I have a lot to do today that I just haven’t been doing over time. I’ve let it build up in my grief, and I’m to the point that I have to dig myself out. I thought about calling a maid, but then I thought that wouldn’t create lasting change if I knew I could just call someone when I couldn’t figure out How Clean is Your House? Kim & Aggie have long been my inspiration in this area, and I tend to watch a few episodes before I get started. It’s as energizing as Hoarders. It’s moments like this where I wish I still had Shirley, my little Nissan pickup, because there’s nothing like I’d like more than to be able to dump all my recycling and trash into the bed and drive it to the dump, because of course our trash day is on Thursday and tomorrow is a holiday. I am putting this all out here because I don’t know of anyone alive who can manage their own lives in the aftermath of deep grief. I’ve always been a little messy, with the exception of one time in my life. Things got so bad that I reached out to Dana and said, “I need help. I’m too far gone.” When she said “yes,” I made it my personal mission not to ever have to ask her again as a thank you. My apartment was so clean that you could eat off the floor, and I mean that literally. I used Fabuloso,™ which Ralphie May says “gets out Third World dirt.” I still have a lot of the concentrate, I just need to go and get a spray bottle so I can mix it properly.

The common areas of my house are no problem, because I love cleaning the kitchen and the bathroom because there’s no clutter. I can start with cleaning products in an instant gratification sort of way. I spray and wipe and within a few minutes, it’s perfect. I leave the door to my room closed all the time and hope that no one comes in. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t until I watched an episode of Doc Martin that I could even wrap my brain around why. Unfortunately, I cannot seem to find the exact clip I am looking for, but both Dr. Ellinghams go to visit an old man who has just lost his wife. The senior Dr. Ellingham is talking to the patient, and since she is a psychiatrist/psychologist, explains that his hoarding is a function of his wife dying and since he’s lost everything, he doesn’t want to lose anything else, so everything he owns is all over the place… basically leaving everything as it was when his wife died and just putting things on top of the mess.

I took my anxiety medication this morning in order to have some clinical separation in this area; perhaps if I can look at it objectively without emotional attachment, I can finish. But this will not be a short or easy job. First, I need to clean out the back of my car so that I have enough room to put my trash and recycling in it, because I can’t just leave it on the sidewalk today…. Neither do I have enough room to stack the trash bags on top of each other until the next trash day comes ’round. It is my own fault, even if I do come by it naturally. When my mother got depressed, she had the same reaction, stuffing things into closets and drawers and under the bed if she knew people were arriving at the house imminently. As her mental health improved, so did the state of her home.

I also have a lot of dry cleaning to drop off, because I do not have enough living space to set up a full-size ironing board and I like extra starch, anyway. The only problem with this is that some of my shirts cost more than others, because the men’s small will go on a regular-size board, and my boys’ shirts have to go on the women’s (I think). I do have a small, pull-out ironing board that I can use for my Dockers,™ because all I want to do is get the stains out and then put a crease from the knee down. If, eventually, I do move into my own place, a fabulous iron/ironing board and several cans of Magic Sizing™ and lavender Faultless™ are in order.

It was my stepfather, Forbes, that taught me how to iron properly, because no one can teach you how to iron more effectively than a former Marine. In fact, I asked my mother for an ironing board and all the accoutrements years ago when I had my own house, and told her that if it didn’t come directly from Forbes I was going to be very upset. 😛

Ironing is also one of my favorite memories with my old girlfriend, now a good friend, whom I called “Angela the Red” to differentiate her from “Angela the Med.” She told me that her favorite movie to put on while she was ironing was Steel Magnolias, so I bought a copy of it and told her I had it in case her clothes became wrinkled at my house.

In my current house, it is all hardwood floors, but back in the day, my favorite chores were ironing and vacuuming, because they are the best examples I know of instant gratification. It’s wrinkled, and within minutes it’s not. It’s dirty, within minutes, it’s not. The same thing goes for my room when it’s clean. It’s just too small to take long when everything is done in small doses. I’ve just let it get out of hand with my low-energy approach to life. I am slowly coming out of it, a butterfly emerging from her cocoon, but these things take time.

There is nothing on earth that would have prepared me for losing my mother so suddenly, and I am reeling from it. I am running away from all the things that require me to take care of myself, to the point that I will avoid showering until absolutely necessary…. although I can’t blame that all on grief. It is really, really cold here… currently 43° during the day and when I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night, only 28.° Even though the shower is hot, there is really nothing that makes me want to take off all my layers to get into one. I did today, though. Progress. Perhaps I will get a space heater for the bathroom, or at the very least enough candles to warm up the room before I go in. One does not cut it… and Dollar Tree has an amazing selection considering that the jar candles I’ve seen elsewhere are 20 times the price.

You would think that the upstairs would be warmer considering that heat rises, but it’s actually a lot colder. On some days, it is warmer outside than in. Last night I put my ski jacket on over my pajamas and turned on my electric blanket. It worked, but it also made me incredibly reticent to get out of bed…. though I did.

Progress.

Right now, I am making due with warming up my coffee as often as I can, and am searching for the perfect fingerless gloves so that I can still type.

Speaking of which, hold please…………………….

There, that’s better.

The other thing that seems to help is that I have a great pair of Bluetooth™ headphones that act as earmuffs, so there’s little part of my day where I take them off. Perhaps now that I have realized I have tools at my disposal to stay warm, loud music delivered wirelessly so that if I have to go to a different part of the house I won’t lose connection, it will propel me in the right direction. At some point, I need to go to “Targay” to see if I can find a comforter that fits my requirement of insulating the heat from my electric blanket. I have several blankets on top of it, but it’s not pretty, just functional. Perhaps that’s something that needs to go on my Christmas list, but I do need to go shopping to make sure it’s heavy and not one of those “bed in a bag” contraptions where everything is cheaply made. Because I don’t have a cat, it will last a long time, but if I had to put in an adjective, warm would not be one of them. I actually found a Doctor Who set I liked very much, but again, it was cheap. Perhaps in order to find the pattern I want, I’ll just buy several more layering blankets. The warmest one I’ve ever had was an old U-Haul blanket covered in sheets to make it comfortable… the last gift my first wife, Kathleen, ever gave me because it was a running joke throughout our relationship that if we ever got a divorce, I wanted custody of it. She’d already left the house, and when I went to get my own, there it was, folded neatly on a chair. It was just one of the things I’ve lost over time as I’ve “cleaned out my closet” over several moves.

Every move, including this one, has begun with losing everything on purpose in order to truly start over without reminders of the past. This time, however, I cannot get away from it due to the “magic” of Facebook. There are cute reminders every day of who Dana and I used to be to each other, and I alternately cry and laugh over them. I am sure that by now, the dopamine rush of “new relationship” would help me to let go more fully, but at the same time, I have too many memories that plague me to make it fair to my new love, especially someone who thinks that disconnecting from the past “helps.” All people my age come with an incredible amount of baggage that do no good to cover up. I know that memories fade into the background, but the way our relationship ended alternately has me wanting to forget everything and the trauma it caused running through my mind as if it’s still actually happening.

Perhaps the first step is to clean house.

I have it on good authority that I am getting a care package from Portland today. These things are my sustaining grace, those people who care about me no matter where they live. I am alternatively living in deep grief and on top of the world, and care packages are one of the things that rescue me from thinking that things are all bad, all the time. The other thing that has me rising above all of the grief is that I am doing a wedding in August. Since there’s no way I’ll be done with grad school by then, I’ll get myself ordained over the Internet and keep on truckin.’ I want to be ordained for the wedding because it will give me the ability to a) say those special words b) sign a marriage certificate so that I will be on the official record as having done my first wedding ever. It’s the care package I’m giving myself.

