When the bowl exploded, raspberry Jell-o sprayed onto the range and started running down the front of the oven. Fear gripped me like a well-worn driving glove. “You should have known that bowl wasn’t safe to use on the stove,” said Kathleen. “Look at this mess!” I took out a dishcloth and started sopping up the boiling liquid. When she saw that I was not cleaning up the kitchen to her satisfaction, she ripped the towel out of my hands and continued her assault. “I’m not sure who it was that taught you how to cook, but that was a dumbass move on your part.” I noticed that she was now wiping the area that I had just cleaned. My humiliation was now complete.

I waited a long time for the embarrassment of the incidence to fade, for a lighthearted story to replace Kathleen’s anger at my moment of incompetence.

It’s been almost four years.

The raspberry Jell-o caper, as I now refer to it, has become important in my mind as one of the watershed moments of my marriage. The moment where I knew marriage was hard work. Kathleen’s anger was not just about the broken bowl and the messy kitchen. It was that both of those things tapped into her feeling that I was helpless when it came to running my own household and she felt like she had to parent me. My humiliation wasn’t about Jell-o, either. It tapped into my feelings of inadequacy because Kathleen was never content to let me make my own mistakes. Before I could really make them, she’d swoop in and “rescue” me. And at that point, I was not strong enough in myself to tell her to back off… that sometimes mistakes were necessary because you grew from them in order to stop making so many. I was also angry that she knew so well how to tap into my childhood emotions, pushing buttons so that in a matter of seconds I was reduced from fully-functioning adult to insolent child screaming “you’re not the boss of me.”

While that problem was infinitely more fixable than some of our others, the bottom line was that we partnered way too long before either of us knew who we were and how we would react to being in a serious relationship… which is why hearing that one of my friends is planning to move to Phoenix to be with his girlfriend and her two children is causing me more anxiety than joy.

I’m happy that he’s found someone to love, someone who brings him so much happiness. But I fear for him, too. I worry that he is in the same place I was when Kathleen and I started our partnership- deliriously happy to have found each other and naïve enough to believe that if we just loved each other enough, all our worries would work themselves out.

This is another unfinished entry… one of those where I just needed to think my way through this. I want to be supportive, but I also want to be authentic, because to me, sugar-coating the reality of marriage is what gets people into trouble in the first place. It’s a little too late to be voicing too many concerns, though. He leaves next week. I think the best thing I can do is to be there if he needs me, and not worry too much about trying to rescue him the same way Kathleen tried to rescue me. After all, it taught me some of life’s most important lessons.

It’s 11:46 AM. I’m already running late. I usually start writing early in the morning so that I’m free for the rest of the day. This morning, I had the worst kind of hangover in the entire world- the Benadryl grog. If I hadn’t needed such a good night’s sleep last night, I wouldn’t have bothered with it. But as you can imagine, I’ve got so much going on in my brain that it usually takes a sleeping pill to get it to stop. The negative part is that when I woke up, it was like swimming in hospital Jell-o.

I just realized I haven’t had any caffeine today. Let me start the coffee pot, and I’ll be right back. Hold please.

————————-

Ok, so the coffee is brewing, so I know I will feel much better in about 15 minutes. This morning, I’m drinking a blend I made to save money, and it’s working out really well. I bought a pound of Three Regions blend at Starbucks, then I emptied it into a half-full bucket of Folger’s Black Pearl (incidentally, this is, in my opinion, the greatest cheap coffee ever made. OF COURSE if I pay $15/lb I’m going to get great coffee. But it is seriously amazing when you can get good coffee at 2lbs for about $12. And, as you can see, it fits in with other coffees just fine.

That’s one of my big cooking things- buy cheap, serve expensive. See, if it can’t be expensive coffee, at least make sure it’s the best brand you like for the price you’re going to pay. Think of how cheap dishes like coq au vin can be if you buy cheap wine, cheap chicken pieces, and just let them simmer for HOURS. If you can tell that I didn’t pay top dollar for every ingredient, I would be shocked. The most amazing thing about cooking is not filet mignon. It is taking something someone would write off and making it beautiful.

God, I still don’t want to write today.

Shirley and I should be hauling ass toward the Columbia River Gorge with a journal and a pencil. Today is certainly the day for it. I might be tempted to want to write, then. But today, I’m tapped out. I got nothin’. You’re just going to have to fumble the ball with me until I manage to throw a Hail Mary pass into the end zone and win one for the Gipper.

I went to the Dollar Store recently, and usually at the checkout they offer to give a toy to a kid in need if you’ll donate one. So, I’m standing in the checkout line, and the checker says, “woriboiewep?” I’m paraphrasing. She didn’t say that, it’s just what I heard. I automatically said yes, because I thought it was the toy thing. Turned out, she wanted to know if I wanted to buy a dancing sunflower. Dana put it on the coffee table in front of the sliding glass door, and the cats are watching it as if it were Breaking Bad. Apparently, it is appointment television with them. I don’t get cats. But whatever.

Technically, the cats have two TVs. The sunflower, and my goldfish tank. I love my goldfish tank. It is one of my prized possessions. The reason I keep goldfish is that they’re completely fucking nasty fish. They create a lot of waste and you have to clean the tank constantly. But at the same time, they don’t require a water heater, they eat next to nothing, and they’re happy pretty much all the time as long as the bubble pad is plugged in. The fish have the classic “Finding Nemo” personalities. They like to swim toward the bottom of the pad and just ride up, like it’s a Bubblevator.

Yesterday, Dana was in a funk so we decided to get outside and get some air. We’d taken Shirley’s battery out so that we could charge it, so first order of business was to get Shirley squared away and purring. When that was accomplished, we decided to go for a drive to make sure everything was humming smoothly.

We passed a graveyard, and looked at each other. We love graveyards due to the funny things that have happened to us in them, like the time we went to find Dana’s ancestors at Beth Israel so we could take pictures and the sky opened up and dumped snow on us up to our knees. I’ll take credit for that one. It was slightly snowing at our house, so I thought it would be cool if we went to the cemetery because we’d get pictures of the head stones “lightly dusted with snow.” Apparently, I haven’t lived in Portland long enough to realize what a stupid idea it was to begin with. We live on the SE side of Portland. Beth Israel is on the west side. If you live here, you’re starting to get the picture. If you don’t live here, SW Portland is at a much, much, much higher elevation.

