It’s been a busy day, which is why you’re just now getting this……..

Walking around Dupont Circle was a trip down memory lane. The HRC store is gone, as is the lesbian book store, Lambda Rising. However, Larry’s Ice Cream is still going strong… and I got some after we had dinner at Bareburger. Yes, that’s really the name. The company was started in New York, which makes it even funnier that they put a restaurant called “Bareburger” with a menu with bears all over it in the middle of a gay neighborhood. It was absolutely delicious. Danni had The Original, because she said there were too many choices. I got the Southern Caviar burger, because it was bison with country bacon, stout onions, horseradish remoulade, and pimento cheese. Then we split sweet potato fries and kimchi slaw, which was just hot enough to make my sinuses relax. I am going to have to go back several times, because everything on the menu looks incredible. They even have a pickle fried chicken sandwich, which I imagine is like a Chik-Fil-A, but tastes better because it’s not made of breading and hatred My thoughts and prayers are with them…. the gay equivalent to “bless your heart,” the Texan equivalent of stuffing the “fuck you” way back down into your socks.

There’s a bar up the street from Bareburger/Larry’s that let you bring your own food in, so I took my ice cream (Decadence [a mixture of chocolate truffles] and Creme de Menthe with chocolate chips… Painters in… Not fucking around) and Danni ordered us rum and Diet Coke, which we drank while playing two games of Guess Who? and two games of Connect Four. We decided that next time we needed a group, because they also have Cards Against Humanity. Not sure I’m ready to show new friends how awful I am, but I guess I have to lay my cards on the table sometime, right? The best round I’ve ever won was “How did I lose my virginity?”

African children.

Hey, it was the best card I had in my hand…. and that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

Not that I’m competitive or anything. No, seriously. I’m not. Unless we’re playing Trivial Pursuit. Then it’s ON LIKE DONKEY KONG. I am a fount of useless knowledge.

Autumn didn’t come with us this time, and it was good to get some hang time with Dan all my own. We decided that Bareburger is “our place,” because we discovered it together. She said she’d ask me before she brought anyone else there, and I said I couldn’t wait to get THAT text message. 🙂 And, she’s a woman after my own heart. The exact quote is, “I can always do burgers.” Yassss, qween. I’m down.

Next Saturday, I’m going with Dan, Autumn, and their group of friends to see Ghostbusters.

The Professor and I are still undecided as to what we’re going to do over the weekend, because we’ve found that the possibilities are endless, from touring Civil War battlefields to National Cathedral to the Portrait Museum. I’ve been to the portrait museum twice already since I’ve been here, because I just can’t get over the original Matthew Brady photos, and I will be one of the first in line when Obama’s portrait is added to the Presidents’ wing. I saw the portrait of the female justices, and it was okay. I didn’t not like it.

So, in short, we may do anything from going for coffee to road-tripping into southern Virginia… St. Bob’s country… shudder. I used to have friends that lived out in Manassas, but I’ve never seen the actual battle field, which I remember from U.S. History with Mrs. New in eighth grade because she said that people gathered with picnic baskets to watch, not realizing that there would soon be brains in their potato salad (Betcha didn’t think I’d remember that one, eh? [She reads my blog.]). I remember great lines, and that was one of them. She’s lucky I attributed it to her- good writers paraphrase. Great writers steal outright…. 😛

In other news, I saw from George Takei’s Facebook page that as an homage to him, they’re making Sulu gay in the next Abrams Star Trek movie. Gay people just look like people, so I doubt that it will change John Cho’s interpretation that much. However, I may have to fall asleep to “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle” tonight. It’s only one of my favorite movies in the entire world.

And in my dreams, I’ll spend the night talking to Bryn. Boy, do we have a lot to say. That time difference, tho… But in the dream, I’ll have eight or nine hours to metaphorically drink coffee with her, so maybe the time difference is just in my head. Why can’t scientists create a way to visit alternate universes yet? You know, the one in which I live in DC and it’s right next to Portland?

One can dream. 🙂

Tonight I’m meeting up with Dan at the Dupont Metro station, and then we’re going to go and find something to do. I’m not sure what, but I’m thinking it will involve food. I’m, to quote George Carlin, “having the painters in,” and therefore my stomach is just a bottomless pit of need. Yesterday I had cookies and mini chocolate bars for lunch, because I’m an adult. No, wait. I had Newtons. A Newton is not a cookie. A Newton is fruit and cake.

I am one of those people marketers love.

For instance, I had to have an 1893 just because. It’s ok, but it doesn’t even begin to touch Fentiman’s Curiosity Cola, but to be fair, I have not tried the ginger version of 1893, either. I am not really a regular soda person, but I try new ones, especially on those days when I don’t care about calories… like today. Most of the time, I don’t eat much. On days that I am busy and then exhausted, I don’t eat at all. I just go straight to bed. It’s not the healthiest thing in the world, but by the same token, I eat whatever the hell I want, when I want, because I look at what I eat over a week instead of every day.

It’s nice not to be one of those women who obsesses over every calorie, and I’ve been that person. At one time in my life, I weighed 170, and I looked like a little teapot. I do not recommend the way I lost weight. I went on ADD medication and it suppressed my appetite so badly that I would cry in the grocery store because I couldn’t find anything that looked good. I wasn’t crying so much over emotion, just that everything in every direction made me feel a little nauseous. Then, I kept it off by losing the ADD meds and being anxious and depressed. It’s been a wonderful diet plan. #eyeroll

Samantha told me that she once said to Hayat, “does she ever eat?” It’s because I don’t sit down to meals. Neither one of them sees me grazing like a bird all day. Animal crackers are a serious part of my plan to stay alive… even though by the end of the bag, you’re mostly eating feet.

I’m sure all of this is wonderfully uplifting. I was once retweeted by Margaret Cho. Aren’t I important?

I’ve been twisted around all day thinking it’s Tuesday, and then I remembered I was supposed to meet Dan tonight when there were donuts and bagels on the office kitchen table. My time clock is off because of the long weekend, but it’s nice that I’m one day closer to another weekend than I would have been had there not been a deliciously dark and stormy 4th of July….. mmmmm….. Dark & Stormy……

I need to stop thinking about food and drinks because I had breakfast and second breakfast and I am about three minutes away from eating a box of donuts.

But what I really want is one of the mini chocolate bars I got yesterday at Starbucks. It was filled with chipotle peppers and pop rocks… It’s called a “Firecracker” in case you’re looking.

Looking forward, T-money is handling pizza night, home-made rather than store or restaurant bought, because I loved the toppings at Red Rocks but not the crust. It’s very thin and thus gets quite soggy in the middle, so you end up having to fold the slice over horizontally to keep everything from just dropping onto your plate… however, their sausage is off the chain.

Saturday or Sunday I am hanging out with Ms. INTP, whom I have decided to nickname “The Professor,” mostly because she used to be one. Now she’s into project management and studying for ITIL (which will make my Alert Logic readers shudder). We’re going to be tourists in our own city, either going to a museum or to Ford’s Theater, which I haven’t toured since I was eight. If there’s a root to moving back to DC, it’s that I’ve been awed by this place since then. Again, it’s hard for me to believe that I ever left. I don’t regret my decisions, because there are plenty of things that happened to me during my time away that I wouldn’t trade for anything, but at the same time, reminiscence and fondness tied together nicely when my dad said, “do you really want to remain in Houston?”

I didn’t, because the White House isn’t there. I checked.

It’s finally lunchtime after a long and productive morning. I’m ready to quit and get some perspective/rest before I go back at it. There are weekly and monthly processes that need to run, and both of them had to be done this morning. Nothing was hard, just time-consuming and thus, the need for a break. If I can get this blog entry finished quickly, I may even actually get up from my desk. 🙂 I usually don’t, because I like to have a solid hour of writing- it actually is my form of rest, because it’s engaging a different part of my brain.

However, today is a bit difficult because I’m not sure what to say. This weekend was delicious in its simplicity, but not much new to report except that I made another friend on OKCupid that is hella smart and thoughtful, an INTP that asks deep, probing questions… and I thought I was an intense personality. It felt good to have someone to write to that would answer with questions and answers that were equally thought-provoking and intuitive, as her personality dictates.

