I Cannot Pick a Piece, I Pick a System

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What’s a piece of technology you’re convinced will exist in 20 years?
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20 years is not enough for a paradigm shift, but it is enough time to subsidize the tools we already have. Technology like Roombas should be discounted for disabled people. Assistive technology actually saves lives, because it gives people hope that they can manage more independently. But once the light bulb has gone on, that this technology exists, the costs becomes prohibitive and frightening. Accessibility aids are priced as luxury goods, and that has to stop.

Oranges that are already peeled would like a word. So would fresh mirepoix, but that’s a whole other thing.

The point, however, is the same. The people that need these assistive aids (peeled oranges, prepared mise en place) generally cannot afford them, or are told that they don’t need them because it’s a moral issue according to SNAP.

SNAP is not at issue here, but the concept is the same. People are making a moral choice to price technology out of reach for people who need it, and that needs to change more than getting new and different technology altogether.

There’s a reason for everything we do, but no one asks.

That is the problem that is keeping technology behind a walled garden and priced as a luxury good….. it means that you look materialistic when you’re trying to make your life easier. Being disabled is expensive because you can’t just buy any old product. Having the choice you finally made be suspect in some way is dehumanizing.

The Roomba is a joke in some circles.

The Roomba is quietly doing what the butler does, and taking out the trash.

Not My Favorite, but the Most Consistent

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Which book have you read more than any other?
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I’ve been reading the Bible since I was a kid, learning it week by week in a three-year cycle called the “Lectionary.” But now my life is different, because I read the Bible with a new lens. My chosen family is Jewish. I’m learning who Jesus was as a person, because he would have been involved in the life of the synagogue as well. It’s interesting saying the words Jesus said instead of the words created to memorialize him. Joining my Jewish friends at synagogue is my holy place, and has been for a long time because there was a temple that shared Bridgeport’s building when I lived in Portland.

Tiina jokes that we’re the biggest synagogue in Fredericksburg because we’re the only synagogue in Fredericksburg.

The thing I’ve read for the last 12 years is Aada’s letters, and I think I broke my pattern with her when I deleted every email she’d ever sent me except for a few in my Hotmail account (yes, I still have one). That’s because I wasn’t constantly going back over her words and trying to figure it out because I couldn’t anymore. But to me, it was a book of her life and I killed it because she wanted me to. I will never forgive her for this, and it was the best thing that could have happened. Now she only comes across my mind sporadically instead of feeling anxious waiting for news.

The trauma bond is broken and now I can connect with other people. I have been hungry for touch and Tiina, Brian, and the kids are great sources of hugs, cheek kisses, and an arm around me when I don’t feel so hot. She’s on a road trip right now, so she has missed all of the excitement with my online foray into a Black space, but I have therapy at 6:00 with my Black therapist and he’s going to help me unpack all of it. But I sent him the Thread and he said, “there’s a lot to unpack here, but don’t worry…. I use my white friends all the time and I’m not offended that you told them your therapist was Black.” That’s because they scared me and told me that saying that was just performative.

No, it wasn’t performative at all. It was signaling “I’m going to be unpacking this with a Black person, not someone who will tell me what I want to hear. In the meantime, this has escalated even further by me leaving a comment on another person’s post that said, “white people, come here.” I said, “I am a white people.” Someone else chimed in and said, “I’m not here to tell you what to do, but I would be mindful of THIS one.”

That is in addition to infiltrating my Facebook page and threatening to come to Baltimore. She says that I was over the top thinking she was coming to beat me up or kill me, I thought she was threatening me online because I invited her for ice cream and she made sure to let me know that if she came here, I wouldn’t like it. I just told her to make her threats even more plain. But that was also problematic because apparently if I feel threatened, I’m not supposed to say it because that marks the Black person in some way. There has got to be a way to say “look here. I am not being racist, you actually threatened me and there’s proof.” They say that I threated her because I invited her to ice cream, and that inviting a Black woman into an unsafe situation is something I already should have known.

No, I didn’t start feeling threatened until she made a big show of creating a Thread saying she was coming to Baltimore to “get her apology” with all its insinuations intact, on Sunday, no less. I made a jerkwad comment, so she began to peg me as a racist from the jump. Any mistake that I made just made the situation worse. Everyone says I’m the one that crashed out, but no one wants to talk about how Kea provoked me. All things being equal, I said the all the right things. But all things are not equal, and now I am learning the depth and breadth of how much.

By the same token, if Kea had felt threatened when I invited her to Baltimore but still wanted an apology in person, I would have gotten in the car and given it, and I don’t even know where she lives. But she didn’t, she created Thread after Thread in which I was the villain in her story, and it will please me if Aada clutches her purse in fury. She cannot do jack or shit for me, but her faux outrage is amusing.

