Part of my New Year's Resolution
I told everybody at Jen's party a three weeks ago that I wouldn't be a shut-in any more, and I meant it. I know it's not good for me, and to be honest, I don't like it. I used to be the most annoying person about telling people that even Blu-ray isn't an acceptable substitute for seeing things in the theater, even comedies and independent dramas; now I haven't even seen Avatar yet because I don't want to go out; I'm honestly saying I'll wait for Netflix. I liked showing my assets off, now I sit home alone in bulky sweats more or less 24/7. Last year was the first season I can remember where I didn't see a game at Fenway Park, although I've got an excuse for most of the season.

You'd think that my not wanting to leave the house would have led to a lot more blogging, but that's just another way to communicate with the outside world, and for the better part of the last year, my thoughts have been along the lines of how the outside world is dangerous. I was quite honestly ready to take this whole blog down, unable to believe how stupid the whole thing was from the moment I woke up as Michelle, even if it was the only thing that kept me sane at first. Just how much had Korpin learned about me just from reading it? About Amy? And we know he's not the end of it.

Like my shrink says, being kidnapped will straight-up fuck your head up.

Anyone reading this will hopefully forgive me for not giving a whole lot of details about that event, or the months following it. I haven't told Kate, Jen, Telly, Amy, or Carlos, except in the vaguest terms. Forget Mom, although I know my silence probably hurts her. I don't even talk about it with Shelly, and who would understand the situation more? I will, eventually, but here's not the place to do it. And I'm definitely not ready.

It was hard for me just to get to Jen's party. I wanted to go, but I wouldn't take the T or even a cab. I've been using Zipcars when I wanted to get someplace and I couldn't have things delivered, but by the time I stopped dithering and said yes, I would go, they were all booked. Kate eventually had to take the T to Jen's and Carlos's place, borrow her car, and come back to pick me up. Pathetic, but at least pathetic enough to serve as a wake-up call.

So that's when I made the resolution to stop being afraid of the world. Not that I've acted upon it much yet, but I'm going to the movies this weekend and writing this. So that's a start.

-Martina

Labels: Carlos, Jen, Kate, kidnapping, Korpin, Shelly, Telly

- posted 12:06 AM - (8) comments - (archive use only)

 
Of course
I haven't been keeping particular track of anniversaries, which I suppose makes me an atypical girlfriend or a bad boyfriend-type person, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the thing with Kate has lasted longer than any relationship I remember having. It's certainly my longest as a woman, and is probably right up there with Maggie from my previous life. We've been cohabiting for over a year, our families like each other, and we've even gotten to the point where being together was assumed to the point where we were making purchases together.

So, naturally, it was time for us to fuck it up.

Kate's got a lot of theories as to why it fell apart. Most of the women our age are getting married and starting families, and while we're fortunate to live in a state where we can do the former, science hasn't progressed to the point where we can do the latter (at least, so far as I know; given what the last six years of my life have been like, I can't exactly take that for granted). We're close enough in personality that the small disagreements seem bigger, and then when we disagree on something big, watch out! Other things I can't even begin to understand.

I was talking about this the other night, in a bar with Telly and Amy. Amy nodded sympathetically, but after about ten minutes, Telly snorted, and banged his glass on the bar a little harder than necessary. "You girls are making it way too complicated. It comes down to one thing: The two of you aren't gay."

Amy and I started in, saying that sexual identity and orientation were more complicated than a simple gay/straight description, especially for people like us, and he cut us off.

"I get that, ladies, I really do, but honestly, it's impressive that you managed to stay together as long as you have. It shows just how much the two of you really like each other; I don't doubt that either of you would rather spend time with the other than the average guy. But, geez, Tina, you've got my sister's hormones and brain. She was into a lot of things, but other girls wasn't one of them. How long did you think you were going to fight that?"

He's right, of course, and not just about me; I think both of us were starting to realize that being with each other was, to a certain extent, hiding from what we really wanted, even if we were afraid of it for our own reasons: Kate has tended toward really terrible breakups, and even after five plus years in this body, I still second-guess the hell out of the whole boy-girl thing, especially now that I'm starting to get some awareness of my biological clock. The good times of a few months ago, when we would go out and be a little flirty only to frustrate guys when we pulled back toward each other, well, weren't quite such good times any more. I can't speak for Kate, but I know I had the occasional thought of breaking from the script, except that I couldn't do that to Kate.

That we're feeling that is probably healthy, but it still festers, and makes us snippy. I'm pretty sure that we'll still be friends when all this is over, but even though I've moved into the spare bedroom, it's not a fun month right now.

-Tina

Labels: Amy, Kate, Maggie, Telly

- posted 9:37 AM - (7) comments - (archive use only)

 
Christmas '08
Man, I missed a whole holiday there. Thanksgiving wasn't terribly exciting, though.

The big present under the tree this year wasn't really a surprise - Kate and I split a Blu-ray player and a bunch of movies. She took a little convincing, of course - as much as she likes movies, she's not nearly as big on the technical stuff as me, and she didn't really think that there was that much difference between it and DVD. She's not alone, and no amount of me throwing numbers and specs at her was going to convince her.

