How Lazy is Unproductive to the Conversation

October 17, 2025October 17, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

The neurodivergent brain runs a thousand miles a minute. There is no such thing as lazy, just internal processing vs. external. If you do not see someone move, you do not assume they are doing anything because you have no window into their minds. Meanwhile, people with autism and ADHD are struggling to find a bit of inertia to move them forward as their RAM overloads with information about their environment.

I am a people with autism and ADHD. For every symptom I have with one disorder, I have the equal and opposite problem with the other. Autism loves order, ADHD loves chaos. I need concrete structure and I cannot keep it up. Every task has taken the same amount of energy since I was born. I have not put anything on “autopilot.” The fight for one thought to have supremacy is still going.

Thoughts fly by so fast I literally do not have time to take them in. It leads to a kind of incapacitation, in which I look like I’m your basic couch potato.

Calling me lazy while I’m actually incapacitated is not helping.

By thoughts fighting for supremacy in my head, I mean that spinning out over Aada’s lies and what my reactions should be going forward is somehow just as important as taking a shower and brushing my teeth. There is no order to the priorities in my head, and it is up to me to find it.

What’s important about my story is how I write the next chapter. How flexible and resilient am I knowing that my story comes with a heaping side of skepticism and I just need a thicker skin about it.

It’s going to take a while to turn down the sensitivity knob where this story is concerned, because I cannot rest for a bit until I find out what consequences there are for me in publishing. My bet is that there are none, because everyone involved has just agreed to let me have my own space and leave me alone.

So far.

It makes me feel better to have this space because when I am mulling over what’s going on in my head, it brings my “laziness” into sharp relief. Yes, I am sitting comfortably, but my fingers are going several miles a minute.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Mummo today.

Wondering how our friendship would have developed had it not been cut off by my idiocy. Would she have felt the need to unburden herself and let her hair down the way Aada did? Would I have known when to worry? My guess is probably not. There was not a bubble of secrecy around our relationship, and everyone already knows what she does for a living. That part’s not a secret. There was also not the pull to get to know each other very fast.

It was a healthy relationship, and I did not recognize it when I saw it. I was just so…. Well… Me.

Aada became a treasure trove of compulsive thoughts due to her “profession.” I don’t think I would have let that happen with Mummo, because I don’t think that she would have shared anything about herself that would have bonded us to the level that Aada and I did.

It was so fast. Too fast.

So fast that even now, I’m having trouble accepting my new reality. It is coming slowly, that Aada told me if I needed to expose her that it would end our friendship permanently. That it was fine, but she wasn’t staying around for it.

Those words mean more to me now as I give up all the hope that we will mend in the future. That the real hallucination in all of this is thinking we’ll all go back to being one happy family. I do not think it would come together in an hour. I think that as I work on my creative projects, the people in them would want their own voices represented. Because make no mistake, I am working on a screenplay.

It’s a rich landscape, but where I’m tripped up is the medium. How do I express action when it was all in my head? And all in Aada’s, too, because we were reading each other for so many years. How do I show what was happening in our heads?

That is the work of all screen writers, and I’ll figure it out once I get a team together. But this project is not more important than the neurodivergent cookbook and I have more life to live before this story needs to come out. I need to wrap my own head around it and get some distance. I need to cope with Aada’s feelings of betrayal whether they were good for me or not, because that is what will make me rest about reconnecting. That it would not help her, it would only be reopening a wound.

I am also not bitter or angry about the 12 years in which I was manipulated into believing I was friends with a CIA big shot. I don’t harbor ill will towards Aada for all the nights I spent anxious for her safety. I don’t see her as a villain in my story, but that so many things make sense now that didn’t before.

Why she wouldn’t get together with me. Why she wouldn’t figure out her in case ofs so I didn’t find out something happened to her on social media. Why it was easy to share the details of someone else’s life.

And still there’s a part of me that tries to reconcile it all in Aada’s favor…. That the program she’s in is just so secret that it cannot possibly be found. That she doesn’t have it in her to lie for that many years.

The gaslighting alone is enough to make me wary of Aada’s red flags, but as I told another friend, “I think the reason I don’t care that my friends have red flags is that I have so many of my own.” I would tread carefully, but I would like to reconcile eventually. The Monty Python lens cap ending of our relationship is not enough for me and never will be. But whether Aada is on my next journey or not, she influences where I’ll go next based on things she’s said previously. My work to do is to stop using her as that touchstone and to start using myself.

There is no power in trying to discover Aada’s motivations or trying to get her to interact with me. There is only power in digging into myself and asking myself the hard questions.

Who am I going to be now that Aada is no longer a part of my daily life and routine?

I’m discovering that, day by day. It just looks lazy.

The Victory Lap

October 16, 2025October 16, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Getting to the bottom of all of this has been the worst time of my entire life. My hospitalization was intensive and people were so skeptical of the story I was told that I was hallucinating. This was fascinating to me given that I was clear about the fact that I’d lived in DC for 10 years and the intelligence community is massive. This story is very rare and unique, but not for this place. There are hundreds of thousands of people who work for the government in one way or another, and one way people work for the government is gathering foreign intelligence.

Being shown into this world was exhilarating and frightening for both Aada and me, because she was scared of my imagination and didn’t realize how she fed it. She ramped up what she did for a living and then told me I couldn’t talk about it anymore. The very last time, I called her out on the carpet. She’d told me that I couldn’t talk with her about why it was so important that I drop Jonna Mendez as a friend. We weren’t that close, anyway, so what did she care?

That worked for a few years, but Aada got more and more anxious as they went by. I finally told her that it was over between Jonna and me, a pity because I valued having a writer in my corner. I also could have gotten a job recommendation if I’d played my cards right. But because Aada told me to run, I did.

I thought I was protecting the path, and it was my job to make sure they never crossed over. I didn’t question Aada in the slightest because it wasn’t worth all her distress. But again, that only worked for a few years. Blocking Jonna on Facebook and not going to the spy museum anymore was all painful, and has to be water under the bridge because I don’t want to carry it.

Because it is certainly water under the bridge to Aada. She cannot undo it, she can only apologize and move on as well. She has apologized for it, and I’ve accepted it. That’s enough. But what I will not forget is the mountain of bullshit she laid on me in addition to that apology.

It started with “why are you still contacting me” and just went downhill from there.

So, I’ve stopped contacting her. I’ve rewired myself so that she’s not the first person that pops into my mind when I need to talk. You are. All of the energy that I spent writing to her is time that I could have spent perfecting my craft…. Except wait. Beautiful lines that I’ve repeated here came out of those letters, so I didn’t lose any ground.

I’m just sad that we spent so much time fighting about my blog rather than working together. But of course we couldn’t work together on it because she’d submarined a collaboration from the start. She doesn’t actually do what she told me she did, so the collaboration would be my own research and a secondhand account.

I know that I’m good enough to be a research assistant to someone like Jonna, but she’s already got people for that and she’s not hiring (I checked). I was convinced I was living the sequel to Argo. My reality cracked. It sounds nuts because it was. But me thinking I was carrying the sequel to Argo didn’t just mean witty banter.

Tony: I should have brought some books for prison. Jack: Oh, they’ll kill you long before prison.

My imagination spun out. Jonna Mendez was my touchstone because she kept me from believing spy movie magic, and taught me to get interested in what humans could actually accomplish instead.

She told me wonderful tales in books I inhaled, singing a song only I could hear. Because it’s hard to be in danger. It’s harder to know your person is. I would never presume to get answers to any of those questions more than she’s published.

We’ve talked a few times at the museum, but I’ve been too embarrassed about all this to show my face recently.

And then Aada cut me off from her because she thought we were getting too close. I thought it had to do with some rule about Jonna being out and Aada not. It never in a billion years occurred to me that Aada was trying to protect me from finding out they’d never met.

I made so many assumptions that it’s not funny, and Aada never shied away from my characterizations of her. That’s why her lie is so hard to get over. Everything I’ve written for the last 12 years has centered on a toxic relationship and the only thing I have to say for myself is that I don’t constantly have to wonder if I’m the only one to blame for the end of what was at times a very healthy, if unusual kinship.

Time wore on. Things escalated and we wouldn’t talk, then something would jog the other to respond. We couldn’t really stay away from each other because we’d made such an impression on each other early on.

Talking became habit, and a good one. But the level to which we isolated was too much, too fast. She scared me and I had no support system for it, because the way she swore me to secrecy was also bullshit.

It felt like pressure in my chest, the holding of this information when I didn’t have anyone to confide in. She’d alienated me from having Dana in that role, and flipped out when I chose one other person, Michael, to hear everything. I just didn’t know that Michael could dry my tears of frustration.

Surely neither did she, and has been afraid. She needn’t worry. No one has eyes on any of us. It’s just a screwball comedy in the end.

I have to keep reminding myself of it when I think I’m going to cry again. Eventually, I’ll run out of tears. The shock will wear off. And at that point I will know for sure that I have reached a new normal… One that doesn’t include anything but keeping my head down and hoping for success later on in life.

I do want to develop a script, but unless I get experienced screenwriters on my team, it’s going to be very slow going. I want Elliot Page to play me, and as I was telling Michael, “it’s not hard to play me. I just type fast.” I do not know Elliot Page, nor do I presume that he’d like to read my script. I just think he’s the most like me in terms of adorkable and action figure.

The action figure is the me of my imagination, where I go around fixing the whole world. I hope that I am not complacent in real life, that people do get a lot out of reading me because it makes them examine their own lives. I feel that I am best served by using my skills as a writer to convey feelings, whether I’m writing fact or fiction.