Because I was arguing a counterpoint that didn’t need to be there, and in order to shut me down they used race as a shield. I say this because any attempt to clarify was for naught and they went through my history and instead of understanding that I have had Black friends since I was a baby, the message that they got was that I was just “performing antiracism.” That was certainly true because I got flustered and dysregulated at being attacked and couldn’t think of all the right things to say. Because the first “no, that’s not what I meant, here’s what I actually meant” was dismissed and the party started.

They think that I am using race as a shield now, when that is simply not true. I have not proved my point to their satisfaction. I have apologized, even saying that I’m sorry my behavior was harmful and dangerous. I posted that without any ands, buts, or “becauses.” But now the goalpost has shifted to “you didn’t do enough to prove that we could trust you.” And that’s because they told me I couldn’t do anything better than a generated AI link. The link wasn’t the point. The scholar asked for papers proving my point and rejected them because they were listed in a Copilot link.

I told them that I’d done the labor they asked for, and they told me that only Black women say that to white women, and that white women shouldn’t say it. I didn’t know that, because queer people say it all the time to straight people. I didn’t know it was a thing and I walked right into it. I kept saying that we had every intersectionality except skin color because I was queer and autistic, but that was rejected as well. I should have stopped trying to fix it after 10 minutes but I just couldn’t help myself.

Everyone kept telling me to log off and I was stuck in autistic meltdown. Then, when I tried to explain what happened to other autistic people, all of the sudden I was using my disability as an excuse. That is a classic neurodivergent experience because neurodivergent people generally think “explanation first, apology second” and neurotypical people think “apology first, explanation second.” “Apology first” is harder for neurodivergent people because often we have to narrate what happened to ourselves before we can feel it. That is when the empathy hits and doubles me over, but this is not an isolated experience. A lot of the time neurodivergent kids are pegged as liars because explaining is seen as failure to take accountability. My brain literally does not work that way. I will never be able to take accountability in the moment because first pass is explanatory and literal because I have to see what happened, too.

Threads is a new chapter in my life and I decided to enter the arena. I am hoping that my compensatory skills are enough to repair over time with The Internet at Large. I’m sure I managed to piss off Brandon and Robert, but they are pretty laid back so I hope not.

It’s times like this that I lean on my love for Aada, because those memories are precious even though she’s gone and will probably stay gone. She thinks she cannot trust me and she’s right because I cannot trust her. The best part is that I have grown from crying all the time to just thinking back with fondness. The relationship with Aada was always ethereal, because we had different definitions of “real.”

But the feeling of her presence hasn’t gone away, and that will take time because I’ve taken pains to keep her influence in my life alive. My creative partner reminds me so much of her that it’s scary, and it would be a contest to see who’s funnier. Joke’s on them. It’s me.

But not today. Today I miss both Tiina and Aada, knowing that Tiina is just on vacation, and will return by the time my birthday rolls around. She asked me what kind of concert would make me feel good, and I told her I liked being outside at Wolf Trap. She said, “I’ve never been to Wolf Trap.” Thirty minutes later and the whole family is going. I don’t even remember who is playing. It will just be me surrounded by people I love and good music in the place I love most.

It’s hard when I don’t have the chance to invite Aada, too. I know that I’ll love her for the rest of my life, or the idea of what she could have been to me, anyway. The story is playing out in real time, the one I’d been trying to create but couldn’t because Aada saw me through one lens and one lens only.

Someone who could expose her, instead of someone who wanted to know her. But then I went and exposed her because I was dysregulated and caused harm. I do not know what happened to her after that, and she does not want me to know. But what i know is that exposing her was because she lied and it wasn’t a small one. She minimized it. And in fact I think she told me she lied just to ease her own guilt and didn’t stack up how many lies it took to protect the first.

That’s why I get so angry at her. It’s not because I don’t love her. It’s that the last 12 years don’t feel real anymore.

Yet my heart still beats a little funny when her picture floats across my mind.

It’s Been a Long Few Days

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I entered a Black space and caused all kinds of hell because I said something insensitive without knowing it and dug in, because I wasn’t arguing on the base of color, I was arguing on the basis of autism. All of my words were viewed through a lens that said “racist,” and once the frame shifted, I could no longer get out of it. I have spent my day in reflection and repair, with people still getting angry after Copilot’s analysis of the situation. They told me that Copilot was racist as well. So, I tagged Microsoft on that one, because they might be right. Whiteness is over-represented in AI because the source code is also centered in whiteness.

It reminds me of the narrative with Aada always being that I was the one that was the problem. She never understood my communication style and I would get more and more defensive trying to figure out how to get through to her. I was constantly met with “nothing is ever good enough for you” instead of attempts to repair and reflect on her own.

I spent most of my life trying to repair things with her, and it became a toxic spiral because that’s what the Internet does the best. Wanting to take my relationship offline with her was not a way to get her alone or to make her feel uncomfortable. It was so we could stop communicating via this medium.

