Life’s a Beach

May 8, 2019 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

I just put rice on for supper. This time it was spraying the pan with grapeseed oil, and adding brown rice, salt, all-purpose seasoning, and dried cranberries. When it’s done, I’m going to add black beans and a vegetable protein. Not sure whether it will be “chicken” or “fish.” I enjoy the taste of the “fish” better, but “chicken” would probably coordinate better. As I have said before, I occasionally eat meat, eggs, and drink milk. But what I have discovered over time is that a plant-based diet is better for my mental and physical health.

Most of the reason I still become an omnivore is that I don’t believe in making other people bend to accommodate me. When I go to other people’s houses and they offer to cook for me, what we’re having is what we’re having. It’s just how hospitality works for me. And on one occasion, I got a craving for bacon and asked for it on a veggie burger. It was at a restaurant, and Dan went to the bar and ordered for us. When she came back, she said, “the next time you’re going to do that, you have to order it.” Something about the bartender looking at her like she had three heads. However, I will tell you that bacon tastes even better with veggie protein than it does with beef, especially spicy black bean patties.

Last night I made myself a “double cheeseburger” with spicy black bean patties and vegan cheddar. It was so good I considered making myself a second one. I didn’t bother with “bacon,” because I have tried every single brand of veggie bacon available, and to me, they all taste like bacon-flavored plastic. Well, except tempeh. It’s not terrible, but that’s the best endorsement I offer.

I do love the hell out of veggie sausage, however…. especially the breakfast ones. Morningstar Farms makes maple-flavored patties, and Field Roast makes Smoked Apple Sage links. If you’ve tried veggie sausage before and didn’t like it, might I suggest cutting it longways and frying it on medium heat? Respect first contact, and don’t touch it until it’s time to flip. Let the bottom caramelize in the oil. The crispy outside is my favorite part. It makes my hot dogs look weird and kind of hard to eat, but I’ll never go back to meat dogs if I can help it. The ingredients in them scare me- always have.

And yes, I do enjoy both Beyond and Impossible burgers, but not as much as patties made out of black beans or chickpeas.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Speaking of TED talks, I am reminded of Brené Brown. I really love her, but not just because what she says makes sense. When I watched her TED talk, I thought she looked familiar. I decided that I just knew someone who looked like her, and then I remembered that she went to University of Houston Graduate School of Social Work. My aha! moment was when I realized that I was the supervisor of their computer lab in 1999, and she was probably one of “my kids.” I fact checked it with her team, and it’s true. So I met her before she was a household name. I wish I could say that I remembered more about her at that time, but being able to say that we’ve actually been in the same room is enough. Most people who’ve watched her would give a limb to be in the same room now. But it’s not like she’d remember me and we’d go shopping together or anything.

Moving on, the title of this entry also comes from hospitality. My family and I are all getting together at a beach house in Galveston starting the first week of June. I’m all set except for needing to get a bathing suit or some board shorts and a top. I love swimming in the ocean, and wish we’d lived in Galveston longer when I was a child.

As an adult, my favorite memory involves my mother. I called her up and said that I was going to the beach for the day, and did she want to come? To my surprise, she said “yes. Come get me.” When we got there, she actually got in the ocean with me, and I don’t have any memories of her doing so when I was five. She hate hate hated cold water, so getting into pools and oceans was not her vibe. My mother was also constantly obsessed with calories, and therefore every time I ordered dessert she would just sit there, looking longingly and never taking a bite.

I always ordered something sour, like key lime pie, because to eat chocolate cake in front of her seemed like cruel and unusual punishment. When I ordered dessert at our post beach dinner, I offered her half and she ate it. That day was just full of unexpected pleasures, and exactly what made it so special. She got out of her comfort zone in a way that made me incredibly happy, and the memory ranks in my Top Ten list.

The end of the trip marks my mother’s birthday, so I am sure that my sister and I will go out to the cemetery in some sort of matching outfits to honor something that she always liked. It feels better to grieve with her than alone, but during Mother’s Day, that’s how it’s going down. I have purposely made myself busy that day, because otherwise I would hide under my blankets and sleep it off. I am going on the 2:00 tour of The International Spy Museum, and then I think I’m going to the Smithsonian National Zoo, weather permitting. This is because one of my favorite things to do in DC is to sit on the bench in front of the giraffe enclosure and write. I use a Bluetooth keyboard and either my phone or my tablet. I also really, really enjoy taking photos, and over time, I’ve gotten better at it. The reason I know this is that now I rely on my natural eye rather than The GIMP to get the angle I want.

I’m also going to take pictures at the spy museum, but I’m not going to post them publicly. It’s an experience that deserves to be a surprise when you go. No spoilers, especially since I’m going on opening day.

And on that note, I think my rice is ready.

Two Words

May 4, 2019May 4, 2019 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

It’s amazing how two words can make your whole day.

It’s amazing how two words can destroy it.

The two words that lit me up like a Christmas tree were “someday perhaps?”

The two words that cratered me were “Mother’s Day.”

The words that made me smile were in reference to a future hangout with the aforementioned pen pal that I’d never actually met in real life, but had been writing to for years and years. When he/she (not giving anything away) comes to DC, it will be fun to laugh together, hug, and show them my version of my city.

My mother died in October of 2016, and as you can imagine, I’m not over it. Mother’s Day happens every single year, and I am sort of used to the onslaught of ads that pointedly ask if you’ve remembered to buy presents. The thing is, though, I’d forgotten Mother’s Day was coming up, and being reminded when I wasn’t thinking about it and wasn’t prepared was, in a word, awful.

So, like you do, I immediately bought a ticket to the opening of the new International Spy Museum that day. What I mean by this is that the museum itself is not new, the-new-spy-museum-at they’ve just moved and expanded from F Street to L’Enfant Plaza. The only thing I will miss about their old digs is the Shake Shack around the corner. Because, of course, the thing you need after looking at espionage gadgets is a black and white malt. But get it to go. Every time I’ve been to a Shake Shack, seating was a nightmare.

I’m also saving some money for the gift shop. Last time I went, I got a t-shirt on clearance that says, “Argo @$#% Yourself” with the spy museum logo on the sleeve. It is brilliant, but I don’t wear it unless I’m hanging out with friends I feel comfortable with- not always a huge fan of meeting new people in a t-shirt that says “fuck,” even bleeped for child safety. Since I am such a huge fan of “Argo,” I found an old promotional t-shirt on Amazon for $10 that says, “the movie was fake. The op was real,” and has “Argo” in large letters with the skyline of Tehran cut into the bottom, plus the release date of the film. That one I wear all the time.

As I was telling a friend, I think I found the last piece of memorabilia available except the script, which I don’t need because I have the movie memorized, anyway. To say that I’ve seen it 25 times is an understatement by a large margin…. mostly because it is jaw-droppingly scary in some places and so damned funny I start laughing and can’t stop in others… especially every time Alan Arkin, John Goodman, and/or Bryan Cranston are on screen. To wit:

The setup is that O’Donnell (Bryan Cranston) is driving Mendez to an airport to get on the plane to Tehran.

O’Donnell: I’m required to remind you that if you’re detained, The Agency will
not claim you.
Mendez: Barely claim me as it is.
O’Donnell: Your ˜In Case Of’s’ good?
Mendez: Just Christine (his son’s mother, they’re separated). Guess I should have brought some books to read in prison.
O’Donnell: Nah. They’ll kill you long before prison.

For those of you who haven’t seen “Argo,” Ben Affleck both directed it and played Tony Mendez (emphatic fist shake at not casting a Hispanic actor), who rescued six diplomats who managed to escape from the embassy in Tehran and hide out in the Canadian ambassador’s house (the ambassador is brilliantly played by Victor Garber- also one of my favorite fictional spies as Jack Bristow in “Alias”).

I love how the movie is heartbreaking and hilarious in one breath. And no, I didn’t have to look up the lines, just can’t remember whether they’re at National or Dulles. And even though I’ve seen it more times than all my other favorites combined, I still cry at the end (not a spoiler, just the orchestral score).

My best wish for the new digs is that they have a huge Tony Mendez exhibit, because he died not too long ago and therefore, I would guess that even more of his ops are declassified. I am not totally clear on the rules, but I believe when you die you lose your covers, and the ops you’ve done can be made public… just not the ones that involve other people still alive and/or are still in progress. It’s possible some are still current, because I believe that after Tony left the CIA full time, he was still an occasional consultant. No one would want to lose all that experience permanently unless the person was really, really gone. I can’t imagine the grief inside The Agency, because he was a straight-up legend.

In a way, I think that subconsciously I picked going to the spy museum because Tony died to remind myself that I am not the only person in the world in grief.

I feel the same way about walking through cemeteries. To me, it is not morbid. It is an uplifting reminder that I am not alone in my sadness, situational depression, wondering what we’d be gabbing about if she were still here, etc. What I find is that as time goes on, the well of emotional injury gets more shallow, but there are triggers that pull me right back to her open casket, and how I felt completely disoriented, as if the world had started spinning the other direction and I could feel it.

One of those triggers was Tony’s death. I started crying and couldn’t stop, eventually realizing that it wasn’t all about him. Yes, it was devastating to lose a national treasure, but it was also a direct hit on how “gone” death truly means. And not to demean losing friends or extended family, but your reality doesn’t actually crack until you lose a parent. The entire universe seems different, and for a while, it loses all its color. You just wander around sort of half alive in grayscale.

I knew that I was getting better when I could make an effort to see friends, but at first, it was only other people who had also lost a parent. They were my people, the ones who I could confide in and share my rage at the dumb things people say when you lose a loved one, knowing innately that they mean no malice, so you can’t get mad at them directly. You can only get mad at the situation. Bad theology got on my nerves, didn’t measure up to one lady who compared the death of her cat to the death of my mother at church. It made my rage go to 11 and I had to excuse myself as not to emotionally rip her to shreds, because if I had waited even another three seconds, I would have taken her head off.

There’s only one other situation that makes me truly uncomfortable, and that’s the people who, upon hearing about your parent’s death, start crying because they can’t imagine what’s going to happen when their parents die, and that also happened to me in public (again, at church). The reason it’s tone deaf is because my natural reaction was “well, it’s a good thing I’m going through it and not you.” It’s just so egocentric that I cannot deal. It’s just another situation in which I just have to walk away, because I have not come up with an appropriate response, just a sarcastic one.

And that’s the thing. Because you know the people around you aren’t trying to hurt you, there’s just nothing that anyone can say that will make it better, you have no idea what to say in response to the awkward and often just stupid.

If you don’t know what to do, let me tell you. Grief is as individual as a fingerprint, and everyone processes differently, but this generally works across the board. Say “I’m sorry for your loss,” and offer to be present. And that’s it. The ones I loved the most during that time were people who showed up, but didn’t say much of anything. They just sat next to me as I stared off into space and were willing to listen if I could manage to talk. But they offered no advice on what to do, they just let me process verbally. It’s never a case of needing advice on what to do, especially if you haven’t lost a parent yourself. It’s giving the person room to breathe and never, ever comparing grief, even if you’ve been in the same situation. Because we’re not in the same boat, just the same ocean and trying to keep our heads above water. Suffering is universal, but we all have different ways of coping.

