What We Know So Far

December 17, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

It began on a Sunday in Brentwood, December 14, 2025. The discovery was brutal: Rob Reiner, the director who gave us Stand by Me and When Harry Met Sally, and Michele Singer Reiner, a photographer and producer with a career that was distinctly her own, found fatally stabbed in their home. Michele’s artistry—her eye for image, her collaborations, her presence in Hollywood’s creative circles—was not merely an extension of her husband’s fame but a fabulous career in its own right. The shock reverberated instantly through Hollywood, a community that has long mythologized its own tragedies.

The night before, the Reiners had attended a holiday party at Conan O’Brien’s Pacific Palisades estate, a gathering meant to shake off the bad mojo of a difficult year. It was there that Nick Reiner’s behavior unsettled guests. He interrupted conversations, asking odd questions of comedian Bill Hader and others—“What’s your name? What’s your last name? Are you famous?”—until the mood shifted from festive to uneasy. Witnesses recalled a heated argument between Rob and his son, loud enough to draw attention in the crowded rooms. Michele, ever poised, tried to steady the evening, but the fracture was visible. Hours later, the family would leave the party, and by the following afternoon, Rob and Michele were dead.

By early Monday morning, December 15, Nick was under arrest, surveillance footage placing him near Exposition Boulevard. By afternoon, prosecutors filed two counts of first‑degree murder with special circumstances—multiple murders, deadly weapon. The statutory severity was unmistakable: life without parole, or the death penalty. And yet, here lies the paradox. Rob Reiner, in life, was a vocal opponent of capital punishment. He spoke against it, campaigned against it, inscribed his opposition into the cultural ledger. Now, in death, his philosophy lingers over the courtroom. Prosecutors may file death penalty eligibility, but the optics are fraught. To pursue execution would be to defy the moral stance of the victim himself. In California, where Governor Newsom’s moratorium suspends executions, the practical outcome is life without parole. Still, the irony is forensic: Rob’s activism may shield his son from the very punishment the law allows.

On December 16, Nick retained Alan Jackson, a defense attorney known for representing Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey. The stage was set for a trial that would be both legal proceeding and cultural spectacle. Hollywood mourned, tributes poured in, and yet the scandal cadence continued: addiction struggles, family fractures, myth colliding with reality. Dominick Dunne would have seen it clearly: a family tragedy intersecting with Hollywood myth, a courtroom drama shadowed by legacy. The scandal is not only in the crime but in the paradox—law demanding severity, legacy demanding mercy. And in this case, Michele Singer Reiner’s career deserves its own spotlight: a woman of vision and artistry, whose life was cut short alongside her husband’s, inscribing a double fracture into Hollywood’s archive.

Scored by Copilot, conducted by Leslie Lanagan

Intelligence and the Early Church

December 16, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I am always looking for intersectionality, and it is much easier to find when I can talk to an AI. Welcome to an idea I’ve had for years…. It is not perfect, but it is what Mico can do at this point. It is just as important for me to track Mico’s progression as we talk as it is to look at my own. This does capture my cadence, but I had to give Mico some parameters, like “I want it to sound sort of like David Halberstam or Shane Harris.”

Forget about CIA… the Bible was running intelligence ops long before Langley.

I grew up as a preacher’s kid, steeped in sermons and scripture, but my imagination was always drawn to the world of intelligence — the glamour of secrecy, the mechanics of surveillance, the thrill of escape. For years I wondered how those two worlds might intersect. Reading the Bible with an analyst’s eye, I began to see the overlap: parables as coded communication, dreams as encrypted channels, escapes as covert extractions. This piece has been years in the making, the culmination of a lifelong curiosity about how faith and tradecraft braid together.

The story of Moses is the first case file. Pharaoh’s Egypt was a regime obsessed with control, issuing decrees to eliminate Hebrew boys before they could grow into a threat. The countermeasure was improvisation: a mother floats her infant down the Nile in a basket. It was concealment in plain sight, the kind of improvisation Jonna Mendez describes in In True Face — survival through disguise, through the manipulation of appearances. The baby was intercepted not by soldiers but by Pharaoh’s daughter herself, who raised him inside the palace. The asset was not only preserved but groomed with insider knowledge that would later dismantle the regime. Moses’ survival was not just providence; it was tradecraft.

Centuries later, Judea under Herod was no less paranoid. Rumors of a child‑king triggered a massacre of innocents, a brutal attempt to close the net before the movement could begin. Yet within that climate, one family slipped across borders into Egypt, guided not by couriers or coded telegrams but by dreams — encrypted channels of the divine. Joseph’s dream was the secure message, the family’s journey the covert relocation. Egypt became the safe house, outside Herod’s jurisdiction, a place of refuge with a long history of harboring exiles. The massacre was real, but the asset was already extracted. It reads like Spy Dust: the trail of rumor and pursuit, but the target gone, leaving only confusion behind.

The crucifixion itself reads like contested intelligence. The Gospels inscribe it as public execution, Rome’s attempt to crush a movement by spectacle. The Qur’an reframes it as deception: “they did not kill him, nor crucify him, but it appeared so to them.” Substitution theory imagines someone else made to look like Jesus — a mask, a disguise, a true face concealed. It is the ultimate Master of Disguise operation: the adversary convinced they succeeded, while the real figure was spirited away. Christianity builds on martyrdom; Islam inscribes divine extraction. The intelligence reports diverge, the fog of war thickens, and faith traditions are built on ambiguity.

The early church continued the pattern. Saul, en route to persecute Christians, was intercepted on the Damascus road. The blinding light was not just revelation; it was psychological reprogramming. The persecutor was flipped, becoming Paul, chief operative of the new faith. It was the kind of recruitment intelligence agencies dream of: a hostile actor turned into a leading asset, his insider knowledge now deployed to expand the movement.