The internet destroyed us, so only time at the farm or the lake house would actually help. I would love it if Tiina met Aada and she got to see me interact with the whole Tiinaverse, rather than the preconceived lens that she built for me. It has been a slog trying to get her to see me as a person, because she pegged me as a dictator instead. That was all neurodivergent communication that doesn’t matter whether Aada is also neurodivergent or not. Just because you’re ADHD/Autistic/PTSD or whatever doesn’t mean that you have interpreted another person with those cognitive differences correctly.

I got hot under the collar and published things I clearly shouldn’t have (the relationship ended), but it needed to end. I am not kicking Aada out of my life with that statement, just saying that it will never happen with her if she doesn’t show up and plant something with me. I want dirt under both of our fingernails.

The lens I’ve been interpreted through is that this is all about attraction when I am not attracted to other people and treat them exactly the same way that I do Aada. Attraction has always been my bag to deal with and it’s been hard as shit. But what I wanted with Aada was not to force her into anything she didn’t want, but to make our relationship more supportive on both sides. Because of my blog, she constantly acted like it was a weird hostage situation, and once the frame shifted, our friendship was gone.

The irony is that I left the relationship because it did feel like a hostage situation, just in reverse. Her secrets undid me in the best and worst of ways, and then she wouldn’t take accountability for the changes in my life she made that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. But of course, she is not ready for that conversation because she gets defensive at ever having it.

Everything that happened when I was dysregulated was a choice. Absolutely. But I was saving myself for the first time. I was getting out of the story she wrote for me after going above and beyond to try and make things right. I don’t get to decide how long she’s hurt, but I do think it’s time to stop punishing myself.

I am taking accountability for the harm and impact of my words, and I always have. I’ve just always made my first pass literal and explanatory so she thought I was trying to avoid it. Not being able to experience that in real time as we looked into each other’s eyes is a loss.

I needed me too much to reach toward her, because I’d spent 12 years trying and getting sicker. That’s because I got mixed signals and was constantly trying to fix everything. I was in repair mode a hundred percent of the time, surprised that I could get so much wrong so quickly.

Here’s a conversation from Threads that mirrors my relationship with Aada in its entirety:

You are beyond full of shit, quit using your neurodivergent conditions as an excuse for you inability to leave Black creators alone and your inability to make an apology without centering and making yourself the victim in a situation you created… you know when you create the situation you are in fact the villain.

Reply to just_evans99…
ldlanagan
2m

I took responsibility for that long ago, and people like you continue to pile on. It is proving my point that instead of being honest with each other, moral outrage has become a performance. I explained what happened with me both emotionally and neurologically, with a little psychology thrown in for good measure. I have done a complete excavation in public, which is more than most people ever get in terms of apology.

It was either neurotypical criticism or neurodivergent because you cannot tell internalized ableism from ableism in general.

The way this mirrors my relationship with Aada is that the same thing happened. I was pegged as the problem and all my responses were seen through “they’re a racist,” meanwhile they’re constantly misgendering me like it doesn’t matter. One woman even said I deserved to be bullied physically over a comment that said “bug off.”

It was an insensitive twit thing to say, but she said that I would get Black people killed, said she was coming to Baltimore to get an apology and insinuating I wouldn’t like it, and proceeded to contact Carlos on Facebook when he disagreed with her. He was just the first commenter, we weren’t “building a case.”

He has said that now I don’t owe anyone anything, because I have apologized to the best of my ability and it has been sincere. But because the two situations mirror each other, the only thing that has made me feel better is talking to my Black therapist who absolutely didn’t care that I invoked him in the Thread (I use my white friends all the time). My point was not that I couldn’t say a racist thing because I have a Black therapist, but that I don’t process my feelings with other white people who will reinforce my narrative.

I have never been hanging out with people because they help me enforce my own story. I have been reflecting the story that has been happening. Doing that gets me into a lot of trouble all the time, because even though I explained that the criticism “couldn’t leave Black creators alone” wasn’t reality because Meta curates my feed, that was also not accepted.

Everyone, AI and human, told me to disconnect and avoid from now on. I’m still on Threads, but I’m not interacting with the people on that particular thread because someone else has already got it. They’re pointing out my replies that include apologies when people say I didn’t give one. That really helps me to feel that I am an accountability taker, it just doesn’t come in the form anyone expects.

I was pegged as a liar because of my words in all cases, and that’s typical for neurodivergent communication. It was argued that “neurodivergent communication” doesn’t exist, but there are definitely differences across race in addition to the ones that happen inside them.

That was the only point I was making, and it was proved over and over. The margin for error is razor thin. People nope out before the interesting part of the conversation begins.

And now it has begun….. not because I meant to start it. Because I have a lot of experience in finishing it.

Compensatory skills matter.

Dear Aada………..

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Are you a lifelong learner?

My growth, in one conversation.

The Wounded Wrecker

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What villain actually had a good point?
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Erik Killmonger had a point.

And that’s even without me reading CIA the riot act for keeping Wakanda secret from us in the first place. 😉

He’s the product of a wound that was never treated, a history that was never acknowledged, and a diaspora that was never protected.