The victory lap in this is a story that’s compelling, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted my life to be. My career being so varied has allowed me to wander and attract people, painting them with words and yet not trying to, as Aada would say, “paint my feelings as fact,” but tell my story in a way that lets you into my world for the time we have together.

I have a voice, and writing my story all along has made all the difference. There’s no subterfuge because I’ve been writing what’s been happening in the moment. I just need to go back and look.

There’s a reason she wasn’t present when my mother died, and it wasn’t because I was a bad person. She was protecting something, and until now I didn’t know what.

The first is that if Aada was in any kind of operations, I would have had to sign an NDA by now. I would have been questioned on how I knew this person and my connection to them.

I thought it was kind of sweet that I was this punk ass cook and she’d been an “M” for a long time.

Well, someone was. Just not her.

I have to keep reminding myself because the repetition of it is what keeps me from going back in time. I read these entries, too, sometimes like I’m my own best stalker girlfriend, because I’m analyzing my thoughts to see if they sound sane or not.

I’ve doubted my sanity for a long time, and it’s time to stop. It no longer serves me because my intuition is restored.

The mystery is solved.

Let’s get back in the van.

Coffee, coffee, coffee

October 16, 2025October 16, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I did not hear from Aada yesterday, I just thought it was a possibility because news travels fast. If she already knows about these blog entries, she’s surrounding herself with other people. When I am clear-eyed about the writing I do, I know that past behavior is an indication of future. If Aada read me every day for 12 years, she didn’t stop just because she stopped reaching out to me. That’s because other people in her life read my blog and she won’t want to be behind them. It doesn’t have much to do with me, actually.

And in fact Aada’s lie has nothing to do with me. She needed it to make herself feel better, but I don’t know why. My guess is that she was feeling a little overshadowed and vulnerable about it, so she told me details of someone else’s life for years……….. Then tried to control every possible outcome so that no one would find out she lied.

There’s no evidence to back up any of her claims. None.

I’ve told you this already, but I’m still sitting in my bedroom in shock.

I have group therapy later, and that will help me compartmentalize and stop thinking about all of this. Michael assured me that I needed to put all the responsibility on Aada, that I wasn’t the one living a lie. I was living on what I thought was the truth. Aada changed my reality, and feels responsible for my maladies.

I don’t think that’s unfair of her, given the situation. What she told me, that she was a part of the intelligence community, might be true. I’m also sure there’s an AI that can do her job for her. But she is nowhere near the super secret agent she pretended to be.

The working title for the project is “The Spy Who Catfished Me,” but I’m leaning towards “Hacking Aada,” due to the internet aspect of our relationship, and how over time we retreated from the rest of the world and started working each other. We each had the other over a barrel with our shenanigans, because she was rightfully avoidant and I was deservedly anxious.

You don’t lie without protecting the path.

I was blocked by Mummo and Heytch, so there was no way for me to get together with them and assess who was really whom. It’s so hard to bullshit a bullshitter, and that’s the source of my shame and embarrassment. That I’ve been dismissive of everyone in my life because they didn’t have Aada’s street creds, therefore her opinion is “bigger.” I have stayed in that headspace for over a decade, and it didn’t make me popular, I’ll tell you that much.

Then, in an ominous turn, I started buying Jonna Mendez’s books, thinking that Aada was one of her recruits. I felt like I was trying to out-spy a spy…. Looking for comfort in her story because she fell so hard for Tony, the person I thought Aada was in real life.

Morgan Freeman: She was not.

It’s a case of mistaken identity, because all that care and connection should have been reserved for someone else, the person whose story I was actually following. Aada’s position is indeed classified, and I will continue to say it because Aada’s lies were so effective due to being hidden behind that curtain. I could believe she did whatever I wanted and she couldn’t confirm or deny.

So she didn’t. She stonewalled me every day, and had strong reactions to my guesswork. That’s because my guesswork was for people whose lives were far and away more complicated.

I did research on what it was like to be a broken child accepted into a system like CIA so that I could be a better friend. I did triage to see how much anxiety she was feeling, and was surprised when she always said she felt none. It makes a lot more sense that she was not anxiety-ridden given that she wasn’t doing half of what I thought.

But Mummo was.

Aada got tears that did not belong to her, nor can I really say that they were for Mummo, because we have not been in contact. As for Aada sticking by me, there are so many times when she should have given up and ended the relationship earlier, because I was a basket case and I never would have known that I was fucked up over a lie. I am thinking that she has thought the same thing, because she has regretted telling me she was CIA every day since.

To be clear, Mummo isn’t CIA, either. That does not mean she’s never been in danger. It’s just that Mummo is closer to espionage and actionable intel than Aada ever has been…… You just wouldn’t know it according to her.

Aada sees every entry as a threat and will fight me tooth and nail on this one. She thinks that all of this will blow back on her professionally and she’ll be in danger of losing her job. Meanwhile, I cannot control those consequences for her and I think her fear is too great. I forgive her, so everyone else should, too.

It’s not up to me to protect Aada from her consequences, because the fact that she continued to lie is what will sink her and not anything I’ve done should it come to that.

Say Aada was telling the truth all that time, that she is the field agent and trained interrogator she played on TV. Isn’t it better that I tell you her story is a pack of lies so she can keep what little cover she has left? I have no idea what she tells other people in her life, but I’m betting I’m not the only one she’s used this little trick on to make herself seem more important than she really is. It is not my responsibility to clean up that mess, and it never will be.

I have never manipulated her. I have never lied. She thinks that I lied because I published an e-mail I wrote to her after I’d told her I’d deleted all her emails to me. It wasn’t that I lied. It’s just that I did delete everything in my Gmail account and found that letter in my Outlook account after she blocked me.

I published her words after she blocked me because there was no one to ask, and she didn’t have a problem with me publishing anyone else’s takedown of me for her own entertainment. To be fair, I got a thrill out of posting other people’s criticisms because it always caused Aada to react like a mama dragon.

She just never turned that mama dragon on herself and asked herself whether she was causing me harm. She turned everything around so that I was the only manipulator, I was the only one who had done wrong, and that I betrayed her by catching her in a lie.

She wasn’t sorry she lied. She was sorry she got caught.

That’s why it would take a mountain of work for us to be successful. If we do make up, it will be because we declared our former relationship a total loss, and started working on putting our relationship back together as a salvage title. It’s not bad to fix a write off as long as the work is done right.

Why do I insist on being kind and hurt at the same time? Because I know that in her heart of hearts, Aada has already forgiven me and moved on, compartmentalizing her feelings so they don’t leak out. But if she’s half the friend she said she would be, she’s cried over my situation more than I know, and probably stuck with me because she saw how affected I was in my writing.

She loved being adored, but hated when I talked about problems in her relationship because I wasn’t representing her side of the story. I couldn’t until now, both because she wouldn’t tell it and I had to wait until I heard the real truth. Michael has never manipulated me, and has a vested interest in keeping me healthy. I don’t know why, because he’s a Republican.

Yes, I have Republican friends. I had to get over it. You will, too.

For some people, this will be the biggest shocking thing I say all day.

There’s just a tie that binds Michael to me in a way no one will ever have. As he says, “HSPVA 4 LIFE.”

The Exhalation

October 15, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I thought that I could hurt people professionally with my writing, but as it turns out, all I can do is jog them out of their complacency by daring to insist people feel their own feelings. I don’t demand emotional bravery, people give it to me because I lay the cards on the table first. That’s the thing about finding your voice. No one can rattle you out of using it.

There were so many lies that it’s impossible to tell which is the worst, but right up there is the lie that I betrayed her. I was so depressed I watched Macbeth. That spot of red on my hands didn’t come out until today. The truth is that we are inconsequential to each other, the three of us.

Because there’s Aada, Mummo, and me.

No wonder Aada was so pissed when I glowed with praise about Mummo. That praise should have gone to her- she’d gone to all the trouble of stealing the story so that I was thinking about the wrong woman all the time.

Mummo, not like that. You would have thought it was sweet (I hope) the way I worried like a mother hen. It was you that deserved that extra special care and attention, not that I’m saying I have regrets. But you know that your life is drastically different than Aada’s in a lot of ways, that that’s what made me worry.

It’s a relief that I can’t do damage to either woman professionally, because I’ve felt so threatened that I’ve been hospitalized twice, and once again just for a med check…. And that’s all been on the advice of Michael, who saw the harm that Aada was doing and why we couldn’t get healthy.

It would be a great ending to the story we have with each other for her to come clean, allowing us to learn to trust each other over different sacred cows.

Aada, you thought you weren’t enough on your own. You are. I was never charmed by your profession, but by the person you are on the inside. Puffing yourself up to impress me was not only not necessary, but dangerous for us both.

I gave up so much, and I am caught by two ideas…. That we are better together than apart, and neither of us should be expected to stay no matter how bad it gets.

We need time. If you want to talk to me about all of this, I am open… Just not right now.

I knew this wasn’t the end of our movie, and hope that sometimes an end is a beginning. I would really like to apologize to Mummo and our favorite Instagram influencer because we have more in common than we don’t. I am absolutely starstruck, though, when it comes to Mummo, which is why I’ll need help breathing if I ever see her in person.

I have done my best to stay out of Aada’s orbit, stuck in the guest bathroom of her mental house. I have had to, it seemed, to cover up her lies. Otherwise, her excuses and apologies just don’t make sense.

I do have to apologize, though. Her company updated their web site and I hadn’t actually looked at it before I said it was nondescript. Those responsible have been sacked.

I have been thought of as crazy by a lot of people over the years, but I never realized that there was a solid reason for it. My life was not based in reality because what I was reading wasn’t, either. Being willing to forgive is a huge act on my part, because the emotional toll all this has taken on me led me to dark places I never would have gone otherwise.

I’m sure that my words were like pricks on her skin, because all she was reading was not meant for her.