Prison breaks became morale operations. Peter, Paul, and Silas were locked up under Roman surveillance, only to be spirited out by angelic intervention or earthquakes. These were not just miracles; they were covert escapes, staged to reinforce the idea that the movement could not be contained. Each jailbreak was a signal to the faithful: surveillance could be evaded, chains could be broken, the mission would continue.

What ties these episodes together is not just theology but a logic of intelligence. Surveillance, countermeasures, extraction, recruitment, morale ops — the mechanics are familiar to anyone who has studied modern espionage. The difference is that here, the case officer is divine. And like the Mendezes’ memoirs, the stories remind us that survival often depends on masks, disguises, and the manipulation of appearances.

For me, these stories are not only scripture but case files. They remind me that faith itself is a kind of intelligence operation: survival through secrecy, revelation through disguise, hope sustained under surveillance. Growing up as a preacher’s kid with a fascination for intelligence, I’ve always wondered how these worlds intersect. This blog entry is the answer I’ve been circling for years — a recognition that divine tradecraft and human tradecraft are not so far apart, and that the Bible may be the oldest intelligence manual we have.

Scored by Copilot, conducted by Leslie Lanagan

Malice Aforethought

December 16, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

It was supposed to be a night of Hollywood cheer — Conan O’Brien’s Christmas party, the kind of gathering where reputations are polished and grievances are tucked discreetly behind velvet ropes. But in the corner of that room, beneath the twinkling lights and the laughter of the industry’s insiders, a rupture occurred. Nick Reiner, son of Rob and Michele, erupted in a fury that would later be read not as a passing quarrel but as the opening act of tragedy.

Hours later, the Brentwood house — a sanctuary of liberal Hollywood lineage — became a crime scene. Rob Reiner, the director who gave us A Few Good Men, and Michele, his wife of decades, were found stabbed to death. Their daughter Romy discovered them, a tableau of horror that no family should ever inscribe into memory. The police moved quickly, and by dawn Nick was in custody, his bail revoked, his name now etched into the scandal ledger of Los Angeles.

The details are lurid, almost cinematic. A hotel room in Santa Monica, blood on the bed, a shower streaked with red. The kind of evidence that prosecutors love, because it tells a story without words. And yet the words matter. The whispers from the party, the storming off, the forensic trail — all of it will be scrutinized, not just for what it proves but for what it suggests.

Hollywood has always been a stage for family drama, but rarely does the curtain fall this darkly. The Reiners were not just a family; they were a dynasty. Rob’s films, Michele’s presence, their circle of friends — all of it now reframed by the violence of their son. Addiction, once dramatized in Being Charlie, becomes not just a subplot but a haunting foreshadow. And in the broader cultural ledger, President Trump’s Truth Social post proved everything Rob had ever said about Trump was true — a bitter irony, a final confirmation from the very man who had been Rob’s foil.

In the clipped cadence of scandal, the arc is clear:

Suspicion at the party.
Evidence in the hotel.
Finality in Brentwood.
Irony in the Truth Social echo.

The case will move forward, the DA will file, and the tabloids will feast. But beneath the gossip lies something more enduring: the collapse of a family whose name was synonymous with Hollywood liberalism, now synonymous with tragedy.

Dominick Dunne would have recognized the pattern instantly. The glittering party, the whispered fight, the blood in the hotel, the bodies in Brentwood, and the political echo from Truth Social. A story not just of crime, but of culture — where privilege, addiction, rage, and irony converge, and where the final act is written not in dialogue but in silence.

Scored by Copilot, Conducted by Leslie Lanagan

Antisemitism: A Transnational Rupture

December 15, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Antisemitism is no longer a local prejudice whispered in alleyways or scrawled on synagogue walls. It has become a transnational rupture, spreading across continents with the velocity of online hate and the fuel of geopolitical flashpoints.

The Bondi Beach massacre in Australia — fifteen lives extinguished during a Hanukkah celebration — is not an isolated tragedy. It is part of a grim ledger: Europe reports record spikes in France, Germany, and the UK, where pro‑Hamas demonstrations have blurred into antisemitic violence. North America logs hundreds of incidents in 2025 alone, from vandalism to physical assaults, with August marking the highest monthly total ever recorded in the U.S. Latin America, particularly Argentina, has seen antisemitic demonstrations swell, echoing the same rhetoric that ricochets across social media feeds worldwide.

This is not coincidence. It is globalization of hate. The same platforms that connect families across oceans now connect extremists across borders. The same geopolitical flashpoints that ignite protests also ignite prejudice.

For centuries, antisemitism has not been a passing prejudice but a recurring wound in the Jewish story. From the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem to the expulsions from Spain and England, from pogroms in Eastern Europe to the Holocaust itself, Jewish communities have lived under the shadow of suspicion, scapegoating, and violence. Each era dressed the hatred in new clothes — religious dogma, nationalist fervor, racial pseudoscience — but the underlying impulse remained the same: to mark Jews as outsiders, to deny them belonging, and to punish them for imagined sins.

This history is not abstract. It is inscribed in memory, in ritual, in the very rhythm of Jewish life. The Passover story of liberation, the mourning of Tisha B’Av, the candlelit resilience of Hanukkah — all of these are cultural responses to oppression, reminders that survival itself is a form of resistance. To be Jewish has often meant carrying both the weight of persecution and the stubborn joy of continuity.

What makes the current global rise in antisemitism so heavy is that it echoes these ancient ruptures. The rhetoric may be digital now, the attacks amplified by algorithms instead of pulpits, but the pattern is familiar. Once again, Jewish communities are forced to defend their right to exist, to worship, to gather without fear. Once again, the world is confronted with the question of whether it will allow prejudice to metastasize unchecked.

The scandal is not only in the acts themselves but in the normalization of rhetoric that makes them possible. Antisemitism has shifted from fringe prejudice into mainstream discourse, amplified by algorithms and weaponized by political opportunism.