For instance, when I was actually in town for the funeral and with my sister and my dad, I hardly emoted at all because I was speaking at the funeral and I wanted to feel put together for it. I wanted to be able to be funny, because the eulogies I enjoy the most are the ones that offer real insight into the person. My mother was a church musician almost her entire life, starting at 12 or 13. So my opening line was, “this is the only funeral Carolyn Baker’s ever been to where she wasn’t working.” It had the desired effect. The entire congregation just broke up.

I am also quite socially anxious, and only three people I knew besides my family came to the funeral, so I had to put on a mask and a suit of armor to deal with being in a HUGE crowd where I knew practically no one. The mask and the armor are extroversion to an Oprah-like level, while inside I am shaking and counting the seconds until I can get home. In short, I didn’t look like someone in grief until I flew back to DC, where I only got out of bed sporadically for about three months. I allowed myself to completely fall apart, just not in front of anyone. I did once, and it was terrifying, so I never did it again. I gave lip service to letting people in, and then I completely isolated, only emoting through e-mail or crying into my pillows when no one was home. I couldn’t even bear crying that was loud enough for my housemates to come running, and they’re people I’d trust with my life.

In public, I became stoic and divorced from my emotions, because feeling even small emotions led to a flooding out I couldn’t stop. It was better not to start, because it would stop me from engaging in conversation. Even when I was with friends, there was a risk I wouldn’t take- being there, but not present….. people talking at my body while my soul was out there somewhere, unable to respond appropriately with laughter or empathy or whatever the situation needed…. as well as just nodding and smiling because I could hear people talking, but I couldn’t understand what was being said. It became background noise.

In essence, compartmentalization was necessary to have a fighting chance at moving on.

I thought I knew grief from bad breakups, and it was a wake-up call to realize how differently devastating this grief continues to be.

That’s because even though you gain and lose people to circumstances throughout your life, there’s still a small chance they’ll reappear. You apologize for being shitty people to each other and as long as the apology comes with changed behavior, it will generally stick…. or as I call it from a stolen line, “resurrection happening in the middle of the mess.”

As an aside, Easter is a very important holiday for me, because I don’t generally celebrate Jesus’ resurrection literally, but the way we resurrect ourselves, both individually and in community.

When a person dies, as opposed to a relationship, you lose hope. You lose the future. And if the person dies relatively young, you get angry at having the years stolen away in which you feel entitled. My mother was 65. She died just months after her retirement from teaching- she never even got to enjoy it. What I miss the most is that I thought we could go to church together more often, because she wasn’t working. Even when she took time off to come and visit me, she’d never take time off from church as well. When she died, she was completely free, because her church had so few members that they decided to close, and she hadn’t found a new church yet. I’d already started looking through solos because I thought I had my favorite accompanist back, and I’d already talked to my choir director about it.

My choir director and my mother were cut from the same cloth, and every time Sam played solo piano, if I closed my eyes I couldn’t tell the difference. When my mother died, it made me come unglued. I went to church for about six weeks after I came back from the funeral, and it was just long enough to realize that it was the biggest trigger of them all and I still can’t go back. I know I will; eventually I will get that trigger stamped back down to manageable, but today is not that day.

I do appreciate that Mike, the husband in the family I live with, keeps inviting me to his church, even though it’s relatively conservative United Methodist. I’d still take him up on it because I know the hymnal from front to back, as well as soprano descants for nearly everything. Singing would be the most important part of church for me no matter what the congregation believes.

In true introvert form, I want to be invited even if I don’t take you up on it.

Another two words that make my day?

Please come.

Let’s Catch Up

May 1, 2019May 1, 2019 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 5 Comments

I am so sorry to say that I’ve been cheating on you. It’s not you, it’s me. I love you, and I hope we can work it out.

Basically, I have a pen pal, and all my writing has been going privately between us rather than posting here. I think about you every day, but after baring my soul in black and white once, it’s hard to think about doing it again.

However, I do have a lot to say.

First of all, the MRI didn’t find anything and I am still in pain. I’ve been wearing a sling that you put in the freezer before you wear it, and taking Aleve every day. My next step is probably a massage therapist, but there’s a chance I could make it worse, so it’s a hard decision. Nothing is worse than pain a doctor can’t find, especially since it’s bad enough to need narcotics but I won’t deal with the side effects. I could get addicted to them, and besides that, they cause dehydration to the point of bowel impaction (gross) no matter what you do. In short, it’s just not worth it. I have better things to do besides rehab.

I have had to switch jobs because of it. I couldn’t move fast enough in the kitchen, and I couldn’t lift more than 10 lbs. without help. So, I do medical transcription from home through a company called Rev, choosing medicine/health because I worked for my stepmother (rheumatologist) for two years and have excellent recall with the spelling of drug names and being able to easily and naturally spell diseases without help- either from seeing them in print before or using my quick thinking with Latin roots.

Rev has introduced a new feature: it’s a computer-generated translation where you only have to go in and correct rather than typing the whole thing as I did originally. Notice I said “new” rather than useful. Computers are shit at spelling words that aren’t in the dictionary, and there are more of them than, say, if someone was transcribing a business meeting. It hinders more than it helps. The only thing that sometimes makes it hard is doctors with accents. I am okay with French, German, etc. Not so good with Indian and African. Nigerian is the worst. I can understand people from India, Nigeria, Eritrea, etc. just fine in person, but on a recording, I have to listen to them 10-15 times to get something like “ankylosing spondylitis.” At least the recordings are digital and much clearer than analog.

In fact, I meet tons of people from Africa almost every day, because Silver Spring has a HUGE African immigrant population and a lot of them drive for Uber. We get along famously, because especially with young men, what we have in common is soccer.

In fact, one of my roommates is a physician from Nigeria who is studying for his boards to get certified in the United States (looks 15 to me), and yesterday we hung out in his room watching Tottenham vs. Ajax. I knew from the beginning that Tottenham was going to lose, because even when Ajax has bad years, they aren’t THAT bad. My senior year of high school (1996), Ajax made it to the European cup finals, where the game ended in a 1-1 draw and Ajax lost by just two penalty kicks. It was heartbreaking even though I really didn’t have any skin in the game. I just hate it when teams come so close, and yet, so far.

I have a lot of soccer jerseys and one fabulous “dressy” shirt from Barca that I got from Dana’s parents one year for Christmas. Only one is personalized- Lionel Messi, a gift from my friend Katherine. The others are just as cool:

MLS Jerseys and Scarves
- Portland Timbers (has Timber Joey and a chainsaw on the back)
- Houston Dynamo
- Houston Dash
- DC United
National Teams
- Mexico
- Honduras
- Costa Rica
- South Africa (actually, that one is Springboks Rugby, but a sports jersey nonetheless)

Next on my list are Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and a t-shirt from the Canadian Soccer Association. One of these things is not like the others, but I can’t get over this logo. I must have it, especially since I now own red shoes. If I can’t find what I want, I will buy a really thick white or grey t-shirt and print it out on a t-shirt transfer. The background on this image is transparent, so I know that one must exist that is large enough for 8.5×11 paper. If not, I’ll put it on the pocket or the sleeve. It will go nicely with the ringer T I have that says “Canadians are Eh-holes.”

Inside joke- my very first high school girlfriend was Canadian, so I cannot help but make jokes at Canada’s expense. I love her to death, but she’s still my ex. Therefore, she deserves ribbing, but not hard enough to actually be mean about it…. especially since I have been to Montreal and Ottawa, and while I was there I could imagine myself as an expat immediately. If I ever decide to drive again, I’d love to take a road trip to Ottawa for Canada Day, then turn around in enough time to be in DC for the Fourth. Road trips from here to Ottawa are really fun. You go through Philly, New York City, Boston, and Montreal….. and the Ben and Jerry’s factory isn’t too far out of the way.

The time I went, it was Sept. 12, 2001, and Kathleen and I had tickets to Rent on Broadway. Needless to say, we didn’t make the show. We took a few days in Boston, instead.

I tend to jump around on subjects naturally because I’m either workshopping or terribly ADD, anyway, but today I have a first to report. I took my medication, then two hours later, I forgot and took them again. Lamictal causes terrible dyspraxia at high doses, and I’m at 400mg right now. Lexapro causes something I like…. euphoria. So maybe I’m incredibly joyous, but it remains to be seen whether I can hold onto it. 😛

My depression and anxiety has been so bad lately that it feels nice to let go of it all and just enjoy life for a while, even if it’s only a few hours. There’s a pointed reason my anxiety is ratcheted up, but I can’t lay that card on the table. I would if I could, but it betrays more than one person’s confidence, and that just isn’t right. This blog is my story to tell, not to tell theirs for them. So, I can talk about my reactions, but not the cause. But the long and short of it is that I am not fighting with anyone, or in conflict. Just worried because one of my friends is going through the shit right now, and it’s not anyone I’ve mentioned in the past, and not likely to appear in the future. I have to have something that’s only for me. I hope I already give you enough to really know me.

For instance, I’ll give you the tidbit of how I had a Canadian girlfriend in the first place. Her dad worked for ExxonMobil (Esso in Canada), and therefore the whole famn damily moved to Texas, save, I think, her sister, who was already at university.

It’s also the reason I am so entrenched with the soccer bug. By the time we’d broken up and made friends again, she commented that I knew more about soccer than she did, despite playing Div I ball and training for the Canadian Olympic development team by the time she quit… the combination of a toxic coach and eight surgeries on her knees from Osgood-Schlatter’s disease…. which, at the time, I made it a point not to remember the name of it and called it Oskar Schindler’s disease for years. I call it by its proper name now- it’s no fun anymore because she’s not around for me to flip her shit.

So I just keep buying and being gifted soccer jerseys and learning about national teams from countries I’ll probably never visit. The funniest thing is that I know so much about the players themselves, but am still sort of unclear on all the rules. Offsides is particularly difficult for me to “diagnose.”

And now I feel I should make a pointed difference between telling others’ stories when it’s not something that’s been asked to keep in confidence and they are 20 years old. If you say “keep it tight,” I will.

I made a huge mistake by sharing everything with Dana, when not all friendships are designed to be “couple friendships.” Friends deserve confidential spaces in my heart just as much as my partners.

Note to future partners as well…. if I keep something from you, it’s because it’s needed for the other person to feel safe with me, not because I love you any less. I’m the one they trusted, not you. I will give you that space as well.

I can’t remember how long it’s been, but someone actually asked me about my dating life and I had to admit that I don’t have one, and am not likely to have one in the future. Believe me, if I did, I’d talk about it. I don’t date for two reasons, and both are valid.

The first is that I really, really hurt Dana and she really, really hurt me. You’d think four years would be enough time to get over it, but I see no evidence of it. The way it manifests is that I know I’m capable of hurting people, so therefore, I shy away from dating as not to hurt anyone else.

