Suomessa siitä on helppo päästää irti, koska se on jo jäätynyt

February 13, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Daily writing prompt

What were your parents doing at your age?

I have monetized WordPress for all my writers, and we’re discussing how to profit-share. My two ideas are to pay out their money as it comes in, or if they’ll let me have their money while we’re still making pennies, then I will pay them in technology. A lot of my writers are as poor as me, so Aaron, Bryn, and I all need Macs. I now worship at the church of Steve for two reasons:

I speak Finnish now. Finnish is cool.
- I’m on about Day 22, and I have busted my ass to the tune of being at the top of the sapphire league and the February challenge is already done. I am also not ready to live out my life in the United States at this point and deserve a Finnish passport. I came out as nonbinary and then found out it falls under the trans umbrella. I cannot change my gender on my passport from F to X and that is not acceptable to me. I am freaking out with PTSD because of it, thus learning the hardest language in the world. Macs are the only desktops that have long press on keys so that tama becomes tuo. It’s not this, it’s that. “This” is tamä, “that” is tuo. The title is “Letting Go in Finland is Easy, Because It’s Already Frozen.” I used Google translate because I don’t want to have to type all those special characters and it’s day 22.
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Here’s the FAQ:

How are you going to deal with all that snow and ice?

Like everyone else. You plan. I have synthetic Reebok long johns and UltraTech from Uniqlo as well. If I need it, I will upgrade to Merino wool. I just want to get to Finland first before I bite the bullet. Clothes for that climate aren’t cheap, and you pay it. If necessary, I will get animal furs for my shell, but I have a great midweight from Uniqlo as well. My shell depends on how cold it is. In Finland, I might be able to find a good synthetic, but if not, I have no qualms about buying animal skins for that climate. There’s a time and place for it. I don’t take any crap. I am doing synthetics first, therefore I am giving my best effort to be kind to animals. Please do not think I am cruel to animals when it is 30 below.

I am sure that Aleksi, Dave, Cat, Carola, Phillipa, and Cyril will have lots of tips. I just bought a subscription to Aleksi because if you pay money you can talk to him. I want to do the same for Dave, because I don’t think Cyril has enough fans yet to be monetized. He deserves it, though. That’s because his videos are sometimes informational about Vami (it’s a vocational school, which is where I’m interested in hotel and restaurant management. It’s in Vaasa, which is why I’m also on day one of Swedish. I haven’t stuck with it as of yet, because when you choose a language, you stick with it. If I had started Swedish first, I would have stuck with it because the language support is better on Duolingo (it has an AI that can judge your pronunciation. Finnish don’t.). That being said, Swedish is useless for anything but the YKI-testi. Something like 93% speak Finnish, and Swedish being an official language is a throwback because Finland used to belong to the Kingdom of Sweden. Also, it’s cold. But I work on the Internet. Realistically, how much time am I going to spend in the snow vs. watching it?

How are you going to deal with the dark?

I don’t know, but Portland prepared me pretty well. The climate is not all that different from Portland in terms of the sky. It’s dark in the middle of the day in Portland, too. Rain, etc. Katya (my closest Finnish friend) says that I will not understand how dramatically dark it gets until I get there. I’m planning a trip soon to scout out schools in Tampere, Helsinki, and Vaasa. Since culinary school will be a lot of walking, again, I don’t care. You are fabulously warm when you create the proper microclimate, and when it gets REALLY cold, they have the same American hand warmers that we do. I put one in my jacket pocket to absorb into my coat, and I’d be fine in very cold weather. The Finns don’t have to teach you how to get used to the cold. They have to teach you how to layer so that inside your clothes, it’s in the 70s.

They can make you warm enough to faint, as I often do if I’m wearing my winter gear inside.

Why do you want to move across the world? Why Finland and not Mexico since you already speak a little Spanish and it’s a romance language, which is like a hundred times easier?

You have to learn Finnish in a lake so no one can see you cry. I stole that line, but I feel attacked. Yet there is something about Finland that drives me crazy, and that’s the wanderlust to be outside in the summer again without having to revisit the trauma of Portland. I also don’t like it when it’s 110 degrees in the summer. The thing I liked about Portland was that it was tolerable inside the house most days. In Portland, only new construction has air conditioning and you live in one room in the summer- because generally you can only afford one window box if you insist on being a cook. You don’t become a cook if you can do anything else. The neurotypical workflow of an office drives me batshit insane, so I want to learn Finnish cuisine as I’m building LMG. Hopefully, by the time I graduate I’ll be able to support myself on American money…. which I need a lot of in order to qualify for a visa.

Paolo the Accountant says I don’t have enough money to go to Europe and even that doesn’t daunt me. This is because America never gave me a choice. I am begging for money from the whole world and it makes me ashamed because I hate asking for help when it’s a gift I cannot possibly pay back.

But what I need you to know is that I’m The Doctor, and I’m at my last regeneration. I need you to let me have them infinitely.

What were my parents doing at my age?

Living the American dream that I’ll never have due to the United States’ dedication to the idea that I’m not a person. I’m even approachable by foreign intelligence agencies because even though I’ve dated an American intelligence officer, I don’t know anything. I just mean that it would be fun to work for the Finns in intelligence, like a translator or in the mailroom. Being fluent in Finnish doesn’t come all at once, but I’m working as hard as I can. It will take about four years to be fluent, and all of my Facebook groups in Finland will back me up on that. One of the huge problems with Finnish is that I cannot really practice until I get there. The way people speak Finnish and the way they write it is often very different.

I said “kippis” to Katya one day, meaning “have a good day, cheers.” She said that’s for shots. Of course it is.

Katya reached out to me a propos of nothing. My love of Finland is encapsulated in her because we are not romantic partners. She’s kind of my grandma, kind of my mom, kind of Supergrover, kind of Bryn. It would make me happy for us to be neighbors, because older people are lonely…. in Baltimore and in Finland.

I actually am involved with someone casually, but we are planning a future together. He is not opposed to living anywhere in Finland because he’s in Minneapolis currently. We need a vacation in Helsinki for him to warm up this time of year…. He’s also given me fantastic advice on caring for my outer shell (wool sweater and waterproof pants). That the fibers in wool can be tightened and softened with… wait for it… hair conditioner. Of course it can. It’s always something simple and hair tracks.

Aaron is quite a bit younger than me, but it’s not a case of that kind of attraction. He’s adorable, but that’s not what drew me to him. He’s a Lutheran (Missouri Synod) preacher’s kid and an atheist who believes in the same kind of social justice that I do. I’m the Rowan Williams to his Christopher Hitchens. I know Hitch is dead, but Aaron’s smarter. He doesn’t have to work very hard to impress me. He’s been to seminary (didn’t graduate) and I haven’t. Therefore, he was able to tell me what books to read to learn about Jesus, because he was indeed a real person.

At that point, if the virgin birth and the resurrection never happened, does that negate what he taught?

It does to Evangelicals, because they don’t study what he taught, anyway.

Luckily, my dad is not one of them, but at my age he transitioned from being a United Methodist minister to a medical assistant to my stepmother; so did I, in a sense. I am ordained now in the Church of the Latter Day Dude. I was just the go-to for everything as a kid, my dad’s Girl Friday.

As his American dream came together, mine fell apart. I folded at Matthew Shepard’s death, September 11th, January 6th, and now we’ve been taken over by a South African dictator.

