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I thought about growing my hair.  And then I thought about wearing pastels.  I tried scarves, because they’re kind of girly.  But I felt ridiculous and the metrosexuals keep ruining good unisex clothes through appropriation.  I keep going, as I am, waiting for the inevitable.

Why go back to school at all, especially when you fit in even less the second time around?  I like it, I’m good at it.  But it’s like the outside world.  Not my world – I’ve managed to cloister myself, and am surrounded by queers and leftys and live in a place where I look mainstream in comparison to others.  But that’s not where I work.  I work in the mainstream.  In the suburbs.  In tough schools where gender and nationality are the defining features.  There’s no time for mamby pambey gender analysis.  This is survival, and that is done through extreme performance of all that is expected.  And part of that performance is weeding out those who don’t fit in.  I’m a visitor, and I’m suspect looking.  And that’s worth throwing down a challenge to.