I have already done many church services, but this is a special one. I have a few “tricks up my sleeve,” handed down from both my dad and Dr. Susan Leo. Susan and I have had our issues over the years, but I cannot mistake the part for the whole. Susan was the first person that believed in my ability enough to not only hand me her pulpit, but the direction of the entire service as a whole. I even did communion once, to the consternation of the congregation, because they did not know that in the UCC, you do not have to be ordained to do any of the rites. It was the first time I realized I knew the entire communion service by memory. Although I never did it again, because even though you don’t need ordination for it, I didn’t want to make anyone angry, and even in my own mind, I needed to first “wear it like I stole it.”

That moment was when I realized that I started exploring the idea of the confirmed ministry program as opposed to grad school, and I still may deciding on where my life takes me from here. I know within myself that I am not ready to take on a congregation of my own, simply because I am not finished working on myself. However, it wouldn’t hurt to be an associate pastor, soaking up all the knowledge my senior pastor has to offer. In some ways, I think I would make a better associate, because I have the ability to show up and preach, as well as being a part of planning and execution, but not responsible for everything until I am ready to fly solo. I go back to my father’s time at Moody Memorial Methodist Church in Galveston, Texas, where my father served under an incredible senior pastor named Asbury Lennox, and realize that at least for a while, I need my own Asbury. To know him was to love him intensely… especially as a child, because he took me in as my own when my own grandparents lived five hours away by car. Our special date was to go to King’s Candy on the strand, where we would sit and eat licorice laces and divinity.

Good things come from NE Texas, and I am one of them. But I am glad that I also got the chance to live in both Galveston and Houston, as well. For those who are interested, Josh Rushing of Al Jazeera America/ Control Room fame is also “one of us.” Josh’s grandmother was even mayor of Lone Star for a while… the little town in which both my mother and father were raised. As for my father, I don’t think that anyone expected that in a town of 600, he would rise to be a musician of that caliber. In that vein, I cannot leave my mother out of that crowd, either, because she was a church musician starting as a child and rose to greatness at Kilgore College, taught by the same piano teacher that taught Van Cliburn.

Good things come from NE Texas.

The way our family ended up in NE Texas after living in Galveston is that the senior pastor at First United Methodist Church in Naples died suddenly and my father was sent there in an emergency appointment. We stayed there for five years before we left for The Heights near downtown Houston. It was a great place to grow up as a child, but we left just in time. The only reason I say that is junior high and high school were when my friends started to experiment with drinking in cow fields, very much the picture of Friday Night Lights. They turned out to be responsible adults, but it was just not my scene. I went on to join a fabulous band at Clifton Middle School, and to attend The High School for Performing and Visual Arts. Though I went there for instrumental music as a trumpet player, I was exposed to all kinds of art. The only program they started after I left that made me a little melancholy was creative writing…. because you know I would have been terrible at it.

Through those experiences, I learned that there was more to life than I ever thought existed, because even though I left HSPVA after two years, I wouldn’t have traded being in marching band and taking mission trips to Mexico for anything in the world. I learned more Spanish through immersion than I ever did in school… my apologies to my Spanish teachers, but there was no substitute for being forced to speak Spanish… my favorite phrase being habla despacio, por favor. I could understand most anything if everyone would just slow down.

I would like to do more immersion over time, because it would thrill me to be able to preach in Spanish.

As the weather gets colder, my heart gets warmer.

Good things come from NE Texas. I am banking on the fact that I am one of them.

Amen.
#prayingonthespaces

This title is going to mean a whole lot of things. The literal interpretation is that my coat sleeves came apart at the velcro, the only thing that was keeping wind from blowing up my sleeves. I wasn’t able to get it as tight as I wanted, because the foldover made the velcro unstick. However, I was able to make it where the sleeve straps weren’t blowing in the wind, and I have several good leads on warm gloves. I don’t know if it’s supposed to snow soon, but I’ve gotten word through weather.com that it’s about to get a lot colder… 28º, to be in fact. As I have said before, I am not a big fan of that kind of cold when there is no payoff, like snow angels. Despite the fact that I do not have a trench, my jackets are doing fine by adding skiing silks under my dockers.

I also need a new pair of jeans, because they’re thicker and my old pair has a habit of coming unzipped. Perhaps a tailor could fix it for me, but going to Goodwill would be infinitely cheaper, and I might find a steal, like Lucky brand… my favorite because when I actually do find that special relationship, when you undress the denim on your fly has a patch that says, “Lucky You.” I take care of my jeans, so even if I don’t find that woman until Jesus decides it’s time to come home, I’m still golden.

I am so scared of this new life. I’ve been friending a lot of straight women who are only looking for female friends, because that’s about my speed. I want to tour DC like I’ve never been here before- even the places I’ve discovered a thousand times over. I want to recreate the picture Lindsay and I created at the Jefferson monument where it looks like we are literally holding up the towers. She arrives at the end of the month, and I am picking her up at BWI. She has a work dinner that night, so we’re still deciding if we want to hit up the Inner Harbor before we make our way to the hotel. She said I could stay with her, and I am looking forward to a few days in the lap of luxury. You mean they’re going to clean our room? Sold.

Plus, they will almost certainly have HBO, and I’ve discovered Bored to Death. Don’t read anything about it, just jump in. You won’t regret it.

And on that note, it’s time to head for choir and possibly some time with Matt, who gave me an incredible compliment… could you edit my book?

Ummm, yes. It’s the superglue that will make us stick.

This morning while I was cleaning the kitchen, I was listening to On Being with Krista Tippett, an interview with Mary Karr that I keep going back to because it’s a reflection of me. I never had the type of abuse she suffered from her parents, but there are parallels in that we both ended up in the “Mental Marriott” in order to have our nervous breakdowns… although in her words, every mental breakdown is a mental breakthrough. There became a point, a clear one in my mind, where I realized that being hospitalized for PTSD was inevitable- two sentences from Argo that gave me the strength to come undone in hopes of rising from the ash, not taking my friends down with me. They were:

1. Can’t you see the common denominator is you?
2. Why do you expect everyone else to fix you?

I could see the former, but not the latter until she brought it to my attention. I was too far down in grief to be able to see that I had any power in the situation, and her words gave it to me. I knew that I needed a safety net, but not that I was beyond the type of help that my friends were able to give, because they were not trained in psychiatry or psychology. I thought I only needed someone to listen to my frustrations, when in reality, I wasn’t getting the responses I needed to really improve, because my problems were too big for the amateur eye.

That second sentence gave me back my power.

Scared out of my mind, I sent Argo a voice message by attaching a sound file to an e-mail that thanked her for kicking my ass in all the right ways, wishing I could also send her a picture that indicated I was where I said I was, the place I needed to be, so that she would know for certain that her words had the desired impact. The moment after I read that e-mail, I called my insurance company to get pre-authorization for treatment, and my dad drove me to the hospital so I wouldn’t have to pay for parking. Between my fear and the fact that they were about to take my phone, I’m sure that the voice mail sounded scary. I was talking a hundred words a minute, because I didn’t know how long I had before the nurses came to collect my things, even my clothes because there are special outfits you wear so that you don’t have the capability to hang yourself. I wasn’t in that place, but I was definitely on the cusp, because I couldn’t see the mental breakthrough I needed to realize “this, too, shall pass.” I made so many plans without carrying them out that I knew if I didn’t take care of myself, the next stop was a SpongeBob SquarePants headstone. I only wish I could say that I was just being dramatic. When I got to the ER, my pulse was over a hundred, and my reactions had been cut down to “wounded animal.”