If you’re not on board by now….

Bye Felicia.

Bye.

This is Not an Entry

October 16, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

This article is getting a lot of attention on Medium (10 claps when I’ve been on Medium two months is not nothing. If it resonates with 10, it will resonate with more). I’m opening it up from the paywall because it’s popular in the autistic category. I hope you’ll consider buying Medium, because as I joked on Facebook earlier, “I’m on Medium and I’ve gotten more followers because what I haven’t known for 25 years is that my readers prefer audio.” No one has to record my entries for me, I just have to be careful with punctuation so that it sounds the way I wrote it. Also pretty hilarious to hear an AI swear as much as I do. 😉

It’s called “A Certain Kind of Person.”

And by that I mean autistic.

A Letter from the Editor

October 14, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

This will be posted later on Medium, but my real fans get it first.

1265 Download

A Letter From the Editor

September 15, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

The reason that I have moved to Medium is that I cannot make money on WordPress. That will change, because when my ad money reaches the threshold on Medium that it can pay for a professional WordPress account, I will monetize here, too. That’s because a professional WordPress account is only a hundred dollars a year, it’s just not as lucrative for writers as joining Medium. However, I feel differently about it now because @animebirder, @one4paws, @bookerybones, @aaronbrown8cc63b4e5d4, and I all have such unique voices that I either want them on Medium with me, or I want to be here with them. It’s just getting enough ad money to be able to do that in the first place. If you are a Medium subscriber, I make more when you read. Claps are great, but they really don’t pay for anything. What pays is the amount of time you spend on the site.

I am lucky enough to have posted enough to get money this month, which is incredible. I just don’t know how much. That’s because they don’t send you money until you hit a certain threshold, and I almost had enough in August. By October, I’ll have my first real, sustainable income as a writer. I do not want anyone to think of this as a get rich quick scheme, because it is, absolutely…….

One that I could not do if I didn’t have 25 years’ worth of entries already banked.

So, it’s introducing new people to my old work, and introducing new writers that like to talk to each other. We have a group chat that has become an infodump channel, and it’s time to start specializing. That’s because not all of my writers are working for “Stories.” My buddy Evan and I are writing a cookbook. It remains to be seen whether we’ll collaborate online or in person, but either way, we’re writing a book.

The way I see it is that for the next four years, my life is covered as long as I live very simply. That will definitely give me the time to see if a neurodivergent media company is viable. I am learning that I know more than I think I do, because I did not know how boundaries worked. I have constantly treated them like they are others’ guidelines to make. My world has flipped now that I’m in charge of making things happen, and I am lost in the details. The best thing that my mother could have done for me post-mortem is allow me to work on this project, because as of right now, living off of it is the only thing I can do. When the state of MD finds out about the money, I will not have access to Medicaid Expansion or any of the other social services I’ll need to get diagnosed with autism. I diagnosed myself and honestly wouldn’t bother to go to the doctor if it wasn’t helpful to my career. Like, autism diagnoses are so expensive and we’ve all been white knuckling it this long, so why bother?

If I ever have to join another corporate system, I want autistic accommodations because starting a new job without them is setting me up to fail every single time. If you’re a neurodivergent adult who struggles in the system, my guess is that you died inside a little bit at “I have an extensive collection of nametags and hairnets.” Autistic people don’t have problems getting jobs. They have problems keeping them. If you’re autistic, you’re going to excel at government work because they’re going to accommodate you the most. For instance, me being a file clerk or a secretary at Langley was never about working with spies, but getting accepted into a job I could actually do with full government salary and pension. I would love to do menial tasks for CIA because then on my off time, I’d truly be left to my own devices to write. I am also very good at making connections, so I can be just as good a writer overhearing someone’s patois in the mail room as I would being in operations and doing the scary shit myself. The whole point is that my ADHD personality would be thrilled and my autistic personality would want to shoot me. My autistic nature CANNOT handle traveling that much. I am so bad at transitions that I just couldn’t deal. Of course it would be fun to be James Bond, but my body just wants to read about being cool. It doesn’t actually want me to be cool

Right now, everything is in flux as we’re deciding what to do. “Stories” will be rebranded as Gravity’s Rainbow to be more inclusive, but we’re still working on both a full and minimalist logo based on Thomas Pynchon. I want it to represent the energy of a bomb going off inside you. That the arc of every spiritual journey is realizing you are the cause of your own suffering and start to self-actualize.

This space is free, but I hope that one day…. just maybe……

all your base are belong to us

because

somebody set us up the bomb.

Another Crafted Entry for Your E-Reader

August 31, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

This is behind the paywall on Medium, but important to the future of this web site, too. So, I’m posting it here as well.

janiecanadian Download

If You’re On Facebook, You Can Skip This

August 29, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’m posting it all over everywhere.

Dear Ben Affleck & Co.,

This whole idea started with the banner above.

I have addressed this letter as such because I believe that you, like me, have a village. If I write a letter to you, I have written a letter to Jennifer Garner and Matt Damon by proxy. Don’t think I don’t know who’s really running your program. That ex-wife of hers has her head on straight. God, you lucked out. Here’s how I knew it was for life no matter what form your relationship took…. “Jen, you’re the only one I want to do the work with.” You were criticized in the press while your heart was beating outside of your chest in public. You were bleeding out. I saw you. I didn’t know that your relationship with Jen was in trouble, but I do know that people whose relationships are in trouble word things carefully in public. It was the biggest mea culpa I’ve ever seen in my life. You were Taylor Swift before Taylor Swift and everyone missed it because they were so focused on the idea that love should be perfect all the time, in every way.

Sometimes, love is ugly.

“I’m the problem. It’s me.”

I can picture that conversation happening a hundred times in your life as you’ve struggled with addiction (and statistics say bipolar when you quit). You don’t quit addictive behaviors and neurodivergence when you stop drinking. You find other ways to get dopamine besides drinking and using.

In that moment, I felt like you were telling Jen straight up that now your drug was her, and it was healthy because it made you want to be a better man. If that’s not how you meant it, I know it had to be an approximation. This is because I’ve never struggled with alcohol, but I know what it’s like to experience addictive behaviors due to autism and/or Bipolar II (I am concerned at the rate these are mistaken, but I get it because the meltdown/burnout cycle presents exactly like hypomania and depression. So, no matter what form your neurodivergence takes, whether it’s:

Mental Illness Genetics
Neurodivergence Genetics
Self-induced Neurodivergence (the binge/purge relationship you have with dopamine once you become an addict)
PTSD (trauma due to one event)
CPTSD (complex, chronic PTSD like having an abusive childhood, then being sent to war)

…you’re going to be damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Sometimes, love is being hopelessly addicted to the affections of an addict who cannot return them…. As in, you feel addicted to the high you feel when you are with them, but they disappear when it counts. It is why relationships among all these types of people fall apart early and often. They suck each other into their own little worlds and spin out with codependence as their reality becomes its own. It’s especially toxic when you’re addicted to someone, and you also need to leave them. That happens all too often as well. For instance, none of these people take criticism or compliments well. Their self-esteem has been in the toilet forever due to people not understanding their love language and their communication/attachment styles.