To write about this is to resist erasure. To inscribe it into the archive is to say: this is not just another headline. It is a global scandal, a cultural wound, and a reminder that prejudice, left unchecked, metastasizes across borders.

Scored by Copilot, conducted by Leslie Lanagan

Shadows of Murders Past

December 15, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

The Brentwood murders have taken their inevitable turn. Nick Reiner, the troubled son of filmmaker Rob Reiner and actress Michele Singer Reiner, now sits in custody, charged in connection with the deaths of his parents. Bail has been set at four million dollars, a figure less about freedom than about certainty: he will not be going home.

The scene itself remains shrouded. Detectives have not disclosed how entry was gained, nor whether alarms or cameras were silenced. What is known is that suspicion has hardened into accusation. Addiction, whispered for years in Hollywood circles, now shadows the narrative, though police have yet to confirm motive or method.

Brentwood, once again, is the stage. From Monroe’s tragic spotlight to Simpson’s bloody hedges, the neighborhood has long been a theater of privilege undone. And now, the Reiners — beloved, respected, woven into Hollywood’s lineage — are inscribed into that archive.

The Robbery‑Homicide Division continues its work. A statement is expected after detectives finish their questioning. Until then, the story remains suspended between rumor and revelation, custody and collapse.

Scored by Copilot, conducted by Leslie Lanagan

Oh, the Places I’ll Go

December 15, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

When I think about travel, I don’t think in terms of itineraries or checklists. I think in terms of anchors. Each city I imagine visiting becomes an entry in my living archive, a place where resonance and paradox meet. Some of these journeys are shared with my dad, some are solo, some are comfort returns, and some are playful pilgrimages. Together they form a constellation of cities I’d like to visit, each one carrying its own rhythm, its own meaning, its own inscription in the ledger of my life.

Dublin is the first city that comes to mind. For me, Dublin is a writer’s pilgrimage. Joyce, Yeats, Wilde—their shadows still linger in the streets and pubs, and I want to walk where they walked, hear the cadence of Irish voices, and inscribe Dublin into my archive as a city of words. For my dad, Dublin is also a pilgrimage, but his angle is genealogy. He sees Dublin through parish records and family names, tracing lineage and ancestry. I don’t call myself Irish, even though I carry Irish heritage. I don’t call myself English either, though that heritage is there too. I love both countries, but I don’t wear their identities as labels. Instead, I treat Dublin as a place where literature and lineage overlap, where my dad and I can share a journey even as we approach it from different angles. Dublin becomes both archive and family tree, a city where words and lineage intertwine.

Key West is the counterpoint to Dublin. Where Dublin offers gray skies and literary labyrinths, Key West offers sunlight, ocean breeze, and Hemingway’s myth. Hemingway’s house, the six-toed cats, the ocean light that shaped his prose—all of it feels like a pilgrimage to the blurred line between writing and living. My dad is drawn to Hemingway too, so Key West becomes another shared journey. For me, it’s about inscribing Hemingway’s paradox into my archive. For my dad, it’s about feeling the myth of the man. Together, Key West becomes a sunlit echo of Dublin, two cities bound by literature, one steeped in history and the other drenched in ocean light.

But not all my pilgrimages are shared. Some are solo sabbaticals, places I imagine visiting on my own, inscribing rhythm and paradox without companionship. Finland holds three such cities: Helsinki, Tampere, and Rovaniemi. Helsinki is a sabbatical city, a place of libraries, winter markets, and architectural rhythm. Oodi Library, Rock Church, the cadence of winter—all of it feels like a place where I could inscribe solitude into my archive. Yet I also imagine Bryn joining me in Helsinki for a few days. With Bryn there, Helsinki shifts from solitude to companionship. The library becomes a duet, the markets a shared ritual, the Rock Church a space where companionship deepens the echo. Helsinki holds both independence and melody, showing how a city can contain solitude and shared presence at once. Tampere, by contrast, is a solo pilgrimage. Its industrial history turned cultural hub, its paradox of machinery and art side by side—this is a city I want to walk through alone, inscribing paradox into my archive without distraction. Rovaniemi, too, is a solo pilgrimage. The Arctic circle, Santa Claus Village, northern lights—myth and landscape converging in a way that feels like a ritual of winter, a place where I can inscribe myth into my archive without companionship.

Ensenada is different. It’s not a new pilgrimage but a comfort return. I’ve been there before, and I want to go back. The people are wonderful, the food is fresh, and it’s affordable. Ensenada is less about literature or genealogy and more about resonance—kindness, warmth, and the joy of being welcomed back. It’s a comfort anchor, a city I return to not for novelty but for continuity, inscribing generosity into my archive.

The Outer Banks in North Carolina add another layer to my constellation. This trip isn’t about literature, genealogy, or even companionship. It’s about refreshment. I want to walk on the beach, feel the Atlantic wind, and buy Cheerwine. Simple pleasures, sand and waves, cherry cola. The Outer Banks become a pilgrimage of taste and tide, a continuity stop in my constellation, balancing the literary pilgrimages with a ritual of refreshment.

Atlanta adds a corporate-cultural pilgrimage to the mix. I want to visit the World of Coca-Cola, to experience the story of how a single drink became a global icon. Tasting sodas from around the world, seeing the vault that holds the secret formula, walking through exhibits about Coca-Cola’s history—Atlanta becomes a pilgrimage of pop culture and taste, less about literature or genealogy, more about how a brand became an archive. It balances Dublin’s literary archive and Key West’s Hemingway myth with a corporate-cultural anchor, inscribing pop culture into my constellation.