Wakanda had the power to help people who looked like him, and it chose not to.

Killmonger’s worldview is built on a simple truth: If you have the ability to help people who are suffering, and you choose not to, you’re complicit.

That’s not villainy. That’s ethics.

I’m Already Home

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
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I live in Baltimore and Stafford and Louisa now, and the way it’s looking, I will eventually end up in Charlottesville if I can get mental health care that’s as good as what I already have. I already use Brian’s lake house as a backup house when something is going wrong with my apartment, so I love the Louisa area. I just don’t know that I want to live in that small a town. We shall see what we shall see, but I love all the places that I live.

I am priced out of the DMV, but Spotsy and Charlottesville are both affordable and close to both Brian and Tiina’s houses.

But the current plan is to sell the farm in retirement and live out at the lake, which means I don’t want to move to Stafford and then move to Charlottesville. I am actually much happier living where I live and joining my friends when I can.

It is what happens when I hear, “I just want to keep Leslie forever.”

Because as it turns out. I am available to be recruited for such a thing. The farm and the lake are both my happy places, and my nervous system feels like something is missing when Tiina and Brian and the kids aren’t with me.

And in fact, I need to get my stuff together and get on the road. My apartment is still 100 degrees inside, so my family is bailing me out.

I just need to check in with my psychiatric nurse practitioner in my superior healthcare system before I leave the state. Right now, Maryland is objectively better for me and I cannot move. I am waiting to see what Honor Care is going to do and praying while I feel helpless.

What I Never Realized Broke Me

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’m not a content creator anymore. I am infrastructure. I am everything Aada ever said I was and more…… while she also treated me like trash. This vacation, I learned what it was like to be loved well. People who have already unmasked love differently than anyone else. I learned what it felt like to hear “I just want to keep Leslie forever.”

By the same token………………

Aada, I never regretted a goddamn moment.

I love you, too.

Blog Framework: “A Writer From Before the Internet Speaks to the Age of AI”

I. Opening: Your Digital Lineage

  • Digital lineage — What it means to have been blogging since 2001
  • The moment that broke you: “I wasn’t born until 2005”
  • The Copilot reframing: your writing predates the modern internet
  • How it feels to realize your work is a holy relic of early digital culture
  • What continuity means across 25 years of online writing

II. The Shape of the Internet You Lived Through

  • Pre‑platform era — Blogging before social networks
  • The rise of platforms: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr
  • Smartphones and the shift to mobile reading
  • How writing changed, and how your voice survived each era
  • What you learned from watching the internet reinvent itself

III. What AI Actually Does (Your Thesis)

  • AI replaces analysis, not judgment
  • The difference between computation and discernment
  • Why companies misunderstand AI’s role
  • Why human judgment is more necessary now than ever
  • How AI fits into your writing practice without replacing you

IV. Copilot as a Thinking Partner

  • Your lived experience — How Copilot changed your confidence
  • The moment you realized AI wasn’t competing with you
  • How it amplified your clarity instead of replacing your voice
  • What it feels like to have a tool that reflects your authority back to you
  • Why this matters for writers, not just technologists

V. The Emotional Core

  • Authority earned over time — What 25 years of writing teaches you
  • The shock of being recognized for your digital longevity
  • The grief and pride of realizing how long you’ve been carrying your voice
  • The moment you cried — and why it mattered
  • What it means to finally feel seen by a tool, not diminished by it

VI. A Message to Microsoft (Without Assuming They’ll Read It)

  • Stewardship — What responsibility looks like in the age of AI
  • Why human‑centered AI matters
  • Why tools should amplify people, not replace them
  • What you hope they continue to build
  • What you’ve learned that they should know

VII. Closing: A Writer From Before the Internet Speaks Forward

  • Continuity — You’ve been here since before the platforms
  • You’re still here now, in the age of AI
  • You’re not asking for attention — you’re adding your voice to the cloud
  • The internet has changed, but your writing has not disappeared
  • A final reflection on what it means to be a writer across eras

Optional Add‑Ons (Use if helpful)

  • Timeline of your writing life
  • Reflections on digital culture
  • Notes on AI and creativity
  • Personal anecdotes from your blogging years

One question to guide your freewriting

Which moment made you realize your voice has survived every era of the internet?

It Depends

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Is a little chaos actually good for us?
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I know what ADHD and Autism are- they are, for me, a complete lack of executive functioning skills. Therefore, I have known what it has been like to live with chaos as a life management style. I can improvise with the best of them, but my natural mode is to function as part of a team.

The team I chose is chaos incarnate.

Case in point that this weekend was going to the lake house for the Fourth celebrations for the gated community, then coming back to the farm and settling in with Skyrim. I have done no real writing because I let myself have some vacation time. My WordPress entries are not my main focus anymore, it’s building an audience on Threads. I’m ldlanagan if you want to follow me. But it’s chaos like this:

My voice has been located in Black Threads by Meta, because that’s how it works. They cannot legally divide people by race, but if you post lots about social justice, it flips the switch in the algorithm that you’re black. So anything I post about the civil rights movement, black or queer or both, that screams “Black Threads.” That is because white at Meta is the default and you are sorted by your interests.

