Okay. I'm going to try to put this down as clearly as I can. I fully realize how insane what I'm typing must be, and I certainly don't understand it myself, but this is what happened to me. I'm hoping that by putting it on the web, maybe someone who has had a similar experience, or knows how to reverse it, will stumble across it in a Google search or something and give me some help.

When I opened my eyes this morning, the alarm clock read 10:05. That woke me straight up, because my flight out of Logan was scheduled to depart about four hours earlier. Once I jerked straight up in the bed (and it did occur to me that I had fallen asleep on the couch), I realized that that wasn't all that was amiss. Instead of Kurt's living room, I was in a studio apartment whose owner had apparently just moved in. I whipped my head left and right to look around, and a bunch of hair got in my eyes. That really freaked me out, since I had just had my hair cut pretty short yesterday. That's when I looked down and saw that my body wasn't my own. Even under the baggy nightshirt, I could see I was clearly a woman, and I don't just mean because the body's toenails are painted red. She/I is/am stacked. I almost screamed, but no sound came out - it was like I was too shocked to actually get her vocal cords to work.

I know - most people reading this are going to think it's bullshit. I certainly did. I actually punched at this body's breasts both out of anger and to confirm they were real (and, for what it's worth, that really hurts). I have to admit that after I stuck a hand into her panties, I actually whined something like "you took it away from me." Stupid, really, because even at that point, I understood that my mind must have somehow been moved, or copied, or something like that, into somebody else's body, and "it" was probably right where "it" belonged, on a plane flying cross-country.

But who? Nothing around me looked familiar, and I didn't know why anyone would do this to me. I was still kind of numb, so I have to admit that I didn't walk into the bathroom to use the mirror - I just needed to go. The face in the mirror caught me dead, though - it was the girl from the bar last night. I was the girl from the bar last night. At which point, it made perfect sense - I was having a super-weird drunk dream, and my brain had taken some part of the "if I were a woman/good thing you're not me" exchange and twisted it. Still, it was a pretty vivid dream, and didn't I read somewhere that you couldn't see numbers clearly in a dream?

Anyway, I did my business and returned to the main room. That's when I found this letter:

I decided to see if you could put your money where your mouth is concerning your friend. As you can see, you now have my life, and I now have yours. This shouldn't cause too much of a problem, since I only moved here two weeks ago and you're going to a new city - or vice versa, as the case may be.

Anyway, the rules are simple: Do not tell your friends or mine about this. I will, at some point, return and switch back, but I can't tell you when. If you and Kurt (I think that was his name) are still together, I'll certainly give him a chance. And do try - it's complicated, but if you don't, it's kind of like a broken agreement. I know that sort of sucks for you, but there you go.

God, the way that sounds. I'm not really a mean person; it's something I have to do, and your situation was a real opportunity.

...And then a bunch of credit card numbers and online passwords and other stuff I'm not going to share.

So I sat around the rest of the day, trying to get in contact with this "Michelle Garber" who's stolen my body, but even after I figured the plane would have landed, she wasn't answering my cell phone. If there ever was anything on her computer about this, it's been deleted but good.

So, that's my situation. I'm just going to sit around and wait for her to call back today, but if anybody reading this has heard of something like this happening before, and maybe how to reverse it, drop me a line.

-Martin
- posted 6:19 PM - (0) comments - (archive use only)

 
Six A.M. flight tomorrow; this is it. I really should try and get to sleep now, but for some reason I can't even tough I've got five or six beers in me. Like I just don't want to leave even though I really do. I mean, I can't waste any more minutes that I've got here.

I met up with Wei and Kurt after they got off work today, and we went to the Place to give me a send-loff. Jimmy came too, but the hospital paged him at something like six thirty. Butthat was okay, since it kind of made sense that it was just the three of us. We'd all moved here together after college, although there were five of us at first. Jen and Rick are long gone, nd now it's just the two of them. Wei said she'd called Mags, but I guess it's for the best that she didn't come. It didn't end well and moving on may just be the best thing for it.

So, we had a few beers watched the game, and just talked. We spent part of the time talking like we'd be able to get together and do it on Monday, and then we reminisced, nad Wei cried. She said she was glad Jim wasn't there then, because he might get t he wrong idea. But I got it, sice we've been through a lot together. Nothing nobody else hasn't gone through, but that doesn't really make it easier at the time. I told them at least they were lucky enough to still have each other, but Kurt moped that it wouldn't last. He's the onlyh uncoupled friend Wie has, so he just knew he'd be seeing less and less of her.