I sometimes come up as perceiving rather than judging, which I generally take to mean “you’re not as much of an asshole as you usually are.” I’ve used that line before, but it doesn’t make it any less true. Judgment is swift and doesn’t require as much thoughtful process as perceiving what is happeningi n the moment without comment. I am trying to lean into it, but, like Jesus, I also have my table-flipping moments. I don’t think there will ever be a time in which I completely cross over, but I can try.

There’s no limit to the things I am capable of learning if I try, so fingers crossed.

Yesterday, there was no one I wanted to tell more than Argo about this newfound writer, and it hurt knowing I should stay away, because not communicating has kept so much of my feelings about the situation at bay. I still pray for her all the time, and I figure that if I can keep doing it, forgiveness will continue to flow from me, and I won’t get as lost in anger, regret, and shame. I don’t wish to continue the pattern of escalated language on both sides, but I really miss the days in which we laughed, and oh, how we laughed.

It is way more fun to giggle at the memories of her, because while she does have a hard edge sometimes, she’s also kind of a goofball, and that’s what I miss the most.

But time does not go backwards, ever. I leave a door open for her just because I can, but that doesn’t mean she’d ever be willing to walk through it. I am sure that I, in some ways, should close the door and be done… but there are too many good memories to let them overtake the bad ones. I am just not that kind of person… the kind that constantly focuses on the negative so that it’s easier to let go of someone permanently. I tried, and it just didn’t work for me. It was much easier and inherent to who I am to focus on the laughter and let the pain float away, day by day, piece by peace.

She’s not the only person with whom I threw a match on a bridge, trying to walk away, but I don’t carry as much regret over the others, because they were relationships that needed to end. Perhaps this one does, as well, but I am not strong enough to say that to myself… at least, not yet. But I have stopped the practice of burning the candle at both ends trying to think of ways to rebuild the bridge we broke. That was killing little bits of me, because it was one step forward, two steps back, and over time, I realized that what had been torn asunder could not be rebuilt quickly or easily… there are only so many apologies you can make over e-mail, without the ability to look into each other’s eyes and see real emotion.

I just keep reminding myself that planes go both ways, and when Dana and I lived in Houston, there was nothing keeping her from coming to visit us just as easily as there was nothing keeping us from going to visit her. If we’d really wanted to meet on the ground, it would have happened by now.

And perhaps that is the saddest part of all, because I think it would have cleared up an amazing amount of bullshit very, very quickly. I think we both would have thought the other was funny and brilliant in a different way than could have ever been conveyed over e-mail, because I am a simple woman. It doesn’t take much to make me double over with laughter. It also doesn’t take much for me to tear up with remorse, and in some ways, I think Argo is owed that, rather than an apology in black and white… to be able to say in real time that I was in a very shitty place and I couldn’t handle my “stuff.” This is not to say that I don’t think she handled everything perfectly and I didn’t, just to say that I own my part in everything that went down.

The other thing I’ve learned over time is not to take too much responsibility, like apologizing over and over for her perceptions and not my reality… I was awfully hard on myself, and good at it, whether it was my deal or not.

But it took a long time to think all that through, because I have a tendency to take on every problem in every relationship, rather than realizing that I can only own 50 percent of a relationship and not all 100.

I’ve probably written sentences like this a thousand times, but said friend had been reading my blog and it opened that can of worms for me…. again.

But not in a bad way, just a re-realization that perhaps I can stop beating myself up quite so badly. I say things to myself that I’d never say to anyone else, and I have to ask myself the hard question of, “if you wouldn’t treat others like that, why do you do it to yourself?” In some ways, that answer is easy. It’s an ingrained pattern over years and years. Breaking it does not come overnight… but slowly, in the night, as I dream my way into wholeness.

In my dreams, Argo and I have the conversations we need to have so that I wake up with more clarity and not less. It is inconvenient, though, that I only hear the things I want to hear rather than the things she might actually have to say. But perhaps that would only open a door to more pain, and I’m willing to avoid that entirely.

If there’s any hope in this garbage dump of a situation, it’s that eventually pain will pass and either I will have peace within myself or we both will, enough to be able to talk without the spectors of who we used to be.

But I’m not holding my breath. I just think her feelings matter, and it is just as important for me to hear them out as it is for me to find peace within myself. However, knowing that these things are equally important helps me to know that I’m always going to be okay either way.

I look forward to more thought-provoking questions from my INTP friend, because it helps to provide perspective on my internal ruminations that may or may not feed into reality, and having someone call me out on it is a lifeline.

I just hope that I listen as equally well as I talk, because she is just as interesting as me, if not more so. I seem to do so much better one-on-one than I do in social situations with more people than that… I feel as if I can have a relationship with one person, or a relationship with a thousand when I’m up in front of them, because I can connect with an audience far better than I can connect with people at a party.

But in this era of new things, perhaps that is the next step… to stop being such a wallflower… because I come in two flavors. The life of the party for fifteen minutes and then I’m ready to go home, or the person that sits quietly in the corner hoping that no one notices me, because my “get up and go got up and left.” I also get nervous in person as opposed to writing because there is no delete key… no safety net.

For instance, at the Folklife Festival, Hawkeye and I were walking around and I saw this big wooden shack that said, “cheese smoking.” I said, “I wonder how they get the cheese to start smoking.” The joke fell so flat that I wanted to crawl into the ground, but I thought it was *hilarious.*

And on that note, I have to get back to work. See you on the flip side.

This is a video clip of me reading an excerpt from “A Letter to Someone Who Hurt You” at Sparkle, the queer spoken word event at Busboys & Poets every first Sunday. I am now somewhat regretting reading this piece, but not because it isn’t consistently in my top ten AND the most searched-for post internally. It’s because if you don’t know that I’m an INFJ preacher’s kid who wants to start a church of her own someday, I sound like a megalomaniac who had Adderrall for breakfast (for the record, I did not).

I suppose I also wanted to take ownership of the things I’ve done and left undone in a different medium. I’ve only read that piece out loud once, and that was in my therapist’s office. When I was finished, she said, “wow. You really know how to rip yourself a new one.” I said, “at my age, who else is going to do it?” I’m not a child anymore. Other adults do not have the right to correct me the way I have the right to correct myself. I’m kind of authoritative about it, but I take myself out for ice cream afterwards when I have to lay down my own law. There are just some things I will not tolerate out of me anymore, and getting fed up is part of being wiling to change.

I got an e-mail at 2:30 from my co-worker on Friday that said our boss (who was on PTO) had sent her an e-mail saying everyone in our department could leave at 3:30 as long as there were no production issues. From the office, I headed to T-money’s house (not the rapper) where we talked for a bit and then went to Red Rocks for pizza night, because there’s one in Columbia Heights as well. A cheap and delicious happy hour never hurt anybody. 🙂 After that, we ended up talking until I was fading fast, and I went home glad that I had that friend I could just call for “shooting the shit” type purposes… speaking of which, I need to call Scales and the Colonel… don’t let me forget. 😛

I stayed up late, so I woke up deliciously late. Then I went to the pharmacy to pick up my drugs, to the nail salon to get my eyebrows, fingers, and toes did, and to the Hair Cuttery for a much-needed touch-up. The last time I got a haircut, I asked the hairdresser to leave my hair long on the right-hand side, because I have a bald spot left over from an EEG contact as a preemie. It looked great, except that for some ungodly reason, she cut the left-hand side much shorter. It drove me batshit crazy, so when I went to the salon today, I told the hairdresser that I wanted to go full-on asymetrical, and to fade it up to my hairline on the left…. because it looks so much better now that it’s intentional instead of just looking like a really cheap haircut. In fact, the cut is so perfect that I don’t even need product, but when I got home, I put some Murray’s Superior Hairdressing Pomade in it, anyway, just for shine. It’s kind of a shorter version of Eleven‘s hair, of which I approve (But Ten‘s hair is so much cuter… but you see, mine goes to Eleven).

I’m not getting ready for anything special, just felt like treating myself today because I haven’t taken care of myself in a while. I even got acrylic nails so that the polish would last longer. It’s kind of a maroon color, to match both warm and cold colors. My toes are painted with a gun metal gray base coat and silver top coat, slick as a Bond Aston Martin. It just makes me feel good to look good, and my hair is especially cute with my nerdy Ira Glasses.