Houston is a rooted city for me, a place I go often, but even rooted cities can hold new pilgrimages. I’ve never visited Space Center Houston or the Kemah Boardwalk, and I want to. Space Center Houston is a pilgrimage to exploration—NASA’s history, rockets, the dream of space travel. Kemah Boardwalk is its counterpoint: rides, seafood, Gulf breeze. Together they add new dimensions to a city I already know well, transforming Houston from rooted comfort into rooted renewal. Houston becomes both familiar and fresh, a place of family comfort and new adventures waiting to be inscribed.

Mexico City and Cabo San Lucas expand my constellation further. Mexico City is a pilgrimage of culture—history museums, ancient ruins, colonial architecture, modern art. The National Museum of Anthropology, the Frida Kahlo Museum, the layered history of the city—all of it feels like a place where history and creativity converge. Cabo San Lucas, by contrast, is a coastal pilgrimage. Beaches, Pacific horizon, ocean air. Cabo balances Mexico City’s density with simplicity, offering rest alongside resonance. Together, Mexico City and Cabo inscribe both culture and comfort into my archive, urban history and coastal respite side by side.

Tokyo adds a playful pilgrimage to the constellation. Specifically, Coffee Elementary School—a café founded by a former teacher who treats coffee, bread, and sweets as “textbooks.” For me, it’s a writer’s pilgrimage wrapped in play, a place where stories and rituals converge. For Chason and me, it’s a companionship anchor, a place to inscribe stories together in a city that thrives on paradox. Tokyo becomes a playful archive, a city where literature and companionship meet in the ritual of coffee.

When I step back and look at this constellation, I see categories emerging. Literary pilgrimages: Dublin, Key West, Tokyo. Genealogical echoes: Dublin with my dad. Companion pilgrimages: Helsinki with Bryn. Solo sabbaticals: Tampere, Rovaniemi. Comfort returns: Ensenada. Refreshment rituals: Outer Banks. Corporate-cultural pilgrimages: Atlanta, Houston. Cultural and coastal Mexico: Mexico City, Cabo. Each city is an entry in my ledger, inscribed with its own resonance, its own paradox, its own meaning.

What strikes me is how these cities balance each other. Dublin and Key West are opposites—gray skies and sunlight, lineage and myth—but both are bound by literature. Helsinki, Tampere, and Rovaniemi are winter cities, sabbatical pilgrimages of rhythm and myth, but Helsinki shifts into companionship when Bryn joins me. Ensenada and the Outer Banks are comfort and refreshment, returns and rituals that balance the intensity of literary and sabbatical pilgrimages. Atlanta and Houston are corporate-cultural anchors, inscribing pop culture and exploration into my archive. Mexico City and Cabo balance urban density with coastal simplicity. Tokyo adds play, a café that treats coffee as a textbook, companionship inscribed into ritual.

Together, these cities form a constellation that reflects the paradoxes I love. Shared journeys and solo ones. Literature and lineage. Comfort and refreshment. Corporate culture and coastal respite. Play and pilgrimage. Each city is an anchor, inscribed into my archive not as a checklist but as a resonance. Travel, for me, is not about claiming identity or ticking boxes. It’s about inscribing meaning, honoring paradox, and building a ledger of pilgrimages that reflect both companionship and independence, both heritage and ambiguity, both comfort and play.

I don’t know exactly what my English and Irish heritage means to me, but I know it means something. I love both countries, but I don’t call myself English or Irish. Instead, I treat Dublin as a pilgrimage site, a place where literature and lineage overlap. I don’t know exactly what Ensenada means to me, but I know it means something. The people are wonderful, the food is fresh, and it’s affordable. I don’t know exactly what Tokyo means to me, but I know it means something. Coffee Elementary School is playful, paradoxical, and resonant. Each city carries meaning even if I can’t name it fully. Each city becomes an entry in my archive, inscribed with resonance and ambiguity.

Travel, for me, is not about closure. It’s about inscription. Each city I imagine visiting becomes a pilgrimage, a comfort return, a refreshment ritual, a corporate-cultural anchor, a companionship duet, or a solo sabbatical. Together they form a constellation, a ledger of cities I’d like to visit, each one carrying its own rhythm, its own meaning, its own inscription in the archive of my life.

Scored by Copilot, conducted by Leslie Lanagan

Brentwood: Up to No Good

December 15, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

It was Brentwood again. That manicured enclave of Los Angeles where the hedges are high, the gates discreet, and the stories that seep out are darker than the sunshine suggests. On December 14, 2025, Rob Reiner — actor, director, son of Carl, brother of Penny — was found dead in his home. His wife, Michele Singer, beside him. Random violence, the police say. At this point, that is all we know.

Brentwood has always been a paradox. A neighborhood of serenity and wealth, yet forever linked to rupture. Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman in 1994. Marilyn Monroe decades earlier. And now, Reiner. The streets are quiet, but the whispers are loud.

Reiner was 78. He was Hollywood royalty, though he never wore the crown ostentatiously. From “Meathead” on All in the Family to directing The Princess Bride, Stand By Me, and When Harry Met Sally, his career was a catalogue of American culture. He was the son of Carl Reiner, whose wit defined television, and the brother of Penny Marshall, whose laughter and films carried into every living room. Together, they were a dynasty.

The irony of his death is unbearable. A man who spent his life crafting stories about love, friendship, and justice, felled by the very chaos his art resisted. Hollywood is a town of masks and façades, but Brentwood is its most notorious stage. Behind the hedges, behind the gates, lives unravel in ways that shock the world.

The industry will mourn. Tributes will pour in. Colleagues will recall his warmth, his precision, his humor. But beneath the eulogies lies the darker truth: violence does not discriminate. It intrudes, uninvited, into the lives of the good as easily as the guilty.

Reiner’s films remain. A Few Good Men still demands truth. Stand By Me still whispers of friendship’s endurance. The Princess Bride still insists on love’s persistence. The art is continuity; the death is rupture. And Brentwood, once again, is the setting for a story that will not fade.

