Introductions are in order...

My name is #$%^ @#$%^&. But for the purposes of this blog I've taken the alias of Alex Manson. Let's start at the beginning...

I'm a journalism student at a college in a town that will be called "Nowheresville, Ontario." I'm a pretty average guy to begin with, but maybe you'll learn more and decide after all this writing is done. I'll reveal more details as they become relevant, but for now I'm trying to keep my identity hidden to the world at large, partially out embarrassment, partly because it helps the project. See, I'm about to embark upon what is probably going to be looked at as a landmark of investigative journalism. I, Alex Manson (I've really gotta get into the habit of typing that instead of my name,) am going to spend one week as a woman, and document it here on this blog.

I know what you're thinking. That's bullshit. I saw that stupid episode of "Boy Meets World." If you just want to walk around in a dress for a week, that's fine, but don't pretend it's for the sake of real journalism. No, really. I am physically going to transform into a woman this Sunday night, walk around in the skin of a woman until next sunday (that's teh tenth to the 17th, for the record,) and make notes. I'm nervous and terrified just typing it. When I think about doing it... the fact that I'm going through with it anyway... it makes me want to vomit with fear. But there's a method to my madness.

Part of it was that it was just too good an idea to pass up when it landed on my plate. My editor, Mary, (not real name, like all names here,) was telling me this facinating story that sounded like pure nonsense. At the end of the summer, she'd picked up this little trinket at a garage sale. They were an old couple down her street and they looked like they could use her patronage, so she bought some jazz records and a few small items of jewellery. When she handed this one rusty-looking necklace to the woman, she smiled and said, "Let me tell you about this..." The woman leaves and goes inside to get a piece of paper, and returns with a (somewhat illegible, from what I've seen) list of rules and hypthetical explanations, that outline the magic properties of the necklace.

Um... yeah. Now, as journalists (or in my case, journalism student,) the general rule is that you don't believe in the supernatural. But even as a skeptic, Mary was completely sold on it when she told me what she'd seen the damn thing do. "If only," she said to me with a gleam in her eye, "We could use this power to get some story out of it." Then she smiled and added, "Hint, hint."

Okay, I told her, I'll play along. And we decided who I'd go around being by looking at me and trying to find the most radical transformation that was do-able. Gender was floated early on but I dismissed it out of embarrassment. But a good story is a good story.

I'd had a conversation with Nav, an immigrant friend of mine, earlier that day. He'd observed jokingly how men dress more casually than women, and they must spend a fortune on clothes. He, on the other hand (and come to think of it, I as well) mostly just wears band t-shirts and jeans to class. Girls spend hours on make-up and hair and we just rush out of the shower into our pants. Okay that simplifies it, but still. The difference is an obvious one that bears examination.

So I sat down to outline my project. For one week, while in the form of a woman, I will behave as a woman in today's society. I'll dress as a woman, speak like a woman (whatever that means,) eat like a woman, sleep like a woman, and most importantly, do this in the process of observing women as a from the vantage point of a woman.

So I'm taking on a new identity. I chose Alex Manson after much deliberation as to what I should be called (since most people don't get to decide their own names.) I was originally thinking Amanda, since I love puns and that would be "A man, duh," but on second thought that sounded stupid. Alex is a good gender-neutral na,e that I'm comfortable with. Manson ia a very masculine surname. Man-son. See? I'm already feeling insecure about my gender.

I'll be filling the report on this blog, because as a student I've been assured that blogs are "the medium of the future." Whatever that means, it works for me.

I don't know how I'm going to let this affect my daily life. It's going to throw a lot of shit outta whack.

Oh, should I just have sworn? I mean, this isn't really a "school" site, but it's one my teachers will be looking at, so maybe I shouldn't be.

Fuck it.

-Alex