - but I just needed to zonk out.

And zonk I did. After a while, I fell into the deepest sleep I'd had since that last night before the change, after the concert. I woke up the next morning feeling so mellow, which meant miraculously I had outslept the effects of the drug... which meant it was about 11:00. And something was burning.

I sprang out of bed and flew down the stairs and found Bry - hair stringy and wet, dressed in a bathrobe, working on what appeared to be a pan of scrambled eggs.

"Mornin' Auntie Anne," she chirped. "Breakfast?"

I grumbled, "Don't call me that.... and I could eat, yeah."

She passed me a plate. "Good timing. Nice PJ's."

I looked down to see my nipples standing up straight under my top. "Christ, these things. You're lucky you don't have to deal with 'em. I could hardly sleep."

"Yeah, I'd like to get home before I start having to think about that... they're all ready kind of... never mind." She took a seat across from me. "So what's the deal? Why's the house empty?"

I explained that Anne-Marie's letter had told me the kids were at soccer camp all summer. That was why she had taken Elyssa to Maine for her birthday, because she didn't have her own kids to worry about at the time. I found out later Hal was on a camping (or fishing or something) trip with old frat buddies. Whatever. At the time his absence unnerved me, but it came to nothing.

We ate in silence a while, forks ringing on plates in the quiet house. Finally, she said, "So this is it, huh?"

I nodded sternly, "Guess so." I finished up. "I guess I'll have a shower and then figure out how to get you home. Get dressed."

I walked back upstairs. She called after me, "Have fun in there!" I wanted to smack her. It was her stupid little running joke about how we should be taking advantage of these bodies. I found it particularly unnerving given how young she is, (although when I was 14...)

Once we were all ready to go, we piled into Anne-Marie's SUV. I felt pretty overwhelmed there. I hadn't driven in a while, and at the time, it was a little Toyota, not a big thing like this. Still, we plugged Ellie's address into the GPS (and thank God for that!) and I drove cautiously through the curves of this little suburban nowhere place.

Bry and I went up to the door. She gave me a pat on the shoulder to say goodbye, and got into character for the first time, bounding up to Ellie's room heedlessly.

Standing in the doorway, I was ambushed by Mrs. McClay, Hal's sister. "So are you going to tell me what happened?"

I felt like a deer in the headlights, man. Trying to remember the cover story, I stammered, "We, uh, got our luggage, uh, lost. There was a mix-up. The inn let us stay until, um, they found it."

"You couldn't call?" She sneered. "We were worried sick."

I averted my eyes. "My, uh, cell charger was in the, uh, in the luggage." I felt like I was in the principal's office. Mrs. McClay - Trudy - was quite a few years older than Anne-Marie and seemed gravely displeased with what had happened. I can't say I blamed her, either.

She just stared at me for a while until finally she said, "Well, it sounds like you had a very rough few weeks. Still, you should be more responsible than that, Anne."

I couldn't feel the guilt she was trying to make me feel, since it wasn't my fault at all. Attempting to level with her would be utterly fruitless, and in the best case scenario, if she DID believe me, I am then dealing with a mother whose child is missing. So I just swallowed all her ill will, nodded and said, "Yep. Well, I gotta go..." I've never wanted to leave someplace quicker in my life.

She just kept glaring at me. I got the feeling this was not the beginning of tensions between Anne and Trudy. I had no desire to make it worse - or even try to fix it. I just wanted to leave. She didn't stop me, but I had to fight some kind of invisible force field to do so, because of how unfinished that confrontation was. I felt sick.

I walked, shell-shocked, to the car. I got in and followed the GPS back to the Adkisson place. Then, once I was in the garage, I turned the key, unbuckled the seat-belt, and... cried.

I'm tempted - believe me - to blame it on PMS or some other female chicanery, but the fact is it's just what I wanted to do. Not that I was a cryer as a man, but in a situation like this... nobody's watching, nobody sees you as a man, your entire life has gone to hell in very short order... shit man, you've just gotta let the tears come.

I straightened myself back up and went back inside. I had no idea when Hal would be back. It was time to start playing my part.

-Todd

Todd/Anne-Marie: She said she said

It's cooled down a bit, reminding me of home. This past weekend, in Canada, was Thanksgiving, one of the few dates where I make the effort to see my mom and other family members (birthdays, Easter, Christmas, usually.) I feel bad about it because I have this reputation for being kind of aloof and tending to avoid my family. It's not deliberate, I'm just usually doing something else. Man, if they only knew how bad I feel about missing them this weekend... instead, someone else was there, being awkward and pretending to know their faces and avoid conversation (believe me, nobody will notice.) And here I was, not celebrating the non-holiday of Columbus Day.

So Bryan and I, that first day, were sitting there reading letters, getting high, and coming to terms with being "transformed." I'm here now, at the keyboard, having a pronoun problem. I keep thinking of Bry (and myself) in the abstract as "he," but when I picture the day, of course, I get this image of this puckish little girl. I've grown very accustomed to hearing her voice speaking Bryan's words. I don't want to type "She and I were sitting trying to figure things out," but, well, that's exactly what was going on. She and I were trying to figure things out.

It was a couple of days before we actually hit the road. Some of that was spent trying to confirm as a matter of fact that this was really happening and not just our imaginations. Some very uncomfortable conversations with fellow victims (which I won't retype just now) did the trick. Some of them were better off than us, some were worse. We then had to make arrangements to get to Connecticut, and write our entire lives and our understanding of the curse into easily-digested letters.

The upside, which was actually a downside, is that our lives didn't have much to them. I hated my job and was always a hair away from quitting before I went on the road. Bry is a classic moocher. Neither of us talks much to our families or has any real relationships going. The main thing was Alia, so I stressed in my letter to at least be good to her, because I intended to come back for her. I also crafted the letter so that the new Todd would feel pretty much compelled to contact me. In the meantime, I kept my online accounts afloat - establishing an e-alibi on Facebook and MSN - and developed new ones under Anne-Marie's name.

I left my luggage, laptop, and all my writings at the inn, because I felt they would be of vital importance if someone were to get into character as me. I did keep a few things. One was my iPod, because i spent a lot of time cultivating my playlists - walking away from them would basically mean walking away from Todd Casey altogether. The other was a vintage Clash t-shirt Alia got me for my birthday many years ago. She would probably notice that "I" don't have it anymore, so that when I get my body back, I can come full circle and start wearing it again. Plus, it smells like me - all the sweat and dirt and weed and Speed Stick really registers strongly in my nose. Scent, I heard in a commercial once, is the sense strongest-linked to memory.

Bry was very reluctant to leave his $1200 Digital SLR, but I convinced him it was vital to Bryan's identity and too bizarre for Ellie to just have picked up on her own.

There were other adventures in the meantime, but finally at the end of it all, and with more reluctance than I have ever known, we had to bring Ellie and Anne home.

It was a long train ride and we had a lot of time to think. I asked Bry if we were doing the right thing and she said, well, we had no choice. Anne-Marie and Ellie were basically missing persons. For all we knew there was a manhunt and we'd get found no matter what, plus we had no other place readily available. Could we take the pains to stay out, stay off the grid, and lay low? Maybe - we're resourceful enough to have done that sorta thing all summer - but a 33-year-old woman and a 14-year-old girl get a bit more attention than a couple of 23-year-old dudes. Our backs were against the wall.

I wondered if we were up to the task, and she laughed. There was no way to fail since we couldn't tell anyone the truth if we wanted to. It might be embarrassing, even gross - you know what I'm getting at there - but this is life and we're stuck. Stuck. Billions of women live their lives every day, same as men... no reason things couldn't just fall into place, she shrugged. I groaned - I didn't want things to fall into place. I wanted the same sense of control over my destiny as I always had, the open road.

I told her she was being far too calm. She said she had it all figured out, "If it can happen once, I'll bet it can be undone. It doesn't make sense that if they can change your body, they'd only do it once. Right?" It's worth noting that Bryan has always referred to "they" whenever she has a bone to pick with someone... although in this case she may be right. And I asked, what if it can't be undone? She just shrugs and says "Then we go on with these lives."