Tomorrow I’m going to The Mall with Hawkeye for the Folklife Festival put on by the Smithsonian, and then meeting T-money at Busboys & Poets for Sparkle, the queer spoken word event that I thought was on Friday (if you’re offended by the word queer, I’m sorry. I’m old and I can’t remember all the letters.).

As an aside, that reminds me of my mother, Carolyn, teaching me how to sing the alphabet song when I was a toddler. For the longest time, I thought the words were “A, B, C, D, E, F, Geeeee…. H, I, J, K, Carolyn N, O, P.” I was very physically delayed, and thus, precocious mentally because I had a lot of time to sit around and think about things, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t mess things up once in a while. For the longest time, I also thought “The Little Drummer Boy” started out, “Come, Beethoven….” I am still not the best with lyrics. Even as an adult. I don’t remember how old I was, but old enough, but I found myself DYING of laughter during a worship service when we were singing “All Hail the Pow’r of Jesus’ Name” and I accidentally sang “angels prostate fall.” I couldn’t get the image out of my head and of course, when it is inappropriate to laugh, it makes me laugh even harder.

However, music is woven into my neurons, and even though I don’t remember lyrics to anything, ever, I can sing pretty much any melody I’ve ever heard. Lindsay is the lyrics person. I have people to do that for me. 🙂

Speaking of Lindsay, she and Matt are in Honduras right now and I asked them to bring me back a jersey. Lindsay said, “Soccer?” I said, “in my world there are no other kinds of jerseys.” Which is only funny because I have two football jerseys, as well. They were both Christmas gifts from Allyn, Dana’s mom, and they are priceless to me. One is Christopher Kluwe’s Vikings jersey, because when he started writing marriage equality blog entries in Minneapolis I had to have one. I also have Michael Sam’s Rams jersey, because I thought it was important to have the jersey of the first NFL player to come out publicly. I was crushed when he was cut, and when it was a possibility that he was going to be picked up by the Dallas Cowboys, I caused Dana such pain by saying I’d have to get a Cowboys jersey, too. You don’t tell a Redskins fan you want a Cowboys jersey. It’s just not done (however, Dana did give me leniency on the subject knowing that I’d grown up two and a half hours north of Dallas. If I’d been a bandwagon fan, I don’t think she would have married me in the first place . 😛 ).

I don’t know what position either one of them played, but I wear my Kluwe jersey often (my Sam jersey fits like a dress). When people ask me what position he plays, I say, “blogger.” If they say, “no, really,” I just stare blankly.

Yes, I know he was a punter. I think. But it’s much funnier my way.

I told Chris what I do when people ask me what position he plays, and he said, “LOL… works for me.” I’ve never met him, I just Tweeted him about it and was glad to get a reply.

Because it’s supposed to thunderstorm on Monday, fireworks are up in the air for DC (see what I did there?). However, I will tell you my fondest 4th memory of DC from 2001. Kathleen and I went to our friend Molly’s apartment building in downtown and there, from the rooftop, we watched the DC fireworks, with the Maryland and Virginia fireworks going off in the background. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, and a memory that will stay with me forever, especially now that I’ve put it here.

Hawkeye and I should probably come up with an alternate plan in case it’s supposed to thunderstorm tomorrow, too, but we’ll figure it out. It’s a shame that in DC, there’s nothing to do.

😉

At the very least, we can admire my hair.

I mentioned a soldier in 48 Mondays that was deployed, and I won’t lie. When I heard she was back safe, I cried a few tears of joy at my desk. I’m not usually that weepy, but at the same time, I spent a long time praying for her safe return, and I was out of Lamictal, which generally makes me weepy and grateful. I was crying tears of joy over someone I don’t even particularly like, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that every time a soldier makes it home safe, I lose my snot. Actually, it’s an interesting dichotomy. I like her plenty. We’ve just been through too much to recreate friendship in a healthy way, because my past would be hung over my head til Jesus comes (look busy)…. And honestly, that’s ok. I can root for her from Silver Spring just as well as I can root for her anywhere else.

It was like hearing Hawkeye made it home safe from Kabul. We don’t know each other that well, but again, you get to walk to through the Heroes’ Walk, you deserve a standing ovation and tears and snot running down your friends’ faces, because in today’s world, it’s just a fucking miracle.

It is in that way that I feel sorry for intelligence and State, because they do just as much work to further our agenda overseas, but there are no parades for them. They are the Agents K and J of our generation, and many more before that. Off the grid because they have to be, just as when the plane hit the Pentagon, they tried everything they could to keep the focus on New York. It wasn’t that they were any less hurt, it’s just that the Pentagon works in secrecy, anyway. But that didn’t stop gawkers the first few weeks, before they got the partitions up and you could see the damage from the freeway, from literally turning off their cars on the left hand side of 395 and mourning. Getting into the city was a nightmare.

One of the members of our church at St. Mark’s was named Louise Bracher, and she did not live to see her daughter, Barbara Olson, lose her life in the attack on the Pentagon. Such a bright political pundit, even though I disagreed with her on damn near everything… but it changed her husband, Ted, in a major way. The same lawyer that argued Bush v. Gore was the same lawyer that argued FOR marriage equality, and I cannot imagine that his own loss of love did not play into it. I was not in the courtroom for the proceedings, but I wonder if he ever brought it up. It would have shed a whole new light on why he needed love to win. This is someone whom I also disagree with politically on nearly everything, but if I saw him in the city, I would have trouble not running up to him and giving him a huge hug and kiss on the cheek…. which would be awkward because we’ve never met, but I’d introduce myself and tell him what he meant to me before I asked him if I could hug him, and I might not be able to keep the tears from flowing, because I was standing outside the Supreme Court as the arguments were going on, and shook the plaintiff’s hands as they came down the steps.

Love Actually IS All Around.

As I have said before, I never thought I would see national gay marriage in my lifetime. Perhaps my children’s, should I’d ever had any. I suppose it is early yet, but not by much. And in other ways, I would not want to be pregnant. I’d hope that my partner would be down for it, because with my chemical imbalance issues, I wouldn’t want to pass them down. But then again, to paraphrase Leo Tolstoy, “every family is crazy in its own way.”

I agreed to be the “hostess” when Dana and I were married, because even though she reassured me that she’d probably be “fertile Myrtle” because of the ease with which her mother got pregnant, she was officially Not. Impressed. with the idea of being pregnant. We also talked about adoption, but I balked at it because I read long books on the subject and one of the things it brought up was that there were plenty of agencies that would take your money and close up in the middle of the night… money lost and no baby.

I would have wanted to adopt through the state, and one of the ideas Dana and I had was to adopt a pregnant teenager, so that we’d have stock in a baby, helping take care of it while our daughter finished school… and there are so few teenagers that get adopted, much less pregnant ones, that we were pretty sure we’d get “Insta-family” right away…. especially, and this is sad but true, if we were willing to adopt a minority.

Plus, from what I’ve heard, it’s much more fun to be a grandma.

Love Actually IS all around.

Especially when you realize that there is so much that can go wrong in the world, and you want so desperately to have things go right… and there are no shortage of 13-15 year old pregnant girls that need help in the worst way. I am to the point in my life where as long as my job was stable and I was debt-free, I could afford to adopt on my own… and perhaps that is the answer for me at some point, as long as I can afford a housekeeper… because it wouldn’t be just me. It would be my daughter and the mother of my grandchild and me… which sheds a whole new light on single-parenthood, because I wouldn’t be the only single parent in the house.

But these are just dreams, not reality, the future I can see that might not happen, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea in my head… whether it’s a good idea in practice is a whole other thing. But the futures that do not happen are just that, thanks to The Doctor.

The Doctor has explained more about letting go of guilt and shame to me than just about anyone or anything. Letting go of a future that didn’t happen is much easier than torturing myself over the past.

And on that note, it’s time to get back in line for a refill on coffee and get to the office. Today is Friday, which means that I will be entirely slammed all day, but it is not unwelcome. I like getting out of my head.

But the thing that remains is that a soldier came home from deployment, and will enjoy many more days with her family, and I can stop being afraid that she won’t. If that is not gratitude for the power of the universe, I don’t know what is.

Because Love Actually IS All Around.