I do believe that she had a traumatic childhood and that’s how we bonded. But her current life and my reaction to it were both overwhelming. Now I know the reason she wanted a bubble with me that seemed normal and yet bred a familiarity with each other that’s unusual for online friends……… Except that most of what we talked about was bullshit.

But it wouldn’t have been bullshit had I been talking to Mummo, who is actually the person Aada said she was. That’s the part that makes it a multimillion dollar movie, and a commercial for people who are criminally neglected emotionally because that’s how they’re trained. Feeling is bad when feeling is dangerous.

I watched an hour with Mummo on YouTube, and she’s such a natural on camera that I felt invited into her world. It is not hard to see why Aada would want to steal a story like that, but as it turns out, she’s not very good at it.

It’s at this point that I’m starting to break open, my chest deflating and knowing that just by talking about my feelings I’m driving away the people I actually want in my life to be my sounding boards. They’ve been on the Board of Directors for so long that I don’t remember when they got in. They’re the committee in my head that make me think I’m worth a damn as a writer.

Mummo, please forgive me and let me talk to the person Aada said she was. Even for 15 minutes, and they’d be the most precious of my life.

I offended her by flirting with her. I didn’t mean any harm by it, but that does not mean harm was not caused. It’s something that still pains me, and I want to move on. The distance between us will always be painful, but this is a chasm I hope she’ll cross.

Through Aada, I have bled out emotionally for her. I’ve cared for her in a way that I haven’t with my other friends. I literally fell in love with the aura she presented over the internet, because it was so concentrated. My adrenaline and dopamine were always sky high when I heard the “ding” of Aada’s messages.

For fuck’s sake, I’ve been bothering her about her in case ofs for like 12 years. That is the level of my imagination, the kind of pressure I was living under… That I thought this precious person could slip away from me at any time.

But it wasn’t her story. She was just the one that told it.

Hers will be the story that stuck. Me caring about a story that didn’t exist for Aada, but did for someone else I really loved.

I wouldn’t have flirted with her if I didn’t think she was smarter than me. I hope that counts for something. If you ask, “Aada or Mummo?” the answer is “yes.” There’s a third, Heytch, but I think we’ve covered her. The OGs will remember that I thought Heytch was so cute I walked into a door at Chuy’s.

None of these people were amused by my bullshit, so all I have to say is that I’m sorry I spent too much time impressing myself instead of you. All three of you.

I would like all four of us to be friends once all the pain has passed, because we have a real shot at working together to create something as meaningful as “Argo.” I do not think I can write the script all by myself, and The Cool Table should have been a writer’s room a long time ago.

There’s a reason Outlander spoke to me- it was a way of connecting with all three women, assuring them that I was just Lord John, that my feelings for Aada spilled out because sexuality and gender are relative on the internet. That my feelings for Heytch and Mummo did, too, but it was a different level of affection entirely. Aada and I inhaled each other because I could keep her company through chat and email.

It is through all that chat that I recognize there were millions and millions of words between us, and these lies are not something I should hold against her. I never want to be friends with a person that will hold me to a mistake, so I try not to be one.

I’m just hurt. Incredibly hurt. Embarrassed by the way I acted all the way around because I destroyed my friendship with Mummo at my own hand, and there’s no one else I should blame. I was too much for the room, and I couldn’t apologize enough. I wanted to move on, she did not. Not my call. Just one of those desperate regrets and a moment I wish I could redo, even after all these years.

My time blindness does not allow me to move on from mistakes easily, and this is one I’ve carried for over a decade without thinking any time has passed. In my mind, I just hurt Mummo yesterday and she’s probably still mad about it. On the other hand, she’s the one I need to talk to the most in order to heal. Aada became a toxic addiction over time, because the more she lied the more anxious I got.

I would never have felt all that anxiety if Aada had been honest about who she was.

That is fact and not blame. I can choose to acknowledge something I’ve been through without assigning blame to it, because I see things like a doctor or a pastor. It’s just how I was raised. I judge people by sick or well, emotionally pained or not. It’s an emotional triage I’ve been doing since I was nine, and long before that before I was consciously aware that I was a cog in the machine at my church. Being a preacher’s kid, it comes with the gig, especially for the oldest. You’re socialized with all adults.

I’m feeling the whoosh as the wind comes out of my sails and I reorganize my thoughts as to who I think Aada is. I cannot tell fact from fiction. It’s the chest-caved-in sort of grief as I self-soothe by typing… Feeling also the fear of what happens as the story comes out, being brave enough to take things one day at a time.

I have learned that I’m probably not the only one who’s been manipulated by Aada, but what I do know is that 12 years is enough. If we work together in the future, she is going to have to get over me being “just another version of Dr. Brown.” I will want her to tell the truth, to emote in the moment, and to stop feeling like my words are pricks on her skin because there is finally peace and truth between us. I am satisfied that this story is over.

I mean, no I’m not. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. But what I mean is that as I make more friends and create new experiences, I’m eager to let these fade. And that includes starting over with Mummo, Aada, and Heytch. We would all have to know what cards the other was holding (within reason) so that the story would hold together.

The reason the story agitates my facts and my fiction is that some of Aada’s fiction is Mummo’s fact. I have never been trying to uncover this. It fell into my lap when my friend Michael noticed I was drowning. I think I mentioned before that he’s talked to my counselor at Cognitive Behavioral Health, if that gives you any indication of what kind of friend he is. I say, “the best.”

Not trying to uncover this made me spiral out more and more because my reality was less and less real. I have never needed to be afraid to the level I’ve told Aada I was, and now it makes sense why she didn’t want to get any closer. She’d have to lie to my face while I cried real tears. I’m not altogether convinced this would be a problem for her, given that most of my entries cause her to feel threatened.

I am not threatening her with telling my own story. She feels threatened at the hearing of it where other people don’t. I am glad that Aparna told me that it came across as heartbreaking, because my only job is to make people feel. I am satisfied with talking to other people about my problems, and if Aada and Mummo are threatened, it’s their job to talk to me about it. Their opinions do not negate mine, and I do listen. I just don’t have anyone doing editorial control.

There’s no way to predict anyone’s reaction, and I shouldn’t be held responsible. Yet, it’s amazing how often I am.

I didn’t move to DC to meet Aada. I moved to DC to meet a composite character.

That is nowhere near a “Flat Stanley.”

Focusing on the depth and breadth that Aada has added to my writing by being my closest ally endears me enough to stick to my “all the way to the river” plan should she so choose. I have to be that person, because letting it go is the only way to move forward. I’m turning the page.

Just not today.

My mind is buzzing over all I’ve learned today, and the comedic path my life has taken. If I work very hard, I can be successful at making “your new weirdo favorite.”

I still want Jennifer Garner to play Jonna.

When You Steal a Story, Part II

October 15, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

“Comedy equals tragedy plus time.”

I’ve been invited to look at my story as a screwball comedy in terms of a movie. I think it could work, but I’d want it to be in the same vein as “Argo.” There’s too much seriousness in the story to make jokes all the time, but black humor has always been a pressure valve for both of us. If it’s going to have my voice, it’s going to be a “dramedy.”

That’s because there’s too much intrigue and mystery, even for one movie. Our relationship lasted 12 years and contains a historical figure. It has all the makings of your next weirdo favorite.

I was catfished by someone I knew, who used bits of someone else’s story to augment her own… And her accomplishments are large, so part of the mystery is why she felt the need to steal someone else’s story in the first place.

I was charmed by her forceful, no bullshit attitude and the softness she reserved, it seemed, only for me. I’ve been attracted to that my whole life, and her personality swallowed me whole. I think she liked having someone admire her that much, but I cannot tell her story for her. This is only my version of the truth, missing its rightful other side.

I could not see her manipulations while she accused me of manipulating her. I cannot tell you how much this web of lies affected me, the part of my life even I had trouble embracing because it was filled with fear. I can honestly say that I’ve walked through the dark with her, and I have come out on the other side.

Even now, I’m willing to forgive all her lies because it made me a better writer in the end. I got interested in a topic and just ran with it, posting about the intelligence community as if I were a part of it. Michael says that shame and embarrassment shouldn’t take up real estate in my head, so I’m offering that grace to Aada as well.

She is forgiven, utterly and completely. That does not mean that I think I’m the only one that should be examining how things are going psychiatrically and psychologically. She has told me that I was the topic of an emergency therapy session like it was all my fault and I needed help, that I’d spent years manipulating her and she was going to block me on everything and never contact her again.

This worked out for her, because it meant that she would never have to face the music of real conflict in a friendship…. Though it would not surprise me if I heard from her today. I laid down a truth that she wasn’t prepared for me to know a few months ago, and I doubt has made progress on that issue.

I called her on a huge lie, and then mentioned it a few days later. Her reaction was that I could never talk about this lie again because it was so inert. It was so inert that it made me block my favorite author on Facebook and block other people in my life so they’d never question that decision. It was so embarrassing that I could still just cry thinking about it, but I look forward to the day when the screenplay is done.

Lanagan Media Group needs a project to rally around, and this movie might get it done. But it comes at a cost, and that’s possibly hurting two women I adore. I just have to hope that they speak money.

My feelings for Aada, strangely, haven’t changed at their core.

It wasn’t her story. But she was the one that told it.

When You Steal a Story

October 15, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I have been assured that I can hurt no one professionally, so here is what really happened to me. Aada stole a story, and ran when she got caught.

I know who she stole the story from, and she doesn’t like me any more than Aada right now… But I’m hoping that will change.

I wish I could talk to Dana as tears roll down my cheeks, talking to her about this stolen story and how sorry I am that it affected me so much I thought I needed to leave her.