She began to get all philosophical. "Everything we've done in life... Alia, your job, the road trip... it brought us to that inn. This is the consequence of that."

I pondered it for a moment and then realized - "Did you just quote Anton Chigurh?" If you're looking for comfort, the words of the serial murderer from No Country for Old Men isn't going to really put you at ease.

But that's Bryan for you. A real deep thinker and a great guy, but kind of an asshole. I noticed she had her little knees tightly clamped together, and they were twitching. I'm no body language expert, but that girl was as nervous as me. She just didn't want to show it. I kept quiet.

Long passages of the trip were spent in silence as I stared at my reflection in the window and tried to get accustomed to the woman staring back at me. Every so often I'd forget about the tits and crotch business and just smile to see what it would look like (very forced, as it turned out.) Every moment brought us closer to our final destination, Somewhere in Connecticut.

Anne-Marie Adkisson is 33 years old and married to a Dentist named Hal. They have two kids together: Hayley, 12, and Conner, 10. I was barely even responsible for myself, and now all I could think of was how I'd have to take care of two young ones, not to mention the burden of a marriage.

By contrast, Bry is a lucky gal. He - ah, fucked up the abstract again - she is so young all her decisions are made for her. Ellie probably still has a bed time, doesn't date, gets all her meals cooked for her... the freedom of youth and the experience to enjoy it. Then again, the freedom from responsibility is basically oppression, and maybe, I thought, he'd end up feeling worse than I did. Time would tell.

We pulled up to the house late that night. All my fears and anxiety were replaced when I saw it with sheer awe. It looked like a courthouse, or the house from Fresh Prince of Bel Air. These people were well off - if there's been an economic crisis, you wouldn't know it from here. They're definitely keeping the Roman Column manufacturers busy. And their front lawn is big enough to play baseball.

For a while, I was just stunned.

And then I walked inside, flip-flops flapping against the ceramic tiles of the foyer (never ever been in a house with a foyer) echoing all around me. "Hello?" no answer. I smiled, breathtaken.

"I've arrived."

And that was the first time since the transformation I'd felt any good at all.

What happened to that feeling I'll leave for later. Laundry calls.

-Todd, alias Anne-Marie

Todd/A.M.: How I Spent My Summer Vacation...

I got in this morning and decided I had time to write. In fact, I don't seem to have anything but time right now, so I might as well write while I have something to say. I guess you could say I'm back by popular demand.

So I explained already how Bryan and I were traveling up the East coast of the States all summer, basically just looking for shows and ho's. I was writing pretty constantly the entire time on my laptop (which I obviously no longer have) and if nothing had happened in July, I still would've had a massive cache of awesome stories. And now as it is, none of them seem so important. So yeah, one time we survived a seemingly Skynyrd-style trip in a Cessna that was the scariest thing I had ever done, but after the inn, even that seemed minor.

It wasn't our idea to stay at the inn. It was Alia's. We were in New York City in June trying to figure out how to get to Maine in time for this concert a couple weeks later, a blues-rock combo called Slowhead was playing with a Montreal fusion band we'd heard a lot about called Les Mondes opening for them. Obviously we had no idea how to get to Maine, or where we would stay once we got there.

Alia was a girlfriend of mine back in Toronto. Things had always been complicated and before the trip she and I had kinda sorta had a major fight, and maybe possibly broke up. But I was feeling guiltier and guiltier about all the chicks I was meeting along the road, because I kept thinking of her, and by the time we hit New Jersey (because we couldn't stay in New York, we were in Secaucus) I needed to call her. We had a long conversation where we just laid it out, there was a lot of "I forgive you, I love you, I don't know if I can trust you." We were reconciling when I mentioned the last stop on the trip, Maine, and the question mark of our arrangements.

"That's crazy," she laughed, "My parents were going to have their second honeymoon in Maine, but dad twisted his ankle." They had reservations at this inn that they couldn't, or wouldn't, or didn't want to give up (I never asked) and hey, what an amazing coincidence, right?

I'm laughing about it now, out of amusement, bitterness and amazement. I mean, I keep wondering what would've happened if Alia's parents stayed the Inn, and we didn't? They'd be here, and I'd be... I'd be home with their daughter.

Hm. Sorry, I... got off track there.

So flash forward. It's July and Bry and I manage to get to this fruity looking Inn, reminds me of a bed and breakfast or something. Kinda Victorian or Edwardian, but I'm not up on my architecture so what do I know? It just looks like the kind of place a couple or maybe a family would stay. Not two guys in AC/DC and Sex Pistols shirts. But whatever. We haul our luggage up to our room trying to avoid making eye contact with the other tenants. We didn't want any of them to be able to identify us if something were to go awry (little did we know.)

As we were putting our stuff away, we found some bags in the closet. They were mostly packed. I was going to suggest we take them to the lost and found or something but Bryan, always the clever one, suggested we go pawn all the contents for weed and travel money. I told him that wasn't fair, there may be people coming back for this stuff. Since we weren't running low on funds he agreed (reluctantly) but said that if nobody came by to claim it by the time we checked out, it was ours to pawn. "Whatever," I said. In retrospect, a close call. I thought I noticed him going through the bags at one point but he wouldn't say what he'd seen.

We busied ourselves for a couple days before the Slowhead show by going out to local drinking established and getting faced. Out of courtesy, the one who stood the best chance of getting laid (Bryan, given my new-found sense of remorse) got the room, while the other was to find other accommodations if possible (or, you know, hold a pillow over his ears.) Again, I wonder, what if this had all gone down while one of us (me) was out of the inn? But again I'm reminded by my surroundings... it happened the way it happened, and that's the way it happened. (Still, I'll share some of those stories later because one of them might be important.)

The last night before, whatever it was, was the night of the show. the bands were both great but the action was not, so we both just came home and crashed. While Bry snoozed, I did a little bit of writing about the show and Maine before finally just passing out. It was late and I was feeling ill (I thought it was allergies at the time.)

I was groggy when I woke up. People were making noise outside and I was not happy. I was probably hung over, although for all I know it was the residual effect (look at me, gettin all scientific) and the transformation may have cleansed my system. And if that's the case, I feel bad for the person who inherited that. I felt pretty damn hung over anyway.

The first thing I sensed, before I even opened my eyes and while I was feeling zombified, was the smoke. Bry loves the ganj... okay we both do... but wake and bake wasn't really our style. Without unburying my face from the pillow, I muttered, "Dude go sleep."

I heard a little unfamilar voice respond, "Todd, you up man?"

My first thought was to look up at the source, and the only thing going through my head was "Oh my God, look at her. Tell me Bryan didn't bring her here after I fell asleep, and then give her weed."

"Where's Bryan?" I said. Voice felt hoarse. I cleared my throat to try to correct it, but again it came out in the same weird tone, "Who are you?"

She sat next to me on the bed. She was young, like 14, with long golden locks and a ridiculously slender frame. She was wearing glasses and the large Slowhead tee Bry had bought the night before, and it looked like nothing else. Her little knees angled inward. My eyes bulged when she looked at me like a delighted psycho and said "Dude, it's me. It's us. You're really gonna wanna see this." The joint was still smoking in the ashtray, by the window. She repeated, "I'm Bryan."

I know, okay, it sounds like a point of departure from all the stories on here, but let me explain. Bryan has always been really into psychics and aliens and Sasquatch and stuff. There were people freaking out, howling in panic right outside our door, and he was just sitting there, toking up and laughing. To him, this was vindication, and somehow, I guess mentally, this shielded him from absolute confusion and terror. Or maybe it was the weed.

Whatever it was, the cogs already appeared to have been turning in that little head of his for some time, and he was confident I'd be as thrilled as he was. I was not so much.

So this girl - who says she's Bryan - grabs me by the shoulders and tries to get a good look at me, and I guess I'm just staring back like "What the hell are you looking at?" and she repeats, "Todd, get a look at yourself man, we've been... transformed!"

And this moment of absolute belief washes over me as I look in her little blue eyes, that my 6'1 lanky bearded friend and stepcousin (my aunt married his dad) had been shrunk and de-aged and, and, and... girlified! Absurd as it sounded to my ears, I was willing to listen.

