Category: Uncategorized

In Some Ways, I’m Still Waiting

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?
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The curiosity of the neurodivergent brain, to me, is that we do not age. Patterns repeat, but memories are organized differently due to time blindness. Events that seem more important are closer at hand, no matter what year they occurred. Events that are of lesser significance feel further away, even if they happened more recently. Dates and times become muddled quickly, which is why we seem like we’re “lying.” Our brains don’t often have the recall to say what we were doing at a particular date and time because it’s a crapshoot that we even know what day and time it is.

But, of course, other neurodivergent people will have to comment on their own brains to know if this is especially universal or I’m just an unusual patient. But I don’t think so. I’ve heard about these symptoms from too many people to think I’m special.

Because significant events far in the past seem close at hand, we have no friendship degradation mechanisms. If Aada and I reconnect later in life after enough time to breathe and let the hurt heal, we will be as close as we were 12 years ago because there’s nothing in my brain to say we won’t. I will remember most conversations forever and they will be important to me, therefore “bigger” in my memory banks. I have friends from third grade who could call me up in the same way even though we have not spoken since the late 1980s.

I am often too old for the room and too childlike to be taken seriously. I do not know how I pull this off, but a reader actually nailed it….. “You’re like a 15-year-old boy….. And his mother.”

Therefore, I have many moments that make me feel like an adult, with it being impossible to remember the first.

There are snippets.

Going with my dad to weddings and funerals at an early age made me feel older than I really am, because I saw myself as a support system to my dad early on. I became an expert at greeting families in distress when I was far too young to really take all of it in- it was social masking.

I get “you don’t look autistic” a lot.

That’s probably because the diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder includes a lot that hasn’t been previously, and the research on women just didn’t exist before now. I can assure you that it had a profound effect on my growth and development, because now that I have an AI chatbot that will spit out reference material, I have gone down the rabbit hole. There’s also nothing more complete than a research study by an autistic person on whether they’re autistic or not.

I could have saved a lot of time by just asking my autistic friends if they thought I was autistic. That’s a thing you can do because if you are autistic, you’ll ping what’s jokingly known as a “neuroscope,” a kind of kin to “gaydar.” But there’s so much crossover between autistic and queer that 80% of the time, you’re using the same “spidey sense.”

The hardest part about having ADHD and autism at the same time is that I have a concrete need for a system and no way to create it. That makes me look like a child more than anything else, and why I still feel I’m waiting to be a real adult. I am in desperate need of coping mechanisms, so much so that I am looking for more groups to plug into and more therapy to get where I want to go.

I’ve started with really investing in my Google Suite. Not so much Mail, because most people instant message now. But calendaring, tasks, contacts, everything is all together in one place. Alarms go off on my phone for everything from meetings to medication reminders.

I joke that right now my iPhone is pinch hitting as my service dog, and it is not doing a very bad job except for the cuddles.

People also look at you differently when you say you’re putting together a disability case, because it makes you look childlike in their eyes and sometimes it also evokes pity…. Especially when you don’t need it. I have never fit into a system other than my own, and I need to harness it. There is nothing that says as I start making more money I have to stay on disability, but right now it is necessary to keep me stable.

I do not have problems interviewing and getting jobs. I have a hard time holding one down, and this is not unusual for any type of neurodivergence or mental illness. I am tired of going over the laundry list of what’s wrong with me and why, because most people want to know why I look able bodied but I’m not.

Invisible illnesses are still illnesses and deserving of respect. Disability gives me room to be ill, whereas a job will rebel at my number of absences and tardiness. I have been the best employee and still gotten fired for not being able to handle my life. But it’s not just mental maladies, my cerebral palsy makes me move in a weird way… So even though I may not look disabled at first pass, most people don’t look close enough to notice what I live with every day.

Taking in my environment is hard work, and other people are busy taking in information that I miss while I’m still trying to catch up. My social masks for it are failing because my scripts don’t compile as fast. As Aada put it, God gave me a brain that works a thousand miles a minute and a body that fights me every step of the way, but I’m paraphrasing.

But that very paradox is why I have trouble seeming like a grown up to the people around me. I’m also short, which doesn’t help. I haven’t dyed my hair in eons because the gray makes it plausible that I’m at least above 18.

But again, I do not write these things to evoke pity. It is just my ever-present reality to walk in the world as part adult, part child….. And it seems like it has always been that way because when I was little, I social masked adults. I have always been too old to be a child and too young to be an adult.

