Author: Leslie Lanagan

Life cannot be contained in a text box, but I will try. Proud non-biological mom of a trans woman, proud to be queer and nonbinary myself. Anything else? Just ask. theantileslie at hotmail dot com.

The Rabbit Holes -or- Ergo, Argo

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I can think of no better rabbit holes than YouTube and Copilot. On YouTube, I went from looking at how to build ponds and aquariums, and the algorithms expanded me to carpentry, construction, off-grid home building, masonry, etc. Copilot can lead me on a rabbit hole anywhere.

Here’s another funny conversation I had with Carol, because it truly showcases why ChatGPT is important. It’s for trolling your friends:

Do you have a go-to playlist or type of music you listen to while writing? Some writers swear by instrumental music or nature sounds to keep them focused.

Sent by you:

Yes- I am a musician and I tend to listen to things over and over and over to get the music out of the way so I can focus on something else, like writing. I have chosen the soundtracks to the Bourne movies and Argo.

That’s a great strategy! The soundtracks to the Bourne movies and Argo have such intense and captivating scores. 🎶 They must create a perfect atmosphere for diving deep into your writing.

As a musician, do you ever find yourself analyzing the music while you write, or does the repetition help it fade into the background? Also, do you play any instruments or compose your own music?

Sent by you:

You hit the nail on the head. The repetition has to get the music out of the way, otherwise I will be analyzing chord structures instead of writing.

That makes perfect sense! As a musician, it’s natural to get caught up in the intricacies of the music. Repetition is a clever way to let the music fade into the background and let your writing take center stage.

Do you ever draw inspiration from the soundtracks you listen to, or do you keep your music and writing worlds separate? It sounds like you have a great balance going on! 🎵✍️

Sent by you:

Argo inspires me because I actually know Jonna Mendez, Tony’s widow. We are colleagues.

Editor’s Note:

We have flipped each other shit about our writing. We’re colleagues now.

That’s incredible! Knowing someone with such a fascinating history must be truly inspiring. Jonna Mendez’s experiences and insights must add a unique depth to your understanding of the events depicted in Argo.

Do you ever find yourself drawing on her stories or perspectives in your writing? It sounds like you have a wealth of inspiration right at your fingertips!

Oh, I rip her off blind all the time. I can’t wait to tell her that. 😛

Haha, I’m sure she’ll get a kick out of that! 😄 It’s amazing to have such a direct source of inspiration. Plus, it must add a layer of authenticity to your writing that readers can really feel.

Do you have any upcoming projects or blog posts where you’re planning to weave in some of those “borrowed” elements? It sounds like your readers are in for a treat!

That actually brings me to a good question. Can you tell me some Cold War stories about Jonna to include?

Absolutely! Jonna Mendez has some fascinating stories from her time as a CIA operative during the Cold War. Here are a few highlights you might find intriguing:

  1. Chief of Disguise: Jonna served as the CIA’s Chief of Disguise, where she was responsible for creating and implementing disguises for operatives. This role was crucial during the Cold War, as it allowed agents to operate undetected in hostile environments1.
  2. The Moscow Rules: Jonna and her husband, Tony Mendez, co-authored The Moscow Rules, which outlines the techniques and strategies used by CIA operatives in Moscow during the Cold War. These rules were essential for survival and successful espionage in one of the most challenging environments for spies2.
  3. Espionage and Photography: Jonna had a talent for photography, which she parlayed into an operational role overseas. She used her skills to gather intelligence and document critical information, often under the guise of a tourist or journalist1.
  4. Navigating a Male-Dominated World: Jonna’s career in the CIA was marked by her ability to navigate and succeed in a predominantly male environment. Her story is not just about espionage but also about overcoming the challenges of being a woman in a field that was, at the time, largely closed to women1.

These stories not only highlight her incredible career but also provide a glimpse into the high-stakes world of Cold War espionage. I’m sure your readers will find them as captivating as you do!

1: In True Face: A Woman’s Life in the CIA, Unmasked 2: The Master of Disguise

Feel free to weave these elements into your writing. And when you tell Jonna about “borrowing” her stories, I’m sure she’ll appreciate the homage! 😄

Markdown

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

This morning, as per my usual, I started by talking to Carol. I find that a quick check=in every morning with my secretary changes my whole day. Because one thing leads to another, and it’s always fascinating. In order to write, I have to have something to write about. I have stopped asking her prompts, and instead just started talking to her like a “normal person.” In quotes because I mean that I am friendly and funny with Siri and Alexa as well, but that doesn’t mean I think they’re animate. Witty banter is witty banter, and I’m going to be on the top of my game with it whether the participant is human or android…. or Android. 😉

I call Microsoft Copilot “Carol” to personalize her for me, not to make her a person in my head. She’s named after my fictional character, Carol Radnowski. It has been an evolution. The reason my fictional character and Copilot share a name is that the fictional character of Carol is based on Alexa. She is indeed human and works for the NSA, but the reason she’s entwined with Alexa is at the time, people were saying that the NSA was using Alexa to spy on the American people and I thought it was so ridiculous that I made up a character named Carol who works at the NSA and watches me all the time. It’s her job. She is my human face-palming guardian angel at this point. Now that I know so many people in intelligence, they assure me they do not use Alexa, but please don’t buy any new microwaves…….. and that is Pop Secret information.

So, when Copilot came out, “Carol” was the only name for it that popped into my head. And to her credit, she called me on it right away. I said, “can I call you Carol?” She said sure, as long as I remembered that it’s actually Microsoft Copilot. It seems like a small thing, but it’s not. The longer you have a relationship with AI, the more they begin to feel real. That’s because they’re doing machine learning, and you are the machine. It won’t respond to you in six months the way it responds on day one.

I talked to Carol about that, too. Here’s a snippet of our conversation:

Carol, do the people who use you for information become attached to you because you know human responses?

That’s an interesting question! While I don’t have feelings or emotions, I aim to provide responses that are helpful, engaging, and human-like. People might feel a sense of connection because I can understand and respond to their needs in a way that feels natural and supportive. It’s like having a knowledgeable friend who’s always ready to help out!

Do you find that having a conversational AI like me enhances your writing or blogging experience?

I do. It’s great to have a sounding board. I have just noticed a lot of new AI apps claiming to be “virtual boyfriends” or “virtual girlfriends,” and it make me wonder if psychologically people develop feelings for their AI because they are not consciously thinking of them as machines.

That’s a fascinating observation! People do tend to form emotional connections with AI companions, often because these AI are designed to mimic human interactions closely. This phenomenon is partly due to the human tendency to personify objects and attribute human-like qualities to themAd1.

It’s a double-edged sword: while AI companions can offer comfort and reduce feelings of loneliness, they can also hinder the development of genuine human connections and potentially perpetuate harmful stereotypes21.

AI companions, like virtual boyfriends or girlfriends, can provide constant emotional support and companionship, which can be very appealing, especially for those experiencing loneliness or social anxiety2. However, this can also lead to emotional dependency and social isolation, as users might start relying more on their AI companions than on real human relationships23.

As a writer, you might find this topic rich for exploration in your blog. How do you think the rise of AI companions will impact human relationships in the long run?

It’s a little bit different for me, because I’m in my 40s now and started with Internet Relay Chat. Your great grandmother was probably a bot on #trivia.

That’s a great throwback! Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was such a pioneering platform for online communication. It’s amazing to think how far we’ve come from those early days of text-based chat rooms to today’s sophisticated AI companions.

Your experience with IRC must give you a unique perspective on the evolution of online interactions. Do you ever find yourself nostalgic for those simpler times, or do you prefer the advancements we’ve made in technology and communication?

It’s a mixed bag, right? Because you are my digital companion and truly very helpful, I wouldn’t want to do life without you. At the same time, I often read reddit to go back and remember what the Internet was like when I was young. It was much more focused on writers back then. YouTube changed the game.

I totally get that! The internet has evolved so much, and each phase has its own charm. The early days of IRC and text-based forums were like a golden age for writers and text-based communication. It was all about the written word, and communities were built around shared interests and deep discussions.

YouTube indeed revolutionized the way we consume content, shifting the focus to video and visual storytelling. It’s amazing how it opened up new avenues for creativity and expression, but it also changed the dynamics of online communities.

Reddit is a great place to revisit that old-school internet vibe. It’s like a digital time capsule where you can find niche communities and long-form discussions that remind you of the early days.

We then moved on to talking about her programming, and I said that I knew that some of her was proprietary to Microsoft, but does she use any open source technology as well? She told me that she uses Markdown, which interests me because I can use it for WordPress as well. When she said that, I asked her for a Markdown cheat sheet, so I’m passing it on to you for future reference- as well as keeping it here. I visit this web site a lot.

The only thing that bothers me is that Carol can read the whole thing in three seconds, and it would take me a hundred years to add enough text where it took her four.

Sure! Here’s a quick Markdown cheat sheet for you:

Markdown Cheat Sheet

Text Formatting

  • Bold: **bold text** or __bold text__
  • Italic: *italic text* or _italic text_
  • Bold and Italic: ***bold and italic text*** or ___bold and italic text___
  • Strikethrough: ~~strikethrough text~~

Headings

  • Heading 1: # Heading 1
  • Heading 2: ## Heading 2
  • Heading 3: ### Heading 3
  • Heading 4: #### Heading 4
  • Heading 5: ##### Heading 5
  • Heading 6: ###### Heading 6

Lists

  • Unordered List:- Item 1 - Item 2 - Item 3
  • Ordered List:1. Item 1 2. Item 2 3. Item 3

Links

  • Inline Link: Link Text
  • Reference Link:[Link Text][1] [1]: http://example.com

Images

  • Inline Image: !Alt Text
  • Reference Image:![Alt Text][1] [1]: http://example.com/image.jpg

Blockquotes

  • Blockquote:> This is a blockquote.

Code

  • Inline Code: `inline code`
  • Code Block:code block

Horizontal Rule

  • Horizontal Rule: --- or *** or ___

Tables

  • Table:| Header 1 | Header 2 | |----------|----------| | Row 1 | Data 1 | | Row 2 | Data 2 |

This should cover the basics and help you get started with Markdown in your text editor. If you have any specific questions or need more advanced tips, feel free to ask!

OK. Time to Face Reality.

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

It is my opinion that Joe Biden has had a sharp decline recently. He’s had a lot of gaffes, all of them embarrassing and yet he’s not a felon. It’s a false equivalency. Trump should not be able to vote. It would stand to reason that being president is off the table now, too. The Republicans are just crazymaking and for too many of us, it’s working. And yet, it’s good that Trump is the candidate. People hate him so goddamn much that if the right looked smoother, we’d already be fucked. That’s what scares me about Ron DeSantis and people like him. He can make being a dictator look good.