"Transformed..." I whispered. "Into... what?"

And she smirked impishly at me and moves her hands from my shoulders to my chest and starts squeezing. A shock of - not pain, not pleasure, but new sensation - rushed through me. I felt my throat close up. I jumped back.

"No--" I gasped.

"Yeah," she grinned.

I sat up straight and they hung, unfettered. I put my trembling right hand over my left breast. It felt like every breast I've ever felt, but now it was my own and that made it feel different and wrong and yet absolutely real.

I curled up into a ball, sitting upright, arms around legs, knees up to chest, lip trembling. "I'm... I'm not..."

"You are," she nodded, matter-of-factly.

I just kept shaking my head, muttering "No, no, I don't believe it."

She looked at me and twisted her mouth into this little sneer - the same facial gesture Bryan would use when trying to convince me of something.

"Whatever dude," she shrugged, "Don't believe it, but you'll figure it out eventually." Then she slipped the large black tee over her head. I averted my eyes but could see from even a moment's glance she was utterly nude. All the thoughts and suspicions were starting to converge on me, and confronted with this skinny, pale, hairless naked 14-year-old strutting about the room I felt... ill.

I clenched my eyes shut and dashed toward the bathroom. I opened them only long enough to find the toilet.

Blaughh. I hadn't vomitted in over a year and a half. I wiped my mouth and grabbed the counter. Slowly, slowly I peeked over it, into the mirror. My eyes began to well up.

It was a long moment before I finally spoke. "Bryan..." I said, gazing at the foreign reflection, "What... the fuck... is going on?"

She appeared in the doorway, now dressed in a white undershirt and panties. She hard her arms folded across her torso, lips pursed, nodding.

"I've got some of it worked out, but let's just take a moment and get your bearings, okay?"

My face felt warm with fear and embarrassment. I looked at her. She looked confident. I looked back at my reflection - that person did not.

I swept some hair across my forehead and perched it behind my ear. It was brown, although there was some kind of dying because it went darker and more reddish in places, so I guessed highlights. It was about the length of a bob. I looked in the eyes - my eyes. All the basic facial features seemed in place, ears, mouth, nose, chin... features I'd been looking at my whole life, just now altered. I can't even put my finger on it. It's not really a matter of "my nose is smaller now, my lips are bigger" (although they are) because they're just... features. I opened my mouth and looked inside - for what reason I have no idea. The girl snickered.

"Are you stoned?" She giggled, "I mean... 'cause I am."

"Do you really think that's a good idea?" I snapped.

She shrugged, "Can you think of a better reason in the entire world?"

I pouted a bit, then turned back to the mirror. I lifted my chin. The neck was smooth. My eyes drifted lower on the reflection. The Dark Knight tee I'd worn to bed was being stretched in one very unusual location, but hung way loose over my torso.

I closed my eyes again and sighed. "I'm... a girl."

"Actually," she said with that annoyingly resolved pixie tone, "Give a closer look. I'm a girl. You are a woman."

I re-opened my eyes. She was right. There weren't many obvious clues at first, but my skin wasn't as youthful as hers, there were a few signs of aging. I ran my fingers through my hair again and took a deep breath. "Will you just tell me what's going on?"

She called me over to the bed, where the joint was resting. I crossed the room, suddenly aware of this weird, penisless feeling. I sat next to her.

I looked squarely at her. "Swear to me you are seriously Bryan."

"Only if you promise you're definitely Todd."

I sighed. I still felt like Todd, that was for sure. She passed me the roach. I hesitated before taking a nice big toke.

We heard a muffled scream outside the door, "OH GOD NO!'

She ignored it and said, "Let me tell you what I know."

And so she explained what she had already figured out about the Inn. Everyone staying there was cursed to take the bodies of the previous tenants and so on, so forth. The letters, which Bryan had actually found a few days earlier but been unable to make sense of - like some weird, frantically-written fairytale/biography - but as soon as the transformation happened it all became clear. Or at least, as clear as these people were able to make it.

The woman - me - was Anne Marie Adkisson. The girl was not her daughter, but niece by marriage, Elyssa McClay. They had been on a fourth of July trip and, well, now they were somewhere else (I won't say where just now.)

"So what then?" I asked, "We go to Toronto and try to convince people?"

"No, see, when I tried to read the letters before, it just flew over my head. There's no way to explain it to someone until it happens. We can't go home, dude. We have to go to Connecticut."

I've never been the type of guy who liked "having" to do anything. But now, I guess I'm not any type of guy anymore so how could I possibly argue? I took another hit.

"All I wanted was to see Slowhead," I muttered.

Maybe I'm leaving some stuff out. Maybe it took longer for me to believe, or we went back and forth longer, but it's been a while and my memory has settled on this as the official version. What's important, of course, is there.

More later.
-Todd, aka Anne Marie

Brandon/Laura: The start of a story

I contacted Arthur/Penny a few days ago, when i first found this blog. After it happened to me. This seems like the only place online where people freely admit to what happens at the Inn. The only place where people will believe I am who I am and not who Ive become.

My real name is Brandon Chase. I'm recently a graduate of the University of Arizona. I was a swimmer in college and an alternate on the men's team to Beijing. Obviously i was not needed, otherwise id have been touring the country with my medals rather than taken a fateful vacation to Maine.

I didn't really talk to anybody while i was there. I read in my room and outside mostly. If only i had stayed out for the night when IT happened.

I'm a deep sleeper, so i wasn't awake for the transformation. My first notice came when i was awoken by the screaming surrounding me that morning as everyone else saw what had happened to them.The first thing I noticed was a searing pain in my waist. I looked down and saw the waistband of my boxers digging into me. What else i saw made me behave like everyone else, and scream at the top of my lungs. Only, these weren't my lungs.

Pushing blond hair out of the way, i saw attached to my chest two massive, floppy mounds of flesh. Below those were rolls of fat on my stomach, and further down were two thick legs with pink toenail polish.

I stood up rapidly and fell over. My balance was off. I stood back up and carefully walked over to the mirror, and staring back at me was a topless blond girl who could be described in no other terms but fat.

I stood there staring blankly for a few minutes. When i came to my senses my first thought was to get rid of the pain in my side, so i peeled off my boxers. Standing there naked i confirmed that i was indeed a girl although i had to look in the mirror seeing as i couldn't see past my rolls.

I needed to leave the room and see what was going on, so i went through my luggage and put on a thsirt and sweatpants, which didn't fit well since was apparently shorter as well as wider.

I don't know if words can accurately describe the chaos that is the Trading Post Inn the day after a change. There was a grown woman,screaming like a baby in the middle of the floor. A man who unlike me didn't see the need to put on clothes before venturing into the hallway. Utter chaos and shouting.

This went on for half an hour before someone came out of their room saying they found a note with some luggage in their closet, explaining all. This sent everyone to their rooms to look for similar notes.I found pink luggage, with a note.

"Dear Stranger,

Well, I guess you and I are now part of an elaborate curse. My name is Laura Green, and I was the last person to stay in this room before you. I'm now in the body of the girl who stayed here before me. And the person who stays there next will be in your body. The way it looks is that for now Ive got to live this life and you've got to live mine. On my laptop Ive left a detailed description of my life, job and important people. Good luck, and take care of my body, ill be wanting it back

-Laura"

She enclosed the contact info for someone named Marissa in New York.Since I wanted to get away on this vacation, i didn't bring my cellphone. I looked through Laura's luggage and found her pink one, but she didn't have service up here. Fucking Sprint.


This happened on wednesday. Im leaving tommorow because my stay is up and the Inn is closing for the year. Ill post more after I talk to Laura when I get back to St. Louis tommorow.

Todd: Some adventure this has been...

I've been trying to work this out for weeks.

I found out about this blog not long after I left the Inn, back in July. Obviously I've been through a lot and coping with it has kept me from jumping right in and participating. I snuck little moments to read back from the beginning trying to get some hint about what had happened, some clue as to what I should do. It's been helpful but my panic isn't exactly over and done with.

My name is Todd Casey, although I don't have any photo ID to prove it. All of my cards say...

