Jennie's Jotter

  Part 6 Christmas was coming, and with it a chance for us to reaffirm individual family relations in traditional family celebrations. For the first time in a few years, we could be confident of attending those in the bodies we'd been born in. That was fun, but sad too. Even as we were sharing out highlights from our own family gatherings, all of us were reaching out to help Mike stay calm and collected, as well as, surprisingly, Dave, whose parents had separated when he was leaving for college, and who had to remain neutral in the face of their increasing bitterness towards each other. Getting through that soap-opera was tricky for all of us. As Tiff and her parents were going on holidays over the New Year period, and seeing as how I was her bf, I was invited along too. During our time away from the rest of the gang, we were outside the circle so to speak, but still maintained our psychic link to each other. During the week we spent most of the time wearing the other’s body fo...

 Part 5 We could be in our own bodies when we wanted to now. If we flowed in, we were less likely to trade when we slept. With all of us so deep into each other all the time, it was mainly convention by then, something we did to fit into the world outside and keep it from guessing our secret, but it gave us a little more stability for some activities. Lynne's fingers knew her guitar best, though all of us had string-calluses on our left hands by now from her determined practicing. For that matter, all of us could at least play bar chords now, even if the rest of us had nowhere near her speed and dexterity; somehow the skills we were individually learning were spreading across the link, perhaps from our constant casual swapping. Dave had been nearly tone-deaf before. Now, hearing through others' ears when his voice wandered, he learned to keep himself on pitch. After a week or two, he tried taping it. Surprise, now he could do it when no one else was within hearing. That pleas...

 Part 4 When the fall term of school began, there was that sharing again, making it easier for us as a group. We all studied for all, necessarily, but it made it easier to learn: the studying seemed to spread solidly across the web of us six, with the knowledge caught and held somewhere among us for retrieval, along with cross-discipline connections and insights. In fact, it could be distracting, if you were trying to discern what you knew as opposed to what one of the others knew. Anyway, that was a waste of effort, since none of us were ever out of touch. When that seventh day after Halloween arrived again, even though that pull towards the Old Grove was there again, and stronger this time, we couldn't hope to get out to our town, not on our schedules. Besides, it was rainy and cold outside this year, and that would have made any hiking a miserable experience. Instead, some of us gravitated together downstairs in the living room, which had a fireplace. Four of us quit studyin...

 Part 2 We got radios. Fortunately, we all lived within range of each other. Every morning we'd get up early for a group conference, then split off twice to share an update on the previous day. If you weren't up on time, you missed out on your clues for the day, and so did the person you were supposed to brief. Weekends were a little strange at first, as a guy in a girl’s body, getting dressed or more specifically deciding what to wear, and what goes with what, takes time, so a few calls along the way were required. I must confess though that the first weekend, I was Tiff, and had several hours alone, I was put on a private fashion show as I tried on most of the wardrobe, just to see how it felt to be wearing tight clothes or long dress, and lets not even mention various undergarments. I even tried walking in her high heeled shoes and knee length boots, well practice makes perfect, as they say. All of us got awfully familiar with being in both kinds of bodies over the next ...

  Circle of Friends    Hi, I'm Joe, or at least today I am. Want to know something weird? I'm in the body I was born in. Yeah, I know, you want me to explain. Okay. Where to begin... Ever heard the expression, 'walk a mile in my shoes'? It's not funny when it happens, especially when there're more than two sets of shoes for you to walk in. You get used to it, though; I think people can get used to just about anything, really. In this case, there were six of us, plus, eventually, two surprises, but that came later. We weren't so much a tight crowd in high school as just a group that got along real well and liked to do things together. We could try things out, make mistakes and get messy, and trust that nobody in the group would laugh at us. We laughed with each other at our mistakes and messes often enough, but it was never cruel. So we ended up tight, and I ended up knowing a lot more about a girl's growing up than your average guy. Hey, I help...