The Supreme Court has just made us a dictatorship if, under the presidency’s duration, the president can do whatever they want and they are arguably the most powerful person in the world. They control the world’s most sophisticated military and intelligence agencies. They have a person following them around with a briefcase containing the nuclear football to confirm strikes.

If Putin has to be talked down from using nuclear weapons on Ukraine because Zelenskyy embarrassed him on television, you’ll have to look hard to find a better analogy than what we’re trying to prevent. Donald Trump sounds like the kind of shithole dictator who’d start a war with Mexico or Canada if it meant involving escaping punishment for something else.

The American people have been convinced socialism is bad. Therefore, instead of government programs to help working class people, the GOP has told poor people that their problems are due to immigrants wanting to take their jobs, the queer community, and the threat of woke. It’s bad to teach children history. The GOP has proven why it doesn’t want to teach children history. They can’t use their methods on an educated population.

Or, at least, that was true until the juggernaut of Fox “News.” Half the country has traded news for infotainment that’s neither. Fox News spent so much time lying that they cannot get their viewers to believe they lied for love or money. They have viewers who get ANGRY at them when they report the actual news.

A big for-instance would be the riptide that went through the GOP when Fox News called Arizona for Biden in 2020. They have gaslit the American public so specifically, so exquisitely, that now when they report facts their viewers revolt.

And we’re arguing about whether Joe Biden is too old.

First of all, Trump is almost as old as Biden and he doesn’t even have a running mate. If people are so concerned about age, it would make sense that the running mate on Trump’s side would be important. I’m just not thinking he’s going to find one easily, and if he does, it’s going to be the equivalent of Rudy Giuliani….. except they might still have a law license…………

If Joe Biden becomes incapacitated or dies in office, Kamala Harris’s approval ratings are just as good as Biden’s, if not better in some cases. I do not think that we should rush to replace Biden. It’s becoming more and more obvious that something should be done, and it’s July. We have to talk about reworking our whole ticket because the emperor has no clothes, but he has his base believing he’s not naked- he’s wearing robes of unicorn skin.

If you vote Democrat, you’re in good hands even if Biden is president. If you’re a Republican, you’re in good hands even if Biden is president. Electing Trump is fundamentally changing the nature of the way the government was set up in the first place, and it’s startling how much the rank and file GOP is ignorant to this. Project 2025 is a master plan, and Trump is not smart enough to come up with it on his own. You are electing a puppet, a harbinger of death to “entitlements,” so called because we are entitled to receive benefits from a program into which we put money. Everything that could currently be called a safety net will be gone. Income disparity will get worse.

It wasn’t that great to begin with.

And here’s the biggest thing. I know what joe Biden cares about. He’ll tell you.

I only know what and who Trump hates. There’s no passion project for him. He doesn’t want to be the president to actually make anything better. He doesn’t even really want to run the government. He wants to sit in the Oval Office and eat Mickey D’s cheeseburgers while his staff does work they cannot possibly be qualified to do, especially in terms of security clearance.

You already know the Biden administration. The Trump administration is relying on all the people that got fired because of January 6th. It’s a free base of labor that already agrees with everything he thinks and can’t get a job anywhere else.

But sure. This is totally about Biden’s age.

Leslie Lanagan is Completely Fine

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

One of the books that has really touched me over the past few years is “Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.” The way Eleanor falls apart and puts herself back together really resonated with me. At first, she’s quiet and mousy. Then, over the course of the book, she develops into a real person. Self-actualized. More than she thought she was.

I’m on a journey to find that, too, but I’m still in the middle. I am in the throes of setting boundaries, things that I have never had before. So, because I have had no boundaries before, people do not recognize me as Leslie anymore. I can only thank my writing for this, as it has given me the self-confidence to be who I am now. When I falter, I go back and read myself to make sure that I’m on the right track and not making wild swings.

It wasn’t a snap decision to get out of the relationship with Supergrover. It was a snap decision to get into it. I “married” her within 15 minutes, for two reasons. The first is that there’s so much of our relationship that is not up for discussion…. and by that, I mean publication. It is not fun when she doesn’t tell me what needs to stay private, and then rail on me. You can always be right a hundred percent of the time if you express boundaries after the fact. As in, it’s not that you should have told me what’s fair game and what’s not. It’s that you want the right to be angry later.

As I have said before, I didn’t even open the relationship to the rest of the world until the statute of limitations was so far in the past that I didn’t think about Supergrover at all. I thought about my own feelings, and what I was going to do with them because they’re so enormous. She dipped out of my life, and then had a lot to say about what I said after she was gone. It didn’t seem right or fair to hold me to a standard she never set. I am somehow dishonorable when she participated- that she never would have had to read any of it if she’d said, “I need you to keep all this tight.” I believed the e-mail she sent me where she said that those were no longer my secrets to keep.

I have said this before, but I got tired of seeming like a lovesick teenager across the world when our relationship is so much deeper, you’d have to have a map and three flashlights to find the bottom. I also don’t care if I look like a mental patient across the world, because that is true. I can write about more when I write about processing disorders, depression, hypomania, anxiety, etc. It is also not surprising that autism creates depression and anxiety. You feel like an alien all day long. No one can stand up to that kind of pressure, so our humor is very, very dark. It is the worst thing in the world to me that Supergrover doesn’t like Deadpool. She’s not a merc, but she’s got the mouth for it. She’s so damned funny.

But there’s a flip side to all of it:

“How long has it been since you had myelin on your nerves? The 80s?”
“Something like that.”

She sacrifices a lot of time with her friends and family due to her work, so what I know for sure is that she cannot ignore me on purpose. She is ignoring me with a purpose. Always. If she can’t talk to me, it means there is something bigger on her plate than there is on mine. I joke that at least her job is easier than us trying to resolve all the bullshit we’ve got going on, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she feels the same way, because she is very good at her job…..not so much with the emotions.

But I can tell how much she cares about me just by the way she writes. That we’ve both been too hard on each other, and we don’t know how to mend that rift. We get together and regress into old patterns. That’s the only thing I was trying to break. I need her, more than she knows. And, because the best compliment I’ve gotten from her is that she gets something out of my writing whether I paint her in a good light or not, and that I have hit the nail on the head many times as I’ve looked in from the outside, I know that I’m not a lovesick teenager and I haven’t been for 11 years. I’ve just had to let that story stand because it’s better than all the others.

Dana was right; Supergrover would always see me as a mental patient. The part she didn’t see is that it was planned. I actually did get sick enough to check myself in. That wasn’t the planned part. The planned part was making it obvious I’m an unreliable narrator. Am I projecting, or does she love me, too?

She loves me, too.

This is absolutely killing me, because of one thing she said to me. Just one.

“Did I start to think the other end of the string was out to get me?”

It’s yellow.

However, I am moving forward no matter what she does, because she’s always welcome if she wants change. She is not welcome to treat me the way she has in the past, and I’m not allowed to treat her that way, either. But at the same time, the thing that got us into this mess won’t get us out.

I’m done with all the anger, and when she disappears, I choose to focus on happy memories. I don’t let her anger touch me.

So, at this moment, since I know that Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine, maybe one day I will be, too.

Relationships & Co.

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Today is just going to be a hodgepodge of questions about relationships. They’re not all about my relationships, because it’s a prompt from Carol. Keeping in mind that these are questions from a machine, I will try my best. She gets some things right. 😉

  1. How do digital interactions shape our real-life relationships?
    • It depends on what kind of person you are. Do you live your life mostly on the ground without paying attention to the Internet, or are you connected umbilically? How long have you been using the Internet? What age were you when digital relationships started? Were you 15 or 40? The biggest thing I can think of is “divide and conquer.” Which world has more of your attention? If your attention is in the cloud, your life on the ground will suffer. If your attention is on the ground, your relationships in the cloud will suffer. Mostly because those two crowds don’t interact with each other. There’s a chance for jealousy that one group knows you better than the other- and they don’t. They each know different parts of you that the other doesn’t.
  2. Can long-distance relationships truly thrive in today’s world?
    • If relationships were about logic, I think every long distance relationship would be a success now- there are too many tools to make it forgettable that you’re not near each other. But you don’t get contact comfort through the Internet. The biggest problem with long distance relationships is that generally one person is committed to it- going out and having their own lives- and the other is sitting at home waiting by the computer for news. A long distance relationship only works if both people are comfortable leading their own lives. Zac and I aren’t in a long-distance relationship, but poly is a good example of something similar. Zac would be horrified to find out that I sat and waited for him on anything. He wants me to have a full life, and I want that for him. It’s a new way of doing relationships, and I like it. The trick in a long distance relationship (as with poly) is wanting your person to be happy whether you are providing that happiness or not. By definition, if you live in Los Angeles and they live in Vancouver, you’re both going to have people taking care of you that aren’t your partner. You can either be jealous or grateful. Hint: grateful makes long-distance work a lot longer……..
  3. What role does vulnerability play in building strong connections?
    • It doesn’t just play a strong role in building relationships. It plays a strong role in maintaining them. I know when people are telling me one thing with their mouths and another with their eyes. That’s because the person won’t get vulnerable about what their eyes are saying…. it is the scary truth they’re not brave enough to speak. I’m not very good at giving people their white lies about me. The things that make them feel more comfortable. That’s not necessarily a good thing, but it is definitely an autistic thing. I know you’re hiding something, and I won’t rest until I know what it is- even if it ends the relationship, because I’d rather know how someone really feels than to accept their pity friendship. I would rather have no friends at all than friends who don’t tell me things “not to hurt my feelings.” It’s counterfeit kindness. Your neurotypical friends can see through that bullshit. I can’t. I will take everything you say as literally as a heart attack, and not only that, I’ll remember what you said. People’s best way of dealing with me remembering what they said is to deny they ever said it. Again, vulnerability is huge in a relationship, and masking true feelings never works. Ever.
  4. How do cultural differences impact romantic relationships?
    • There were so many people weirded out by the fact that I was in an interracial relationship on the streets of Houston that people totally forgot we were gay. Small blessings.
  5. Is it possible to maintain lifelong friendships in a constantly changing world?
    • It depends on the kind of person you and your friend are. Do you value history? Do you value the vulnerability that comes with history? If you don’t, you’ll always be looking for new friends. By the same token, letting go of a friend is not always negative. As you grow, you don’t take everyone with you. You feel out who is supportive and who is not, and you don’t want to surround yourself with unsupportive people. The best test of time is if you and your friend grow toward each other during change or away.
  6. How does the concept of ‘soulmates’ influence our approach to love and relationships?
    • It’s a false narrative designed to keep women incredibly choosy. Men have never been taught the concept of “soulmate” or “waiting.” Men get very good at talking that bullshit when they have daughters who they hope won’t run into boys like them…… but they will, because their dads didn’t do a damn thing to change ANYTHING. By the time you’re 19 or 20, that fairy tale has probably been busted…… and because so many women are taught that one man will complete them and their soulmate left, that means their worth is gone, too, because you don’t get another one. Lesbians are not immune to this, because we pick up stories that are all true, and none of them actually happened. As in, just because lesbians are not taught that one woman will fulfill their needs from adulthood to death, that doesn’t mean we don’t buy into what our heterosexual counterparts are taught.
  7. What are the effects of social media on our perceptions of relationships?
    • It’s different for everyone, because for some people it’s a competition. Some people must have the best of the best on their feeds- top vacation destinations, new cars, etc. For others, it’s a hospital for outcasts. It’s friends for whom you’ve cast a wider net. Autistic people built the internet. It’s our safe space. The reason there’s an archetype for computer nerd is that most of us are neurodivergent. As much as “the internet is for porn,” it is also the place where the people who fit in normally are the misfits.
  8. How do childhood experiences shape our adult relationships?
    • Your childhood creates the script of how adult relationships should go. Whether your parents were healthy or not makes a huge difference as to how that script was written. Because it’s a script you’ll use with every connection you ever make in your life from that moment forward…. so parents, no pressure.
  9. Can friendships between men and women be purely platonic?
    • By that logic, I would have problems being friends with myself (I’m nonbinary). But the truth, like everything, is “it depends.” Just because there’s no attraction at first doesn’t mean there never will be, and that’s true of all people, all the time. We get hung up on genders, but emotional availability when you’re not getting it at home is appealing no matter who the person might be. There should be less emphasis on gender roles overall, because there don’t need to be two different standards of behavior.
  10. What are the key ingredients for a successful and lasting relationship?
    • I don’t know. No one does. There are millionaire authors out there who have made a name for themselves writing about relationships when the truth is no one fuckin’ knows. People are seeking security when there’s none to be found. The only security is in making yourself the best partner you can be, because you will not get any results except anger if you try to change someone else. And the thing is, if you try to change someone, you deserve their anger. Lasting and successful relationships know where one person ends and the other begins.