No, actually. I'll get to it later but I'd rather, at least for this writing, my introduction to whomever is reading this, just be me. I just want these words be seen as coming from my brain, without being flavoured by what, who, I have become... which I will describe later. So just picture me. Todd.

It's October and I finally have some time to myself. I've been couped up here going privately crazy, trying to express this, and now I have the chance (and the guts) to do so.

Even if I hadn't made a fateful stay at the Inn two months ago, it still would've been a spellbinding summer. See, for personal and professional reasons, I had spent early part of the summer - from May until July - adventuring up the East coast. Seeing bands, picking up girls, indulging in illicit substances, from Miami to Maine. It was my dream job.

See, I've always, been, well... proudly, a slacker. I'd been living hand-to-mouth in a ratty apartment with Bryan, my photographer, best friend and stepcousin. I worked a low-paying internship at a Toronto underground paper where I thought I was going to write about movies and music, but I was really just doing page layout.

So when I announced last winter that I was taking the summer off to bum around south of the border, my editor smiled, handed me a laptop and said, "Great. Make it an article while you're down there." He said he couldn't finance the trip, but it would be great for my career. And for two months, I lived the dream. Bry and I bounded like maniacs from place to place, sleeping anywhere we could, occasionally doing oddjobs, working for favours, stealing. It was miserable at times, to be honest, but even so it was always a thrill, and Bry was good enough at finding us places to eat and sleep that we never went cold or hungry. There were some close calls though. And week after week I'd have a new installment for the guys back home to print. Sensational.

So yeah. Before a fateful mid-July stop at this odd little joint in Maine, it was already a legendary summer. We would've been home by August if we hadn't gotten derailed, and now...

Now, I guess, the rest of the story begins.

There's been a lot of words had between me and Bry about what has happened and how to deal with it. Right now we're stuck. And maybe my life wasn't much to look at, but I'll do anything to get back to it, because it's where I belong. And this is not.

That's a story for another time.
Signing off, Todd Casey.

Arthur/Penny: Even when you get a break...

I had forgotten how insanely hectic the newspaper business is. I had somewhat naively thought that working on the giveaway dailies would be easier. After all, anyone who has read one of the things has to wonder just how much work actually went into them: Just pull things off the wire services, cut it down to one or two column-inches that any reader who knows the first thing about the subject is little more than stating the obvious, and use half the space for pictures.

There is, of course, more to it, especially for those of us in the sports department. In Boston even more than most cities, that section is going to be dominated by local content, so you are doing a fair amount of actual writing. Of course, you're still working within tight word limits, so you're still cutting down, and it's a lot more frustrating to reduce one's own prose than to pull relevant sentences from someone else's. Especially if you've spent all day on the phone, trying to call anybody who might have any sort of insight about Tom Brady's injury.

My last experience at a newspaper was also at the tail end of them seriously denying the importance of the web. I didn't work in sports much then - I did some, as interns go wherever they're told - but even though the deadlines for a daily paper are always tight, it's nothing compared to now. And now is the word - something happens, and you have to have a story up on the website right now, constantly updated, while at the same time you're constantly updating the cut down version that will appear in tomorrow's paper.

That doesn't even begin to get to blogs. One of the things the giveaway papers have been doing lately, in order to fill column-inches cheaply and at least give the impression of being more connected to the community, is create programs where local bloggers can submit links to the paper, or even have their blogs hosted by them. As a professional writer, I'm not really a fan, for a number of reasons - it devalues the work I do, both by giving the paper free options and (often) reducing the quality of what people read in the paper, making it look like standards are lower. (I'm not a complete grumpy old man on this; there's a lot of good writing on blogs, especially sports, and a lot of papers would do themselves a lot of good to hire the talented, enthusiastic amateurs and can the tired old men) Plus, it creates more work for me and the editor: In order to get any half-decent blogger to participate, it has to be a completely opt-in-based process... That creates new and exciting ways to be accused of plagiarism, as the blogger knows the paper is aware of their work, and if they feel a published story is too close without acknowledging them, whether or not they've given permission to use their entry, they raise a stink, and their work went up instantly while yours didn't appear until morning...

Don't get me wrong, I've been enjoying it immensely. One of the great things about the job is that I've been able to reinvent myself fairly quickly. When I started, a lot of people had the impression that I was hired because I had a pretty headshot to put at the top of a column, while my previous job made me experienced enough to hire but green enough to not pay very much. Truth be told, that's probably it exactly. But after a month or so, they start to realize that you've got the goods.

Still, every once in a while you need to blow off steam. Or, failing that, drink. There's dangers there, of course, some wholly unexpected.

Thursday, for instance, I got out of the office relatively early, not having a Sox game to cover and having managed to get the football and baseball previews done for the weekend edition. I still had my phone set to page me for any important events, but it was the end of the work week and I wanted to unwind. (Yes, the Sunday to Thursday schedule takes a bit of getting used to). There are a few not-bad bars in the Downtown Crossing/Park Street area, and that day I ambled into The Sidebar. It's not the lawyer bar you might imagine from the name, but it's not bad snacks and beer for the price.

I still found a lawyer there, though. Raymond Kim was sitting at the bar, and that kind of stopped me in my tracks at first. I almost turned back to find another place, but then I realized that he wouldn't recognize me, and I found myself very curious just what he'd been up to in the last year-plus. So I walked to the bar, grabbed a stool right next to him, and ordered myself a beer. I've been female long enough to learn some of the tricks; it may be weird and uncomfortable for a woman to just walk up and start talking to a man, but once the bartender asked what kind of beer, I can turn to Ray, ask him what he's having, and order one of the same. Now we're talking and no-one's found it awkward.

I introduce myself, and he gets a laugh out of the name. "Heh, I have thought of going back to 'Nell' on occasion, but people remember 'Penny Lincoln'. It may be kind of porn-star-y, but that sticks in the mind." He blushes a little, but laughs, and asks me what I do. I tell him I write about sports for Boston Today, and he says that he recognizes me from there, now that I mention it.

"Well, better that than the porn, right?"

He spits a little beer. "Sorry... This isn't the sort of conversation I have often."

"Really? Why not? You're a good-looking guy, I bet girls find an excuse to talk to you all the time."

"Not the All-American Amazons. Besides, I'm usually--" He's looking in my eyes, and decides to change answers, I think. "I'm usually in stuffy lawyer bars after work."

He finished off his beer, and raised two fingers to the bartender. I gave him a little half nod. "Thank you."

"No problem."

We chat about nothing for a while; he talks about the case he just litigated at the courthouse, and I give some exaggerated horror stories about doing play-by-play with a partner who doesn't respect me. He says it sounds terrible, and I say, yeah, but it gives me background for my book.

"Tell-all?"

"Murder mystery."

"Ooh, that sounds like fun."

"It is. Hard work, but plenty of fun."

He's about to say something else when we hear a throat clearing behind us.

"Hello, Raymond. Who's this?"

"Liz! Liz, this is Penny Lincoln, she writes about sports for that new paper. Penny, this is Liz--"

"Raymond's fiancée." She extends her palm in check-the-ring position. I whistle appreciatively, and that seems to satisfy her.

"Anyway, Penny was just telling me that she was writing a novel."

"A murder mystery, actually. Raymond mentioned he was a lawyer so I was picking his brain for some background information."

Elizabeth smiled sweetly. "Murder's illegal in Massachusetts."

I saw where this was going. "Good to know. Anyway, nice to meet you both." I finished the last sip of my Sam Adams, and signaled the bartender for the tab.

I stuck around the general area until the paper was officially put to bed, then headed back home. I wasn't sure what part of the evening had been stranger - talking with Ray like we were complete strangers, or seeing Liz from the outside, acting... Well, not like me.

- Art / "Penny"

Kat - Men

It's been awhile since I've written anything here. I guess between school, a job, friends, and trying to enjoy life... I just really never made the time to keep writing - Not that there was really anything to write about anyhow.

Back in April I took a trip with Pete (the former owner of my body) to Las Vegas. I think it was partly the always-on "electricity" but mostly the anonymity of the city that prompted me to stay and try to find myself.

I found a nice little apartment, got a job, and started some online college courses.