There are two pathways of thought that are cognitive dissonance for me. Some experts say that you need to get your own house in order before you add anyone. Some say that new relationships teach you new ways of coping, and after an appropriate amount of grieving, it doesn’t matter if you handle everything perfectly. You’ll learn “on the job.”

I tend to agree with the former rather than the latter. If you don’t resolve old patterns, they follow you. It’s a new person, but you’re still the same, so you tend to drag them into your ways of dealing because you don’t know differently yet…. and if the way you deal is unhealthy, the new relationship will spiral out into old history.

But I can’t pin all of this on my relationship with Dana. I wasn’t even ready for Meagan (Canadian) even though I thought I was. My way of coping with emotional abuse as a teenager was to lock it away and pretend that because it wasn’t physical, it wasn’t abuse. Not really, anyway. When someone convinced me of the truth, it was as if a bomb dropped in my soul and my stomach dropped to the floor. The blast radius was enormous, mostly because I couldn’t tell which came first. Did my depression and anxiety make me an easy target, or was I depressed and anxious because I was being emotionally abused? I tend to think of that as the former as well, because medication correcting my chemical imbalance didn’t solve the problem, but it did make it a whole hell of a lot better, especially when a psychiatrist in college was astute enough to realize that I wasn’t unipolar, but low-key bipolar. I didn’t truly do much better until I was on a mood stabilizer. That’s because an SSRI was just a Band-Aid and the mood stabilizer actually treated the problem. I was helped again when my anxiety was treated as a separate issue and started taking medication for it as well. To be clear, my anxiety medication does not treat me psychologically. That, I have to do with talk therapy. What it actually does is take away the physical symptoms, like heart and brain race, and popping off with irrational rage because my emotions are going to 11 and I feel like I am literally going to die. There’s a reason people get panic attacks confused with myocardial infarction, because they can cause angina if they’re severe enough. The worst panic attack I’ve ever had was during my divorce from Dana, because something she said registered all my hot buttons at once and I went from fully-functioning adult to weeping, hyperventilating, and heart pain inside of one second. I crumpled to the floor, and Dana called my parents because my stepmom is a doctor. It was the first time they’d seen the bruise under my eye and it did not go well.

The long and short of it is that no matter how badly I behaved emotionally, I didn’t do anything for the physical barrier to be broken. Dana didn’t hit me first, but she did shove me over and that’s when my anxiety caused rational rage. The irrational part was fighting back when I should’ve run and never come back. She was over a hundred pounds heavier than me and her fist was three times as big. Why I thought standing up for myself was a good idea will always be beyond me. It was like thinking, “what would a chihuahua do in this situation if a St. Bernard was picking on them?” Ummm, get themselves into a horrible situation, that’s what.

I didn’t deserve what I got, but I could have handled it differently. I could have gotten in my car and driven to a friend’s. I could have called the police because Dana was so angry that I knew nothing would de-escalate. I could have called someone to come and get me because I was so angry I probably shouldn’t have been driving. But in that moment, the person I wanted wasn’t available… because there’s a difference between any friend showing up and knowing what would happen if the person I was thinking of did. There are few people in the world I can think of who would have caused as much intimidation to get the de-escalation I needed and couldn’t get on my own.

I also go back to a few weeks before that fight, to a friend saying I needed to get away from Dana because what he saw was that she was constantly shitting all over my ideas and not treating me as an equal, which made him really, really mad because I was the one taking care of our family financially and giving her a free ride because I wanted it that way. I wanted to give her the gift of the space to think about what she really wanted to do, and at that time, it was teach. So she’d need to go back to school, whether it was to do a post-bac teaching degree or a course to get certified with the Bachelor’s she already had. She got rejected from the HISD program and instead of finding another one, crumpled into depression and couldn’t pull herself out. So, while she was dismissing me as a partner, she was also doing nothing about an easily solvable problem because she was so good at so many things. She loved cooking, she loved math and logic and could have made an excellent programmer, etc. etc. etc. With anything she chose, she eventually would have been making more than me, and perhaps I could have gone back to school. Or we could have both applied for student loans and carpooled to University of Houston.

It’s always so sad that hindsight is 20/20.

Being the “parent” in the relationship is I’m sure why it was so easy to fall into those “being in love with a stranger on a train” feelings. I wasn’t getting what I needed at home, and the dopamine of an explosive connection helped. It flooded my brain with happiness, so I was more capable of dealing with my problems, which at the time seemed hopeless because I became enmeshed in trying to “fix” Dana when she had to confront her own brokenness and there was nothing I could or should do to help her.

As Argo said to me, “why do you expect everyone else to fix you?” I wonder if I’d said that to Dana if she would have reacted as I did, which was to realize I had agency and that the only thing that would help me with my compounded PTSD (emotional abuse as a teen and the fight between Dana and me) would be getting to an emergency room and getting my shit handled on my own. I decided to be a gladiator in a suit.

Now I have two suits, and a lot of soccer jerseys.

I’m sorry I cheated on you. Are we cool?

Klosterman Conundrums

April 7, 2019April 7, 2019 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

There are 23 interview questions in Chuck Klosterman’s “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs.” I decided to answer a few, and will possibly answer more later. These are the ones that jumped out at me.

Let us assume a fully grown, completely healthy Clydesdale horse has his hooves shackled to the ground while he head is held in place with thick rope. He is conscious and standing upright, but he is completely immobile. And let us assume that for some reason every political prisoner on earth (as cited by Amnesty International) will be released from captivity if you can kick this horse to death in less than twenty minutes. You are allowed to wear steel-toed boots. Would you attempt to do this?

This is not a hard one for me. I would never put an animal’s value over a human’s, no matter how much I hated people at the time. Plus, the horse is already being tortured, so who’s to say death wouldn’t be welcome? As Dr. Hunt so eloquently said in “Grey’s Anatomy,” victory is the option where the least people get killed. And of course I would feel bad that I killed an animal, but not that bad. Plus, you’d really have to see my physical stature to know how little danger the horse would be in at my hand. I’m 124 on a good day. Even with steel toed boots, I couldn’t kill that horse for love or money.

At long last, somebody invents the dream VCR. This machine allows you to tape an entire evenings worth of your own dreams, which you can then watch at your leisure. However, the inventor of the dream VCR will only allow you to use this device if you agree to a strange caveat: When you watch your dreams, you must do so with your family and your closest friends in the same room. They get to watch your dreams along with you. And if you don’t agree to this, you cant use the dream VCR. Would you still do this?

My dreams actually get quite frightening, and I care enough about my family and friends to know that the movies that run through my mind would haunt them. I’d like to see the tape, but I remember enough already to be satisfied. Dealing with the blast radius after so many emotional bombs drop would be devastating. I am sure that my answer was supposed to be funny, but I just can’t with this one. Plus, with the way I roll on the Internet, I have very little private information left. It would be worth it not to have the VCR just to have something of my own, regardless of what my friends and family think. I know if there are people’s tapes I desperately want to see, somebody would want to see mine. But I can’t live on their opinions.

You meet the perfect person. Romantically, this person is ideal; You find them physically attractive, intellectually stimulating, consistently funny, and deeply compassionate. However, they are one quirk: This individual is obsessed with Jim Henson’s Gothic puppet fantasy, “The Dark Crystal.” Beyond watching it on DVD at least once a month, he/she peppers casual conversation with “Dark Crystal” references, uses “Dark Crystal” analogies to explain everyday events, and occasionally likes to talk intensely about the films deeper philosophy. Would this be enough to stop you from marrying this individual?

My initial answer was yes. So many people have quoted that movie to me that I have lost all interest in watching it, and I think I’ve seen a scene or two walking by the television, and even the visuals were frightening. I changed my mind when I realized that this person would have to put up with every fandom I follow, too. I can put up with “The Dark Crystal” if they can put up with “Doctor Who,” “Outlander,” “Homeland,” “Whiskey Cavalier,” and every intel movie that’s come out in the last 20 years…. with a large dose of “Monty Python” thrown in for good measure. I am a fountain of media quotes that come out at both appropriate and inappropriate times.

A novel titled “Interior Mirror” is released to mammoth commercial success (despite middling reviews). However, a curious social trend emerges: Though no one can prove a direct scientific link, it appears that almost 30 percent of the people who read this book immediately become homosexual. Many of the newfound homosexuals credit the book for helping them reach this conclusion about their orientation, despite the fact that “Interior Mirror” is ostensibly a crime novel with no homoerotic content (and was written by a straight man). Would this phenomenon increase (or decrease) the likelihood of you reading this book?

Since I’m already a lesbian, I don’t think it would bother me much. But if it worked in reverse, that there was a 30 percent chance it would make me straight, I’d at least have to give it some thought. I once dated a man for about six months as an adult, and the only reason I had for hating it was heterosexual privilege, which you don’t realize is there until you have it when you didn’t before, and will most likely lose it if you’re not a three on the Kinsey scale. You notice micro and macro aggression, like people who tell awful, derogatory jokes about gay people without realizing exactly who they’re talking to……………. and that’s the least offensive example.

That being said, if I met a woman I adored at first sight who happened to be straight and loved books, I might be tempted to recommend it. I would tell her about the phenomenon up front so it didn’t come across like a shady ace up my sleeve. Worth a shot, right? I’m not going to bank on those odds, though. But, of course, the likelihood is that hearing about the phenomenon would create a subconscious affect that dissipated quickly. It’d be a great relationship for about two weeks, which is probably more than an introverted writer can handle, anyway.

You have won a prize. The prize has two options, and you can choose either (but not both). The first option is a year in Europe with a monthly stipend of $2,000. The second option is ten minutes on the moon. Which option do you select?

Again, introverted writer. Shortest trip possible. I don’t even like to go to the store. Very few people can live in Europe on $2,000/month, anyway. Wait, that’s not true. I’m sure I could find a poor village somewhere. But moving wouldn’t interest me. I’ll never leave DC if I can help it.

Your best friend is taking a nap on the floor of your living room. Suddenly, you are faced with a bizarre existential problem: This friend is going to die unless you kick them (as hard as you can) in the rib cage. If you dont kick them while they slumber, they will never wake up. However, you can never explain this to your friend; if you later inform them that you did this to save their life, they will also die from that. So you have to kick a sleeping friend in the ribs, and you cant tell them why. Since you cannot tell your friend the truth, what excuse will you fabricate to explain this (seemingly inexplicable) attack?

The answer would lie in which friend was on the floor, because I don’t have one person I consider my best friend, and the person I view as closest to me isn’t likely to want to nap on my floor as it would require quite a flight. I’m relatively quick on my feet, though, and the trick is not to give too many details because you won’t remember them. See every intel movie ever made in the last 20 years. 😉

For whatever the reason, two unauthorized movies are made about your life. The first is an independently released documentary, primarily comprised of interviews with people who know you and bootleg footage from your actual life. Critics are describing the documentary as brutally honest and relentlessly fair. Meanwhile, Columbia Tri-Star has produced a big-budget biopic about your life, casting major Hollywood stars as you and all your acquaintances; though the movie is based on actual events, screenwriters have taken some liberties with the facts. Critics are split on the artistic merits of this fictionalized account, but audiences love it. Which film would you be most interested in seeing?