It was an exciting day to be a Lanagan in this town on Tuesday. Lindsay and I went to a Japanese restaurant that served Tsukemen ramen, something I’ve been wanting to try since David Chang introduced me to it in season one of “The Mind of a Chef.” I took down that noodle bowl in a matter of minutes, and we also had fried chicken bao. OMG. And, of course, we couldn’t help but order the Hello Kitty cocktail, which I don’t remember all of the ingredients, but used Calpico to turn it pink. I used some of my PTO so I could pick Lindsay up at the airport, which was good because we were able to get seats at the bar immediately. There are only 27 seats in the entire restaurant, so on nights and weekends, the wait is usually two hours. The restaurant is called “Toki Underground” for my friends who want to try it. Lindsay got curry ramen, and it was different than mine, but just as good.

The difference between regular ramen and Tsukemen is that the noodles and the broth are served in separate bowls, so that the noodles remain a little al dente and don’t continue to cook in the soup. You take a few strands at a time and dip it into the sauce and eat it as quickly as possible, because the broth is boiled down into a very salty base and you don’t want it to soak in… you just need a quick dip. 🙂

For dessert, we had fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies with a salt and caramel dip and half-n-half on the side for dipping. Lindsay found the restaurant while she was on the plane, and our meal couldn’t have been more perfect. I will definitely be going back, because now that it’s on my radar, I basically had the Roger Smith reaction… “what is this and how can I change my blood to it?” (Editor’s Note: It’s from the episode where Stan is passed over to speak at the Republican National Convention and decides to join the Log Cabin posse, and of course, they dress him and teach him how to make a proper cocktail.)

After that, we went back to Lindsay’s hotel, so full we couldn’t even move. I laid on her bed until I could get up and drive myself home. It took a little while. 🙂

T-money checked out a copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close to me from her library, and I managed to get about halfway through it before we talked for two hours straight. She told me that she told someone that I’d nicknamed her T-money on this web site, and the person said, she gave you a rapper’s name? Yes, but unintentionally, as A-train, L-train, A-money, and L-money can attest. She’ll probably get another nickname as time progresses, one that reflects her personality, but I don’t know her well enough to make that leap yet. I mean, “Curly” might be appropriate, but that reminds me of Of Mice and Men, and that is Just. Not. Happening.

Friday night we’re going to an open mike at the original Busboys & Poets, but I don’t know that I’ll actually read anything. It depends on whether other people read prose or not. When I picture spoken word, I picture poetry with a beat, like in So I Married an Axe Murderer. I’ve never written anything like that, and I don’t know whether it’s within my capabilities or not. But in this phase of trying new things, I may not get up in front of people, but I might start a loop at home and see what comes out. It wouldn’t NOT be good for me. We shall see what we shall see. Plus, my friend Scott set a high, high bar when I used to go and watch him. If it’s not Scott-ish, it’s CRAP. My favorite started out Miss Carrie is so very… and now that it’s been 20 years, that’s the only line I remember. But I do remember being intimidated by his brilliance.

Today Ops is having an Egg & Spoon race, which is just one of the reasons I love my job, because today is also donut day. Donuts in the morning and a game in the afternoon. It doesn’t get any better than this. I’m in charge of putting together the games, so I looked at the web site where I order our trophies and this was one of the games in which you could actually buy a trophy for it. So I think I’m just going to keep going down that list until I hit things that we can’t possibly accomplish, like baseball. I mean, we probably could play baseball, but I can’t picture it going well. We’re Geeks.™

All of this new activity is helping my pain move down the Z-axis, as I have mentioned before, and I’m glad of the distraction. But it’s still hard to close my eyes without dreaming of my old life, and just how perfect it used to be until the walls came tumbling down. Perfect in all its flaws, failures, and vulnerabilities, that is. T-money asked me if I thought there was a chance that Dana and I would get back together. I used to keep a door open until I realized I could never go back to someone who would hit me like that, and the phrase “pick on someone your own size” doesn’t even begin to cover it. It is true that when she pushed me, I went off like a chihuahua with a Napoleon complex, which doesn’t excuse my behavior in the slightest, because I should have realized that this was not going to end well and just run away. But survival instinct took over, and I couldn’t walk away from a fight. I’m just not very good at that… but getting better as I mellow with age.

Reacting with anger to anger has never worked out well for me, but the survival instinct is in place from years of it being wired into my neurons. I don’t know what it will take to get rid of that instinct completely, because if I pop off at a church committee or something like that, I am not only defeated, but possibly fired. In some ways, I think pastors are too expected to be perfect, without being allowed to have a full range of emotion. You have to meet rage with “let’s think about that,” like the forced smiles of McDonald’s employees.

You have to be able to take a step back, and see where their rage is coming from, and have enough clinical separation not to take it personally, even when the other person is trying to get under your skin with ad hominem attacks. Speaking of which, that’s a good correlation to the relationship I had with Dana in our last couple of years of marriage. When we talked about money, I needed facts, not accusations against my character. If I’d had enough foresight to see it for what it was, we might still be married today. But no, my survival instinct was so wired that her escalated language escalated me and vice versa… and I am not immune to the fact that it was the way Argo and I fought as well. My best hope for myself is to learn this clinical separation so that even when other people are trying to rattle me, they’ve lost the ability.

In a very real sense, Argo already has. After not communicating for a while, I realized that there was never a time in which she wouldn’t bring out the big guns, her stalker shit that never turned into anything. Of course you can harass people over the internet, and I take nothing away from the shitty things I said to her, but at the same time, we have a shared responsibility for shittiness at her own admittance. Because our pattern is so entrenched, I don’t know whether or not she could rattle me anymore. I just don’t. But what I do know is that I have stopped paying attention to her shitty accusations and it has made all the difference in my self-esteem, because I know what is true and what is not. E-mail cannot possibly convey more than seven percent of a person’s personality, and for us, the other 93 is lost to history… I think. We’ve both said “never again” so many times that it has lost its meaning… so maybe we mean it, and maybe we don’t. Only time will tell. I can’t promise that it would be easy not to lapse into old patterns, but what I can promise is that I’ll never stop working on it… but it can’t be a one-way street. She has to stop wanting to get under my skin in an equal sort of way.

But even if we never speak again, she’s forgiven completely and absolutely, because it might not change her, but it certainly changes me. I am glad to get away from all of her anger at me, glad to get away from the e-mails that just cut us both off at the knees, glad to get away from the weight all that pain put on my shoulders. In this relationship, no good deed has gone unpunished, and I mean that on both sides of the equation. I am not immune to negativity, but I am also not the person she has made me out to be, because she only knows less than a tenth of who I am. For instance, I think she thought that by moving here, I wanted her to be my support system. That was true when we were getting along like gangbusters, but by the time I ACTUALLY moved here, we weren’t even speaking and I’d made my peace with it. I feel bad that she was scared of my move, but I am not responsible for those feelings, because I had my own set of friends, my own roommates, my own everything.

Everything became new again, and for that, I am grateful.

Amen.

There’s really no better feeling than being single and not worried about it. I feel that too much emphasis is put on being coupled, when in reality, most people get married before they even know who they are. I heard a great “This American Life” episode that spoke to it this weekend. It’s called “Choosing Wrong,” and the first few minutes talks about both relationships and work, and how we are so likely to choose wrong in both of those directions because we expect to take on these gargantuan tasks (finding work and people we love) using only intuition… and a complete lack of cognizance on our parts as to where we might really fit into both of those things. For instance, most people get married without knowing the ways in which they are annoying to live with (shut it), and that living together before marriage doesn’t even bring out these tendencies. Most people have to deal with their failed expectations, and don’t realize that there’s so much of the time that you’re not sure you chose the right person, because the miracle isn’t in the intuition. It’s in the dedication… the same could be said of work. Even the jobs we love come with days where we wonder if we’ve made the right choice, and a lot of times we are not prepared to deal with that reality. It takes a gargantuan “it gets better” campaign to get through one’s career and love life.

It resonated with me because I knew there was an “it gets better” campaign in my marriage to Dana somewhere, but I failed to find it in time. I don’t think either one of us were prepared to deal with loneliness, even when the other was home. I don’t think either of us were wired to deal with all our failed hopes and dreams as to who the other person really was. We all can accept our partner’s outstanding parts… it takes a leap of faith to accept their downright dirty ones…. and we all have them, even me.

