Today I learned that I’m a blogger because I grew up writing letters in a time where there weren’t fifty other ways we could contact each other. Get this, children. I wrote letters in longhand because calling to a city in the same state COST MONEY (and dinosaur eggs are DELICIOUS WITH KETCHUP).

I realized today that I liked who I was in those letters- warm, patient, kind, funny, and most importantly, not attached to a physical body. If you hadn’t seen me in a while, you could probably forget what I looked like. To you, I could be 8 or 38 or 78, just a voice across time. Because in those days, children, people called “postal workers” came to your house and delivered your e-mail, called letters when they were printed on trees. If you had an e-mail to send, you gave it to YOUR “postal worker.”

In letters, I could be a knight. I could ride a white horse and place a cloak down on the rough parts of your life so that you could keep your footing on uneven ground.

In letters, I could be a painter. I could use words to reassure you of life’s beauty when you felt like your cloud’s “silver lining” turned the whole sky green.

In letters, I could give you the most I could give you, because words were my only means of providing comfort to someone who really seemed like they could use it.

I used letters because it was too dangerous to touch you, to be seen touching you, to know I wanted to touch you and I couldn’t because perception is reality no matter what reality entails.

I used words because people were watching for me to lose it. People were waiting for me to sneeze wrong as proof that being gay is contagious. Writing allowed me to fly under the radar, to feel like the pilot of my own ship, to get messages to you by courier as if your body was a sacred island of mercy during the war that raged around mine.

Everything within me funneled towards those letters because it was what I could do. I couldn’t be big and strong. I couldn’t be wise (well, I could pretend). I couldn’t stop the people in your life that I knew were hurting you or had hurt you. I didn’t have an outlet to talk to anyone about it because I wasn’t allowed to talk to you so there was no reason for me to need to discuss you with anyone else. You have been the best kept secret of my life.

At what cost, though?

My favorite book in the entire world bar none (do not pass go, do not collect $200 before you buy it and read it. Short and wonderful) is The Giver, by Lois Lowry. It’s about a boy who is raised in the world of Same, and in the world of Same, almost everyone has the same memories. The reason I say “almost” is that in order to keep the peace, the people had elected one person to be the keeper of the memories, so there was only one person in the entire world of Same that knew ideas like war, famine, pestilence, etc. The person elected to carry the memories was titled “The Giver.” When The Giver started to get old enough that they needed to start thinking about a replacement, the boy is elected as The Receiver.

The Giver and the Receiver are not allowed to talk to anyone but each other, because they are the only ones above the rules in the world of Same. They are allowed to know anything and everything. Transferring memories is as easy as skin to skin contact.

There’s a famous scene in the book where Jonah (The Receiver) starts his training by lying face down, shirtless on The Giver’s bed. The Giver touches Jonah’s skin and sends him great memories like snow and sunshine. Then, because he knows that all the memories aren’t going to be good, he asks for a negative memory. The Giver shows him thirst and sunburn.

It is my favorite book in the entire history of books because what I know for sure is that when I am with you, I feel like I am The Receiver. When you touch my skin, memories transfer. How could they not? So many times I have done the emotional equivalent of taking my shirt off and lying down on your bed, knowing that what you had to give me that day wasn’t snow and sunshine.

There is no sexual content in the book whatsoever, and I mean none at all now. I want to talk about nakedness as it applies to the relationship you have with your massage therapist, how they can feel in your muscles the kind of day you had.

When I dove into letters, my training ended abruptly as there was “no need” to be skin to skin… or at least, that’s what I told myself when letters became my only option.

Yesterday, I wrote an essay on my experience with Dr. Robert Morgan, the jazz director at High School for Performing and Visual Arts when I attended. I sent it to him, and this was his reply:

Hi Leslie:

I wrote you via my e-mail account, but I’m not sure it went through. I’m copying my message below:

Hi Leslie:

I read this last night (more-than-once), but was so overwhelmed I couldn’t immediately reply. I “slept-on-it” and will now attempt a thank you.

THANK YOU!! I have been privileged to receive quite-a-few written acknowledgements over the years, some “private,” some “public,” but I have never received anything (not close) so beautifully-written, profound, and touching. I’m sure this took a lot of time and thought on your part, and I appreciate it very much.

For my 60th birthday (2001, to be exact), my wife, Helen, surprised me with a scrapbook, full of testimonials from ex-students that she had secretly gathered. If OK w. you, I’d like to print out your remarks and add to the book (on p. 1, actually!). I wish she had known to contact you at that time…

I remember “Come Rain or Come Shine” – in fact, I have the concert printed program in front of me as I write! Nov. 6, 1992, to be exact. Do you still have a copy of the program? If not, let me know, and I will scan and send.

In looking through my program booklet, I see that you were in the band when we accompanied Milt Hinton. I hope you found that as memorable as I did.

A few questions:

From the programs, I’m reminded that you left ‘PVA after the 10th grade. To where did you transfer? Why did you leave? (if you don’t mind me asking; I can’t recall details – I’m sure I was disappointed!).

Could you provide a few details about your writing career? Do you have a website?
I see that you live in Portland – a great place! Helen and I went there for New Year’s in the late ’90s.

Do you ever get to Houston? If so, PLEASE let me know, and let’s meet for dinner.
Thanks again for your *priceless* remarks, which are now part of my psyche in perpetuity! (Einstein, yet…)

With love,
Doc

After I read it, I asked Doc if he minded hearing the reply from my web site, and he said no.