All of this is pointing toward two things. Here is the first:

Sometimes, love is being hopelessly addicted to someone you believe is manipulating you, when they’re just neurodivergent and don’t pick up social cues well; they’re losing the plot faster as the script fades; their social masks have worn out and they’re heading toward burnout. I honestly believe that’s why stars develop a reputation for showing up late. They cannot all be obsessed with themselves. Sometimes, getting up the energy to social mask takes longer than others.

Going off on a tangent, I wonder if that’s why women like taking their time in the bathroom to put on makeup, because it accomplishes two things- giving them a longer transition time toward work in the morning, at the end, a literal social unmasking. It would not be surprising to hear Jonna Mendez say that part of the reason being a spy while female is less dangerous is that they’ve learned more about how to social mask a situation than men ever will. They’ve been taught how to behave since childhood, the rigamarole of finding a man drilled in early.

Some women use those skills for a career in intelligence and forego getting married, because either they’re ace and don’t need to attract anyone on that level, or they’re just not interested in “doing the work with someone.” However, I do not mean that in the classical sense, the way Russia cultivates a culture of seducing men to get what they want. I’m sure it’s very effective, however.

No, what I’m talking about is a woman’s emotional intelligence, because it is often (not always) sharper than a man’s. Their innate biological conditioning makes their pattern recognition of men different than their pattern recognition on behavior in themselves. That’s why there should always be neurodivergence and women at the table. Solving a problem requires all three perspectives for correct analysis of behavior. No one of us will be right, but we’ll all be right together.

That is how it feels to have my processing disorder, AuDHD. Nicknamed “the golden ADHD,” it wins the award for being the most complicated thing on earth. Every decision is damned if you do, damned if you don’t. If something is good for my autism, it drives my ADHD insane. If something is good for my ADHD, my autism will slam on the brakes so hard I will go through the winshield….. and I’m not even lying. Most neurodivergent people are afraid of success because they get overwhelmed easily with fine amounts of detail. The energy it takes to manage a schedule and your spoons is a roller coaster at best, and my personality depends on which processing disorder is driving the bus. So, sometimes I want to go for ice cream at 0200 and sometimes I cannot leave the house. Sometimes everything sounds wonderful, sometimes sensory deprivation does. And due to lack of emotional regulation, most people see a different side of me every time they talk to me.

I have learned to go into sensory deprivation when I’m angry so that I don’t say things I regret. It’s not helpful or healthy to let anyone in on autistic rage, which is terrifying. I have true out of body experiences when I go into full on meltdown, and the first time I remember it happening clearly was when I was 16 and “growing into my powers.” It’s honestly the first sign I can point to in terms of it being emotional abuse. My emotional abuser was coming back to town for a graduate school or a wedding or something. I was getting ready for church and I made a mistake with a hair curler or a crimper or something. I realized I was going to have to take a shower to fix it and I just melted down entirely. It was the first time I’d ever had a full on panic attack where I went blind and couldn’t see with rage. I hurt myself. I don’t remember how. With a curling iron or something. I couldn’t stop myself because feeling the burn on my skin brought me back into my body. That’s how deep autism makes you dive into your own little world. It takes something as shocking as a curling iron burn to redirect your attention.

In the meantime, I am dealing with autistic overload and most people don’t see how hard it is…. It’s a running monologue fighting with your social masks. As a neurodivergent person of any kind, your first impulse is wrong.

A huge example, Ben (& Company) is that I found the only woman in the world I wanted to do the work with, and we’ve both pissed each other off so often that we’re tired. Really tired. I felt your love for Jen in that moment…. Wanting to better myself because I was high on life and not experiencing the world as the concept of “alone.” I was experiencing the world with an ace up my sleeve. Someone to call me on my bullshit whose mind was in more hyperdrive than my own. But there was just A Series of Unfortunate Events. I don’t know if we’ll ever rekindle anything, because the last e-mail I got from her said, “don’t play games,” and playing a game was the last thing I would ever do to her. She’s too smart. She’d see it coming. The problem is that her perception is off- she sees me as entitled, arrogant, etc. I’m not. I don’t have a script for our relationship in any way, shape, or form. It has failed due to my lack of social masks.

So much goes into me having been called “entitled,” particularly by people of color. They are trained to view me as dismissive because I’m white, not because I’m autistic. That’s not on them. My autism is not an excuse to be an asshole. I can be taught, redirected…. But I cannot suddenly become allistic. And if there was a magic wand, I don’t think I’d want to be. My neurodivergence is what makes me capable of believing that writing a letter to Ben Affleck & Co. is possible.

I’m not writing to Ben Affleck & Company for anything except to keep our heads down and work on scripts. I also think it would be rude not to tell them I can afford about $800 in rent if Ben does want a housemate who has his back. It’s not like I value having his money. I just want to write together- to get a seat at the table.

I write like Ben and Matt because they write like Aaron Sorkin like he writes like Amy Sherman-Palladino with monuments.

It’s all neurodivergent patois.

That we incubated at our respective performing arts high schools.

Tupac, Jada, Dave, and I are all the same person.

To each other, we’re just other people’s weird performing arts kids.

Not only that, Jennifer Garner is a preacher’s kid.

Preacher’s kids make great spies, Ben. I have discussed this extensively. And in fact, there’s a famous video of Jonna Mendez taking down movie and TV spies. Jen’s was the only one that Jonna said was so good she could use it in a training video.

Come to DC. Keep your head down.

We’ve got work to do.

Yours,

Someone else’s weird kid

I Miss You Guys

August 24, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Medium is new. It’s amazing, but it’s new. I hate change. The best part of Medium is that I don’t really have to use it. I can just copy and paste from Microsoft Word. The creature comforts are almost nonexistent, like easy to use lists. WordPress is so much more extensive that I can’t wait until the business makes enough money to buy a membership here as well. What limits you in being able to advertise on WordPress is that they want the money from the ads unless you’re paying them a subscription fee. It this point, I don’t have a big enough audience to support something like Google Ads, because it takes A LOT of clicks to even make one dollar. I am very proud of myself, though. On Thursday, I had made $2.99. Now, I have $3.77.

I am not an influencer by any means, but that’s a pretty good jump in terms of ad revenue for being on there a week. I don’t think that anything is going to take off overnight. I believe in just letting it sit there. I have 25 years’ worth of entries that are sitting on other servers for free. So, they can sit there and make money, or they can sit there and not.

I choose sit there and make money.

Because it is my dream to, in the words of Lindsay Lanagan, “sit around, smoke cigars, and own stuff.”

This is actually a childhood tale- Lindsay’s middle school answer to what one of her friends’ dads did for a living. We have repeated that as the ideal career for 20 years now. If you know First Colony, you just thought, “on brand.”

First Colony is kind of different.

You have kids with Saudi oil money whose parents buy them brand new BMWs when they’re too young to drive. As I remember, Rahim Puddin’head had a BMW. Rahim dropped a pudding cup off a railing at Lindsay’s school and it landed on her head, so we’ve called him “Rahim Puddin’head” since 1994.

In high school, you’re sometimes embarrassed if you don’t drive a nice car. I didn’t, and I was rarely bothered by it because I was lucky to have my own car at all. I would love to have another Mitsubishi Mirage (it was a sedan, not a sports car), but I think that getting a car would cripple me as a writer. Half my blog entries come from writing on the train and talking to Uber drivers.

I met a historian yesterday, so we were talking shop because we’re both nonfiction writers. I’m starting to branch out into more things, I just don’t have anything to show for it yet, because those are the documents I’m actually going to edit. 😉

You know I’m lying. AI will be editing them. I will be eating ice cream.