#dumbassattack

So, anyway, yesterday it was nice and sunny while we were driving, and we passed an old cemetery. Dana said, “OH! That one is pretty old.” I asked her if we should turn around, and she debated in her head. When she gave me the okay, we turned around and drove into the cemetery itself, parking in the sunshine so that the car would stay warm inside while we looked around. The reason we did this is that in Portland, there’s really no warning that it’s about to get cold. Basically, as soon as the sun goes down, it will either stay nice, or it will drop 30 degrees in the same day. It was late afternoon, and we didn’t know how the weather was going to go. We’ve never seen Sybill.

We actually went to the cemetery on purpose, because our friends Greg & Alexis lost their twin girls about two weeks after they were born, due to a rare genetic disease. Since the cemetery itself was pretty close to their house, we thought it was plausible that the girls were buried there and we could go pay our respects. We looked for about two hours before coming to the conclusion that we were in the wrong place. We decided that we would message Greg when we got home so that next time, we’d be in the right place along with our hearts.

That being said, this cemetery was awful. The old headstones from the 1800s were cool, and we sat in front of them for a long time. But something strange is afoot at the Circle K when it comes to modern headstones. We actually saw a child’s grave with a photo of him airbrushed on the front. It even said “Old Navy” on his hoodie. We also saw airbrushes that were really fucking creepy because the airbrush was in color and the art wasn’t very good. Seriously, folks, if you find yourself in need of an airbrushed headstone, HOLD IN THE URGE. Again, it’s creepy and the airbrush doesn’t look so much like a portrait, it kind of looks like a portrait tattoo, with about that much talent.

I told Dana that when I die, I want to be cremated and put into the earth, which is about as legal a “green funeral” as you’re going to get. However, I still want a headstone so that people have a place to come and see me if they so desire. I think it would be cool if after I’m dead, you’d drop by to say hello. By then I’m sure there will be some kind of electronic device inside so that I can say hello, I can wave my arms at you, and yell, “I’m TRAPPED! LET ME OUT!” I am just that kind of evil/awesome. Or how ’bout a digital photo frame? That’d be really cool. You can sit at my headstone and cry, even though I won’t be there, because there I am, larger than life, letting you remember what an angel/douchebag I was.

I know I’m a douchebag, and I’m not offended by that. I call myself that a lot, because getting caught in deep snow isn’t the first dumbass attack I’ve ever had. In fact, I think it comes in at about four million.

Like today.

God, I didn’t want to write today.

At various times in my life, I have been:

• a preacher’s kid
• a teen who actually went to youth group
• a youth pastor
• a children’s choir assistant
• lay preacher
• other duties as assigned

Those are my qualifications for helping you pick a church. I don’t have any letters behind my name, I’m not ordained, and I have no forward motion on either at this time. So if you pick a church based on what I say and it’s the wrong one? Sorry. No refunds.

The disclaimer is now in place. Let us sally forth.

1. Get to Know the Major Denominations
   1. Don’t even think about church shopping unless you’ve done some Internet research, because you don’t want this to happen to you. The setup for the story is that my church, Bridgeport United Church of Christ, is extraordinarily liberal. Across the street is a UCC church that’s mega-conservative. I think they might handle snakes in there, but I’ve never been, so I can’t say for sure (That’s another thing you need to know about church denominations- in some denominations, everyone believes the same thing. In others, each individual church can believe whatever it wants). We thought it was a little odd that a black family dressed to the nines came to our church one morning, and it wasn’t because they were black. It’s that we were all in shorts and t-shirts and their little girl is in the laciest, frilliest frock you can imagine, complete with big damn hat. They sit down without incident, but I noticed that they looked a little green by the middle. We’d just had a rash of gay marriages because back then, the state was issuing licenses to gay people. We celebrated gay weddings in church, and the black family in all their Easter regalia (in July) stood up and walked out. They had walked into the wrong church! It has always been my hope that the family would find their way back to us, because it would have been so fun to have more children. But at the same time, you just can’t go to a church that doesn’t line up with what you believe.
2. Decide Whether It’s Long Term
   1. Once you get to a church, take a few weeks and really think about whether this is a relationship you could see continuing until you’re dead, because a) that’s a long-ass time b) you’re not going to be in the same place in your life for your whole life. If the church you’re in is Definitely. Not. It., do not waste another minute. What you’re looking for is a church that will allow you to grow. If you’re single, you want a place where eventually you can take your partner and kids, where you all have a relationship to a community. Life is long. Choose wisely.
      1. But don’t misunderstand me. If things get rough, even at a church you like, there’s no shame in leaving. People come and go to church for different reasons, and pastors get upset sometimes, but who’s the most important person in this equation? YOU! You’re the one giving your prayers, presents, gifts, and service (Methodist shout-out alert!) and a lot of the time, your hard-earned dollars. Don’t forget- the church never has you over a barrel, but it will sometimes feel that way if you decide to join any committees.
      2. Don’t join any committees.
3. Do You Have Children?
   1. One thing that a lot of pastors struggle with is how to grow a church, because out of all the pastors I’ve talked to, not one of them had ever had a class in seminary on how to do just that. My dad’s experience, passed on to me, is that the easiest way to get adults to come to church is to get kids to come to church first. Families don’t come back to churches that don’t have good kids’ programs, because the whole point of the exercise was to raise their kid in a church, anyway.
   2. If you already have children, but do not have a church, the easiest way to find one is to find out where your kid’s classmates go. It will be less intimidating for them because they will already know people when they get there. Just make sure that you’re going there because you can also support the church- you’re not sending them to snake handlers just because it’s all the rage at Gymboree.
4. Join Committees! Have MEETINGS!
   1. If, however, you have been at a church long enough to know how it works, then get involved. I would say don’t do ANYTHING for the first six months to a year. You know why? Because the biggest mistake that people make when joining a church is getting involved in everything because they want to plug in SO BAD! You know why that’s a bad idea? Because that will last about six months before you’re completely burned out and you’ll leave, anyway. It’s sad, but it’s true.
5. Accept the Responsibility of Going to Church
   1. You don’t go to church to “learn about God and stuff,” although that’s part of it. I would say that church is 20% about learning your own theology and 80% about learning to work with people that you don’t like. Going to church is HARD when you don’t like someone, and it’s so tempting to just stay home. But it’s true. Most of the time, when people don’t come back to church, it’s because they’re avoiding someone. I won’t lie. I’ve done it. And I’m betting you have, too. Rise above it and put your big girl panties on. Your church is your community of faith, whether you’re on top of the world or have a Chevrolet’s weight in anxiety on your chest.
6. That Sounds Really Crappy, Thanks, Leslie
   1. Here’s the thing. Church is as wonderful as you make it. I’m just telling you the truth about what happens inside them. Do not forget that even though you are in the house of God, it’s still filled with humans. But it’s our humanness and our messy lives and our outrageous fights and all of those things that MAKE US DIVINE, like the Velveteen Rabbit at the end of the book. Love makes us real.