I would much prefer the big budget movie because I would enjoy answering the questions re: real vs. reel. Let me tell you, either way it’s a juicy screenplay if I lay all my cards on the table. It would mostly be character study, because even though I have moved places a lot, I tend to do the same things in my daily life…… and I am definitely a character. I would also like to make a cameo as a wacky neighbor.

The One About the MRI

March 8, 2019 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 4 Comments

Months ago, I was in so much pain that I rushed myself to Urgent Care, crying and shaking because my shoulder hurt so bad. I was told to follow up with my doctor because I needed an MRI to see whether it was just a strain or something more serious- a tear, which requires surgical intervention. I didn’t, because I was prescribed a course of narcotics, and by the time I was finished with it and only needed Aleve sporadically, it seemed “unpossible” that it was bad enough for a follow-up. My range of motion was back to normal, and I went back to ignoring it, because I thought I could…. the pain went away on its own.

I should have been more vigilant, because I’ve dealt with this sort of pain for years, not realizing it was my rotator cuff and getting massages to “work out the knots.” Stupid, stupid, stupid. This is what happens when you’re a doctor’s kid. You make uneducated guesses because you think you’ve picked up actual medical knowledge by osmosis. I know exactly how it started. Working in a medical office is fast and furious at times, and every time I left a patient room, I was carrying the chart in my right hand and closing the door with my left. The way I exited, the door ended up being behind me, and it was an awkward reach, but faster than closing the door like a normal person. Later on, the pain came back, because I was cooking professionally all the time and reaching for heavy pots and pans that would invariably put pressure on the already sensitive areas.

Now I’m back in excruciating pain, and decided that seeing a real MD was better than my own less-than-perfect education. I can’t just do occasional courses of narcotics forever, and it should have set off alarm bells that I needed Aleve and Tylenol so often. I have now come to believe that Ralph Wiggum would have made better decisions than me. As Ralph would say, “I’m bembarassed for you!”

Just because I worked in my stepmom’s office for a while doesn’t mean much. I learned a ton, but it’s just not the same. Duh, Leslie. The stupid, it burns…. I feel like the moral equivalent of this picture. Even Ralph went to the doctor, who told him he “wouldn’t have so many nosebleeds if he didn’t keep his finger up there.” Now that’s some sound medical advice.

I went to the doctor on Monday, and he wrote me a referral to imaging. The next available appointment wasn’t until today. Dr. Akoto said he wanted to see me back in a week, but I think I’m going to call him and reschedule for next Wednesday, because imaging told me that the radiology report probably wouldn’t be back by Monday since my appointment with them isn’t until 2:15.

If I’m honest, I’ve put this off because even though fixing a rotator cuff tear is quick and easy, the recovery is, in a word, not. I know the Nassers will be great about helping me. They’ve become my adopted family and we’d do anything for each other. But even though I know this logically, I have been at a loss emotionally. I feel alone, even though I am certainly not. I am in a very small place, whimpering for my mommy as consistently as I did when I was five.

I had to come to a place of peace regarding it, because it’s not a problem that will ever be fixed. Today has been about saying “get over it” to myself. Just because I can’t complain to my mother doesn’t mean I don’t need to put on the gangsta rap and get it handled. Longing for a dead person does me about as much good as sticking my head in the sand and hoping my problems will go away on their own.

I have, in effect, created my own multitude of problems, and am now digging myself out. There is, I suppose, something to be proud of in that. Self reliance can be a beautiful thing, although sometimes I feel like I rely on myself too much without letting other people in.

Luckily, I realized this and talked to Dan on the phone (look at me! I called someone!). She thanked me for being vulnerable and reaching out, which felt like a hug from Jesus. She’s not as physically close as the Nassers (she lives in Virginia), but her “just checking in” texts mean so much.

It also helps that I don’t drive, and that public transportation is excellent…. because nothing would be worse than being tempted to drive with one arm. Generally, one accident leads to another because even though you’re just doing normal things, you’re already off-balance.

And lastly, I can’t help but feel that my mental health has allowed my physical health to go by the wayside, because I am just not on the ball with following up. I’m not too depressed to do so, I’m so ADHD that keeping up with my to-do list is often overwhelming to an enormous degree.

Today, I’m on top of it. I will schlep myself over to imaging even though it’s snowing and I’m cold AF. I will schlep myself to the doctor next week because it’s an A-list priority. I used to be a Franklin Covey disciple, but that fell by the wayside when I stopped using pen and paper. I am sure there’s a ton of software to replace it, but I’ve settled for Google Tasks. It is very good in terms of remembering things, but there’s really no way to add priorities as well. The best I can do is add due dates, and I am way too good at the snooze button.

Speaking of the snooze button, now it’s really time to stop writing and get ready. I may be a little afraid of the results, but it’s better than not knowing. I wish I had realized this long ago, but “better nate than lever.”

Please send me as much good karma as you can muster. I could use the boost, because even if you don’t tell me you sent it, I can feel it in spades.

Public Service Announcement: Security

March 7, 2019March 7, 2019 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I am sure that Google does not want me to tell you this story, but I need to do so. It’s a public service announcement for people who keep credit card numbers in the Play store. I didn’t think anything of it because Apple requires a credit/debit card to get started with an iTunes account. When Google’s screen came up to enter the information, I did not realize it was optional. So, I entered in my credit card information, and they just use the address you have on file from when you first opened your account, which was in Portland, Oregon.

The reason that I am publicly talking about this is that you cannot imagine how difficult my Google password is. I use LastPass to create 25 characters so there’s no way to look up anything I use in the dictionary. It would take a computer days to decrypt them. I also log out of the password vault after I’m finished using it, which is also encrypted. I thought I had it wired.

Then, when I came home from Paris, I tried to Uber to the Metro, and my card was declined. I knew there was money in the account because it had just been transferred. So, I logged into my bank account only to find that two transactions from Google had zeroed me out.

My account was hacked and my debit card was used to sign up for Google Cloud, and the bandwidth chosen was $100/day. I didn’t catch it the day it happened because I was in Paris, but I caught it within three days. I got on the phone with customer service, where they canceled my card and gave me a link to the fraud forms I would need to fill out to start the investigation. I was given provisional credit pending their findings so that I had access to my funds.

Several weeks later, Google sent my bank a report that said there was no evidence of foul play, that I was the party responsible. My provisional credit was yanked back, again emptying my account. So, I started my own investigation because theirs was so shoddy.

First of all, the billing address on my card did not match the billing address Google had on file. Secondly, while I was the “owner” of the Google Cloud account, there were at least 10 projects with two people who had added themselves as editors, with e-mail addresses that clearly looked like spam, e.g. 468434471727@cloudservices.gserviceaccount.com. And no address was used twice.

I then contacted Google tech support, where a very nice man named Jeremiah was absolutely sympathetic. I was able to lay out my concerns, and use technical language that he would understand, whereas my bank totally wouldn’t.

I sent the transcript of our conversation to my bank, and my money was returned. That being said, it took a few days to resolve because Google absolutely screwed me…. it made no sense, because the original report Google sent my bank should have set off alarm bells just for the billing address alone.

The bank’s next step is to report the incident to the police, because what the hackers did was a felony. However, having been in IT myself the chance that a hacker would ever get caught is less than zero. My first instinct is that it was done through a double VPN (worth every penny for your own privacy on the Internet), which makes finding physical location damn near impossible. Plus, no identifying details in the e-mail addresses, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

When I was talking to Jeremiah about all this, I said, “I don’t even know how to program. It would never occur to me to buy virtual server space, especially not that much bandwidth.” After we talked about tracking down IP addresses and such, he joked, “are you sure you don’t know how to program?” I said, “no. I’m in tech support. I bail out programmers when their computers break. They can write, but God forbid the operating system throws an error.” He laughed his ass off and said, “welcome to my life.”

So, even though this was a very serious situation, I could still laugh about it (somewhat).

I am just angry that a company whose motto is “don’t be evil” didn’t even take the time to beat down the evil that was happening to me. I had to figure it out on my own. Thank God I had the technical smarts to do so. I was able to learn the web interface quickly, so that I could find all the information I needed to prove my case. It’s sad, because it was so easy that if I did ever want to purchase virtual server space (like to be able to use the full version of WordPress and tailor it on my own rather than the limitations of WordPress.com), it’s definitely the easiest panel I’ve ever used. But I just cannot justify giving them any money, no matter how small the amount.

After this happened, I changed my password to another 25 character random string and instituted two factor authentication. This means that whenever I log in on my desktop, I have to prove it’s me on my phone. If I’m using my phone, they send me a text verification code. I am not playing around. It occurred to me that if someone could get into my Google account, they could also get into my calendar and mail.

So, I created an account with ProtonMail, which encrypts e-mail going out. Privacy is built in, as opposed to Gmail, which needs a plugin called “Enigmail” (link is to the full version, Gmail web interface uses a Chrome plugin). But even ProtonMail has its limitations. If both people aren’t using secure e-mail, it can only encrypt the text on the way out.

I also prefer to use Signal on my phone, which handles text messages, but if the other person has Signal as well, the messages are encrypted. For those who use iOS, iPhone messages are already secure. Basic SMS is not. If you communicate with both iOS and Android users, I highly recommend downloading Signal or WhatsApp (I’ve tried both, and Signal won). That way, information is encrypted no matter who you’re texting.

There’s been some chatter about campaigns to get iMessage ported to Android, but I highly doubt it will gain traction. WhatsApp has nearly all of iMessage’s features, but Signal won for me because I don’t need fancy. It’s a simple text interface, and that’s what I like about it.

I’m just sorry that it took a financial disaster to get me on my soapbox about privacy, because if it could happen to me, it could happen to you, too. This is an entry I should have written years ago.

I apologize. Those responsible have been sacked.

Nothing Stays the Same

March 5, 2019 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I wanted to wait to post my next entry until I actually had something to say. I know that not updating my blog reduces traffic, thus dampening my quest for world domination. On the other hand, I don’t want to be one of those people who doesn’t take time to think before writing…. anything will do, because it’s not about craft, it’s about attracting views, visits, likes, and followers. I feel like I have enough already. Not believing I have enough just leads to verbal vomit for its own sake… and to me, that just doesn’t cut it.

I mean, I’ve always been the type to just lay out everything on this web site and let people make their own decisions about what they read, and when I post often, it’s because having something to say comes along that frequently. It’s organic, never forced. Lately, I’ve realized that most of my ruminations are just continuations of things I’ve already said, probably more than three or four times. I promise that I am not regurgitating content. It’s the way my brain works.

I think about a problem right up until I don’t. The interesting part (or, at least, it’s interesting to me) is that I tend to start a couple of steps back and rehash, but when I’m thinking about something a second (third, fourth, fifth, 17th……) time, the overall arc is the same and different small details jump out, often changing the course of the dialogue… conversations that happen between me and me. Though Shakespeare was not talking about discourse with oneself, he might as well have been. The play’s the thing… especially in moments where I’ve caught myself red-handed…. infinitely more scary than feeling caught by anyone else. I’m better at kicking my ass than you are. Write it down.