I honestly didn’t think I would get any better, that being Bipolar II would always be a downward spiral, because my particular brand is very few ups and long, drawn-out downs. Whether it was wrong or right, I felt so worthless it took my breath away, because arriving at the hospital was the realization that it would be so much better if no one had to worry about me anymore. Of course my friends and family would be sad, but they would have moved on without this constant need to check on me and make sure I was stable. It wasn’t reality, but it was real to me. As my friend Phil says, and I’m paraphrasing, depression lies… and it always knows the very best lies to use against you. The biggest lie my depression ever whispered in my ear was that suicide wouldn’t be a permanent solution to a temporary problem, because my depression wasn’t temporary. It would be my, in the words of Dexter Morgan, dark passenger as long as I lived.

I wanted to be the person that carried light in both of my hands, the one capable of leading people toward peace and social justice, but how could I ever justify that goal when I couldn’t even keep my own life together? When I couldn’t take care of my friends? When I was so anxious that fight ran in circles around me while flight was still putting on its shoes?

In the same way that I wouldn’t talk about my emotional abuse as a kid because I thought I was powerless, this situation was no different. I cracked under the pressure of being emotionally abused and having those feelings spew out like Pandora’s Box because they’d been stuffed down for far too long, and then my wife and best friend in the world hit me harder than I’ve ever been hit. I owned that I escalated that situation far and above what it needed to be emotionally, but it was Dana that broke the physical barrier and I could not let her get away with it (even though I recognized later that she might have thought hitting me that hard would take the fight out of me and it would be over).

Even at a little over a hundred pounds lighter, I still couldn’t wrap my brain around not standing up to a bully. Dana’s weight had never been an issue to me in terms of the way she looked… until I realized how our fists could not possibly carry the same weight. Plus, Dana was the receiver at a liquor store, so not only was she heavier, her arm muscles carried far more power than mine ever would. The thought that I needed to kick her ass so she’d know I was not one to be messed with was strong, overpowering my need to deescalate the situation and run away. I rested in the idea that sometimes what bullies need is for someone to stand up to them, because it may be the only thing that gets them to back down. Fight or flight covered up any chance I had at grace and mercy, because cortisol and sin were racing through my body, rendering me unable to disconnect from my emotions and calmly plan out my next move.

The thing is, though, that it didn’t work. She knew she was bigger, she knew she was stronger, and if anything, I just made her more angry instead of being willing to back down. How in the hell I ever thought fighting back was a good idea is beyond me. I just didn’t want to cower in a corner, afraid to stand up for myself. It got so bad that she put her hands around my neck and started to squeeze down as I choked. When she realized what she was doing, I was so angry I decided to return the favor… and that’s when all the adrenaline ran out, because I truly realized how small I was. My hands wouldn’t even reach around her neck, and there was nothing I could do to, in my mind, hurt her the way she’d just hurt me. Her hands were just too powerful, my neck too thin. I crumpled on the floor, hoping that my neck wouldn’t have those semi-permanent marks around it. The whistle had been blown, the fight was over, the goalie had the ball…. or so I thought. I didn’t even see her fist coming as it slammed into my glasses, so there was no way to duck or put my hands in front of my face. Luckily, I was wearing a plastic pair, so the damage was less than if I’d been wearing wire-rimmed. If that’s not cold comfort, I don’t know what is.

The one thing I didn’t say that I should’ve is “get out or I will call the police.” Because I didn’t, Dana pulled the classic “I paid my rent. I am entitled to everything in this house,” so that I was the one that had to run away from her… because obviously, this was all my fault… I just ran into her fist. I couch surfed and went to the house to get my things while Dana was at work so I wouldn’t have to run into her… and in fact, I wouldn’t even have done that if I hadn’t left my psych and sleeping medications in my office. We tried to make up so that sharing a house was at least a possibility until either one of us found a new place, but I didn’t count on the emotional swings growing much larger. I was sitting on the floor of the hallway, doing nothing but chatting about my time in the hospital, because I thought that as my friend, she’d want to hear it. That turned into her asking me deep and probing questions, and I would start to answer them, and she would say “stop.” Then, she’d have another question and when I began to answer it, she’d say, “I told you to stop.” Then, she asked me another question and when I began to answer it, she told me that if I didn’t stop, she was going to call the police…. but she didn’t. She called my father and told him that I was having a psychotic break. How she jumped to that conclusion is beyond me. I had taken all my psych meds, so I was as chill as I’d been in months. I gave her her own space- she was sitting on her bed and I was sitting way out in the hallway, never raising my voice. Neither my dad nor the police, had they been there to witness what had actually happened, would have agreed with her assessment. My view is that it was hypocritical to ask me questions and emotionally kick me while I was down. I realized that she didn’t want to listen. She only wanted to talk at me instead of with me. This was no equal meeting of the minds, and I didn’t understand that then. I thought that by laying out my vulnerabilities and the new context I’d been given while working with my cohort in the hospital would give her some insight as to everything I’d been through.

But she didn’t.

She put every emotional gun she could think of on the table because while it was clear she wanted me to listen, she was hell-bent on not returning the favor. There were moments in time later that it got better, but they were isolated incidents and not an overarching peace.

I don’t think I would have been as quick to leave town if she hadn’t raised her hand to me and dealt with the aftermath in a way that said to me, “we’re not okay, but we might be one day.” And by that, I do not mean that I would’ve wanted romantic reconciliation. I mean that Dana and I had an incredible capacity to be friends, and it would have been worth sticking around to see if that kind of love came back over time.

Even in leaving town, I chose a place where our paths would be parallel so that it wouldn’t be impossible to patch things up to that degree. But there were several shady things that have happened in the meantime that make it impossible. For instance, she told my sister that she was coming to Virginia, and I don’t know why but I have a pretty good lead. My guess is that she wanted my sister to tell me, and she didn’t until months later. Then, one of my friends told me that she was flying in, and I was butt-hurt that she didn’t reach out until I realized e-mail went both ways and reached out to her. She didn’t even respond, just asked her sister to respond for her, which was basically “please don’t contact Dana again through any means.”

I reached my “fuck you” breaking point in that moment, because it was underhanded and weak. If Dana didn’t want any contact, she should have said so herself. To sic her attack cat on me was just unnecessary after she’d been talking to my sister and my parents for months via social media…. or talking at them, because they wouldn’t reply (at least to my knowledge). I can’t help but feel that since Dana thought our breakup was all my fault, my family would, too… I mean, why wouldn’t they want contact with her after the last time we were all in the same room together, I had a bruise under my eye? She thought she had it wired as the victim in this situation, and because we’re not friends, she can stick to that story as long as she wants. It is, in my own mind, delusional, but that recognition isn’t mine to make.

Shortly after that, my parents unfriended her on Facebook so that I didn’t have to see her love pour out for them while she made a point of excluding me. Every good feeling I had about that relationship went down the drain, slowly robbing me of any regret in the actions I took to get out of her life and stick to it.