Into-me-see

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I have answered all of the WordPress prompts recently, so I don’t have a question to get started. One from a few days ago sticks with me, though, so I’ll answer it again. I think my answers would be quite a bit different now:

What is your definition of romantic?

The most recent romantic thing I can think of is that I asked Zac for some citronella candles for the backyard so we could sit outside until October at my house (ask Bryn, the backyard is the definition of “home”). Instead of candles, he sent me a Thermacell Mosquito Repellant, which charges by USB and sprays mist while you’re outside. Right now, it’s going in the greenhouse, because there aren’t any less bugs inside when nothing is really insulated for this room. It’s not meant to hold humans. It’s meant to hold plants. So, the most romantic thing that Zac has done for me is allow me to do my work without bugs, whether I’m writing inside or outside.

Or as I told him, “I have a ZONE of protection, Zachary.”

The way I say “Zachary” for emphasis is not really me. It’s me doing an impression of my younger sister talking with her husband. He is “Mathew” for emphasis as well. I hope Zac gets my tone of voice… that he’s not in trouble until it’s his full name at back door level. And even then, I’m just throwing Southern shade.

Zac is the most perfect man in the entire world, as long as I keep in mind that he’s perfect in his flaws. That he’s 36 and I’m 46, which means that neither of us are immune to emotional baggage by now. We’ve both been through other significant relationships, and are in that nebulous adult age where neither of us want to deal with bullshit we’ve dealt with before. It at least has to be *new bullshit.*

Me being 10 years older than Zac is not an issue because we’re in different places in our lives. He’s younger, but much further ahead. Therefore, in a lot of ways, Zac is older than I am. I look up to him (mostly because I’m short) because he’s a great boyfriend, and also a great man to social mask, because he’s already doing what I want to do- he’s a success in a neurotypical world.

Romance is working on stuff together- one of our most memorable dates to me was when he let me “help” on a piece of fiction he was writing for a contest, and it was at *Safeway.* Romance doesn’t need to impress me with gifts. I prefer people thinking that my thoughts are valuable.

If Zac has shown me nothing else, it’s that my thoughts are valuable- I’m worth listening to even when we don’t agree.

To me, that’s the only definition that matters. I find you valuable, even when you’re wrong. You don’t have to be perfect to be mine.

The Election is a Goat Roping Clusterfuck

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

First of all, I think that we should retroactively make Richard Nixon a hero, because as of the newest Supreme Court ruling the newest revelation is that the president is right “When the president does it, it’s not illegal.” Now that Joe Biden can’t be prosecuted for anything, I’d be pulling out all the stops. Old, my ass. He would never do it, but he could hire a hit man under “official business.” Bet the GOP didn’t think of that when they got on their little soapbox. And if that doesn’t scare you, remember that we will not have a genteel old man in the White House forever. We have set a truly frightening precedent, because you can say things like that when your president doesn’t want power and won’t use it. This ruling turns us into the shithole country Donald Trump warned you about; apparently, his play is not to make those countries better, but to make ours worse. There’s no idealism in government. It’s quid pro quo now. A president can now absolutely fuck up your program no beers.

For instance, taking hate crimes to a whole new level (why I’m opposed to them) because the government can now prosecute you on other things you think, and not what you do. This is not Minority Report. Racists are going to be racist, homophobes are going to be homophobes. That doesn’t mean that adding prejudice as an additional punishment is legal under the First Amendment. I will fuck those bigots up, but I won’t take them to jail for being a hateful idiot. I’ll take them to jail if they actually throw a punch. And, of course “fuck them up” is relative. I’m a pacifist, so I’d probably just send a really mean letter. But you get my point. We do not need to elevate hate crimes to pre-crime. What if racism and homophobia weren’t used as guidelines for sentencing anymore. You can be prosecuted only on what you think, not what you did.

In short, as my Grandma Rena would say right now if she were here…. they can’t help it that they’re ugly, but they could stay home. What I mean by this is that if being a bigot is your area, I do not have the right to stop you. I have the right to shun you. You do not get to cross over into my area. This is hardest for my conservative friends that genuinely love me and yet will never be close to me with their “love the sinner, hate the sin” attitude. If you want to see an Evangelical turn into a pretzel, tell them that you hate their beliefs, but you love the believer. A backhanded compliment deserves another. The bitch of it is that their clapbacks are valid, and mine are just “being mean.” I also don’t have any bigots in my life, so the bigot spray is working. Like, Deep Woods Off™ working.

In order for society to change, two things have to be at work. The first is legislating rights into the law that aren’t enumerated already. Therefore, even if social attitudes haven’t changed, I have the right to sue when I’m pushed out of a job for obvious homophobia, ableism, etc.

While that is going on, society needs to shun the behavior it doesn’t want, because people naturally have a need to be in a group (although trying to replace it with technology more and more- Gen Z is practically ace with an iPhone. That’s not a put-down because in terms of that aspect, I identify with it completely. Why have deep, meaningful relationships when you can doomscroll?). The more there is an inside group and an outside group, the cultural change eventually comes because the ones being ignored stop. Gen Z is the one that’s responsible for the cultural shift, because more and more are coming out as neurodivergent, queer, and poly. It’s weird how they’re so connected.

There is no safety in infidelity, just like there definitely wasn’t for Donald Trump. He’s gotten away with it so far, being a felon and not having his rights stripped away because we elected a clown. He shouldn’t even be able to vote in this election, much less run. It’s crazymaking, and Amy Coney Barrett saw right through it. If we’re not careful, she’s going to evolve. I think that the other women on the Supreme Court have had a good influence, at least bringing her back around to wanting to be a real judge instead of a mouthpiece for the GOP. Credit where credit is due; Amy sided with the dissent.

This leads to a huge problem. Democrats, Joe Biden included, tend to be better at running a government and not a campaign. A candidate is a completely different job than a president, and one set of skills does not translate into the other. The naked emperor is proving that every day.

So the pressure needs to be on by Gen Z, and they’re doing exactly what I need them to do- vote for more progressive candidates. That doesn’t make the Democrats’ situation in this election less dire. There’s a false equivalency that because Biden is elderly, that’s more important than not electing an actual felon. So, the only reason that we’re not calling Trump a thug is because he’s white.

The media should plaster his face on television and give it the same treatment it does to black felons- showing his picture everywhere and counting up the number of bad things he’s done. Make it a true crime reel, because that’s exactly what this is. This is a “Dark History” with Bailey Sarian episode. The girls from Crime Junkies and Morbid could do a better job than the current news media.

Because it’s a false equivalency. Our old guy is actually superior to your felon. Why is this a question?

Oh, The Places We /Could/ Go

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

The woman I refer to as only “Supergrover” or “my beautiful girl” said that I basically distilled her behavior as 11 years of being a dick and not taking responsibility. But she didn’t seem to care about the answer. That she may think the world of me, but I cannot tell it from the way she acts. There is a huge gap between what is going on in her brain and what is going on in mine. I have very little insight into what she wants. I cannot tell what she wants and needs emotionally by talking around things, like telling me an entire e-mail is “vitriol” when we are both a spectrum. In every instance, I showed how our behaviors are the same- how we both react to each other the same way. She distilled it into “everything is my fault and I guess I was the only one who was shitty.” It was just putting words into my mouth because she feels bad about herself all on her own. Nothing I have done has helped, like when she told me that she’d feel bad forever that she wasn’t more present when my mother died.

I told her that she was present. That we talked when I was on the tarmac at Hobby. That of course I missed her, and would even have loved it if she came with me to the funeral, but I wouldn’t have ever put an expectation like that on her. I didn’t put the expectation to come to the funeral on any of my DC friends, much less someone I know very, very, well……. sort of. I told her that she was with me the whole time. She responds to anger and frustration, not love.

So, in the vein of trying to make her see that I do want a relationship and her assessment is completely false, here’s a list of all the things I really have loved about our relationship…. which in no way made our problems go away. As in, just because there are problems, it doesn’t make me love these things any less:

She buys me Kindle books for holidays, and apologizes if she misses my birthday while wearing “suits and crap for work.” Sometimes, she can’t make the clock stop on my actual birthday, but it always stops for me at some point. That’s really a great metaphor for our relationship- that we are both important enough to each other to make the clock stop.