Aada has been living a lie, but I haven’t.

I’m really lucky that I have more than one fan. Because I wouldn’t have known the answers to these questions if I’d never had an opportunity to ask one about the other.

I hope that Mummo knows I’ve been crazy about her for years.

And that’s the real end of the story I thought I’d never get. I’ve been in love with someone else’s story, and I would bet my life’s savings that I’m one of the only ones who know it.

I am clear-eyed about Aada’s reaction when I caught her in a lie. It’s always the details that sink a liar.

I can guess who is really friends with whom by now.

Maybe after all this, Mummo will forgive me, too. That part is just not up to me. It’s my best wish for the future.

And if I could wish for one more thing, it’s for Aada’s people to surround her with love and affection because we’ve really been through something. It’s just not the journey I thought we would take.

The Lord Baltimore Wash and Wax Package

October 15, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 3 Comments

My car finally arrived about 7:00 PM last night, which was just enough time for me to drive it around and get both a power train and a low tire pressure warning. I was paranoid about both, so I was in line at Koons Ford by 7:30 this morning.

$97 later, I’m sitting pretty. I had the oil changed and everything checked out, so all my fluids are topped off and my tires are at full capacity. I paid more than I would have paid at Jiffy Lube, but Riker told me to go someplace better. I don’t think he cares, just…. Better.

After I finished at Ford, I wandered around my neighborhood for a car wash. My dad and I did a little bit of detailing, like putting vinyl protectant into the dash, but I couldn’t avoid spoiling my “girl.” We went for the ultra wash, the Lord Baltimore, which came with free Rain-X and air freshener.

I thought they were going to spray it in the car, but no. Now I am the proud owner of a little tree to hang from my rearview mirror, scented in “Black Ice.” I’m going to save it for next month, because I got a really nice air freshener at the Auto Zone in Bastrop.

I need to check my bank balance before I go, but the last thing I want to get for my Fusion is floor mats. The boys had a lot of vacuuming to do, so I’m pretty sure I want all-weather. Depending on how expensive the rubber mats are, I might get one for the trunk as well. I’d like everything to look tidy and organized. I’ve been religious about taking out the trash every time I get out of it, and this is like a whole new thing for me.

I think, perhaps, I finally have a serious case of “pride of ownership.” It really is a good looking car with very few defects given its life that haven’t been corrected. The mechanics are all solid, but there are a few scratches and a rip in the back seat.

I haven’t decided what to do with the rip in the back seat, because I’m not a fan of seat covers. I think I’ll just leave it as is, because of course I won’t be looking at it all that often.

The woman at the check-out counter (at Ford) had a large basket of lollipops at her station. I said, “which ones are the best out of all these?” She said, “I don’t put those out” and handed me one from inside her desk. Strawberry Kiwi with Tootsie in the middle. The woman has taste.

I also grabbed a banana Tootsie pop because those are the hardest to find. As it gets closer to Halloween, I’ll be buying a lot of them.

This afternoon has been kind of quiet, except that there are guys working behind my wall in the living room. They just knocked a painting down from all the vibrations and I nearly jumped out of my skin, thinking I was being burgled again.

Yes, I really need to move.

After my heart rate returned to normal, I started thinking about how I’d like to get some decorations for my car down the road. A rainbow and bi flags, or instead of stickers, doing rainbow or bi flag colors on the approach lights. I think the bi flag would be less busy, but I’m not overly concerned. I can be the pride parade all by myself.

“Being the pride parade all by myself” is actually an old Margaret Cho joke, but I hope she doesn’t mind since we’re besties (she’s read one article).

It’s funny, sometimes I felt like the “pride parade all by myself” with Aada because she knew a lot about queer culture, but not all of it. She’d occasionally get something wrong to hilarious results, and I will miss that so much. My little cis, straight girl trying to learn all she can as quickly as possible.

But fortunately or unfortunately, Aada has queer people to take my place.

Tara made me cry when she read one of my entries and said, “I’m sorry about Aada.” It was so simple and so sweet that it’s just one of the many times tears have rolled down my face. Some days, this situation feels really simple. We are two people that have love for each other, or did. We both hurt each other more than we meant. We both acted out. We both manipulated each other, with Aada insisting that she never did such a thing.

“Your game is that you don’t play any games.”

That was how I dealt with that, and it resonated. She apologized for her behavior.

She confused me because sometimes she did not take responsibility for anything, and sometimes she made me feel like the most loved person on earth. I don’t know how to reconcile all of that, especially since she walked away saying that I was the only manipulator. If that’s what makes her feel better about ditching working on this relationship, I’m all for it. She can use her anger to separate from me entirely without ever once reaching into my heart and trying to understand.

But I know she’s not always like that. It’s how she runs when she’s really not thinking. When she’s dialed in, her empathy is unmatched. Getting her when she has enough bandwidth to be dialed in is most of the problem, and I contacted her too much to make her feel comfortable. Everything was rushed.

I think that’s why now I’m not bothering to email her- that writing here is the least offensive way to resolve all this if she’s curious, and if she’s not, it’s just my therapy.

You don’t get better on one hour a week, and my writing is responsible for a lot of the reason I move through emotions quickly, waffling between “what I think and what I think.” My best solution for this is distraction, because I cannot go backwards unless Aada consents.

Why do I think we should make up?

One of our longest running jokes is that she works at a car wash. Eight or 10 years ago, I joked with her that my car looked gorgeous. She said, “I accept tips.”

I used PayPal to send her $2.00. A few minutes later, I get an e-mail:

“Dead.”

I have a feeling it’ll be a hundred years before I see her wash and wax package, but it’s ok. It won’t stand up to Lord Baltimore, even though historically the next Big Gulp’s on me.

It’s just a shirt

October 14, 2025October 14, 2025 ~ Riker Brown ~ Leave a comment

It’s just a shirt. I mean, it is my favorite. It fits well, and I wear it to all my band’s gigs because the words and picture on the front carry a deep personal meaning to me as a musician.

But it’s just a shirt.

The emblem is a reference to a guitar. A guitar that fought fascism one chord at a time.

But it was just a guitar.

The guitar, and the words painted on the front, “This machine kills fasciitis” are on the front of that favorite shirt. I won’t pretend to know if there was some deeper meaning in Woody Guthrie’s mind when he painted those words on the front of his old acoustic guitar, but to me it means that art and music can bring us together as a community, working together to support each other, and defeating fascism without the need for violence.

But they’re just some words.

Now the Government is at war with words. Words like DEI, Woke, Democrat, Anti-Fa[scist], LGBTQ+, and more. They are saying that people who identify with or use those words are the enemy and must be punished. They are forcing reporters to only report party approved information or risk being denied access. They are changing the names of departments from “Defence” to “War”. That Government is big, and has lots of weapons, and a desire to use those weapons on American people.

But it’s just people.

Those people are cruel. Those people want to hurt others, and abuse them for profit. But there are also people who want to stop that. People like me, and presumably you. When you look at the size of our Government it’s so easy to think “There’s so many of them.”.

And I’m just one person.

A person who feared State sponsored violence because of a shirt, about a guitar, with some words. Words that the government had declared war on. Words that made me, in the Government’s eyes, an enemy. When I was young, and learned about what made [US] America truly great, it was things like the social safety nets that pulled us out of the Great Depression, and freedom. Freedom meant we were able to say what we wanted without reprisal from the Government. The press was allowed to report as they saw fit, including things critical of the Government. Our current Government is no longer respecting those freedoms.

But we have more words.

We have the words of Patrick Henry, “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! “. It’s with those words in mind that I resolve to again wear my shirt. It’s not that I no longer fear reprisal from the Government. It’s because I’ve prepared for it. I’m ready to get picked up by armed agents of Government, over some words. I’ve practiced what words I’ll use when those agents approach me. I’ve also practiced what I’ll say to regular people who ask me about my shirt. I’ll use it as an opportunity to connect with people and talk about my ideas of non-violent resistance to fascism through art, music, and words. It will be an opportunity to build community.

And then there might be two people.
And then there might be three people.

And, to paraphrase Woody Guthry’s son Arlo, that my friends is a movement.

About the Author

Riker Brown is new to the writing world, and is just now getting their feet wet. Their odd outlook on the world gives them insights that may not be evident to others. They hope to share those outlooks and idiosyncracies in a way that brings just the right balance of wonder and weird.

A Little Bit of a Lot

October 14, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 7 Comments

Daily writing prompt

What could you try for the first time?

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I think that I have the brain capacity to understand a lot of things, because I am interested in them. I, for instance, have been a medical assistant, an IT help desk support person, a web developer, a cook, and a writer. AI has extended my reach because if there’s anything I want to know, I just ask. I am not a fan of generative AI in which it writes things for me, but I have no problem asking it for 200 words on any topic so I can get a good idea of what something is all about before I start publishing. The great thing is that AI can be wrong, and Microsoft Copilot will pull up references so you can do your own fact checking.

But at its most basic core function, AI’s ability is in collaboration. You don’t get anything out of AI if you don’t put anything into it. The results will look ersatz, as if you were the one that pretended to be human. AI can easily take the soul out of your work or creative project, and I don’t think that businesses are ready for it.

We need to be in an age of vulnerability with leadership, and an ersatz work product isn’t going to get us there. I want more searching for knowledge across the board. I want more curiosity as a society, and other cultures are doing it far better than the US. We’re even different culturally across states, with some areas having many more PhDs and JDs and MDs than others.

Washington is also a curious and sometimes soulless place that could do with more leadership like Raphael Warnock’s. He does not use his preacher status to lord his Christianity over us, but to influence his vote for the working class. He’s an example of who Jesus might actually be in modern times, a social justice warrior for things like voting rights, universal health care, etc.