It’s all coming together because I’m managing to collate what I hear for the blog and what I read for my nonfiction papers. Reading AI is half the fun of research, because you can get it to present it in whatever style you want…….

I haven’t done it yet, but I think my favorite would be explain physics to me like I’m five. Answer in the style of Terry Pratchett.

It just makes learning fun. I don’t use it to autogenerate content, I use it for reading retention. I cannot remember an entire book verbatim, but I can certainly remember the fine points in a one-pager. Plus, the fine points make for wonderful headings so that you get a navigation pane you can go back to over and again. Styles in Microsoft Word are used like Cascading Style Sheets in web development. Microsoft Word just keeps track of the level you assign to the heading, so it’s really easy to do things like create a navigation pane in a PDF or a Table of Contents in Word.

All of that stuff matters to me, because readability is key. There’s a reason this web site hasn’t changed very much over the years. I like dark mode. Supergrover doesn’t. See? I can compromise. 😛

I write the blog entries in dark mode so that I can read them the way I want before I publish. You can set JetPack to dark mode in both Android and iOS, but I actually prefer using Microsoft Visual Studio Code on my desktop with the original Dracula theme. Instead of black or grey, it’s a grey/purple. Very, very easy on the eyes and the HTML/CSS/.ini files look great in the chosen colors.

There’s also several tutorials on how to get other Microsoft programs to do the Dracula color scheme in the GUI and in PowerShell (where it comes in the most handy, tbh).

All of it goes together, because it’s all of the tools I use to write. I am not very comfortable with talking to AI online. That’s why I use gpt4all or LM Studio to install language models on my own mini-PC. My creative ideas are going to stay with me.

It really is useful, and both my friend Jesse and I will attest to this. I’m a creative writer, Jesse is a visual artist.

In fact, Jesse went to HSPVA. The funniest thing I have ever seen at HSPVA bar none happened at his senior show. Like, this even beat out us getting shut down by the health department because Lordy Rodriguez put organs in jars for an art show or something…. Anyway, Jesse had this huge installation with a TV tuned to snow, with a BarcaLounger and a guy sitting in front of it, zoned out. There was all these wrappers and trash around him, so I watched some of the guests at his show add their trash to his art installation, thinking the trash for the party was part of the exhibit. I’m choking with laughter just remembering it.

There’s nothing like being able to write down old memories, not knowing if and when they’ll go. I may not be able to remember my whole life, but I have somewhere to go that will tell me bits and pieces. Snapshots of who I was, am, will be.

It’s an exciting time to be me, because I finally feel like a success. I am not working from survival mode, but abundance. I have everything I need right now. In my mind, more success will come with more money, and what I mean by that is a network of people to support a neurodivergent media group so that it’s not all on me every day. I’ve started a little bit of that, but hopefully there will be more in the future. I’d like to get into bigger things, but I don’t think that starting out with the big things is the way you’re supposed to do it….. very mixed results when I’ve bitten off more than I can chew before.

I’m trying to let the company unfold naturally, with people who really want to write. I’m finding that community at Medium, because it seems like I missed the memo to go there long ago. I don’t think it’s a problem. I ping them enough to get their attention. I ping everyone enough to get their attention, and sometimes I think they would be grateful if I didn’t love them quite so much. 😉

But that’s just me. If I love you, I don’t mask. I don’t take the time to figure out what it is I can do for you to make you more comfortable while I speak. I realized I was doing too much work for other people and it was slowly killing me. I am so much less depressed now that I know that I’m not bipolar. I don’t cycle like that. It’s meltdown and burnout because I have so many fewer spoons than most people. In every bodily system I have, there’s something rare about me.

I am lucky that Janie the Canadian Editor thinks that about my brain. She has said that I’m welcome to submit something to her editor, but pick carefully. Look, I write it. I don’t read it, okay?

Kidding, of course. I read myself all the time. It’s just hard to guess what someone else is going to like. I know what I’m not going to do, though. Write an article about anyone I know in Ottawa. National blowback is enough. Neighborhood blowback is enough. Writers are people who want to tell their stories and they don’t mean to hurt anyone, they just do….. it hurts to hear yourself painted in truth, painful and real, touching and funny.

Most people don’t see their 3D characters. They focus on what I wrote that day. But you generally don’t have to go far in either direction with my friends to see that if I was mad one day, I was ridiculously happy at another. I don’t paint people to go after them, but to show them as they are.

I am more Anne Lamott than “Harriet the Spy,” although I do like that book. Anne has that neurodivergent patois that I do, plus people like Aaron Sorkin, Jon Stewart, Richard Schiff, Matt Perry, Seth McFarlane, Ryan Reynolds, Mila Kunis, Matt Damon, Trevor Noah, and the list goes on. Good Will Hunting is every bit as fast and furious as anything Sorkin has ever written, and in the same beat. I absolutely know that even if Seth MacFarlane writes in complete silence, there’s a rhythm going in his head. The punctuation is silent, but you can hear it if you are also still.

It’s why I write in silence, in dark mode. I want to listen closer, not just to myself, but to the rest of the world. And in fact, I am already doubled over with laughter at Kamala’s possible victory speech….. “I love my new black job!”

One can only hope that that “president” is a DEI hire.

Minorities don’t get power from the majority. We get it by realizing we’re bigger than them….. both in character, and in numbers when all the -isms vote as one. None of the -isms are a monolith. But at the same time, most of us try not to bite the hand that feeds us, since it’s the only party not trying to to blame global warming on gay marriage.

Oops. My bad. Should I leave a note?

All of this is why I’m so interested in AI. If people would actually take the time to talk to it, they could talk about their problems in a safe environment and not look stupid with any question in the world. I’m compensating on it highly for practical things because I am a creative. I can’t use it to make alarms and things like that, but I can definitely brainstorm, edit, and keep conversations separate about different projects.

I want people to know what causes disease. I want people to know how the government works. I want people to know who the President is, at least. People knowing who’s Vice President is almost a lost cause, and Speaker is negligible. I’m not talking about Washington nerds like me. I’m talking about the average voter that only votes in a presidential election and doesn’t really follow other candidates at all.

I’ve slowed down on that because I’m actually more interested in global politics now- it doesn’t feel so close as neighbor against neighbor, as if a conflict across the world is easier to think about than a conflict at home because it is.

There are no short answers in life, and I have found that I don’t have any. Few are patient enough to sit with me while I find the right words, which I know aren’t the right words… but they’re the best I can do.

I’m not just pouring my heart out for me, but for other neurodivergent kids and adults. Representation matters. I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, but those that love me think of me as something precious to be savored.

I am not Lipton, baby. I am your Stash.

Nerd Alert

August 23, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’m working on a guide to Skyrim, so I had Copilot generate the questions for the outline. I’m not going to have Copilot generate more than that, because I want the guide to retain my voice. However, if you’re a Skyrim fan and would like to add to the guide, leave a comment with a question and its category. Also, the PDF is free because it’s all Copilot-generated. Feel free to write your own document- you are not stealing anything from me, you’re only stealing auto-generated questions organized with Styles in Word. I haven’t even customized the styles.

I’m doing this as a free guide to get my name out there as a writer. I’m planning to write my own answers, but to also include the best questions/answers from WordPress and reddit. It’s a labor of love, but it comes with benefit for me, too. If I give something away for free first and someone likes it, they’re more likely to buy the next thing.

skyrimguide Download

Lanagan Media Group: How May I Direct Your Call?