Dear Doc,

Leaving HSPVA was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my entire life. It changed me irrevocably, but not all in bad ways. Sometimes I feel that going to a regular high school was an experience I needed to have in order to function in the world. Most of the time, though, I know that the microcosm of HSPVA is what allowed me the most growth at that age. I struggled badly with Attention Deficit Disorder, and having three performance groups a day where there was no written homework to be turned in was a blessing for my GPA. However, even thinking about the question is moot, because I did not leave HSPVA because I wanted to (exactly). I left because my dad had gotten a new job at a different church and I was too scared to drive from Sugar Land to Montrose every day all by myself. I think my parents were scared of that for me. It just seemed better all around that I went to the school where I lived. But again, it was the hardest decision of my 16-year-old life.

I think that the problems I had because I was coming out would have gone away. I think I would have found a way to deal with all of the grief. Leaving wasn’t really so much about giving up HSPVA as it was feeling I would never be worthy of it. It may have just been my impression at the time, but people like Justin Furstenfeld, Mireille Enos, Beyonce Knowles, Steven Powell, Jason Moran… those people were PVA. I wasn’t sure that people went there to make themselves so much as they went there to further what they already had. I didn’t feel secure in anything, least of all my talent, so that’s the way I justified having to make such a hard decision in the first place. Plus, the year that I left was the year that HSPVA said you had to live in the district to go to school there. We had plenty of people offer to let me live with them or use their address, but I was still “little me” inside.

I thought of you every day at Clements, and missed you mightily.

Love,

Leslie

I don’t mean in the biological sense. I mean, who are the people in your life that have shaped you, for better or for worse?

I just got finished reading a few archives, trolling for ideas (mostly), and I came across a line that I wrote in High School Stories We Still Tell. It was about how my senior English teacher, Dr. Hudel Steed, made me into a writer. That led down the mind worm of who else holds that title.

• Ms. Protheroe
  • One of my language arts teachers at Clifton. I was a little bit in love with her, but only because I wanted to look like her. My favorite memory is walking into her class for the first time and seeing her little glasses, preppy clothes, and short hair. My mentor looked a lot like her, style-wise. I never told her, but I thought of her as “home away from home.” I am sure that whether or not she was actually a lesbian is negligible. Even if she was actually straight as an arrow, it didn’t matter to me. She just looked the part, and it was comforting in a world where I had trouble seeing what I thought of as myself.
• Mr. Garvin
  • We never said a word about it, but we knew. He opened my mind to Will Durant and the great philosophers contained in his wonderful work. I read Kant and Nietzsche, James and Skinner. We watched My Dinner with Andre, which is really all I need to say about that because if you’re familiar with the movie, you know it probably bombed the hell out of my brain and turned it inside out and upside down. My Dinner with Andre is the first movie in which I knew the effects of hallucinogens, because even if those guys were completely sober, they so were not. The entire conversation sounds like a mandala made of mushrooms, seeds, and stems. Louis Malle is the movies’ best Mad Hatter. My Dinner with Andre is so frenetically weird that it is as if they are traveling in a TARDIS no one else can see.
• Mrs. Forrest
  • She was my fourth grade teacher, and I was in love with her a little bit. Yes, Gaby. Emma, Topper, Jimmy, Paul, Daniel, Doug, Shane, Derrick, et al. I was gay even back then and you were right and I was wrong. Here’s the five dollars I know you bet as to the exact date and time at which I would say so.
• Ms. Meracle
  • Seriously the meanest dyke I have ever met in my life, and I would say this regardless of whether she’s actually a lesbian, because honestly, I don’t know or care. The only inkling I have to go on is that she seemed mad at me all the time, and at one point, I just flat out wondered if she was jealous. Here I was, this outrageously out lesbian in Sugar Land, Texas, where she herself would have been fired for saying the same thing. If she’s straight and I’m wrong, I sincerely apologize. It’s not like I’m old enough that saying this online won’t get to her somehow, and I am not cruel enough to judge anyone. I can only tell you how I felt. How she feels has never been up to me. I couldn’t empathize with her, though, because her anger was too pointed. When I was in marching band practice one day, she was trying to get me to inhale all the way down to my diaphragm… so she started pushing the end of a baseball bat into my abdomen so I’d have some resistance to push against. That was fine in and of itself, but I felt she was mad… and you don’t let momma brush your hair when she’s mad.
• Doc Morgan
  • Doc Morgan is the only instructor I had in the entirety of my grade school education who gave me the gift of feeling humbled in his presence. Doc Morgan didn’t give me an education, he gave me the world on a silver platter and an engraved invitation to carry it. He believed in all of my talent and my potential even when I myself could not bear the thought of my own performance ability. To know the depth and breadth of my love for Doc, you have to know that he taught students like Everett Harp, Jason Moran, Eric Harland, Brandon Lee… he has taught the greatest jazz minds of our generation, and he also taught me. It was amazing to me that his pedagogy was so fine, he knew how to reach the brilliant and the barely-hanging-on. When I was in ninth grade, he picked me to have a solo tune in our first concert. It wasn’t high or difficult, just these lazy B’s slinking across chords… maybe you know it? It was called “Come Rain or Come Shine.” Doc Morgan gave me a gift in that solo. He taught me what I could look for in my playing that was admirable. What I found was that I wasn’t very mathematically quick, so the calculations of what notes would fit in the given key- the foundation of soloing- was often beyond me. What I did have, though, was the lazy, rich, fat sound of one of those old guys who can hold you in the palm of his hand because the notes coming toward you are so thick, you could use ’em to sop up gravy. In a lot of ways, High School for Performing and Visual Arts was damaging for me, because my life was slowly coming apart at the seams due to the reception of the news that I liked girls. The woman I loved had just moved away, and I was dying inside trying to deal with my grief. My grades were so bad that I was on academic probation nearly the entire time I was there. And then there was Doc… the brightest light I’ve ever seen before or since. It is fitting that he wears his hair curly and wild, a bit like Einstein, because when the light shines on his curls just right, the halo appears.