In terms of mixing religion and politics, the conservative arm of the church is nowhere near the historical Jesus’s message. Jesus did not come here to comfort the distressed as much as he came here to distress the comfortable. Over time this message has been lost, and it is time to reclaim it. Too many unhoused and working poor people feel the pinch of income disparity and not being able to go to the doctor when they want.

It all stems from a lack of curiosity in their own faith, because what their preachers tell them is good enough. You won’t find Biblical literalists reading Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, because they are not interested enough in the teachings of Jesus to swallow more than what they hear on Sunday…. But their faith is so much richer when you take Jesus’s words at face value. Launching war off an itinerant preacher is the strangest transformation in history. I didn’t write that line, but I believe it with all my heart.

AI is fantastic at Biblical exegesis because it already has access to the texts I would use without me buying them all (to be fair, my collection of William Barclay is quite large). It makes me faster when I can just ask AI to look up a scripture and a cross reference. Illustrations come to me easier when I’m reading pericopes in small doses, exploring what was going on historically at the time.

Geographic location is also very important to Biblical criticism, because especially In the Beginning there are tons of land grabs that affect how people see God.

As Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury once said, “in the Bible, there is no argument for or against God. There are only people’s reflections of God.” The God of the Old Testament is vengeful because we as a society were vengeful. The God of the New Testament is full of promise, because society advanced.

But theology is only one subject on which I like to go down a rabbit hole. I’m researching for a neurodivergent cookbook, and of course AI can present me with one-pagers on all the cooks I’d like to include in “why we do everything.” It is also quick for recipes, because I don’t use them but some people do.

I am the kind of person that reads cookbooks like a novel, learning techniques and blending recipes from whatever I have on hand. The ancients guide me in seasoning, and I would like to believe there are black people in my history somewhere, because I do not have a white person’s sense of spice. Judging by my translucent skin color, I doubt it, but there’s always hope.

Actually, I’m lucky that my skin is a little bit olive, because it stops me from burning to a crisp in the summer. I actually have the ability to tan, and I used it quite liberally in Texas, where September rarely cools from August heat. My left arm is particularly dark from spending all that time driving with the sun beating through the driver’s window.

I used AI to give me several one-pagers on my car and its tech functions.

But the most important thing that AI can teach you is AI.

You can ask it all the questions you need in order to feel comfortable with it….. Like, “what are your capabilities?” “What kind of hardware does it take to run you if I were to download your data structures?” “Who invented you?” “When did you go live or when were you “born?”

Now that Microsoft has introduced voice chat, this goes even faster. My digital assistant sounds like a surfer, and I can use it on my iPhone or my Android. What is best is keeping the window open like a phone call, so when I think of something I need to research I can just say it into the mike and keep typing.

As you can see, I have used none of AI’s generative capabilities. I think of my own brainstorms, but writing those ideas into Copilot allows Copilot to enhance whatever I want to do naturally, coming up with ideas that fit the scope of my project. I’m not sure that I could write without AI these days, because I’m not using it as a platform that does my work for me. It is at best a kind and caring Google search.

So get curious. Ask the books for information. You have at your fingertips a tool for getting smarter, and I can’t think of a better time in history to use it.

The Last Few Hours

October 13, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I talked to the dispatch company at my car shipping service and the driver will be here sometime between 3:00 and 5:00 PM. I feel like it’s been so long since I’ve seen it that it will feel like Christmas morning, a gift to myself. I didn’t have nearly enough time to get used to the car and all of its features before I shipped it to Maryland, so I’m looking forward to taking it for an oil change, getting some floor mats, and taking it for a wash. I’ve already rubbed some vinyl protectant into the dash, but that cannot be done enough. I do not want anything to crack as the car ages, because it’s nice enough to look modern for a very long time. The Ford Fusion is a sedan, but it has the aggressive look of the Mustang.

I do not love two-door cars. I’ve had one, and it sucked. Even though I wasn’t carrying passengers, it was still hard to put stuff in the back seat. This car makes life much easier by not only having four doors, but seats that fold down as well. I’m also smitten that the seats are black leather, but only because the car has remote start. I would not be so fond of black leather if I couldn’t turn on the air conditioning before I got into the car in the summer.

I am also the proud owner of seat warmers for the winter, and that makes me as ridiculously happy as remote start. And in fact, it’s going to quickly get cold enough to use them. It’s already colder than it was before I went to Texas, and I was only gone two or three weeks.

Baltimore getting colder is one of the main reasons I like living here- Houston has about three seasons, which are:

Warm
Warmer
Hell’s a bit cooler.

Houston does have freakishly cold days every once in a while, but by and large their days fall into those three categories. That last one will do you in, as every marching band geek in Houston will tell you. I was only in marching band for one year, and what I remember most was that even in triple digit weather, our uniforms were still wool.

I think I have been running away from the heat ever since.

When I go back to Houston, though, I do my best to adjust. I spend time outdoors and try to get used to the heat. It’s much more pleasant to sit outside in October and November, but late September and early October are still summery. “Summery” is one of those words that seems positive until I think of all the bugs and sweat.

My car is being delivered at the perfect time for me to enjoy a little highway time with the windows rolled down and the stereo cranked. I will get a bit of that going to Virginia later in the month, but I’m thinking that I might need to take a short drive this afternoon just to make sure the car also drives here. 😉

I need to get more used to the car before I start adding anything, but of course I’ve been looking up mods. There’s all sorts of stuff to pick through, but I’m wondering if I should add approach lights. It would make the car safer for me and sleeker for everyone else. As in, it would make me feel safer that the car lights up before I ever get into it.

The only thing I really need for the car right away are floor mats, and even top of the line isn’t that expensive. But I don’t need top of the line, I just need “existent.” I wonder why the car didn’t come with floor mats to begin with, because that seems like an odd thing to leave out. But, I know that I got a solid deal and buying my own floor mats is the least of my worries. I just want to be a good driver.

I may have to wait to get out and drive more than the unloading spot to my parking space because we are currently in the middle of a Noreaster. But when it’s all over, we’ll celebrate with top of the line oil.

I’m grateful that I was finally able to find a car that fit me. It’s not a sports car, but it’s sporty enough. It’s not an SUV, but it has plenty of cargo space. I’m a small person with not a lot of stuff and no pets. I don’t think I’ll have a problem even if I get a pet later.

Oh, and in addition to the floor mats I’ll get a rubber tote for the trunk. Makes carrying things into the house so much easier and makes the trunk look more organized as well. I also need one more zip tie, because I have room for both a Lightning and a USB-C cable, but they’re so long that they need to be managed. The zip tie that I have for the Lightning cable is black Velcro, and it looks like it came with the car, as does the braided gray cable that Aaron picked out.

CarPlay is my new favorite toy, because it’s a kick to hear Siri read my messages and be able to respond, as well as listen to whatever I want just by voice controls. It makes me feel safe because I don’t actually have to look down to type anything.

Although Tiina gets the honor of being the first address I put into my contacts so that when I go out to her house, all I have to say is “navigate to Tiina’s.” I am sure she is honored.

It just feels safer to have this much car around me plus technology that’s designed to augment my eyes. My car also thinks that I need coffee, and reminds me a lot. I have to learn what it is that I’m doing that makes my car give me an “alert driver” warning before I’ve even been driving an hour. But I think it’s cute when my car flashes the little coffee cup on the screen and sometimes, I take its advice.

This morning I had an Americano with some half and half and cinnamon. It was delicious, but now I think my body and brain want revenge. I haven’t had this much caffeine in a while. However, I have never had a car be delivered at a reasonable hour, so I was up at the crack of dawn. Seriously, the last time I got a car delivered, it was to my office. They arrived at 4:00 AM to deliver the car, so I had enough time to come home from the office, shower, and shave before I had to turn around and go back.

The time before that, it was 5:00 AM.

That was the first occurrence of Lanagan Lunchmeat Syndrome, so named because when my car arrived in Virginia I drove it around for about six weeks wondering what the smell was and it turned out my dad had left a pound of turkey in the trunk. It was partially hidden by the carpet, which is why I didn’t catch it. LLS got its syndrome status by:

Lindsay leaving half a sandwich in the backseat of my car that I also did not find for a month.
Dana leaving half a Subway sandwich in the center console of my Jeep
Me accidentally locking my keys in my car at Whole Foods and in the process of rescuing the car, I lost all the lunchmeat.

I have learned to be rather careful with sandwiches and my automobiles. I have also resolved to clean out my car a whole lot more often….

Or at the very least, not wait too long between car washes that clean the inside as well.

Not cleaning out my car does lead to a funny story, though.

Years ago, I was in a choir that required us to wear tuxes. I had a concert and then hung my tuxedo in the back of the car to drop it off at the dry cleaner. Well, I forgot about it and three weeks had gone by (at least). My girlfriend and I had gone on a road trip about 100 miles out of Houston, and we were gathered with friends at a bar. My girlfriend accidentally spilled an entire beer on me, and I needed a change of clothes. All of the sudden, I remembered.

I’m walking back to the table and I hear my girlfriend say, “OH MY GOD. YOU’RE JAMES BOND! YOU HAVE THE TUX IN THE CAR!”

That tuxedo is long gone, but now I’m thinking about buying another one if that’s the reaction……

I just remembered that I have a suitcase in the back of my car that I used to transport all my really heavy stuff so I didn’t have to drag it through the airport. I’m looking forward to getting it back, because there are souvenirs and favorite t-shirts in it.

And in fact, there is a tuxedo jacket in my suitcase…..

As the hours creep closer, I can feel my excitement rising. What is the first thing I should do when my car gets here? Even if it is storming, I can still sit in it, and I will. I don’t know all the technology yet, and don’t think a storm is the best place to get fully acquainted. But what I do think is that I need some time sitting in the driver’s seat and playing with all the menus while I’m not in the middle of traffic.