No friendship degradation also means that it’s hard for me to move on from Aada in terms of knowing it’s okay to put someone else above here and always has been, it’s been my own bag. It was just easier that way, and the easy way turned into the hard way later on.

But I’d like to think that if she’d told me about her lie in person and gave me some time to blow off steam that our relationship would be a very different proposition today. I am so sorry I turned on my keyboard warrior asshole when I was upset; Aada didn’t deserve that much rage. But she also deserved to let me breathe through the consequences she’d laid out for me and just watched as they’d turned more and more negative.

I told her about a relationship it affected and she said she wasn’t responsible for all of that. She’s right, she wasn’t responsible for all of it, but she wouldn’t even take responsibility for the part she did cause. She wasn’t even close to the entire cause of Dana and I divorcing, but she didn’t take responsibility for the small role she had there, too. She introduced a wedge between me and Dana, then swore me to secrecy from my wife. How well has keeping secrets from your partner ever worked out for you? Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.

I’m not talking about blaming her for everything. I’m talking about shared responsibility. We both cratered this relationship at different times and apologized for it. We’ve both behaved badly. We’ve both wrestled each other to the ground. To say it’s all one person’s fault is crazy.

However, I also don’t mind if people read my story and choose to believe that Aada is right. The truth is only what seems true to me. I have no ability to rise above and read Aada’s mind and represent her feelings accurately.

My conjecture has proven to be adult and childlike.

I suppose the first time I ever really felt like an adult was when I laid it on the line with Aada and told her to buck up, buttercup. But I can’t tell you what I actually said, because I think she would take exception to that. But I basically explained to her why I needed a yellow string to her and why it hurt when she was falling down on the job. Not, “you must do this for me.” It’s “if I don’t explain what I mean, I will not have a chance of explaining why it’s important.” Most of it had to do with my writing as I got bigger and bigger in my stats. Most of it had to do with the train wreck I predicted 12 years ago and I hit head on.

But she accused me of acting like a child, and not an angry adult that had a right to be angry.

Not like that, but still.

I handled everything wrong, but I cannot say that means she handled everything right.

So, when was the first time I felt like an adult? When I cut the yellow string and had to deal, finally, with my own problems.

Walking, But Not After Midnight

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

It takes a lot of strength for me to get out and walk, because I have an ataxic gait, or what’s known inside the community as “the cerebral palsy shuffle.” I can’t walk in a straight line to save my life, and it’s lucky I’ve never been tested on it, okkkkkkkk….. Dana’s DUI scared me straight. I didn’t need to get one of my own. I’m wobbly enough on two feet and four wheels. I hope Aaron didn’t ride with me and think, “this is bad on so many levels.” I just have to remember that Aaron has ridden with me for hours and hours, and I can’t have had a dumbass attack during all of them.

Taking the hose out of the gas pump while it was still running must have been a highlight, though…….. #dumbassattack

I thought it had clicked.

Morgan Freeman: It had not clicked.

I suppose that it’s okay for me to start driving again, but I’ll have to move to New Jersey to compensate because apparently I am not smart enough to pump my own gas.

Being on the road again was freeing. I didn’t have any trouble picking up driving again because I’ve found new tricks, like Adaptive Cruise Control, which monitors the traffic and allows you to choose how many car lengths you want in front of you. I have never had such a thing, nor have I had blind spot and lane assist. These are all of the things with which my lack of 3D vision struggle. All of them. I can be a good driver now because I do not have to rely on my adaptations for driving. The car will scream at me instead of my mother.

Well, my sister now, but you get the drift.

I’ve always been safer with a passenger to pick up the blind spots I miss, which is why I didn’t take that road trip from Houston to Baltimore all by myself. Yes, I have technology, but my disabilities get worse as I get tired. My solution for this, given driving from Houston to Portland in my 20s, is to sleep really well and drive when I have the most energy (very early in the morning). That way, when I reach a stopping point there’s still time for dinner and lots more rest.

Perhaps a margarita as big as Dana’s head, because she has the bigger head.

That is a joke she herself made, and I hope she laughs out loud if she gets here.

The bit actually goes:

Leslie: I want a margarita as big as my head.
Dana: I do, too.
Leslie: I want a margarita as big as her head, too, because she has the bigger head.
Dana: You have the taller head, but mine has more circumference.

In order for me to be entertaining, I have to be dragged out of my house by an extrovert. It is a deep knowing and the bane of my existence.

It’s the ’tism.

My social battery empties fast, which is different than being shy. I can be charming and engaging, then my eyes will flash and I am done in a “get me out of here before I pass out” kind of way.

