Soap opera stuff
Telly and I have been hanging aorund more the past couple of months, since my mom visited at Christmas. Not a whole lot, but every once in a while, especially when I feel like doing some guy stuff that Kate figures a woman with a girlfriend rather than a boyfriend has no need to put up with. Kate had no need to go see Doomsday, for instance, so I went with Telly and lapped up the over-the-top post-apocalyptic violence.

That's not the sort of thing he and Michelle would do together, I gather, but it's getting less awkward for us. He'll never look at me and not see her, of course, but I kind of like that. I'll have been this person for five years this summer, and I've gotten so used to it that before I started hanging out with Telly on a regular basis again, I could go weeks without thinking about Michelle. I identify as Martina now, and I'm pretty sure that I'd put up a fight over giving Michelle her body back were she to resurface, but even if I've only met "her" once or twice, she's too important a part of my life story to not stay in my thoughts.

Telly benefits from this arrangement, too, by having at least a surrogate for his sister in his life, and in more material ways. Last week, for instance, he called me to mention that his roommates had screwed up with the cable bill, and Comcast wasn't going to do anything to fix it for another week, and he'd reeeeeeeeeally like to watch the red Sox opening series in Japan... In high definition if possible. And, as far as I knew, he is really good at making pancakes.

So, fine, I say; he can show up early in the morning on Tuesday and Wednesday to watch the games with me, especially if he made breakfast. I was sure Kate would appreciate it, too, even if she wasn't going to stay around to watch the entire game like we were. At about the same time, Amy called Kate asking hte same thing - only for her, it was not wanting to wake her roommates up, figuring she should express an interest because it was in Japan and she should start trying to learn something about her body's ancestral home. Kate said, sure, she knew I was was going to be watching the game, so why not? And, sure, she could stay over the night before rather than wake her roommate with a 4:30am alarm.

I didn't see it coming when Kate mentioned it, or when Amy showed up the night before, but I probably should have at least predicted the possibility. Anyway, Telly arrived Tuesday morning, saw Amy on the couch wearing her Matsuzaka babydoll t-shirt and pajama bottoms, with extra-cute bedhead (hair covered her right eye but stuck up on the left side) and bare feet, and was pretty much incapable of speech until at least the fourth inning. I think he finally got up the nerve to ask for her number after the second game, when I shooed them out right after the last pitch so I could lock up and still catch the 9am bus, because it was the next afternoon that Amy started frantically IMing me saying that she hadn't expected him to call, and was it weird for him to be attracted to her knowing what he knows, and was it okay if she called him back and said she would like to go to dinner and a movie Saturday night...?

I told her the truth - that we share DNA doesn't mean I can put him off-limits, even if I want to. Besides, we're just talking about one dinner and movie right now, and it's not like you're going to find a lot of guys who are more comfortable with your unique situation, even if Telly's still just getting used to it.

I think she'd been trying to get me to give her an easy out, but it wasn't my place. Besides, the part of me that's a little disappointed in just how normal, relatively speaking, my life has become is kind of curious to see how that works out.

I'm also curious to know what Kate told Telly when he called her for advice about dating an exchangee, but I've been told to mind my own business.

-Marti

Labels: Amy, dating, Kate, Red Sox, Telly

- posted 10:00 PM - (1) comments - (archive use only)

 
Weird dreams
This happens every once in a while. Things will be moving along completely normally, and then I'll start having weird dreams and won't be able to shake them. I used to think they were symptoms, that maybe something was wrong with my brain or that its contents were somehow getting corrupted, but now I just treat them as the inevitable result of a life that is inherently weird, even when it seems to have stabilized. After all, dreams are just your subconscious mind processing and filing the events of your life, fitting them into some sort of holograph, and I've got some unusual associations to make.

The one that's currently driving me up the wall seems normal enough, but at some point I have this realization - that everybody in the world is a single aspect of some sort of universal consciousness, and once I realize that they start disappearing, sucked into me and gone except for a tiny voice that soon fades from my mind. Soon I'm alone in the world, waking up when the loneliness starts to hurt.

Sometimes, as this happens, I'll acquire the physical traits of the people I absorb, and I'll be a man again. In the dream I'll find Kate and make passionate love to her, and I'll wake as she disappears. I'll wake to see her in the bed and hold her, and a couple of times it progressed, but then... Well, there's a part of me that's thinking that we had just been having sex "properly", and I'll feel disappointed that I wasn't able to do that for her.

Which is why I'm in the living room, typing it up rather than waking her. I had to find an aspirin anyway, as this time the end of the dream came with a headache, but it's not something she needs dumped on her early Saturday morning. Let her sleep in.

Maybe I should see a shrink like Amy. Hopefully this will pass before it comes to that.