So, I kind of tricked her. I bought a cheap HD DVD player and movies off eBay, and once we sat down to watch some of those, she was noticing the difference. For a while, picking up really cheap movies as various places cleared out their inventory was enough - truth be told, it's kind of ridiculous what you can get. The 1920x1080 resolution of HD isn't that far off from the digital projection in a movie people that some folks inexplicably prefer to film, and it doesn't take a lot of searching to find HD DVDs that sell for less than a ticket to see the movie in theaters would have cost. Anyway, that was fun for a while, but when Criterion started releasing Blu-rays, that was game over; she had to have Chungking Express.

Oddly enough, she still doesn't think the improved picture is quite as amazing as I do, but she really likes the improved sound. I tend to think that the whole lossless audio thing is 50% placebo effect - you tell someone the quality is improved, and they'll convince themselves that they hear it - although if that was true, you'd think people would be snapping them up for the video, too. My pet theory on that is that audio lets people convince themselves that they're special - anyone can see an improvement when when the picture's got six times as many pixels, but noticing a difference that is well past most benchmarks for human hearing? Only the selected few can do that.

Still, Kate's reaction to certain movies on HD just re-establishes how cool she is: She does dig that HD is good enough that you can actually see the grain structure of the film. I've talked to a bunch of people who see HD and want it all to be smoothed out and look like the Discovery Channel, as opposed to, you know, what film looks like.

So, pretty normal Christmas, as such things go. For me, at least. For others, it was a bit odd.

Telly and Amy, for instance, flew out to California so that the Sanadas could meet their biological daughter's boyfriend. It's not that Amy and they are particularly close - she really does tend to stay away - but they still wanted to meet. As Telly explained it, when you're one defective condom away from having grandchildren, it's good to have a handle on everyone involved.

I get that. As much as my mother tells me that the nine months she spent carrying Carter's body doesn't compare to the years she spent raising me (a tremendous simplification, but I certainly like to hear it), she does keep tabs on him, Nat, and her grandson.

Telly found the whole thing sort of surreal, even beyond what anyone connected to Amy's and my lives sees on a regular basis. Of course, part of it is that Telly has never flown before, and he found that pretty crazy, both being up in the air and the entire airport experience. I told him he should try international travel, and he didn't even want to think of it.

The visit itself was uncomfortable; Mrs. Sanada doesn't speak much English, and though Amy has been taking some language courses, it was hard to communicate without her father working as an intermediary. The whole thing was kind of awkward, not like any "meet the parents" he's ever done, more like two sets of strangers, one trying to force themselves to worry about the other's feelings and the other trying to do the opposite.

On the other hand, they got lost often enough to confirm that Amy didn't have any residual knowledge of the city from before. One down, she says, and the rest of America to do.

-Tina

Labels: Amy, Christmas, Kate, Telly

- posted 10:06 PM - (2) comments - (archive use only)

 
Halloween '08
Jen always used to throw the best parties, and I guess she still does; it's just that the type of party is a little different nowadays. After all, Eloise is two years and four months old now, so it's not just adults getting together any more - it's the little guys, who are awesome and adorable, although to say they don't cramp our styles a little would be a lie.

It's kind of silly, in some ways - what's a kid Eloise's age care if mommy's friends wear sexy costumes? It's not like "sexy" registers with them at two! Regardless of that, though, the invitation to the party specifically mentioned family-friendly costumes, since some of Eloise's friends from day care would be there too, along with their brothers and sisters. None were older than seven, but some of the parents still looked askance at my Batgirl costume. Okay, sure, it's a little tight, but still - no high heels, cleavage, butt-cheek, or even bare leg - I was hardly Emma Frost out there.

Heh. As I was telling Kate and Jen later, perhaps the biggest disappointment wasn't newly-minted prudes (who probably wore far more prostitute-y costumes than me back in the day) tsk-tsking with disapproval, but just how many times this conversation happened:

"Nice costume."

"Thanks. It's kind of out of date, but Jen's place isn't really handicapped accessible."

Blank stare.

"You really should read The Killing Joke and Birds of Prey. Some fans don't like Barbara Gordon being Oracle instead of Batgirl, but that she can still be a hero after the Joker paralyzed her is really inspiring, I think. Not like a real person, of course, but it's a nice idea to have out there--"

... and they walk away, no matter how interested they'd been in my tight spandex and red-dyed hair. I swear, I used to hang out with a nerdier crowd, one that would have laughed.

Not that I care about men wanting to be around me - after all, I get to go home with Princess Leia and they don't, so I'm ahead of them. I guess it's just another sign of how I'm starting to catch up to where I was. Five years ago, Martin-me was getting some of the same sort of pressure to leave things like comics and Halloween behind, and now it's happening again.

The funny thing is, all those parents who are so much more mature than me were talking about how much fun it was to dress up with their kids and share their excitement, or how Billy liked Transformers and they'd forgotten how much they'd liked them as kids. I don't deny that that is fantastic, but it seems kind of silly to deny yourself things you like between the time you deem yourself too old for it and when your kids are old enough. Not that adults trying to remain kids is a good thing, but a person can be a responsible adult and enjoy a healthy fantasy life.

-"Tina" (Eloise has trouble with my whole name, but her saying the short version is cute.)

Labels: Eloise, Halloween, Jen, Kate, party

- posted 10:30 AM - (3) comments - (archive use only)

 
Discontinuities
At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Like the other folks who are left reading this thing, I looked at that last post and thought, man, is she full of herself. I'm not saying I don't stand behind what I say in it, but I think the feeling is something that maybe doesn't translate to someone who hasn't lived this sort of life. It's not that most people don't notice changes to their body and aging, but it's a continuous process, whereas I have a discontinuity in my life in July 2003. Most people don't have a first impression of their own body, so when they look in the mirror in the morning, they are mostly comparing themselves to how they looked the day before, and changes are minor. It's all relative to them. I'm always comparing myself to how I looked when this body was twenty-five; there's the long-dismissed (but still rooted) idea in my head of returning Michelle's body to her as I found it.

