I'm very grateful to have had a week off. It's a privilege not everyone has, and it has provided necessary time and space for reflection. Holidays demand a lot of public encounters with strangers. Since I discovered that gruff indifference elicits 'mate', I've dropped my smiles and mischief. That gets interpreted as flirtation, and coded femme. When people can't read gender they presume, detach or defend. People can be exhausting. I've always wanted to be invisible, so I hid