The word for today, ladles and germs, is "androgyne".

Being the way I am isn't so much that I'm too lazy to put forth the effort to appear female. On the exceedingly rare occassions that I go the whole nine yards -- make-up, wear a dress, etc. -- I feel so utterly wrong and out of place. I look horrible to myself. I look wrong. I feel wrong. I feel self-conscious at the best of times, but when I put on a dress or otherwise try to look female I feel like everybody is watching me, and that I look utterly horrid. Like a troll. I always look decidedly troll-like of the Wendy Pini - ElfQuest variety. Dark green skin, huge bulbous noses, fat faces, beady eyes, rotten teeth, usually fat, with big feet with toenails that could be used to trim hedges. I'm none of these things, except for the fat part. But that's what I see. Like a gargoyle.

Usually I can't wait to get out of whatever social function has required this farce, to get home so I can get out of those things and thrown them across the room and forget about them as quickly as possible.

Then there's my normal way of dressing, which is decidedly unisex -- too-big t-shirts, baggy jeans, hiking boots, hair tied back, no make-up ever. My flight jacket in the winter. If we hadn't had some loosening of the gender strictures regarding women wearing pants in the last fifty years I'd be far worse off, I guess. Last night I was thinking I should at least bow to some form of gay tradition and get myself some guys' plaid flannel shirts, since that's what lesbians and bi women are supposed to wear. I've got the rest of the outfit, might as well go the rest of the way. What is it Robin Williams once called us... "women in comfortable shoes." The way I dress now I'm pretty much ambiguous to the rest of the world -- I don't dress particularly gay. I dress decidedly drab, and occassionally I've got this Johnny Cash - goth - monkish all black look going.

But it's not just the clothes. The things I think about, the way my life is going or rather hasn't gone, the things I care about, none of it is "female". Space, robots, AI, science and science-fiction, they're all "guy" things. When I have hormonal mood swings and fixate on buying stuff, I usually find myself obsessed with electronics. Of course I've already nabbed my recent obsessions, so I'm at a loss now as to what's next. Once you have the laser printer, the telescope, the iPod and the laptop computer, what's next? Maybe I should upgrade my greed...

Shouldn't I be obsessing over window treatments and matching upholstery, Calphalon pans and copper mixing bowls? Shouldn't I be having conniptions over my gray hair and going over my face every morning in the mirror worried about wrinkles ? (which I don't have yet, though I've had gray hair for quite some time. My grandmother even remarked on it some few months ago. Must be weird, having grandchildren who already have gray hair.) Shouldn't I be cursing my cellulite, spending half my paycheck on getting my hair and nails done, and starving myself to death in a vain and ultimately futile elaborate plan to seduce a lawyer, doctor or lobbyist? Shouldn't I care about having kids, having a big nice house, having impressive dinner parties, nabbing the trophy husband who brings in $150k a year?

Instead, my ambitions amount to seeing my books on the shelves of bookstores, a fan club, and a harem consisting of mostly fictional characters of both genders. One of them is an android. Another is an alien. I mean, my version of the 72 Virgin Heaven consists of being tag-teamed by Romi and Chianna with Jack and Daniel on alternate Tuesdays.

Communication is supposed to be a female thing and I've got that part down, but that's about the only female thing I do. The rest of my mind is male, but even then I'm not the He-Man variety. I'm not outside working on my truck, I'm not building or fixing things around the house, I'm not allowing any body parts to do my thinking for me and get me in trouble. I do like working on my computer, playing with my telescope. I heard about a study once where they said guys use their computers as toys and women use their computers as tools. Meaning guys play video games and women actually do work. That's why women aren't as likely to get addicted to EverQuest and such like. I've got that part down, at least. For me, even when I'm playing on this thing I'm usually doing something educational. I'm on a NASA website or Wikipedia, or reading the news. I used to play Orbz a lot, but not much nowadays. And it wasn't addictive. Fun, but not addictive. One of the reasons I don't get into EQ or Star Wars Galaxies is that I know I would get addicted to it. Not because of the combat aspect but for the exploration. I'd be wandering around exploring rather than trying actively to improve my character. I used to be big into Doom -- I liked to play in God mode and just go around finding all the hidden rooms. EQ and Galaxies have these huge vast areas and I'd spend all my time wandering around. Sometimes I wish someone would make a game just for that, just for wandering around exploring. But guys build games around the idea of accomplishing goals -- killing monsters, finding objects, getting to the end of the level, what have you. Why can't you build a world just to explore?

So yeah, the whole androgyne thing fits me. It isn't comfortable, being both at the same time. How am I supposed to act? In a group of women I feel inferior and alienated. In a group of men I feel either ignored or targetted. What do you do if your social interactions aren't predicated on (a.) entrapping a guy with a lucrative future, or (b.) getting laid as quickly as possible?

Considering my ideas for party conversation topics include the possibility of catastrophic asteroid strike and Mars colonization, you can see I have a problem.

I dunno. I'm not entirely sure what I am, sometimes.