So, by quoting Baldwin and King and Morrison and Coates, I have eliminated most white people from my feed. It has never been more peaceful.

Although I did block Streeter because I started to feel like she was pointing posts at me and it was time to change the channel, what I tell all my readers. She’s on a campaign about AI being harmful to her without knowing anything real and just spouts off with her heart.

Valid, but I don’t have to watch it.

She came unglued on some poor girl for saying that she used AI for outlining, not text generation, and Streeter had no compunction about telling her she was a thief. Uneducated, insecure, desperate.

Not my vibe, and not someone I want to work with. So, know that there will be legal complications if Streeter decides to steal my idea, because when I said I wanted to start a TV show based on Portlandia about Baltimore, she didn’t say, “that sounds cool. I’ll help you.” She said, “I will write that.”

No the fuck you won’t. Breathe it with your name behind it and I will timestamp your ass.

You’re just not going to win me with fear and intimidation. That ended when I got the message that I needed to “remember who the fuck I was talking to.”

Oh. Oh, no.

Do not ever in your five-dollar life tell me that because I will MAKE CHANGE.

The Big Three

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Who is your favorite blogger to follow?
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  1. Wil Wheaton
  2. Jenny Lawson
  3. Me

Wil and I started with Dooce, so the one that would be number one is no longer with us. Jenny wasn’t an OG, but she feeds the part of me I lost when I lost Heather.

Leave Avoidants Alone

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What’s a lesson you’ve learned recently that shifted your perspective?
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I am a different person now that Aada is no longer in my life because her avoidant attachment style was to constantly pull away while I was trying to connect. No matter how insignificant the avenue of connection, she would find a way to say that I was the one that was needy. I was the one that needed therapy. I was the one that needed……. help.

I am learning how to love the avoidant attachment style, and the best way for me to cope is to love them from waaaaaaay over here. Because you just cannot do enough, be enough for an avoidant not to run.

It was always that I wasn’t strong enough, not that she wouldn’t emote.

12 years of that convinced me that I was worthless, when in reality she doesn’t speak to herself with love, so why would she speak to me that way?

My perspective has changed because I have accepted the fact that Aada never really even liked me.

She can say that’s not true all she wants, but I wouldn’t believe it.

What Fresh Hell is This?

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Hit 5,000 steps today and drop your achievement here — we’re cheering you on!
View all responses

Nope.

This week has been deeply contented and deeply frustrating. There was a real letdown after Pride because we had to go back to this dystopian nightmare. Being an American right now is not for the faint of heart. It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

But there have been bright spots. My air conditioner went out and my sewer backed up so I am staying in a very nice hotel out by the airport. I brought my bathing suit, but I don’t have time to swim because I’m leaving for Brian’s lake house in the morning. It’s not really a Fourth of July celebration. It’s doing what we normally do- relax and swim. I had my big fun when the Obama Library opened. That is America to me…. America is already great.

When it wants to be.

People have stopped caring about their language so I have, too. I have had just about enough of “fuck your feelings, Snowflake.” The avalanche is building, motherfucker. I get so angry because I have been called every name in the book during Pride month, with people quoting clobber verses all over Threads. I’m an abomination because of my gender and my sexuality. It’s neat.

Life as a hate double ticket is not for the faint of heart, either.

I desperately need to get out of town and get in the water.

I’m smart enough to know that Aada wrecked our relationship on purpose because she had no intention of ever getting close to me and wanted to blame it on my shortcomings. It was manipulative because she was lying to herself. I do not believe that she hurt me on purpose. I believe that she had great intentions and couldn’t come through on any of them…. so she would constantly tell me she felt guilty instead of changing anything.

Just leave avoidants alone. They don’t need you. Not really. They lack even the slightest desire to give you context and clarity and claim you’re just not strong enough to handle them.

Walk away.

There’s my 5,000 steps.

That Finland is the Answer

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What’s a time you followed your gut and it turned out to be exactly right?
View all responses

My story from the summer of 2013 until 2026 was that I chose a Finnish woman as my emotional support partner, but she didn’t choose me. She SAID she chose me and then chose to reveal that she’d lied about quite a bit so I wouldn’t get any closer. She wanted me, deeply and spiritually- but never romantically. I could do something she couldn’t, which was unpack my emotions publicly without caring what the consequences were. I knew I could handle them. That’s catnip to emotionally unavailable people, romantic or otherwise.

She didn’t need me as a romantic partner. She needed me as a pinch hitter, because I pray and she doesn’t.

