days_unfolding

It's interesting to me that all of the (extremely unscientific) gender polls consistently peg me as 50/50. I do know IRL that I do exhibit gender-variant behavior. Some examples:

When I was in grade school, my parents used to dress my in ultra-feminine dresses. (My parents wouldn't allow me to wear pants, much less jeans, to school. Added to my popularity no end -;)) I don't think that I minded the dresses, but I was always getting in trouble for coming home from school and playing in the mud or climbing trees without changing my clothes.

I used to lead the guys in games. The only one that I remembered was trying to sneak across neighbors' yards without being seen.

Also in grade school, I had to write an essay about what I wanted to do when I grew up. So I listed several careers, enough for three lifetimes. The teacher writes back, saying that these goals were nice, but didn't I want to get married and raise a family? I wrote back that yes, it would be nice if that happened, but that wasn't a goal. I was very definite about that -;) That's the first instance of my grade school writing that sounded like "me".

In high school, all the women who took advanced math and science classes fit a certain mold: no makeup, no-nonsense clothes, no-nonsense demeanor. And there's Adrienne tripping into Physics class in makeup and high heels. I think that the teachers kind of enjoyed having an iconoclast in the class. And oh boy, did my Physics teacher ream me out when I dropped AP Chemistry and Physics. At that point, I had been having severe problems concentrating and thinking, and thought that if I dropped my toughest class, it would help. It didn't.
In Chemistry class, everyone squirted each other with the squirt bottles that we had (to wash out beakers??) If we got caught, we had to pay a fine to get the squirt bottle back. The fine didn't stop anybody. Usually I didn't participate. However, one of the guys got me good, so I got mad and went after him with my squirt bottle. I got caught, of course. When I paid the fine, my Chemistry professor asked me if it was worth it, and I said "Yes!!"

I pushed a guy down a flight of stairs once--wearing high heels. It was after school, and he basically walked up to me and started groping me (fan of Arnold Schwarzenegger?). At first, I kept trying to swat him away, but then he tried to pull me towards a stairwell that was deserted even during school hours. So I freaked out, shoved him, and ran like hell.

At high school parties, the guys would sit in the living room drinking (and sometimes getting high), and the girls would watch old movies on TV. Where was Adrienne? Drinking with the guys, of course.

When I got married, I discovered to my horror that they really don't make tailored wedding dresses. I kept asking if they had something a little plainer, and finally the salesperson turned to me in exasperation and said "This is as plain as it gets!" So I asked them to take the bows off the dress.