A girl, this girl, the girl
I had a weird dream last night. I had my current body in this dream, which seems to be happening more and more often, and I was with Kurt, Wei, Mike, and Donna at our college reunion. I can't tell you whether it was the 5th (a few years ago) or 10th (a few years away), and I guess it doesn't much matter. It was pretty clear that while I was with the whole gang, I was with Kurt. Also, everybody knew who I was despite the body, and called me Marty (or Marti, but why would I dream of people calling me something that no-one ever has before?).

My clothes seemed to change depending on the part of the dream. Sometimes, I was wearing an uncomfortable Jessica Rabbit special, other times a WPI sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers. I think I was in the casual stuff when people were talking to me, asking what I'd been up to, what I was doing now, whether I was running Linux (and actual topic of conversation the last time I went to a reunion), and such. When they were interacting with me as Kurt's girlfriend, hello cleavage and high heels! Of course, I didn't notice it in the dream, so I may be coming up with that now, trying to force a dream to at least make some sort of metaphorical sense.

I do know I resented it when people were treating me just like something attached to Kurt, though, especially since I had actually accomplished a lot more in this dream than in real life. Anyway, there wasn't any sort of cathartic end to the dream, but it did give me something to think about on a rainy day. Which brings me to the title of this entry.

I've come to find I don't really mind being a woman, and that's not just political correctness. Sure, it was forced upon me, but when you get right down to it, so was being a man. I'd just taken that as a given. I understand that I'm lucky enough to live in a time when being female nearly isn't as marginalizing as it was in previous generations, and I'm grateful. I don't like the longer lines to use the restroom or having to sit when I get there, but not having the embarassment of erections in public places is an acceptable trade-off.

Being Michelle, specifically, is kind of a mixed bag. This body's young and healthy, and looks great. Maybe I'm a little more vain as a woman than as a man, or maybe it's just the need to dress up to come to work everyday that's made it more of a priority, but it's fun to have people look at you and like what they see. Maybe, if allowed to build my own girl's body, I wouldn't have gone for breasts quite this size, but they're not grotesque.

Socially, I likely wouldn't know Kate and Jen if not for being Michelle, and that's a big plus. On the other hand, I haven't yet felt comfortable with the contents of her checkbook, and the work... Well, I spend all day writing this stuff some days. The looking good is kind of a double-edged sword, too - it attracts guys indiscriminately, and I swear, someone's going to get an elbow to the throat the next time they try to get grabby on a crowded subway.

Being Kurt's girlfriend ("the girl" in his life)... I'm still trying to figure that one out. If the morning's Google search told me that Martin Hartle had been hit by a bus in Seattle and I was stuck like this forever, would I keep going out with him? Maybe. He's a good guy, and we do have fun together. He's not a bad kisser, for a guy. The fact that he is a guy bothers me when I think about it, but not as much as it did a few weeks ago. Maybe this body's hardware is starting to override almost thirty years of thinking of myself as a guy and twenty years of responding to girls.

Maybe if we'd met under different circumstances. I've said that before, but what do I do if my body gets hit by a bus? Do I tell him who I really am, and hope he'll still like me (as friend, girlfriend, or human being) despite all the time I lied to him? Because, as much as I could see us working out given enough time and circumstances, I don't think I quite like him enough to keep who I am to myself after the implied threat is removed.

-Marti (hey, if I'm going to say I don't mind being a girl...)
- posted 4:25 PM - - (archive use only)