Anyway, I don't expect anyone else to particularly sympathize or understand, but that's what was going on in my head that day.

So, I've been holding back a bit - whenever I've been planning on writing something, I'd sit back and think, is this (a) special and (b) not whining? As it turns out, my life has been in that sort of rut for the last few months - good enough that any complaints are not really worth mentioning, though not to the extent of being good news

Saturday was fun, though - one of Telly's bands actually booked itself a good gig. Not a great one, but in the Harvard Square area, which is better than some of the places he's played. The worst, I gather, was a weekday gig at a place out in Cambridgeside that is tough to find not because it's off the beaten path, but because a cajun bar & grill sharing a building with a health club (which has the much larger sign and the front door) is going to get overlooked. Very clean, he said, but not many customers, which kind of sucks when most of your pay is expected to be a percentage of the bar.

Not a problem here: It was Saturday night, there were plenty of college kids looking to get a bit lit, and the place actually had some decent beer on tap, so Kate, Amy, and I were willing to help the cause.

I was kind of surprised by some of what they were playing. Most of it was your standard bar rock - Stevie Ray Vaughn and other rhythm and blues types, probably from before most of the people involved were born. A few originals, too, but also some oddball picks. I didn't know you could do a rock & roll arrangement of "The Highwayman", or that these guys would play it. Telly later claimed it as his idea - "country" doesn't just mean the south, but is big in places like rural New England, too - he'd heard a bunch of it growing up in Vermont. Besides, he said, if you can't respect music by the combination of Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, and Waylon Jennings, you're a pretty ridiculous little snot; that's some talent right there.

It was fun to get up and dance a little, and probably good for me, too. Even when you're with someone, it's nice to be looked at, and this body's impending thirtieth birthday didn't seem to be what people were thinking of when we got out on the floor. (Yay boobs! Yay dancing with another girl!)

- Martina

Labels: Amy, Kate, Telly

- posted 11:12 PM - (2) comments - (archive use only)

 
Skipping Birthdays
At what age do most people with normal lives stop making a big deal out of their birthdays?

I ask this, of course, because among the many, many days where I didn't write anything here this summer was July 18th, which marked five years of Martina, even if I didn't realize who I was or use that name at first. It didn't go completely unobserved - even if Kate and I were in Montreal at the time, there was a party when we got back home, which was fun and all.

It sent me into a bit of a funk, though. It's lasted much of the summer, too nebulous to put into words for the most part, and what I've finally started to credit it too seems both obvious and overly simplistic.

I'm getting older.

We all are, of course, but it's still kind of a shock for me. When the contents of my mind was placed in Michelle's body, it felt like getting five years younger in a lot of ways, and there's something exciting about that. And for a long time, I would think of myself as a twenty-nine year-old man in a twenty-four year-old body, even as time started passing. Now that I've caught up, it's time to assess things somewhat, and I'm not sure about where I stand.

Professionally, I've spent the last five years getting back to where Martin was before the switch. Everyone I know looks at it as an accomplishment, since they see it as someone who was a receptionist five years ago in a professional job with vacation and benefits and a good salary, but for me that's having been forcibly knocked down the ladder, and kind of a disappointment. We all have fantasies that if we could start afresh knowing what we knew now... Most of them involve being able to leapfrog something, which didn't happen for me.

In a way, I almost envy Amy with her clean slate. Bits of skills reappear, along with some random facts or unexpected instincts, but the disappointment isn't there. I know she's got her own demons, and I wouldn't want any part of those, but knowing is its own issue.

Another thing that reminds me that I'm not still the person who I became five years ago is, well, my physical flesh. This body will turn thirty this November 18th, and I'm hardly the first person to recognize that approaching thirty as a man and approaching it as a woman are two different things. I don't really mind the lines on my face, in part because I've come to accept that face a lot more; I'll even admit to being sort of pretty, if you like brunettes without much in the way of cheekbones. The laugh lines help. But I've been finding fewer opportunities to put on my bikini this summer. My butt's softer than it used to be, and my breasts are starting to sag in opposite directions, giving me that inverted-V cleavage should I wear a dress that I can't wear a bra with. I'm swimming twice a week rather than just on Wednesdays, and it's wearing me out a bit more.

Five years also makes me feel like I've failed Michelle somehow, not having answers for Telly about what happened to her mind. No-one really expects me to, and it's mostly Agent Jones and company that have the resources to look, but it's more personal for me, and I've failed.

Kate says I shouldn't worry about it, but this is her first time facing down the big three-oh, and she's pretty satisfied with her life. Me, I feel like everything in my life but her is running behind. (And don't get me started on the "subtle" hints my mother's been dropping about that!)

-Marti

Labels: birthday, Kate, Montreal, Telly

- posted 11:24 PM - (2) comments - (archive use only)

 
She Knew Us
Ah, to be young. Kate and I have been working like mad over the last couple weeks, trying to get as far ahead in work as possible before spending a couple weeks in Montreal for the end of the Jazz Festival and the start of Fantasia. Telly and Amy, on the other hand, have had time on their hands. Amy's taking a couple of summer classes and working a part time job, while Telly works something approximating full time and is in a couple of bands, but is still somehow able to thrive on four or five hours of sleep on average. Of course, like everybody, they tend to assume that everybody shares their schedule, which means that they don't think twice calling at 2:30am with news.