Amen.

Dear Straight Women,

I love you so much. You’re the ones that are the most fun to gaze upon because we both know it’s not going anywhere and you’re just eye candy. Dana appreciates this, too, as you can imagine. To have a little bit of flirty fun is just confidence-building, and you, ladies, are REALLY GOOD AT IT. When you turn on the same charms for me that you do for the men you’re trying to impress, you make me blush from my hair to my toenails, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun. Plus, you get the added comedic bonus of me standing there like a jackass, mouth open because I can’t believe what you just said. Some of you are relentless, because you know it’s not going anywhere, either.

In short, straight women, I love you because if I didn’t have you, my self-esteem would be so much lower.

There are a few things, though, that you need to know about lesbians.

Do not go to Phase II.

Don’t lie to me. You do it. You want to see if you can get a “rise” out of me, and you can. Tread carefully. You wouldn’t throw yourself at a man, so don’t throw yourself at me, even if it’s a “joke.” As you can see from my blog, I have no qualms about disguising your name and calling you out on the carpet about it. There are too many women who have had their hearts broken over “jokes” and experimentation that for you, wasn’t really real. For us, it most certainly is.

When I was in college, I fell hard for someone that took me on a roller coaster. Straight, but wanted to date me anyway just for the experience of having dated a woman. The problem was that she left out that part of it when she was coming on strong.

So we dated for a while, until this happened. We’d been together long enough that we both wanted to have sex. So we did.

And the next day, she dumped me and said that what WE did wasn’t real sex.

Do you hear me, straight women? Don’t fuck with lesbians. Our emotions run deep and you can fracture us easily.

Now do you know what I mean by Phase II? Tell me that I’m hot, but don’t take it so far that my body responds whether you’re straight or not. BECAUSE IT WILL. I am only human, and you are gorgeous. Not that I would even entertain the idea of an affair, mind you, because Dana is so much woman that I can’t handle any more.

But the point has been made. Lesbians are weird creatures in that (from what I’ve noticed) they walk around with their hearts on their sleeves, or worse, are just one big walking nerve, especially when they’ve just broken up with someone.

And that’s the whole point. When you laugh and joke with us, we love it. But if your flirting becomes serious, emotions will start to get involved, and I don’t know about you, but when emotions get involved, I am no longer Leslie, confident woman. I am Leslie, a big puddle of goo on the floor.

In short, don’t take it too far. Let me revel in the splendor of eye candy, and then let me let you walk away slowly.

Because I love you.

Sincerely, Leslie

During the summer of 1994, my family moved from the city of Houston to one of its most tony suburbs, Sugar Land. Though the move was entirely because my father had been appointed as senior pastor at Christ United Methodist Church, it seemed as if this move had been granted by God just for me.

Right up until we got there.

It wasn’t so much that I was unhappy, because I wasn’t. I just knew that I wasn’t going to fit in. For starters, I had just finished two years in a performing arts high school with musicians, dancers, artists, and actors that were among the best in the country. My mentor was an opera singer. It was a culture that few, if any, of the teens at Christ Church had been exposed to.

It was also a different type of church. I don’t really know how to describe it other than to say that it was one of those “yay God!” types… where people are just so happy to be in the service of the Lord and even happier to tell you about the good work that they’re doing at top volume while ignoring all issues of personal space.

In spite of this, though, I really did make the best of it… and I have Mikal Bowman to thank.

One year younger and three inches taller, Mikal was a force to be reckoned with. She had gone to the church long enough to know the ropes, and even had her own personal nickname for it: “Christ United Methodist Country Club.” Within the first couple of weeks, she had lovingly given me a nickname as well: “Ugly.” I wasn’t offended. She only called people that if she really liked them.

Throughout the summer, Mike and I were inseparable… except when she would go and hang out with her friend Meagan Atkinson. I couldn’t help it. I was jealous. I didn’t even know Meagan, but I thought, “Hey! I just moved here. Surely Meagan has more friends than me. Why does she have to do things with MY friend?” Looking back on it, I realize that I was far too trusting. It didn’t occur to me to think it was weird that Mikal never invited me to meet her other friends and include me in the group.

But that is another posting entirely. The highlight of the summer was when Mikal, another friend of ours named Sara, and I all went to Reynosa, Mexico. We were going to teach Bible School.

Yeah. Right.

My Spanish vocabulary was equal to that of your average Mexican first grader. The only thing that got me through the week was knowing that everyone *attending* the Bible School knew it, too, and didn’t harass me about it. In fact, I have now come to believe that however little Spanish I knew was still more than most of the others on the trip… which is how *I* got elected to “give my testimony” at one of the Mexican worship services.