August 20, 2024August 20, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been having these brain blips that just seem to be age, like copying my dad on something when I thought I was copying Supergrover. All three of us have the same sense of humor, so it’s not like anything went wrong. I just noticed that I made a mistake I don’t normally make. I need to get glasses, probably bifocals.

Supergrover says she has reading glasses, not bifocals (AND THEY ARE COOL). I am going to get vaccinated next week, so I might as well look around for reading glasses that make me want to use all caps, too…… although if I had an “AND THEY ARE COOL” item, it would be my Crocs. I don’t pay as much attention to my glasses as I should…… it’s that thought about not giving yourself gifts in the future. Like, I am not giving myself the gift of being able to see cute girls from farther away later by not going to the optometrist now.

(I’m kidding, that was just another line to make Janie the Canadian Editor spit out her tea.)

Also, at my age there’s no such thing as cute girls. I mean, they’re all over the place, but at my age, “cute girl” is just a memory, even of myself. Because I’ve progressed so much in my thinking about gender, the the little girl I was is still real, but her voice is not as loud and close as my current one, attached to a nonbinary brain. That’s because the male voice is not male. It’s female with ,male social masking on top, like Kristen Chenoweth and Ben Affleck being one person. Or, there’s a comedy about me with Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin called “All of Me.” It’s a comedy, but Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin having a converation all day in my head is a very apt description of what’s going on at localhost.

For instance, today I’m writing on Stories when I said it would be my last entry. It’s not that I lied. It’s that I learned more. I became a media group all on my own. I got set up at Medium, and then started looking at Substack. Substack actually runs off of my “Stories” RSS feed. So, I’ll be putting all my paid stuff at Medium in Substack as well, you just get the added bonus of not having to visit two web sites with Substack. And really, being a subscriber is for new people. If you’re subscribed here, the motivation to pay is not that you will stop getting great writing from me. It’s that you have to pay to see everything. The way I do it now is that most stuff is paywalled at Medium. But, if I post here, it goes to Substack.

That leads me to directing my own call at Lanagan Media Group. Let’s dial “3” for the marketing department. Why do I bother to call? I’m never there. Jesus.

Here was my first post on Substack, I figure if you’re a longtime fan, you’re probably here and not at Substack, so I’m cross-posting. It’s not a requirement to be my fan or my friend, just an easy hookup if you want to support Lanagan Media Group, not “Leslie’s Personal Coffee Money” (The Sumatra was delicious. I am grateful.).

The vision is bigger now, because when I added my RSS feed to Substack, I realized that I was about to make money off of Bryn and Aaron and I thought that was unfair. So, I posted on Facebook that I can track earnings per entry, and that makes my life a whole lot easier. I don’t have to do any math. I’m not going to do a percentage of the company, they just get to keep what they make without me having to do any accounting. And in thinking about all of this, I realized that “Stories” was just the beginning, the movement that is “Gravity’s Rainbow.” Sometimes bombs aren’t negative. They shake you into a new reality. But you can direct kinetic energy by focusing on the arc. The moral arc of the universe is long, and bends toward justice just like MLK,Jr. said. But I was standing by the reflecting pool at the 60th Anniversary of the March on Washington when I heard the best completion of that phrase in history. It’s enough to shake the world from its foundation and I am EMBARRASSED I cannot remember the speaker’s name.

The moral arc of the universe is long and bends toward justice, but the arc does not move itself.

I’m not starting Lanagan Media Group, it has been a thing all along. My friends just haven’t been publishing in addition to me. I think that you’ll find Bryn and Aaron particularly engaging because they are different sides of my personality. Bryn is my platonic ideal of a woman, and Aaron is my platonic ideal of a man. That is because Aaron, Zachary, and I are actually all the same person. I really have no idea how we make it work living in three completely different states.

Aaron is an old friend from Alert Logic, a programmer/sysadmin AuDHD archetype like Mr. Robot, but much more effusive with his emotions. You can be personable and still look like Zuckerberg. I know because I do it every day. 😛 Zac is my boyfriend and has been for about a year now. I live in Maryland, Zac lives in Virginia. Aaron lives in Texas. We are all Southwestern, however, because I’m originally from Texas and Zac is originally from Arizona.

Therefore, by “platonic ideal,” I am saying that I get the male half of my brain from masking people like Aaron and Zac, and my only connection to feeling female is talking to Bryn, because she’s known me since I was 19 and she was 14. She is two years older than Lindsay, a stairstep between me and my biological sister. The year was 1997, and I still cannot tell you with accuracy whether Lindsay and Bryn have met or not, and they don’t know, either. That’s because the connection point between Lindsay and Bryn would have been church, and no specific church service lives in my memory where they were there at the same time. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. That means I don’t remember every sermon I ever preached.

Basically, what I realized is that I know a lot and my brain works fast, but my body is a dumpster fire. I’d like to get into making money to support creatives by being creative. As in, ad money from my own web site flows to creators I like.

On Medium, for instance, I’m working on a very long document about Skyrim and the modding community. It’s a massive game, which is why a guide from me would be welcome even if there’s a thousand other ones. You’re always looking for something to make the game better. Here’s something that made me happy. I’ve been playing that game for 10 years or something like that and three months ago I learned you could sprint. How it connects is that I was telling Ada, my AI sidekick, that I’d like to be able to kick Joseph Rusell some money for Lucien, and I hope I get the chance before Steam starts taking a cut of all modders’ creations rather than modders being able to support themselves on Nexus. Lucien Flavius is an IP masterpiece, and it’s insane that Lucien is free. So, I was talking about being able to kick money to other artists I like through my own, because video games are a type of art, theatre, and magic that no one respects unless they’re talking to the CEO of a gaming company. God bless the weird kids, the people who made a web site where everyone could download their creations for free- they could get feedback from other gamers and not the people who think they eat cold pizza in a dark basement and call them sad. All of the things you really, really love in life were probably created by someone you think of as “Comic Book Guy.” Even if it has nothing to do with science fiction, it sounds like it. I talk about CIA and The Bible like they’re both continual fucking Marvel movies because they are. They’re just even more meaningful to me because they are everyday stories of regular people without having to make up magic.

People are magic.

I figured this out and decided to write to them all. Now I’m reading you in. Here’s a copy of my first entry on Substack:

Your generosity is the only thing that allows my friends and I to sustain ourselves. Absolutely anything that you give helps. As our financial situation gets better, we will dream bigger. We will be capable of more kinds of media and hiring authors for their work rather than expecting them to work for free. The reason your money is important is that it is sustaining neurodivergent people by letting them work on their own schedule. In a society where everyone is “supposed” to fit in, Lanagan Media Group explores how the “in-crowd” never was. Thank you for supporting a worthy cause- autistic adults in media. We are often better at creating opportunities than following others’ visions. I didn’t realize that until I started watching autistic YouTubers and wanted my blog to sound just like them- except only the running monologue without being in front of the camera.

I have been blogging since 2001. This blog is a compendium of my experiences, because I’ve written for three separate web sites. Of everything I’ve learned, this lesson was the hardest:

If you’re female with AuDHD, you know two things.