An Open Letter to Martin Clunes:No matter what anyone says, until the role is filled, you’re my Doctor.

— Leslie D. Lanagan (@ldlanagan) June 7, 2013

 

In my mind, I have on scrubs and a white coat (The Outfit™). I am pacing back and forth in the waiting room like an anxious father and desperately hoping that there is a cigar around here somewhere. Something to dicker with in my hands because no news is good news and it’s been a while and I can’t keep still. My sister, my brother in law, and my nephew are just in the next room, and it’s not my area. My area is by the Pepsi machines. My area is to sit and think about how this little Texan will change the world, just by being in it.

An hour goes by, there’s nothing to do but wait. I can’t leave, I can’t even move. I can’t even bring myself to do so. I just have to go the distance. I have to be one of the first to know that the baby is okay , I have to be one of the ones that feels the relief and joins in the hugging and crying.

And that’s what I’m thinking about as I sit here in a restaurant in Portland, Oregon.

I am so homesick I can barely think about it. I don’t have time to go “home” until after the 16th of June, and the baby is supposed to be born exactly at the same time.

All I can do is hope, pace, and try not to worry. Because I’m not worried.

I’m just waiting.

Hey advice lady, I had a long night of not a lot of sleep, and now I’m fighting the sleep demon. I can’t do coffee this late in the day and going out to my car to nap is not an option…I need to know how to stay awake during a particularly tedious day.

Sincerely,

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

My preferred method is coffee in the morning and diet soda throughout the day. In fact, the housekeepers at Marylhurst thought I had a “drinking problem” because of the amount of cans they removed from my office. But at the same time, I choose to keep a low, steady amount of caffeine in my blood rather than one of those MEGA Gargle Blasters with 500mg of caffeine in each sip… with Taurine. It’s simple. Don’t let the bus go below fifty, and it won’t explode.

Hi Leslie,

I have a person “in” my life that I have been trying to befriend. My reasoning is because this person has a history with my partner and I would like to be friends with the people my partner is friends with. I don’t like grudges or unnecessary awkward situations. CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG!?

After an entire year, nothing has changed. Not only has this person gone out of their way to not befriend me but continues to talk with my partner constantly and pretty much ignores my existence. I have reached out in a personal way to her, my partner has even talked with her about it and yet she still hasn’t befriended me in any way.

My question is: Is it safe to say this is not worth my time anymore? Also, how do I move forward with my partner feeling like this person gives me weird energy as she continues to constantly email/call/text him?

THANKS LESLIE! You are the best!

Ruthie

——————————–

Ruthie, I’m going to out you as a real person with a real job that I know and has e-mailed me, and not just a voice across the internet… Because there are about five people (in multiple countries) in my life that will swallow their teeth when they read your letter.

Basically, Ruthie, I need people to know that you are real because this is exactly the kind of question that these people would think I made up just for fun. I have so much experience with this that it’s written on my heart, right next to the recipe for guacamole. I will tell you, in my experience, that there are two main reasons you get into this situation:

You hate him/her because of something that he/she does to take your partner’s attention away from you. Attention is so precious that it is the ultimate prize. You watch them together and the way they interact drives you up the wall, so you become defensive to get the person out of your space. It gets weird when your partner starts feeling like he/she has to defend themselves when they go out with this person. It’s here where you need to tread carefully, because sometimes the road that takes is toward each other and away from you. If you want to keep your partner on the ground and connected with you in your relationship, you need to suck it up and deal. As you ice out your partner and the friend, you are silently giving them permission to sneak off without you, if that’s how important they are to each other. If your partner is more vulnerable with the friend than they are with you because they think you won’t listen and don’t care, those are two excellent justifications to start an affair. It’s still not right, but you tell yourself it is, which is what we all do when we want something to happen that has overwhelmingly positive results for us and negative consequences for others. It is the universality of the human condition- how we deal with fallout. I am covered in life’s shrapnel, and Dana’s slowly helping me take it all out.

In my own life, I feel the way to stay close to your partner and keep their attention long enough so that romantic bursts of energy don’t leap towards other people is to be stern enough to parent each other and vulnerable enough to be their child. You are both heroes, and you are both worms. This is the journey of my life with Dana, to roll over and over as parent and child because sometimes, you know you need to drive, and sometimes, you know you need to sit in the back seat with your Kindle and your iPod and shut the hell up. It takes a lot of energy to sustain that close a connection, but we do it. We have to. We have ATTENTION DEFECIT DISORDER. Our marriage depends on us being able to pay attention to each other despite our brains changing channels every five seconds. We need each other, and you and your partner do, too.

Healing this relationship is in your best interest, because it may just be that you’re not giving this person a chance because you’re so wrapped up in what he/she did to your partner that you can’t forgive them and move on. If you’re holding in all these negative feelings toward your partner’s friend, you aren’t having any affect on him/her at all. You are poisoning your own connection to each other. That anger and unresolved “stuff” you’re not saying is what needs to be said! If I were in your shoes (cute shoes, btw), I would talk to your partner about it, first. This conversation is one of the most important you’ll ever have in your entire relationship, so make sure that you are both in a good space to go the distance. This one conversation has the power to make or break you as a couple, so have a goal in mind from the start and stick to it until the end. If you start with the premise that you want to stay together, then finish the discussion with staying together. If you start the argument with “she’s a whorebag and I want you to fucking kick her into next week,” be prepared for this to go poorly. Incidentally, a great way to stay married is to kick the divorce argument off the table entirely. That’s when staying married becomes a challenge, like The Game of Life with two pink people in the car. That’s when you will hate anything that will take your car back ten spaces.