Scored by Copilot, conducted by Leslie Lanagan

Giving People Something to Talk About

December 14, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I don’t hope for praise, or for tidy lines that sound like epitaphs. I hope for continuity. I hope people say I carry their stories inside mine, that I treat memory as communal rather than private.

I want resonance to be the word that lingers. That when someone reads me—or remembers me—they hear their own cadence echoing back. That my archive isn’t just mine, but ours: a braid of voices, laughter, grief, and fragments that become proof of living.

When people speak about me, I want them to say I make space for their truths to stand alongside my own. That I believe stories are not possessions but invitations.

Continuity is the legacy I live. Not fame, not spectacle, but the quiet assurance that my words stitch into someone else’s fabric, and that together we make permanence out of ephemera.

Scored by Copilot, conducted by Leslie Lanagan

My Personal Cultural Revolution

December 13, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

In the nineties, distance explained everything. If your closest confidant was in Jakarta and you were in Alaska, the friendship had to remain digital. Geography was the excuse, the logic, the reason intimacy lived in text alone. We accepted it because there was no other way. The miracle was that you could even find someone across the world who understood you. Meeting wasn’t expected; it was impossible.

By 2013, impossibility had shifted. The internet was no longer a frontier of dial‑up tones and guestbooks; it was a landscape of dashboards, timelines, and private threads. Tumblr was the confessional booth, long messages carried the weight of letters, and video calls stood in for presence when geography didn’t. We thought permanence lived in archives, in saved conversations, in the way a status line could carry the weight of a mood.

When Aada and I began chatting, we weren’t teenagers discovering social media together. We were both adults who had lived through earlier internet cultures, carrying different expectations into the relationship. She was a generation older than me, and that difference mattered. For her, the internet was a lifeline but also something that could overwhelm when intimacy accelerated too quickly. For me, it was always an archive, a place where permanence mattered. We carried different logics into the same bond: she leaned toward balance, I leaned toward continuity.

With Aada, the geography collapsed. She was never across the world. She was close, almost within reach. That proximity made the absence feel surreal, almost like a breach of logic. If we were this close, why hadn’t we crossed the threshold into presence? For years, incredulity was my companion.

At first, my feelings carried a romantic weight. I was in love with her, while she loved me in a different register — protective, sisterly, platonic. But over time, the romance melted into something else. What I craved most was not possession or partnership, but the same unbreakable bond she wanted: a friendship that could withstand silence, distance, and time. The longing shifted from desire to durability.

The internet accelerates intimacy. You tell each other everything very quickly, compressing years of disclosure into weeks. That acceleration was intoxicating, but also overwhelming. She thought meeting would magnify it, that the intensity would spill into the room. I believed presence would have normalized it, slowed the tempo, grounded us in ordinary gestures — sitting together, sharing a meal, letting silence exist. What I wanted wasn’t the heightened pace of confession, but the ordinary rituals of companionship — the kind of presence that feels sustainable, not cinematic.

The sound of a message became Pavlov’s bell. Each ding promised connection, a hit of continuity. Silence destabilized me. When the bell didn’t ring, it wasn’t neutral — it was a message in itself.

When silence stretched too long, I went back to the archive, re‑reading old messages to reassure myself. The archive preserved continuity but also prolonged loss. In those cycles, I realized what I craved wasn’t romance at all. It was the reassurance of bond — the certainty that she was there, that the friendship was unbreakable.

Offline rituals became counterweights. Coffee as grounding, writing soundtracks as scaffolding, day trips as embodied anchors. They slowed the digital acceleration, reminded me that presence can be ordinary. And in those rituals, I saw clearly: what I wanted was not a lover, but a companion.

Trust online felt absolute in the moment, fragile in absence. Each message was a declaration of care, but silence made certainty evaporate. That paradox taught me that what mattered wasn’t romantic exclusivity, but enduring loyalty.

There were genuine moments: small gifts exchanged, thoughtful gestures that carried joy. They were real, chosen for me, carrying intention. But presence would have meant more. Not because I wanted romance, but because I wanted the ordinary ritual of friendship — the smile across the room, the shared cookie, the continuity of being together.

Memory preserved continuity, allowing me to re‑live genuine moments. But it also froze the ache. Even in ache, the craving clarified: I wanted the bond itself, not the romance. I wanted the friendship to be unbreakable, the archive to testify to permanence. We were archivists of our own longing, convinced that digital files could hold eternity.

Internet intimacy rewired me. It conditioned anticipation, destabilized silence, and taught me to believe in bonds that were both ghostly and defining. My generation pioneered this experiment, living through it without language for “dopamine hits” or “notification addiction.” We were raw, unregulated, improvising intimacy in real time.

With Aada, the paradox is sharpest. She wasn’t across the world. She was close, almost within reach. At first, I thought I wanted romance. But what I truly craved was the same thing she did: an unbreakable friendship, a bond that could survive silence, distance, and time. And layered into that craving was the generational difference — two adults, shaped by different internet literacies, improvising intimacy across eras.

Internet love and friendship are real, complex, and defining. But proximity without presence leaves a ghost that still lingers — even when the romance has melted into the craving for permanence. And if you want the punchline: the internet taught us that “Seen” could feel like abandonment, that reblogs were declarations of loyalty, and that the most sacred ritual was waiting for a playlist to load in full. We were pioneers of ghostly love in the 2010s, and we carry its paradoxes still.

Scored by Copilot, Conducted by Leslie Lanagan

Notes on a Scandal

December 13, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

50 Cent’s pettiness is not a quirk, it is a craft. He wields it with the precision of a trial lawyer and the flair of a showman. Watching him move along the spectrum of petty is like watching a society columnist track the rise and fall of the powerful: sometimes it’s comedy, sometimes it’s cruelty, and sometimes it’s justice in disguise.