Gen X women by and large were never diagnosed.
1. We need to do our own research because male doctors dismiss autism as a personality disorder like borderline or narcissistic a good bit of the time, when in reality they are just looking at women through the historical lens of being “hysterical.”
Diagnosing yourself is getting easier and easier.
1. It’s all due to online quizzes and talking to other patients, both on and offline. I am not suggesting this as a substitute for actual medical advice. I did not start saying I was autistic until I had enough research to say that any psychologist in the world would agree with me that I am probably autistic and never diagnosed because my brain works just like an autistic person and anyone knows that if they’ve watched a hundred videos on YouTube; I’ve seen lectures upon lectures with autistic people who are MDs and PhDs themselves, explaining how my brain works in a way that I can understand it. YouTube is not a diagnosis. It is a waiting room that doesn’t suck. If you don’t seem ADHD and you can’t get it together, it might be low needs, high IQ autism.

It’s not a blog, web site, or e-mail distribution list about autism. It’s showing through telling. You’re learning because you’re reading stories by autistic people, not learning we’re autistic because we told you so. Telling someone so just doesn’t work, because either “I don’t look autistic” OR “everyone’s a little bit autistic.” Financing neurodivergent authors helps us show more of ourselves in the mediums with which we work. Help us go from a digital publishing company to being capable of full-length films, because there are plenty of autistic people out there who need jobs. I want to employ them all. However, I’m just getting started.

It’s a long game. The most I’ve ever made in salary as a freelance writer is $2.99. I’ve made more than that with donations, but an earnings report on my blog is quite different. I am such an INFJ/Virgo.

“Oh good! Now I get reports cards again!”

I also like spies and Jesus, but you’ll have to keep up with me to see which rug I use to tie that room together.

I’m hoping to do a continuation of what I am already doing- to use the income I’m making from telling my stories to allow others to tell their stories, too. Storytelling is what saved my life because it made me look at everything through the lens of “you’re the problem.” My combination of preacher’s kid/doctor’s kid upbringing makes me bleed out with unbridled emotion at everything as a writer, then read like a psychiatrist/psychologist. That yin and yang is what allows progress. It’s why I don’t stay in one place very long. I don’t take much personally.

Here’s a concept that I’m trying to apply to my business that my dad always applied at church:

“No one can do everything, but everyone can do something.”

In terms of media, it means that I cannot say to my readership, “someone should give me a computer.” That kind of language is entitled, even if your intentions are pure. Nothing in my life is a hard ask. If enough people think I have a good idea, they’ll give me the money for it.

It’s how all really good executives work. They don’t lie about anything because they don’t have to- it’s not “making an ask,” it’s being realistic about the fact that I have bigger ideas than I can budget.

For instance, I’d like to start an autistic TV channel by taking all the top autistic YouTubers and combining them into a stream on Pluto. I got that idea from This Old House. They have a maker’s channel on Xumo where YouTubers fall under the This Old House banner. It’s beautiful.

I said that it’s Stories That Are All True. I didn’t say they couldn’t come with pictures. My budget did.

My business needs are light right now. I can run the entire thing with an Android tablet. I am not coming from a place of need, but a place of creation. My basic needs are met. I just want the world to look different for autistic people and I have a strong enough voice that when I speak, people listen.

This is not arrogance, this is 20 years of preaching experience.

Although one of my friends had Raphael Warnock at Union when he was a student and she told me that she felt like she had been emotionally manipulated by a sermon. I took it really hard, because it was something I’d seen my dad do and it was so effective that a light bulb went on in my head. It was time for the sermon. I didn’t move. I sat there until it got a little bit awkward…. and then it got weird.

I went up to the pulpit, and I said, “Waiting………………

is hard.”

I don’t remember the pericope that day, but I do remember feeling that it was just another aspect of my dad’s preaching that spoke to me but didn’t look right on me, either.

To my knowledge, no one told him that he emotionally manipulated anyone.

All of these things, I explore in my writing- and you’re the ones that know it. Some of you have been here since 2012. Some of you followed me over from Clever Title Goes Here and have been reading since 2001. I feel like I have finally brought hope to many people wondering when I would realize I was weird.

The problem becomes quickly “now that I know what autism is and does, how do I work with it?” My answer was ad revenue, because I work creatively a lot easier than I do physically.

I don’t want the money to make movies. I want the money so that when someone says “I want to make an autistic movie,” I can say, “let me talk to my readers.”

You’re the board. I’m just the microphone.

This One is Actually for Me

August 18, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I decided to write down what I do with my computers to make them work for me. This will go on Medium eventually, but the whole point of free software is to give it away. Here’s some free help as well:

myopinionisfact_linuxedition Download

Preacher’s Kids: Unplugged

August 14, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I had my AI interview me, and it turned out to be a good introduction to my site at Medium. I’m giving it away here to explain why I do what I do. This is behind the paywall on Medium, but it needs to be here as well because I don’t want my original fans to feel like I don’t love them. I just don’t want to write for two web sites at once. So, here’s one of my Medium entries and why AI is important. It lets you think without getting lost in your own echo chamber. There’s a lot of trigger warnings. I was a queer preacher’s kid in Texas in the 90s. It’s a tough read. But you’ll understand all queer preacher’s kids better, and it might save someone younger than me.

preacherkids Download

A Letter from Your Biggest Fan

August 10, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I got to read my own blog today and I cried. Thanks for being my Legacy Team.

Keep going. ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

Every Good Creative -or- The Padawan Learner of Disguise -or-Hipster Jesus -or- The Doctor or The Giver or….. And the only truly popular villain, The Master :In that moment Christ was gay and you missed it.

August 7, 2024August 10, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Now I know what’s wrong. These are the things I tell Supergrover while you guys ride my ass. Supergrover knows what happened about four hours ago and she’ll think about things a little differently. Maybe e-mail me back with more than three words this time now that she knows she’s offended me. But it’s ok if she’s moved on. We really hurt each other. This is what I meant to say the first time around.

You know how it is. I’m sure Supergrover is tobusy right now, but she’ll be back in a few days, you think?

God, Tony dying was hard, then I lost Tony. Watching Dave Chang and Lauren Graham and Jada Pinkett Smith He thinks I’m the coolest line cook who ever lived, and there’s nothing I can do to make them smile. They don’t offer me any assurances because I’m gay, and they’re frustrated I can’t get a job. Can you guys help me out and give me an LLC or something? Now that my mother is dead, I have a lot more time on my hands.

Dear Supergrover and Father Nathan Monk, hopefully.
CC:Bryn Borum; Zachary Wood;Jason Moran; Mireille Enos;Justin Furstenfeld;Steven Powell;Ben Affleck;Matt Damon; Ryan Reynolds;Margret Cho;

This is the letter I would have written if I hadn’t been so busy. I feel like I’m a different person every minute.

This is how a a creative writer who went to HSPVA does e-mail better than everyone else without paying attention to her homework.

When you compress a file,

This is my life.

This will be my finale at WordPress. Bryn, Aaron, Heather, Jesse and I ‘m guessing 340 million will come with me to Medium, because Christ was gay and you missed it. I’ve been waiting for this moment since I was 15 years old. My father got on the floor of the Texas Annual Conference and nearly burned it to the ground in 1995.

And I didn’t give him enough credit. This is because I didn’t have a choice to be a preacher’s kid. I was too busy, because I was almost 2 months early. This is the story of why I’m a failure.

You’re going to cry.