Which leads me into my second point as to why people don’t generally like the people who have history with their partners.

You cannot watch your partner’s interactions with this person because it hurts. This could be for a number of reasons, but I think this is the worst case scenario, and I had it. I couldn’t watch interactions between my partner and this person because she loved him independently of her hate and embarrassment from her abuse. Hearing details damages you in some way, and now you have to heal a wound you didn’t cause.

To me, that’s about as deep as a wound goes, which is why I bring it up. Everything about this situation is all in your mind. Not as in, “you’re making it up.” As in, “what you think will control the outcome.” Do you ever think about how much power you have in your relationship? Do you really know the ins and outs of how far your partner would go for you if he/she had to? Your opinion means everything. Dismissing your own power lets you take up the cross of victimization. Everything happened to you, and you didn’t affect anything. People that think this in a marriage are banging their heads on their kitchen counters trying to make marriage harder than it really is.

In short, if you don’t deal with the friend one way, you’ll deal with them in a different context. Make sure it’s positive, but don’t let the friend smack you around, either. If you catch anything like them trying to make you look bad in front of your partner, say so and have some witty banter about it with your partner. That should be enough to embarrass them into playing nice. If it’s not, you’ve got a bigger problem on your hands, and you have to count on the fact that your partner is clever enough to see it for what it is… just like you.

—Head to Advice Column Thursday Archives—

Winnie and Shirley are our vehicles. Winnie is a Saturn sedan, and Shirley is a Nissan Pickup, before they started giving them names besides “pickup.” We love them unto the ends of the earth, and it will be hard to say goodbye to them when the time comes. However, I don’t think that time will come soon. My best friend is a mechanic, and since I’m a member of his pack, he does all my labor for free. The reason for this is twofold:

1. Every time Volfe works on my truck, I am right behind him. I’ve learned how to reconnect batteries, how to change brake pads, and how to hold things, including coffee, cigarettes, wrenches, and anything else that will fit as he raises the hood to look underneath. Part of the reason my labor is free is that he’s slowly teaching me to do all of this stuff myself, so I won’t have to come to him forever. I am getting an education worth thousands, and just like Dana did for me when I started cooking, Volfe has taken me under his wing.
2. My relationship with my truck feels different now that I’m actually learning to work on it. I advocate that all people, at least once in their lives, learn to work on their own car. It’s not because it’s a useful skill, although it is. It’s that your perspective changes when you’re doing your own maintenance. It stops being “your vehicle,” and starts being your child or your puppy when you realize how much of your blood, sweat, and tears (great band, am I right?) have actually gone into taking care of him/her. My vehicles are normally boys, because I like boys’ names a tiny bit better, but Shirley just took me by surprise. She was a gift from my father, so I called her Shirley after the Biblical passage “Shirley goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.” She has never let me down until today, but it wasn’t her fault. She has a bad battery and desperately needs a new one.

However, when Volfe and I get together, sometimes we work on Winnie, too. She’s the first car I ever did the brake pads all by myself, and the parts were only $22… which leads me to my next point. No labor is worth the exorbitant amount that you pay at a dealership for service. You know why? Because the labor rate is set by the body shop, and very little of it goes to the people who ACTUALLY work on your car. For instance, because my dad drives one, I know for sure that the labor rate at Lexus is about $90/hr.

IF YOU ARE POOR, IT’S WORTH IT.

I promise. Go to O’Reilly’s or AutoZone and pick up a Chilton manual for your car. If you are out of money and don’t have the funds for a new one, you might be able to pick up a used manual at Powell’s.

Believe me, if you don’t have money, this sort of thing will change your life. For instance, like I said, the brake pads were only $22 for the set. Things like speaker contacts are like, $6/box. It’s not the parts that are expensive, it’s the labor. And women, you have got to get interested in this stuff, because this is what will save you when you go to the dealership to buy a car. Of course, with new cars, this is not going to be much help. But do yourself a favor and buy a used car. There are many, many used cars in all different price points. The good part comes in when you, as a woman, can look at something and see whether it’s totally f’ed up or not. The sales guy is not expecting you to know that. I promise. So wait until he shows you the vanity mirrors and cupholders and then look at the engine. Then say something like, “how many miles on this truck before the starter usually craps out?” or something equally noxious and watch the car dealers swallow their teeth. God, it is so much fun.

In short, love the hell out of y0ur cars, because I do, and it has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done in my life. Especially as a computer geek, it means the world to me to be able to work with my hands and get out of my head for a while. How many hobbies can you take up like that which will REALLY save you money? I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter.

Do it anyway. Fall in love with your car. Learn his/her personality frontwards and backwards. It’s worth it.

Because you can replace brake pads for $22.

 

 

In November, when I moved to Portland, I wanted and needed everything to be different. I would lose myself in learning to navigate the culture, enthralled that there were so many life lessons to be learned.

Now that I’ve had some time to be immersed in such an unfamiliar environment, I’m ready for something to feel like “home.” Hell, I would settle for a day of being able to eat and drink what I wanted without being lectured by someone on the evils of whatever I was putting into my mouth… because in Portland, it’s not about fat grams and calories. It’s about making sure people know that what they’re eating is probably genetically modified or hormone enhanced and ragging them until they break down in paranoia and switch to organic.