I thought if I jumped right into the girl role, that I'd eventually feel more comfortable around guys. So I got a job at a club off of the strip - the pay isn't great, but it has a "safer" feel than the bigger clubs. They wanted me to be a dancer, you know, an exotic dancer... a stripper - but there was no way I could do that. So much for jumping into the fire. I stood my ground and let them know that I wasn't comfortable with that offer, but that I was more than capable of filling a waitress or bartender position they were advertising. I remember the look in the owner's eye as he stalled, seemingly testing my resolve... or my desperation, as I smiled, thanked him, and turned to walk out the door. I was flattered to hear later that some of the patrons gave him hell for not hiring me on the spot. Personally, I'm glad he didn't - I got an extra $1.50 an hour out of him to start.

Anyhow, enough gloating. I did find out that even after months of dealing with being a girl around guys, I still feel like prey being hunted by all those hungry eyes - it's still a little disconcerting, sometimes creepy, and occasionally downright scary. I'm afraid to ask any other girls if they feel the same thing... or if it ever goes away. I'm just very happy that I'm not a dancer. I have great respect for them being able to tolerate... or ignore, what I can only imagine they must feel and endure.

I have found a bit of solace... or maybe it's a comradarie... sisterhood when in the company of other women. I just feel safe. Or maybe it's just that the men are absent.

Arthur/Penny: Back "home", sort of

It seems silly for me to think of Boston as home; of all the places I've lived, my eight or so months here was among my shortest stays and easily one of my most traumatic. But maybe that second part is what makes it feel like home. One usually associates the word with safety, security, and familiarity, but it's also the place where one grows up. Yes, I first came to the Trading Post Inn as an adult, and I have physically changed a great deal since leaving Boston, but there's no question that it was here that I learned the lessons that made me the woman I am today.

It's also where my best friend lives. It's been about a year since I last saw Lyn, but she nearly knocked me over running up to give me a hug when I arrived at my new apartment. In my defense, I was somewhat wobbly on my legs having driven non-stop from New York. We were both wearing short shorts and she looked at my legs a bit jealously, saying she'd forgotten just how tall the new me was. I laughed at that a bit, pointing out I'd been Penny longer than I'd been Liz, so I sort of took that for granted now, although it did make Lyn seem a little short. "Well," she said, "I'm still gifted in other ways," crossing her arms under her breasts.

We spend the afternoon catching each other up while unpacking the car. I've been remiss about updating people on certain things since quitting my job, such as my new apartment and job. Lyn found the apartment for me, a small but comfortable loft right on the border of Chinatown that makes it very tempting for me to sell my car, since I'm now an easy walk from South Station as well as all four subway lines and the offices for the new job. It all depends on how much traveling off the lines I'll have to do. After living in California for another year, I can hardly imagine being without my car again, although it's not that much of an exaggeration to say that the rent on my parking spot rivals that on the apartment.

We wound up laying on the floor afterward; the bed wasn't due to be delivered for another couple days. I handled most of the larger stuff, but Lyn was still pooped. I sat up and looked at her for a few moments, and she asked if all that muscle and testosterone was some sign that I was still a guy at heart, staring at her boobs. "Not those, the thing you've got 'em wrapped. Are you so assimilated as to be a Celtics fan now?"

"Let's just say it was an easy bandwagon to jump on this season. I've got to tell you, liking sports in this town doesn't suck at all, other than trying to get affordable tickets. Although I could probably get those if I liked hockey as much as the original Ashlyn liked hockey players!"

"Well, I hope the sports stuff isn't too overwhelming; my new boss said they'd be using me to spot people in the other departments when they needed someone extra, but if the Sox, Pats, Celtics and Bruins keep me busy, there won't be too many opportunities."

"You'll find 'em. Although I'd keep my resumé up to date, if I was you - I didn't even realize Boston Now was gone until something like a month after the fact, so I don't know how much room there is for another giveaway paper."

"Eh, the Boston Today people have been doing okay out west for a few years, and it's not like Now and the Metro have had Penny Lincoln. Although I think Today is actually setting up shop in Boston Now's old offices."

She laughed at that, saying some people never learned, and asked when it was going to start publishing. I said they were planning a July 4th launch, taking advantage of what a big party Boston puts on for the fourth, with a pull-out section on the fireworks and pops and me writing pieces on the Sox-Yankees games going on in New York. Lyn makes a joke about the Yankees being old news, the new rivalry being the Rays, but I have to admit it's still hard for me to take Tampa Bay seriously.

Anyway, all that was about a week ago. I've since been reintroduced to how crazy the daily newspaper grind is - we've been doing "dress rehearsals" to prepare for the big launch - and how much "fun" dealing with utility companies is. Of course, it doesn't help when you're playing Comcast and Verizon against each other to try and get one of them to offer you something just a bit better than the other.

It's great to be here, though. As much as San Francisco and Oakland are where I come from, right now Boston is where I want to be.

-Art/Penny

Arthur/Penny: The real deal

I apologize for not posting in a couple of weeks; Louisa and I promised not to write anything until the original Marie and Jean-Michel were back home, safe and sound, so even though I've had parts of this written for over a week, it's sat on my hard drive, getting a bit of editing when I couldn't sleep, but otherwise just waiting.

Louisa and I arrived in the Salt Lake City area on Thursday, June 5th. It's an unusual area, at least for me - it's very conservative in some ways that I'm not used to. I don't mean politically - there really wasn't any time or reason for its red-state-ness to make any difference - just that there was a certain lack of edge there. The public art is never trying to push the envelope, for instance. People bustle quietly but with purpose. Most are very polite. The streets are pretty clean.

Louisa says it's because even though Salt Lake is a big city, it's a tighter-knit, more connected community than most cities. When most people have something in common, she says, they tend to work together to handle the smaller details of life. She doesn't totally approve of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints itself - sometimes I think Christians look at other branches of Christianity with more suspicion than they do religions with much more fundamental differences - but she does recognize the irony in saying that it looks like it would be a nice place to live if not for all the Mormons.

It seemed an odd place for a couple of people from as cosmopolitan and sometimes gleefully anything-goes a city as Montreal to land and stay. Still, I guess you never know. For all of us who never feel quite right, there's people like Lyn who embrace their new lives, no matter how far it may be from the one they'd been living. And their little house was so normal, so insulated against things as unusual as turning into a copy of another person. In the city, there can be something strange around every corner, but in a place like this, it seemed impossible.

We would learn different soon enough. Louisa and I rang the doorbell, and a man in his mid-thirties answered it. He was a couple inches taller than me, with light brown hair, and an industrious day's growth of stubble on his cheeks. His eyes darted between Louisa and me, maybe lingering a fraction of a second longer on her, but not so as to give anything away. "Can I help you?"

So, he was going to play it like that. Louisa cleared her throat. "We've got news for you - mainly for your wife - and it didn't seem right to give it to her over the phone."

"Well, then I guess you'd better come in." He opened the door and stood back a bit. Louisa went in first, and he closed the door after me. I turned around to thank him and found myself staring down the barrel of a very large pistol.

Louisa screamed, and I froze. It's strange, but the main thing I remember from that moment is that my eyes were crossing, trying to focus on something so close to my face. "Honey," he yelled, "get Casey and the suitcase, it's time to go!"

I heard some scrambling from the top floor, and then on the stairs. Louisa called out Marie's name, but the man pointed a finger at her and pushed the gun a fraction of an inch closer to my forehead and she stopped. I heard the sound of a car starting and driving off.

"Okay," I said, remembering to breathe, "you got your family away safe. That's fair. Now can you put that thing down so we can talk like reasonable people? Check us over, we're not carrying anything. We really do just want to talk."

He took a step toward me, although the gun stayed in the same position, and used his other hand to pat me down. He wasn't letting his guard down, though, and motioned Louisa to come closer so he could do the same for her. As professional as he'd been with me, he seemed a bit more awkward with her, though I guess that was understandable. Satisfied that we were armed or wired or anything, he lowered the gun, but didn't put it down. "Okay. Who are you?"