-Marti

Labels: dreams, Kate, sex

- posted 6:49 AM - (3) comments - (archive use only)

 
Big and Little Science
Kate and I went to the Coolidge Corner Theater's "Science on Screen" series last night, in part because I wanted to get some use out of my membership there - I don't use my discount nearly as much as I do my Brattle one and had never seen Body Heat, but also because there was a lecture about the chemical and biological basis of sexual attraction paired with it. I like nifty science, and the subject is pretty personal to me. I think this is going to be the first Valentine's Day where I'm honestly and truly content with my romantic situation since my previous life, and it makes me a little nervous; after all, my first one was the result of some sophisticated targeted pheromones, and it's made me more than a little nervous about every relationship since.

One the lecture reminded me of is just what a black box all the weird stuff I've been subjected to actually is. When I was a kid, there was an anthology of John W. Campbell's early space operas in the town library, and I read it several times. I forget who wrote the introduction - I want to say it was Isaac Asimov, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't - but he rightly made the point that Campbell made a much better editor than writer, and his view of how science and engineering worked was absolutely absurd to anybody who had actually worked in the field. Things went from a peculiar phenomenon being observed in the lab to scientific breakthrough to prototype to an assembly line in what seemed like a couple weeks. The earthbound engineers at the start of the first book were moving planets at the end of the third.

These were great fun for me to read as a young boy, make no mistake. As a kid, I think you need to be fed this kind of grand literature, where utterly amazing things are possible and they can be done by a small group of people in a relatively short amount of time. It's what motivates kids to get into science and engineering; the realities of actual incremental progress and bureaucracy and the millions of false starts per breakthrough can come later, after they are too far along the road to just become accountants. Kate says it works much the same way for girls, only they get books about first love at first sight that don't mention unwanted advances, dates that just don't work out, divorce... I must say, I'm kind of glad that I never had to deal with whatever the female equivalent of the Heinlein juvenile was.

Anyway, to get back to what I was talking about, I have pesonally been the target of some chemicals that showed a pretty sophisticated understanding of how attraction among human beings worked, almost four years ago. But last night, the guy was lecturing about what experimental studies of ferrets tell us, and how much uncertainty there is about it, and how they hope to learn more. I got a chance to talk with him before the film, and he knew my name - as you might imagine, my case is known within his field, just like it is among neurologists and nanotech researchers. He had to admit that he regarded it (at least the "love potion" parts) with a bit of suspicion, though - it was fascinating if true, but nobody had been able to reverse-engineer the stuff I gave Maggie, to the point where they could even suss out the general principles it worked under. And absent working theories, it's just a very interesting hypothesis. So apparently I'm cold fusion.

It does lead me to wonder about a few things. Both the love potion and the nanotech are advanced, functional (even robust!) bits of technology. How did they come about? If the nanotech worked well enough to switch me four and a half years ago, how long were they in development before that? How many people had their brains fried in failed trials? And how did it stay under the radar, and then stay that way even after people started using it, at least so far as anybody I've talked to knows.

Disturbing. But, then again, as Kate and I were taking the bus home, we saw a sign in the window of a library branch about "what Harvard's 50-year plan means for us". It just boggles my mind that Harvard, or any organization, can sit down an make plans on that scale. I suppose if a university can plot what they're going to do with their real estate that far in advance, I suppose something like my situation and the near-total lack of an evidence trail leading to it makes a little more sense, if there's an organization with a grand enough vision behind it.

I hope it's not the U.S. Government. Or Harvard.

-Marti

Labels: Kate, movies, pheromones

- posted 10:46 PM - (2) comments - (archive use only)

 
When Mothers Collide
It's funny, but I didn't realize how much I'd enjoyed having Telly around until we fell out of contact. I can't blame him for shutting me out, and it's hardly something that was entirely his doing. I tended to avoid him for the same reasons he avoided me - the revelation that Mikhail Korpin wasn't Michelle in his body but was the real thing had the effect of shattering any familial relations that might have grown between us then. I know it made me uneasy about trying to bond with them; the memory of someone preying on that desire and trust was still too fresh.

The woman who raised me had different ideas, though. I couldn't live this life without having some relationship with my genetic relatives, and she wasn't willing to. As she puts it, she knows most of me, but there's a part which comes from them: Anything I've got a genetic tendency toward, or maybe there were experiences that made a deep enough impression on Michelle's brain that even emptying it out and pouring me in didn't get rid of them entirely. There was an involved metaphor about and demonstration of a pencil making an impression that's still there even after erasing it and writing something new, but never mind.

I resisted. I tried to point out that I didn't much like Michelle's mother, and that Telly and I weren't talking much, but she didn't care. I don't think I'll ever be able to refuse her anything again, honestly, since even if she doesn't say as much, I owe her. I can't ever repay her fully for allowing her to think that someone else was her Martin, then laying the burden of that knowledge on her (I know! Totally unfair!). So I called Telly, and though he was reluctant, he agreed to set something up for the weekend of the 22nd & 23rd (gads, almost a whole month ago!).