I know all Portlanders are not like this, and it would be silly for me to assume that even a large margin of them are. However, the people I live with *are* “nutrinazis” and therefore give me a skewed view of the population at large. In short, I know the world is not out to get me everytime I pop open a Coke. It just feels that way to me because I’m not brave enough to retaliate by grinding beef into their TVP crumbles.

Sounds cruel, yes? Well, let me tell you more about what would lead me to such shenanigans. Tori and I were sitting at the kitchen table one day, having a conversation about this proposition in Oregon to require companies to label their food as genetically modified. I told her that I thought most all food was genetically modified, and that I preferred it to taking my chances with organic. I cited several news articles that I had read over the past few years on organic food which stated that organic food was actually worse for you than non-organic because if they don’t spray pesticides on the crops, then you’re taking the chance of getting whatever disease the local insects might be carrying. Tori quietly agrees with me, then when all her friends are over a few evenings later, she says, “Leslie, why don’t you tell us why you don’t eat organic food?” and just starts laughing like a fucking hyena. Yep, you could see it coming. She made me look like a total idiot in front of the only people I had met in Portland thus far. Not only that, then the entire room was trying to tell me that what I had heard was incorrect, that bugs don’t carry disease, you can wash off dirt, etc.

We’ve also run into issues over the compost jar. This is because I refuse to use it. I am extremely sensitive to strong smells, particularly bad ones. Logically, it makes sense to me that I should purposefully avoid situations that clearly reduce me to projectile vomiting… and we’ll leave it at that. To do a lengthy description of what a compost jar *is* and how one uses it would reduce me to- you guessed it- projectile vomiting. This is because, much like the sin structure in Catholocism, the memory of said smell is enough to make me ralph. The actual smell does not have to be present.

And on that note, I think I would like to open this forum to my readers. Have there been times where you’ve been the “stranger in a strange land?” What did you do to combat it?

I wrote you a note every day in seventh grade. I kept some of them, but I threw most of them away because I didn’t think you’d be interested in hearing about how Mr. Reeve had made fun of my t-shirt with Jesus on the front and Mr. Witkov said I was one of the best creative writers in the class and Mr. Schwerak said that I was doing a lot better in Life Science. I saved the best ones for Monday or Tuesday, because there was no one at the church and I could drop them in your choir folder before practice on Wednesday.

I loved Wednesdays. Even though I knew I wouldn’t see you until 6:15, when handbells started, I usually arrived around 5:00. I would walk from my house to the church and go down the outside steps to the basement so I could get a Coke before I went up to the empty sanctuary. I claimed that I was doing my homework, but sometimes I was talking to God. Sometimes I was practicing my trumpet. I was never really doing homework. I was too excited to concentrate because I knew I would see you soon.

You usually got to the church about 15 minutes before handbells was supposed to start, and that was my favorite part of my entire week, because you would sit next to me on the floor and you’d ask me about my day and I would ask you about yours. You gave the BEST hugs because you were big and I was little and you could wrap yourself around me so that I couldn’t see anything but your hair and I’d breathe in your perfume because you smelled so good. Sometimes, you’d give me the note you’d written to me while you were at your school, but since you only had to teach the classes you liked I wondered how you had time to write to me, because I always had Algebra.

I loved that you’d laugh and joke with me during rehearsal, and I thought it was so sweet when you’d put your elbow on my shoulder and lean your head onto your hand. I felt so important because you had the best voice in the choir and you were leaning on MY shoulder. When practice ended, I would walk you out to your car just so that I could hug you again, and as I walked home, I was jealous that I wasn’t old enough to drink margaritas at the Pecos Grill.

Remember when a big group of us from church came to see you in Carousel? I never told you that I slept through most of the second half because we were so high up. Luckily, I got to see it again and I was on the 4th row. I was so close that I could tell who you were even through your costume. I couldn’t believe I knew a REAL opera singer.

I sweated over what to get you for your birthday, because I wanted it to be really cool. I always thought it would be neat to get flowers in class, so I had my mom call the florist. When my mom asked me what I wanted to order, I knew exactly:

Leslie: I want one rosebud.

Mom: One rosebud? That’s it? Why don’t you give her some carnations or something to make her room look pretty?

Leslie: No, Mom. One rosebud. She’ll love it. I have this joke that I’m going to do that will make it all make sense.

Mom: What’s your joke?

Leslie: I’m going to sign the card, “for all you do, this bud’s for you.”

Mom: You watch too much television. At least get her a balloon or something.

Just to make sure that you knew I remembered your birthday, I called 104.1 KRBE because they always announced birthdays on their morning show. I’m sorry I forgot to ask if you listened to 104.1- but it’s the thought that counts, right?

I watched you sign your name once, and in seventh and eighth grade I would practice your signature in my notebooks. I had a very good reason for this. I thought that one day you were going to be famous and you would need me to help sign your CDs because you couldn’t possibly sign all twelve million by yourself. I got really, really good at it. So good at it, in fact, that one time I got back a math test that wasn’t very good and my teacher told me that I had to get it signed by a parent or guardian. It was then that I realized that being able to sign your name might come in handy for other reasons, too.

My birthday was great that year because you gave me a book of poetry that you had written. I loved its pages and pages of handwriting that bent the wrong way and I read it all, even though I didn’t really understand it. I wanted you to think I did, though. I started my own poetry journal, and I was embarrassed when I let you read it because it didn’t occur to me until after I’d handed it over that most of them were about you. My ears turned pink and I thought I was going to cry. I think you noticed because it didn’t take you long to hand it back.