To know how utterly ridiculous this was, you have to realize that although the church I attended was a “Yay, God” sort of place, I am not a “Yay, God” sort of person. For me to get up in front of a group and talk about how God was changing my life was the antithesis, to me, of what Christ taught. You’re not supposed to get up in front of people- you’re just supposed to live by example and leave it at that. However, I reasoned that trying to get out of it would involve more Spanish than getting the damn thing over with, so with fear and trepidation, I walked to the front of the church.

“Dios es llame me… trabajar… con los ninos.”
(God is calls me to work with the children.)

“Yo tengo amor para la iglesia y los ninos.”
(I have love for the church and the children.)

At this point, I knew that I had pretty much run out of things to say… but that had never stopped me before. So I started over.

“Dios es llame me… trabajar… con los ninos.”
(God is calls me to work with the children.)

I looked out over the crowd. Mikal caught my eye. Her look clearly said, “wrap this thing up before you embarrass the crap out of yourself.”

“Dios te bendiga.”
(God bless you.)

I sat down next to my friend. She leaned in close. “That was the worst piece of crap I’ve ever heard in my life.”

I met Janie Spahr for the first time in 1997, while attending a More Light conference being held in Portland. Trying to describe that first meeting is difficult, because when you meet Janie Spahr, you are not just meeting a person. You are meeting an event.

When she is with you, it is likely that you will forget anyone else is in the room. When Janie speaks in front of a group, it is as if the air in the room changes… electrifies somehow… so that you walk away changed from the experience, wondering how so much grace, power, and gravitas can live in one woman.

Five years later, I was in Lambda Rising bookstore when I came across a picture of Janie, standing in a church, holding her arms up in benediction. My eyes reveled at the caption: “Dr. Jane A. Spahr at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Washington, DC.” I couldn’t contain my excitement. I turned a few pages, and there was Susan Leo in the same church. I called out to my partner, “LEENIE! We *have* to go to this church!!!”

Kathleen and I had been looking for a place to attend church for a while, and were starting to become tired with the process. We had so little alone time as it was that the call of being spiritual was starting to weaken in light of staying in bed, holding each other close, and the joyful alleluias inherent within. So we would go to Westminster, but it would have to be something pretty special to get us to stay.

The first thing that tipped us off to the fact that it was kind of different was the use of coffee and muffins for communion. Ruth, one of the pastors, came up to us after the service was over and said, “I hope you don’t mind that we didn’t use grape juice.” “Oh, no,” I said. “Coffee is often a life-giving substance for me.” She laughed and said, “boy… are you going to fit right in….”

And we did. Kathleen joined a class to learn how to make stained glass, I joined the choir, we both helped to grout the labyrinth being tiled into the floor, and most of all- we made friends in the process.

Somewhere along the line (I think it was Good Friday), I was asked to sing a hymn from behind the partition that separated the choir from the congregation so that no one would know where the voice was coming from. It would have been a beautiful effect, except that when I slipped up into the choir loft, I didn’t realize that I had forgotten my hymnal.

Panicking, I called out to Kathleen. She managed to get me a book without being seen. I said a quiet prayer to God for sending me this wonderful woman. “Where would I be without her?” I thought to myself. Relieved, I sat back in the dark sanctuary to enjoy the service.

A few seconds before the appointed time, I started flipping through the book, looking for the hymn I was supposed to sing. My beautiful, wonderful, angelic wife had slipped up to the choir loft and given me a bible.

I would have been completely screwed if I hadn’t remembered that this hymn was only sung once a year, anyway, so I could probably make something up and get away with it.

I stood up to sing…

What wondrous love is this

O my soul, O my soul

What wondrous love is this

O my soul

What wondrous love is this

What wondrous love is this

What wondrous love is this

O my soullllllll……

Last night when I got home, Brianna was in the bathroom blow-drying her hair. I tried to talk over the dryer:

“Where are you going with all that spiffiness?”

I wasn’t thinking. “Dingo’s,” she answered. Duh. It was Thursday night. I should have known.

“Is this a date or can I tag along?”

“Sure, come on.”

I’m not normally the type to *want* to go to Ladies’ Night, but going with Brianna sounded fun, especially since Sara, Lauren, Tania, and Holly were going to meet us there.

When we walked in the door, I asked Brianna if she wanted something to drink, and went to the bar to order for us. While I was there, this leggy blonde comes up to me and asks me what I’m drinking. I’m so flabbergasted that I can’t even answer. The bartender asks me what I want. I say, “I need a margarita and a strawberry margarita.” The woman’s face falls a little. “Here with your girlfriend?” I think for a second. She’s not unattractive. It’s okay to say no. Before I can even answer, Leggy Blonde has her arm around my shoulder. Well! That answers that. “Actually, I am here with someone.” Her arm drops along with her jaw. I scurry off with my drinks into the dining room.

Two ‘ritas later, a Spanish woman comes over to our table and starts talking with us. She tells us that she’s from Madrid. I say, “well… that’s a hell of a commute.” She looks at me with glazed eyes. “I like you,” she slurs. Oh. How cute. Count Drunkula has a crush. But hey, I’m not stupid. Of course she can buy me a six dollar drink.

Since this has never happened before in my entire life, I don’t know the rules of drink buying etiquette. I didn’t realize that if someone offers to buy you a drink, you’re a little obligated to stand there and talk for a minute like you give a damn. Tania comes over and tells me that she’s taking Brianna and Sara out to her car to see her new puppy, and I lean in to her mouth on my ear. I turn to give her a big hug. She kisses my cheek. She got the signal. Hallelujah!

“Is that your girlfriend?” I take a deep breath. Surely Tania will forgive me. “Yeah, we’ve been together like, 5 years.” I take my drink and haul ass back to my turf.

I’m not used to this whole scene. In fact, it kind of creeps me out. But my self esteem *does* seem a little higher. I begin to think that it’s not so bad being picked up in bars, as long as it doesn’t go anywhere. It’s nice to be flirted with, good to be thought of as hot, and not that hard to think up fake phone numbers. I should have tried this a long time ago.