We told him, giving him the chance to google me (or Nell, or Penny, or whatever) to make sure that I was not some random person André Trudeau had sent but someone who could at least be traced. He confirmed that he was originally Jean-Michel, and also the basics of what we figured: The Inn had given him and Marie the forms of a newlywed couple from Utah (amazingly, not switching their sexes), and after a little fretting, they decided to act on it: There had been attraction between them for some time, and that it didn't disappear when they had their new looks must have meant something. They had both wanted away from Trudeau's scene, so they took the offered chance, although they were still very cautious, just in case the Inn was part of some bizarre plot on the boss's part.

Convinced we were trustworthy, or at least willing to risk it, he got out his phone and called Marie, using some code words to tell her that he wasn't doing so under duress. She hadn't gotten very far, so it didn't take her long to get back.

Marie and Louisa took a good long look at each other. Marie said she didn't know whether she would have gone for that haircut; Louisa said it was Parker Costello's idea. Louisa asked how old the baby was (eight months).

The small talk was awkward, but Jean-Michel had at least put the gun down. For me, it was almost a relief when they finally asked why it was so important that we track them down. Of course, it meant that Louisa had the hard part coming up.

"Marie... Your mother died last year."

"What? That's ridiculous; she was only--"

"It was sudden - a blood clot. It happens fast like that sometimes. I don't think Elizabeth knew - they weren't close - but soon after she became herself again and I became you, it took a turn for the worse. I'm truly sorry."

"No, it's..." She handed the baby to her husband and walked to the computer Jean-Michel had used to check my bona fides. The website of a Montreal newspaper was on their favorites list (they evidently hadn't cut themselves completely off from their old lives), and she searched it until she found the obituary. "Mon dieu... Almost a whole year..."

Jean-Michel put his hand on her shoulder. "You couldn't have known. And even if you could have, what could we have done?"

"I know, it's just - I had a fantasy, you know, of bringing Casey up to meet her grand-maman, convincing her somehow of everything, letting her know that we're the only family in Utah raising their baby to be bilingual, and now I find out my mother was dead before Casey was even born."

"I'm sorry. Maybe we shouldn't have come--"

"No! I want to thank you for coming. And for being there with her. That can't have been easy."

"It's all right. It's important to not be alone at the end."

"Yes. Well. We've been very rude, pointing a gun at you rather than offering you something to drink. May I--?"

I accepted whole-heartedly, still having the jitters from having that gun pointed at me. They got the bottle of wine from a cabinet in an unused corner (Jean-Michel said the neighbors disapproved when they saw a bottle on the counter when they first came "home" from their honeymoon, but asking them to give up both alcohol and tobacco was too much). I had a good, long sip to steady my nerves, and we spent the evening sharing information.

They didn't have too much to say; they'd deliberately cut themselves off from their fellow guests back in '06. They were fascinated by the tales of other people we'd met and visited, with all the various stories and permutations. They couldn't believe how relatively lucky they and most of their group was; most everyone had stayed the same same sex and ethnicity: Both "before" and "after", theirs was a pretty Caucasian group; Marie apparently gaining some Native American (First Nations, as she put it) blood was about the extent of weirdness on a physical level.

Of course, what they were most interested in was how Louisa's life as Marie had gone; that she hadn't had any communication with Trudeau in months was a relief, although it also made them feel a bit foolish for having been so determined to hide. Not so foolish that they didn't ask us to hold off on talking about this until they'd gone to Montreal and returned, of course. Marie wanted to lay some flowers on her mother's grave, and they both wanted to see if it still felt like home. I told them I hoped they had better luck than I did, but they figured it would be easier just visiting.

One other thing I noticed: Louisa really seemed to get on with the baby. I remembered a moment when Marie sat down next to me looking at them and asked if I'd thought about kids. I responded with a question, whether she heard about me having been a guy, and she shrugged. "I never thought of myself as a mommy type, either, until I saw my first ultrasound. Anyway, I hope Louisa stops thinking of herself as too old and a widow. Aside from the fact that she'd be great at it..."

"You're mom's gone."

"Yeah. I mean, this is me now, but I'd hate for all of her to be gone."

Louisa's back in California now; maybe she'll find someone there and wind up starting her own family. In the meantime, I'm just a few days from being back in Boston. I'm looking forward to seeing Lyn again.

-Art/Penny

Arthur/Penny: A road trip of my own.

The last time I moved voluntarily, I was moving to a larger place - back into the house I grew up in, as a matter of fact - and it wasn't very far, so I didn't really consider the need to scale down, which is a good thing: I can be a real pack rat, given the opportunity, so it was a pretty involved process, involving multiple trips, and any element of fun to it was muted by the fact that I was making the move to be able to take care of my ailing mother.

This time, it's different; there can be no going back and forth when moving from San Francisco to Boston, and in terms of help I'm basically looking at Lyn when I arrive - and while there are several very nice attributes to her body, strength isn't exactly one of them. Fortunately, I don't have much personal attachment to many of Nell's possessions, so I could be pretty ruthless in putting them up for sale or donating them to charity. I even pondered getting rid of her laptop and buying myself a new one when I arrived in Boston, but being without something to write on felt wrong.

Nell's little car is still packed pretty tight, though, which is why I was a little bit apprehensive when Louisa sent me an email, asking if I would like a passenger for at least part of the way.

I only met her once, months ago, but I liked her. We've emailed back and forth a few times, and I've kept saying I'd like to come down and see her in L.A. on an off-week, but it never seemed to come together. I also wanted to meet Dana and Parker Costello, and since I had a few weeks between when I had to be out of Nell's place in SF and the start of my new job in Boston, I figured I might as well start my own road trip cross-country by going a little ways in the wrong direction.

Before I met with them, though, I made sure I stopped in to see Cassie and Jim. Cassie was Nell's best friend, and we got along pretty well, too, so it didn't seem right to just leave her life without saying goodbye. We wound up having dinner, then going out for drinks, and yakking about sports - was I going to assimilate to Boston so fast that I rooted for the Celtics next week, which I assured them was ridiculous. She said she'd read the manuscript I emailed her, and said that if I couldn't get one of the east coast publishers to do anything with it, I should explore one of the print-on-demand outfits. I said I didn't know about that - maybe Nell was fond of the new-media stuff, but as much fun as blogging is, I feel a lot more comfortable with the established system. I don't get paid for this, after all, and this is about the limit of how much I'm willing to write for free.

I crashed on Cassie's couch Saturday night and gave them big hugs before leaving for the Costellos'. Bigger than I expected, really; even after realizing how much I liked them, I'd always thought of myself as pretending to be their friend; it was strange to realize that it was the real thing.

Meeting Dana, Parker, and Louisa was a completely different feeling. Dana, for instance, is huge; I spent a lot of time around jocks during the lacrosse seasons, but Dana is taller than them and is really going to be something when he starts to really fill out. He laughed at the way Parker and I looked at each other upon meeting, saying we both had the same expression that Jessica had had when she and Parker first met. I guess it's a sort of universal guys-who-become-girls thing, especially for those of us who have been there a while: One part of our brain is scoping out the pretty girl, another is doing the female appraisal of the competition, and still another is trying to picture the other girl as a guy and figure out what we think of that hypothetical guy, and guys in general... It's pretty confusing to us, too.

They're pretty cool people, though. They seemed to like me, too, and we had a bit of a laugh about most of the people the Inn hits with this being nice people. If I were writing it as a story, there'd be way more irony in who gets changed to what, and the assholes would have a harder time of it.

Another thing I further verified: this change doesn't give us any sort of skills at all. Nell had played basketball in school and was apparently pretty good at it, though it was her third-best sport behind volleyball and lacrosse, but Dana kicked my ass but good when we decided to play some one-on-one after dinner. Heck, he handled me and Parker when we played a little one-on-two (Louisa sat out; she says she still isn't used to being strong enough to play sports well). It made Dana pretty happy, though - it feels good to know that being good at sports is because of his own effort, rather than something inherited from the original Dana.

Louisa was pretty low-key, at least until we said our good-byes and I gave her a lift back to her small apartment. That's where she handed me a meticulously organized file and asked me what I thought, since I had done some investigative and research work before.