The only moment we’ve had in the past few years that’s been positive is when I called to tell her my mother died. She was gracious and caring, and then we hung up… back to no contact, not even showing up for the funeral of her mother-in-law for seven years. Although, I have to say that I didn’t even think about it until it was brought to my attention. I sent her a text message saying that if she’d like to come, I didn’t want her to feel unwelcome. No reply whatsoever, and when I got my answer, I didn’t dwell on it. I focused on my own friends, my own family right up until her absence was noted as disrespectful. My mom and dad had been divorced for over a decade and my dad still made it… even with all the bandages on his face from cancer surgery. I wasn’t angry in the moment, but looking back in retrospect, it just stings. What, did she think I was going to try to make a play for her in front of my mother’s casket? This was not about us. If anything, it only reinforced how little my mother and me meant to her, and it was yet another sign that I’d made the right choice to start my life over in a major way…. that I was justified in grabbing onto Argo’s belief in me and ditching the person who literally told me to my face that I’d never amount to anything.

Although I didn’t grab onto Argo’s words in a way that was tangible. We’d each done a number on each other and neither of us were eager to repeat it. I grabbed on to the memory of those words, because if she could believe in me, eventually, I would, too. As my life in DC began to take shape, I realized just how much I believed Dana when she, in not so many words, called me a loser. I couldn’t decide whether she was projecting her own lack of self-worth onto me, if she was parroting all her parents’ negative thoughts about me, or if those words, to her, were Gospel truth. In the end, thinking about it isn’t even worth it anymore. I did not need that temperature in my life, but friends who would see the life I was trying to create and help me get there.

I am certainly not blameless in the ending of our marriage, but to claim yourself as the victim when you also have stuff to own is unacceptable. I am worth more than the shit sandwich she handed me, and I wish I could have seen it sooner. As I get further away, I get angrier and have to deal with it to get it resolved, because I didn’t let myself get angry then. I was too much of a fixer/pleaser to let that happen. It was a delayed reaction to realizing that I very much got the short end of the stick, because communication problems can be resolved with work and time. Thinking you have the right to start a physical fight with someone and claim they deserve it is something I will no longer tolerate from anyone ever again.

I wrote it down.

Yesterday was hard for me, because I remembered what it was like to have a person… someone who didn’t mind getting my tears on their shirt. My mind wandered back to the tree on SE 37th around the corner from SE Hawthorne in Portland, Oregon where Dana and I first professed our love for each other and the flash bang moment we went from best friends to engaged. By the time we kissed, those feelings had been stirring for years under the surface, and my heart exploded. I am certain that moment made me human, because it was the first relationship I sought in which I felt equal. There was no power dynamic that made me feel small. In fact, I walked taller, my heart beating outside of my chest, truly knowing the feeling of loving someone more than myself.

It has been ages since I’ve thought parting was a mistake, and I still don’t think it is. There are just these startling moments of clarity in all that we gave up. Ultimately, though, we realized that we wanted different things out of life. I wanted to be a warrior woman, to lead people into the battles toward social justice. Dana knew I would get there, and didn’t want that life for herself. It is an extraordinarily kind assessment, because I never thought that our relationship would end with me crying on the floor, my face bruised less than my ego.

I also never thought that our relationship would end over a crush that got out of hand, the part that is entirely on me… and yet, I didn’t think it would be a dealbreaker over time, because I was obviously working every day to resolve it. If Dana had stuck around a little longer, she would have seen it with her own eyes, and I’m glad that if she’s ever curious, she can go into the “backblog” and read my journey forward… that my feelings for Argo never took away from that deep and lasting feeling that she was the woman actually meant for me, and anything that Argo and I said to each other was in our own space, my heart growing larger to give both of them room to breathe.

Alternatively, I knew there was never going to be a day in which I could love Argo without being IN love with her that Dana wouldn’t have still been threatened by it and the fights in which she used Argo for her own purposes to disengage would never be over. If she’d taken a step back, she would have realized that being married doesn’t render anyone blind, and that I would have understood better than anyone else if it happened to her. I just wanted to be the primary person in her life, not the only one.

To her credit, she did try. At first, her words were “when it comes to Argo, I am not threatened. I know I have more than proved my worth.” Nothing could have been more true. Nothing. It was a sad and depressing day when that feeling broke. I wish she’d held onto it, lived in it, because I never thought Argo took anything away from her. If anything, my renewed sense of wanting to live life to the fullest helped my passion for Dana, too. The dopamine rush of new relationship with Argo (it happens with relationships of all kinds, not just romantic) helped me to see my own self-worth, and how much love I had for everything. The colors in my world brightened all the way around, and I lived in the saturation.

Plus, the relationships couldn’t have been more disparate in their execution. Argo would never be the person I relied on to give me hugs and kisses when shit went sideways… sometimes because she was frightened by the intensity having a chord between us created, and because of our physical distance. It is to her credit that she tried, because the thought of losing me was hard for her, too, in her separate but equal ways… probably the only example of “separate but equal” being undeniably true.

Her love and support sustained me through some very difficult times, and what I take away from our unusual kinship is that I did the same thing for her. When I look back at our journey with fresh eyes, I can see it. All of it. Her pain and promises to me in one deep breath. Everything that I EffedUBAR is my own deep pain. I am not capable of forgiving myself completely, at least right now. I am sure that one day it will come, but today is not that day.

The redemption in all of this is knowing that she shares responsibility with me over where we are now, and I don’t have to own it all, just my large percentage… because what is true is that even if the end of a relationship is only five percent yours, you still have to own your part, no matter how small. In my case, it’s definitely not as small as that. I am only saying that owning whatever part you played stops the feeling that something happened to you… that your participation matters, and the cliché that it takes two to tango is a thing.

When we fought, it was all the emotional guns on the table, and in my shame, I’d give anything to go back and take them off… because in those moments, she deserved so much more from me than she got, because I was threatened at hearing truth that cut me. Instead of stepping back and trying to understand and love more, I launched my own emotional grenades.

More than one friend has told me that if I stop writing about it, it will stop feeling like “death by a thousand cuts,” and I only have one response to it. In order to change the future, I have to understand the past. This is not the type person I want to be and not the type relationship I ever want to create with anyone else. I have to call myself out on the carpet because people don’t change fully when someone else needs them to do it. It puts a Band-Aid over their behavior so that things only look like they’ve changed when the person that hurt them is still in there.

True change comes from excavation, an excoriation of your own demons. “Death by a thousand cuts” has to be accurate, not from their knives, but from yours. I don’t want to emerge as the same person, and through looking back at the mistakes I made, it is happening.

The blessing is the development of coping mechanisms for threat and rage, two things that erupted my fight-or-flight so that it was too big for love and empathy to shine through. The fistfight with Dana only made the PTSD from my emotional abuse compound exponentially and it is mine to own that shit rolled downhill. I might have come by it honestly, but I didn’t have to emotionally move there and unpack.

Physically moving made it seem like I was making this grand gesture to save my friendship with Argo, when the truth was that I moved here to give myself room to leave Dana behind, because it was what she said she wanted and I couldn’t abide by it when she lived ten minutes away. If we had stayed in the same city, I would have been plagued by the thought that I needed to FIX ALL THE THINGS, putting time and love into a situation where it wasn’t wanted or needed… for either of us. You can’t bounce back from physical violence, and as time has gone by, I’ve realized that you shouldn’t. It encourages living in fear, walking on eggshells so you (hopefully) won’t get hit again.