Running up other people’s bar tabs is fun. 🙂

Somewhere in the late nineties (I think it was ’96 or 7), I was sitting at dinner with two old friends, Dianne and Bruce. Dianne had gone to the church my father had pastored when I was a kid, and Bruce had begrudgingly tagged along. Since we had been friends for such a long time, I decided that tonight would be a good night to open the discussion about why I didn’t date boys (I’ve evolved. Get over it.).

Because I was nervous about what I had to say, I didn’t laugh or smile as much as I usually did… which then prompted Bruce to ask me if anything was wrong.

Oh, boy. Not exactly.

I took a deep breath, and the words seemed to rush out on the exhale. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m pretty sure I’m a lesbian.” (Excellent choice of words, Les… We’re all very proud.) I let the words hang in the air, my tension so tangible you could cut it with a knife. The entire time I was speaking, neither of them had changed expressions. They both looked a little uncomfortable. What had I done? I sat, waiting for the fallout.

Though I didn’t notice, Bruce’s expression had changed. He was trying to hold back laughter. Dianne, too, for that matter.

He spoke, “We are *so* glad that you decided to tell us, because we had pretty much decided that if you didn’t tell us, we were going to sit down and tell you.”

“Really?” I was shocked. “How did you know?” I thought I had been so meticulous about “not showing at church.” As if.

Dianne spoke up. “Whenever you started talking about me or Nancy or any of our other friends, your head would tilt to the right and this dreamy expression would come over your face. It was so cute, and you were so clueless.”

Wow. And I had thought that this couldn’t get embarrassing.

This was originally written in April of 2003. The update is that Tesia is married with two kids and lives in the Bay Area.

————-

Portland has always been a place of healing for me. That’s because whenever my heart (or my spirit) was truly broken, there were two pairs of arms waiting to embrace me as soon as I got off the plane.

In 1997, though, Portland was also a place of excitement and mystery. Tesia and I had been talking online for about 4 months when we decided that we would be each other’s date to the “wedding of the millenium.” After all, it was the Diva and the Divine that had introduced us. As the time to meet grew near, we were both on pins and needles. Would we really turn out to be what the other expected?

I rambled as Susan drove me to meet her. “I don’t know if I’m ready for this, Susan. You shouldn’t have fixed me up with anyone. Look at me. I’m a nervous wreck! She’s going to think that I sweat too much. Where’s the attraction in that? I hope my breath doesn’t stink. Susan, do you have any gum? Say something to get my mind off of things. How are the Giants doing this season?”

Looking back on it, I am sure that Susan wanted to give me a Xanax. But to her credit, she didn’t say anything… she just gave me a look. You know, the one that says, “calm down or I’ll hurt you.” I bit my lip. This was going to be difficult.

We arrived at the opera rehearsal space that would serve as the reception hall after the wedding. Tesia was helping her mother decorate, and she was…

Gorgeous. I mentally made a note to slap whatever part of myself caused me to mistrust Susan’s judgment. It was amazing. We picked up our conversation right where we had left it the day before, when we were both just voices across the internet.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in Diane and Susan’s living room, leafing through the wedding pictures. I came across this picture of a woman whose face was lit up in joy, one of those smiles that you only catch by happenstance because it doesn’t look nearly as convincing when posed.

After a few seconds, I gasp. That woman was me. I hadn’t recognized myself at first because that kind of pure joy hadn’t found me in many years.

…or maybe it was that kind of girl.

This is originally from my old blog, “Clever Title Goes Here.” I found a repository that has it archived, otherwise, I would send you there myself. The story itself takes a little explanation. My first wife was molested for years, and so was one of my best friends growing up. So the two women closest to me in the entire world had both been violated in a way that I might never see the real them. I don’t have anything to say to those women directly, only that I love them and wish them well. No, this is a letter angry enough letter that I went outside and punched a trash can until I could see straight again. I don’t hate men, but I do hate animals. These women were taken advantage of for no more reason THAN THEY COULD BE.

=

Tonight the discussion in my sexuality and relationships class was about rape and abuse. As I sat there and absorbed everything that was said, I could feel my temperature rising. My cheeks flushed with anger and embarrassment. Everything within me wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, “YOU BASTARD! YOU HAVE STOLEN FROM ME!” Only my deep connection to my polite Southern upbringing stopped the torrent from breaking forth.

Fiona* was a small child when her uncle started babysitting. He would bring over his young son so that Fiona would have a playmate. At first, Fiona was delighted, but then things started to get weird. Her uncle wanted to teach her to kiss his son “so that she would be ready when the time came.” As time passed, the abuse grew more frequent and more involved.

When her uncle finally stopped babysitting, Fiona and her cousin didn’t know any other way to relate to each other except sexually, which they did for a while until each started to feel overwhelming shame.

I met Fiona about five years ago, and we started dating. Things began to go wrong within minutes, but I couldn’t quite place a reason why. In retrospect, I cannot believe that I never asked about her violent mood swings, her rejection of hugs that lasted more than a few moments, and her refusal to discuss any type of conflict. Frustrated, I broke things off with her after about six months.

She wrote me a letter last year detailing the horrible things that had happened to her. As I sat reading, my heart started to break. Why hadn’t I been more aware of what was happening to her?

It was then that I decided to direct my anger at the one who deserved it: Fiona’s lowlife uncle. He had been the one to rob my girlfriend of her ability to trust. He had been the one to skew her vision of love and relationships, ensuring that she would always see them as power struggles. He had been the one to tear away at the idea that sex was beautiful, natural, even spiritual at times. Though it wasn’t a direct hit, he had stolen from me, and I wanted him to pay.

What is it going to take to raise a generation of people that have no concept of rape and abuse? Of the type of control over others that rape and abuse represents? I don’t have any answers, but I am happy to have a group of people with which I can brainstorm. Something needs to happen, not only for the potential victims, but for all the people left in the shadow when it occurs.

*Names and identifying details have been changed to protect a woman I loved.

Kathy picked me up at 6:20, and we walked to the car. Laying on the passenger side front seat was a bouquet of red sunflowers (well, actually I’m not sure what kind of flowers they were). And that’s when it hit me. This was supposed to be a date. My stomach clenched. Two thoughts ran through my head: a) can I get out of this? b) I cannot, under any circumstances, date a woman named Kathy. Against my better judgment, I got into the car. No one had ever brought me flowers on the first date. I had to at least find out what would happen next. Going back into the house would only ensure one thing: that I wouldn’t get to know anyone new.