I’ve scared myself for the past couple of weeks because I make it a point to look at my Facebook memories, and along with all of my funny memes is this mountain range of emotions. Note to self: more peaks, less valleys.

WordPress propagates to my author page, which means that I am equally stupid and brave enough to post things to my own profile. If I skipped doing so, old entries wouldn’t appear at all. It isn’t about torturing myself- many, many more readers click through from my profile because I’ve been on Facebook for 10 years. The “Stories” page has only existed since 2015, and as of right this moment, only has about 100 followers. After a decade, I have 745 friends and 38 followers. The platform is exponentially larger. My Facebook profile propagates to @ldlanagan on Twitter, and my author page to @lesliecology. Again, I have more followers on my own Twitter feed than the feed for my web site… the difference is that @lesliecology is nothing but a WordPress feed, and @ldlanagan is everything I post on Facebook, period. My profile is public, and my Facebook statuses are generally longer than Tweets, so anyone can click through to the original post.

So there’s the setup as to why I wanted to separate out my blog entries from my Facebook profile/Twitter feed, and why it hasn’t worked out.

Scaring myself the last couple of weeks has been about entries from four years ago, starting with PTSD as a teenager and it unraveling my thirties into divorce, losing a good friend, and so much compounded mental instability that I needed more help than my friends and family could give. Poet Mary Karr gave me the phrase “checking into the Mental Mariott,” and I’ve used it relentlessly since.

Joking about it covers up deep wounds, and that’s why I write about them instead of speaking. When I am writing, I have a bit of clinical separation. I can look at the land mines without detonation. I cannot say the same is always true for reading. Occasionally, I feel the distance of having grown as a person, so that the entry feels like it was written by someone else. More often, I am remembering every tiny detail about the setting and the arc of the story. Then body memory kicks in, and if my heart and brain were racing in the moment, I feel it again; it doesn’t matter how much time has passed.

It isn’t all bad, though, because I write in equal measure about how good I’m feeling, and those excited butterflies also return…. sometimes, but not often, in the same entry. The other plus is getting to decide if what was true at that time is still true today, and as a rule with some exceptions, it’s not. There are truth bombs that hit me just as hard now as the day I wrote them, but for the most part, this blog has been dynamic, and has changed just as often as I have (which is, like, the point).

Whether I’m reading an up day or a down, it is exhilarating to see that few things stay the same.

I will always have the regular, boring adult problems… and at the same time, my life is bigger than that. Managing Bipolar II, remnants of PTSD (anxiety, mostly) and ADHD so that I am not a ball of negative crazy keeps it interesting. I emphasize “negative crazy” because I don’t know anyone who isn’t crazy in a positive way. I am not attracted on any level to the mundane. Regular people with big dreams are often lumped in with “crazy,” because most people don’t dream big.

Even my dreams have been adjusted. I am still dreaming big, but the focus is not on starting my own church anymore. Perhaps in the distant future, I’ll think about it again. But right now, when I enter into any church building, consecrated or not, “my mother is dead” becomes an ostinato.

From Google Dictionary:

Ostinato

os·ti·na·to
/ästəˈnädō/

noun: ostinato; plural noun: ostinati; plural noun: ostinatos

a continually repeated musical phrase or rhythm.

“The cellos have the tune, above an ostinato bass figure.”

Even the sentence used to illustrate the word is appropriate, because you don’t just hear bass. You feel it.

I have written before that she’s everywhere I look, because over our lives together, I cannot think of an element within church life where she was absent. I cannot think of a single thing that was all mine until I moved to Portland and began preaching at Bridgeport UCC.

I have always been the Mary. She was the Martha.

There was no judgment on her part. I just mean that I have always been the thinker and she has always been the actor…. Actually, I take that back. My mother was one of the few people I’ve met in this life that had extraordinarily creative ideas and the ability to execute them, which is rare.

Few people manage to live on the ground and in the air at the same time (it’s a miracle I can tie my own shoes).

In Luke 10:41-42, Jesus is speaking to Martha, who has complained to him that (I’m paraphrasing) “Mary’s just sitting on her ass while I’m doing all the work. Can’t you go rattle her cage?” And Jesus says, “Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about many things. But one thing is needful, and Mary hath chosen the better part, which shall not be taken away from her.” He actually says this to the woman that invited him and his entire crew into her house and wants to feed everyone. Now, I don’t know whether you’ve ever cooked and served for 16 (fairly certain Lazarus was there- unclear), but I can see Martha’s point and I get a little bit irritated with Jesus. It’s not that one part is better than the other. Thinking is not better than doing. Doing is not better than thinking. They’re just different mindsets, and the evening wouldn’t have been possible without both.

I am certain that Mary and Martha need each other. Martha is grounded, and keeps Mary from floating away. Mary reminds Martha to look at the stars once in a while.

So when I think about the work I did to investigate starting a homeless ministry in Silver Spring, what comes up for me is that my Martha is no longer with us. It rends the mental tapestry I created, and I descend into darkness.

I am still excited by theology of all types- Abrahamic, Eastern, you name it. But right at this very minute, I’d rather spend my time thinking and writing, sometimes posting sermons on this web site rather than waxing philosophic in front of a physical crowd.

What I do not know is whether I will always feel the same, or whether my time is not yet here.

What I do know is that the fight has left me. I am too mired in grief to get passionate enough to affect change. In fact, I wouldn’t say that I’m extraordinarily passionate about anything at all. When my mother died, so did several pieces of me. I know for certain that it would have been easier had I gotten to see my mother live a long life and there was no aspect of “dear God, they took her too soon.” I knew I would be sad when she died, but I was completely caught off guard by the rage at getting robbed.

Embolisms make great thieves who never need getaway cars.

I am still grieving the future that I thought I would get, and piecing together a new normal. It’s a good thing that on this day next year, I’ll read this again, and perhaps that new normal will have some structure. The concrete has been mixed, but I think I added a little too much water, because it just. Won’t. Set.

Unintended Consequences

February 20, 2019February 21, 2019 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 9 Comments

News just broke that Jussie Smollett has been indicted on felony charges for giving a false statement to the police regarding his racist and homophobic attack. The two men that were arrested previously claimed that Smollett paid them to attack him because Smollet had arranged hate letters to be sent to himself that contained “a white substance” and they were not getting enough attention by local and national media.

To a complete outsider and armchair psychiatrist, this looks like some kind of mania, so I’m going to go easy on him. I have a huge amount of sympathy for doing the wrong thing while not being able to see the world for what it really is. But having sympathy is not the same as thinking that he shouldn’t have consequences. Consequences are the only thing that really work in terms of forcing self-reflection.

Just because my actions created emotional issues and his created legal ones don’t have much weight with me. They are two sides of the same disastrous coin…. well, legal trouble creates emotional trauma, so in this case, the coin has landed on its edge and Smollet is looking down.

The main reason I believe this can be chalked up to mental illness is that he didn’t play this out to the end. Being such a public figure only increases the chances that he would get caught, because the case is automatically more high profile.

And past that, there are the consequences for the queer community at large, not that Smollett ever signed up to be any kind of poster boy, but to me, the unintended consequence is possibly less enlightened people regarding the plight of LGBT people will say that things in the United States aren’t that bad. This attack was rigged, so maybe others are, too.

I would argue that violence against gay men and transgender people is worse than it is for lesbians, statistically, because lesbians fly under the radar, due to the fact that most men think we’re cute and harmless, playtoys for their fantasies and not individuals with agency. There’s also the demeaning and insulting trope I run across frequently, that it’s cheating for straight women to sleep with other men, but women? That’s not cheating at all. That’s an opportunity.

I will never forget one of Kathleen’s friends taking us to a bar where the friend’s parents were drinking and the dad asked us to kiss in front of him. First of all, eww. Second of all, that’s your daughter’s friends. I wasn’t angry because he was drunk, but I was eager to leave because I was extremely nauseous.

So, my hope is that people do not write off emotional and physical violence toward our community, because it happens all the time. ALL THE TIME. We don’t need to make up threats, they’re already here. And with a conservative federal senate and even more conservative state congresses, the law isn’t often on our side. Before the indictment came out, I was reticent to believe that a black gay man would get a fair shake from the Chicago Police, anyway.

From what I have seen, the investigation looks fair, but surely you can see where I’m coming from based on past history.

It will be interesting to hear what Smollett has to say when he is ready to give a statement. I am willing to forgive him, but not to let him off the hook. Apologies must come with changed behavior. Otherwise, the apology is null and void. The intended and unintended consequences are going to be a ripple effect for a long time to come.

What happens when the next queer person is attacked? It’s only a matter of time. It could be happening right now. Are they going to be believed? Or will the echo of Smollett’s attack create more scrutiny than before?

I want to know that when I say something happened to me, that I will be given the benefit of the doubt immediately.

And so do all my brothers and sisters.

Shared

February 17, 2019February 17, 2019 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 2 Comments

…there’s a ghost in this house,
When he sings it sounds just like you,
When he falls it brings me down too.

Does it get easier to do?

-Robyn Dell’Unto

When I listen to this song, I can’t decide if the ghost is internal or external. Are the people I’ve loved and lost following me, or is it the feelings I have about them? The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

For instance, if I could go back in time and not move to DC, would I do it?

I have many regrets, and this is one of them, but not because it isn’t wonderful, and I wouldn’t even think about it if my mother hadn’t died so relatively shortly after I did.

Dana made it clear that she did not want to work on our relationship, and I could not live in the same city with her and not obsess over whether I could abide by that decision and how and when to leave her alone.

Moving was a way to give her space to figure out her own shit while I figured out mine, without the need to check in with her every damn minute to take an emotional temperature. I don’t know if it was ever in her plan, but I thought that with time and distance, things would look different, that we might ultimately find our paths back to each other after an enormous amount of therapy on our own, because what we had together was spectacular.

I couldn’t imagine a lifetime of it just being over. I held on to that hope for about six months, and then I began to grieve in earnest. During that time, directly after I moved, we talked a few times, and then never again. And even in our discussions, it was never about how we were really doing, just catching up like ladies who lunch. It wasn’t a bad thing, but it was an adjustment.

I remember thinking, “this is not the Dana that I know… and that’s the point.”

I think the feeling of the rubber meeting the road in six months is relatively quick. At the time it felt interminable, but it wasn’t. Just a small part of the process in taking her from my reality to my past. The ghost that lives in my house, because I don’t lock her away and don’t care that she’s here. In a lot of ways, it’s comforting, because the memories that come up for me are of laughter and not of strife. I choose to block the bad parts and focus on the good.

And does it matter that these are the feelings I have when I’m alone, closed off to being with anyone else, because I just don’t want it? I don’t see it? That I am incredibly happy with having friends and family who love me, and that being the extent of my support system?

I am not over the way I treated her, and though I have made progress, I am not forgiven. It feels like letting myself off the hook too quickly, because I don’t want a repeat of this pattern ever again.