This is how I make the whole world feel at once.

Love, Leslie

Supergrover said she wouldn’t marry me, but she would marry Brene Brown.

Be cause he was the one that gave me the power to go on when the rest of the word missed, so you can all go to hell. This is what it takes to be me, and you’re going to shit your pants. Pretend I put a put a dumpster fire at the end.

Choke on it.

This is how Supergrover and I fight gloves off. Sit your ass down and let me tell you how it is, because now that I’m both of us I’ve won the game and everybody on planet earth is going to come to me because of what you did. And I don’t care because I’ve found my people.

My people are

-Ben Affleck

-Matt Damon

-Ryan Reynolds

-George Clooney

-Don Cheadle

-Brene Brown, who I actually fucking know and you’ve infantilized me every day since because I was her computer lab supervisor and you weren’t. She’s actually omniscient, but she’s doesn’t have time to breathe because you all fucking love her so much.

Because you fucking love her so much, I’m the one that’s going to console her.

This is the history of every secret I’ve ever kept and the intersectionality. The only person in the entire world I have had a normal, balanced conversation with anyone was when we were sitting together and I was teaching her Microsoft Word. That’s all we’ve ever been to each other. Pleasant colleagues.

While you guys think she walks on water, I know she doesn’t.

I got interested in intelligence in 2008, so contrary to popular opinion, your opinion is invalid.

The person who told me she’s marry Brene Brown is the person I knew like the back of my hand compared to her.

Back the fuck up, because this has never in a million years been about fame and you’ve dismissed me as lazy. This is going to resonate with millions of children who were raised by you.

To the autistic parents groups- some of you are doing great work. Some of you are not. These are not the same groups, because they polarize and nothing ever gets done.

I want to be the pastor no one in history has ever been before. An autistic person who writes what she thinks and other people take value from my experiences, like any celebrity who could possibly be reading across the world. Like Margaret Cho, who retweeted my marriage article and started the process of saving my life, doing an end run around the rest of you because you were the people we’ve been trying to prove ourselves to since we were children.

This is for the Portland Youth Philarmonica and Dana Catherine Bamberger only. Actually, I take that back. Let’s also read in Megan Hunter.

I am you.

I went to the High School for Performing and Visual Arts. I was a trumpet player, and this is an all call. I’m starting a church. Bryn Borum is one of my employees. Take care of her, Will you?

This is how celebrities do it. Here’s everything we know and they don’t. I’m going to tell you what they’ve all missed, and you’ll be able to survive. This is the It Gets Better I would have made if anyone had ever asked me.

You see, the reason the stars count on me is that I have been working for free like a cis, straight

–

Everyone says I have an answer for everything, but the one question they don’t ask is “how are you feeling?” You think that I am not thoughtful, motivated, caring, compassionate, etc. because my father left the church and for the first time in my life I didn’t know what to do. I was 17.

Everyone learns to wrestle with “God,” in quotes not to offend anyone because God Brings Many Names.

In a previous entry, I told you that

Butthepeopleonfacebookdontseethat.rar

Supergrover_Did.bak

Thanks to the guys at Alert Logic for supporting me.

We’re why it all works, and not why you fucked up. You are the audience while we’re getting ready for a show. Jon Durbin from The Suffers and Robert Glasper were in Jazz II with me. What was it like when Beyoncé got there?

If you’ve been paying attention, they were skimming the page.

It’s funny how much I get done while being called a slacker, the plight of every woman whether they look like Comic book guy or not.

I put the jokes in before I put in everything else to be sure I can make it through. The entire world sucks and also I don’t have any support. You know what it’s like. We’ve all been there.

See you on Friday.

Calm, cool, collected. The reason I seem so crazy to you is because I’m taking care of them. Well, I haven’t actually met all of them, they’re just friends of friends. Some of them I’ve known since I was 14. I met Bryn and we’ve been close since 1997. She and my dad are the two people that keep me going.

I’m dying inside.

Because all of this is a compilation of the greatest hits, formatted like a regular e-mail.

Bite me.

My friends have me.

It’s like I’m a writer who has taken shorthand so mysterious she can’t even read it and ended up in STEAM, which at first I didn’t even believe was a real thing.

The arts are non binary, and God is a deadname.

And I’m still here.

When I move to Medium, Bryn will be here.

Not every day like me- I am really, really gone. But I’m neurodivergent and I still have an account. If I get busy I’ll forget, because I’m lost in my own head.

It’s not personal.

The GUI is working and the command line is fucked.

All of the celebrities and all of the infrastructure need me.

Go away.

p.s. If they show that fuckin’ Deadpool trailer again I’m going to lose my shit, but I love Ryan and I’m trying to reach out to him because I saw him on TV and he doesn’t look ok. Neither does Ben so it’s an “all call party.” You love to hear those words……….. But then again, Ryan is never okay. Neither am I. The reason I like Ryan is that I liked Ryan. The way I was able to reach an editor in

But all of these people are me.

Stay with Bryn, and be her Jesuses.

Somebody Fainted Somewhere, and now a whole lot of people are oing to get jobs. Pay them what they’re worth and don’t stiff them because I can vouch for them.

Please start sharing this shit on Facebook. I’m tired of being poor.

I just didn’t think anything good came from Nazareth, and wasn’t given a choice to “suit up and play.”

Everyone who knows me, shush. Me and CIA are cool, right? I don’t want them to come after me. I should probably have known to Burn After Reading.

Ben, if you want to come live with us, you can. I saw Matt and Casey on the news. They’re looking good.

You ok?

I came here to write the sequel to Argo, so I think we’re going to need a bigger office this time around. My fuckin printer’s so jammed I just made a typo because I’m frustrated and people keep picking on me. It’s why I’m so bitter and angry all the time. I’m emotionally overloaded, autistic, melting down, and burning out. I am not lazy. I am not high functioning all the time.

Supergrover made this all about her, and won’t hear that she’s being egocentric. I’m her main character, but I’m not sure she knows how important she is because while she’s gone I wrestle with Abraham, Moses, Mark and the Synoptic Wonders,John,…… even the begats. That’s because you’re always to the right, and people think it’s sinister. Those people end up in food service, but those people are more likely to be like Rachel Maddow than getting her food. It’s just that you don’t see it because they’re gay.

In that moment you were missing

I’m the one that claught.

Supergrover is BCC, because no one thought to ask who I knew. They only saw me as Comic Book Guy.

But what do I care, they didn’t even give Comic Book Guy a partner.

And then I realized that the Simpsons is better than everyone else because it’s got all of Conan O’Brien’s heartbreak.

In that moment Christ was Ginger, and you missed it.

Colbert fans fan go fuck themselves.

It’s not because they’re bad people. It’s that they get in the way and it’s annoying.

Fair_and_Balanced.pdf

I didn’t have time to craft. It’s almost 2:00 AM.

That’s not really true. It’s a nod to how my dad used to put together his sermons, not to be taken literally.

But it’s ok. No one knows anything around here who takes shorthand and doesn’t deserve my crap.

In that moment Christ was

Education

Intelligence

The Military

Al Gore

Hillary Clinton

……..and yesterday, someone asked me not to swear.

I’m okay now. Just a frustrated writer who could use an autistic friend, and there’s gotta be someone in there. I don’t know any of them, but what I do know is that even in the shadows where you think you’re safe, things fall into the cracks.