We started with the usual basics, such as “what do you do?” and “where are you from?” Turns out, she’s known all over Oregon as “the bug lady.”

“The bug lady?” My voice was somewhat hesitant. The feeling in my stomach went from bad to worse as she explained that she climbed into crawlspaces, air vents, and attics to rid clients of their pest problems. And this is the point at which I know my writing is a sham. I cannot think of a single thing to say that’s either snarky or funny about it, because honestly, I am still a little grossed out.

(Editor’s note 2013: I swear to God that she got teary over her meaningful work.)

We drive up in front of the restaurant where she’s already made reservations. It’s one of the most expensive in town. My OhShitometer is pushing 80, but amazingly, the conversation doesn’t suffer. Kathy is really easy to talk to.

After dinner, we walked along the river in Waterfront Park. There are no ships, but there are plenty of lights bouncing along the little ripples in the water. I realize that I’m having a good time.

However.

As we’re driving home, I know that saying goodnight will be awkward. I’ve already mourned the fact that this is the first woman I’ve dated in well, ever, that’s brought me flowers and taken me to an expensive restaurant on the first date and I can’t even pretend there’s a spark.

I thanked her. I said goodnight. I went into the house.

First, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to you this morning. I can’t imagine any other pastor giving up their pulpit on Thanksgiving Sunday, but Susan did, and it was a gracious and generous gesture.

I’m also grateful to be grateful. I have had a hard time this year. At various times I have been out of work, out of a place to stay, and nearly out of my mind, but looking back over the last year I realized that I’ve really enjoyed most of it in spite of everything that’s gone wrong, and until I started working on a “Thanksgiving Sunday” sort of sermon, I couldn’t even put my finger on why. Looking at the events of the past year at face value made me wonder what I could possibly be grateful for.

I’m grateful I have friends. In the book of Matthew, Jesus says, “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Creator feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” Skipping the theological debate on the hierarchy of the animal kingdom, I’d like to point out that I have never felt more valued, or more loved, than when I accepted you as my community of faith.

In fact, I wouldn’t have survived without you, because you came to my rescue in a multitude of ways.

• Towanda and her cielo let me come over to their house every Saturday for three months straight just so I could watch Trading Spaces because I didn’t have cable.
• Tania took me to the Women’s World Cup because she knew how much I would love it even though I didn’t have the money.
• Karen offered to bring a picnic to my empty apartment so we could sit on the floor with purpose.
• Diane offered me tickets to a student dress rehearsal at the Portland Opera and to the Portland Youth Philharmonic’s first concert this season.
• Keith introduced me to the orchestra at University of Portland so that I would have a place to play my trumpet and another group of people to belong to.
• Scootter and Ann gave me work as a handywoman even though they knew I didn’t have any experience and quickly learned that I’m quite a klutz.
• Theo and Andrew envisioned an incredibly moving jazz service and asked me to be a part of it all.
• Pam and Suzie helped me get involved with the youth group, where I found an amazing group of kids that I am proud to help lead.
• Karen said, “Of course I’ll talk to you,” when I expressed interest in truly determining if the plan for my life included professional ministry.
• And there are countless others who called just to check in, and stayed right there with me as I struggled to create a life and a circle of friends.

I’ve had so much to be thankful for, even when I didn’t have anything to hold in my hands… which made me realize that I’m grateful for where I am… because it took a long time to get here.

Before I came to Portland, my former partner and I both worked for a multinational oil company. Pooled together, our income was larger than the yearly operating budget for some countries in which it drilled. We lived in a large townhouse in the posh suburb of Alexandria, and spent our weekends going to restaurants and movies in order to escape the austere environment that was work. We both drove late-model cars. We had over 200 cable television channels. As our careers advanced, we learned that it was possible for one or both of us to receive expatriate assignments so that we could live overseas. It was exactly the type of life that I thought I wanted, until I was shaken into a different reality. My position was downsized. My partner left me, and unable to cope with the carpet-sucking depression that both life events dealt, I retreated in shame to my parents’ house in Houston, Texas. Immediately following the move, and for a long time afterward, I was so stuck in the rut of wanting what I USED to have that I forgot to give thanks for everything I DID have… both to God and to my family, because not only did they give me the space I needed to recover, they encouraged me to find a job I really, really liked. As I began to heal, I knew it was because my parents had given me so much. Little things I had taken for granted, like a place to live, in fact, a room of my own. In terms of my relationship with God, I went through the motions of going to church, but I’m not sure that I was all there. Had I been paying attention, I could have given thanks for the closing of many emotional wounds.

Eventually, I became aware of the fact that I had committed a series of mistakes that, looking back on it, were nothing more than entitlement issues. As in, “I’m depressed, so I DESERVE this” or “My partner just left me, so it’s ok that I don’t notice all these people running around trying to make me feel better.” It was a paradigm shift that I cannot and will not forget.

For me, “the place I am” also includes physical location. I’m so grateful that I’m in Portland, because until I moved here, I never knew that love for a place could be so intense. Each morning when I wake up, I look out the window at vast Oregon hills and mountains unlike anything I’ve ever known as a Houston, Texan. I marvel at the line of Japanese Maple trees leading up the street to my apartment. I love, to paraphrase Norman McClean and Robert Redford, that “a river runs through it.” I love the Columbia Gorge, with the way that from a distance it looks as if the rock is actually rising up out of the water and curving slightly inward as if a wave was frozen into place. I love Jake’s Grill on the ground floor of the Governor Hotel, where the food is so cheap and the people watching so grand that I have often gone alone just to be able to take it all in. I love the Portland Opera and the Portland Youth Philharmonic because when I have nothing, I still have music.