Also, I’ve never lived my life without a ghost that played tapes in my head, and I have work to do where that is concerned, as well. I’ve never had a mind free of wandering off into the past, reliving conversations of happier times and wondering why things went wrong… and two of them weren’t even romantic relationships, unless you count the complete mindfuck that went along with them. Although the second is self-inflicted. It didn’t have to be complicated, and I made it so.

But there’s a new truth in my life that is here to stay. Dana and I shared some incredibly privileged information that I won’t be able to bring up with anyone else, and I mean this on the serious. No one can ever know, and not because it’s dirty or bad or wrong, it just is. So part of my willingness to work on our relationship, no matter how bad things got, was the reminder that if I lost her safe space, there was no replacement, and never would be.

In that one way, our lives are connected as permanently as our matching tattoos. When I left, I made a point of calling them our honing beacons, but I wouldn’t use it now. It’s just another thing that is.

We were smart enough to be aware of the fact that we could break up when we got them, so we choose something that was meaningful to both of us severally and jointly. It’s not like I have a huge back piece that says “I love Dana.”

But in my worst moments, sometimes it feels that way.

I’m also not stupid enough to believe that her friends won’t read this, so let me assure them that I have no intention of moving backwards, of reaching out, of doing anything to endanger the peaceful silence we have achieved. My stuff to work out is owned, and I have no need for closure.

It’s been too long, it hurts too much to envision those conversations, and the ponderings of my heart are not to be shared… and by that, I mean that I don’t care if she reads my blog. Maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t. I’ll never know or care. What I mean is that it’s not her job to care about what I think or even affect her life in any way. My thoughts, again, aren’t meant to be shared.

They’re just brain droppings, and maybe not even healthy ones. They just are. It’s not my job to judge their merit, just to let them come and go, talking about them with myself and probably my therapist.

I’m not stupid enough to think that any of my ghosts aren’t secretly reading, and I can’t care about that, either, because then this space ceases to be my own and starts to be a reflection of what I think their opinions might be.

My thoughts aren’t meant to be shared, leading to common ground.

It’s my weight to carry, and they don’t deserve (in good ways or bad) to take off a few pounds.

I am a product of my own inner landscape, sharing common ground with strangers who have had similar experiences… perhaps learning about the ghosts that walk in their houses. Reaching out, but not to anyone in particular.

I remember explaining this phenomenon to Argo, when she wasn’t a ghost, but very, very present, talking about someone else. That when I found out a piece of my past was lurking, she thought I was writing to it on purpose. I told her that quite frankly, when I found out the blood drained from my face and I nearly threw up. She got it, and we didn’t have to discuss it again. Once was enough, and I love her for that. She believed me the first time, and I didn’t have to convince her. It just was. She let it be, and it was the right thing to do. I don’t think I would have been willing to continue our unusual kinship if it had become a thing.

I could easily have let Argo become a ghost, listening to our made up whispers in my dreams instead of grabbing onto reality. The truth is that she is very present in my life. But those conversations happen in daylight, steeped in what is really right in front of me and not pipe dreams.

Probably because we didn’t have as many connections as Dana and me. I never shook her hand, thought her hugs would be memorable but never experienced it firsthand. A virtual x had to do. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if virtual became real, but only from the standpoint that it would have changed operatic swells of emotion into daily normality, letting minutiae temper the page. On paper, it’s easy to run off into flights of fancy. When someone is right in front of you, it isn’t. Reading when I was making her eyes glaze over or her temper flare was different than seeing it. It would have changed my direction and my distraction.

But what I know for sure is that I achieved my own peace with it not happening, it not being likely to happen, and just smiling like an idiot that I got to meet a piece of her at all. That for a short time, we walked in each other’s inner landscapes and it adding galaxies to me that I didn’t know I needed.

Still need, but okay with it being a long time ago and far, far away.

If I could go back and change anything, I would. In a hot second. But that’s not how life works. I got on the “think it, say it” plan without realizing its consequences, which were devastating in their scope. Knowing it was all at my own hand is the worst part, and something that 25 years from now, I will still look upon with regret and shame. Not being in my right mind doesn’t erase or excuse any of it.

But because I’ve seen her picture, her face does cross my mind, choosing to ignore the raw parts and focusing on the joy she brings me now. Memories are powerful, as is happiness surrounding them.

The one that makes me laugh all the goddamn time is, “you like to rap to Eminem? Explain to me exactly how I’m not going to fall in love with you. USE BIG WORDS.” Because of course, I was kidding, but she took it seriously and said, “you might fall in love with honesty coming through our chord, but you won’t fall in love with me, as adorable as I might be.” And that makes me laugh just as much, because it is so undeniably true (both that she was right about misreading falling in love with honesty and falling in love with her as a person, AND that she is, in fact, adorable- she’s so much funnier than me, and the degree is annoying. As an aside, there was one joke between us in which I came in kings full over aces, and though I don’t remember which one it was, I do remember feeling like I’d checkmated the king using just a pawn and a knight, when every day previously had felt like grasshopper would never reach satori).

To paraphrase Maya Angelou, people may forget your words, but they will never forget the way they felt. I’m paraphrasing because I don’t like the actual quote, which is that “people will never forget the way you made them feel.” No one can make you feel anything. Your response is your response, and not anyone else’s to own. What is yours to own is either the laughter or the fallout.

I feel like that is what I do on this blog to a tremendous degree. I deal with my own responses, and their consequences. I can’t take responsibility for anyone else’s. What I can do is learn from the fallout, and try to make new mistakes. To think that everything will one day go perfectly is its own delusion.

What I do reflect on is interconnectedness, how my every response creates consequence, and how I live with it.

Because my thoughts aren’t meant to be shared.

She’s Just Not That Into You

February 3, 2019February 3, 2019 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

This is not a story about dating. This is a story about a blank page, and how she stares at me like a wanton goddess some days, and a “bitch, please” expression on others. It generally has to do with my depression cycle, because on the downside I lose the motivation to do most things, even when it’s something to which I’m dedicated.

Tony Mendez, co-author of Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History, died recently after a years-long battle with Parkinson’s. As soon as I heard the news, I crumpled into myself.

Of course it wrecked me because I dreamed of meeting him from the moment I read the book and saw the movie. Washington is, for the most part, a small town. It might have been possible had I gotten here when he was still doing public appearances. Just another instance in which I felt late. But the longer I cried, the more I realized that it wasn’t just about him. It was losing yet another person in my life permanently. We’d never met, I’d never shaken his hand, and yet in some small way I felt I knew him. I wish I’d gotten to tell him how much his words have meant to me over the years, how I cried big alligator tears when I didn’t get to the Spy Museum gift shop in time to get an autographed copy, and how my dad threw a hail Mary pass to get me one somewhere else.

As an aside, above left is his official portrait, which hangs in the CIA Art Gallery. The artist was the first female (and first Agency officer) displayed there.

I spent that first night mourning him by reading “Argo” again, taking time to stare at his autograph… making up the part where I’d gotten it at a signing in person. I don’t know whether he has a star on the wall at Langley or not- you’d think after all the CIA TV shows I’ve binge-watched since Alias, I would know whether you get one no matter how you die, or if you only get one if you are KIA. I hope it is the former, but I’ll probably never know for sure. Once, just for laughs, I looked up directions to Langley on Google Maps. Every road within at least five miles is marked “restricted access.” I’m going to go out on a limb here and say I am not their target demographic.

I wish I had gotten to tell him how much my step sister, Susan, adored him as well…. perhaps even more than me. Susan is also dead now, but when she was alive we had great conversations about how he was an inspiration to the Hispanic community (Susan was half Mexican and the chair of Mexican Studies at University of Texas, San Antonio)… and her rant and a half about how they cast BEN AFFLECK to play him, when in reality he looked way more like Cheech Marin. It would have been way better to have shared the grief, but she’s been gone a long time now…. just about the time Tony made the public announcement that he had Parkinson’s, actually.

And, of course, I have a different reaction to any kind of grief now that I’ve lost my mother. It seems to have affected me on a cellular level. My neurons fire differently now, and it has changed me in ways that I didn’t know were coming- some good, some bad. For instance, she retired from teaching in May and she was dead by October. 65 is by all accounts just too young, and at 41, I’ve become one of those people who grieve the loss of someone’s shortened life by truly taking it in and trying to make more count, because I know how quickly it could be taken away.

I signed up with a modeling agency, not because I think I’m graceful and gorgeous, but because they cast extras and Homeland is filmed here. It’s my goal to stand in the background somewhere, and it’s the last season, so I have to do it now. There are also a ton of TV shows and films about Washington, so it might not be a one-time gig. We’ll see.

I signed up to audition for Washington National Opera, and even though I got sick and had to cancel, I realized I wasn’t getting any younger and if I was going to do it, I have to do it now. Next January can’t come fast enough, and I’ll be taking vitamins and avoiding public places for all of December.

I said yes to traveling to Paris, even though it was out of my comfort zone. I had a wonderful time, but in general I do not like crowds, and the Yellow Vests made me equally uncomfortable because some of the protests had gotten violent, even while we were there. We were asked to stay inside the Musee d’Orsay until the commotion ended. If I was going to get locked in somewhere, it wasn’t a bad place to be, but still……..

20190105_100801 Overall, I had a wonderful time, and it never would have happened without me being able to say, “when will I ever get this opportunity again?”

My souvenir was a warm woolen scarf, and when I put it on, it still smells like France. My mind immediately wanders to my favorite part of the trip, wandering around an old cemetery filled with famous writers, artists, musicians, composers, and rich people, because I learned that now to get a plot there, it’s over 10,000 euros. If I had it, I think I might pay it. It’s different than any cemetery I’ve visited. The grave sites are organized into what feels like “neighborhoods,” literally a city of the dead that must be glorious in the early fall. The weather in January was practically mood music. Walking the cobblestone streets was comforting, almost ethereal.

It often lessens my grief to walk around in cemeteries, because in those moments, I am not the only person who has lost someone and there is evidence of it all around me. I am not alone, even when I feel like it.

I am not the first person to lose a hero, a friend, a mother…. and I constantly remind myself because it’s so easy to forget.

Especially when I don’t write it down, on the blank page that always stares back.

Disappointment in Three Acts

January 19, 2019January 19, 2019 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Act I

I just had to make a really difficult call. I left a message with the Washington National Opera chorus to ask them if they still wanted to hear me even though I have the worst cold on record and am losing my voice at a rapid rate. I mean, I can sing, but I’d be auditioning as a baritone. I know they want photos and measurements as well, but my hope is that they do these auditions more than once a year, or if they just want to hear the quality of my voice and it doesn’t matter what range.

Act II

I talked to DC Opera, and they do only hold auditions once a year. So I’m drinking a hot toddy and will see if I can warm up again later tonight and in the morning. I know I’ve got my arias wired. It’s frustrating that I’ve worked so hard and my body is betraying me. I’m also angry at the world because I didn’t practice wrong so that I’m just fatigued. This is a virus that I picked up from somewhere, or an allergy in my home. It didn’t start in my throat- it’s deep in my chest and working upward.