I looked it over and was pretty impressed; it was thorough and as well-documented as it could be; Parker had made a good call getting the studio to hire Louisa on as a research assistant. The content of it was pretty impressive, too - Louisa and Jessica had managed to spend the last few months productively even while holding down a full-time job in Louisa's case and a heavy classload in Jessica's (she doesn't intend to graduate a semester late). It had taken a lot of patience and convincing, but it looked like it had paid off. They had the names and addresses of the original Marie Desjardins and Jean-Michel Therriot.

"You understand," she said, "I don't want to tell them on the phone or via email, but I don't want to call ahead and spook them..."

I told her it was no problem. I was planning to drive through Utah anyway, just to see the natural beauty of the place, and be only too happy to make a stop there.

-Art/Penny

Arthur/Penny: You can't go home again

Although maybe you can; it's just a matter of deciding what home is.

I did my last bit for CalSports last night. After the Stealth were eliminated from the playoffs, I told George that I wasn't going to sign a new contract to cover the Dragons, and gave two weeks' notice on the scorecasts. He was kind of surprised, but he could also see it's been something I've wanted to do for a while. He threw me a great going-away party last night, and had enough respect for me that he didn't spend a lot of time trying to convince me to stay.

Rick didn't take it quite so well. He couldn't believe I'd make that kind of move without consulting him. On a certain level, he does have a point; if you have a career where an agent makes sense, he needs to be in the loop on your career choices. Still, I said, the fact that he said "consulting" rather than "informing" was part of the reason I didn't. There'd be no point.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means..." We were at a restaurant, and I probably did some awkward thing then - reaching for my glass, deciding I didn't want to use that as a delaying technique for what I had to say, deciding I really was thirsty... "It means that this isn't that kind of career move. It's not about wanting to change jobs because I'm not getting paid enough, or the cheerleader thing made me feel uncomfortable, or I've got another option. I just don't want to do TV sports any more. If I'd consulted you, you'd have tried to talk me out of it, because to do otherwise would be arguing against your own interests."

He said that wasn't completely true; this would be a challenge, but we could work together on the next phase of my career. That's when I told him that I wasn't just quitting this job, but his agency. There were a bunch of reasons; it felt weird to have that kind of working relationship with someone I'd slept with, I wanted to write and his agency was more set up for in front of the camera talent (and media where there was a camera!). Besides, I was going to be leaving California--

"Without telling your boyfriend?"

"Come on, Rick, we haven't been that in... I don't know if we were ever that. We were just convenient and safe; it was easier having someone we could talk to about everything. But you don't need that any more. You've... assimilated, I guess. You like the life you're in. I'm probably all that's keeping you from packing up shop and moving to Los Angeles to take it to the next level. And don't think I don't know about the pretty young things you've been seeing on the side."

"You could..."

"I don't want to! I don't want to live where I have a chance of running into the jerk calling himself Arthur Milligan on the street, let alone at work, even if I'll miss my home town. I don't want to spend years trying to fake knowledge of lacrosse or really concentrate on learning that, or just being a pretty face that reads sports scores. I want to research, and learn, and create."

"And you'll be doing that...?"

"Back in Boston. I've got a friend there, and know some in New York, and... Well, you may be content with what the Inn made you, and figure your time worrying about it is at an end, but I want to know more. I need to know more, and I'm going to have to be near it to do that."

It went downhill after that; I think in a while he'll accept that this is best, but that was pretty much like being fired for him, and nobody likes that.

I do think everyone should try quitting their job at least once in their life, though - the next two weeks can be some of the most enjoyable you can imagine, if you still get along with your co-workers, because none of the annoying crap touches you. You can really look at and think about what you're doing objectively.

And if you're in my position - which you're probably not - there is something quite liberating about selling everything you inherited from the person whose appearance you took. All the bulky exercise equipment, furniture, books, movies (I'm keeping some of the electronics) - gone. I'd sell the car, too, but I figured I'd wait and see how useful it is back in Boston before going that far. I've had Lyn scouting out apartments for me, and I've got a few job interviews lined up. It's going to be exciting.

I am tempted to stay here, but it's not what I want and really need right now. And it will be great to see Lyn regularly again, especially after not having seen her for a year.

-Art/Penny

Jaci - Misery & Kat

I am beginning to not like being pregnant anymore. My feet swell, I get heartburn, and I can't sleep at night. Not to mention the hundreds of trips I make to the bathroom everyday. The babies are constantly moving around which is the most amazing feeling in the world but it makes it hard to breathe. I'm back to work which is nice but man does it make me tired. It amazes me how I can be more tired now working a simple 8 hour shift than I was working 2 jobs 16 hours a day. Apparently it takes a lot of energy to grow one baby, let alone 2.

Enough whining for now. I heard from Kat the other day. More accurately, she sent me a text message. I know she is off trying to find herself and all but I was totally shocked to hear that she had picked Las Vegas. Its the last place I ever would have imagined her being. I don't think she's gambling but what do I know. I hope she finds what she is looking for while she is there. And if, by chance, she should win a large sum of money that she shares with the rest of us.

Arthur/Penny: If you think I'm providing a link, you're nuts.

I should have known this was going to happen, but I didn't. I've got half a mind to fire "Rick", quite honestly, even though he's got a small point when he says that he's only been working as an agent for less than a year and thus couldn't be expected to anticipate this. My initial instinct is to call bullshit, because he's sort of been anticipating this ever since we wound up in these lives, but I probably won't.

It just goes to show how ignorant I can be that I didn't have any idea what was going on until Tuesday. I had decided not to go to bed at all Monday night, since I was going to watch the A's game at 3am (7pm Tokyo time) and getting just three or four hours of sleep is pretty useless. I put in some late-night time on the treadmill before the game started, then got out the laptop so that I could do some re-writing and surfing done while mostly paying attention to the TV.

I wasn't surprised to see Lyn on at the same time. She IMed me first, asking if if I was up late or early. "Late," I typed. "You?"

"Early. Got a lunch shift. I probably wouldn't be up at all, but Matt's watching it at the station and wants to chat with me so it would like we're in the same room."

"Aw. That's sickening."

"Hey, someday you'll meet the right guy and you'll be doing stuff like that too."

"I don't know if I'm ever going to be that much of a girl."

"Hey, a year and a half ago, you couldn't imagine dressing up as a schoolgirl, but you make a damn hot cheerleader!"

I tensed up a little behind my keyboard, but typed that I chickened out.

"Liar! It's on YouTube." Link. Link. Link. Link.

I took a moment to follow the links Lyn sent me, becoming more mortified with each one, especially some of the comments on them. The fact that they appeared to have been typed by illiterates didn't do much to camouflage their crudity.

"Oh my god... I don't know what's worse, that these things exist or that you must have gone looking for them! Please tell me that your secret admirer sent them to you or something!"

"Hey, you can't expect a girl not to be curious after that cliffhanger. But come on, you pulled it off, you were classy. Those people would make comments like that if they found pictures of their mothers online!"

I found that less than reassuring, and changed the subject to stuff like Matt being "the right guy" or why she was still working at Headlights. And the game. I'm afraid I jinxed the A's during the ninth, saying I was about ready to go to bed just before the Red Sox tied it up. Lyn taunted me for that.

I was doing the scorecast the next night, and told George about these clips, saying I'd really appreciate it if the network could lean on Google to take the clips down - that was copyrighted CalSports footage, after all! He said he'd see what he could do. I wound up staying up all night at the studio - the weird hours for the games in Japan meant that instead of just shooting a bit that could be edited into the program for the morning repeats, we stayed up and watched the game, rewriting copy so that we'd be able to just shoot a new bit when the game finally ended at six.

It was a busy weekend - a Saturday game in Edmonton - so I didn't get a chance to see whether the videos were taken down. They were not, and it was almost like George forgot that I'd even wanted that. I came in yesterday to do a scorecast and he was giving me the good news about how ratings for the games were up 40% this weekend. The higher-ups at the network were really pleased, he said, and were probably going to talk to Rick about offering me a full-time contract.

I was a bit sarcastic, I think - something about whether or not they'd be reconfiguring the set so that the audience could see my belly button during the show, or whether cleavage would be enough. That raised some eyebrows, so George took me aside, saying that this was a good thing - maybe some of the people that tuned in to look at me would get into lacrosse, or I'd be able to work on more prominent assignments - this was a good thing!