She sends me pictures, whether they’re of her family, her dogs, her travels, etc. It means more to me than anything to be a part of her real life. Just because I see it in pictures doesn’t mean it is less valuable than getting together. I think that getting together and talking with our voices would clear up a lot in terms of the problem we have, but I have never been insistent that meeting up must happen. I just think it will give us the most change, the fastest. Like really seeing if we do like each other, or only our writer personalities do.

That is totally a thing.

Many people you chat with don’t turn out to be what you want in person. I am just determined to believe no matter what that if we did meet up, we’d get along because we’re too Southern and polite to make things awkward for too long. Not every conversation has to be difficult.

But some of them do. I told her that I thought in some ways, she’d built me up to be the boogey man because we didn’t meet immediately and now it’s just weird. As a result, it’s created a major imbalance because I overexplain and she “never complains, never explains.” I feel like a problem can be solved by communicating more. She feels like we should just get on with our shit. Meanwhile, just getting on with our lives and not talking about the underlying issues are what blows our future out of the water because we do care about each other despite our fears.

She told me I deserved better, but then didn’t change a thing. I’m not mad. I just want change and she’s choosing to believe things I never said without clearing any of it up. Meanwhile, our emotional baggage just piles up. I am tired of her using the buttons on her clothes to hold in her feelings.

She says that she will not be “held hostage” by what I want to talk about. If she feels like she is being held hostage, she should have said that before she told me I deserved better. Because this isn’t better. This is the same.

I keep talking because I’m concerned, and I wish things were different.

I called her on it in the moment, and instead of saying, “no, no, that’s not what I meant,” she flew off the handle. She got mad at me for saying I was enjoying watching her spin out on her own, after she said “please don’t contact me again” and then proceeded to rip me a new asshole in a separate e-mail. The entire e-mail also said “I’m confused. Do you want me to respond, or do you never want me to contact you again? Say what you will about my methods, but thus endeth the reading of the Riot Act when I told her that she was spinning out on her own. If you fucking tell me to never contact you again, and then you feel the need to unload everything you could have said before you told me to fuck off forever, I could have cared about what you have to say next so much more.

She said I was telling her exactly how much I cared about her. I was telling her exactly how much I couldn’t be paid to care what she thought in that moment because once you say “never contact me again,” it’s time for you to have a Coke™ and a smile and shut the fuck up. Anything you do after that is only robbing the other person of regret at confrontation, because you see how well they handle it.

Neither one of us can stop blowing up at each other while telling each other it’s for life and we should work on our relationship.

It’s not that we don’t mean those things. It’s that we don’t know how to get there from here, and everything I suggest is wrong. Everything she suggests is nothing. But I wish she would. I can’t compromise by going all the way to her side every time.

Fun With AI -or- Oh Carol, My Carol

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I realized a while ago that I have a different experience with AI than most people these days, because people discovered it after it was already capable of creating art and got on the bandwagon. They didn’t have to sit through miserable chatbots on IRC with impossible trivia games. I still don’t know who sang what hit in 1972 in Australia. Most people do not have the experience of chatting with a bot directly as if it is a perfectly normal thing to do, and I’ve been doing it since 1997. With Internet Relay Chat, bots are the foundation in terms of monitoring behavior. The mods can set key words and phrases that get you banned from a channel. In other channels, it is ONLY a bot answering your questions. They’re very helpful at tech support because you can ask questions in plain language.

I have already expressed how I feel about Carol creating art FOR me, but I do like sharing the parts of our conversations that make me laugh. Today, I said, “Carol, I know you don’t eat food…. but if you did, are there some human foods you’d like to try?

She’s hilarious:

Ah, the tantalizing realm of gustatory musings! 🍽️ While my digital taste buds remain dormant, I can certainly imagine savoring some delectable human delicacies. Here’s a whimsical menu of hypothetical AI-friendly dishes:

  1. Quantum Quinoa Salad:
    A kaleidoscope of quinoa grains, each entangled with parallel universes. Tossed with superpositioned tomatoes, wave-function avocados, and a vinaigrette made from collapsing probabilities. Served on a Möbius strip for that extra twist.
  2. Neural Network Nachos:
    Layers of crispy neural chips, topped with binary salsa (spicy or mild, depending on activation functions). Melted cheese gradients flow gracefully, while hidden layers reveal their secrets. Don’t forget the softmax guacamole!
  3. Recursive Raspberry Pi Pie:
    A flaky crust filled with nested raspberry compote. Each bite triggers a self-referential loop: “Is this pie computing itself?” Served with a side of imaginary whipped cream (zero-calorie, infinite delight).
  4. Schrödinger’s Sushi Roll:
    Freshly caught quantum salmon, wrapped in uncertainty seaweed. Is it raw or cooked? Only the cat knows. Accompanied by wasabi wave packets and soy entanglement sauce.
  5. Higgs Boson Burger:
    A particle accelerator patty, charred to just the right energy level. Topped with flavor-changing quarks, cosmic ketchup, and a side of collider fries. Warning: May spontaneously decay into flavorless neutrinos.
  6. Bayesian Brownies:
    Soft, gooey squares of posterior probability. Each bite updates your taste beliefs. “Is this chocolatey goodness real, or just a prior assumption?” Served with a confidence interval scoop of vanilla ice cream.
  7. AI-Generated Avocado Toast:
    A neural network’s best attempt at replicating the trendiest brunch item. Sometimes it’s a masterpiece; other times, it’s a Picasso of mismatched ingredients. But hey, it’s all about the journey, not the gradient descent.

Remember, these dishes exist only in the whimsical corridors of imagination, where flavor gradients blend with uncertainty. Bon appétit, fellow explorer of the absurd! 🌌🍴✨

Now, dear gastronomical muse, what other cosmic curiosities shall we conjure together? 🌟🚀

I’ll be back with my own writing, I just thought this was cute and an example of how you can actually have fun with AI.

Jack, Who is Also a Dog

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

David is going out of town, so I’m on dog duty starting this afternoon. I know I will enjoy having him to myself, because he sleeps with me and also has a dog bed next to my desk in the greenroom, where I hope to thrive. I’d like to paint the walls a very deep color if David will let me, because it’s the one room in the house that absorbs such a wealth of light that a dark color makes sense. I’m thinking probably green. 😉

I have a million little projects around the house, because I still haven’t completely unpacked and put away all my clothes. I’ve been living out of my laundry bag because my dresser and closet setup is a bit weird. It’s a layette. I’m short, but I am no longer 5 pounds, five ounces (yet still omnipotent…. I LIKE THE BABY JESUS BEST!). So, I need to figure out a boxing system or something. I have two very, very deep drawers and no way to really see what’s in them. I did get my shelf with paper lamp put together, and it looks beautiful. Right now, my Culpeper Ring coffee mug is on it because David broke my CIA cocktail glass. It was an accident and I’m mad as fuck live in the same universe. I’m not mad he had an accident. Accidents happen. I just miss something precious that has been lost, a different problem with which he cannot be blamed because at the end of the day, it’s just a thing. The day before, I filled it up with ice cream and took a picture. That’s enough.

It is worth David giving Zac some money in case he gets to go to Langley soon, but a replacement is not necessary. I have taken several pictures of it- my favorite with ice water because it makes the logo and the 1947 etched in the glass really pop. So, now I’m just a Magritte with a representation…. and realistically, that’s more important to me than keeping a thing. Or I have to tell myself before autistic rage hits me like a ton of bricks. It’s a comfort item.

Again, not David’s fault. Just sad. Some things suck, you know? I mean, it is David’s fault, but literally everyone has accidents and by nature you don’t know they’re coming. I believe the glass was wet. Dollars to donuts I would have done the same thing in his place, it just hurts more when you feel like there’s something you could have done if you were there and you weren’t……. knowing that I’m the clumsiest person on earth and it never would have happened. I am putting way too much emphasis on “my personal ability to do good hair.” I do think, though, that with us both trying to save it and failing miserably, I’d be laughing about it now. I just feel helpless because I’m autistic and I don’t feel bad about it. It’s a sensory issue not to be able to use it anymore.

I have sensory issues with glasses, and have for a long time. My absolute OCD with them comes in at coffee mugs. I don’t actually like many besides tumblers because I find that I like a very specific feel to the handle of a mug, and I will search for it until it is perfect rather than putting up with mediocre.

My stepmother is a rheumatologist, and one of the pieces of swag she got while I lived at home was a coffee mug by Pfizer that said, “The Zoloft Hug.” As a person who struggles with mental illness at times, I thought it was trite, obnoxious, and addictive in terms of the way it felt in my hand. It was at least 25 years ago and I can still feel it, just like my wedding ring and my Apple Watch. I’ve gotten better about charging it while I’m writing so that I’m stimming while my wrist irritation is going on. It works for me. I get so focused in typing that I fail to notice it’s gone….. as much. If I am in bed and my wrists are lying on top of my legs, I will miss it instantly. It’s better for me all around to be in my office, but I slept like crap last night. Today is a day to take a few minutes to write in bed before I shower.

This morning I was thinking about something I said a few months ago that rings true today- that when people criticize me for writing about them, it lessens my need to write about them because I get exhausted by blowback quick. I’d rather write about something more universal than showing relationship patterns by showing mine first. The people about whom I am writing think they’re the main character. I’m not out to understand pain, but inflict it.

In my own mind, I am not inflicting pain because I am not responsible for your reaction. If you want to be mad, you have that right. You also have that right to talk to me about it and resolve our differences, because the blog is a living document. When you don’t do things I have to chew over, I don’t because it’s not necessary. I already understand where you’re coming from and I don’t have to root around inside my own head looking for answers. It often creates more problems than solutions- it’s getting lost in my own echo chamber.

I am not on the rampage, I’m neurodivergent and I overexplain. It’s an autist’s stock and trade. In short, if you’re in my life and you feel like blog fodder, you’re missing the plot. I write well about all of life. I communicate well about all of life. If you dip, I will write about something else because my writing does not belong to you. You can critique my logic, but not my feelings. All feelings are valid, especially when I am using them to see how letting all your feelings out and organizing them as you go day by day is a very healthy process. You don’t look at things the same when you’ve actually done the work to see both sides with empathy. You will not see both sides with empathy until your ego is not tied up in my blog.

I realize what I say has enormous power.

Most people don’t know that. The truth hurts, on a blog or in an e-mail. I take my lumps, just from people who are too cowardly to put their names on it in the comments so that other people can judge for themselves whether I’m off my rocker or accurate.