When I was in eighth grade, somebody at church asked me if you were gay and I was embarrassed when I found out what it meant because I thought that if they thought you were gay, they might think I was gay, too. But it didn’t take me very long to decide that I loved you and if being near you made people think I was gay, it was all right with me. But I asked you if you were gay, just to be on the safe side. You told me that people say all sorts of things, but that didn’t mean they were all true… and in fact, someday people might say things about me, too. You made me laugh so hard when you said, “Leslie, you don’t get to be gay by hanging out with gay people any more than you can get Indian by hanging out with Indians.” I wasn’t sure that I knew any gay people, but I knew enough Indians to know that you were right.

After that, my mom told me that she didn’t think it was right for an adult to be friends with a kid. I bit my fingernails and waited in the parking lot while she talked to you after church, because I knew that she was telling you that she didn’t want you to talk to me anymore. I had to start going to and from choir practice with my mom so that there weren’t very many more of those talks before handbells. I got sneaky about when and where I would write notes for you and how you got them, and I was really happy when you got sneaky, too.

I was proud of you when you got into graduate school, but I was so sad when I learned that you were going to move. When I went to your goodbye concert, I thought I would never see you again and I cried big, alligator tears. In fact, I cried so hard that I couldn’t see and I was embarrassed and even though my mom told me I would regret it if I didn’t go, I wished I hadn’t come.

The choir helped you pack up your boxes and load them onto the truck, and I was so excited because it was the first time I got to go to your house… but my mom and dad were running late so we got there when the house was empty and you were getting ready to leave. We stood in a circle and prayed for your safety, and then you gave me one last hug before you got into the big truck. As I watched you drive away, I wondered if I’d given you my address so that you could give me yours when you got there, because maybe I could still write to you in math.

I didn’t want to start high school without you.

The summer before ninth grade was spent waiting for the mail. I had auditioned for High School for Performing and Visual Arts, so between waiting for the results and waiting for your letters so my mom wouldn’t see them, my schedule was pretty full. My boyfriend convinced me that I could leave the mail slot long enough to spend the weekend with him and his family in Galveston. That Saturday night, I lay next to him in a beach chair, and we shared our deepest secrets. I told him that I thought I was in love with you, but it didn’t really matter because you were probably too old for me and you didn’t live in Houston, anyway.

A few weeks later, my mom and dad took my sister and me on vacation close to where you lived. I didn’t know if I’d be able to see you, but we could at least talk to each other for free. I told you that I was gay. You told me that you were gay, but not in the way I expected. You told me that your “roommate” was actually your lover. My stomach dropped to the concrete. I was mad and again, embarrassed- partly because you had kept such a big secret from me, partly because IF you were going to have a girlfriend, I was the ONLY acceptable one, and partly because deep in my heart I knew that a teacher would never marry a ninth grader.

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I don’t like to talk about money, but I will today. I think it’s very important that you guys know how hard I’m working to make this web site succeed. But for me to keep writing, I have to have donations to support myself. In Portland, everything is expensive… but at the same time, I don’t want to devalue my work, either. It’s important for me to have some validation that this could, eventually, turn into a career. I don’t think that my writing is necessarily good enough yet, but I use my web site as a training ground to workshop all my ideas. I see which ones stick and which ones don’t. I learn more about form, phrasing, and timing every single day. My readers are such an integral part of this blog that in some ways, I want you to own it. Putting your hard-earned dollars into my PayPal account is not only a way to clap me on the back. It’s to feel like it’s not just my web site. It’s ours.

The comments you’ve left have been so insightful and amazing that I want all of you to keep going. Keep with me, and let it start to feel like home. I encourage you to say whatever you want, whenever you want, even if it’s negative towards me or the writing itself. I’m a big girl. I can take it.

This blog is my blood, and I pour everything into it, because it is a teaching tool. You teach me every day, and trust me, I’m learning. So even if you just want to drop a dime in the box, know that that dime means more to me than rubies. Because I don’t need rubies to tell me that you’re reading. A dime says, “I’m thinking of you, and I appreciate you” all in one.

You are my miracle, the people that show up because you think my writing is worth reading.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your dime.

At Diane’s concert last Friday I sat behind Alexis and Wendy, and they were having this conversation:

Wendy: Do you write poetry?
Alexis: Not well.

Wendy looked at me.

Leslie: I *think* I only have one or two good poems in me, and they’ve already been written.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, here they are.

Affinity- written for my high school girlfriend, Meag, just after reading an article on chemistry in the New Yorker.

In the right corner of the periodic table there lies,
next to einsteinium and francium,
a most unassuming little element. It does nothing
useful like oxygen or calcium, but do not let it’s
size predict it’s capabilities. It is called cesium,
and had I not stumbled upon the extremity of it’s plight,
I might never have known the depth of my own love for you.
Cesium is unpretentious in every way
except that it is the only element precisely one
electron short of equilibrium.
Much like I have spent my life looking for a soulmate,
cesium searches for the one element that will make it whole.
When the match is found, there is an explosion of heat and light,
a celebration of it’s completeness.

For cesium, there was fluorine. For me, there was you.
and the explosion of heat and light and
the joy of being complete.

untitled- I can’t remember exactly when I wrote this one, but I was embroiled in grief at the time.

Let me cry. Let the hurt
flow out of my body on the
waves of my tears. Let me
see the ablution take place
by blessing and releasing
the anger pent up inside.
Cleanse my spirit and make
pure the palate that paints
my emotions to the people who
experience them.

Let me scream, making my
angry voice heard far into the
night and long after dawn has
broken. Let the pain of my throat
replace the pain of my heart
for the physical pain is a
lesser evil. And after I have
vented my frustration, I will feel spent.
Let me sleep. Let me experience the
absolute peace that sleep may bring
and let me sense the calm rhythm
of my body releasing a thunderstorm.
Let me dream…

These poems were both written the summer after my senior year of high school, when I was young and angsty and into this sort of stuff. In fact, I wrote an entire pile of complete and utter crap anthology.