I’m grateful for music. As James Duffecy once said, “Music can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable.” Sitting in a dark theater as notes and rhythms wash over me in rapid succession is the purest pleasure I know, because often hearing a particular piece will articulate the emotion I’ve been trying to express, but haven’t. It is also a moment of sustenance and strength in acknowledging that symphonies do not happen alone. They are created when many people come together.

And finally, I am grateful that what is won’t always be, because whether it is done through a change in circumstance or a change in attitude, my God is big enough to turn my situation around… Kind of like a story I read earlier in the week while I was still in the early stages of preparing my sermon.

In Budapest, a man goes to the rabbi and complains, “Life is unbearable. There are nine of us living in one room. What can I do?”

The rabbi answers, “Take your goat into the room with you.” The man in incredulous, but the rabbi insists. “Do as I say and come back in a week.”

A week later the man comes back looking more distraught than before. “We cannot stand it,” he tells the rabbi. “The goat is filthy.”

The rabbi then tells him, “Go home and let the goat out. And come back in a week.”
A radiant man returns to the rabbi a week later, exclaiming, “Life is beautiful. We enjoy every minute of it now that there’s no goat and only the nine of us.”

I won’t always be poor, looking at lattes and thinking of how many packages of Ramen noodles I could have bought for the same price. I won’t always be a struggling undergraduate with the dream of becoming a pastor. I won’t always be able to give so little in terms of material gifts, because the gifts I have already received will push me forward toward my goals.

I am so grateful for this point in my life, the city that surrounds me, and the people who have met my needs both spoken and not.

You are my Thanksgiving. Thanks be to God.

I try not to do it, but I’m really fucking good. I can reduce people to tears when I want to, as you can imagine. I have enough verbal flexibility to completely cut someone off at the knees, and I feel very important about saying this because I preach so much forgiveness and patience. The reason I’m able to write about forgiveness and patience so much is that I am a mother fucking instruction manual on what NOT to do. My pain is your gain. I can only hope that I am learning with you, over time, when I go back to my own words and realize I’m not living up to the ideals I’ve presented.

God, sometimes you just want to take the low road so bad. The things that enter into my head that slip through the filter are always the things I should have kept to myself. When things aren’t fair, they’re not just unfair. They’re completely FUBAR. I do not deal in “middle-of-the-road.” I yell a lot. My cats could give me the “stop thinking about it” lecture.

There’s only been 12 years of my life that you haven’t been completely fucking with me. I want those years back. Give them to me. NOW.

See, I just took the low road. And what do I have left? I’m angry again, and I did it to myself on purpose. But that little jolt of anger was a rallying cry to be more than I am. To rise above. To just be the best writer I can be because I’LL SHOW THEM! No, I won’t. And I probably can’t ever, because again, “can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Anyone who’s known me longer than 10 years has a glazed look on their faces when I speak about my writing. That’s why I connect to my readers. I put a lot of emotion on the page, and I don’t always have a place to go with it except here. I don’t want my real friends to get bored and not want to be my friends anymore.

Thanks for giving me a place to crash whether I’m on the high road or not. I hope you’ll let me fall occasionally, but be there to pick me up when I do. This is not a web site.

I have built a community.

Because the low road? There’s a reason they call it that.

Every once in a while, I’ll run across a question for Advice Column Thursday, and then realize that it’s too important a question to wait until the next week. I received an e-mail that I will not attribute at all to protect anonymity, but the question was, “if you’ve lost the love of your life, and you both know it, how do you go about fixing it?” I decided I could make this into a much bigger piece than an advice column, because life is so rich that there is no one way to decide that one person is an embodiment of it… until you do.

And then there are those loves of your life that are ripped away even when you do your best to take care of them. In relationships, this means getting dumped or maybe, the person dies. There is no one way to lose love. We can even talk about things about your own body that slip away. You meant to take care of your hands, because you’re an excellent carpenter. Then you went to work at a restaurant and used a deli slicer to take an inch off your professional bird-flipper.

It can all be expressed as the same problem, and can be expressed as the same solution. It just takes a little bit of extrapolation. So let’s not talk about romance exclusively. For the purposes of this article, “love of your life” can be anything from music to manhole covers.

In this manner, I have lost the love of my life a lot, and each time, I thought I was going to die. Each time, my heart felt like it was beating outside my chest in fear. I don’t have her anymore. I don’t have him anymore. I don’t have it anymore.

It is gone.

There are a lot of steps to healing something like this, but let’s just take first things first. Let’s start with you.

How much of a mess are you right now?

Level with me. Let’s triage this. (I used to be a basic medical assistant and I am a mental patient myself. It’s what I know.)

1. What happens when you wake up? Are you able to get out of bed? Once you are out of bed, do you get ready for the day, or do you spend the day in your pajamas?
2. How much sleep are you getting? Average is normal. WAY TOO LITTLE or WAY TOO MUCH is what you’re looking for in terms of symptoms. No, you are not Garfield.
3. How much are you drinking? Be honest with me. No, really, I am one of the least judgmental people on earth, and this is clinically important. HOW MUCH ARE YOU DRINKING?

Just looking at those three things alone should be enough to wake up your weird shitometer. Those triage points are not really there for me. I don’t really know you, but you do. You can take a look at these three things and I’m pretty sure it will give you a clear enough picture to know whether you need professional help. If that wisdom comes to you, let it sit.

Don’t fight it, don’t cajole it, don’t do anything to it. Just hear it. Invite the idea to come sit a little closer so that you can think all the way around it. Let the idea sit until it’s comfortable. It’s not the answer, it’s an option. You might choose poorly this time around, but the next time you’re in this situation, going to get help will reappear and you will all of the sudden be more interested in it. Don’t be threatened. Be real. You’ve just lost the love of your life. Save your own.

Take care of yourself first, because what person seeing what a mess you are is going to run back and say, “Oh, God! I was completely mistaken! What was I thinking?” If it were me, though, I’d cocoon in my dirty house with all the windows drawn like a modern-day Auden poem writ large (STOP ALL THE CLOCKS, BITCHES). If you’re like me, you need a few days of “dumped girl” to get it out of your system. Allow yourself to nurse you. Allow yourself to go out and buy those things that make you feel at home in your own skin. For me, these are things like almond soap with little shards of almond for pumice. Stash Tea in Double Bergamot. Ginger snaps. Rogue blue cheese. Apples.