He met us at the bus stop again and was very gentlemanly in escorting my mother into the car. He was a little surprised at her age, but Mom pointed out that Martin was five years older than Michelle and that she and my father had unexpectedly become parents in their late thirties. Ah, he said, that makes sense. Then he chuckled and said he'd missed that sort of thing. Nothing in his life requires explanation or defied belief.

The visit itself wasn't really something I got a lot out of. I'd met Mrs. Garber before, and I can't say the past couple of years have really improved her any. My mother has twenty years on her and it shows in her silver hair and skinny limbs, but she still has a vitality to her that Mrs. G doesn't. Now, though Mrs. G has the added pleasantness of feeling like she's owed something out of the whole situation with me and Michelle and everybody. It was kind of awesome to see Mom call her on it toward the end of the visit, pointing out that Mrs. G didn't talk about how worried she was about Michelle or asking if we'd heard anything about her from the FBI - it was all "how can they do something to/for me".

I was basically glad to get out of there, and figured that would be the end of it, but Telly called a few days into the new year, asking what Kate and I were up to. I said Kete wasn't around, but we could hang out.

We've been doing that a lot more lately. He wonders if this is what it's like to find out you've got a long-lost brother or sister and meet them later in life (say you were adopted, or your father got around) - they look kind of familiar, but they don't share certain things with you. It's weird, but kind of fun to discover.

I have to say I agree, and I am enjoying getting to know him again.

-Martina

Labels: Christmas, Garbers, Mom, Telly

- posted 6:32 PM - (0) comments - (archive use only)

 
I love you ma, but...
Seventeen days is a long time to have a houseguest. Yes, we were counting by the end.

Understand, I love my mother. She has put up with more over the past four and a half years than anyone should have to. And when she first broached the idea of coming up for the holidays, Kate and I were both enthusiastic. We've got the spare bedroom, it would be a shame not to use it, and it would be very nice to get back in touch with that part of my original family.

And it was. There was just so much to do, though - she wanted to meet the Garbers, for instance, which meant a weekend in Vermont. She had to meet Kate's folks. She also had old friends from Maine coming down to see her while I was at work during the day, and on top of that she was disappointed that Nat and Marty couldn't come out.

In some ways, it was like crunch time at work, when you've got this one big project that needs finishing, and there's no time for anything else. For the better part of three weeks, everything aside from work was about making things work for mom, and it was exhausting.

But rewarding. I really feel like Mom has completely accepted me for who I am now, and when we had unscheduled time to shop or otherwise, it was good. Simultaneously familiar and novel.

Still, it both nice to have her in town and nice to bring her to the airport this afternoon.

-Marti

Labels: Christmas, Garbers, Mom

- posted 10:54 PM - (1) comments - (archive use only)

 
Thanksgiving with family
Kate had wanted to have Thanksgiving dinner at our place, but I was fortunately able to dissuade her. Even if we do have a dining room table that extends far enough for six people, we don't have six chairs to put at it. Besides, I said, nothing really says "home" like every room having at least one big box of stuff that hasn't been unpacked. Heck, the plastic tub in the living room is being used as an ottoman. It doesn't mean anything, other than "we're really lazy and busy and we'll get to it later", but somebody could take it to mean that we're just marking time or something silly like that.

I didn't think of that second bit at the time, of course - it was after spending a couple days at Kate's folk's place that it occurred to me that someone might interpret our partially unpacked state as having greater meaning. Kate kind of laughed when I told her that, saying it's a sign that even after four-plus years, I'm still not all girl in my head, but she knew that Friday if she hadn't known already.

But I'm getting ahead or behind or whatever. So, anyway, we drove out to the Cape, and had the big Thanksgiving meal: Turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potato, and pie. I'm not a really big girl, but I can put away a good holiday meal with the best of them. Mrs. Jensen was kind of amused by that, asking if my appetite was the result of my still thinking like a man on some things. No, I said, I'm pretty aware of what this body can handle by this point. Maybe remembering my first life means I accept that I'll tend to put on a few extra pounds over the winter easier, I guess; I didn't have the same kind of peer pressure to look skinny growing up, even if I did have some other weight issues. But those helped me learn that to recognize when I'm carrying too much and need to buckle down. Besides, I said, the first few pounds I gain tend to settle in the boobs and butt, and people seem to like that. Kate blushed a little at that.

Of course, once I wake up from my tryptophan-induced nap, I can groan about how it hurts with the best of them, too. Lisette got a good chuckle out of that when they brought out the leftover pie during a game of Scrabble.