There was nothing I wanted more than for my life to go back to the way it was, with Argo and Dana and me all able to make room for each other and for the wiggy “more than a friend” feelings for Argo to go away for me so that I didn’t have to deal with them anymore in the context of my attention being better divided between the two of them, because as Argo and I descended into a world of secrecy, I couldn’t help but let my attention be diverted, because it wasn’t that Dana didn’t need me and Argo did. It was that Argo needed me more right then. We were lost in our own little world for far too long, and then when Argo said to make sure Dana saw all, I showed it to her… and it made Argo so mad she said she’d never forgive me for it. I didn’t understand… I was lost and hurt because she told me to tell Dana everything, and when I did, she slammed the door in my face. It didn’t start out that way, but it became a major divide and conquer op on both sides. Tell Dana, but don’t. I’m ok with Argo being your friend, but I’m not. My fatal mistake was putting Argo and Dana on the same level, trying to please them both all of the time. I spent a lot of time mystified at all of our behaviors, with not enough time in the day to realize making both of them happy and keeping myself happy, too. Aaron and Dana will both tell you that I was a fucking mess. The only thing that really kept my sanity intact was that they occupied completely different parts of my brain, and never crossed over. There were plenty of times when I was with Dana that I thought about/talked about Argo, and plenty of times with Argo that I thought about/talked about Dana. But there was never a time in which I wanted that marriage and that friendship to fall apart, until I got so anxious that I didn’t know what to do. I could think of them as completely different people and situations… the crossover came in the verbal processing about them, because I needed a place to go with my feelings about both of them.

To her credit, Argo never got tired of hearing about Dana (except for when she thought I was making excuses, and I thought I was giving her context for comprehension), but Dana sure as hell got tired of hearing about Argo. I thought I had an open line with both of them to say what I was feeling, and in retrospect, I did not. I also did not have the abiliity to bottle up my emotions and just ruminate about them in my head, because hearing their insights helped me immensely. Sitting and thinking alone led to descending into depression. Hindsight is always 20/20, because as Søren Kierkegaard once said, “we live life forwards, but we understand it backwards.” In that way, I now know that I was out of my mind not to get a therapist so that there was someone listening to me that didn’t have a horse in the race. Talking to Sarah, my therapist at Vesta, was the first time in which I felt true relief, because she was able to show me ways of lifting myself out of rumination, out of sadness, etc… but writing has also helped, because as any therapist will tell you, you don’t get better one hour a week.

I am also one of those people that will use a thousand words when one will do.

I am sure that I cut both Argo and Dana to the quick with both of them, which just feeds my intuition that this is not the right time for a relationship. However, I am not opposed to going out with people and seeing if we have that “friend-click” that could turn into something down the road. If I think hard about my relationship with Dana, I come up with the answer that in our own way, we were 1930’s courting in our own best friend kind of way. There were times when we could read each other better than we could read ourselves… and very possibly, that was our undoing.

Dana “just knew” that she was losing me to Argo. There were two problems with that. The first is that I didn’t feel that way, and never would. The second is that Argo didn’t feel that way, either. I saw my feelings for Argo as inconvenient and foolish… even more so in retrospect because of the bleeding heart it caused on both fronts. You can’t win a war on two fronts, and it certainly felt like I was fighting one. Fighting to keep my head above water, mostly.

Argo began to see my defense mechanisms as threat, and I don’t really blame her. It’s just all so fucking sad. What I wouldn’t give to be able to just have said, “I’m anxious,” without it coming across as fits of rage that no one deserved, especially me… because I didn’t hurt Argo nearly as much as I hurt myself. Shame and regret are both horrible, horrible things, and I have a lot of both to slowly work through over time. She wasn’t emotionally equipped to see the anger for what it was, and shouldn’t have to have been, anyway. I should have been able to manage my own emotions, but I wasn’t, and the pattern became entrenched unless we stuck to “ladies who lunch” type topics. Over time, anything I sent, no matter what it said, was either ignored or taken as a gutter-snipe even when that was the furthest thing from my mind… but she’d respond with escalated language, anyway, and instead of writing it off, I’d just escalate even more, because my sense of injustice would just boil and I’d try to give her a taste of her own medicine… and even though it’s painful to admit, negative attention was better than no attention at all… choosing the wire monkey that had once been covered in soft, thick cloth.

That worked out well for me, as you can see even if you’re a casual reader. And by “that worked out well,” please know that if this is your first entry, you can read that dripping with as much sarcasm as you can muster.

It’s why I’m deathly afraid of choosing wrong, no matter what kind of love a relationship entails. I don’t want to fight with my friends, either… which is why I’ve spent so much time “in the desert,” not willing to branch out and make any new friends, sticking to the ones I had before I moved here in the first place… or going to church, where every relationship was intellectual but not emotional… or at least, if it was, you could have measured the emotion with a teaspoon.

I isolated so much that even my roommates didn’t see me for days at a time… married to my own thoughts and how to direct them into something better for myself. I may not be able to solve all of my issues, but at least I have a grip on what they are.

Day by day, I am choosing right.

I just got back from kayaking and my shoulders are so sore I can hardly move. There’s going to be some Advil in my future when the beer wears off. I went to Dogfish Head for lunch considering how many times I’d passed it and never gone in, and had a lovely pairing of grilled mahi-mahi tacos and fresh peach, summery ale. I’m very seasonal about my beer, lest anyone think that I am only a “bitch beer” kind of chick. Let’s save the stouts for snow, shall we?

I was so embarrassed that I was late this morning. I actually got there early, but I didn’t know you needed $3.00 to get into the park and who carries cash anymore? So I had to go and get some, and then the signage within the park was so poor that I must have driven five miles before I actually found the boathouse. The good news is that I took to kayaking like a fish to water. Never overturned my boat, mostly because I looked up tips on the internet before I left the house. Apparently, the stroke is “toes to butt.” I had a great time, and my date paid for everything… I thought we were going to lunch afterward, so I was going to return the favor by treating her… She said she had some chores to finish, which I do not know if it is code for “I have to finish my chores,” or perhaps, “I’m just not that into you.” Either way, I had a great time, and I’m not worried. She’ll text back or she won’t (I sent her a text message saying that I had a great time and it was so sweet of her to invite me). I was looking forward to lunch, though, because there’s only so much talking you can do on a boat (motherfucker).

My insecurity says that she took one look at me and decided I looked like a ten-year-old. My ego says that I’m awesome, and just because she didn’t see it, that’s not my problem.

Yeah, let’s go with that.

Yesterday’s date was much more fun and lasted a lot longer, because neither one of us could stop talking. But it wasn’t really a date, because I’m not the type person that wants to jump into anything quickly.  I told her that friendship was what I had to offer, and she told me that might be  hard, which was a great ego boost and nothing else. I need to enforce boundaries with everyone I go out with, because I’m Just. Not. Ready. Not ready to give up any part of myself to someone else, because the pieces that have left me over the past year or so haven’t scabbed over. The bleeding has stopped, and there is a Band-Aid (brand name, not Dollar Tree crap) over them, but the cuts still feel fresh enough that letting myself invest in someone else is not quite an option.

With the woman yesterday, there were clearly some compatible wounds, which set off my weird-spirometer in a hurry, because that is my past and not my future. I have also made the promise to myself that Agape and Eros should not cross, and it may take me a while to break those walls as well. Because, of course, now that my boundaries in place, they are quite iron-clad. I never want there to be another Argo, period.

It’s going to take a lot to get my boundaries down, even when I am ready. I thought I had trust issues before, and now I have them even worse, because I don’t want to cause harm to anyone and I don’t want anyone to cause harm to me. But the thing is, Agape and Eros are supposed to cross in the right relationship, just presumably not with a a straight girl. But it doesn’t matter right now. Those boundaries cannot cross too soon. With Dana, it took 3 and a half years, because the relationship before her was classic Agape and Eros crossing even when we both knew they shouldn’t and we did it, anyway. It put my heart into a blender.and it gave me plenty of time to think about what I wanted the next relationship to look like. Turns out, I want to marry my best friend…. If the two people I’ve already got domestic partnerships with will real ease me from them. It’s getting time to file on my own, because now I don’t believe that Dana will take care of it as she said she would, and I know that Kat just wants me to claim abandonment because she married a man three months after we broke up and I haven’t heard from her since. I’m not even sure that her current husband knows about me, but it wouldn’t be hard to find out if you knew both of our last names.