Act III

I woke up this morning hoping that the laryngitis would go away as the day wore on- it’s always worse when I first wake up. Unfortunately, I am still so far under the weather that I don’t even want to move, much less sing. It would have been much more convenient to wait until tomorrow to see what happens overnight, but I couldn’t afford it without being truly selfish. Demand is high for these auditions, and I did not want my first impression at WNO to be that I just didn’t show, not allowing someone else to fill my spot. I also didn’t want my first impression with them to be a fraction of what I am truly capable. I’ve come such a long way since I truly dedicated myself to singing that turning in a high-school level performance while stopping to cough in the middle was just unacceptable to me. It’s hard to have to wait until next January for a second chance, but since I put on my reason for canceling that I was sick, there’s no telling what will happen between now and then. Singers get scheduling conflicts all the time. Fingers crossed that I can audition again later as an understudy without having to wait a year. I don’t feel good about woodshedding two arias over this month only to get sick at the last minute. Before I made this decision, I talked to someone who’d been my voice coach in college, and he stressed to me how important first impressions are. My gut says this would not be a good one, and to let it go, as angry as I am.

I have sung with laryngitis before, and the recording turned out better than I could have hoped…. but it was church good, not professional career good. The mistakes I made from not having as much control over my voice as I needed in the moment were noticeable to me, but probably not the congregation at large. They would have been spotted by a judge in a nanosecond.

I took this audition seriously. I bought two copies of 24 Italian Songs and Arias so that I would have a book for me and one for my accompanist because it was cheaper than buying a new printer. I spent hours with a metronome getting timing perfect. I did breathing exercises twice a day, sometimes three. This involved taking a heavy book or two and setting them over my diaphragm, making sure I could lift them as air filled me up from all the way down. I marked every day, and practiced full voice when I was sure no one was home.

It was an arduous process, only interrupted by my trip to Paris, where I didn’t sing at all. It was a short enough break to give me some rest, and then I was back at it. I truly thought I had an outstanding audition put together last week, and then my dream of singing for RBG this year flushed itself down the toilet.

And for that, I am angry. All that work. All that emotion and brain-bending math as I figured out subdivisions for art songs I didn’t know (I’m terrible at sight reading, and they said it might be required). But What I Know for Sure from this experience is that I am capable of getting in. I know it. When I was healthy, I sounded great. I could reach the cheap seats in the KenCen (of all the issues I’ve had to overcome with singing, volume has never been one of them).

It’s not over. They will see me again. It’s just a Langston Hughes dream deferred, not a raisin in the sun. I’ll only be 42 when the next audition comes around, which means that my voice will still be full enough to sing opera and I won’t be old enough for that vibrato you can drive a MAC truck through. My trusted friends will tell me when I get it and to please sit down.

I also have the added plus of being able to spend more time on different arias, and choose from a wide variety instead of using the one book full of art songs and arias I was familiar enough with to pull off in one month’s time. I have time to learn Russian, Czech, even French diction (Francais c’nest pas comfortable pour moi). I will truly have time to dig through the annals of soprano arias and find something that isn’t often heard in auditions, because the book I’m familiar with? Well, so is everyone else. It’s hard to be memorable when you’re singing two arias that have already been sung to death.

To borrow a phrase from my trumpet days, I know I’ve already got the chops. I have joined many community choirs in which I’ve become a soloist, and the one time I’ve been offered a college opera role (I didn’t attend the college, I was in the community chorus as an employee), I turned it down because I’d never done opera before and I thought it was unwise not to start in the chorus and see if I liked it. This was ten years ago, so I remember it was some sort of Gilbert & Sullivan… either HMS Pinafore or Pirates of Penzance, but I’ve slept since then. Ten years ago, I was not confident enough to be in an opera because I was thinking about filling big shoes and not concentrating on the fact that my own are pretty bad ass.

I try not to feel stupid about it. The opera ended up traveling and I could have gotten my name out there. But again, it was lack of confidence. I didn’t find it until I moved to Houston about seven years ago, and walked into a church in my neighborhood and saw a familiar face. Joseph Painter helped me with the parts of my voice that needed to change, but it was more than that. He gave me more soprano attitude than I’ve ever had in my life… not diva status or anything like it. Just the ability to look at a piece of music and never, ever be intimidated. He heard the top of my range and said, “with some work, I think you could add a few notes on top of that.” Then, I was already at a C sharp, and I thought I was tapped out.

Unfortunately, I didn’t stay with him long enough to find out if he was right, but in some ways, I should have. Time doesn’t move backwards, ever, but if I’m really lucky, I’ll find the right teacher here. I know for a fact that I wouldn’t want to go back to Epiphany, and not because I don’t like it anymore. It’s just not my place, and neither is Houston, for that matter… even though Houston Grand Opera is in the top five opera programs in the nation, and probably in the top 10 of the world.

Washington National Opera Company (@dcopera on Twitter) has been improving by leaps and bounds, though, because they realized what it took to be world class and are implementing those changes. They even hired someone who used to be at HGO.

The bottom line is that I’m positive that when I am feeling well and healthy, I can crush any audition I want. I have too much training and I’ve been singing too long not to feel this way. And if there’s a bottom line below that, it is having no confidence in my abilities assures me I won’t progress at all. Not wanting to put myself out there already caused me to run away once. I will never make that mistake again.

As long as my body cooperates.

The Rabbit and the Puppet

January 17, 2019January 17, 2019 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Today is one of those days where I really have no idea what to say. I am trying to drag words out of my mind and onto the page as if I have to wade through syrup. Paris is too close for perspective. Everything else is too far away. I can only hope that I am tapping the maple tree and the drops will lead to flow. At the very least, I am capable of using a metaphor.

Perhaps the next device should be synecdoche, starting with the smallest possible element.

Cheerios… one word for the fullness of motherhood.

The thing I lack from above and below. The “below” is of little consequence. The “above” has become the finality of losing a single puzzle piece behind drywall. It’s still in the house, but I’ll never find it. It is a desperate, histrionic and lifelong search. Even if I find a different manufacturer that manages to find something that fits, my spirit will always spot the fake, even if I step far enough away to look at the Impressionist painting promised on the box.

I am fortunate that the ultimate axiom in life is pain becoming beauty through reminiscence and introspection. There are moments I wonder (as I wander), can cat burglars steal love? Even if it was possible, I’d have to hire it done. Would I get relief from a middle man? Would I accept what was placed in my hands, or would I write it off as ersatz? Could I hug until the fur fell off? Could I wait until a fairy appeared to make it real? Just how long would my nose grow in the indeterminate meantime?

The interim is filled with REM induced dreams of a fictional character with his arms around me, stroking my hair and saying “fixed point in time. I’m so sorry.” My days are filled with Suzanne Vega running through my head like a mantra:

If your love were taken from me,
Every color would be black and white.
It would be as flat as the world before Columbus,
That’s the day that I lose half my sight.

If your life were taken from me,
All the trees would freeze in this cold ground.
It would be as cruel as the world before Columbus,
Sail to the edge and I’d be there looking down.

The truest comfort I think and feel is that she didn’t die feeling her exclusion from my inner landscape, which started when I was 12 and carried long into my 20s. It was never that I didn’t want her there. I was led by hopelessness, my emotions rather than logic. I wrote her off too quickly, attributing genuine concern regarding emotional abuse as homophobia… but to be honest, there was some of that as well. She cornered me, literally backing me into my closet, angrily whispering that I would not make my father lose his job. The message in the madness was, ironically, “straighten up and fly right.”

I was physically present, but my mind ran away, genuinely and severely frightened.

In my head, the relationship was toxic… and I ran straight into the snare of another one, yanking me upside down and backwards.

The disturbing downward spiral ended for good on my 36th birthday, the moment I began staring into the sky… salty, bitter tears and sunshine leading me into the resulting rainbow’s promise of gold.

I didn’t find it quickly or easily.

Another fixed point in time accelerated the process, but before that seminal moment, I was dragged… kicking and screaming with disbelief… willful ignorance… shame that held the trap in place for far longer than I thought was even possible.

Shame that I didn’t see light when it was right in front of me.

Relief from finally talking to others that I wasn’t unique or special in that regard… and still, it would only be mostly dead, that I would feel triggers for the rest of my life, some that were just noticeable and some that would wrestle me underground. I would still have to claw my fingernails into the dirt and find a foothold to propel me upward so that when I looked up, I would no longer see roots and mud.

In those moments, I have sometimes completed the process quickly, and at others, been too exhausted to try. This is because triggers happen in nanoseconds, and recoveries are variable. By the end of her life, my mother could reach my six feet under. I wish I could do the same.

Succor is by the grace I have met people with the same scars on their own skin, rubbing velvet ears bare.

Dame Blanche

January 8, 2019 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

This story starts at a restaurant near the Sacré Cœur, but it won’t end there. There’s more to tell before and after. I am choosing to begin with dessert. 49759214_10156642200665272_7175104310940794880_o Literally.

For all my Outlander fans, in Paris (or maybe all of France, I don’t know) a “Dame Blanche” is a vanilla ice cream dessert with hot fudge and lots of Chantilly cream. Not only is it rich and heavy, there’s a lot of it. The portion size is enormous. There is a chocolate version called Liégeois Chocolat, which is equally delicious but not necessary to my French Outlander experience. These are both presented in the same line on the menu (no space or slash), so I think it’s all one dessert, and the waiter is confused. I keep pointing, and the look on his face as he walks away clearly says “I hope she has a hollow leg,” but that is only in retrospect.

What arrives is two overflowing parfait glasses, and I proceed to take them down like I have never eaten before and am new to the concept. I think my dad might have taken a bite or two, and that’s being generous.

To be fair, I had walked with my dad for over four miles that day, so by the time we got to dinner I was famished… even after having what seemed like an entire braised and shredded duck with mashed purple potatoes (akin to Shepard’s pie) for lunch… and that was just the main course. The entrée was a cream seafood soup and bread. Dinner was a veggie burger and fries. Given the way I usually eat, this was way past “I had too much to eat” and solidly into the perfection of gluttony.

Not being hungry has never stopped me from eating ice cream before, and I have my doubts it ever will again. French vanilla tasted roughly the same as it does in the United States, but chocolate ice cream is beyond comparison… less sweet and much darker, closer to a 60-65% cacao.

Incidentally, the rich desserts sort of made up for the lack of good coffee. Perhaps I was just ordering it wrong, but I thought it was terrible. The one thing I didn’t try that they had at the Charles de Gaulle airport Starbucks was a chocolate cereal milk latte. The rest of the time, I went to independent cafes or had instant Nescafe in my hotel room, which was arguably better than purchasing coffee elsewhere. Go to France for the food, clearly.

Earlier that day, I got my Doctor Who fix. One of the most famous episodes of the show takes place in part at the Musée d’Orsay Van Gogh exhibit, and to see it in person was astounding. musee_dorsay Every Van Gogh you’ve seen in print is there. I saw the real Starry Night. I saw The Church at Auvers. I was mere inches away from haystacks and sunflowers. If I’d had four or five weeks in Paris, at least one would be dedicated to that room alone. I am not a visual artist by any definition. I would have just stared. I would have let his crazy mix with my crazy and see what writing came out of “us.”

