Page 65 of Nearly Roadkill
I have been thinking about you a lot. Thinking and reading Gertrude Stein if you want to know you know. You know. Thinking when there is no thinking I think of you. Thinking about talking to you makes me want. Want to meet real time to ask questions as real as we can get I mean online.
A room has been created that is I have created this room. This room is called “Woods” to which you might go.
—S.
Online Host
*** You are in room “Woods” ***
Scratch:::Soft carpet of needles, sunlight filtering through trees::
Winc:::kicking the leaves ahead of me as I walk:: ::inhaling pine scent from the forest… happy::
Scratch:OK, so my mind’s been spinning. I gotta know.
Winc:::settling down into a large pile of leaves, listening::
Scratch:I have gone a lot into the male and female roles, for lack of a better model. If you were being a girl, I stressed a lot of girl stuff. In you I mean. And yet you refer to a “third space,”…
Winc:Well, actually, I read that someplace.
Scratch:OK. I realized I *have* made a third space, for many people, not just you. And I wonder if I’ve made the girl space too big, gone too far the other way I mean.
Winc:::listening::
Scratch:If you’re a guy, maybe you feel rejected that way. That part of you. When we’re online, that third space seems huge, you and I both are all things. Like when I call you dude, it’s not something I usually call girls.
Winc:Yes, I make that kind of space for you, too. Third, fourth, fifth… I dunno
Scratch:Ahhh. Point is: I don’t want you to repress any of that! I mean, third space should be everything and nothing, as they say.
Winc:::letting my fingers trail along the edges of a dead leaf… listening::
Scratch:Maybe you feel you have to “bring it down,” restrain yourself? Like maybe you think I wouldn’t like you as a boy? Because I’m a het man or a lesbian?
Winc:::pulling my knees up beneath my chin, thinking:: I agree with you that the space we share, like right now, is very much “third” space… genderless as it can be… where each of us is talking.
Scratch:::listening, watching you::
Winc:Yet when it comes to love, romance, sex, perhaps a little S/M… ::breaking leaf into little bits:: umm… This is hard…
Scratch:Yes, go on… I’m with you.
Winc:::laughing:: All my life I never *really* fit into “girl” or “boy.” Always felt outside, y’know?
Scratch:::Chewing on blade of grass, nodding::
Winc:For so long, I’ve *wanted* to be just one or the other, some gender I can hang with full-time, but now that I *can* be whatever, here online…
Scratch:::gently:: Let me guess… why bother choosing?
Winc:::chewing lip, nodding:: Exactly. I don’t want to get stuck in *any* of this, don’t want to freeze into either. Don’t want to lose any sense of myself as boy or…
Scratch:So you *are*—
Winc:Wait a minute. ::curling toes inside my boot::
Scratch:::going quiet, looking up at you, soft eyes::