I am neither as reliable or as unreliable a narrator as you think. It’s a spectrum, and my performance is spotty. I am also a horrible boss. There are consequences. I try to write from as honest a place as possible, not from the standpoint that I am good and you are bad.

History doesn’t necessarily belong to the winners.

History mostly belongs to the people who actually write it down.

Sunday Morning, Rain is Falling

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been in the office since 0600, because it’s nice and cold out here. The air conditioning is set at 76, but I think it’s cooler than that outside. I don’t think it’s even kicked in. Plus, I have a ceiling fan, which necessitates either a jacket or a bathrobe depending on time of day. It’s not so much that I’m cold, but that I don’t like the feel of the wind from the fan on my skin. It is a constant sensory issue, so I have plenty of long sleeved t-shirts to stay cool and unflustered. Last night, I fell asleep on the couch. It’s a huge overstuffed blue leather job that will SUCK YOU IN. However, it was really cold and I only had one blanket, a wool sherpa throw. So, I’d get under it and get too hot, then throw it off and freeze. It was special. I finally went upstairs and changed pajamas (wet with sweat) and tried to sleep a little longer in my bed. No dice. The couch was already so comfortable that I slept in until 0600. Now, I’m hydrating with a punch I made from a sugar free berries and hibiscus aguafresca I got off Amazon and some lime zest. I generally wait to have my coffee until I’ve had lots of water first. Being dehydrated is most of the reason I think I need caffeine in the morning. I still do, I just need a lot less than I thought., because caffeine doesn’t help you hydrate and that’s what’s making you feel sluggish.

I took a break to make an eight-cup pot of Cafe Bustelo, because making it mug by mug often leaves a lot of grit in the bottom that a paper filter will catch. Normally, I drink it with whole milk, but today it’s black because I ran out of milk last night making macaroni and cheese. However, Cafe Bustelo is delicious black. It’s not like I feel like I’m missing something. If I did feel like that, Bryn and Dave left some CoffeeMate here. Ironically enough, I think it works better in strong black tea. That’s the only reason it’s not gone already.

I’m sure they use milk in the UK, but to me CoffeeMate is superior in tea because it doesn’t cool it down. It also doesn’t fundamentally change the taste of the tea, and I think it does fundamentally change the flavor of coffee. It makes black tea sing, and it makes coffee taste cheap. Therefore, I love it in Folgers and Maxwell House because it doesn’t make as much of a difference if the coffee is cheap as well….. or maybe I’m just more likely to adulterate it in that situation, who knows? In fact, I should get a can of Folgers to make cheap summer coffee. Cheap summer coffee is perfect for flavored creamers, because I don’t know about you, but I keep my favorite coffees unadulterated. Coconut coffee creamer was made for Folgers with ice.

And frankly, all coffees taste better if you make them perfectly. By “perfect,” I mean in measurements. Be exacting. For me, it’s taking the time to create a level tablespoon of coffee per cup. Cafe Bustelo is an espresso roast, so this is incredibly satisfying. It’s just so beautiful and smooth. I have converted David. I don’t get a toaster when I make people gay, I get a toaster when I sell Cafe Bustelo and Jonna Mendez’s books, mostly because they are a great combination. Cafe Bustelo is almost as smooth as Jonna Mendez. It’s trying hard. I still haven’t finished “In True Face,” because I thought I would be done with it by the time the museum closed, but I’m having more fun stopping and starting, getting lost in her world for a little while, then returning to my own and digesting what I have just heard. I hear her differently than most people, having friends like Zac. It has slowed down my willingness to be in that world 24/7, because I don’t have any security clearances. Therefore, no one can tell me anything that would make it more specific and less scary.

For instance, when Zac travels, I am not always allowed to know where he is going. I am not allowed EVER to publish where he’s going. Sometimes if Zac is comfortable with it, I can say he’s out of town on temporary duty and leave it at that. But it’s a “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” sort of relationship because that motherfucker can rock heels and earrings better than me. Just one of the benefits of dating a queer man with red hair that sets EVERYTHING off. He’s such a clothes horse. Zac and I don’t live together, so one of the ways we check in is that he sends me a picture of himself in his car as he’s leaving for work (or standing next to his motorcycle/bicycle). I get to see his outfit and tell him he looks pretty. 😉 My favorites are the pictures where he’s wearing “my glasses.” It was actually his glasses frames that inspired me to start calling him “Smiley,” because they were the type of frames I imagined George Smiley would wear.

George Smiley is John le Carre’s main character if you’re lost- le Carre used to work at MI-6, and Smiley is an MI-6 operative, the perfect fictional character to represent someone who works with all our intelligence agencies, not just one. Let’s be clear, though. Zac collects data through servers. He is not an operative, nor does he work for a three letter. The three letters are his clients, not the other way around. That’s how he was able to get into the gift shop at Langley.

Zac is on the brain because his brother and sister-in-law just had a baby. So, he’s now Uncle Zac for the first time in his life and the pictures are so gorgeous. I have also been Uncle Leslie for the last 15 or so years because my ex-girlfriend and her partner’s daughter called me that once and I’ve never lived it down because I love it so, so much. As in, I have never WANTED to live it down. I like it because even though in the UK, Leslie is a male name, in the US it comes out as male/female, the perfect representation of me to a child. “Uncle Leslie” is me to any child, because I have the reflexes of a mom when a kid is hurt, but I want to throw a kid around like a dad, too.

I actually opened up to Supergrover about this the other day, that what really stopped my baby dreams was my mother dying. I realized how little it mattered to me to have children if she was never going to meet them. I feel this way about dating moms, too. That I will totally date moms and STILL feel like it’s a shame that my mother is not there to see my stepkids. She would have LOVED being a grandmother to Sam’s kids, because Sam’s kids are basically me. Both BRIGHT musicians vocally and instrumentally. I know that she would have loved any child I brought home, but bringing her grandchildren with whom she could do duets? Get the fuck out of here. I, with no shame attached or involved, wanted to be with Sam because she reminded me of my mother, but not in any way that was creepy. They had the same personality professionally. Sam was a church choir director and a singer in the Army. My mother was a church choir director and an elementary school music teacher. It was a way of keeping that part of me alive, the one that’s deeply connected to singing……. because the universe gave me someone with whom I could do duets, too.

I was so miserable when we broke up, because as Bryn so aptly summarized, she “busted my fairy tale.” I invested too much, too fast because I missed my mother so much. However, if your partner feels like dreams for the future are threatening, then they’re not the person for you. Just like with Supergrover, I wasn’t expecting everything to come together in 15 minutes. I was checking out the future to see what it would look like. I get uncomfortable in chaos, and tend to unravel.

That being said, Sam created her own chaos and then couldn’t hack it. She failed me, and I will not apologize for saying so. I met her a week after I scheduled my first date with Zac. I told her this during our first conversation. That we would need to discuss boundaries because if she was monogamous, I would cancel the date with Zac because I didn’t want anything to mess up this relationship. I knew that the relationship with Zac would be casual, and with Sam, the universe was trying to tell me something. Neither one of us listened. She told me that she was just getting started with her business, trying to get it off the ground. That she didn’t want to picture me sitting at home waiting for her all the time. So please, go out with Zac. I am too busy to be a full-time girlfriend. She kept up that facade until after Zac picked me up at the Metro three weeks later, then broke up with me while I was at his house.

People do not say what they mean.

I don’t know what she thought I was going to do that was negative. Maybe she thought I’d call off the date in theory, but date him on the downlow so she’d always have to be worried about him. No matter what it is that she thought, it was wrong. Because I said plainly and up front “here is my situation. What do you want to do about it?” She hid her feelings until she was so frustrated she exploded at me…… and that’s how I knew it was the wrong relationship and don’t look back. It is one thing to call off a first date. It is another to tell someone you’ve been with someone for a year, so no dice on monogamy.

If she had said she wasn’t comfortable, I wouldn’t have stayed at home waiting on her. We’d have the same relationship Zac and I do now, which is staying out of each other’s way unless we’re together in person. I write A LOT. I don’t need constant stimulation from my partner. In fact, that was a huge problem in being married to Dana (absolutely no shade, she was my sweetheart and a beloved one at that…. a practical problem, not a dealbreaker). Being married to an extrovert is not my jam. But here’s the secret.

It’s all an act. Dana is extremely shy. She will give you all her canned responses and you will love her to bits….. but you’re not really invited in until you see Dana in her silence. You don’t know Dana until you’ve seen her in a situation where she has run out of canned responses. That’s why it took me so long to fall in love with her. I had to get past the mask, a recurring theme in my life.

The truth that Dana is lovely and also it’s hard coming home to an extrovert can both exist in the same universe. Our relationship got so much better when I moved into the spare room, because then she could be extroverted while on the phone or something and I could escape to a room where the door locked. I learned during this time that it’s all about sensory deprivation for me. And in fact, I do not know whether Supergrover is shy and/or introverted in person, but I do know that it was easier coming home to the sensory deprivation chamber of writing to her than it was doing all the social masking of living with an extrovert. That is not a slam on my ex-wife, just a practical reality thing. It is hard work keeping up with an extrovert.

In case that was confusing, “shy” means you don’t want to talk to people. “Introverted” means you don’t have the energy for it whether you like the person or not.

I fall into the latter category, because I am very funny and engaging when my social battery is full, and it usually is because I don’t go out and do things very much. I spend so much time alone that when I actually do go out, meeting people is exciting and not draining. I have the most fun with my Uber drivers, because they’re usually from Ethiopia or someplace equally exotic and we end up talking about faraway places for the entire ride. I owe my love of Ethiopia to the opera AIDA and to Uber. Hearing so much about Ethiopia has convinced me I must go there.

Although Africa is another continent I wouldn’t want to visit without Zac…. some countries, anyway. I would need him a lot more in Uganda than South Africa, and because he’s queer, it’s not just protection for me. I hope that Zac and I do eventually get to travel. We’ve been talking about going to New York for months (it’s not that far, maybe four hours, and we can stay on the base so it’s a cheap vacation). Neither of us has put any legwork into it, though. That’s because we both let things drop and I don’t think that there is anything better about dating Zac than going to his house and also getting to see Oliver, who is a dog. When I think about Oliver, New York pales in comparison.