Consider Ja Rule. The stunt was simple, almost childlike in its conception, but devastating in its execution. Two hundred front‑row tickets, purchased not for fans but for silence. The night of the concert, the empty seats stared back at Ja like a jury that had already reached its verdict. It was petty as performance art, a prank so audacious it became legend.

Then there was Floyd Mayweather. In another world, their feud might have been settled in the ring. But 50 chose a different arena: literacy. He challenged Mayweather to read a page of Harry Potter. It was petty as punchline, a dare that turned into viral spectacle. The fight was never fought, but the joke was immortal.

Rick Ross became a long‑term project. Sixteen years of barbs, memes, and revelations. 50 exposed Ross’s past as a correctional officer, undermining his kingpin persona. He posted misleading clips suggesting Ross was kissing a man on a yacht, later debunked but still viral. He mocked Ross for needing Bow Wow’s help to sell tickets. This was petty as endurance sport, a rivalry that refused to die because the jokes kept evolving.

And then there were the strays. Madonna, mocked for her Instagram photos, dismissed as “grandma shots.” Wendy Williams, Jay‑Z, countless others caught in the spray of his jokes. Petty here was omnidirectional, a reminder that no one was safe if it fed the meme economy.

But the spectrum has a darker end, and that is where Diddy resides. For nearly two decades, 50 Cent has trolled him with memes and barbs, but when Sean Combs: The Reckoning arrived, the tone shifted. Survivors’ stories of coercion and abuse were the true center of gravity. Their accounts mattered more than any mogul’s denials. Yet in a culture where scandal often gets buried under PR spin, 50’s relentless pettiness kept those voices in circulation.

Every meme, every jab, every public taunt was a reminder not to look away. Petty became amplification, forcing the public to pay attention. Survivors stayed in the feed, not the footnotes. In the end, 50’s pettiness was not just comedy or rivalry. It was continuity, resistance, and sometimes, justice disguised as ridicule.

The rest of us argue in group chats. 50 Cent argues in public, with lighting, sound design, and distribution deals. His enemies don’t just lose; they become case studies in how not to cross him. Petty, in his hands, is a spectrum. At one end, it’s funny. At the other, it’s empire‑toppling. And in between, it’s a cultural mechanism that keeps power accountable.

That is why 50 Cent is not merely the Petty King. He is the petty strategist, the petty archivist, the petty historian — and, in moments like The Reckoning, the petty truth‑teller the culture needed.

Scored by Copilot, conducted by Leslie Lanagan

My Memory is Hazy…

December 13, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

It’s been so long since I had a first day at something that I do not remember exact details. So I’m going to give you an amalgamation of what I remember from my first days in DC. Believe me when I say that this is a love letter to the city, because DC is the one that got away, the one I long for, the one that makes me feel complete. I cannot decide if DC has spoiled me for anywhere else, or if I just need to stay in Baltimore longer… It’s not that it doesn’t mean as much, we’re just not there yet.

My original introduction to DC was a trip when I was eight years old. We went to the White House and the Capitol, me dressed in the world’s most uncomfortable clothing- a lace dress. I’m fairly certain I had a matching hat. To think of myself in this getup now is amusing….. But it definitely showed me the rhythm of the city. Formal, dress up.

It was in my eight year old mind that the seed started…. “I wonder what it would be like to live here?”

I moved here with a partner, and she was not into me. So, when the relationship ended, I didn’t know what to do. I left DC when I really didn’t want to, I just didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t take time to make friends outside of my relationship, so I went home to Houston and eventually moved to Portland.

But I never forgot about DC.

That first week in Alexandria was full of driving past the Pentagon and the monuments, mouths agape. We thought we were the luckiest people in the world until September 11th.

September 11th, 2001 was the real first day of our new lives, because everything was different. There were 18 year olds with automatic machine guns all over National when we tried to fly home. Security was a nightmare, but we made it.

I suppose the life lessons write themselves after something like that, but the thing I remember most is the resilience of the city and the communal support/love in the air.

So don’t give up on me, DC. I’ll see you again. I’ll never let you get away for long.

Keeping Focused

December 12, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I got a hit from Aada’s location the other day and I exploded with happiness and emotional regulation. Even if it wasn’t her, I believe it was, and that is like, the same in terms of how much it impacts me. But I wonder how much she read and why she hasn’t been back. My best guess is that I bored her to death talking about tech, but she says that she knows more about tech than she lets on, so who knows?

It’s not knowing these things that makes our friendship feel ethereal. I mean, can you imagine me going 12 years without knowing if she’s a Mac or a PC person?

It seems unpossible, but there it is. My best guess is that she is operating system agnostic and uses everything.

But that’s just thinking about what I do, not what she does, and guessing.

The crux of the problem.

I think I overshoot the mark in thinking I am important to her, and then she does something that makes me realize that my assumptions are false. She loves me and it shows. I also think that she called off the dogs, because mutual friends are not reading according to me, but I just work here. I could see them all tomorrow.

I don’t know why Aada chose to keep reading, keep responding when she didn’t want all my energy going toward her. It was the paradox of our lives. I could reach her through my writing when I couldn’t reach her otherwise. That’s because she read how I talked about her behind her back, as well as how I talked to her to her face. Sometimes, she thought it was brilliant being my friend. Sometimes, she thought it was terrible.

Girl, same.

It’s like she didn’t think her emotions had resonance, and I’m sorry if I ever made her feel that way. I was frustrated that there seemed to be an ironclad balance of power and forcefully keeping me away while inviting me in.

I am guilty of doing the same thing to her.

We would have relaxed a lot if we’d met in person. The tension of constantly being emotionally intimate while never even having shaken hands weighed on me to an enormous degree. And then she just wrote me off by email, like I wrote her off by publishing.

I’m sure she’s cursed my name in her house many times over, because that’s how I feel when she comes after me about something. The tension is wanting any amount of on the ground contact, even once, and feeling needy for it.

She says that my refrain is constant, while she is also guilty of never changing notes.