For some reason, Tori and Brianna have gotten on an extreme “let’s get a dog” kick. I remain indifferent. We had two little dogs that I loved and adored while we were living in Houston, but OH MY GOD WERE THEY A LOT OF WORK! Here is a typical morning dialog between Kathleen and I during that period:

alarm sounds in the background: Welcome to Morning Edition. I’m Bob Edwards. …and I’m Linda Wertheimer

Leslie: Kat, it’s time to get up and walk the dogs.
Kathleen: Could you take them? I walked them yesterday morning.
Leslie: I walked them yesterday afternoon. What’s your point?
Kathleen: It’s raining.
Leslie: It’s the Gulf Coast. It’s always raining.
Kathleen: Just let me sleep for five more minutes.
Leslie: The dogs are crossing their little legs as it is, sweetie.
Kathleen: Well, then. That should make you feel guilty enough to want to walk them yourself.
Leslie: hrmmmmph… All right. But you better be cooking breakfast by the time I get back.

Good times, good times. But don’t let me fool you into thinking that I was always the one to walk them. On alternate days we would have the exact same conversation in reverse. I think that there were three times where we got up and executed the original plan… which consisted of walking them together so that we could talk and plan our day at the same time. And that was in the first week that we got them.

Another problem I forsee is that all three of us have a different definition of “dog.” I’ve envisioned a little lapdog that is easy to walk and doesn’t require a whole lot of room (because honestly, the house isn’t THAT big). Brianna wants a dog that will accompany her while she’s running (which could probably be any kind, really). Tori has her heart set on a dalmatian (what the fuck is she *on*, anyway?).

If Brianna doesn’t care what kind of dog we get, I am *almost* willing to go out and get a little terrier or something just to circumvent Tori bringing home Satan’s favorite puppy a spotty dog. For those who aren’t in the know, dalmatians are poster children for hyperactivity- the antidog for three busy twentysomethings who just like the idea of having a dog in the house. And, of course, I know that all terriers are not created equally. I am not the type that would adopt a constant yapper just for spite.

In the meantime, I’ve just been playing rent-a-dog. It suits my lifestyle perfectly. Scootter and Anne have a boxer. Susan and Diane have a BBD (basic blonde dog). I go over and pet the dogs, walk them on a leash, and after about 30 minutes, take them home again.

In fact, I am the type of dog-loving friend that I hope I’ll have if I end up on the losing side of this argument. Takers?

This being the first time I’ve ever lived alone, tonight was the very first party I’ve ever hosted solo. It was a different vibe than the ones Kathleen and I used to host together, because my personality type (and my upbringing) would always preclude me from taking credit for anything. Since Kathleen was known in her family and mine as “Martha Stewart,” I tended to give her credit where I probably should have taken some. Tonight was wonderful for several reasons, but the most personal for me was realizing that I do have a knack for cooking, decorating, and being “hostess with the mostess.” (I love that this year has been about discovering myself, because I find out so much every day.)

I also need to give credit to my friends, who showed up with bottles of wine, candles, and other assorted housewarming presents. It was so thoughtful, and so in character for them, that I couldn’t help but think, “who wouldn’t want to cook for these people?” I made sure they were well taken care of with a pot of spaghetti with homemade marinara sauce and a roasted chicken. I figured whatever we didn’t eat could go in the fridge for soupmaking later. See! Isn’t that Martha of me? 🙂

Reminds me of the time my dad came to pick me up at Crossroads, a gay bookstore in Houston that is now defunct. When he walked in, he just CRACKED UP laughing, and I was sort of afraid to turn around and see what he was laughing at. I looked up, and there on display was a t-shirt that read, “I want to be Martha. The bitch can do everything.” Eventually, I went back and bought it for him. Yes, he wears it. No, he is not gay. He may, however, be slightly metrosexual.

It was so much fun showing my friends what my dad and I did with the place while he was here, but as I predicted earlier, it was Karen who had the most immediate reaction. She was the one who helped me move in, and she was the only one who saw it with only a dresser, a futon, and a few boxes. So the look on her face was priceless. I don’t remember the exact quote, but there was a lot of hugging and a lot of “OH MY GOD!”

This is not to say that Scootter, Ann, and Mary were not impressed. They just didn’t get to see the dramatic improvement that the new furniture brought. But again, there was a lot of hugging and a lot of “WOW! THIS IS SO COOL!”

As we sat down to dinner, I silently thanked my dad. We did such a good job in such a short amount of time while he was here, and I can’t imagine what my house would have looked like had he not stepped in and said, “why don’t I fly up there and we can get it all done at once?” There is another entity that deserves much praise, and that is Goodwill. I was able to make a functional apartment into home for just a few dollars. I got paintings and brass plates and flower boxes and a menorah. I mean, who COULDN’T live without a menorah? 🙂

As we sat down to dinner, the conversation was warm and a lot of fun. I love learning new things about the people around me- and this conversation did not disappoint. In our little group, three people had been to China, two to Viet Nam, all five to Europe, and one was a Fulbright Scholar for a summer.

After dinner, we retired to the living room, where we watched last night’s Christmas episode of The West Wing. Since four of us have been and are residents of the state of Oregon, it was particularly interesting to us since a good bit of it centered around our state’s right to die with dignity initiative.

During the show, I discovered the second hit of the evening: Tootsie Roll Caramel Apple Pops. By the time my guests left, there weren’t any in the basket… because someone, and I’m not sure who, stuffed a bunch in their pocket for the ride home.