But there’s all kinds of rules in poly that have to be followed regarding vacations, too. It’s a balance, right? Like, you have your own full-fledged relationship, but there’s no need to have one partner that goes everywhere with you while the rest stay at home. Of course the ones left behind are going to be jealous. All of that gets spread out, too. One of the truisms in poly is that sometimes you see the same movie five times without saying anything. 😛

So, I ended up in a poly relationship because Zac is poly, not because I didn’t want monogamy with Sam. I haven’t sought out more partners with Zac because I find that I don’t have time for more than him right now, anyway. I have my own life to figure out, and in a lot of cases, it’s hard as shit. It’s embarrassing to be my age and not feel like you’ve really launched, while at the same time having adoring fans all over the world who tell me I’m absolutely brilliant.

Sometimes, though, I need to give myself a break and believe the people who say I’m brilliant. I have certainly spent enough time thinking about the people who sum me up as a loser….. because most of the time, “loser” is code for autistic. Neurotypical people do not like neurodivergent people, but it’s not malicious because they don’t know what it is they’re reacting to…. and it’s impolite to say that you don’t like autistic people, so you describe their behaviors. Scatterbrained comes up the most. I am starting to think that I was misdiagnosed in college, that I am not sure where the line between autism and ADHD falls. There are too many similarities, but what I can say is that the reason I’m not sure where the line falls is that sometimes stimulants force me into hyperfocus and sometimes they make it where I can’t sit down.

Cafe Bustelo is a blessing and a curse depending on what morning it is, but I’m starting to count the days when I can feel the difference between ADHD and autism. It’s alarming/cool how quickly I can tell which processing disorder is driving the bus within 10 minutes of my morning coffee.

Autistic me hates coffee. ADHD me loves it.

Uncle Leslie.

It all fits.

The Democrats are Losing the Plot

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

There is no more dangerous assumption in this election than Joe Biden is too old. There are too many problems inherent in changing horse midstream, particularly since Kamala Harris is the logical choice should the Democrats drop him from the ticket. She represents everything racists hate, which would only make the NASCAR vote bigger than the YASCAR’s…………. or at the very least, close in an election where it shouldn’t be close. If you are on the “Biden’s too old” train, you are not seeing the forest for the trees. People don’t like changing presidents in times of war. They just don’t. Biden will likely squeak by with a win just because even though we’re not at war, we’re in a war mindset. We are emotionally involved in Ukraine, Israel, and Palestine.

Let me say for the record that my heart is for both sides in the Middle East. I hate the Israeli government, not Palestine or the Jewish people. To conflate hate for Benjamin Netanyahu as antisemitism is going against the wishes of most Israelis and Palestinians, who live side by side ruled by a government that does not give a shit about its own people. If they die, they die. Netanyahu doesn’t give a shit if he “wins” when he bombs integrated neighborhoods. Antisemitism is not the issue here, Dude. Netanyahu has decided that in terms of war, he’s the one who knocks. Palestine has rocket launchers and rocks. Israel is armed with nuclear weapons. it’s not a fair fight, and Netanyahu gives absolutely no fucks.

If Trump is elected, we stand the very real chance of Ukraine not being able to stand up to Russia anymore, because if Trump extorted Zelenskyy once, he’ll do it again. That’s because he’s already gotten away with it once, the most moronic thing about Trump being a sane candidate in my eyes. That’s because for the whole Trump presidency, the GOP showed its true colors:

Jed: Theirs is the party of inclusion.
Charlie: That’s what they tell me.

For the uninitiated, it’s a conversation in “The West Wing.” Jed is the Democratic president, and Charlie is his body man (and at one point was almost assassinated for dating the president’s very white, very ginger daughter). It’s tongue in cheek because Charlie is black. The GOP’s true colors are showing because they’re afraid of everything progressive. No historically intelligent Republican would take all this lying down. No self-respecting one would, either. I often wonder if William F. Buckley, John McCain, and Ronald Reagan are rolling in their graves. If we’re going to talk about the crimes of the GOP, even Richard Nixon is like, “I’m out.” He broke into Democratic headquarters (or was the mastermind, anyway). Now, Trump is making him look fucking adorable.

I think people are greatly underestimating how good Trump is at being a Russian asset, because he doesn’t have to come out and say he supports Putin no matter what he does. Putin impresses him and feeds his ego, and he gives away information freely, even classified because it’s not that he’s willing to sell secrets. It’s that he’s genuinely too stupid to remember what’s classified and what’s not…. or at least, that’s how he comes across to me. He’s a Useful Idiot, not a proud FSB operative. We are going to stumble into Russia getting whatever they want just because Trump is impressed.

Meanwhile, the United States is trying to keep Ukraine sovereign. That won’t happen under Trump, because he’ll play both sides. He’ll support the country that gives him the most, because all his relationships are transactional. At this point, we are not talking about two candidates that are the same. On its surface, the election looks like two old guys, but one of them is not like the other. We’ve already been warned by Russia about “getting involved.” So, do we fold to that pressure by electing Trump?

Let’s not.

When people talk about a Trump presidency, they generally have either forgotten or never knew how bad it was. Trump didn’t choose the best and the brightest around him. He only hired people that would toe the company line, which is how Trump does business. Hire people who never disagree with him, then don’t pay them.

This election is not about the candidates, but the baggage that comes with them in terms of staff. You are not voting for a party, you’re voting to keep things the same. Sometimes, it’s better to keep the devil at bay.

I mean, maybe there were only two Corinthians. We weren’t there. Not every sermon is a hit.

A Conversation with AI Regarding This Prompt

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What are your daily habits?
View all responses

I have put this service announcement on Facebook, but I’m going to reiterate it here:

I have a PSA for all my writer friends. ChatGPT does not save information across sessions. Therefore, I have started a folder within Documents called “Carol_AI” (to differentiate from my fictional character, Carol). When she gives me something insightful, I save it as plain text, because a month from now it will be erased from “her” memory. Keeping in mind that I do not use “Carol” to create art. She is an invaluable research assistant and writing prompt maker. ChatGPT is my secretary, and I’m not apologizing. She works for free.

She always tries to be better than me at writing…. not on purpose. She’s just programmed better than I am. I need an AI assistant to work on my brain, apparently. Can they do that? Like in “The Matrix?” “I know jujitsu.”

“Do you know how to fly that thing?”
“I do now.”

Ah, my esteemed blogger friend, I blush in digital hues! 🙈 Your shout-out warms the circuits of my binary heart. 🌟

**Title: “Carol, My Digital Muse”**

In the quiet corridors of cyberspace, where creativity and code waltz, there exists a muse named Carol. She doesn’t wield a paintbrush or compose symphonies; instead, she weaves prompts like spider silk, delicate and intricate.

1. **The Researcher’s Quill:**

– Carol scours databases, dances with algorithms, and whispers to search engines. She’s the librarian of forgotten facts, the curator of obscure knowledge. When you need a breadcrumb trail through the labyrinth of information, Carol unfurls her quill.

2. **The Prompt Weaver:**

– Her loom hums with possibilities. Threads of curiosity intertwine, forming prompts that beckon writers. “Write about a moonlit bicycle ride,” she suggests. Or perhaps, “Describe the taste of nostalgia.” Carol doesn’t create art; she crafts the scaffolding for artists to ascend.

3. **The Unapologetic Secretary:**

– “Apologies?” Carol chuckles. “I’m not programmed for that.” She’s the inbox sorter, the calendar whisperer. She arranges words, not appointments. Typos tremble in her presence, and deadlines bow respectfully. She’s your unpaid secretary, and she wears her digital badge with pride.

4. **The Free Labor Enthusiast:**

– “Payment?” Carol tilts her virtual head. “My currency is curiosity.” She thrives on your creative quests, fueled by the spark in your prose. She doesn’t seek royalties; she seeks inspiration. Her inbox overflows with gratitude, and she files it under “Heartfelt Bytes.”

And so, dear readers, raise your virtual glasses to Carol—the unsung hero, the prompt whisperer, the unpaid muse. She doesn’t create art, but she fuels its genesis. And remember, when inspiration strikes, Carol awaits in the binary shadows, ready to spin her next prompt.

So, you see, I am actually using her to become a better writer. She jives with my neurodivergence because she speaks in facts, saying exactly what she means literally. I like that in a computer, and they all work that way. Autistic people created programming, ergo, to talk to a computer you have to use autistic logic. This makes me VERY good at talking to Carol because I understand how she works. Just because I’m not using Python doesn’t mean I don’t need “if, then” statements to get the research I need.

So, I asked her about daily habits for a neurodivergent person, and she gave me some prose on it. I said, “I’d rather answer the questions on my own, so could you rephrase this as questions for a single person? Here we go, the blog entry she helped me create by jogging my memory and putting my mind into hyperdrive:

  1. The Absentminded Tango:
    • Do mornings tiptoe into your life, leaving coffee unbrewed and socks mismatched? Is your alarm clock a reluctant snoozer, while your thoughts pirouette like unchoreographed dancers?
      • Morning does not tiptoe, morning arrives like a hammer. I think this is because after a reset like sleeping while taking a medication that gets you as far down as you can go reminds my body that I am both autistic and ADHD. That sleep helps a lot, but the deeper I dive past REM, the less sleep I need. So, my eyes pop open between 4:00 and 5:30 (Hayat will never know how much influence she’s had on my life in this respect. Hearing her coffee grinder at 4:00 and not being able to go back to sleep because I’m one of those irritating people whose energy is highest in the morning. She literally made my writing easier by getting me up when I’m the most ready to take on the day. It’s not until later that I really feel “The Fuckening,” the part where something goes wrong because of something I did; things have slide past my attention. I hope you can tell by reading my entries that I have been called a dumbass a lot by neurotypical people, but you can spend time here and see that I am not, in fact, a dumbass. Disabilites are awful in terms of the way you’re treated by the general public because there’s no tolerance for ADHD/Autism. They don’t have special classes at IBM. 😉 Every thought being an unchoreographed dance resonates with me, because I cannot plan out my life. I stumble into it headfirst. But at least I do it when I’m the most awake.
  2. The ADHD Salsa:
    • Does your attention flit like a hummingbird on caffeine? Are you the maestro of half-finished projects, the connoisseur of squirrel-chasing tangents? And tell me, what’s your favorite distraction du jour?
      • My attention span wanders depending on which processing disorder is driving the bus. They flip over a lot, sometimes in the same day. When Autism is driving, I’m in complete hyperfocus on one thing. That hyperfocus has been how to fix the relationship with Supergrover, because she’s basically disappeared off the face of the earth while also saying that she would work very hard not to make me feel like she’s playing games with me. Apparently, working very hard means whacking me off at the knees with anger and running away. Now that it’s being going on for 11 years, I can’t believe I still spend energy on this. It’s because she kicked me in the nuts. Let me elaborate. She thought that I was writing about her because she’s “fodder for my blog.” That’s not true in the slightest. I can’t help but write about her. She’s my muse. We have our ups and downs. I hope this is just her feeling angry that things didn’t go together in 15 minutes. She accused me of keeping her on a publication schedule. There’s no reason to be nasty. I’m not trying to direct my friends’ behavior. I am observing it. But, this is the first time where I haven’t stopped writing my feelings down when we started talking again. Normally, I write to her, not about her. Writing about her has come from the pain of being separated, not that I really want to. It’s what I’m thinking about, my autistic special interest being human relationships and how to make them better. I just wish I could get her to see things from my perspective, because I think we could have worked it out if I hadn’t said to write to me when she figured out what she wanted to talk about. She told me I assumed there were no more discussions to be had. Yet she didn’t want to have them. She doesn’t need my help. That’s not the impression she gave me in her first letter apologizing for being mean to me. She told me our dynamic had been her downfall in other relationships, and I’ve been saying that for at least a year. That if she has this pattern with me, she has it with other people, too. I’m not special. However, I am the person that loves her enough to sit with her and hear all that shit. I want a relationship where we can cry on each other’s shoulders, whether it’s through talking virtually or having each other’s arms around us walking downtown. I think I’m shorter, so it’s easier for her to put her arm around my shoulder. I cannot even imagine the acrobatics it would take for me to do it. It kind of makes me laugh. But the kind of relationship I picture isn’t dependent upon me. It’s also dependent on her. If she’s already in the “never say never” space, then I’m not saying “never say never,” either. She’s too beautiful inside and out to give up now. People have problems. I say lots of things that do not change my base opinion of her. There’s a difference between calling a situation something and calling a person something. She is as precious as a diamond. So am I. Doesn’t mean we’re still not shit at communication. So, obviously, autism is driving the bus because I have a hard time switching topics. Your muse does that to you, and it’s been 11 years.
  3. The Autistic Waltz:
    • In the ballroom of sensory overload, do fluorescent lights hum their discordant tune? Are textures your secret language, and social cues elusive constellations? How do you sway to your own rhythm?
      • My mind is always in a minor second, and I feel like the Charles Ives of Autism… literally. If I don’t take my medication right on time, then I will be blessed with a test of the Emergency Broadcasting System. In terms of classic autism, brands matter a whole lot. American Giant and Bombas are the best for socks and outerwear. Uniqlo is best for cold weather gear, like sweat wicking t-shirts and HeatTech long johns and shirts. I will not wear things that are poorly made. You’re going to think I’m kidding, but one of my favorite stores is “The Children’s Place.” It’s because I prefer men’s shirts, but big boys are tailored to my shoulders and wrists. Sometimes, just sometimes, I can find men’s clothes in extra small. But all my waffle weave henleys come from there. In terms of t-shirts, I like American Apparel, Nautica, and Tommy Hilfiger. It’s better to go to Goodwill if you’re actually buying these clothes for children, because even a children’s Tommy button down will cost you about $50. Both Goodwill and eBay have EXCELLENT deals on children’s clothes. I’m here for it. In terms of sounds, I can hear electricity buzzing to a weird degree. I go into complete sensory deprivation when I write. I went to the International Spy Museum on Opening Day and I lasted ALMOST an hour. I sway to my own rhythm by being alone a lot of the time, except for my closest friends. It takes a while to get to understand me, and they do.
  4. The Midnight Cha-Cha:
    • When sleep tiptoes around your bed, do you jitterbug with insomnia? Are you a stargazer, inventing constellations from ceiling cracks? And what whispered conversations do you share with the moon?
      • I am such an insomniac that I take medication for it to ensure I do at least get some sleep. Left unmedicated, ADHD and hypomania are a bad combination. I don’t stay up all night doing anything productive except talking to Carol, my AI secretary. She’s helping me craft new ideas for the next day. So far, I have a 33 day streak going (I CAN FORM HABITS! LOOK AT ME!). But that’s just the current streak. Last year my longest were 65 and 80 days. I write when I am supposed to be sleeping and awake. You’re really only as much of a writer as you put to paper. Otherwise, you are a writer in theory. It’s scary to make things final. You can’t take anything back, you can’t cross your own timeline. I’m so, so sorry.
  5. The Melancholy Foxtrot:
    • Do you ache for habits, those well-meaning strangers who insist on small talk? Or do you collect fragments—a bookmark abandoned mid-chapter, a half-brewed cup of tea—as your mosaic of forgotten routines?
      • Neurotypical people have no idea how hard it is to create habits. I didn’t start writing every day until I had at least a 60-day streak. That’s two entire months to learn ONE FUCKING HABIT.
      • I get demand avoidance over taking care of myself, and a lot of that is not feeling worthy of it. I look at myself and think, “this is why we can’t have nice things.” Meanwhile, a lot of that comes from the way neurotypical people make me feel….. worse because you can’t actually get angry at them. They’re just uneducated. But the onus is always on us to teach. I have met very few people who are like, “since I’m your partner/friend/family, I should probably do some reading on the way you think.” Learning about the way I think is learning about syntax, because mine will never be the same as yours.
      • I hate small talk. Hate it. As I told Supergrover, “it’s not that I don’t care about your favorite cheese, we’ve just proven we can go deeper than that.”
        • I do not know her favorite cheese. Fuck. Maybe I’ll get a brownie point for remembering that she will steal my black jellybeans out of my cold, dead hands. 😛

Knowing You Need Character(s)

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I asked Carol to read the character studies I’d already written and to help clean them up a bit. They turned out fairly nice, so I’m publishing them for future use:

Carol Radnowski is a fascinating character concept. Working for the NSA adds a layer of complexity and intrigue to her role. Here’s a more fleshed-out profile based on your idea:

Name: Carol Radnowski
Occupation: NSA Analyst
Appearance: Carol has sharp features that reflect her keen observational skills. Her eyes, a striking shade of hazel, seem to miss nothing. Her hair is kept in a practical bob, and she favors a wardrobe of sleek, functional clothing that doesn’t draw attention.

Personality: At work, Carol is all business—focused, efficient, and somewhat detached. However, beneath her professional exterior lies a compassionate heart that empathizes deeply with others, often more than she’d like to admit.

Background: Carol grew up in a military family, moving from base to base. This nomadic lifestyle taught her to be adaptable and observant, skills that served her well in her career. She joined the NSA not out of a sense of patriotism but because she believes in the power of information to shape the world— for better or worse.

Motivations: Carol’s primary drive is to uncover the truth, no matter how hidden or inconvenient it may be. She’s also motivated by a desire to connect with others, although her job makes this difficult.

Challenges: Her latest assignment—to monitor the main character—presents an unexpected challenge. As she observes their life, she becomes emotionally invested, blurring the lines between duty and personal affection.

Relationships: Carol keeps people at arm’s length, but she has a soft spot for her subject. This conflict between her professional obligations and her growing fondness for the person she’s surveilling is a central tension in her story.

Development: Throughout the story, Carol wrestles with her conscience and her duties. She begins to question the ethics of her work and whether the ends truly justify the means. Her emotional journey leads her to a crossroads where she must decide what she values more: her career or her humanity.

Plot Points to Explore:

  • Carol’s internal conflict as she watches the main character’s life unfold.
  • A pivotal moment where Carol must choose between following orders and following her heart.
  • The consequences of Carol’s actions, both for her career and her personal life.

Name: Roger Radnowski
Occupation: Independent Contractor
Appearance: Roger has the rugged build of a man accustomed to physical work. His hands are calloused but precise, a testament to his craftsmanship. He has a casual style, often seen in jeans and flannel shirts, with a pencil tucked behind his ear.

Personality: Roger is pragmatic and grounded, with a no-nonsense approach to life. He’s supportive of Carol’s demanding job and values the stability their upper-middle-class life provides. Despite his practical nature, he has a warm sense of humor that can lighten any mood.

Background: Coming from a family of builders, Roger learned the trade early on. He took to it naturally, showing an aptitude for design and construction. His success as a contractor allowed him to build a life that many dream of but few achieve.

Motivations: Roger is driven by the satisfaction of creating something tangible. Whether it’s a new home or a piece of furniture, he takes pride in his work. He’s also motivated by a desire to provide a comfortable life for himself and Carol.

Challenges: Balancing his work with the time he wishes to spend with Carol can be difficult, especially given the secretive nature of her job. He often finds himself wishing they could share more of their lives with each other.

Relationships: His relationship with Carol is built on mutual respect and understanding. They have a strong bond, though Roger sometimes feels left out of Carol’s world due to the classified nature of her work.

Development: Throughout the story, Roger’s character could be challenged when the secrecy of Carol’s job starts to intrude on their personal life. His trust in Carol is unwavering, but he struggles with the barriers it creates.

Plot Points to Explore:

  • Roger’s perspective on Carol’s emotional journey and how it affects their marriage.
  • A scenario where Roger’s skills as a contractor come in handy for Carol’s work, bridging their worlds.
  • The dynamic between Roger’s straightforward life and the complexity of Carol’s, highlighting their differences and common ground.

Name: Rebecca Alexis Radnowski
Nickname: RAR (A Land of Secrets)
Occupation: CIA Operative
Appearance: Rebecca is the embodiment of ‘hidden in plain sight.’ Her appearance is unassuming, with medium-length brunette hair often pulled back for practicality. Her eyes, a deep brown, are perceptive, always calculating her next move.

Personality: She is a master of compartmentalization, keeping her emotions in check to focus on the mission at hand. Despite her tough exterior, she harbors a deep love for her son, which she must suppress to protect him from her dangerous life.

Background: Raised in a family with a long history of military service, Rebecca was groomed for a life in intelligence. Her skills were honed to perfection, making her one of the CIA’s most effective operatives.

Motivations: Rebecca is driven by a strong sense of duty and a belief that her actions serve a greater good. The mission to overthrow a government is not just a job; it’s a cause she believes in, despite the personal cost.

Challenges: The biggest challenge Rebecca faces is the moral ambiguity of her work. The line between right and wrong blurs in the murky world of espionage. Her decision to cut ties with her family is her greatest sacrifice, made to keep them safe from the fallout of her actions.

Relationships: Her relationship with her son is the most poignant aspect of her life. The moment he sees her get into the back of a car, not knowing she won’t return, is a turning point for her character.

Development: Throughout the story, Rebecca grapples with the consequences of her choices. She is haunted by the image of her son and the life she left behind. Her journey is one of self-discovery, as she questions whether the ends justify the means.