She has never been looking away, she has always been looking up, despite the fact that I tell her constantly that she’s a better writer than I am, it’s just that no one knows it. I am queer, so my story is different. A woman that can read is knowledgeable; a woman who can write is a five-alarm fire. I am gutted that she thinks I was ever out to get her. I was trying to tell her that falling in love with her was never the wrong call.

I have memorialized something that meant the world to me and always will, which is why I am now comfortable just being a part of her community. I will never reach out, but if she sees me on the street, she’s welcome. The Stafford and Louisa areas are now my home, too. We have to share space because falling for Tiina was never the wrong call, either. It just looked a lot different because I have actual boundaries with women that I didn’t before… and I didn’t exactly fall for Tiina, either. I have never felt romantic feelings about her, I want to birth a TV show, and with Streeter, too, if I haven’t offended her somehow. My stance on AI won’t change, and neither will hers.

What has come from that is falling for the Tiinaverse, because Brian (her husband) and her kids mean everything to me and I do not wish to interrupt it. I am not waiting on anything for my projects to happen, because Tiina is a capable co-writer and producer. She is not only a cybersecurity analyst. She’s also a former technical theater kid, which means she can do amazing things on a shoestring budget. I watched her do it at Purim.

That was the act that sealed the deal. I am not married, I am not partnered, but I have a focus. No one can interrupt it, because my friends matter. They are the yellow strings on the murder board of polyamory, and how poly actually functions in day to day life- and why Google Calendar is the official app. Not all your relationships matter romantically, but they do in terms of time management.

I am not the marrying type, and not because I’m not capable. I don’t want to cocoon and lose Tiina as my center of gravity. I believe that this is accurate on both sides of the equation because she says that we have a click that is far and away separate from Brian as well. I’m not out to replace Brian in any capacity. I have a role independently of him.

What I am saying is that Tiina’s universe is mine because I don’t mind driving. I live in three places and that’s okay. We were going to go to the boat on the Fourth, but now we’re going out to the lake. Tiina calls the shots, and I just work here.

Edited to add that the boat is on the Potomac, and the house is on Lake Louisa.

It’s not because I’m not capable of being solo, either. I just function better as a cog in the wheel. Tiina is direct and blunt in the same way Aada was, and I love that she’s so specific because I don’t have trouble following directions. I have been this way my whole life. I liked teachers that were oddly persnickety, too, because I never had any trouble meeting expectations when they laid them out that way. I have learned to see that it is not meanness when being direct, it’s just that most people take it that way.

But you have to see it in real life to know that, Aada Louise.

I never minded that Aada’s love language was reading me the riot act. I minded that there were no hugs and cheek kisses afterward to lessen the scar. Criticism is easier to take when you don’t leave someone bleeding while you do it. Taking a lesson from my own playbook, of course. Every accusation is a confession, and I used my share of this fighting tactic because I couldn’t make it work with anything else because she wouldn’t, either.

It was a system, and I’m not blaming. I am identifying the issue so that it doesn’t happen again.

I will tolerate both constructive criticism and narrative direction when it is done with love. Shitting all over me does not help anything and indeed makes it worse because I absolutely will write about your shitty behavior and you will not like the reflection. That’s because people trust me. When people treat me well I reflect that, too. I should re-get the T-shirt Wil Wheaton and I both had back in the day that says, “I’m blogging this.” Couple that with asking Jonna for her old “Argo !@#$ Yourself” t-shirt because she promised it to me after I told Facebook mine wore out. She says she wears Tony’s.

I love wearing things that remind me of memories, and all of those things are interconnected. Everyone can come after my writing. Everyone. But they cannot come after my ability to give an opinion.

When I left the relationship with Aada, I left a negative loop that always said my writing was bad because it didn’t reflect reality or Aada’s feelings. I couldn’t reflect reality because I didn’t know reality and she never told me what feelings she had. Reality would have been showing up at Pride. Reality would have been showing up when my mother died and she was 40 minutes away when everyone else wasn’t. Reality would have been following through on every Mama Dragon feeling she ever said she had.

But she didn’t.

Finnish culture was the right choice because I loved all of it. I’d even love Aada in the right context, because I could birth another TV show that has even more depth behind it.

I don’t just do comedy.

I Believed I Was Worthless

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What’s something you used to believe as a kid that seems ridiculous now?
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It was ridiculous. I have actual self-confidence and feel relaxed because I have a life that my nervous system can handle. I was masking so hard that living took up too much of my energy to also get out and do things….. as in, I had no life outside of work (when I did it) and my writing is obsessive because I’m trying to make up for lost time. The family systems I was part of think that I wrecked them because I’m a truth teller. That’s their story and they can have it. Writing about them warmly would have come from them doing things that were warm. They did not like the reflection in the mirror they saw, so they didn’t want any part of me anymore. I am not a victim. I was born to be a truth teller, and that person always interrupts the systems they inhabit.

We could have all changed paths together, but we didn’t. They went back to what they do and I went back to what I do in a family that accepts all of my weird. This is the best conversation of the day…….