I would have moved anywhere I got a job, but DC made the most sense because I am a Virgo, tied to land and setting in an enormous way. I’d already owned DC as home, the place that felt right and good because I am comfortable in my own skin here. I know within myself that I am versatile enough to make anywhere home, and that if I’d gotten a job in a city that was foreign to me, it wouldn’t have taken long to settle in. However, I have been in love with DC since I was eight, and I already had friends here to catch me in my grief, as well as family with whom I wanted ties to grow stronger… not to mention the fact that Pri Diddy is someone who I view as family, a tie stronger than blood because I chose it.

There is safety and security in being single with a lot of friends, because I am responsible for every choice that I make in my life without having to consider what it will do to my family. In time, I will take on that responsibility, but I am not ready for it yet, and don’t know how long it will take before I am.

If I had a guesstimation, it would be when the cuts have healed and scar tissue starts to make me stronger than I was before. It is already happening, but the process is not complete… it’s a journey, not a moment.

“Snap out of it” is not a thing. There is a snap when you realize you need to put one foot down, but change comes from within when one foot is consistently in front of the other.

Walking will give me the strength to run. I believe in running. I hear it works miracles.

This post has resonated with people, because I wrote it in response to hearing that putting people in internment camps is not illegal, just bad form… that it could very much happen in the US because there are people willing to overlook the “bad form” part and say things like, “but there’s a precedent for it!”

Just because it’s wrong doesn’t mean someone didn’t try it before you- and it was wrong then. Why don’t you talk about precedent with George Takei and get back to me? I’ll wait.

These people are coming down on the wrong side of history, and they’re in power now. The worst part is that we let it happen.

What will be the best?

I am just one big walking exposed nerve as I navigate what this new administration means for me as well as any family I might create in the future. My physical response to depression and anxiety is eating my lunch- a struggle to get up, get dressed, get active. It’s not that I can’t or won’t do it, I am just moving in the world with an enormous weight on my chest, AS IF I DIDN’T HAVE A BIG ENOUGH ONE ALREADY.

Knowing my mother’s penchant for overworry, in my darkest moments I think to myself that I am glad she didn’t live to see this… didn’t live to see the government actively trying to hurt me, because she would have come undone. Her mirror neurons would have been on constant high alert, emotionally bleeding out at my future… her worst fears for me realized in an instant. She would have been my fiercest advocate, and gone to a very helpless and dark place if it didn’t work.

…because not only do parents grieve their children’s lack of heterosexuality because of being raised in the church, they also grieve it because it just makes their kids’ lives so much harder– a path that they don’t want to watch their children walk because it makes them physically ill to see their kids in danger.

Ladies and gentlemen, WE ARE.

Never mind that the popular vote is in equality’s favor, because it doesn’t matter. Equality is not put to a popular vote. We are in the hands of our congressmen, and some of them listen to us and some of them don’t. If registering Muslims and overturning Roe v. Wade is on the table, as well as axing Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, what’s to stop them from overturning Loving v. Virginia? United States v. Miller? Because obviously what racists need is more access to fully automatic weapons and sawed off shotguns.

I am not opposed to the Second Amendment in its entirety, just agree with the fact that the Founding Brothers never could have conceived of such instruments in the hands of people who aren’t specifically trained to use them and/or part of a well-regulated militia. I don’t want to take anyone’s guns, I want gun owners to be responsible with them. There will always be criminals, but the people that buy guns honestly and lawfully are the majority.

It’s all tied together, this notion of inequality and the violence bigots can inflict when restrictions on weapons are lifted. The backlash against equality has been severe enough that this is not subjective analysis, and if you don’t think so, you are excusing a metric fuck tonne of evidence to the contrary. Just the fact that requiring Muslims to register and cutting off immigration from any Middle Eastern country is on the table no matter how bad the violence in those countries get is the canary in the coal mine.

Some of the same people who profess Christ as their guiding principle are crucifying him all over again. Betraying everything he believed in to the point of mass destruction. It is the right and responsibility of those who carry his radical inclusion in their hearts to stand up and say, “no more.”

In the space of a week, I have acquired a massive target on my back. I’m female, lesbian, and willing to stand up to my oppressors through thought, word, and deed. I will not let anyone take my autonomy, and as a female, I am seen as a threat, even to people who think they’re inclusive and at the same time won’t allow themselves to hear the Gospel from a woman’s lips. Let us not forget that the Episcopal church was torn asunder by this very idea. Yes, Anglicans are opposed to ordaining gay people, but it all started with the election of a female presiding bishop.

If people are hell bent on instilling fear, it. Has. Worked. My mother lion will fight this to the death, because the alternative might be death, anyway. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy are tales, but I am choosing to ignore the “cautionary” part. Nothing will keep me from fighting for my rights and those of others, because to have fear instilled is one thing. To continue to live in it is another, a conscious choice.

That will never mean that the choice is easy, because it is a constant internal battle between doing what is right and keeping myself safe. I put my trust in the others that are doing likewise, because there are a lot of directions that this work will take me, but alone is not one of them. Even when there are no others around, it’s still my mother and me. She might not have lived to see the violence, but her spirit in me will make her live in the resolution.

Amen.
#prayingonthespaces

I wish that for one moment, I could be the woman you say I am. Your messages of acceptance and encouragement that I really can do anything run across my mind all the time, but it’s hard to make them stick when I am genuinely frightened. Sometimes, “afraid” is only in my own mind. The reality is that I have friends and family cheering me on every bit as much as you do. I can just hug them easier.

The hard part, truly, is knowing that there are times when “afraid” is objective. I am genderfluid, which means that people don’t notice my femininity unless they look for it because I save my girliest of moments for those that deserve them. It comes out when I feel safe. Most of the time, I wear boys’ clothes to feel invisible, because it’s better than feeling like I am for sale. Men don’t notice me, and for that I am grateful.

It’s not that I don’t like them. It’s that I never get catcalled, never get harassed, never get called a slut because I’m somehow showing off my rack. If anything, I just fit in as “one of the guys” until I say something that is decidedly female and when that light bulb goes off, the conversation ends… because as I’ve learned, that’s the moment the wall goes up and they’re not having fun anymore, because God forbid I remind them of their wives or mothers.

In terms of my clothes, boys’ so the shoulders fit, I think the moment it really sunk in was when I began thinking hard about all the times I “nellied out” (gay shorthand for heels, short skirt, makeup, the whole bit… comes from Little House on the Prairie) and went to places with my girlfriends in which straight men could stand there and watch. I lost count at the stares… or worse, offers to change me or “join us.” I can count on one hand the number of male friends I have who didn’t think it was okay to ask and then laugh it off as if they were kidding to avoid their own embarrassment. In one particularly memorable situation, I had a coworker who was commuting four hours each way to make it to our office and I offered to let him sleep on our (I was married then) couch for a night. He ran away from me like a house on fire because he thought it was a euphemism. The entire time we worked together, he thought I was trying to get into his pants. Awkward does not even begin to cover it, because there’s no way to bridge that big a gap. No matter what I said, he’d already made up his mind, and to him I looked like an even more pathetic female trying to fix it.

Because I’m not with anyone, I’m not in danger of my marriage becoming illegal. I do still fall prey to prejudice, though, and it’s anyone’s guess as to how long that will last. I’m almost 40, and have begun to think I will never truly see equality. It has to be enough to see it in my own small community, and trying to create bridges outward.

I am emotionally famous for using humor as deflection from enormous pain, so could you make sure that Kate McKinnon and Rachel Maddow are in my conversion therapy cohort or concentration camp? Neither one are my type, which will make it a lot easier on all of us to learn to like penis repeatedly.