I said I guess, if you just wanted to call games and read scores. I'd worn the outfit to call attention to the story, and it didn't sound like it was going to lead to more stories, which was what I really wanted to do. George said he could see my enthusiasm for it, but that's not the way it usually worked in television - they tend to do work with the local papers, and the promotion path goes toward more on-screen time.

I did the broadcast, but decided to go in to talk to Rick today. He said he was just about to call; Maxim had contacted him again about getting me for a pictorial. I pointed out that I'd said no the last time, and he said that the stuff on the internet seemed to indicate that I might have loosened up about that.

No, I said, I hadn't, and I would really like him to start talking me up for more creative/reporting work, because I don't know how much more I'm going to want to work for CalSports after my Stealth commitment is up. He says he thinks that would be a big mistake, and I said, yeah, maybe for Nell, but I'm not her, and I'd like to live something resembling my life as much as hers.

-Art/Penny

Kat - Lost... and searching.

Maybe I've been fooling myself, thinking that I can just become this new person. Trying to make this life my own. Living here, everyone already has this preconceived idea of who they think I am... who they think I should be. Every time I try to take a step forward at establishing my mark on this life, something seems to pull me back... prevent me from being me.

It was probably the anonymous comment about my life being "boring" that helped me the most, to realize just how much these defeats were draining me. I've settled into a dull, nearly lifeless existence. I never realized just how much I'd let this whole thing beat me down.

It took the help of some good friends to make me realize that my happiness, my health, relied upon my being able to be myself... whoever that may be. And that to do that, I need to move away from familiar faces, people who expect me to be someone else. I need to go somewhere where I'm free to discover myself... my life... my future.

I'm not sure where I'm going, or how long it'll take... and I don't know how often I'll be able to check-in... but this is something that I have to do. I have to find myself.

Arthur/Penny: You have GOT to be kidding me.

I try not to be a total hypocrite about objectifying women. I have, after all, done my share of it in the past; I was, after all, a man. So when I meet a guy and he has a conversation with my chest, I tend to let it go. It is a bit uncomfortable for me, but getting upset about it tends to be counterproductive - not only are you focusing his attention on your breasts even more than it already was, but he's now less at-ease (which can be useful) and sometimes comes away from it thinking of you as a bitch (which is seldom useful). I've learned some tricks about it over the past year (it wasn't a big deal when living Liz's life, because she's a bit flat-chested and I was often standing next to Lyn and her eye-magnets). If you're sitting, stand, or vice versa; it changes the guy's eyeline and most men will realize that they've been impolite and make an effort afterward. Keep a scarf of wrap in your purse or desk draw for days when it's bugging you. That sort of thing.

Similarly, I don't act snippy when some girl is using what she got to her best advantage; I've enjoyed the benefits of that far too much in the past and, to be frank, still do, a little. Twenty-five-plus years of being trained to appreciate the female form doesn't just go away because something else is now supposed to excite you on a chemical level. I may have a little more insight on what a girl is going to get male attention, but I haven't found that makes me appreciate it less.

This is a roundabout way of trying to get you to believe me when I write that I did not resent the idea of spending the week filming bits about the "Spy Girls", the Stealth's dance team, to use as a feature story on the pregame segment of Saturday's game and during the recap programs, along with inserts during the game coverage.

It's been an interesting week. George was technically the producer, and he was good at making sure all the technical stuff was in place, but he gave me a pretty free hand with the interviews, arranged to do some new pick-up stuff based on what the girls said, and I'll be spending a good chunk of tomorrow with him in the editing room. It's a lot like writing a commissioned article, just with a lot of extra steps and different media; it came pretty naturally.

I liked the girls, too; I found out that many of them see this as a stepping-stone to a job with the Raiders or 49ers, or looking for modeling or television work. Some of them are just doing it part-time, because it's something the enjoyed in high school or because their nine to fives make them feel drab or uninteresting. I wound up giving a lot of Drew/Rick's business cards out to the first group, and I sympathized somewhat with the latter; I know what it's like to want something different from the life you're leading.

I was surprised by the intensity of some of them, though. Most of the cheerleaders I knew in high school were pretty cool people, but as Annabeth (not her real name) pointed out, there was likely at least one queen bitch among the cheerleaders I knew, and those were the ones that had ambitions to ride their looks, by and large, so there could be a lot of backbiting going on when I wasn't looking. It's like anything else - you may have been the best at something in school, but then you get fed into a situation where you're not just competing with the lesser lights who happened to live in the same town, but a whole ton of people who were the best around where they were.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun, the closest thing to actual journalism I've done while at CalSports, and sort of makes up for not getting chosen for the Tokyo trip.

Until this morning, when George tells me that one of the other producers had the idea that, since we were doing a theme of highlighting the dance squad this week, wouldn't it be neat if I wore the dance squad's outfit tomorrow? Sure, the camera doesn't point inside the booth that often, but it might be fun during pre and post!

I was not amused, to say the least. It is one thing to not mind when someone is checking you out, or understand the impulse, but asking me to do that is something else altogether. This felt like something I could actually be proud of, and they want me to make my body the focus of it? Not cool.

Still... George and "Rick" (Drew doesn't use his own name much these days) both say it would be good for me to be play up my attractiveness a little, demonstrate I'm a little more willing to use it. So I'll probably dress in the stupid cheerleader costume tomorrow night.

I've got no idea what Nell's father is going to think of this. At least my mother isn't around to see it.

-Art/Penny

Jaci - Helping Kat

I left Nick's last night shortly after Kat had called his place. On the way home my cell rang. It was Kat. "You're never going to believe what just happened to me," she said. I said, "what?" She went on to tell me that she had met this guy a couple weeks ago and went on a motorcycle ride with him. She was totally confused about whether she liked or even could like him but wanted to at least explore the option. She then told me I called his house a little while ago and a girl answered. Apparently he already has a girlfriend. By this point bells and whistles were going off in my head. "Is his name Nick by any chance?" I asked Kat. Kat said, "Yes it is." I told Kat that I was the one she had talked to and I apologized for being so mean to her. Jealousy had reared its ugly head and made me snap at Kat without a real reason. So once again, Kat I'm sorry!

I've decided that Kat needs some help. I know she is sooo confused about the whole guy/dating thing but i think she just needs to step into it and give it a try. Maybe after a few dates with a couple of different guys she will feel more comfortable. I know it can't be easy for him, err, her.

There is a band playing at the bar in town this weekend and with it being St. Patrick's weekend it should be pretty busy. I think I will take Kat down and introduce her. I know that Trip knew a lot of the people that will be there but Kat never really went to the bar and to be quite honest needs a bit of help these days to step out of her shell.

Jaci - My Man

So I have this great new guy. He is totally sweet and lovable. Who would have thought that such a guy really exists let alone around here. We went riding on his motorcycle today. I love the sense of freedom that I get when I'm on the back of a bike, even though I know my doctor would probably kick my butt if he knew what I was doing. There is no better feeling than the wind whipping through your hair as you snuggle up to a nice warm guy. After we got done riding we went back to Nick's place. He cooked me dinner, even catering to my craving...Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and gravy. Who can beat that? We cuddled on the couch after dinner and watched The Bourne Ultimatum.
Imagine my surprise when the phone rang and Nick asked me to answer it. I was never more shocked than to hear Kat's voice on the line asking for Nick. I think I bared my fangs just a bit when I said, "What are you doing calling my man?" Nick looked shocked. I glared at him wanting an answer. I put Kat on speaker phone but didn't tell her. Nick and I listened as Kat fumbled for a reply. "Um, uh, is this the number for the Nick that lives on Lake St?" "Yes it is, " I replied. Kat said, "I didn't know he was dating anyone. I'm sorry," and hung up. I put the phone back and looked at Nick. Nick said, "I gave her a ride on a my bike a while back but thats it. " "Its all right I trust you," I replied. What truly amazed me was that I really do trust Nick. He accepts me for who I am and he's totally enthralled with the idea of the babies. He loves it when they kick and he can feel them. Its so nice to have someone to share this with.