More with Kate
Anyway, Kate and I are shopping yesterday, after seeing some movies. I don't know if I mentioned it before, but it's kind of a strange atmosphere in how it's not strange at all. Like, we've gotten along okay since I told everyone about who I was, but she's been a little nervous. Yesterday, though, it was almost like before she knew. She laughs at my needing all of five minutes in the shoe store, all "ha, I hadn't even considered that as some kind of clue". That's when she's asking what other girly things I haven't totally picked up on, along with getting weird about girls hitting each other.

Well, there is a box of jewelry in my bureau's bottom drawer that I haven't touched much at all. I just was never comfortable with it in the first place - look, I say, my earlobes have completely closed up, and there were a few holes. And besides, it's someone else's stuff. It's probably not valuable at all, but I'd feel bad if something happened, you know?

Michelle's jewelry is too personal, she says - did you buy new underwear right off? Yeah, but that was a laundry-related incident. Kind of a relief, really.

Later, when we were trying some stuff on, she says she wouldn't have been comfortable sharing a changing room with me two months earlier. But knowing that I could have switched back and didn't makes it more comfortable for her to be around me. Sort of cements who I am in her mind.

So I shouldn't ask if you would have gone for me if I'd done that. Thankfully, she laughs, rather than freaking out. I don't know, she says, you're nice, but I just can't really think of you as a guy. After all, even though you act like a guy, well, there is all the slutty stuff.

"The slutty stuff?" I mean, really, I did, like, one slutty thing last year. Sure, it was a big one, but come on...

Just saying, she says. And besides, after all you've talked about being a new person, she wouldn't know who this other new person was. "Why," she asks. "Your roommate rubbing off on you?"

"Hey, I just wonder sometimes. If things had gone differently, and you'd met 'Martin' instead of 'Michelle'. I mean, now, I wouldn't want to screw up our friendship or make it weird for you, but I admit, I do occasionally think of how the other me would react."

"Uh-huh. When else do you do that? When you get out of the shower, do you look at yourself in the mirror and think, 'yeah, I'd do me'?"

"Is there any answer to that that doesn't get me called a liar or a conceited bitch?"

"None whatsoever." It's okay, though, she says. We're cool.

Which is cool.

-Martina
- posted 8:05 PM - - (archive use only)