red hair and black leather

I find myself obsessed with myths and storytelling lately. Well, moreso than usual. I've re-read American Gods, I'm reading the Arden versions of Hamlet and Macbeth, I'm researching the Bible, and Virgil is always in my head, whispering.

Wonder why. I wonder what I'm processing that's requiring these cycles. Maybe it's a response to putting a myth on my back.

I normally don't let myself indulge in the "What if?" game, because it would too easily consume me and/or I get irritated with the wondering about a moot point. However, in this case, not only is it a moot point (for most people), it's been a moot point since before I was born. The question?

Who would I be if I had been born a male? Who would I have become in place of Juliana?

Let's start with the obvious - name. I would have been named Kevin, most likely. I can't imagine myself as a Kevin. The uncle I would have been named after eventually drank himself to death, and the other Kevins I've known have been nice enough, but not especially quirky. More nerdy, which is a distinct possibility. I may have actually gone behind my mother's back to play D&D (she banned it during that period of "D&D causes your children to worship Satan and commit suicide!" hysteria), instead of bowing to the anti-nerd pressure from my girl friends.

I probably still wouldn't have played any organized sports in high school. I definitely wouldn't have been a cheerleader. I doubt I would have had the build to play rugby in college. I also doubt that I would have gone to Gustavus.

The dynamic between my father and me would most certainly have been worse - a replay of the dynamic between him and his father.

I would have been angrier as a teenager. Much angrier (but probably happier in college and beyond. Go figure). Extrapolating from that, I probably would have listened to much more punk and metal. Considering where I grew up, probably metal. I probably would have smoked a lot more pot.

I would probably still have gone all swoony over the idea of The Vampire Lestat and being a vampire. Some things are more a product of teenagerdom than gender.

I probably (and this is a statement of great danger) would have been a better actor. The things that trip up my acting are problems that female performers - comedians especially - run into all the time. The need to be liked. The need to be accepted. The need to look good. The fact that if a woman is tough, she's a bitch, but if a man is tough, he's sexy. If a woman complains, she's whining. Shit like that, both mental and external.

I have no idea of what my sexuality would have been. I'm sure I would have been straight or straight-acting in high school, because Fairbanks is very much a small town and it's hella dangerous to step outside the norms there.


Beyond high school is really a cipher to me. I can imagine what a young & a teenaged male me would have been like, but the events that led to me going where I did for college were so very random that I can't make an educated guess on what an XY version of me would have done.


So. That's a possibility of what would have been me. What about you? What if you had been born a different gender?