Swimsuit issues
I've never felt unattractive. I mean, if you look at me as having come into the world in July 2003. I remember being an overweight kid, and an unexceptional-looking man (though one who did all right), but ever since I woke up like this, I've known what I saw in the mirror. Not the prettiest face, but I smile nice and fill a sweater out even better. Nice butt, my legs aren't bad, and my waist kind of comes and goes with the seasons. There's a few more pounds there right now than there were back in August, but it's good. I like what I see - I know that Martin Hartle would have done me, at least. And, OK, I know what faults he/I had, but I never feel undersirable.

It was a pain in the ass at first. I didn't want guys to want me. I got over that, obviously, and I feel confident because of it.

What this has to do with anything is that Maureen got snippy yesterday when I was unpacking my groceries and I pulled out the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. "Why are you buying that?", she says.

"Hey, summer will be here before you know it. Think this would look good on me?" And I opened it up to a random page. Which turned out to be body paint, causing Maureen to look away.

"God, Marti, you've been a woman for almost two years, and you know exactly what disgusting thoughts go through a man's mind! How can you encourage it?"

"Trust me, the thoughts aren't that disgusting. Besides, I haven't lost my appreciation for the female form just because I've got one."

"But... This is disgusting!"

"It's just boobs. You've got 'em, I've got 'em, and, besides, what lind of self-respecting lesbian doesn't like boobs?"

She gives me a snooty "the self-respecting kind" and walks away in a huff.

All of which is just more set-up for going to the gym with Jen after work today. I've never been much of a workout guy or girl, but I have put a little weight on over the winter, and I don't get to hang out with her much, anyway. Her paired-off relatively drama-free life doesn't quite mesh with mine as much as Kate's does.

So, I get off the bus, meet up with her, and it's still kind of a shock when we go in the locker room. These girls are just ridiculously healthy-looking. I actually feel inferior looking at them. And, man, I was ready to just sit down and die after about a half hour.

Where am I going with this? I don't know. Something about being confident in physicality even though I've definitely got room for improvement, or someting.

-Marti
- posted 10:15 PM - (0) comments - (archive use only)

 
It kind of figures
Huge amounts of snow the evenings I want to go out, nothing when I decide to stay in and help Maureen with the spring cleaning. Although how you can call it "spring" cleaning with a few new inches of snow outsde is beyond my ken.

Although, to be fair, the sun did seem to be trying pretty hard to undo the snowfall yesterday. As Maureen and I were coming back from the grocery store, there were two or three times when all the snow on the hood of a parked car just slid off. I became science geek-girl when Maureen asked why it did that - the sun strikes the side of the car, and since metal's a good conductor of heat, the warmth spreads to the hood, melting the very bottom of the snow, and the rest of the snow just kind of "floats" on this layer, but since the hood isn't flat, it falls off. It's like how glaciers work in miniature, except that the liquid layer for glaciers forms because of the pressure from weight of the deep snow generating just enough heat for melting at the bottom.

This was the afternoon; the morning was spent at the Brattle Eye-Opener with Kate. We went to lunch afterward (the movie was short and there wasn't a whole lot of discussion), and she also wanted advice about where things should go with Carter (we've all at least agreed to call him that). And I'm kind of like, for crying out loud, why the heck are you guys asking me? I've lived in that body and dated the guys inside, so I can't be objective. And, let's face it, my record here isn't that great - dated and slept with my best friends without telling him who I was, didn't notice when my next boyfriend had his mind swapped with someone else. How can I give someone advice on this matter?

Well, Kate says, they do say one learns from one's mistakes. That got her a one-fingered salute.

Do you like him?

Yeah, she says, kind of. I mean, I liked him back when he first started working at BioSoft, and even if he's not as good looking now as he was then--

"Hey!"

Kate apologized, saying that even though this conversation is about the whole body-switching thing, it's still hard for her to reconcile me and him since she'd never known me as him. But, really, Carter's still good looking, just not in, you know, that obviously movie-star way. Which is, like, tacky anyway.

I told her to stop, because she really doesn't lie well, and she was relieved.

"I just want to know," she says, "if we were to go out, would you have a problem? I know, he lied-by-omission, but you just pointed out that..."

"It's not the lying I'd have a problem with. Just seeing him is weird, but I know I have to get used to that. It's just... He made the decision to take someone else out of his body without his consent, and put him back into one that has a coma. Alexei was a dick, sure, but someone who could decide to do that... I mean, it's scary. We probably don't know the half of what Dmitri did to Carter while he was is Sam's body, and that may explain why he's able to do that, but I don't know that it justifies it. And since I try to think of myself as being a new person instead of Martin-in-Michelle's body, that makes it even more unsettling."

"Yeah." Kate paused for a bit. "I guess it makes it better that he brought the 'original' Alexei and Sam back, right? And you didn't want to become Martin again anyway, so it's not totally destructive."

"I see that, and I can't even say I disagree with it. I just know I couldn't go out with him again, but that's my personal baggage."

Kate said I'd given her something to think about. Still, I get the feeling that sometime, if I hook up with Chet or someone else, I'm going to be in for the most awkward double-date in human history.

-Marti
- posted 1:57 PM - (0) comments - (archive use only)