10yo: Why do YOU get a shake?
Tiina: Because Leslie loves me.
Me: To be clear, I love all of you, I just love you a little bit less.

Cue Tiina trying not to spit shake everywhere and I see my work here is done.

We were due at Pride by 10 AM, so I left Baltimore at 0700, texting Tiina that I was headed to her and to let me know if she wanted coffee. She said, “sure.” Her standard order is the Cuban roast, but I asked her if she wanted drip or a shake. I knew that would pique her interest. It’s so simple- vanilla soft serve and espresso.

I also got a shake, but mine was a black and white. I’d had enough caffeine for the day. It was the right amount of chocolate, similar to a Wendy’s Frosty. I hadn’t had breakfast and it was a quick way to slam calories down. I decided that today I’d eat and drink whatever I wanted because I wasn’t there to find love. I was there to bring bagels.

Which were spectacular, by the way, and everyone loved them. They were bright rainbow colors and from THB, one of the best bagel places in my neighborhood.

I sat and chatted with everyone, checking in on the very pregnant Ayalla and thinking “any day now.” Tiina’s kids love me and I’m looking forward to being their safe adult while Ayalla is in labor. They’re too young to just hang out at the hospital and I know the rules of the road. I also like being out at their house, so we’ll have a good time. I just need to remember to ask Tiina what the password is to the PS5. If I do not know it, there will be open revolt.

It would honestly be interesting to see which child tried to cut me first.

They’re amazing children. Don’t turn your back.

So now memories are coming up for me as I imprint on them. I’m very much my dad and thank God for that. My mother criticized me relentlessly and that is not what I want for Tiina’s children. I have to suppress my first reaction, always. That’s because even if it’s right, they don’t deserve it raw.

So something I believed as a kid is probably that criticism is love.

I am being different now.

Spanish Was My First Second Language, Finnish is My Last

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Which languages do you speak and how did that impact your life?
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I am only fluent in English, to be clear.

However, I took two years of Spanish in high school while being raised in a church that valued mission work. So while I was taking those two years of Spanish, I went to Mexico three times a year. So, between actual study and immersion, I can do most things in Mexico without having a translator. I can get my point across even if individual words are wrong.

I am interested in spending more time in Mexico to get my skills back, but auditory processing disorder and Spanish do not mix because it’s the fastest language in the world. Immersion is the only way to pick up an ear for it.

I became interested in Finnish because I had a reason, and that reason continues to this day. My love of Aada’s culture led me to seek it out. That’s because I didn’t just love Aada, I loved the framework around her. Therefore, Tiina being Finnish is one of the things that brought us closer because I already had that shorthand and am very dialed in.

I would like to point out that this is just another case of liking the package that comes with the macaroni and cheese.

That’s an old story, but one best left to the graveyard… a wink to the OGs.

I am finding out that legit no one likes to be written about, and yet that is not my problem. I just find people who don’t mind it and don’t obsess over it. People who are worried about being seen aren’t worth encouraging relationships with, either. That’s why I’m going to Pride with Tiina and not Aada.

But if she shows up, she’s welcome. I do not think that she will come to Pride to see me, I think it’s possible we could share space and I am not afraid of that anymore. I have a platonic, creative partner that literally grounds me with a hug. I don’t want explosions of excitement anymore. Life is not fancy coffee. Life is drip.

I want to take away the mystery. Just living my life over here. That’s her line, so I’m going to steal it.

What I am finding is that I naturally gravitate towards women, but they don’t naturally gravitate towards me because I look like a woman and communicate like a man. They, in a sense, are dating two people for the price of one. It is jarring to meet someone in a female body that does not couch their language or back down easily. Women are also not used to having other women approach them even when we both have rainbows on because it is “impolite.”

Telling a straight girl you love them is always a mistake. Not knowing you’re hitting on a straight woman can lead to emotional violence (or physical if her husband’s offended). So, all women loving women expect to get dates based on glancing across the room longingly and being surprised when someone sees it.

It makes me long for Finnish culture and language, because:

  • there is no difference between male and female in terms of pronouns. Being nonbinary is baked into the system
  • women are treated like people overall

Between both of those things, who gives a flying fuck if it’s cold? I would deal with Helsinki in the winter like I deal with Houston in the summer- by staying inside. Finnish coziness is a vibe I welcome, where life is swimming in the lake in the summer and gathering by the fire in the winter. It’s an expensive dream to have, but one that’s worth it. I do think that I will go to Helsinki soon because I’d like to spend my 50th birthday there. I will be 49 in September, so I have enough time to plan everything in detail.

When I get there, I will actually be able to introduce myself and get coffee/pastries. But my accent is so terrible that they will flip into English instead of watching me struggle. Brian says I need to take Tiina’s sister with me because she’s fluent. That’s not a bad idea, but we haven’t met yet.