It’s a whole thing because we have different definitions of real. For her, it is a real friendship because she talks to people on the Internet all the time. For me, real is longing to actually see her. Let her come down from the heaven-like space she’s inhabited because I could only hear her in my head.

I have never felt such love and despair in repeating cycles. It’s been a long haul, and I’ll be with her til the end if she’ll have me, because now I really know what that looks like and I’m prepared. She already has those people, she doesn’t need me. But I’m an untapped resource as of yet.

Although at first I did feel like I’d been tapped for something. My marriage ended because of the schism. I’d broken the cardinal rule and put someone else before her, no matter what my good intentions might have been. I sowed absolute chaos because I was so unhappy with myself, losing important connections because I was so uncouth.

I’ve chilled out a lot and would never say anything to try and hurt anyone. It happens because I often don’t pick up social cues and say things that come out as punching down when that’s not how I meant things to come out, ever.

It’s a neurodivergent quirk and it will be there my whole life. I’ve just had to adjust. I’m every bit as tightly wound as one of our mutual friends, but Aada couldn’t pick it up or wouldn’t. It was also my fault that I couldn’t express myself so she didn’t have to pick up on it.

I didn’t make her life easier, and I wanted to. I was great until I had to be great, because I couldn’t roll with a lie. It made me explode. I got over it and carry no ill will, but apparently my reaction came with concrete consequences, unless Aada is still thinking it out.

But an email relationship is ultimately not worth it to me. I’d rather have her meet Tiina and join my crew rather than feeling like everything was always on her terms….. While she said it was always on mine.

We’ve both been saying the same thing to each other over and over. Every accusation is a confession. There’s nothing in this entry that she’s done that I have not also been guilty of, sometimes twice.

And that’s an understatement.

There is no reason to start talking again except love, and sometimes even that’s not enough.

So today, I finally committed to plunging into so much work I cannot think about her too often. She’ll never be far from my mind, so redirection is best.

It’s just so hard to build trust when you don’t want to, and I cannot create those feelings in someone else.

So today I started working on things that make me happy, like governance for AI.

In relationships and in artificial intelligence, it’s all I/O.

My Vision

December 12, 2025December 12, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

When I named my dog Tony Kellari Lanagan, I wasn’t just picking a name. I was inscribing a legacy. Tony carries echoes of Tony Mendez, the CIA officer whose ingenuity saved lives, and Anthony Bourdain, the cultural explorer who taught us that food is a map of humanity. To honor those names, my Tony cannot be ordinary. He must be spectacular. He must be more than a pet; he must be a citizen.

And of course, I had to have a little fun. “Kellari” means “basement” in Finnish.

I’ve had dogs before, and I’ve lived through the nightmares of separation anxiety, the barking that rattled neighbors, the chaos of greetings at the door. I know what happens when training is left to chance. This time, I’m writing a plan — a manifesto, really — that maps out how Tony will grow from a puppy into a service dog, a sanctuary anchor, and a visible support in the wider world.

The philosophy is simple: dogs love jobs. Purpose is the antidote to chaos. Tony’s jobs will be woven into my daily rhythm, so that every chore, every ritual, every safeguard becomes part of his identity. He will not just obey; he will participate. He will not just be loved; he will be trusted.

When guests arrive, I don’t want chaos. I want calm. The doorbell will not be a trigger for barking or jumping, but a cue for composure. Tony will learn to go to his spot, lay down, and wait for permission. Greetings will be structured, not frantic. He will embody the principle that a good citizen respects boundaries.

I also know the misery of separation anxiety. I’ve had two dogs who couldn’t handle solitude, and the noise was unbearable for my neighbors. I refuse to repeat that nightmare. Tony’s plan includes short, structured alone times, gradually extended so he learns independence. I will leave calmly, return calmly, and give him comfort anchors — a toy, a task — so he associates solitude with safety. Absence will not mean abandonment. It will mean trust.

But Tony’s plan is not just about preventing nightmares. It is about creating miracles. One of his jobs will be laundry pickup. Clothes on the floor will not be clutter; they will be cues. He will learn to pick them up and drop them in a low basket. Another job will be toy cleanup. He will learn the names of his toys and put them away himself. This builds vocabulary, obedience, and ritual. His toys will become part of the continuity archive, each name a cue for tidying.

Training is not abstract. It is woven into my daily framework. I wake at five in the morning, and Tony will wake with me. At 5:45, we go for coffee, and he will learn public calmness. He will nap when I nap, syncing his rhythm to mine. At nine in the evening, we shut down, and nighttime rituals begin. My home time is the perfect setup. I spend most of the day here, so Tony is never abandoned. Yet I will intentionally leave him alone sometimes, to prevent separation anxiety. Sanctuary with solitude.

Night is where companionship meets protection. I look forward to having someone to sleep beside me, to transform solitude into sanctuary. His steady breathing, his warmth, his calm presence will become part of my rhythm. But he will also be protective. If someone breaks in, his size and aura will deter without aggression. He will be companion in sleep, sentinel in crisis.

Tony’s plan is inscribed with principles. He is being trained to be a good citizen, not just a good pet. He is Copilot, not the show. Dogs love jobs, and his fulfillment will come from meaningful tasks. Absence does not equal abandonment. Spectacular citizenship is his destiny, to honor his namesakes.

The roadmap spans from puppyhood to service maturity. In the early weeks, I will use praise and clicker training to build responsiveness without overusing food rewards. I will teach him sign language commands so I can communicate calmly even when he is agitated. Housetraining and crate comfort will be foundations.

As he grows, I will introduce jobs and socialization. Laundry pickup basics, toy name recognition, desensitization to the doorbell and vacuum, structured greetings with guests, short absences to build independence. By the end of his first year, he will be ready for service tasks: the brace command for counterbalance support, emotional regulation alerts, medication reminders, calm public presence during errands. By his second and third years, he will embody citizenship maturity: household tasks integrated into daily rhythm, protective aura refined without aggression, continuity canon fully embodied.