My femininity and sexuality are both precious gifts, mine to give. Every time I feel I have to Suit Up™ not to be noticed or people say out loud God should require me to change or be celibate goes against the Source from whom those gifts arrived. It cuts me down and I feel small. Lately, your words have been a bulwark against the storm and gratitude flows from me to you whether you can feel it or not.

We may never be friends, but I do know a kindred spirit when I see one. Your sexual orientation is different than mine, but what did people do when you Suited Up™ not to stick out from the men around you? Pretty much the same thing they did to me… denied you your femininity and thought they were being derogatory by calling you a lesbian.

Keep telling me how powerful I am. I look at you and see that one day, I will believe it.

Love,
Leslie

I just finished a communications meeting at the church, where we discussed how to promote our online presence. It was nice to be looked upon as the subject matter expert, because even though I am, adding SME to my title is not something you do yourself. Other people have to do it for you. Otherwise, it is just shameless self-promotion… which is fine for things like my own web site, but not when it comes to someone else’s. I’ll get a chance to actually be the writer in residence, a title that Matt bestowed on me almost two years ago, but is actually coming to fruition now. I’ve been given an office at the church, which is worth way more than payment. I have a place to go where Matt is just down the hall as opposed to having to do everything by e-mail. It is my chance to give back to my own faith community, and I am not immune to the fact that they gave me something first.

It’s just another thing that will help me on my own journey, because I need experience in this area in terms of actually having to deal with feedback from parishioners on what went right and wrong. No social communications SME has ever gotten it all perfect, all the time… and thinking this won’t be an issue with my own congregation is just foolish.

We are finding incredible opportunities for witness and social justice. Did you know that the first faith community to respond when our Black Lives Matter banner was ripped apart was the area mosque? That is a “film at 11:00-” worthy story, because so much of the press regarding Muslims has been when terrorist attacks occur, and the fact that there are modern/liberal Muslims out there doing the work of Allah in the world is lost. What would our media landscape look like if that were the story rather than the extremists? Why does the media focus on Christians as right and Muslims as wrong? There are just as many extremists in Christianity as there are in Islam, but that story doesn’t sell. What does is anything that feeds into the “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality so prevalent in local news, if not national. I am hoping that through my social media experience, I can change hearts and minds through soft power that leans toward getting people involved.

Speaking of which, even if you don’t live in the DC area, join our Facebook feed. What will help is the medium being the message (thanks, Marshall….) globally and not just locally. Facebook likes and shares are every bit as important as the ability to donate money or actually attend. My vision is for people to know what’s going on to change the perception of Christianity as a whole… because I know from my own experience that the word comes with a lot of baggage that does not apply in our case. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve sat down with atheists who, when they explain what God they don’t believe in, I don’t believe in that God, either. It’s not that others are wrong- all emotions are valid. It’s that often the story about Christianity isn’t rolling up our sleeves and doing everything we can to practice radical inclusion.

The Christian Left is alive and well, but you have to look for it. I’m just trying to make it easier to find. Please join with me in praying on those huge and ever-present spaces… because especially with social media, the spaces in between matter just as much as the words themselves. Having our Black Lives Matter sign ripped apart is just one example of many in terms of those being opposed to churches practicing social justice. There are others, but you’ll have to wait for those stories to come out. I can’t lay down the river all at once…..

But I can wade in the water, and promise me when I say that God is troubling it just fine. As I have said before, my Jesus does not so much comfort me in my distress but distress me out of my comfort. It is a travesty that my white skin makes me so much further ahead of the game despite being a targeted minority because people can’t see it at face value. It doesn’t arise until I mention that I am a gay Christian and people see it as an oxymoron equal to Microsoft Works.

I cannot tell you how fast that gets ugly with fundamentalists, despite the idea that God comes closer to us when we welcome the stranger (thanks, Nadia). I feel solid about my faith especially in laying out all my flaws and fallibility, because I am one of the Accidental Saints to which Nadia Bolz-Weber is speaking. As she says in the text, those qualified to speak the Gospel are those who know how truly unqualified they are to speak the Gospel.

That feeling of inadequacy has to pass, because I have work to do.

In residence. In the community. In the cloud as well as on the ground. The possibilities are endless, as is the responsibility I’ve taken. The message will never be how perfect your life will become if you accept Jesus’ invitation, but how many more tools you’ll have to deal with what life throws at you if you do. In my own experience, perspective is a beautiful thing. My life opens up when I accept that there are people that need me way more than I need them because their voices aren’t heard as loud as mine just based on institutionalized racism, income inequality, prison sentencing inequality, and the host of other things in which I can use my hands to further Christ’s work in the world.

After all this time in the desert, it is important to me that I have arrived at the waterfront…. and it is time to step in. Do not assume that this work is safe or easy. I ask your blessings upon me, because anyone who speaks out about social justice has recently become a bigger target by the exact same people that come to your mind when I say it. There is a tremendous opportunity in front of me to change perceptions and promote the equality and humanity of all people, but that does not mean it might not come at a personal cost.

God, in your infinite possibilities, I ask that you let me pay it.

Amen.
#prayingonthespaces

My dad was so eager for me to see Dr. Strange that he bought me a ticket and e-mailed it just so we could talk about the film… which is only funny because I have no words. I mean, I can describe it, but the true message is individualized in a “Jack Palance holding up his finger” sort of way. I didn’t find that out until later. The first few minutes of the film, all I could think was that Stephen Strange was based on nearly every surgeon I’ve ever met. The scene where he’s giving a patient’s family an awkward side-hug is worth more than any words I could add.

And then Benjamin Bratt appeared on the screen and the people next to me couldn’t understand why I was convulsed in laughter. I just looked over and said, “inside joke.” And then they laughed because I was sitting by myself.

I don’t want to give anything away, but the film reminded me why God and science are both so important to our society because of the different functions they serve in the spirit… walking together as lovers through a deeply wooded park. I felt similarly walking to my car from Contact, Inception, and The Matrix… from which Dr. Strange borrows nothing in direct concept but shows through in look and feel.

I will tell you one thing about the movie because Inception reminded me. If you get motion sick easily, skip 3D. I can’t even see 3D and there were a couple of times I wanted to barf. The camera moves you (even without 3D) like those IMAX documentaries in a science museum, but there was no announcement beforehand saying, “if you experience motion sickness, just close your eyes… and the feeling should pass.”

The best part, though, is that I hadn’t heard anything about the film and went in blind just knowing that Benedict Cumberbatch played a doctor.

With those two pieces of information, I said to my dad, “so it’s a good movie.”

It wasn’t a question.

 

 

The sapiosexual in me would like to think that gender plays no part in my choosing love. The lesbian part says, “not so fast, Leslie.” Only once in my life have I ever thought I would marry a man, and that was in eighth grade. By grade nine I was over it. However, that has not stopped me from having a lot of fun with this whole “federal conversion therapy” legislation Mike Pence has said he’s going to support. Here’s my status update on it:

Here, in no particular order, are my choices in terms of what I view as a “hottie.” Let’s leave aside the fact that some of them are already married. The GLBTQI community will riot in the streets before this legislation even gets to the floor. Just having a little fun at Mike Pence’s expense.