Treat yourself with kindness, and just think.

This is the part that most people skip. They skip that time “in the desert” that they need to get their heads in the right gear. Maybe it’s not intentional, but it seems to me that as soon as a relationship starts to circle the drain, people get uncomfortable with living in grey area and will actually throw someone out of their lives before they’ll admit it. Better to go on the defensive because they can’t hurt you if you hurt them first, can they? What you miss is that relationships are born and reborn in the spaces inbetween.

It requires an ability for which few people have patience: living in the inbetweeen. Living in the inbetween is so hard because you have to be comfortable with what you don’t know. You have to be comfortable with being able to carry huge questions in your head, and sometimes, you have to carry them like a burden for a very long time before there’s any resolution at all.

When people have to carry burdens without knowing where they’re going or what’s in the bag, they intentionally try to make a snap decision that will resolve the cognitive dissonance. That’s why you don’t really mean that you never want to see someone again. It means that it will be a while before you can even think of engaging with that person.

In short, don’t snap.

Hold the cognitive dissonance in your mind long enough to map it. If you need help with this, use a drawing program like Visio or Freemind. What drawing software will do is allow you to see your thoughts on paper as how they appear in your brain. You can spend as much time as you want grouping and regrouping your ideas until they come out in a rational order (this is also invaluable for work brainstorming, btw).

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT go back to the love of your life and tell him/her/it that you’ve got it all worked out now. YOU USED SOFTWARE! No, the software is just a tool, as are you.

Once you’ve looked at these drafts, you’re in a better position to know yourself, and that’s the point. You cannot give anything to anyone else if you’re pouring from an empty cup. Plus, this guy that dumped you? Do you *really* want to go back to him after you see all his shit in black ink glory?

If so, then you need to proceed with caution, but I understand why you’re doing it. Stay strong, sister. I’m not going to lie. The chances that your babe/dude will respond the way you thought they would in the car is almost big, fat zero. This is why you’ve spent so long caring for yourself. You haven’t even attempted to come here unless you were ok with any outcome, right? RIGHT?

Here is a piece of advice, free from me to you. Do not go wait on her front porch.

No, it’s not.

It is NOT A GOOD IDEA. What are you going to do when you show up with flowers and you’re sitting there like a jackass when she pulls up in the driveway driving her “physical therapist’s car?”

I write letters. This is a large part of why. I want to tell my true love what the possibilities of our relationship might be, and let him/her SAY YES TO THE PROPOSITION. It’s a more genuine connection than springing something on your love and expecting an immediate answer. I understand. You’re panicked about your life, so they should be, too.

Be cool.

Be. Cool.

Breathe.

There is nothing better than the confidence of that “yes.” WAIT FOR IT.

When you get it, read “Getting the Love You Want,” by Harville Hendrix. It helped me to vocalize what I wanted in relationships, and is one of the few self-help books I still have.

He advocates that if you want to get back together, act as if. Eventually, the muscles will retrieve the memories from your brain and tell you why. For instance, in the beginning, your muscles will just think, “I’m getting her a coat.” After a few weeks of doing this every day, “it’s going to be cold out. My love will need a coat.” Caring about someone when you don’t actually reboots your brain into caring about them. It’s a very simplistic analysis of Dr. Hendrix’ work, but I hope that I was able to make it as clear as banana. I don’t like mud.

I will close with one last thing. I lost a great love of my entire life within the last few years. I have no idea what she’s doing, where she is, anything.  But I spend my days caring about her so if I see her again, the anger and embarrassment won’t eat me alive.

If your love is a memory, maybe you should do that, too.

I think that our goal as humans is to master the concept of “enough.” I was thinking about this a few days ago when Margaret Cho tweeted my marriage article on her own stream, and again when Martina Navratilova re-tweeted it this morning. I think about the concept of “enough” a lot, because I think it is the primary thing that’s created much-needed sanity around my head. I sit with my eyes closed and my headphones in, playing “White Noises- Best of,” and in the silence I hear nothing but my own voice. That is intentional. I am so ADD that I cannot hear me if anything else is on. Because why in the hell would I want to watch me when I could watch Burn Notice?

Sitting there has to be enough. Listening to nothing and having all the sound blocked out around me. That has to be enough. The comfort of my own voice speaking to me, telling me tender things I could have missed. That has to be enough.

Because if it is not, one friend is not enough. One celebrity endorsement is not enough. One beer is not enough. One pizza slice is not enough.

If I cannot rest in “enough,” I run in “more.”

Do you know what I mean? Have you been there?

When you cannot rest in the concept of enough, you will constantly run toward things that you think will fill you up. But they don’t. Because you don’t see the one purse you bought to make you feel better about losing your job as enough to heal the pain. You’ll go shopping fifteen times, and every time you go shopping, you’ll buy something to make the pain stop. That pain won’t go away if Kate Spade is giving purses away for free on the sidewalk in front of your house (But, dear Jesus, that would help. Please remember me in your kindom…). In that way, things become distractions from stopping long enough to ask yourself, “what is this really about? What am I doing?”

Let’s say you don’t think shopping is a “real” addiction. Ok. Let’s get dirty. People smoke crack and buy throws from whores for the same reason they buy 15 purses.

I can’t get vulnerable enough to address my issues on my own, so I’m going to try and intentionally avoid dealing with it until my face collides with a concrete wall.

Everyone, everywhere deals with the concept of enough, because you have to find it within yourself. You have to find it sitting in the living room with your headphones on because one celebrity endorsement isn’t enough in one day. I am unemployed. I have to work to make the money to buy my sweetie whatever she wants and I can’t breathe because she’s so important to me and she makes so much more money that all I need is a few more people to recognize me. A few more.

See? In five more sentences there would have been track marks on my arms.

One of the things that has gotten me to slow down about my getting noticed craziness is that the more people notice, the more its enough. The waiting for the people to arrive is over. They’re here.

And they love me enough.