They woke Kate up first, though not by design. Since I spend most of my free time in movies, and can be a little scatterbrained, I almost never take my phone off vibrate, which mean the thing didn't have a chance in hell of waking me up from the bedside table. Kate, naturally, is peculiarly sensitive to the growl created by a vibrating phone on a hard object, and woke up almost instantly. It must have taken her all of a second to realize it wasn't hers, because the thing was still going when she twisted my nipple to wake me up.

I shot her a look and picked it up, seeing that it was Telly calling. I said something along the line of if he was in jail, he was staying there at least until morning.

"Why would I be in jail and why would you think that? Anyway, it's not that - Amy remembered something!"

That cleared all the cobwebs out. "What? Does she know who she is?"

"Nothing that big, just - we got home late, and we thought it might be fun to make milkshakes--"

"Why?"

"I dunno, we've just been making milkshakes lately. You gave us that movie on DVD because the Blu-ray came out a month later, then she bought a blender and once she'd bought it she figured we should get use out of it and the syrups and--"

"Forget I asked and get to the important part!"

"Right, right - anyway, we were making milkshakes, but hadn't done the dishes for a few days, so we decided to use the steins. She made a comment about how she didn't figure my grandmother intended me to use them for milkshakes, and I laughed, but as we were drinking them I couldn't for the life of me remember telling her that Nana had given them to me, and neither could she."

"There's a million explanations; we've told that story a lot."

"Yeah, when it happened. Right after that weird Christmas, but I'm pretty sure I haven't told anybody the story in like a year and a half. Have you?"

I couldn't remember telling it, and Telly said he'd checked, and it wasn't in the blog. So she must have heard it from us, but if neither of us told "Amy Sanada"...

"That's thin."

"It's only one thing, the big thing. She's said other things that I just assumed we'd told her, but now--"

At this point Amy grabbed the phone. "And I'm doing better in school. I dropped all my music courses, and I've started taking stuff that seemed 'familiar', for lack of a better word; it just seems like I'm being reminded of things a lot of the time. I think my memory is putting itself back together."

"That's great!"

"Don't you get it? Korpin is the person most likely to know all this! I don't want to be him!"

"You probably aren't. And even if you are, even if you remember everything, that doesn't mean you'll suddenly become a monster - you'll still be a product of the last two years, your own person, okay?"

"I suppose."

I asked if she wanted me to come over, but she said she thought she could handle it. I suggested she might want to make an appointment with her therapist, and she thought that sounded pretty good.

We finally hung up. I told Kate what it was all about, and she said she almost felt bad leaving them to go on vacation. I rubbed my still sore nipple, asking if she felt bad about that. "A little. I just figured, since you still sometimes get surprised by your body when you wake up suddenly, that would be the quickest way to wake you up. That can take some doing, you know." She pulled my t-shirt up and kissed it. "Better?"

Much, I said. We looked in each other's eyes... then saw they were closing, laughed, and fell back asleep.

-Marti

Labels: Amy, Christmas, Kate, Korpin, Montreal, Telly, vacation

- posted 9:23 PM - (9) comments - (archive use only)

 
Not officially summer, but...
It is, finally, starting to be nice in and around Boston on a regular basis. There were a few fake-out weekends in April and early May - the sort where you wake up, put on shorts, a t-shirt, a skirt, or something otherwise not all-covering, and that's nice until you come out of the afternoon movie realizing that it's really not enough.

And by "you" I mean "me". When I was male and single I would do it all the time because I would choose my outfit based on what I thought it ought to be like weather-wise (and because a weekend day when you could wear shorts meant you could push doing laundry back an extra twenty-four hours), with maybe a cursory glance out the window to make sure I wasn't doing something egregiously stupid. Kate, being far more responsible, will see me and ask if I've even checked the weather channel.

Another sure sign of summer is mini-moving day. The start of June isn't quite like the main event September First, especially since it's spread out a bit by the dorms of what seem like hundreds of colleges kicking kids out in waves during the month of May, but that also means that the ones who are going to stay on for the summer are looking for sublets or June-to-May arrangements, and there are people moving stuff out to the Cape or some other summer home.

This year, despite only having known each other a couple months, that means Amy and Telly sharing an apartment. I don't know exactly how long-term an arrangement it is - they have only known each other for a while and Telly's place is way at the end of the 1 bus from Harvard Square - but it works for them now. Telly gets rid of the deadbeat roommates, Amy at least has a place to stay between now and the start of her senior year, and curious blood relatives and friends get to watch and see if this relationship is going to work on an accelerated timetable.

-Marti

Labels: Amy, Kate, Telly

- posted 4:41 PM - (3) comments - (archive use only)

 
I really don't want my blog to become one of those blogs, even though this post is one of those posts from those blogs
What are "those blogs"? There's a bunch of different types, but the one I'm thinking of is blogs which go a long time between posts, and then spend the post that finally does appear talking about why it's been such a long time between posts, but then soon the author isn't posting very often, and the whole vicious cycle starts again. I don't know whether that makes the result a blog about blogging or a blog about not blogging, but it's weak, no matter what.