Tonight was so much fun, and I couldn’t be more proud.

Editor’s Note 2013- This is my favorite story to tell IN LIFE.

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For our third anniversary, Kathleen planned a road trip from our home in Alexandria, Virginia, to a lesbian-owned bed and breakfast in New Hampshire (Their phone number? 1-800-Les-B-Inn. You can’t make that up, folks…). When we arrived, our room was decked out with a romance package that included sparkling cider, M-M’s, incense, and temporary tattoos (I definitely want to know who was on *that* committee. No, wait… the embarrassing part is that I was all like, “I’m going to put them on my skin and then try to get really tan before they wash off! Oy vey.). We spent the evening lounging about the place, swimming, hot tubbing, going out to eat, etc. By midnight we had *two* problems. The first was that the town we were in was so small that we’d seen everything there was to see. Twice. The second was that this trip was kind of a last ditch effort for Kat to reignite whatever it was she felt for me, and it wasn’t working. Once all the planned activities ran out, she went from being mildly annoyed to nitpicking everything about my presence and my person.

So I did what any self-respecting lesbian would have done in that situation. I called up my ex-girlfriend and asked her how far it was to her house, because I couldn’t handle the current one all by myself. And there was an alterior motive involved- Kathleen had never been outside of the country, and Meagan lived in CANADA. I might could save our trip by showing her something new and exciting- we could tool around Ottawa for a day, see the Parliament buildings, and successfully avoid an entire DAY of talking exclusively to one another.

So we called Meagan and her partner, Deah, and asked them if we could meet up for supper. But that plan had to be scratched because our figuring was off… it was actually closer to five hours to get there. When they asked us if we wanted to sleep over, I could see the relief in Kathleen’s eyes. She didn’t even care that she was losing the money she’d already paid to the hotel. It was worth it to her to have me completely wrapped up in something else besides, well, her.

We didn’t even have to set the alarm. By seven or eight, we were on the road, barreling toward all of the salvation Canada could offer. Meagan called somewhere around 9 or 10 and asked us where we were. I told her that we were almost to Montreal, and we were going to stop at Tim Horton’s for breakfast.

Meagan: You have to order a TimBit.
Leslie: What the fuck is a TimBit?

I wasn’t even going to try and play it cool like I did on our first “date.” Around Chrismastime of my senior year of high school, Meagan came to pick me up before school so that we could go to Starbuck’s. I had never been there before, and I ordered a Frappucino. Meagan was like, “are you sure?” Like an idiot, I answer “of course, I get them all the time…” THE DRINK WAS FROZEN. IT WAS DECEMBER. I WAS A COFFEE FUDGESICLE BY THE TIME WE GOT TO SCHOOL!

Meagan: You’re just going to have to trust me on this one.
Leslie: I thought we had established early on that that was NEVER A GOOD IDEA!

Ok, so Kathleen and I drive up to Tim Horton’s and I am instantly jealous that there is nothing like it within five minutes of my house in DC. We go in.

The illusion shatters. If the trip hadn’t been bad before, this is where it got a WHOLE LOT WORSE. I’d forgotten that Quebec is the only province in Canada where they don’t have to put signs in both French and English. The entire menu is in French. Not only do I not know what a TimBit is, I don’t know how to ask for one. I am standing there in a puddle of self pity. ALL I WANT IS A DONUT AND SOME COFFEE AND NOW I’M IN A FUCKING FOREIGN COUNTRY AND I CAN’T READ!

I go up to the counter. I ask for a TimBit and a large coffee in English. The woman points to the menu overhead. You can’t get one TimBit. The quantities and prices are scattered as if put there by someone with a killer hangover. I point to the one I want. I pay. It’s like ten dollars. I don’t care.

My order comes up, and all I see is this HUGE BOX. I have ordered ENOUGH FUCKING TIMBITS TO FEED THE ENTIRE CANADIAN ARMY, AND ALL THEIR SQUIRRELS.

We’re walking out of the restaurant, and I’m going to kill Meagan. All she had to say was, “it’s kind of like a donut hole, eh.” So I call her up. And she’s laughing hysterically. “Oh man,” she says. “I never should have done that to ya in Quebec.”

So by this time we’re both laughing and my bit of annoyance has passed. I tell her we’ll be there in a couple more hours and hang up.

“I wish you’d asked me for help,” says Kat. “I took French in high school.”

I replied, “Oh, I wish I’d known that, sweetheart…”

But I thought, “Friends help you move. REAL FRIENDS help you move bodies.”

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***UPDATE***
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Because this was originally written in 2005, I haven’t told you the best part of the story. A couple of years later, after Meag and Deah’s daughter was born, Deah and I schemed to get me into Canada without Meag knowing. I was supposed to come for Thanksgiving, but I bought the tickets for the wrong weekend due to not remembering it was a *revolving* Monday. As it turned out, I think it was better that way, because I got the girls all to myself. 🙂

Anywho, because Deah was a rock star, she showed up at the airport with the biggest fucking box of Timbits I have ever seen before or since. She hands it to me and I know instantly what this is about. I’m going to go and knock on the door with the same smile I had when she screwed me over at Timmy’s to begin with.

So we get there, and I knock.

Meagan comes to the door, as beautiful as I’ve always remembered her, and involuntarily, the Timbits just drop out of my hand and I run toward her. We hug so hard that it’s like a contest to see who can get the most life energy out of the other one. It is a magic moment, the one moment I am blessed to say there are no pictures. Because that look? The one of amazement and shock at seeing me for the first time in years? That was just for me, and it always will be.