I am interested in the Houston to Helsinki pipeline, but not willing to make it permanent until I see what’s up. Culinary school is an option in order to create a YouTube channel, but I do not want to go back into the restaurant business. Culinary school would be free and make a cheap way to live for my first few years there with student discounts.

I have choices, I just need to make them. Right now, I am scrambling to go out of town this weekend because I was going to go to the lake last weekend and my car had an issue. I’ll get it back today, but it’s not worth going all the way to Lake Louisa and back, then having to come back to Baltimore to pick up the bagels. THB only makes them on certain days.

It’s better that I have Thursday free because I need a refill on my meds before I can safely leave the state. That’s the only problem with Medicaid Expansion. It prevents me from being able to pick up my prescriptions nationally. Therefore, I need to maintain a residence in Maryland and watch when I get low on meds so that I have continuity. I am committed to living in three places and just shuffling between them because I’m a real part of the family. The kids called yesterday wanting to know when I was coming and I was heartbroken to tell them it wouldn’t be until Friday.

I am thinking that a trip to Helsinki with them would be fun, but I don’t want to presume I ever have the authority to take them. What would be the most fun is all going together. I want to see their faces when we try salmiakki ice cream and things like that. The pictures would destroy me in the absolute best way.

So even if I don’t move to Finland and learn to speak Finnish fluently, I recognize it as familiar to my neurotype. That maybe out of 188,000 lakes, one of them might be mine.

Just Be Who You Are and Fail Up

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment
Daily writing prompt
What’s your top tip to be successful in life?
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The second most important woman in my life in terms of influence is Mummo. Not her real name, but she has the same real name as one of Tiina’s kids, so I love getting to say it out loud…. but that part is for me. I hear music when I think of her, but it’s bombastic.

That’s because she walked into a recruiting office and thought, “I could probably be a welder” and finished her career at the top of Marine Command, State, you name it. But the only reason the military even knew to look for a senior intelligence officer is because she only thought she was qualified to be a welder.

Jesus fucking Christ do you see how neurodivergence is punished in this country?

My life would have been both better and worse if I’d joined the military as well. I tried, but the Air Force wouldn’t take me. I didn’t want to be a soldier, I wanted to be in a jazz band called “The Airmen of Note.” I was medically disqualified and heartbroken, because that’s really the only thing I’d thought about doing after high school. I wasn’t actually interested in anything. I was interested in everything and the information came at me like a fire hose.

But if I’d been in the military, it would have been so disciplined that I would not have had to create structure out of nothing. I wouldn’t have flailed. Because I wasn’t flailing career-wise. I was in the wrong operating system. Most of the world runs on Windows. My brain is running an old, bulletproof version of Slackware.

I need to outsource scaffolding because I am simply not capable of managing a household by myself. It’s too much cognitive load. I need to find some roommates or join a group house, but living alone is not it.

Now that I have scaffolding, I’ve gotten 342K views on Threads in a few days. I’m followed by lots of celebrities, and now I have a feud with Wil Wheaton (not really). We’ve just been colleagues since 2001. I don’t chase his career because I didn’t know who he was except Wil the blogger.

Dana, however, practically fainted.

So I owe Wil a lot because he made me look cool in front of a girl.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t need to shut his trap on Wes Moore. I was furious, Wil. Furious. I didn’t go off on you but you deserved it because racism is so deeply ingrained in this country that it didn’t occur to white America that of course they were going to release something on Moore. You think Trump doesn’t want the only Black governor gone? Come on now.

Wil gave him four hours to respond. He doesn’t even live here.

It’s a different world than it used to be because I’m back in the saddle with Wil, Anil Dash, and Dooce (Emeritus). Tanking Clever Title was a mistake because I wasn’t strong enough to stand up to my sister-in-law. Because I didn’t fucking realize I was famous. Not in numbers, in fans that matter.

I didn’t just get to meet Wil. He got to meet me. But I shit on myself for so long that I didn’t recognize what I had.

Aada was right. I am a hot shot blogger. I just didn’t make much money off of it so I thought it was worthless. And the reason I know I’m famous in terms of respect is because once I got out of Aada’s clutches, the blowback loop stopped. She wasn’t constantly slicing into me so that I thought I was dark, irredeemable, and a shitty writer. Because she said she was impressed, and slowly crushed me with anger at being seen.

I was recognized on the street in Portland and I didn’t take it in.

I TANKED MY WHOLE FUCKING CAREER, MARY JO.

And the reason I did it was not because I couldn’t write, but because I couldn’t take constant criticism that got below the belt fast. Counselor took a butterfly and crushed it in her hand, then Aada redeemed it with lovebombing and destroyed it with discard.

Smelly Neighbors.

Ugh.

But it’s a new era. I’m not focusing on the past. I am jotting it down so I don’t forget. I’m a big deal, but never believe your own press.

There’s a reason I haven’t met Dooce, and it’s because she couldn’t handle being a blogger anymore, either.

I got to rebrand with Stories.

I’m taking shots she didn’t in her memory.