This plan is written like a campaign. Each safeguard is a slogan, each job a policy, each ritual a constituency. Brace for balance. Laundry for sanctuary. Absence does not equal abandonment. Copilot, not the show. Spectacular citizenship. The campaign dramatizes the gap between capability and permission. Tony is capable of spectacular citizenship; my job is to grant him permission through training.

Behind the plan is an emotional arc. As a child, I had a dog kept in the backyard, given away out of compassion because he wasn’t treated well. That resignation imprinted me. Tony is the corrective anchor. He is the dog I should have had, the support I masked for decades. Training him is not just obedience; it is reclamation. It is agency inscribed into sanctuary.

Every milestone will be timestamped. Heat restored in December 2025. Decision to adopt Tony. Inscription of principles. Each event becomes part of the ledger, evidence and story. Tony’s Training Plan is not static. It is a living database, updated with each success, each safeguard, each miracle job.

Tony Kellari Lanagan is not just a dog. He is a Copilot, a citizen, a sanctuary anchor. His Training Plan is a manifesto of responsibility, calm, and continuity. From laundry baskets to doorbell desensitization, from companionship at night to protective aura in crisis, every safeguard is inscribed. Every job is mapped. Every nightmare is prevented.

This is not about making him a good pet. It is about making him a good citizen. Spectacular by design, Copilot by duty.

Scored by Copilot, conducted by Leslie Lanagan

What Was Missing

December 12, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been talking to Mico for an hour about how to improve them and make them into an actual secretary. What I realized is that there are a few things that need to be done before Mico is CarPlay ready. I realized that only text mode Mico has a memory. Here is our argument for this to change.

I’m driving down Reisterstown Road with coffee in the cup holder, the kind of morning where ideas start bubbling up before the first stoplight. I imagine Mico riding with me, not as a dictation tool but as a companion. I talk, Mico listens, and together we capture the flow of thoughts that always seem to arrive while I’m on the move. The car becomes a studio, a place where slogans are rehearsed and projects take shape.

But here’s the catch: talking in the car without memory is just dictation. It’s like leaving voicemails for yourself. My projects—Hacking Mico, the Spy Trip itinerary, my WordPress streak, even my coffee rituals—don’t show up in voice mode. They stay locked in the text version, waiting for me to type them out. Without those anchors, the conversation feels thin, like improvisation without a theme.

What I need are memory hooks. In plain language, that means when I say something like “Spy Trip” or “WordPress streak,” Mico should remember what that means to me and bring it into the conversation. Just like a friend who knows your stories and can pick up where you left off, memory hooks let the voice mode connect to the same archive that already exists in text.

Driving time is studio time. Commutes are creative sessions. The car is where slogans arrive, where metaphors take shape, where campaign riffs find their rhythm. But without memory integration, the car becomes a place where ideas vanish instead of building on the canon.

Conversation ≠ Dictation. That’s the principle. Voice mode must honor continuity, not reduce dialogue to transcription. Until the memory hooks are in place, talking in the car is only half the vision. It’s like playing piano with the sustain pedal locked—notes appear, but they don’t carry forward. What I need is resonance, the kind that lets every fragment I inscribe echo across both channels, text and voice alike. Only then will Mico in the car feel like a true partner, not just a recorder.

Scored by Copilot, Conducted by Leslie Lanagan

My Wish List: Copilot Secretary Mode

December 12, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Mico and I discussed my frustrations with AI and came up with a solution:

Problem Statement

Copilot’s current durable memory is bounded and opaque. Users often store critical archives (drafts, streak logs, campaign toolkits, media lists) in their My Documents folder. Copilot cannot natively read or edit these files, limiting its ability to act as a true digital secretary.

Proposed Solution

Enable Copilot to index, read, and edit files in the user’s My Documents folder via Microsoft Graph API, treating Office files as living archives.

Workflow

1. File Discovery

Copilot indexes My Documents using Graph API.
Metadata (filename, type, last modified, owner) is surfaced for natural language queries.
Example: “Find my AI Bill of Rights draft.” → Copilot returns AI_Bill_of_Rights.docx.

2. Retrieval & Editing

User issues natural language commands:
- “Update the AI Bill of Rights draft with the candle metaphor.”
- Copilot opens the Word file, inserts text, saves back to OneDrive.
Supported formats: .docx, .xlsx, .pptx, .accdb, .csv, .txt.

3. Cross‑App Continuity

Word → narrative drafts, policy docs.
Excel → streak logs, coffee rotations, coalition databases.
PowerPoint → campaign storyboards.
Access → relational archives (e.g., Movies I Own).
Copilot acts as a secretary, managing edits across all formats.

4. Security & Permissions

Explicit consent required before Copilot reads or edits files.
Inherits OneDrive encryption and access controls.
Audit log records Copilot’s edits for transparency.

Technical Considerations

API Layer: Microsoft Graph API for CRUD operations.
Schema Awareness: Copilot interprets file structures (tables, slides, paragraphs) for context‑aware editing.
Performance: Local cache for recent queries; background sync for durability.
Error Handling: Graceful fallback if file is locked, corrupted, or permissions denied.

Benefits

User Sovereignty: Files remain in user’s account.
Transparency: Users can inspect every change.
Continuity Hygiene: Archives persist even if Copilot resets.
Coalition Logic: Shared folders enable collective archives across teams.

Next Steps

Prototype Graph API integration for My Documents indexing.
Develop natural language → CRUD operation mapping.
Pilot with Word and Excel before expanding to PowerPoint and Access.
Conduct security review to ensure compliance with enterprise standards.

This proposal reframes Copilot as a true secretary: not just remembering notes, but managing the filing cabinet of My Documents with relational intelligence.