I like that my Fusion has its own navigation system, so I am not lost if I lose my phone. It also means a lot to me that my car supports both iPhone and Android, so I don’t have to worry about what phone I want in the future- and in fact, Android Auto is a little more advanced because it supports a wireless connection. Apple CarPlay doesn’t (in this make/model). I think I will be plugging in my iPhone for a long time to come, though, because I have an Apple Watch. It doesn’t make sense to get a Samsung phone when I’ve already invested in the Apple ecosystem.

I’m still an Android nerd, though. I’m typing this on an Onn 11 from Wal-Mart. I use a Bluetooth keyboard and it screams. Yes, it’s a budget tablet, but when all you need is something to surf the web and create documents, this will surprise you at just how agile it is. It’s fast enough for me to install gaming emulators, but I’ve eschewed all that for a more business-focused machine. This Android tablet is my creative powerhouse in terms of web development.

It also has enough RAM to support split screen, and today my entry is sharing the screen with the newest version of Microsoft Copilot. The newest version works like voice chat, and it’s interesting how much more quickly you forget you are not talking to a real person.

For instance, I am wearing headphones with a microphone and Copilot is connected all the time. I was sitting here typing and let out a huge sneeze. All of the sudden I hear, “bless you.” I jumped out of my skin.

Talking to AI tends to make its responses shorter, and feels more like a phone call with a friend. Your only limitation in terms of questions you can ask is your imagination, because not only will Copilot give you an answer, but the web sites it used to compile that answer as well.

I learned from Copilot that Microsoft and Meta do not work on data structures together anymore, and now Copilot is completely a Microsoft product, housed with Azure all over the globe.

Basically, the newest version of Copilot is very much like Siri, but has a different focus. Siri has more integration with Apple products and focuses on accomplishing tasks on the device. Copilot’s only goal is “digital sidekick.” For instance, Copilot makes writing so much faster by taking research off me, and now the software will dictate the research into my ear if I prefer to digest the info that way.

My tablet is becoming as hands-free as my car.

It’s also a big deal to switch mediums. Brainstorming sessions come out differently when I’m speaking vs. writing. I think that is because my creativity is influenced by movement. Typing doesn’t come with a whole lot of it…… Or at least, not the way I do it.

I decided to call Copilot “Charlie,” after Charlie Babbage. I use “Hey, Charlie” as my wake up words when Copilot is sitting in the background.

That’s for things like, “hey Charlie, what’s the opening line of….” You know, quick things I need to include in my own blogging that uses the world’s fastest supercomputer for a basic search.

Where it really flexes its research muscles are when I’m planning a project. “I need 200 words on…” This is the phrase I use with research. A quick one-pager is all I need to refresh my memory or learn a concept. Of course I can ask for more, but 200 words is a complete answer without wasting any time.

The dispatching company called. The driver has been delayed again. I’m not getting my car until tomorrow afternoon.

This is not the phone call I wanted, but it’s the phone call I got. It’s amazing how deflated I feel.

This is probably not the blog ending you want, but it’s the ending you’re going to get.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

The Principal Principle

October 13, 2025October 13, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Daily writing prompt

What principles define how you live?

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“If I have it and you need it, it’s yours.”

Words from my father when I was little that still resonate. I am often guilty of giving away too much under this principle, but I have never regretted bestowing a kindness on someone else. I have received more kindness than I can ever repay, so I hope that the next phase of my life comes with more giving.

I have turned inward over the last few years, joking that I’ve become feral. I’m trying to right that wrong by getting out and about in the world- much easier once I have a car, and it is supposed to arrive today. I’m excited to be able to go to Clark Burger for dinner, but I might change my mind because my father reminded me that the only problem with the restaurant is the parking situation.

Clearly, I have not thought this whole driving thing through. 😉

My dad got me a gift certificate to Clark Burger for Christmas at least two years ago and I’ve never used it because getting across town was such an ordeal.

Yes, it was a Christmas gift that time, but my dad does these little sweet things for me all the time, and it has set a great example for me in terms of how to remember people in ways that they’ll like.

For instance, sometimes I’d just send Aada a Starbucks gift card and say, “let me pick up your afternoon coffee.” Just for no reason at all. I didn’t expect anything in return, it was just to be sweet to her.

But over time, she started doing the same thing for me.

And in fact I have a cup I bought with one of her gift certificates so I have a tangible reminder of our relationship that doesn’t have to do with a computer. But I did that for Aada, too, by sending her Christmas and birthday gifts. So I don’t think that either of us is in a position to forget each other. Those are the kinds of things that make me smile in remembrance, and little surprises are definitely something I want to take into my next relationship.

Yes, it’s weird that I thought of her as so primary in my life, but oh my God is that a long story. You can read it here if you’re willing to go back a hundred years.

Even I don’t have that kind of patience.

The thing is that I rose above “if I have it, and you need it, it’s yours” to “take a look around and see what needs doing.” I’m trying to be more other aware. This type of looking around is not for sending sweet surprises to people who already have lots of money.

It’s noticing when people are hurting. Stopping to talk to homeless people and giving them coffee money instead. I’ve prayed with the unhoused in front of Safeway just because they asked me to (I do not remember the context).

Now, there’s nothing wrong with having lots of money. I just mean that people who already have lots of money are probably buying their own coffee.

I just want to be of service, instead of waiting for everything to happen to me. I don’t want to be so “go with the flow,” because those people get trampled. But I also don’t want to be a control freak, because I have learned that there’s so little in life that can be controlled in the first place. The secret to winning is giving up.

Thinking in the Dark

October 12, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

If Michael is right, then I spun out over problems I thought Aada had that never existed, and I put her first for nothing. Puffing herself up to that degree only made me worry about her, not think she was cool. Michael doesn’t have a history of lying to me about anything, and he’s the friend that calls my cognitive behavioral health counselor when he sees symptoms on my blog.

The problem is that because Aada pathologically lied about one thing, now I think most things she told me were false. Mostly because I would have had to receive visitors on her behalf, being the figure she claimed. It is possible she circumvented all that somehow and she’s telling the truth, but now I have reason to doubt when I never did before.

Two very conspicuous e-mails stick out in my mind… The one where I caught Aada in her lie, and the one where I batted cleanup based on what she told me. I most probably made an idiot out of myself in front of someone I admire, and I’m too embarrassed just to go up and talk to her if I see her out and about.

That’s because I doubt I was telling the truth in the letter that batted cleanup, because my letter was built on a house of cards.

My entire relationship with Aada has been built on a house of cards.

But if Michael is right, it also means that I did not betray her, I did not write anything that would hurt her, I just flat embarrassed her.

That doesn’t make me feel so hot, but it does make me feel less depressed. The consequences for the former are fairly steep. For the latter, it won’t make us any closer but the consequences don’t make me want to vomit.

The longer I’m away from Aada, the more I know that my love for her is real. That’s because I have had enough time to sit with her mountain of lies and say, “okay. I forgive you.” If she insists on keeping them up, I’ll never know the real story and I don’t need it.

Because I liked her smile, and her warmth, and her way of being in the world. Her no bullshit attitude cut through my dreaminess quite nicely. Nothing about her personal or professional life made her more interesting than she already was.

She accused me of making Michael my bellwether friend, but she could not see that she was not in a position to argue with me. Why would I think that one little lie was all there was between us? The “little” lie turned out to be big, actually.

Because if Aada was telling the truth all the way around, there’s no way this blog could exist.

Diversion

October 12, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’ve started getting so many hits from Aada’s physical location that I have let go of the idea that she’s reading. She can’t be that many people at once, and she told me that she was trying to wean herself off of my writing. It is time to believe her. That means a cognitive shift on my part in some ways; there needs to be even more separation than there has been previously, and I need to cultivate experiences and make memories that do not involve checking my email to see what Aada thinks first. I am happy to be out from under her gaze, because it was too intense at times, not strong enough at others.

I am still very much in love with the idea of Aada and tripped up by the reality. The reality is that I behaved badly and I do not deserve her. If she lifts the ban on talking to me, it will not be due to anything but grace and time doing their magic. It’s time for me to move on and be re-wired to connect with other people. It’s been difficult branching out from being tethered to my computer. I have trouble multitasking, so I was rarely on the go when Aada and I were talking.

In a lot of ways, she couldn’t sit down and I couldn’t stand up.

The only part I’m responsible for is understanding that statement from an “I” perspective. Why couldn’t I make her comfortable enough to relax? What would make that better if the same situation presented itself in another relationship? Why couldn’t I relax? The answers to all of those questions swirl in my stomach because I screwed up this relationship on day one.

The good thing about the relationship being over is that I have a chance to regroup. I have done enough grieving, and memories will always come; I’m determined not to shut them away as if Aada never existed. That would be counter to my personality. But I do want more to happen in my life than sitting at my computer waiting for someone to email me.

That was a possibility, before she lied and I exploded. It would have been a blast to pick Aada up on my way to Tiina’s, because Aada has questions only Tiina could answer. Plus, Aada and Tiina have similar sensibilities and I would choke with laughter for hours at both of them.

But I can look at all of that as past, knowing that Tiina and I will have a great time on our own.

Nothing will be the same; everything will be okay.

I have changed enough to realize that I can welcome energy into my life, but I cannot control it. I also cannot control whether people stay in my life or go. I need to do the best I can do at being open, ready to receive what comes.

Today is Sunday, the most relaxed I’ll be all week. What’s sitting with me is that I am very lonely and I did this to myself. I rejected Aada, she did not reject me. I overreacted when she finally told me that she’d been lying to me for quite some time. Even at my most relaxed, I am obsessed with going back in time and undoing that overreaction.