• Matt Damon
• Matt Smith
• Barack Obama
• David Sutcliffe
• Matt Czuchry
• Benjamin Bratt
• Hunter Parrish
• Tony Goldwyn
• Scott Foley
• Jonathan Rhys Meyers
• Anthony Bourdain
• Donald Faison (weird only b/c he married into my family)
• Noah Wyle
• Mark Feuerstein
• Nick Cannon
• Ryan Reynolds
• Chris Pratt
• John Krasinski
• James Franco

…and this is just the “no beers” list. Sorry if you didn’t make the cut and wanted to be on it. I’m sure there are another ten more if I put more thought into it.

I’m also completely grossed out by Mike Pence, but at the same time, I should put him on the list in a “be careful what you wish for” sort of way. It would be sweet revenge for all these newly straight women to pester him night and day. Maybe that’s the next new protest sign.

I should also point out that Matt Damon and James Franco are not on the list because of their hotness, but because they can write… although their faces don’t hurt their game. Pretty much the only thing that would be horrible about those situations is that writers are generally baskets of crazy, especially during the writing process. Two writers in the same house is probably a bad idea. Actually, not even “probably.” It is. Just trust me.

I am sure actors are the same way, so this list is a bad idea all around. However, if I put people I’ve actually met on this web site, it would be an even worse one.

I can just imagine it now….. “well, kiddo… that got weird.”

I’ve already been smacked handily for it, and to say that I was unprepared for the blowback is an understatement of gigantic proportions… although I know my guy friends, and I can imagine in detail their responses and facial expressions. Just one sentence and a wink.

Heyyyyy… how YOU doin‘?

One of the things I have worried about during the past few days is the absolute shitstorm the intelligence community must be weathering right now, because if Trump has been getting security briefings since he became the candidate, it is clearly evident that he is not getting any smarter despite the education. President Obama should not even have to offer a president-elect more tutoring because he doesn’t understand what the president actually does. The president-elect shouldn’t be surprised that this is not a 9-5 job. I don’t think I’ve ever applied for a job in which I didn’t read the description first to see if I was qualified… or actually had interest in doing said job if it was offered. Not only that, if I didn’t have the qualifications for a job and it was offered to me, anyway, I would try to soak up as much information as I possibly could so that if I seemed unprepared on the first day, I would undertake the learning curve no matter how steep.

I would come in on Saturdays.

I also wouldn’t try to figure out how to commute four hours each way, even if I could fly. The fact that Trump is actually considering only being in Washington half the time says to me that he’s trying to avoid actually doing the job… and leaving it to the Vice President is even scarier. The VP is considerably more conservative than the basic Republican platform. It was announced today that he wants to fund federal gay conversion therapy, which has been proven over and over not to work even for people that actually wanted to try such a thing. What, is he just going to herd us up en masse? Maybe I shouldn’t say that too loudly, because Pence might take it as a personal challenge. Why should he care how I eat my cake by the ocean? As Keith Olbermann said, “Why does it matter to you? What is it to you?”

However, I will not be one to say #NotMyPresident, because it’s just not true. The president is the president whether I’m with him or not. President Obama has to lead conservatives as well as his own base, and a Republican has to do the same in reverse. I do think it’s a practical joke that Trump became president in the first place, and to vote for someone who’s never held any government office is ridiculous. One government job does not establishment make, but it would have at least given him a working idea of what being employed by it might mean. Getting Trump up to speed is something that never should have happened… because again, he doesn’t even know what the president does. None of this would have happened if, at the convention, the Republican base hadn’t been bodyslammed by crazy so that the more moderate candidates were ridden out on a rail. To Trump’s credit, at least he spent some time trying to figure out how to get out of putting Pence on the ticket. I don’t know whose idea it was to put him on in the first place, and can’t imagine saying “yes” to it without doing so and backpedaling, but at the very least, I can applaud “buyer’s remorse.”

I am also condemning the Democrats who are Monday-morning quarterbacking the entire campaign, because it is so useless. What’s done is done. Our only hope is that perhaps the electors in the Electoral College will watch Trump flounder and respond, but even that is a longshot. There’s only so many times a hail Mary pass works, no matter how much it might be needed.

I do believe that it is needed, but not because my candidate lost. Because your candidate is inept and you won’t admit it. Won’t sit in your wrongness and acknowledge that not only did you vote for a candidate in favor of the Establishment as far as our entrenched racism and homophobia goes, you voted for a candidate that cannot tell shit from Shinola.™ The fact that you are not bothered by this is frightening. For all of you that still believe in the “trickle-down theory,” please take in the words of Pope Francis, that the cup does not overflow but gets bigger. The working class of both parties is about to be on the receiving end of the largest fuck you in history. Giving rich people more money by cutting their taxes does not create more jobs in turn. It creates more of a reason to be justified in greediness, and that has been proven over and over. It doesn’t make more job creators, it increases the disparity between rich and poor so that even less of the country owns more of it. You screwed the pooch on this one, because you didn’t listen to the Republicans in your midst telling you what would happen if you elected someone so woefully unprepared. The worse he behaved, the more you cheered.

I also agree with Bill Maher that this election proved the Religious Right to be neither. Jesus’ message was always about widening the net, whether it came to immigration or people already in your country with different views. Don’t believe me? See every sermon he’s ever preached. Off of the top of my head, the parable that comes to mind first is The Good Samaritan. The Religious Right has been all the priests who’ve just walked by.

I believe in the right to disagree, but not when it comes to taking away civil rights that have already been achieved, and I include government subsidized health insurance in that bundle. The cost of subsidy is infinitely cheaper than the cost of war, but when you’ve been deceived into thinking that it is, you will equate the two when there is no comparison. We are at risk of the entire safety net Franklin Roosevelt tried to create going up in a burst of flame. Start your funeral preparations now, because unless the Democrats gain enough power to fight that legislation before it’s put to a vote, the least of us may become the majority of us.

I am planning on protesting peacefully with my friends at the Women’s March in January. I invite all people to protest peacefully. Violence is not the answer and never will be. However, our voices do need to be heard as we sing for our lives.

The people, united, will never be defeated.

I wish I could have gone to the press event this morning, but my doctor’s appointment ran over and I couldn’t get there in time. I was there in spirit, and texted Jeffrey to let him know that I would try to stop by, but by the time I got back to the ‘hood, it was over. I will just have to start wearing a safety pin so that I can be more visible as safe space, because even though I live in an EXTREMELY tolerant and diverse area, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t problems and everything is pixie dust and rainbows. Nothing is.

I was reminded of it when I got in an argument with a conservative on Facebook today, and I mean that in the Socratic sense of the word. Every time he made it personal, I said, “this is not about me, stop making it so.” The comments were relatively benign, but clearly designed as bait that I just wouldn’t take… for instance, he’d make a point and would say something like, “I know you’re going to call me a racist now. That’s what liberals do.” He called me a communist, told me to open my eyes, said the Kool-Aid had infected me, told me I wasn’t a real Christian because if I really believed in Christ I’d agree with him…… (not aware that Jesus put constraints on helping the poor, are you?) and still, every time he came at me, I redirected back into the content of the argument and didn’t pop off.

And to his credit, he took the redirection. Generally, when I redirect, the ad hominem attacks grow stronger trying to get me to engage, only to have the person stalk off in a huff because they haven’t achieved their goal in getting me to lose it first.

This is probably because I’ve spent so much time working on letting anger roll off. And then my mother died, and I doubt I’ll ever be rattled to the same degree ever again, because nothing anyone says to me- or anything that ever happens (short of another family member dying) will ever be as bad… and even then, it will be tempered by the fact that I’ve been in that hole before…. and I know the way out.