I never should have taken the legal advice just to let it go, but hindsight is always 20/20. There’s no way that national gay marriage could have been predicted in 2002.

And that’s what I was thinking as I was driving home from kayaking. This dating thing is so much harder with two domestic partnerships now hanging themselves over my head like rain clouds, fluffy and full. In a sense, I already have two wives. What it God’s name do I want with a girlfriend?

Mostly just the first and last call of the day.

So far, I’ve made all my social engagements without problem, but here I sit with my venti skinny vanilla latte, completely exhausted and remembering what it feels like to adult. Being busy is a constant source of sleep deprivation, because when I lie down at night, I cannot wrap my brain around the concept of sleep and not re-running in my head everything that happened while I was out. And then other things creep in, like whether circumstances or personality dictate your actions, how I’m going to take action on dreams I say I will, how to make friends in this town (doing a good job so far), and anything and everything else my brain can possibly think to throw at me until 2:00 AM. It doesn’t matter whether I take sleeping medication or not, but at the same time, if I get home at 10:00 or 11:00, I don’t want to take it because it won’t have enough time to wear off. It’s now a never-ending cycle of coffee… as is for most adults that don’t come home from work and immediately take sleeping pills so that they’ve kicked in at my actual bedtime, which used to be somewhere around 9:00, and now fluctuates. I know I can handle it, because I’ve done it before, but the insular nature of sleeping A LOT has made a difference in my mood and behavior. It’s a balance between wanting to go home and wanting to make friends, because I can’t get together with people until after 6:00p. Because I don’t have to be at the office until 9:00, staying out late shouldn’t bother me. But it screws up my writing schedule most days because I am usually there by 7:10. This morning I managed to get up at 0600 easily, but God knows why. It hasn’t happened for the past three days.

Scales’ colonel and I made an explosive connection, and I think she could be one of those people I could talk to for hours at a time… a new friend whom I hope will one day become my old friend. One of the things I did not know about her before our outing on Wednesday is that while she was stationed in Colorado Springs, she got a Masters in Theology from Iliff (in Denver). I asked her how she did it, and she said, “I was tired all the time.” Pretty much the best answer I could have heard, given how much it must’ve been true.

Last night I went out with new friends Autumn and Dan. We chose Ted’s Bulletin, and it’s one of the best restaurants I’ve been to in DC so far. It’s relaxed and a bit hipster. They even have PBR on tap. I felt right at home, considering how much time I’d lived in PDX.

I had “The Rachel,” which is basically a Reuben made with turkey, and really good iced tea (it’s how I judge a restaurant on the first pass). When I got there, though, I had an amazing cocktail called “The Big Ugly.” I’m not sure what was in it, but it was basically a sweet and spicy Manhattan. Dan and Autumn said they thought it looked strong, and I told them I’d rather have a little bit of something awesome than a lot of something not.

They agreed wholeheartedly.

They just bought a townhome in Alex, something to which I used to aspire, but Kathleen and I were so piss poor at managing money that even with making over 100k a year, we couldn’t have done it at gunpoint.

I don’t know how much it takes to buy a house in the ‘burbs, but I’m all for it. I don’t think I’d be able to swing it unless I was coupled, but perhaps not if I keep misering it up. My friends Ruth and Brian bought a great house in the ghetto back in the day, and Brian is a carpenter. The frame was strong and true, and he customized the house with all kinds of built-ins… now, 16 years later, gentrification has taken off in their neighborhood and the house is worth eight times what it was.

Ruth and Brian are straight, but it is overwhelmingly true that if gentrification starts happening in small batches, it means the gays and lesbians have found it. #nolie

If I did live in the District, I’d probably choose Anacostia for housing prices, but ultimately I think I’d be happiest in Takoma Park, the Portland of Washington. It’s expensive AF to live in TPark, but there are pockets of Anacostia that are coming along nicely, and perhaps I can find that spot on the Anacostia River for both myself and St. James.

If I did, I’d want to steal Jeffrey Thames part time. We would be so cute as co-pastors. I am 5’4, it feels like he’s 7’5. I’m a computer geek. He’s a former Marine. Every service would be a Mutt and Jeff episode. Plus, he’s black, and I’m white. The visual would be friggin’ adorable. He’s so tall he could set the offering plates on my head. Jeffrey, if you run across this, please for the love of God laugh. 😛

Meeting Dan last night was awesome, because she showed me some pictures of Pride at State, complete with John Kerry at the podium. Meeting Autumn was equally awesome, because we inhabit the same geek world.

Tonight is going out with the Lt. Col, and I’m excited about it because we’ve had some good conversations about military health care and I am sure that we are both more interesting in person. I hope we laugh a lot, and I really have no doubt. My only concern is trying to make it to Alex from Landover in a timely fashion…. leaving now… see you Thursday, etc.

Tomorrow I don’t have anywhere to be until 1400, so if I want I can take a sleeping pill and wake up refreshed before coffee with T-money, the woman I talked to on the phone for two hours about victim advocacy, a Clinton presidency, equal sentencing, etc. She seems cool AF, so no doubt we’ll have a good time.

Still a bit nervous about kayaking, but I am done with thinking I can’t do things because I am too fragile, too weak, etc. I never played sports as a kid because of my eyes, and I am generally afraid of branching out in that direction.

But Dan mentioned a coed soccer team, and I told her that now that I had health insurance, I might try it out. We shall see what we shall see.

I am beginning to really believe I am more than the sum of my parts, and it is bleeding over into self-esteem. I don’t love me, but I like her so much that I am sure we’ll fall in love eventually.

Dating me is working out.

Who is this person?

I don’t recognize her, and yet, I do. It’s a strange feeling watching the past wash away… not as if it’s not there, but as it floats further and further down the z-axis. The woman that I’m kayaking with on Sunday called me a “social butterfly,” and if I hadn’t been sitting down, I might have fainted. Since I’ve been here, my only MO was to write quietly in my room… and then I got tired of only talking to Argo via e-mail (before World War Me), and I was freaked out that I couldn’t seem to stop processing the past instead of making room for the future. Scales called my attention to it, and when she did, it started the mind worm of how to make more friends, and if it worked out, a girlfriend…. but I see that as long into the future, because in my heart of hearts, I am not ready for any sort of committment, no matter how small. I still need to work on me, and getting lost in the dopamine of new relationship would take so much away from it that the best I can do is “new friend rush.”

Last night I talked on the phone to a woman for over two hours, and even that was big for me (I’ve made TWO phone calls now). As I have said before, I am deathly afraid of making calls, and also invested in moving out of my comfort zone to accomodate new life… because it certainly won’t happen if I don’t try.

I hope and pray that Dana is moving on with her own life in the same way, because I care about her feelings and it would be so easy to watch all of this happen. Even though we are now meant to be apart, that doesn’t mean that we don’t both hurt at the idea (I’m guessing… I can’t speak for her). But now that we’ve been separated for over a year, it feels like it’s time to let the grieving aspect fade into the background. Not that it’s not still there, just not so EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE. I have to remember that I moved here because of this very thing. I knew for certain that I could not create an emotional boundary with her, that I was certainly still in love with her (at the time) and it would show every time we got together, because I cannot imagine that our friendship would have ended altogether if we were still in the same city… or maybe it would’ve. Who knows? Judging by the response I got the two times she’s been to DC in the meantime, I cannot say for sure. But in Houston, it would have been very hard to stay apart because we had so many mutual friends and Aaron on “third mike.” I can’t imagine that the silent treatment would have lasted too long.

On the other hand, the way our relationship ended was brutally traumatic, mostly because hurt people hurt people… and I never want to put myself in that situation again… Lapsing back into old patterns would have torn me apart, even more than blowing up my entire life and “starting over” in Silver Spring… in quotation marks because I loved living here years ago, so it is not entirely unfamiliar.

But I write about Dana here so that I can let go of those feelings and not carry them into the new relationships I’m trying to create. I already have a space for this, I don’t need to talk about it… anymore. I am sure that Scales is tired of the Dana/Argo saga, but I hope that I was as good a listener as she was and that we continue to be that for each other. I’m really looking forward to meeting up for dinner tonight, because it’s been so long that we actually have stuff to catch up on.