This is probably the tenth time or so I've written something about what this sporadic posting means, that my life has settled into something normal, accepted, or routine with the chances of figuring out the cause of the circumstances shrinking as the trial gets colder and colder. Still true, though. I think this is the first time that I mention that I'm looking at the sidebar and how the blog updates weekly because I was posting that often five years ago. I feel vaguely guilty about not being even close to that schedule nowadays, even though the rational part of my mind says that it's not like I'm obligated to produce this for anyone...

(Also: Holy crap, five years! That's like a double-digit percentage of my life!)

So what have I been up to? Red Sox games - I've already been to four or five, thanks to the way my buying tickets back in January clustered and picking up a game from someone at work who has season tickets. It felt pretty good to have them win the first three games I went to, prompting the inevitable comments about how I should go every day. Probably healthy that they eventually lost, or else I might have thought there was something to it. It's not a good idea to start thinking you have control over things you don't.

I did get to see Masterson's first major league game, though, and he was pretty darn good. Last year I saw Buchholz's first game and he pitched a no-hitter the next time he was called up, so it's worth watching next time, eh?

Kate and I also volunteered at the Independent Film Festival of Boston, which was cool, although I chickened out of meeting Famke Janssen. I would likely have blurted something out about having had a crush on her since her appearance on Star Trek: The Next Generation, but that might have been weird.

I think next year Kate and I will show our support of the festival by buying passes. It felt good to volunteer, no question about it, but most of the time when I go to a film festival, I'm looking to see a bunch of movies, and working the festival prevents that. It's kind of selfish, since there'd be no festival if everyone who loved movies in the area took that attitude.

And there's been a few other things where, well, to write about them properly would have meant writing about other people's personal lives, and I find myself more reluctant to do that nowadays. It seems like it was easier to do it a few years ago, when I was unsure of who I was and every relationship or observation seemed like it was vital unexplored territory. Now, not so much.

So, there's my last month and a half. Hopefully I'll never make another post like this again.

-Marti

Labels: Kate, movies, Red Sox

- posted 11:33 PM - (5) comments - (archive use only)

 
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)

 
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)

 
Living Arrangements
It looks like I'm going to have to move or find a roommate soon, but for the best of reasons: After serving overseas for as long as I've had reason to be interested, Gertie's boyfriend has finally gotten a transfer stateside. It may not be for long - Gertie says he's going to be working with some people at MIT on a project that they can't really discuss, and once his part is over they might transfer him back to the Gulf - but in the meantime, they want to spend as much time together as possible.

And, of course, lay the ground for much more than that. Gertie didn't show up back at our apartment for at least seventy-two hours after going to meet his plane, and I'm pretty sure that was entirely because she was starting to need a shower and change of clothes badly. Somewhere around hour sixty-one, she says, was when Mark popped the question, a totally spontaneous thing once he realized that the long time apart hadn't changed how they felt about each other at all. Gertie said yes immediately, and later confided to me that this was the best way for it to happen - it means she gets to choose her ring.

As you might imagine, they're trying to pull a wedding together as quickly as possible (and, yeah, I'm going to get to be a bridesmaid), but in the meantime, they're also moving into an apartment closer to the MIT campus. It's also more convenient for Gertie; she's managed to land a job on the Somerville police force with the promise of being fast-tracked for detective (she finished the last course she needed for the Master's in criminology this summer).

Which would leave me with a two-bedroom apartment that I can sort of afford - as in, I can cover the rent all right, but it would leave me with seven hundred dollars less per month in spending money, and I'm not exactly thrilled with the prospect of curtailing my movie, DVD, comic book, and other habits by that amount (setting aside how much more underwear, shoes, and the like cost than what the first thirty years of my life tells me they should...). I was going to have to find a new roommate, a smaller place, or do the logical thing and find an apartment closer to where I work in Waltham - the suburbs aren't quite so expensive as Cambridge. I really didn't want to do that. Once you get out of the city center, you either need a car - which tends to reclaim the money you save from not living in Boston/Cambridge right away - or you need to really think about "how will I get home" if you come into the city for a concert, movie, or anything else. Not the situation I wanted to be in.

Or Kate, it turned out. As soon as she stopped squealing about Gertie getting married, she decided that she could use a new roommate as well, and the lease on her place was coming up at the end of October. So, three guesses on what she and I have spent the last few weeks doing? Looking at apartments.

Which, in case it's been long enough since the last time you did it, sucks. Half the ones you look at still have people living there and it's not always clear which problems are intrinsic to the place and which go with the slobby tenants (or, even with good tenants, how much needed repair work they're covering up). Some you could only see before work, others after, others during the weekend. The most hilarious thing was when we had two lined up in one night, and one was actually Kate's apartment... and the other was in my building. We passed on those.

Ah, well, we've got a couple more weeks. Kate may just wind up moving in with me for a while, although I think she sort of likes sleeping over more than she'd like staying there for any length of time.

-Marti

Labels: apartment, Gertie, Kate, Mark

- posted 7:55 PM - (2) comments - (archive use only)

 
Playing hooky
I'd had tickets to a Sox game back in April, but it got rained out. Rescheduling a ballgame scheduled for a rainy April day to a Friday afternoon in August is trading up, so to speak.

Unfortunately, it turned out that Kate couldn't get off work, so I wound up going with Amy. She's had a bit of a rough last couple of weeks; she thinks that as much as Sam says otherwise, the idea that Amy might have been one of the people who held her body hostage seems to be making her very nervous.

(Boy, my life is bizarre. I have no idea how to describe that.)