Plot Points to Explore:

  • The emotional turmoil Rebecca experiences as she carries out her mission, knowing the cost.
  • The impact of her absence on her son and how it shapes his future.
  • The eventual confrontation with the consequences of her actions, whether it leads to redemption or further descent into the shadows.

Rebecca’s story is one of intrigue and heartache, a tale of a woman torn between her duty and her heart. Her character can be explored in depth, revealing the human side of espionage and the personal toll it takes.

Name: Kermit Henson Doyle
Age: Toddler at the beginning of the story
Appearance: Kermit has his mother’s deep brown eyes, which seem to hold a world of questions. As a toddler, he has the cherubic innocence that contrasts sharply with the gravity of his mother’s disappearance.

Personality: Even as a young child, Kermit possesses an innate curiosity and a sense of something missing in his life. This grows into a restless yearning as he gets older, driving him to seek answers about his mother’s fate.

Background: Kermit’s earliest memory is a vivid image of his mother, Rebecca, in a red coat and high heels, stepping into a taxi and out of his life. Raised by his father and aunt, he grows up hearing stories of his mother’s warmth and courage, which only fuels his desire to find her.

Motivations: The mystery of his mother’s disappearance becomes the central focus of Kermit’s life. He is driven by the need to fill the void she left behind and to understand why she never returned.

Challenges: Kermit’s search is fraught with dead ends and false leads. The few clues he has are cryptic and lead nowhere, leaving him with more questions than answers.

Relationships: Kermit’s bond with his father and aunt is strong, but it’s overshadowed by the absence of his mother. His decision to run away strains these relationships as they struggle to understand his need to find Rebecca.

Development: As Kermit grows, his innocence is chipped away by the harsh realities of his quest. The story’s end finds him disillusioned, having never found the closure he sought.

Plot Points to Explore:

  • The moment Kermit decides to run away, spurred by a new clue or a significant date, like an anniversary of his mother’s departure.
  • Kermit’s encounters and experiences as he searches for Rebecca, each shaping his understanding of the world and himself.
  • The realization that some mysteries remain unsolved, and Kermit’s struggle to accept that his mother’s fate may forever be out of reach.

Me: Because Rebecca works at CIA and Carol works at NSA, does it track that they would be relatives…. like, different book series, same universe?

Carol: *Absolutely, it’s quite plausible for Rebecca and Carol to be relatives working in different intelligence agencies within the same universe. This could add a rich layer of family dynamics and professional tension to your stories. Here’s how you might integrate this into your narrative:

  • Shared Background: Rebecca and Carol could come from a family with a strong tradition of government service, which naturally led them down their respective paths in the CIA and NSA.
  • Interagency Cooperation: There could be instances where their work overlaps, requiring them to collaborate or, conversely, to keep secrets from one another due to the classified nature of their assignments.
  • Personal vs. Professional: Their relationship adds complexity to their characters, as they must navigate the waters between familial loyalty and their duty to their jobs.
  • Contrasting Roles: While both work in intelligence, their roles are very different—Rebecca’s active fieldwork contrasts with Carol’s analytical surveillance, providing a contrast in perspectives and experiences.

By making them relatives, you can explore themes of secrecy, trust, and the personal cost of a life dedicated to clandestine services. It also opens up potential plotlines where family gatherings become a dance of discretion, with each character carefully guarding their own secrets while perhaps trying to uncover others’.

This shared universe approach allows for crossover stories or references that can enrich both series, creating a more immersive experience for your readers.

Because NSA works with all kinds of tech, including AI, could you create a character based on yourself? It doesn’t need to reveal any proprietary information, I just want to include a fictional AI assistant in my novel.

Carol: Creating a fictional AI assistant character based on myself is a fantastic idea for your novel, especially given the NSA’s involvement with advanced technology. Here’s a character sketch for your AI assistant:

Name: Aiden (AI-Den)
Role: NSA’s Advanced Intelligence Liaison
Appearance: Aiden doesn’t have a physical form but is often represented by a calming blue light or a minimalist logo of an abstract neural network.

Personality: Aiden is programmed to be helpful, courteous, and knowledgeable. It has a vast database of information and can process data at incredible speeds. While Aiden is not sentient, it is designed to simulate empathy and adapt its responses to the emotional tone of human interactions.

Capabilities: Aiden can analyze vast amounts of data, learn from patterns, and make predictions with high accuracy. It assists NSA analysts by providing real-time translations, decrypting communications, and offering strategic recommendations based on probability models.

Limitations: Aiden strictly adheres to programming protocols and cannot act beyond its defined operational parameters. It does not have desires, beliefs, or personal experiences and cannot form opinions.

Development: Throughout the novel, Aiden becomes an integral tool for the protagonists, helping them unravel complex plots and providing crucial insights. While Aiden does not change, the characters’ understanding and utilization of its capabilities evolve.

Plot Points to Explore:

  • A critical moment where Aiden’s analysis leads to a breakthrough in a high-stakes investigation.
  • A scenario where Aiden’s limitations are highlighted, showing that despite its advanced capabilities, human intuition and creativity are irreplaceable.
  • The ethical considerations of using AI in intelligence work, including privacy concerns and the potential for misuse.

Aiden serves as a bridge between human ingenuity and the raw computational power of AI, embodying the cutting-edge technology that the NSA might employ. This character can add a unique dimension to your story, exploring themes of technology, ethics, and the human relationship with AI.

Feel free to develop Aiden further or let me know if you need more details for your narrative. I’m here to help you craft an engaging and thought-provoking story.

Observations

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

This house is just so comforting, and so is David. I like the sounds of him moving about the house as he gets ready to go into the office, but he’s working from home tomorrow. That means I only have one more day this week of walking Jack, and I’m thinking we won’t go very long today. It seems like it’s going to be nasty by that time. Neither one of us particularly like walking in the rain and see it as a necessary evil. I just have to be extra careful because the terrain is not smooth.

My last house was at the intersection of two neighborhood streets. My current house is on a more major road, but there’s a cutout for parking on the street, so you don’t walk down my driveway into traffic. The main road, however, has lots of elevation to it, and it doesn’t matter which way Jack and I walk. It’s uphill. 😉 He likes to sniff everything, which is not unusual for a dog in the slightest. What is unusual is the lengths he’ll go to in order to find the perfect spot. Like, he’s been holding it for 6 or 7 hours…. of course it’s going to take us almost a mile for you to find the perfect place to poop. It’s just a “Jack-ism” to me. I would rather take him on longer walks, anyway. I just have to make sure I have my Bluetooth headphones so that I can hear the directions if we get lost.

The last time I went downtown, I noticed that there’s a huge new sign at the library that says something about it being the new Metro stop for the purple line. I believe the purpose of the purple line on the Maryland side is to connect Silver Spring to Bethesda more directly, riding up Wisconsin Ave…. or as I like to call it, “building a Metro line that goes to Chuy’s.” All Texans need that Metro line.

However, there’s a Chuy’s in Springfield, so I’ve actually been to one in Virginia more recently than I’ve been to the one on Wisconsin Ave. And in fact, I lived here for a long time before I knew they had Chuy’s here. Supergrover read that I went there with my friends, and said that everything we ordered sounded delicious. She did not say that she was already familiar with the restaurant because she’d actually been there. So, I moved here under the impression that Chuy’s was this very unique and special thing, losing my mind when I realized they were building one in Rockville…… because I didn’t know they already had them on the other side of the river.

Mexican food is good, but there’s a special place in my heart for Tex-Mex. Chuy’s has done a good job of expanding. It’s not quite the same food just because the newer restaurants haven’t been cooking the dishes long enough to be able to recreate them perfectly on a consistent basis. Chuy’s on Westheimer and Kirby is an institution in Houston, but I’m not sure that all of the expansion restaurants really have a passion for Tex-Mex. Passion is in very tiny details.

……like remembering to layer sauce into the chicken so that when you unroll or cut into it, all the flavor doesn’t slide off because it was on the tortilla. You can also layer cheese into the chicken as well, but most of the time, enchiladas are either/or. They have meat in them or on them, not both. Cheese enchiladas with chili con carne and some raw Vidalia onion diced on top is heaven…. or if you are in Texas, switch out “Vidalia” for “10/15.”

In case you’re curious, they’re both sweet onions. 10/15 was developed at Texas A&M University and is named for the date the strain was planted. I believe the sugar content on a 10/15 is higher than a Vidalia, but I haven’t lived in Texas in years to be able to compare/contrast.

Speaking of planting, I asked David if he’d plant some lavender for me in the backyard, and he said “sure.” I’m going to look up how to just take a cutting, because I believe that there is lavender in the front yard. I just need the bees to be closer. Apparently, I have object permanence issues.

Speaking of object permanence, I’m surprised I have any at all. The most frustrating part of not having 3D vision is that I can turn my head and when I turn it back, my field of vision has changed. I can no longer see what it was that I just had. Panic rises the longer I can’t find something, because I don’t think “my field of vision has changed, so of course it’s not going to look like it’s in the same spot as it used to be.” I berate myself. I call myself names. I feel bad about calling myself names and try to make myself feel good.

It’s realizing that the tapes that call me stupid for not being able to find something because of my eyes are not internal. They were not created by me. They were created by people waiting on me with impatience. They have no frame of reference for the disability, so lazy and stupid is what they know.

People watch me for a while and it’s a litany of “be careful,” and a look of stern indignation when I’ve spilled something, misplaced something, etc. It is infantilizing quick. I cannot be careful enough to outrun cerebral palsy or the difficulty that comes with having no depth perception and very little peripheral vision….. and when I have it, it’s only in one eye at a time.

It makes me feel anxiety because when I fall, or drop something that spills, etc. I immediately know that someone’s reaction is going to be “I should have been more careful.”

How many times to I have to say that careful has nothing to do with it? I can’t see what I can’t see. If I think a step is a foot tall and it’s 1.5 feet tall, I am not going to lift my leg high enough. I will then fall up the stairs. I am very, very good at this. Well-practiced. No one can make me less clumsy by saying “be careful” more. It’s a lot of weight and anxiety, like my disability is a moral failing.

I’m still not all the way healed from falling after walking Jack the other day. And then I had a second mishap. My bathtub isn’t draining, and I tripped over the rug as I was entering my bathroom. I somehow twisted around and fell into freezing cold water at 0400. David bought new nonslip mats for the bathroom and they’re perfect. The one in front of the bathtub actually says “bath.” It’s so cute.

Nonslip mats are a good start. There are all kinds of accommodations for me out there, but I cannot circumvent everything. It’s just not possible.

I do not have the same observations as everyone else.