After said argument, it was time for a special choir practice to go over Christmas anthems (I’m in the quartet for this one). Ingrid and I had so much fun, because there was this one piece that when I looked at the composer, I started to giggle and leaned over to Ingrid and just pointed. She said, “Michael W. Smith. Of course you wrote this.” Then she took her pencil and put an arrow next to Michael’s name and wrote “of course you wrote this.” I said, “the only thing it’s missing is an Amy Grant line. I call it ‘attempted jazz.'” She was all like, “no. Attempted jazz. You did not. Kenny G is attempted jazz.” We just cracked up and high-fived. And if that wasn’t funny enough, we went from Michael W. Smith to Herbert Howells… which is basically the whitest, most Episcopalian music you can possibly imagine… written in England in the 20s and 30s.

Ingrid said, “here we go.”

I said, “flip your Rs, bitch.”

We both cracked up, and I couldn’t recover. I haven’t laughed like that since my mom died, and I needed it.

The last tidbit is that Sam thanked us for being there and I said, “well, I didn’t have a hot date tonight. You guys’ll do.” Ingrid looked at me completely deadpan and said, “thank you. Thank you…. so much.”

Again, I could not even with the laughing so hard I nearly fell out of my chair.

Ingrid is just one of those people I click with to the point that we could have our own TV show, but she’d be way more than half. It is my goal in life to make her laugh at my jokes as hard as I laugh at hers.

After all of this grief and pain, it seems like the most important achievement I could unlock. I got close when Sam said that the sopranos divert to the second line in the Michael W. Smith piece because the children’s choir is on the top line and I said, “OH! We get to do the Sandi Patty part!” (It was much, much higher.)

Reminded me of the time when my mom had a high A in one of her pieces for her children’s choir and none of her kids could hit it so she put me in a children’s choir robe (it fit) and sent me in as a ringer. After the service, I teased one of the guy choir members about something and he said, “I like your robe.” I laughed until I choked.

That memory was my mom acting as “angel on my shoulder,” and I relish it. I have spent my grief regarding Argo & Dana doubled over in laughter at the number of funny things that have happened between us, and my mother’s death has been no different… in fact, instead of feeling that the forces of the universe dropped my mother’s death in my lap as a lesson to me to prove what real grief is, I changed my mind. Being in grief beforehand made me better prepared to deal with more of it. Of course it is different, larger, more intense, but that doesn’t mean that just because the hole is deeper, you carry a different lantern.

Amen.
#prayingonthespaces

The DMV (The District, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia) went blue, so the pallor on the city is still palpable. As I was shopping, I overheard many exclamations of disgust… most loudly from minorities because the election said to them just how much they’re worth…. including me. Losing marriage equality doesn’t affect me right this moment, but it will in the future if Trump is serious that erasing it will unify the country. I also have a few friends that work in The White House that are about to lose their jobs (no, the President and I are not close…. yet), which is always the case when the country switches parties, but it doesn’t ease their uncertainty for what the future will bring. The good thing is that since they have experience working in The West Wing, they’ll probably graduate from humble public servants to highly valued private sector consultants and lawyers. The good news is that the inauguration is not tomorrow. They’ve got time to find jobs. But uncertainty is always unsettling… and the plain fact is that there’s a lot of it.

What is settling to me is that I live in a very diverse neighborhood that will not stand for the asshattery of prejudice. People will stand up for me, and I for them. I can only hope that the reports from the rest of the country on bullying are overblown, but I don’t think so. I think that Trump’s foul language (not cursing- I don’t give a fuck about that) regarding racism and homophobia have allowed others to stop hiding their true beliefs and put away the masks they’ve worn in public for all too long. The one good thing about blatant racism and homophobia is that you know who to avoid up front, instead of everyone being nice to your face and luring you into false security.

I didn’t write anything yesterday because I wasn’t clear-headed. I ate myself into a stupor as I thought about the direction my life would take over the next four to eight years… that in DC, it is possible but not probable that I would be the victim of violence as well. The reason I say this is that locals are infinitely kind and welcoming. It feels at times like it is The Gayest Place on Earth.™ I’m not the only gay person in my neighborhood, not even the only gay person on my street. It feels good to have people.

Dan and I went to lunch today and it was amazing to have calm in the midst of chaos. We talked about everything and nothing as we sipped our smoothies, because honestly, liquid lunch was what I could handle today after eating my weight in Doritos, snack size candy bars, and fudge-covered graham crackers yesterday. Some people were hung over from alcohol. I was sluggish to the point that it reminded me of an old Dennis the Menace commercial:

Dennis: Hey Tommy, want to eat jellybeans until we get sick?
Tommy: Sure! I’m kinda sick right now!

I am not convinced that this is our darkest time as a nation, but certainly feeling the most trepidation since 9/11, mostly because I have a front row seat to all the madness. Living in Houston and Portland, I had maybe one friend who was directly affected, but even then it would have been tempered by separation. Seeing their faces is difficult because I am absolutely the person that wants to fix ALL THE THINGS. I am in a very helpless place, because if a Republican had been elected, it would have been sad, but we all would have gotten over it. Electing a reality star that knows nothing about government is just beyond the pale.

I get wanting to reject the establishment. I really do. But this time, we are electing someone who’s never had a government job in his life and has no idea how the government works. He’s never even been on a school board… and if I thought back in the day that Barack Obama was all hat and no cattle because he was a one-term Senator, I mean it in a hyperbolic, histrionic intensity regarding our new leader.

However, unlike President Obama, I do not think that Trump will turn out to be the best thing since sliced bread. He has opened the floodgates for more violence, and this time, it’s personal. Christ Congregational is my church:

Press Release
Silver Spring, MD, November 10, 2016:

Vandalized Black Lives Matter sign on election night prompts local church and elected officials to support Black Lives in Montgomery County

For the fourth time, a prominent Black Lives Matter banner has been destroyed outside of Christ Congregational Church, UCC in Silver Spring, MD. The latest vandalism occurred on election night, stoking fears that after a divisive and harmful presidential campaign, the president-elect’s victory now validates a message of exclusion and marginalization of non-White communities.

“We are committed to forging a community, nation, and world of justice and just peace. We believe these conditions will only be attained through care and respect for each other, especially through dismantling unjust social structures that contribute to racism — and by attention to God’s aims for our community,” said Rev. Dr. Matthew Braddock, Sr. Minister of the church, in response to the most recent vandalism.

A press conference will be held at Christ Congregational Church on Friday, November 11 at 10:00 AM. Our purpose is to:

1. Show that we are not a community that will tolerate hate.
2. Reaffirm our position to value and support Black lives in Silver Spring and Montgomery County.
3. Establish Christ Congregational Church as a safe place for African Americans, and other groups, who feel they are being mistreated in Silver Spring to make their grievances known.

Speakers will include:

• County Officials
• County Clergy
• County Social Justice Organizations

Christ Congregational Church welcomes and celebrates people of all races, cultures, ages, abilities, sexual orientations, and gender identities.

Christ Congregational Church is located at:
9525 Colesville Rd.
Silver Spring MD. 20904

Contact: Rev. Dr. Matthew Braddock
301.325.4240 (mobile)
matt@cccsilverspring.org

Rev. Jeffrey O. Thames, Sr.
301-385-6343 (Cell)

There has been violence in my neighborhood, and an equally proportionate, yet kind response.

God is not the Actor. God is the Responder.

All I ask is that when I am not capable of speaking the right words, God pushes me out of the way and speaks them in spite of me. It’s a great line. I didn’t write it. But I breathe it nonetheless.