It was a fun game, and we had pretty good seats. Well, not seats, per se; we were in the standing room section of the right field picnic area. It's a great view, although some of the neighbors left a bit to be desired - it seemed to take a while for the kids apparently there for a birthday party to take an interest in the actual game, as opposed to throwing peanuts at one another.

There were also the usual folks who seemed kind of lubricated for a one o'clock start, and disappeared when the beer got cut off in the seventh. Amy stirred the ice in her soda as they walked off, wondering if she had been a drinker in her previous life. She didn't have any particular desire to do so right now, but how much of that was Amy's body and how much was some attitude left over from her previous life? And of course, the past year or so couldn't be forgotten - the Sanadas don't drink much, and getting pretty sick at some party had turned her off to it some as well.

So, I said, not having any more flashes of memory?

Not really. She saw her therapist earlier in the week, and told her about blurting Carter's name out, and that got her rewarded with a bunch of memory exercises that didn't seem to be doing much good. She seemed encouraged, though - ever since we'd found out that her amnesia was due to a physical trauma, they'd been worried that the memory was simply impossible to recover, like paper files that had been burned rather than misfiled. Amy's still worried that that might be the case - after all, there's no reason why it has to be all or nothing; some might be gone and some might just be missing.

Anyway, the Sox won, and we went our separate ways after.

I'll write more tomorrow - I've got tickets for tonight's game, as well, and this time Kate can make it.

-Marti

Labels: Amy, Kate, memories, Red Sox, therapy

- posted 5:38 PM - (0) comments - (archive use only)

 
But what does it mean?
Some people would ascribe my jumpiness at work yesterday to knowing something big was going to happen, but that's bull. Omens are connections we make after the fact in most cases; in others its the willful ignorance that you've been antsy before and nothing important happened. The reality is that I had had a new job shoved to the top of my to-do queue with the actual doing being slowed down by the person who requested it calling every fifteen minutes to see how I was doing. He'd probably be annoyed if he knew that I already wasn't fully concentrating because I was refreshing RedSox.com in another window to see if they had made a trade.

It did get done, in the end, but it took all day and then some, so I had to catch the 6:00 bus out of Waltham instead of the 5:30, and though it seems like an hour should be enough time to get from there to Coolidge Corner, it's not, so I had a cranky Kate waiting for me at the theater when I showed up fifteen minutes late for the seven o'clock show of Rescue Dawn.

"Sorry, Kate, I had--"

"Werner Herzog in the jungle."

"The guy needed it for a presentation--"

"WERNER HERZOG IN THE JUNGLE!"

"Tomorrow night, I promise. I'll skip the comic shop."

That mollified her a bit. After all, it's not actually important that I get the new comics the day they come out; it's just a habit thing. I'm only half-kidding when I say that everyone should cultivate a few habits like that, since they make great bargaining chips, at least in minor situations like this.

Anyway, she was satisfied, so we went across the street to J.P. Lick's to have some ice cream, where we bumped into Sam and Amy... Who had just seen Rescue Dawn and were raving about it. Amy asked if the Sox had done anything cool, and I mentioned Eric Gagne. That led to a long conversation about whether or not they should have given up Gabbard, whether the minor league outfielder they sent along was more valuable than Wily Mo Pena (whom they hadn't been able to trade), and so on. Not your typical girl talk, I guess, although this is Boston - the Red Sox are are everybody's talk.

The exact details of the conversation aren't that important - Sam said she was sick of seeing "Whiffy Mo" strike out, if you're curious. It was the way Amy answered: "C'mon, Carter, at least strikeouts aren't double plays."

The whole table fell silent, and Amy looked at us like we were nuts. "Well, they aren't. Back me up on this, Marti."

At that moment, I had completely forgotten what the point he'd made seconds before was. Amy looked at me like I'd lost my mind when I said nothing.

Sam was the first one able to talk. "Yeah, right, double plays, whatever. Who cares? You just called me Carter!"

It took a second for this to register with Amy, but then the enormity of it hit her. Sure, she knew that my ex-boyfriend had been switched with Sam at one point, but that was just knowledge. For her to actually use Carter's name... That had to come from experience.

I immediately whipped out my cell phone to try and talk to him (what can I say; I never purge my contact list of potentially useful names), but he wasn't answering him. I promised Amy that I'd pick his brain at the office today - even if we don't work at the same location, the phone systems are connected.

We're all a little excited - there's little more frustrating than having a mystery on your hands and not being able to find any clues whatsoever. Of course, I'd be lying if I said we weren't also a little scared, Amy in particular. She doesn't talk about it much, but ever since she learned that she really had been someone else, she's always been a little nervous about the person she'd been before - what if that someone wasn't a good person?

As much as she hates not having a past, she's not quite sure she likes bits of one breaking through to who she is now.

-Marti

Labels: Amy, Kate, memories, movies, Sam

- posted 8:55 AM - (1) comments - (archive use only)

 
Surprisingly good seats
I got to go to Fenway Park twice in the past three days, which is always a blast. Heck, going once a month is a blast; twice in one week almost feels downright gluttonous. Yesterday's was a bit of a disappointment; Wakefield has been so good so far this year that I was really psyched for a great battle between the wily old knuckleballer and Detroit's young fireballer. Verlander was as impressive as advertised, so much so that the three-run home run in the middle innings seemed like too much to overcome.