Since I was short on time, I fairly quickly wandered around to the other Impressionists, spending a good five minutes looking at one light green stroke of paint on a Monet up close, then backing away until it looked like a leaf. I marveled at Gougin’s use of color and how it seemed he was the only person who painted people of color in that era. I loved his use of bright, engaging colors with cartoon-like black outlines so that everything stood out, like words with every syllable accented. Gougin’s art didn’t so much speak to me as it yelled in my direction, screamed and dared at me to look. Simplicity was complex. These were island people with spartan houses and blank expressions, so the question for me was, “are they happy?” Perhaps they didn’t so much like being painted, but it was more than that. I wondered if they felt impoverished or empowered.

The next truly overwhelming installation I saw was Monet’s Water Lilies, in permanent residence at the Musée de l’Orangerie. It covers several rooms and defies speech. Yet another work in which you constantly get very close, then very far away, then very close, just to see how the magic is put together. Monet was in his eighties when the collection was painted, and then stitched together to be hung. If you look very, very closely, you can see the stitches, but like everything else in an Impressionist’s work, blends “seamlessly.” When people talk about Water Lilies, they generally only mean the light blues and purples, but the actual cycle is so much more. The way they are hung now is, in essence, virtual reality. You don’t so much look at the paintings as step into them…. Claude Monet in “Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound.”

I am finding that talking about Paris is more suited to several entries and not one gigantic read, so you’ll see more as the days progress. My Facebook friends have seen all my pictures because I couldn’t snap a photo without posting it five seconds later. Sorry I’ve kind of left you out in the cold, Fanagans. I was too full to move, much less write.

And not nearly caffeinated enough. What is sold in the United States as “French Roast” is just a terrible, terrible lie they tell little kids at bedtime.

So Much Trying

December 30, 2018December 30, 2018 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

It’s already 30 December at 1045, and I have so much to do before I leave for Paris on 3 January. I think the first step is finding clothes that I would never wear so that I can wash all the ones I would. It’s a bigger deal than it seems with so many housemates. I can’t just get everything together and put it in the wash. I have to find a slot. Surely there’s at least one between now and then. The trouble is that I doubt I can fit all my clothes into one cycle. I would rather drop my shirts at the dry cleaner, but with the holidays, I can’t be sure they would actually get done in time. So, the obvious answer is ironing with heavy starch and hoping that my suitcase doesn’t ruin the effect. Most American hotels have irons in the room. Not sure about Europe. Here’s hoping.

With the infinite care the baggage handlers take with our suitcases (insert eyeroll here- I have worked at PDX), I believe I will just take a couple of outfits in one carry-on. The rest of my laundry can go in my closet, provided I can reach it.

The problem with my stunning combination of mental health issues leads me to two conclusions. The first is that my severely less than neurotypical brain gets bursts of brilliance but does not handle the mundane or the minutiae very well. The second is that ADHD people work in piles (I am not hyperactive, but the DSM does not differentiate anymore). I can find anything within a few minutes, but no one else can… unless I put down my wallet, glasses, or phone. I think it is the difference between short-term memory and long. I can find things a lot easier that have been there for a month rather than a few seconds, made horribly worse by monocular vision. If you are not familiar, monocular vision means that my eyes don’t track together, so I have two distinct fields of vision. I can put something down on my dresser or desk, and if my field of vision changes, what I just put down disappears. I have literally lost my glasses when they were right in front of me. However, I have never lost my phone while I was using it…. so I got that goin’ for me.

Because of this, I put my passport with all my other important papers, and have not moved it since. I know for sure that if I did, I would be racing around on the morning of the 3^rd, panicked to the point of tears and snot rolling down my face. I have at least learned that much, which is kind of a big deal.

What is also a big deal is knowing that I have readers in France, and though I will not meet them, I will see one of the places from which they read. My stats don’t get as granular as city, but I have had hits from almost every country in the world. I think there are 208, and I have stats from 205.

Once, and only once, my friends said “prove it.”

I got out my phone, opened the WordPress app, and they started quizzing me:

“Micronesia.”
“Check.”
“Lichtenstein.”
“Check.”
“UAE.”
“Check.”
“Nepal.”
“Check.”
“Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Russia.”
“Check, check, check, and check.”

Then they got bored.

Checkmate.

The majority of my readers are in the United States, but I tend to use as much international English as I can, because the next two countries catching up are the UK and Australia. I spell like an American, but tend to use international time and date formats.

I try not to think about spam bots, because certainly there are some from Russia and China. But I have too many hits from those countries by now to think that all of them are. In fact, some of those international hits may come from friends who don’t use a VPN. I have one, but the only thing I would use it for in France is Netflix. You can only stream in the country with your credit card.

This is relatively new. I used to VPN into the UK and Australian versions of Netflix until they caught up with the game. This is because different TV shows and movies are licensed in different areas of the world.

What has changed is that Netflix has realized how much Americans enjoy UK and Australian television, and a lot more shows are available in the United States than were previously. For those not in the know, Doctor Who has moved to Amazon Prime.

Speaking of Amazon Prime, I just got a watch that syncs with my Android phone for $20.00 (it will also connect to an iPhone, but not all the features work). I also had some AMZ credit that brought the price down a little. It has slots for both a micro SD card and a SIM, which means that I can store music and photos, as well as make calls without attaching it to my phone via Bluetooth. I find that bit unnecessary, though, because my phone will stream media through Bluetooth as well. I just need to get some Bluetooth headphones, because otherwise, the media and calls play through a tiny little speaker on my wrist, which is fine when I’m sitting in my bedroom. Not so great when I’m on the go.

I do want a micro SD card, though, because the tiny little camera makes me feel like a spy… and I promise, that is the closest to espionage I will ever get. It’s not like I’m going to run across foreign state secrets, but at least I look the part.

Speaking of which, a few years ago my dad and I went to see Jason Bourne, and a day later we were in a tourist trap gift shop near the White House. I found the coolest CIA baseball cap that has the big logo on the front and the tiny symbol on the back, which means it looks awesome no matter which way I wear it.

I have nearly fallen on the floor laughing several times when people look at me wide-eyed and ask if I work there. I always say that if I did, I certainly wouldn’t be ADVERTISING IT ALL OVER TOWN (huge eyeroll). Sometimes the stupid, it burns.

A couple of times, people waiting for the Metro have gone out of their way to avoid me, which I find equally hilarious. As an introvert, I don’t want to talk to strangers anyway. It’s as efficient as wearing a T-shirt that says “Jesus Loves You” and carrying a Bible.

I suppose that my baseball cap means more to me now than it ever has, because I feel like it says “I support the men and women of intel over our dumpster fire of a president.” Gina Haspel practically has to make a coloring book for him, and he still doesn’t get it.

Same goes for State, although I can’t find a cool baseball cap for that…. not for lack of trying.

And on that note, now I need to try doing my laundry. Wish me luck or send help. Either is fine with me.

Still Got It

December 28, 2018December 28, 2018 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

My new copy of 24 Italian Songs and Arias arrived today, and I spent a few minutes marking through it. I didn’t want to go full voice in the living room. The dogs were barking as is……… I’ve done one arietta from it before, Già il sole dal Gange, in high school UIL competition. I checked diction with a Cecilia Bartolli Youtube recording, and it was comforting. I feel I’ve got two things going for me now. My Italian diction is not as bad as I thought it was, and I have a much lighter voice than Bartoli, because even though she is one of the greats, there are a few moments in her recordings where her heaviness makes her vibrato under the pitch. Absolutely no disrespect toward her- not throwing shade. She still sounds fantastic.

I count on Bartoli’s videos to watch her obsessively, but not for the reason you might think. Yes, she’s talented, but she started her career as a trumpet player and had to overcome habits that worked great for brass and not so much for voice. I have walked that path for a very long time, and watching her gives me excellent tips on what I need to change physically to make singing easier…. and therefore, a lot more fun. It is so amazing to have a living, breathing, singing example of my own history.

I started with something I’ve sung before because I didn’t have my phone on me, where I have a very advanced metronome app. Even though I can read notes, I am not sure I’ve ever really learned to read rests. I’ll just come in when the Spirit moves me.

I thank God that I was in band as well, because it gave me a great advantage over other choral singers who could only do solfege. Solfege makes me irrationally angry, because even though it’s been around since the 11th century, I have problems with thinking that it’s legitimately reading music. I refuse to learn a piece through a series of weird hand motions that I do not understand because I’ve never really bothered with it.

My choir director in high school was not amused when we’d do solfege exercises in choir and she noticed that I was only either doing the peace or vulcan signs and turning my hand back and forth, evidence of my snooty and teenage attitudes. By the way, I’m still snooty about it.

Don’t even get me started on The Suzuki Method. According to Wikipedia, “the Suzuki method does not include a formal plan or prescribe specific materials for introducing music theory & reading, in part because Suzuki created the method in a culture where music literacy was routinely taught in schools.” So, you have these kids who’ve been playing for years and years by the time they arrive at school, brilliantly until you put sheet music in front of them. It’s a steep learning curve that to me, seems unnecessary.

Don’t @ me, Bro.

This is not to say that I don’t know successful musicians who use solfege and started out with Suzuki. I definitely do. My concertmaster at HSPVA started with Suzuki and is now the concertmaster for the Metropolitan opera. But that is not the case for a lot of students, some of whom get discouraged and drop out of vocal/instrumental music altogether. That’s because Suzuki often begins when the child is a toddler, and transitioning from playing by ear to learning to read music is difficult at best for those who don’t have a natural talent for it. Generally, elementary schools don’t have orchestras, so they’re playing by ear from ages 3-11. I think this makes it even harder to switch gears.

The last thing future generations of classical musicians need is the urge to give up. There will always be a small percentage of children that love it, but love of great instrumentation and soaring lines should be widely accessible. I feel disappointed when I think of all the kids who thought they just didn’t have the talent to be in choir, orchestra, band…. or perhaps a combination. Through HSPVA, I was in Honors Band, Jazz Band, and Symphony Orchestra.

When I switched to Clements High School, I was in Marching Band, Concert Band, and Varsity Choir.

It was such a wide and varied musical education, but it didn’t start there. My parents and my paternal grandfather were “instrumental” in instilling the love of music before I could walk. The first time I sang a solo in church, I was three. Apparently, I got stage fright and wouldn’t sing with the rest of the choir, and surprised the hell out of my mother when they left the stage and I was still there, picking up a microphone and belting out a jazz/gospel song called I am a Promise. The recording to which I’ve linked is an approximation of how the first few measures sounded…. and that was the only part I knew. I am sure it made the congregation howl, but my mother was entirely supportive. I have only heard this story a thousand times, I don’t remember it myself. But she said that she was so proud of me because it was pitch perfect.

The hardest part about singing is doing enough breath exercises and vocal warm-ups so that the longest notes are supported. I will mark without warming up, but going full voice takes me nearly an hour. I can’t be too careful.

But I’ve still got it. Three snaps in a Z formation. #selffive