I am sure I will have much more to tell her on Monday, because until Friday, I’m going out every night, on Saturday hanging out in Columbia Heights for the afternoon, and on Sunday, having what is hopefully a relaxing day on the river. I just hope that I am strong enough to follow through with all of these plans, and I think I am. It’s just a different side of me that I haven’t seen in years.

The woman that I am meeting on Saturday is a serious writer, both creatively and a journalist. Those are two different types of writing altogether, which is probably why we ended up talking for over two hours last night. There were no light and fluffy questions, but real discussions on what’s going on in DC- politics, but also the poorest of the poor neighborhoods and what is to be done about them?

We both go to liberal churches- she’s Episcopalian, so of course I had to sign off one of my messages by saying, “in the mystical body incorporate…” I want to go with her to church at least once so that I can actually use my red leather prayerbook that’s been sitting on my dresser since I joined CCC.

But there’s a solid reason I went back to the UCC. It’s that I wanted to be able to create my own liturgy instead of always using someone else’s… I mean, I’m a writer. It’s a goal to create my own prayerbook, although there are very few paragraphs I could write more moving than “The Prayer of Humble Access.” Additionally, Howard is a UCC school, so I’ll be able to complete my denominational requirements there as well as all my classes.

Many, many people have said to me, “but you might be the only white person in your class!” Bitch, please. If that’s the most difficult thing about going to seminary, then I’m not doing school right. The issue I foresee that transcends race is that there is no polity in the UCC. Every congregation can believe what it wants. So I could have some amazingly conservative students in my classes, but even that doesn’t bother me much because in terms of other types of Christians, I’ve learned not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just learn all I can, and share all I can. Because it is just as possible that they will learn from me. The theology of promise and inclusion is one that widens the circle, and I am only as holy as the person I like the least (to quote Nadia Bolz-Weber). If conservatives are excluded from my inclusive nature, I have already been defeated.

And perhaps that is the point of trying so hard to get out of my comfort zone. If I want to go forth and be the person that God is asking, I should probably leave the house once in a while.

My dance card cleared out for tonight because the woman I was supposed to go out with is taking a project management course that has several hours of homework at night. So we’re going kayaking on Sunday as long as she doesn’t mind teaching a total n00b (I am amused that LibreOffice recognizes this as a word). I haven’t heard back from her on that one. We shall see what we shall see, but it sounds way more fun than just meeting up for drinks.

If we’re talking whitewater, though, perhaps hiking is more my speed. I’ve been itching to get out and explore because I was such a fan of getting lost in the Gorge, taking pictures… the funniest time was when I laid down on the ground at Angels’ Rest near a cliff and had Dana hold my feet so that I could get the shot. We decided that it would be Dana’s job if I fell to call my dad and say, “Leslie was bein’ a dumbass, and got herself killed.” Said with as much Southern drawl as possible, of course. But what did I care? I GOT THE SHOT.

It amazed me that the picture turned out as beautiful as it did, because this must’ve been taken in, like, 2004, when all I had was a 2 mp camera that came on a phone that would seem ancient by today’s standards. So if the color is a little off, remember that it is not color-corrected. It’s just old. I am sure that I could have found a way to punch up each color, but that was the lighting we were in, so it stays. There were so many funny hikes between Dana and me, especially when we were just starting out. Our first hike was up to Multnomah Falls and back down again, but eventually we got more adventurous, like passing Multnomah and crossing over to Wahkeena and standing in the river, literally gulping water because it was moving fast enough that we didn’t think we’d get giardia… And then there was the day we’d realized we’d hiked, like, six and a half or seven miles and had to hike back. We were dying. It was the Bataan Death March of Troutdale, Oregon. Our legs were shaking and we were wet and cold due to the pouring rain… and that was when we realized we were still a half mile from the parking lot. It was definitely beer-thirty by then, and we went to Edgefield for a pick-me-up before we drove back.

But by far, the funniest picture story I have is that Dana and I were driving around Sacramento to get a break from the whole famn damily (Counselor lives there and the parents were in town), and as we were going down the highway, I spotted an enormous field of sunflowers. I said to Dana, “STOP!” It wasn’t unusual for me to say so, because she knew it had something to do with me wanting a picture…. it always did. In order to get the shot I wanted, I had to climb down into a muddy gulch between the highway and the flowers, and I got stuck up to my shins. The mud was so heavy that I couldn’t get back out. I literally couldn’t lift either foot to get traction, so I reached down and took off my shoes, my beloved pink and silver Nikes, and crawled up the side of the gulch. Dana was mystified as to why I was walking back to the Jeep in my socks, but I opened the passenger door and said, “I GOT THE SHOT!” Never mind that if the farmers were not paying attention, my shoes are probably still there, covered in ten feet of mud by now. Luckily, it wasn’t the only pair of shoes I brought on the trip.

I actually ended up taking a series of pictures that day, but this one is my favorite. Dana’s favorite is one I named “Peek-a-Boo,” where I discarded all of the color except the yellow and brown on the small sunflower sticking out at the bottom. I think I still have a copy of it somewhere, but seeing the mud reminds me of just how much I lost trying to get one damn picture, and even so, it was worth it. The aspect ratio is a little off, because it was originally “wide-screen,” but I must have done something in the meantime that changed it… not sure what. I just know that I had to go REALLY far back into my photo gallery to find it, because again, this was taken a long time ago, but at least I had a decent camera phone on me… possibly the best one I’ve ever had- a Sony Walkman phone that I would buy again in a hot second if I thought it would comply with today’s communication standards. I ended up taking other gorgeous shots with that phone, including a view of Portland from Senator Ron Wyden’s office (again, working as a tech contractor… the only reason I’d be in Republican senator’s office in the first place).

If I’m going to take up kayaking, I need to find some sort of waterproof case for my iPhone, because there is no way I’m going to be out on a river and not want to say, “STOP!” A wrist strap is probably advisable as well… because I’m not known for being a klutz or anything…. 😛

So tonight, while said date is doing her homework, I’m going to make homemade mango salsa for the all-DSI cookout tomorrow. I may even be on grill duty, having had a lot of practice at flipping burgers. I just wish we had a griddle instead of a grill, because while grilled hamburgers are delicious, they are nothing compared to the absolute perfection of letting them confit (cook in their own fat). It’s also a thrill just to be cooking anything. It’s been a long time, and I’m looking forward to it. Again, cooking was such a part of my life that I don’t really have time for anymore, and I miss it. I might even listen to Aqua as I’m cleaning up… because nothing says cleaning up a cooking mess like “Dr. Jones,” which as Whovians, Drue and I changed to “Martha Jones,” also a doctor…. a real one, not a Time Lord.

So I suppose tomorrow is Doctor Who t-shirt and Chucks day… but let’s be honest. When is it not?

When I’m kayaking, I guess.

My dance card is getting full. Tomorrow night I have a date with the woman I was telling you about earlier, Wednesday night is dinner with Scales, Thursday night I’m meeting up with a guy that works at State just to shoot the shit (not a date), and Friday is pizza night in Alex with a Lt. Col in the Air Force who makes sure patients get seen. She just got back from deployment, so to this web site I will be calling her “Hawkeye” (Health care… overseas… Come on.) I told her that and said, “please tell me you are old enough to get that reference.” She said, “I’m not much of a M*A*S*H* fan, but yes, I did get it.” I wasn’t much of a fan while it was on, except that my dad watched it every week, and it was one of the only shows where I could be fast asleep and woken up to him laughing so hard he could barely breathe… one of my earliest memories, actually, because I would have been five.

Medical care in the military is a cause I’ll fight for, having worked in the VA Hospital as a contractor upgrading all their computers in Portland… which brings me to the comic and tragic story of being both mortified/sexually harassed and with the benefit of time, can stop being such a tight-ass about it. So, my crew is working on transferring data from old computers to new ones, so we have to go into every office in the building. Every. Office.

I am the only woman on the crew (as per my usual in those days), and the boys unlock a urologist’s office that just has dildos everywhere. I mean, floor to ceiling. Every girth and length you can possibly imagine. So, every guy on my team takes a dildo out of this poor bastard’s office and starts chasing me down the hallway with them. It was a situation in which I felt accepted and rejected all at the same time, if that makes any sense at all, because I don’t think they would have done it if they didn’t think I’d take a joke. It was a cortisol and sin kind of moment, and then I realized that if the doctor in question walked into his office the next morning and discovered that none of his, ummm, stuff was in the right place, it would be my moment to tell the story of why.