It was a very nice night at the ballpark, though - just the right temperature, the clouds made for a beautiful sky, and when they started releasing some rain in the eighth and ninth, it wasn't close to enough to make us retreat a few rows back to get under cover - or, like some of the folks around us, leave. Leaving was not an option, after all - we'd been to Sunday afternoon's game.

Now, that had been an exciting one. Beckett looked pretty darn great until he came out with a cut on his finger, and the Baltimore rookie was dealing. It could have been a bummer before the improbably comeback, but the environment was too cool. Jen had gotten four Monster standing room tickets at work, so Kate and I joined her, Carlos, and Eloise up there on a beautiful afternoon.

Eloise is crawling now, which means she squirms a lot as someone her. She's a cool little kid, with big eyes and little blonde curls. I don't think she really understands the game at all, but she got that people were clapping in the bottom of the ninth, and clapping is fun. All the excitement wore her out, though, and she actually conked out in her highchair whne we ordered dinner afterward.

Jen said she liked me, but I said she just thought I'd make a good meal. Jen laughed at that, but said that wasn't it. Also, I probably shouldn't think my breasts are such a big deal after having them almost four years.

Well, I said, maybe that's why Eloise likes me so much - maybe she can sense that I'm kind of like her in that I remember what it's like to be for the whole world to seem strange and new. I may not be trying to put my whole hand in my mouth, but the rest is still pretty neat.

Carlos says he hadn't thought of it that way, but that I'd make a great mom with that attitude. I laughed at that - I'm not exactly on the mommy track right now. Then I got things off that subject by talking about how it was the second-greatest comeback I'd ever seen in person. They had a hard time believing the "second-greatest" part, but I told them I'd been at Opening Day '98, where Mo Vaughn capped off a seven-runn ninth with a walkoff grand slam off Heathcliff Slocumb. Or, at least, I remembered being there.

So we wound up talking sports for the rest of the meal, although the heavier stuff wasn't completely forgotten. Before the game last night, Kate brought it up, asking if I thought about having children.

Sure, I say. I may look young, but I'm in my mid-thities, experience-wise. One of my best friends has an adorable little girl, there's an equally cool little boy out there that's, at the very least, part of my extended family. Admittedly, most of my thoughts about having kids are in terms of there being kids around, not having one grow in my womb and then being pushed out my uterus, but the idea is there.

Kate puts her mildly sarcastic smile on. "So you're saying that part would be up to me."

I laugh. No, just that my brain doesn't quite work that way yet. Why, have you been thinking about it?

My mom has, she says. She can't help but notice that we don't have a complete set of baby-making equipment between us, and worries about not having grandkids. I tell her it's way too early to think about that, but apparently her parents feel that left to herself, Kate wouldn't think of that until too late.

I guess I've got to actually meet them sometime, so they can at least get to know me as a person rather than some lesbian hussy trying to lead their daughter away from the right path.

And if they start asking about kids, blow their minds with the idea that Kate's ex-boyfriend Carter would be the most logical sperm donor.

-Marti

Labels: Carlos, Eloise, family, Jen, Kate, Red Sox

- posted 3:51 PM - (3) comments - (archive use only)

 
That was... Hm.
Amy's spring break started right after her last mid-term today, so she met up with Kate and me last night to try and get some courage up. She wasn't terribly worried abou the test - psychology is one of the subjects she does very well in. In fact, she's looking to adjust her major to reflect that. She's already dropped her music minor, since not only does the scarring on her hands make it hard for her to play any instrument (well, maybe she could be a drummer), but it's not a subject that really interests her. It's something she finds very frustrating. Amy's brain is apparently structured in such a way as to make music and mathematics easy for her to learn (she jokes about being an asian girl stereotype), but whatever knowledge and skills Amy had picked up has been displaced by whatever she knew in her old life. She figures she retains much of her old life's personality, even if she doesn't have the memories which formed it, and that personality just wasn't interested in that.

She figures it's progress of a sort that when she balances her checkbook, she has the distinct feeling that it wasn't quite so easy "before". Her therapist finds that interesting, even if he doesn't know about how different "before" really was.

Of course, neither do her biological parents, which is what she might be facing right this moment, taking the time difference into account. She's terribly worried that she'll be showing up back on my doorstep before the weekend is out, looking for a couch to sleep on because the Sanadas don't want anything to do with her. And if that's the case, what will happen to college? Sure, for all she knows, she may have a PhD's worth of knowledge from her other life, but it might be in a field her brain's not good at and even still, without proof...

I wish I had some more encouraging words for her. I don't get along terribly well with my own biological mother, but it's not as if Michelle did either. I don't see Telly very often these days. My own mother did get along pretty well with Carter for a while, but then... I look at Kate and blush. "It got complicated."

I write down my mom's contact information, anyway. Even if she can't tell the Sanadas everything they want to hear, she can tell them something.

We invite her along to the first feature in the Boston Underground Film Festival, which is called "American Stag", a documentary on stag films of the early twentieth century. You know it's a mellow festival when the prizes for trivia questions and the gift bags handed out at the opening night party include vibrators.

Didn't really expect to see Amy eagerly raising her hand to try to win one, either. But, then again, it's not like she can remember having anything else.

-Marti

Labels: Amy, Kate, movies

- posted 8:58 PM - (0) comments - (archive use only)

 
Winter could be distributed better
I never really liked winter, but in previous years it's seemed to be a smoother season. I remember growing up, snow would come down fairly steadily between December and March. It melted, and we had mud season. Now it seems like we get a bunch of snow once a month, and then it turns into slush and junk right away. I think part of it is that I live in the city as opposed to the burb where I grew up, and the sewer and subway and all melts the bottom layer.