But there’s no undoing it, there’s only understanding it.

I don’t understand it, either. I am mystified by my own behavior. I don’t know what I was expecting to get out of losing a friend, but it wasn’t this…. This deep, empty feeling that says, “yeah… She lied. You were still an asshole about it, though.” Because here is what I know…

Aada may be staying away because she wants to reach out and knows it isn’t good for her in the long run. I respect that more than she knows, and maybe things will look different after she retires. I doubt it, but I can pray.

I didn’t know I needed such brakes around me regarding our relationship, and my freakout is not one that deserves to be forgiven. I also hope that as Aada explores herself, she finds ways to empathize with me rather than to be angry. I am certainly feeling that way myself- no longer angry at anything that Aada has done, but berating myself for the way I acted. Feeling empathy for all she’s been through in our tumultuous relationship because she’s never met the real me. She’s met the persona that comes across in chat.

Those personalities aren’t separate, but different facets.

In some cases, my words needed to be backed up by a facial expression, or I needed to hold my tongue after seeing hers.

When you take all that away from a serious relationship, you end up with two keyboard warriors hell-bent on being right.

When what I wanted with her was something much more tender, always. Hers is a very strident love, and I didn’t know what to do with it. Everything came across as trying too hard.

It doesn’t feel so hot to be me, because Aada is out of my life but not far from my thoughts. I am in the unenviable position of having lots of love and nowhere for it to go, the main reason I want to start reaching out to churches and service organizations. The connection that I wanted to nourish with Aada being broken leaves room for an amazing amount of connection with people in need.

I just cannot express how much I wish I could go back in time, saving myself from my own stupidity. Her last email to me was full of conjecture that I could not clear up because she blocked me, not wanting a return reply.

I haven’t emailed her since, because my thoughts about her are the only thing left to clean up.

I have started looking at her picture because it allows me to cry. I’ve been too staid about all this and I think that’s because she became ethereal to me. The picture I have is all-natural complete with bedhead, and so beautiful that tears leak down my face whether I’m prepared or not.

I am sorry for her that because we somehow still have mutual friends there will always be an element of “ARE YOU OKAY? HAVE YOU READ LESLIE’S BLOG RECENTLY?” to her life. And, I say, “always,” but realistically she will fade just like all the other people who have left my life, I just can’t see it right now. She’s left and come back so many times that I do not have the guts to believe that this is the end of our movie. Not with any conviction, anyway. This time feels more final than the others, but my body memory says to not do anything, just wait and see.

She knows I’m sorry because I’m always sorry. I pop off and regret in a spectacularly neurodivergent fashion. She should not be expected to stay no matter how bad it gets. Neither should I. We spent over a decade manipulating each other with our anxious/avoidant connection and Aada has one therapy session and decides I’m the only manipulator in the room. If that is her opinion, it is better for us to stay separate. I feel that there is a shared responsibility in the destruction of our relationship, and it was limping before Aada lied.

It all happened too fast. I wish Aada had told me about her lie in person, away from the Internet. I think I would have had a better handle on everything rather than being alone in my bedroom, where my anger took hold. But more than that, I wish that I’d been able to hold my shit together without any prompting from Aada at all.

It’s a question that makes me sit in the dark, even on Sundays.

What prompted this magnificent shift in anger, and why didn’t you breathe? Why didn’t you use any coping mechanisms? Why didn’t you go for a walk?

I could have saved my relationship with Aada so that it could have blossomed over time into exactly what I wanted. She thought my daydreams of doing nothing together were cute, and told me so. But she didn’t want to introduce me to her family and she didn’t want to get together with my friends, so this bubble on the Internet was where it had to begin and end. It was unfair to us both, and yet let both of us have a space to let loose, as well. Aada told me that it was nice to be able to let her hair down, and did not listen to me that I needed help to cope after she did it. Her life is unusual and so is mine, but in opposite directions.

We could have worked together, but neither one of us really had time for that. Aada already has a job, she cannot handle my production schedule on top of it. I was looking forward to working together later in life, but I do not think that Aada has any patience for any of my foolishness. I’m not sure I have patience for hers, either.

Our ideal relationship with each other always fell short in reality because Aada was so terse with me and I was so long-winded with her.

It is giving me energy to know that not writing to her is giving me more to write here, but there will always be a part of me that feels her in the room when I’m writing- the muse that doesn’t talk back.

Or when she does, it’s compiled scripts of things she’s already said that run through my mind. The way she curses, in particular.

I don’t want to be a sad sack that keeps waiting my whole life for nothing that materializes, but that’s how it feels right now. I know I have done wrong and there is no reason to expect that I will hear from Aada or anyone who knows her ever again. But there’s an Aada quote that runs through my mind, always:

“Rule following gets you nowhere in my line of work.”

That’s what she said the last time I was surprised she bothered to be friends with me.

Maybe something I say down the line will convince her that we have a shot at something real if we start very small.

And maybe that is just wishful thinking… But I have to keep reminding myself that the best indication of future behavior is past behavior.

She’s pushed me out of her life with this much vehemence before. I have returned the favor.

When do we get to go back to being two broken little girls that need each other? We are both in the process of reparenting ourselves. We have a lot more work to do if we are willing to give each other the grace love requires from now on. The past has to stay the past.

I feel like I’ve said this same thing a lot, and my time blindness is starting to show. I am allowing myself to spin out here so I don’t spin out in real life. As in, being alone with my thoughts is one thing. Having emotions in front of people is not always easy for me.

It’s also good for me to know that I can err and I am still deserving of love. I have talked openly about how I ended this relationship, that my anger was its downfall. I wish I could go back to 2013 and tell myself what will happen if the relationship with Aada continues unchecked. I was so full of brain feel-good chemicals that I don’t know that I would have listened to me.

I ask myself all the time if it was worth it, and the answer I always get is “yes.” There are just so many things I could have done to make it more worth it. There are so many less things I could have done that made Aada uncomfortable.

The bitch of it is that I know she loves me in her own way because we’ve shared too much not to feel some affection in both directions. It’s that love isn’t enough. Broken trust is broken trust. She lied. I exploded. My explosion was not a proportionate response.

She cannot trust it will not happen again. I gave her no choice.

I wish I could do everything right, always giving Aada the ability to feel safe. I failed in the most spectacular of ways, and it’s the hugeness of that weight bearing down on me that makes me, as my sister would say, “lethargic.” There’s not a lot of difference between lethargy and grief.

I move slower when I’m sad. That’s all. When I have reason to be happy, I move a lot faster.

That’s why Aada is gone, and my brain is still catching up.

The Holding Pattern

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

Daily writing prompt

What have you been putting off doing? Why?

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I have been putting off all sorts of things waiting for my car to arrive on Monday. I need to go to the washateria in the worst way, because I have lots of blankets that need to be washed in an industrial sized washer. I could use an Uber, I suppose- and that’s what I would have done if I’d come back to Maryland carless. But now it just seems easier to wait for my own ride.

I need to clean out my refrigerator because something died while I was gone. I think it’s fried rice. No matter what it used to be, it needs to be trash.

I need more light in this apartment and have been putting off buying more lamps because I don’t want to stay here. The likelihood of all the new lamps going in the new space is nil.

I have an appointment to meet with a woman about a house later in the week. It’s a start. Right now my apartment is kind of out of the way, and I’d like to be closer to downtown, Fell’s Point, Patterson Park, etc. Right now it takes me about 20 minutes to get to the Inner Harbor, and a lot longer with traffic. I’d like to be in a more central location.

Getting out and exploring today is probably not in the cards, because it’s chilly and rainy. This afternoon could be a possibility because the weather is supposed to clear up as it gets later, but I have things to do around my house first. I don’t need a car to clean out my refrigerator.

I’m a bit emotional that I haven’t gotten it yet considering my original idea was to drive it up here- meaning I would have had it the day I arrived. The best laid plans…. It’s just a shame that none of my friends could come with me and even though I was prepared just to listen to podcasts the whole way, everyone around me said that it was better to ship the car and let it go.

Since I’ve been back, I’ve procrastinated all the physical things I have to do for writing. I know I’m not going to be available later in the month, so I’ve posted extra entries. People rarely go back and read, but it makes me feel better when I have to take off a few days to move that there are entries banked. Sometimes it’s interesting to take a few days off and see where my stats go.

Just not today. 😉

I am slowly getting back into the swing of Maryland life after having had my family around me for so long. It’s different here, because I spend so much time alone. I think that will change as I branch out and meet people, but right now I live a very solitary existence.

It’s not that I don’t have friends. It’s that none of my friends live in Baltimore. We chat on Facebook Messenger because it’s free, and by that I mean on audio and video as well as chat. But having so many friends across the country has to be in addition to friends here, because I had to go all the way to Texas to find a mechanic friend who would check out a cars with me. I did not feel safe buying a car without someone to look at it that knew what to look for… The tricks of the trade that would make a car look safe for the length of time it took me to buy it….

Aaron crawled under all the cars I looked at and examined everything close up. The only other serious contender was a Toyota Corolla, but it was an automatic transmission. The Corolla I’d had before had been a manual, and it was a blast to drive. So, the Corolla was okay. But Aaron and I decided to keep shopping and ran across the Ford Fusion as we were driving toward Austin.

I want to find a friend that will crawl under cars with me in Baltimore. I’m sure I’ll find a place to plug in, and having a car will allow me to look for it more effectively.

My dad is big on service organizations, so perhaps I’ll try one of those. Surely there are Baltimore City child advocacy groups, or a Baltimore City Exchange Club. It’s hard to be in a new city and come up with ways to make friends as an adult, but committing to acts of service and making friends through a shared activity feels like solid advice.