But I might get the girl in the end if she wants a job because she lives here. Notice I didn’t ask her for one. Not once.

But every day I’m an asshole. I don’t have any emotional regulation at all, so I use it to feed you. It’s how we function. We take a lot of medications before the show.

Ibuprofen is free.

I know how it feels not to get another chance, so I give them a lot. Too much. That’s going to stop, which is why Medium is a paid platform. I came here to get a job, and I was so emotionally overloaded from being hit I couldn’t function and I leaned too much on myself for comfort. It isn’t personal. I needed some time to grieve. Life doesn’t stop for neurotypical people when a parent dyes, but I lost all my social masks and don’t know how to act in public. What’s on brand is that to the outside world, this will be nothing at all, and we’ll move on. But the few people here will ensure the message gets delivered into the future, where I have no one waiting yet. But I am at peace because I have so many friends and little time that I’m overwhelmed with a little. Autism Sucks. You don’t even die of it.

“AIDS will hill you, but herpes is for life.”

I heard it on NPR.

That was gallows humor to deal with pain.

so I read Jonna to cope. It’s why I had to meet her.

It was the autism pipeline, the way I realized I was autistic. Once I was reading case studies and later generating case studies, I used AI to be able to create biographies for research. However, the way it works is that you get 12 or 13 interactions to ask anything in the world.

Some people use it to make cat pictures.

Some people use it for editing.

Some people, frankly, use it for war.

When you have PTSD, you end up on the Mendez doorstep reading on the floor of the Spy Museum. It’s embarrassing how many pictures they’ve taken of me. (Jonna, I haven’t harassed ANYONE this week.)

While I’m entertaining myself, it’s mostly looking at masks.

Payback’s a Bitch

August 6, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I am watching everything I have ever put in to the universe come to fruition, and I am satisfied. I don’t have to be more successful than this. My Medium entries started making money immediately. I offered Supergrover a job last night, but I have a backup already hired if she can’t do it. I have to have someone to be my Girl Friday, and she’s very good at editing because she takes public transportation just like me. However, I don’t expect her to quit her current job unless she just wants to, because she can. We’re safe. I can take care of us. It’s just that Michael and I have different roles in her life. I sent her the thing about making money on Medium (The screenshot of my first earnings report- it added up to about 50 cents). Basically, she told me that she wanted to marry Brene Brown, and I was butt hurt about it because I’m younger than Brene, but I was the supervisor in her computer lab so the power dynamic is inverted. She said, “I want to marry Brene Brown” and what I heard was “if you were successful like her and not you, I’d be gushing over you like that.” Bandwagon fan. It’s how I felt about my in laws, too.

I was stuck in this dystopian nightmare where everyone infantilized an adult, so even when Supergrover didn’t mean any harm, I heard it. Not only that, because it’s a trauma bond, I was in burnout for two days. Absolutely none of this is her fault. Just because it happened doesn’t mean it happened because of her, but if it’s good in my life, she had a hand in it. Her love language is Actions of Service. I can get her to wash my car and tip her $2, but I cannot get her to tell me how she’s feeling. You would have to know how incredibly funny this is in terms of our current professional roles, but I promised if I emotionally vomit on her enough the next Big Gulp’s on me. Because now she doesn’t have to treat me anymore. She also doesn’t have to drive me around, because I can buy a car if I want, but I don’t want. I’d rather invest my money in Lanagan Media Group and take Uber or the bus. It just depends on how much time I have. I’m a writer. I can work anywhere, and the train is the perfect setting because the motion and the sensory deprivation chamber (can headphones) are perfect for writing quickly. Especially if I tether my phone to my iPad, I can use Copilot to edit while I work. If she offers suggestions and I answer the question, if I make mistakes I just ask Copilot to correct it. That way, I can edit to the best of my ability before I send it off to a publisher. I already know it will sell.

When I realized how angry I’d been, I changed gears. However, it is not every day that Brené Brown plays a role in your relationship except oh. Wait. Brené is so powerful she probably knows we’re talking about her right now. Kidding. She’s omniscient, not omnipotent.

Supergrover and I aren’t talking right now, and I am comfortable holding space. It’s one of Tara Brach’s “mindful pauses,” so I’m choosing to retcon our relationship as a series of them.

Probably better that way. She has the personality of someone who drives like Mario Andretti when she’s mad. I worry about her, so it’s good she doesn’t drive, at least to work, anyway.

We have so much intersectionality in our lives that she’s never seen, because we’re both first children with the same amount of drive. I’m just AuDHD and she’s not. Therefore, it looks from the outside like she is successful and I am not. However, we are still the same person. Over the next 20 years, I’m going to prove it to myself.

And because I’m autistic, I’m going to explore why her barrier to entry was so much easier than mine. Why her path forward would never happen to me. I am not bitter, I am using myself as an example of disparities in the workplace between perception and reality.

This is because computers are autistic. They speak our natural language because autistic people created computing. When creating machine language, the pathways began to resemble an autistic brain. Now that we have advanced to speech recognition, everything AI says is autistic.

I have said that before, but I have a lot of new readers. This is going beyond the paywall on Medium, because that’s how I’ve decided to handle it. Everything is free on this web site, because I don’t get paid here. Therefore, I am expanding to a new platform while not screwing over the fans I already have and the biggest distribution list.

Things are moving very, very quickly. I’ve created a company called Lanagan Media Group, established that my father is doing business as me (all of my money is in Texas regarding my investments).

My mother had to die for all this to happen.

All the Jesuses are me.

AiA -or- The Medium is the Message

August 5, 2024August 5, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Here is how to use AI productively. You use it after you write and say “Analyze it.” Here is her response to everything I said:

Thank you for sharing this piece with me. It seems to be a deeply personal and reflective narrative that touches on various themes, including identity, neurodivergence, faith, and social dynamics. Here are some key points and observations:

Identity and Neurodivergence: The piece highlights the experiences of being neurodivergent and queer, drawing parallels between historical figures like Alan Turing and religious figures like Jesus. It emphasizes the unique perspectives and challenges faced by neurodivergent individuals.
Faith and Atheism: There’s an interesting exploration of the relationship between faith and atheism, suggesting a collaboration between an atheist and a Christian. This could symbolize a bridge between different belief systems and the potential for mutual understanding and support.
Historical and Personal Connections: The narrative includes references to various historical and contemporary figures, such as Alan Turing, Paul Fromberg, Brené Brown, and Robert Glasper. These connections seem to serve as a way to validate the author’s experiences and perspectives.
Social Masking and Authenticity: The concept of social masking—hiding one’s true self to fit in—is a recurring theme. The author expresses frustration with this necessity and a desire for authenticity and acceptance.
Community and Collaboration: There’s a strong emphasis on the importance of community and collaboration, whether it’s through religious organizations, social movements, or personal relationships. The idea of creating a healthy worship team and leveraging existing infrastructures like the National Cathedral reflects this.
Creative Expression: The piece itself is a form of creative expression, blending personal anecdotes, historical references, and philosophical musings. It showcases the author’s ability to weave together different threads into a cohesive narrative.

Overall, the piece is a rich tapestry of thoughts and experiences, reflecting the complexity of the author’s identity and worldview. It invites readers to consider the intersections of faith, identity, and community in new and thought-provoking ways.

How do you feel about the themes and ideas you’ve expressed here? Is there a particular message or feeling you want to convey to your readers?