Mr. Jensen was more than a bit surprised to see me when he came out for breakfast the next morning and saw me flipping through channels on the TV. "I thought you'd be out shopping with the rest of the girls."

Nah, I said. I'd been invited, but I didn't want to potentially make their family activity weird, and, besides, rushed shopping is no fun. I've got a floating holiday left to use this year, so I'll make something up in early December and get stuff done then.

"Sounds sensible." Then he laughed, and said he half-thought I was going to give him the "used-to-be-a-guy, don't-like-shopping" thing. I laughed back, and said I used to be a guy and thus know better. Enjoying shopping is all about enjoying what you're shopping for, I figure. I'll spend hours in an electronics shop, or a bookstore, comparing features or browsing first chapters because I like the stuff. A lot of girls like clothes and shoes, so they enjoy looking at those and trying them on. Heck, I enjoy that a lot more now, because I've always liked looking at snazzy looking girls.

At that point, I probably would have liked it more if he'd asked why men don't like shopping with their wives and girlfriends, and then I could have said it's because they're not doing anything and all too often, requests for their opinion are traps and traps are no fun, and we'd laugh some more, but that's not what happened.

I think it almost was, but then the synapse between the brain cell that processed me saying how I liked looking at pretty girls and the one brain cell with an image of his daughter fired, and he got serious. "You and Kate have been seeing each other for a while. Longer than about she was with half of her boyfriends, at least."

"Yeah, I guess so."

He sighed again. "We all thought it was just a rebound thing."

I didn't know quite how to respond to that. I tried saying I was sorry, but it sounded inappropriate, to say the least.

He said it was okay, and that he kind of wished Kate had met the old me. We'd probably be married and he'd be a grandfather by now.

I told him I would have liked that, and he said this was probably as close as we were going to get, which was a shame. We played a lot of pool that afternoon, which was fun, but made him a little more melancholy - I think it's something he would have liked doing with Kate's hypothetical boyfriend Martin.

Well, at least at first. I think he got pretty cool with Kate's actual girlfriend Martina by the time the ladies returned from their retail assault. Deep down, he's a guy who just really wants his daughter to be happy.

The same's true with my mother. We had a good long talk on the phone the other night. Of course, now that we've got a house, she's making noises about coming up for Christmas.

Which, I think, would be pretty cool. Although if she and Kate's family are ever around at the same time, it will be very interesting to see what they each think of our relationship.

-Marti

Labels: Cape Cod, Jensens, Kate, shopping, Thanksgiving

- posted 6:43 PM - (2) comments - (archive use only)

 
Domesticity, of a sort
I'm almost tempted to just close up shop on this blog, leaving it abandoned like many others. It's been a while since anything has happened to me that most reasonable people would call science fiction. That's probably a good thing for me and the world at large - who wants to think about having one's mind ripped from her body and put somewhere else more than absolutely necessary? - but who wants to write about the minutia of apartment hunting when you've done things that are almost impossible to believe?

The funny thing is, even those little ordinary things do wind up tying into the weird stuff every once in a while. Take the finding a new place to live - Kate and I actually wound up finding a single-family house in Cambridge. Apparently the real estate market is still a little soft, and the value of this place went down when its river view wound up blocked by a construction site. Regardless, Kate fell for the place almost immediately - where some might see uneven floors and a distinct paucity of electrical outlets as major inconveniences, Kate thought they added character. Since we knew the next person to see it would probably grab the place (as they probably should have; the rent is only a couple hundred more than what a two-bedroom apartment will run you), Kate was writing out a deposit check right on the kitchen counter while I was counting how many extension cords and surge protectors we'd need.

Anyway, once we'd committed to that, there was a lot of moving to do. Boxing up our stuff, and then unboxing it. Once Kate's parents heard "house", they saw a great opportunity to move things from their basement to ours. Even Nat is making noises about shipping some of my old stuff from Seattle, since little Marty gets into everything and, besides, she's looking at moving in with her new boyfriend and having this other guy's stuff around is kind of awkward.

Then there's other stuff. Like the post office. Most of my mail comes addressed to Martina Hart , but there's still some stuff that, even three years after I stopped using that name, still gets addressed to "Michelle Garber". What can I say - I'm a little more comfortable having the Victoria's Secret or Avon catalogs be coming to "someone else". Oh, no, I'd never sign up for that!

They're probably not going to follow me this time, though, since I'm not filling out change of address cards using Michelle's name. I'm not saying I'll particularly miss them, but I feel kind of weird chipping that much more of "Michelle" out of my life. It's this body's birthday on Sunday, and I don't plan on celebrating it - "my" birthday is February 2nd, and my swap-day is July 19th. Doesn't seem quite right - like I'm erasing every trace that Michelle ever existed.

-Marti
- posted 5:08 PM - (6) comments - (archive use only)