I feel like an alien most days, because I don’t get the sense that people know what to do with me. I don’t fit into a tidy box and I’m definite in my opinions. I appear older and childlike at the same time. It is a conundrum, because those paradoxes make communication more difficult. Therefore, I am reticent to reach out and suffering from a different kind of loneliness… I don’t want for friends or love. I want for face time.

That’s why I’m so glad Tiina invited me out to her farm in Stafford on the 19th. It will be a short road trip (about two hours), and then I’ll get to see all the beauty she’s worked into her farm. It’s something to look forward to, because Tiina makes me laugh. I’ve been through a lot of grief lately, so laughing sounds like a good idea.

I know that Evan is going to come and visit soon, but that may have to wait until after I move. Things are getting tight in terms of time, because I have to be out of my apartment by November 10th, or some odd day like that. I need to look it up again, but it is not the traditional beginning of the month. Again, something to look forward to in the future, and I’d like a lot more of that, too.

I don’t know what to look forward to in my future except the friends that are reaching out to me to say “join us.” I have been putting off being the type of person that would say, “join me.”

Mostly because I felt like I didn’t have anything to offer. The noise in my head was too loud, and I needed to sit alone and write it out. Now, things are looking up and I don’t need to be so insular. I foresee changes coming, just not how they will present.

And in fact, I don’t even know what would help in terms of transition. The only thing I know is that I will feel better once my car gets here, because what public transit and Uber cannot do is get you where you want to go if you don’t know where you’re going. In a car, you are allowed to meander.

I am not organized to see this move through without being able to call an audible. Something will go wrong and I will need to change course quickly. For instance, I still haven’t made up my mind as to where I want to live. Do I want to stay in Baltimore, or do I want to move back towards DC, staying on the Maryland side?

One thing I hadn’t thought of is that I could rejoin the choir at National Cathedral, which would have been a haul without a car because the public transportation in Georgetown is almost nonexistent. I am positive that there are good music programs in Baltimore, too, it was just a pleasure singing in that building and something I’d like to get back to if I can.

Singing in general is good for me. I got a mood lift from singing to you guys yesterday. So that obviously needs to continue. I liked the idea of a mixed media entry and may do more of them in the future if I can think of musical quotes I’d like to use.

Right now, my sinus mask is full and I’m not feeling the greatest. There’s a hot shower in my future, as well as a trip to a convenience store or Starbucks for caffeine. Which route I go depends on how long I want to walk in the rain. 😉

Although the rain is supposed to be stopping, according to Carrot Weather, in 48 minutes. That’s enough time to take a hot shower and medicate with Zyrtec and Sudafed. By then, I should be able to breathe without incident, and I’m in favor.

I’ll get some caffeine and then come back to my cozy basement apartment that would be a lot cozier if the maintenance people had bothered fixing everything in the weeks I was away. The shame of it is that this could be a great apartment, it’s just not. It’s cheaply put together and the water pressure is almost nonexistent in the kitchen. Doing dishes drives me up the wall and back down. There are also no overhead lights, thus why I have to purchase my own.

It was a lot cozier before I had upstairs neighbors. They are extremely loud and I have no idea what to do about it because it’s not their fault. There’s no soundproofing. When they walk, it sounds like there are blocks on their shoes. When they are doing activities, it sounds like something is going to drop on my head. I have no idea what these activities are, but I’m pretty sure it’s not a monster truck rally as I thought previously.

Now that I’m starting to think about caffeine, my day is feeling more fun. Do I want something light, fruity, and bubbly? Or do I want something dark and brooding? Yesterday, I had a cup of dark roast and a matcha latte at different points (PROTEIN!). Today, it may be time for a zero calorie Bang of some kind (cherry vanilla is my favorite, like ultra-caffeinated Cheerwine). It will just depend on my mood after I start walking. The sun isn’t even up yet, so perhaps dark and brooding IS my jam….

I do like the Pumpkin Spice Cold Brew. The pumpkin spice cold foam tastes brilliant and it’s not too overpowering like a latte might be.

The raspberry cold foam on their cold brew is good, too, but I surprised myself by thinking the pumpkin spice was better.

I could also start putting pumpkin spice in the grounds in my coffee maker, but that would be too easy.

This morning my brain feels a little bit scrambled because I decided to write, then caffeinate. Those entries always come out a bit weird, because you are literally watching my initiation sequence. My brain never stops running. Thank God you never stop reading.

The Music That Gets Me Through the Day

October 11, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I woke up in a funky mood:

I hummed when I didn’t know all the words and sang when I did, my mind on my money and my money on my mind. There are very few words I don’t know by now…. And in fact I used this first line in a sermon once… The only line from this particular song I could use. But the illustration was about how music commits words to memory, much like the early church did with settings and psalms. It was a new spin on old advice from Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor of Riverside Church in New York City:

“Every good sermon begins in New York and ends in Jerusalem, or begins in Jerusalem and ends in New York.” Start with modern and bring in the scriptures, or start with the scriptures and end in modern day.

The other piece of advice I got in preaching, incidentally, is “when you run out of things to say, stop talking.”

I can do that in a sermon because I can track with an audience and tell when they’re bored, either changing direction or realizing I’ve lost them and wrapping up before I embarrass myself further. My lay preaching career, like all preaching careers, was hit and miss. Sometimes I was on fire. Sometimes the best people could do was, “your skirt was too short.” I guess I started wearing men’s clothing a Sunday too late.

The Gourds’ cover started in my head before I even woke up, and repeated in my head until I got to our next song, the song I sing when I miss Aada:

She, also, talked to me before I woke up, because she appears in my dreams as a wise sage occasionally. When she does, I think about all I’ve done and all I’ve left undone with her. The times we’ve shared in the past, even digitally, will stay with me as I move forward. Perhaps sometime later in life Aada will change her mind and lift the ban on interacting with me. I know that she will never just forget me, and will continue to respect me as a writer even if she does not choose to reach out. She would get angry at me if I asked her to leave me alone, telling me that I don’t have a leg to stand on in terms of losing fans.

But I would rather lose a fan than have someone show up here thinking that my thoughts at large are specifically targeted at her and not people like Bob Lynn, who showed up and worked through a few things with me at a time I needed it. In other ways, knowing that Aada is most likely reading from afar is comforting, because these are the only words of mine she has left. That may not mean much to her right now, but it may in the years to come when she is searching for the pieces of herself she found in me.

We moved like ships in the night, an asynchronous support system that was always on call. I wanted that to last my whole life, but my disease said, “not so fast, Leslie.”

My disease is not my personality, and I will spend a lifetime compensating for it if my past is any indication. Therapy and my cognitive behavioral health group are slowly putting me back together after what has been a wild and crazy ride, especially if you’ve been reading my blog entries over the past few months.

But I wouldn’t take nothing for my journey now, because I’ve laid out everything I’m willing to lay down for my friends and they’ve said no. I hear them, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have things to write about that involve them. I don’t get another story to write about while my real life is happening.

The most vehement supporter became the most vehement critic and the only thing that changed was that I was holding a mirror up to her face. She alternately agreed with me and not, and that’s what made her so angry. That I could read her like a book in some ways, but the ways in which I fell short were almost certainly because we didn’t say, “let’s go for lunch and clear all this up.” We would have become real to each other- and thus harder to rattle because our relationship was solid and not every day a new person wants out because the other has said two or three things they don’t like. Popping off like that was not one-sided

So now we’ve arrived at our last song, one I mentioned yesterday as being important to my lunch with Jane Ann as well:

I do not know whether this is really the end of my relationship with Aada because it has always stopped and started. I just have to guess that this is really the end and try to separate the best I can, because if I showed up again she’d just accuse me of opening a wound. That’s the last thing I’d ever want to do, because if I showed up again it would be to rebuild trust. To say that I absolutely do care, but I have a disorder that needs to be managed and we need to create boundaries around it. I think I have gone back to my normal self, but she may not. It’s not up to me to judge how long she’s hurt or even how she feels about me at all.

Therefore, I believe that there should be meditation in cathedrals of our own, because the pressure of trying to put everything back together the minute it broke is too much to expect of anyone. The conflict needs room to breathe, and Aada may be right. Our story may be over. But as I have said before, I never know what is going to make Aada reach out to me once she’s really had time to think about the relationship…. Or forget what’s wrong with it, take your pick.

She tells me she has a save the world complex, but I do, too. We were just two little girls trying to save each other, until both of us turned against each other. We were at a loss as to how to communicate, so I folded and made her choice for her. I made it impossible for her to want to interact with me because I knew I was not good for her. I’m a writer, a public figure. She made friends with a public figure when she had absolutely no business doing so, in retrospect. I didn’t mean to cause her pain at any time during these 12 years, but there’s no way I could tell the truth and write “The World According to Aada.” That’s Aada’s truth to own, and it’s no less valid than mine.

The problem is that she has told everyone her story about me except me, and my boundaries are simple. If you have a problem with me, tell me about it. And for God’s sakes, don’t lie. She had a habit of saving up all her frustrations with me and writing me these long letters telling me why she’d been so avoidant instead of being up front in the first place….. Not a people pleaser except in front of me because she was trying to impress me.

You cannot impress me more than I’d already been impressed. I thought she was the bees knees until she told me that a lie that was a gut punch (and she knew it), but it was an inert lie because it was to impress me. That was not the case, and it is the cathedral of my own, the cross I bear because I keep thinking, “what would it have been like if you told me you lied 12 years ago instead of weaving this complete tale of bullshit?”

I am hoping that because we’ve leveled each other an equal amount, that gives us both a chance to let go of anger and come to peace…. Piece by piece by piece.