Wei and I told him it was bullshit, that he'd find someone soon enough and then they'd be able to do all the coupley things together, but he didn't buy it. So we spent the rest of the evening, or at least a good chunk of it, trying to find him a new girlfriend. It would have been a lot easier if thePlace had spped dating on Friday, but no such luck. We tried the old fashioned way, and some phone numbers were exchanged. I hope things go well with him and the redhead... I think Denise was her name. She's awful cute, an evidently she was there as a bridesmaid in some friend of hers wedding party trying to decompress before the big day. She certainy seemed to jump in enthusiastically when Kurt gave her the "help save a friendship" spiel.

The last one was weird, though. She was hot, don' get be wrong, but she had a weird attitude. I guess part of it was she was alone in the bar and there were three of us, os I guess that could kind of come off as threatening, but after we explained the situation, smiling to make sure she knew it was half in jest, she just said "what's in it for me?" and walked away. Cold. Not the ocldest we'd heard all night, but just the way she said it, and we were admittedly kind of hammered. I just gave Kurt a pat on the back and otld him that if she had to ask, it was her lost.

The really weird thing happened ten minutes later, when Kurt had gone outside to call fro a cab. I was about to down my last shot when she cam over and sat next to me. Im not quite sure where Wie was, maybe in the bathroom. She asked me if I was really leaving, and I said yes, and she asked if I really felt that strongly. Well, when you're drunk, you feel everything pretty damn strongly, and I told her that if I were a woman, I'd go for Kurt an instant. SHe said something like "good think you're not mbe", and then, before I could cut her back down, she grab my face and plants one of the lips. A long one, too, like five minutes, or at least that's what it felt like. Then she just turned around and walked off without saying a word. Weird.

Well, anyway, I think the beer's really starting to hit me, so it's time to send this out into the internet. I've got nothing else to say except, man, is Kurt' sroommate coing to be pissed when my alarm rings at 4am tomorrow.

-Martin
- posted 10:44 PM - (0) comments - (archive use only)

 
Not a bad game, if you're Canadian. Otherwise, it was a bunch of missed opportunities and pitching that wasn't quite good enough. I heard a bunch of people grumbling about Nixon trying to score and being out by a mile, but if you're running from second to third, you have to trust what the third base coach is telling you. You've got no way of knowing what's coming.

Couldn't ask for a better night for my last visit to Fenway in a while. The sun way shining, there was a nice breeze, and we were sitting up in the right-field roof boxes. I'd never been in those specific seats, and it was kind of scary at first - it took some real effort to get Kurt to use the seats rather than retreat down into the main stadium and just use the standing room. But after a couple innings I barely noticed, though yuo'd think Kurt would have gotten sick - he found an awful lot of excuses to do concession/beer runs rather than hanging around with me.
- posted 3:02 PM - (0) comments - (archive use only)

 
It's not like tonight will be the last time I see the Sox in person. Heck, it won't even be "the last time for a while" - they'll be playing a series in Safeco just about a month from now, and you know I'll be all over that. But, man, I've been to Fenway a couple times a month ever since I moved to Boston after college, and it's loomed kind of large in my life. I was there when I got the call that my dad died, and this past winter, the day Sox tickets went on sale was also the day Columbia blew apart, and that's how I met Maggie - we were both sitting in one of the conference rooms, watching the news as it went on about the search for debris and replaying that footage over and over again, while other people came and went, leaving the bad news to listen to Theo Epstein or Larry Lucchino talk about their plans for the team. After our numbers were called for tickets, we met up outside and had a coffee, then stayed together for four-plus months.

That's not very long, I guess, but if this job hadn't come up, it could have been longer. Maybe not, though - we liked each other, sure, but we reacted to that late period in very different ways. Perhaps, given a little time, we'd have met up again and how much fun we had together would have been more important than that disagreement, or one of us would have softened our stance somewhat. I'd sorta kinda been hoping for a sappy movie moment last week, calling her to tell her about the job and having her say "don't go", but that certainly didn't happen. It wound up feeling like a divorce, as we divided up the tickets for stuff we'd been planning to do together between "hers" and "for me to sell off so that she doesn't owe anything to me". Ugly.

Heck, she originally bought the tickets to tonight's game, but since I wouldn't be able to use any of the others, she magnanimously let me have them (although, is it magnanimous when she's like "see, I'm not a controlling bitch, I can be nice even though I have no reason to be, you selfish bastard?"). Of course, since Pedro's not pitching like we'd expected...

Ah well. Kurt and I will have fun tonight, and if she gets mad watching it on NESN, I can't exactly help that, can I?
- posted 2:04 PM - (0) comments - (archive use only)

 
Goodbye, things. See you next week.