The snow killed my plans with Kate last night; we were going to see the first part of the Brattle's "Hot Fuzztival", hoping maybe to score pass for the free preview of Hot Fuzz next week. But, it took me forever to get home from Waltham last night, and even if you're making that trip on a bus, it saps any desire to head back out into it afterward.

Kate totally understood, although we might hook up later this evening if we feel the sky clearing up is for real. Besides, there's no food in this apartment, so it's an excuse to go out.

Side note: I'm glad we decided on a simple system of alternating checks when we go out. The first time, it was a bit of a thing: The check comes, and we both just kind of look at it, since we're both used to the other person picking it up when out on a date. I reach for it, because I've got more guy stuff on my resume, but Kate points out that just because I remember what it was like to be a man doesn't mean I have to fill that role now. I say I don't mind, but she says it's not a cool precedent. She takes out a coin, flips it, I pay that time and we've taken turns since.

At least I was able to get home. Amy was out with friends, working on projects that they wanted to finish before spring break, and opted not to come home. When she did make it back this morning, she found her place had been broken into. Again. At least nothing was stolen this time, just everything out of place in a way not exactly consistent with her roommate being a slob (which isn't the case, anyway).

She called me and Gertie about it, although there's not much I could think of to do. She got busy cleaning up before Tricia got home. I told her that it's probably about time to call Agent Jones; this is way past a job for amateur sleuths. She's beginning to think that way, but she wants to consult with her biological parents, first, even if that means telling them everything. They've got a right to know, she figures, and they deserve to find out in person, before the FBI starts turning their lives upside down.

-Marti

Labels: Amy, FBI, Kate, movies, snow

- posted 4:06 PM - (0) comments - (archive use only)

 
So, how was your Valentine's Day?
Mine was good. Real good, in a way I might have predicted if I were in an optimistic mood three and a half years ago but which kind of took me by surprise in the present day.

It started out inauspiciously enough - we were getting hit with the first real winter storm of the season, and I foolishly decided to go in to work. I can work from home, but I generally don't get much done - home has a TV, you know, and though I generally say I'm just putting it on for background noise or something like that, I end up engaged. Besides, there was a conference call scheduled, and both my cell and landline don't mix with those so well.

So I hauled my butt out to the bus stop, waited until the bus was fifteen minutes late, and was about to turn around and work from home with no great regret when the 70A showed up. Ah, well, to Waltham it was.

I got some work done, but not as much as I'd have liked - my theory is that since we have to access a number of off-site databases, we're a bit vulnerable to weather-related problems like downed wires or whatever else jams phone lines and the like. Not that this theory has a lot of merit, but it makes a certain amount of intuitive sense to me. Anyway, nothing makes a day go slower than just waiting for queries to run, so I was quite happy when I was offered a ride back into town at around four. Even in a car, rather than a bus, it took the better part of an hour.

My favorite comic shop got its deliveries, so I picked up my weeks pop culture in Harvard Square and then started walking toward the Brattle. It's there I bumped into Kate, hanging back at street level. (If you've never been to the Brattle, it's a bit architecturally odd - you have to go down some steps to get to the box office and concession stand, where you're directed upstairs to the actual theater). "Doing Casablanca?"

"That's the plan," she said, "But I don't know - it doesn't start for another forty-five minutes, and it's sure to be crowded with happy couples all dressed up and kissing and proposing to each other. I may puke."

I had to admit, I didn't feel much up to it either. We scrounged up a copy of the alterna-rag to see what else was playing, and noted D.O.A. and Rocketship X-M as part of a Cold War series at the Harvard Film Archive. That sounded a heck of a lot more appealing, so we (carefully) headed in that direction.

It was, in fact, a good time. Rocketship X-M was pretty bad, but D.O.A. is a bit of a blast - cheesy at times, but energetic, and blessed with one of the greatest hooks a noir has ever had (what Crank did with that basic idea was borderline criminal). It'd been a long day, so I nodded off a bit during X-M, with Kate threatening to bring this up if we wound up tied for most films seen during the Watch-a-Thon.

It had more or less stopped snowing when we got out, but what traffic there was seemed to be moving pretty darn slow and there weren't many cabs to be found. I told Kate it was okay to crash at my place, and we headed there. The walk was kind of invigorating, getting the blood flowing and the like. We turned on the TV to watch Bones (Stephen Fry!), and then... it was weird. We shared a look, and then we somehow knew it would be okay. We kissed. We broke it off and looked at each other.

She gave me a little half laugh. Are we that lonely?

Well, I said, I had a crush on you the first time I saw you. But since then, I got so used to everything, and I thought I just outgrew it...

Evidently not, she says, and then kisses me, hard. We somehow make our way to my bed, and...

Well, I'll give Kate her privacy. The next morning, she was adamant I not write about it, at least not until she was sure. But as you might expect, I've been able to think of little else since. We saw each other again the next night, when we both had tickets for a show by the Alloy Orchestra, and it was awkward. But we met up again when the Alloy accompanied The General on Saturday afternoon, and we were all like "I missed you", spending the whole day together.

Bizarre. Anyway, we told people tonight, so it's okay for me to write about. I'll probably write more when Kate and I figure out just what we've fallen into.

-Marti

Labels: Kate, movies, snow

- posted 9:47 PM - (5) comments - (archive use only)