The doctor never came forward (as it were), so alas I just let it slide. If I’d been a girl about it, I would have lost respect and they would have avoided me like the plague. My entire career, I’ve just tried to be “just one of the guys.” And it works right up until I realize that I’m not.

And I’m betting that every female soldier, gay or straight, can relate to that one.

But lesbians particularly walk a fine line, because we are alternately the ones men are willing to get vulnerable with because they don’t have to wear the mask of boyfriend/husband and the gender role that comes with it… and the ones who can hang, but only up and to a point, because men do not come equipped with the radar that says lesbians are still women. However, that does not seem to be the case one-on-one, just when a group of guys are posturing around me… I suppose to impress upon me that they have something I’ll never have. Joke’s on them. Doubt me?

See above.

I’m sitting in a SBX near my work, because I decided to see if there was one with a drive-thru on my way. I found one, but I went in this time because I have half an hour before I need to be at the office. I can’t get much done in terms of writing, but just enough to last me until lunch. 🙂

Scales had to cancel for tonight, which made me a bit sad, but I’ll deal. I’ve just missed her and it’s hard to wait two more days. 🙂

Tomorrow, though, I’m going out with the aforementioned woman who wars with herself. She wants to meet somewhere that has craft alcohols. This is right up my alley (sarcasm). I mean, my palate in terms of alcohol is fairly refined having been a cook, but I don’t drink that much, so to say I know where to find craft beverages in Silver Spring is stretching my imagination. I thought about All Set, because even though they do not make their own craft beer, they do have craft on tap, a good wine list, and out of the way spirits. I also said that if she wasn’t interested, there’s a Dogfish Head in Gaithersburg. An IPA sounds great about now, but I’m not sure if she was talking about beer or not.

I am such a beer snob, especially after living in Portland, and I’ve been wanting to trek out to Dogfish Head since I saw it on the way to my friend Andrea’s… and then I got a car and completely forgot about it in the meantime. So we’ll see where we end up, but the last time I went to All Set, I had an amazing craft beer made with chilis that not only tasted delicious, it cleared my sinus passages and I slept like a baby.

I should have brought some shirts to drop off at the dry cleaner’s… #dumbassattack

I cannot say I am excited about said date. I really can’t. This is way more about getting me out of my comfort zone, but at the same time, I am not sure how much I’m ready to be dragged…. especially in terms of having enough chutzpah to drag myself. I am not counting out the fact that I might have a fabulous time, which is what is keeping me going. But if I talk honestly about my life, it’s fairly boring. I work, I come home and watch TV or read, and then I go to bed. Whoo boy. Party. I have turned into the proverbial cat lady without any cats… which is probably the most appealing thing I’ve done for myself in a long time. I don’t spend money, I don’t talk to my cats as if they are my children (don’t get me started), and I can have a dog whenever I want if I’m willing to steal from Samantha and Dom.

But at the same time, the longer I spend with myself, the longer I want to spend time with myself… however healthy or not that might be. I’m a writer, so there’s no part of me that will always want to spend time with other people, but at the same time, there is such a thing as isolating too much. It’s like when I was thinking about moving to DC and thinking of living in NoVA, I said that my perfect girlfriend would live in MD. Far enough away that it wasn’t easy to get together every single day… I can deal with a few texts or phone calls a day, but I am not ready for that all-consuming cocoon that lesbians seem to want almost immediately.

But then again, I am not most lesbians.

And thank God for that.

At the advice of a friend, I decided to try OKCupid, and so far, it’s been a mixed bag. I talked to a woman on the phone (look at ME!) for about an hour that was in seminary as a UU student, and as we jumped around to different topics, she told me that she saw on my profile the line that said, “you should contact me if you’re a veteran.” Now, I put that line in there because there’s no OKCupid option where you can click if you’ve ever been in the military. I was thinking of Volfe, Notorious, and the L___nator when I wrote it, because they’re the people that have consistently made me laugh over the years. At first, when I picked up the phone, she was worried that I had some sort of fetish. Once I explained myself, especially that I’d done lots of reading at Bridgeport on how to serve veterans in a church once they’re trying to re-enter society, because I was then a member of a group on taking care of all parishioners, and we had some veterans in our congregation- all hilarious, too, I might add. I also told her that I’d heard scary stories, and she asked me how I responded to that. I said, “I generally don’t say anything at all, because they just want to be heard, and there’s nothing in my experience that can say “I sympathize,” but I always say “thank you for your service, and thank you for your sacrifice,” because you never know what the soldier feels about why (s)he was deployed, or about their government, or about anything that’s happened to them during deployment or re-entry…. but EVERYONE has served, and EVERYONE has sacrificed.”

She was satisfied with my answer, more than so, but it opened up a can of worms in my own mind. I mean, what veteran or active-duty soldier would be apt to contact you if they think you want to meet them because they look hot in a uniform? Well, the truth is, they do. But to say that’s the only reason I’d ever want to date anyone who’s active duty/reservist/retired is crazy. I’ve been through too much with my friends to think that the uniform is all there is to their magnificence. For instance, working with cars with Volfe and learning to shoot rifles and shotguns with him were some of the best days of my life. Soldiers are just a different breed of people, because they’ve seen more, done more in their lifetimes than I could ever hope to achieve… the root is not the uniform, because there’s too much more to the story.

So then said woman drops it on me that she wants to be a military chaplain in the Army, because most of the liberal chaplains have dropped off in the wake of being anti-war… which is why most of the chaplains are now very conservative. It wasn’t a bomb of any means, I just realized that she was testing me. My first question was “how?” I thought the age requirements to join were really low. She said that the chaplaincy program will take people up until they’re 42 (which was oddly funny because that’s the meaning of life in the Adams-verse).

She also said that she had two little girls, 10 and seven, and that it made her think dating anyone was impossible. I thought she was being too hard on herself, and perhaps I should have said so. There are plenty of people my age who realize that when you get to our age, there’s lots of women who have children. Dating in your late 30’s, it just comes with the territory. Now, I’m not the sort of person who’d get invested over one phone call, but at the same time, it was still selling herself short.

At our age, we all have baggage. We all have quirks. We all have these life experiences that make us who we are. Who in their right minds thinks otherwise?

Then she blew my hair back with all the feminist theory she’d read and I sort of felt like a moron… but in a good way, like asking her which authors I should be reading.

All in all, it was a good first attempt at getting out of my comfort zone, and I’ll carry that with me whether we meet in person or not. I mean, I calld someone. That has to be something… and in fact, I said in my message, “I’m deathly afraid of phone calls, but I’d do it for you. :)”

And then there was this other woman that made me test everything I’d learned with Argo, and I was so proud of myself I kvelled.

She sent me this message that said, “I was going to ask if you wanted to hang out sometime, but being an omnivore is gross.” I sent a message back that said, “so is being obnoxiously judgmental.” She fired back, “that’s what a slave owner would say to an abolitionist.” So, instead of flipping my shit and tearing her apart, I blocked her and walked away.

Go me.

And then there was this other woman who read my line about veterans, and she sent me the most beautifully crafted message in return. She said, “I see that you are looking for veterans. I am not a veteran in the literal sense, but I’ve fought a lot of wars with myself, and I’ve lost most of them… my opponent was just too fierce.” It touched my heart in a major way, and we are going on a date sometime soon. She said, “I’m sure that you could help me with spliced commas and how to use a semicolon, but I think those conversations are best had over vino.”

I thought about it, and said, “Why not?”

Even if she turns out to be a basket of crazy, it’s better than sitting at home all the time, afraid to branch out in the slightest.

Tomorrow is also going to be promising, because Scales and I are going out to dinner and possibly a movie. God, I’ve missed her. She’s spending a lot of time with the colonel, and I get it… but at the same time, it doesn’t stop me from wishing she was still making me laugh on a regular basis. And if the colonel wants to come along, all the better. I’ve met her online, and she’s just as funny as every soldier I’ve ever met.

I have come to the realization that even though I have trouble envisioning the future, it doesn’t have trouble envisioning me.

Amen.