Or so I hope. My possessions are actually being moved to a storage locker in Seattle; with any luck I'll be able to find a new apartment next week and not just live out of the hotel. Not that there's anything wrong with living out of a hotel - indeed, it's kind of fun. In fact, I've occasionally considered taking vacation time but staying in town, just checking into a hotel closer to the waterfront and letting someone else clean my room and make the bed and all that. But the idea of juxtoposing work and a hotel seems vaguely wrong. I know there are hotels that specialize in long-term stays, but after spending the day in someone else's building, I want to retreat to a place that is mine.

Now, though, I feel like an intruder in my own apartment, with just my sleeping bag, laptop, and a couple changes of clothes in a duffle. I'll probably crash at Kurt's after the game tomorrow, and I really should tonight, but his roommate was giving me this look, like the apartment's oxygen was very tightly rationed, and my presence there for one night this month would be throwing the allocations off. That or he wanted rent.

He must have hated all the oxygen Wei, Jim, and I used last night. Not that the All-Star Game was worth screaming over, but the discovery that Jim was a Mets fan caused no small amount of disturbance. Mets fans aren't quite so bad as other New Yorkers, so long as they don't bring Mookie ____ing Wilson up, but there's always the thought at the back of your mind, that even though they say nobody hates the Yankees as much as they do... Well, how hard is it, really, for them to change sides once the Mets fall out of contention? After all, the Yanks still represent the city, right? And if you're living outside of the NYC area, folks are just going to lump you together anyway, so why not?

It must be a very tricky situation for him right now, staying true to himself now that his team is basically out of it. He wants to remain a hardcore Mets guy, but the city is full of Red Sox fans (including his girlfriend) and the Yankees can represent both a link to his home and a rebellion against the people surrounding him. As Kurt joked last night, Wei should watch closely - how he handles that situation could be telling as to how loyal he is to whatever he claims to love before all others.

-Martin
- posted 7:32 PM - (0) comments - (archive use only)

 
Looking at the blog, I'm not sure how I'll end future entries. Yesterday, the phone rang, but if not, who knows how long I would have been staring at the screen, trying to figure out a clever way to end it? Hours, I'm sure.

Today, I'm going to be clever and start now so that I can save it in about half an hour because I have to get over to Kurt's and watch the All-Star Game. I'm trying to hang out with Kurt and Wei a lot this week, since I've got no idea when I'll see them next.

For example, last night we all went out and saw The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Which was fun, and kind of clever, but not quite as good as the comic book. Of course, I was the only one who'd read it, and both my friends seemed to like it. Heck, Wei's new boyfriend (Jim, I think his name is) did until he heard me say "comic book". Then it's "no wonder it was so unrealistic". Like he cared about realism when Mina turned into a flock of bats and he whooped it up.

Someday, I'm going to tell him about Road To Perdition.

Anyway, that was last night; tonight we're going over to Kurt's, since he's got the best TV. Not that Fox actually broadcasts in HDTV, but it'll still be impressively big. I hope like heck that what's-his-name likes baseball, since he seems to come with Wei nowadays.

Of course, I'm sure Mags similarly annoyed Kurt and Wei back when we were together. Of course, it could kind of suck for Kurt - once I head out, he becomes a third wheel if he wants to do anything with Wei. Being single can suck when your friends aren't.

Ah well. Not my problem after Friday, is it? In the meantime, let's watch some baseball!

-Martin
- posted 6:07 PM - (0) comments - (archive use only)

 
Well, I wasn't going to start this until I actually got settled in out west, but I've got some free time right now, so what the heck? The movers won't be putting my life on a truck until Wednesday, and right now I can't stand to look at another box, so I might as well get an early start.

I'm basically doing this so my friends can keep an eye on what I'm up to after I move to Seattle on Saturday. It's all happened insanely quickly, but isn't that usually the way? No job for two months, and then, bang, here's one that pays half again what your last one did, but you've got to relocate and start in just a couple weeks. A scary thought, but kind of exciting, too. Maybe I wouldn't have jumped if a bunch of things hadn't come together - my mother just got settled in Florida last month, the lease on my apartment was due to expire at the end of August anyway, and it's not like I have to sell a cross-country move to a girlfriend. So, really, what's stopping me? Nothing.

I'm just edgy right now, though - I've got too much free time, I'm waiting for a call from the apartment broker (hopefully I won't have to live out of a suitcase for too long), so I can't just go to a movie or something - I'm not going to be the guy whose cell rings during the movie, or turns it off and misses an important call.

And there it is now... More later.

-Martin
- posted 1:59 PM - (0) comments - (archive use only)