This isn’t true when a conversation is giving me energy, but small talk with people I’ve never met feels intimidating. Oh, and I also don’t like only knowing one person at a party because I tend to regress into my shell and become “needy Nelly.” Much better to be able to connect with lots of people so I don’t look like I’m hanging on for dear life until I get “jumped in.”

I don’t think many people would describe me as such, because again, my compensatory skills are off the charts. My inner struggle does not come across because all autistic kids learn to social mask. Few social masks are as fine-tuned as mine because I grew up as a Methodist preacher’s kid. That gave me heuristics on thousands of people’s behavior at once.

I would say that I really started to loosen up once my father left the church, but there are still parts of me that are very conservative, like the way I dress. I never want to look as if I am for sale. That is not how I view other women who dress up, that is how I feel when I do. I have walked the earth as a nonbinary person for so long that makeup and heels feel like drag.

I didn’t even wear a dress to my stepmother’s funeral, and if I was going to fall to the tyranny of women’s clothing, that would have been the occasion to do it. But I was comfortable in Dockers, a button down, and a jacket.

But it’s not just the look of women’s clothing. It tends to restrict my movements. I would rather dress in clothes that make me feel secure and confident. When I wear heels, I am in danger of falls that hurt even more than normal. I wonder if playing with fashion would come more naturally to me if I liked playing with gender, but I don’t. Everything I wear is unisex.

I like to look people in the eye. I like to shake hands. Both of these things are harder when I am unsteady on my feet. Many times I have reached out to shake hands in heels and, because the person was expecting a hug, I pitched forward. I noticed that most everyone expected hugs in Texas, and I’d been trained out of it.

Consent is not as much of a thing in Texas because hugging is a cultural norm. I hugged someone without asking and it caused such unrest I never hugged anyone on first meeting again. It is true that hugs are familiar and intimate across a spectrum to different people. For Southerners, it’s perfectly normal for someone to say, “I’m a hugger!” Then they pull you into their bodies while you’re trying to figure out what just happened.

I have noticed that this is a female mask, for the most part… that men do not expect hugs from each other.

No homo.

I was absolutely overwhelmed at all the love that poured out for us at my stepmother’s death. It was gigantic, the big love that we all hope we’ll get. But it was also a wall that seemed ten feet tall to my autism as I social masked my way through an enormous receiving line.

I was very lucky that I got to go out for lunch with my first psychiatrist and now my friend, Jane Ann.

Well, first psychiatrist is a stretch. She’s been a friend of my family for years so she just referred me to a friend. But she counts. 🙂

We chatted about all our mutual experiences and it reminded me of the line from Summer, Highland Falls (Billy Joel):

“They say that these are not the best of times, but they’re the only times I’ve ever known. I believe there is a time for meditation in cathedrals of our own.”

And

“For all our mutual experiences, our separate conclusions are the same.”

Lunch was a meditation because instead of questions, I got answers. I asked if I could pick her doctor brain and she said “yes.” That was the coolest part because Jane Ann is literally incapable of talking down to anyone. We talked psychiatry like I’d been in the business for years….. when really, I’m just a more educated patient than most.

I also told her that short hair Jane Ann was my favorite action figure, and she said, “I’ll get it cut tomorrow.” Please update me on whether she has actually done this. 😉

The lunch came at just the right time to make me relax. Now that our doctor/patient relationship was gone, we could meet each other as equals. She was just as open and candid as me, but not in a trauma-dumping sort of way. Just empathy flowing in both directions because mutual experiences led to separate conclusions in our own lives.

After lunch, Jane Ann dropped me off at Brené Brown’s talk, where I had plenty of desserts and a great time seeing Dr. Brown up close. I was on the second row.

Then, my sister, dad, and brother-in-law took me to Chuy’s for my birthday do-over. We went to the one at Westheimer and Kirby because of course we did.

I DID NOT RUN INTO A DOOR.

You have to be an OG to get that one.

Or be the person who said Dana left a hint for her, one of the two. I still don’t know who that is, or if someone was just pranking me. I will probably never know, because that Facebook Messenger conversation doesn’t exist. Or, at least, when I go through my messages I find other conversations that refer to it, but not the conversation itself.

I will always be confused, but it was that conversation that made my doctors think I was hallucinating. I couldn’t reproduce the results. All I know is that those people, whomever they were, kept repeating the phrase, “you are the best.” They would say it sincerely in one story and facetiously in another.

There were two stories.

The first is that Heytch and her husband were poly, happily married but both wanted other things. The plan was to take me to Africa after a visit to an ice hotel in Finland. I was supposed to meet Heytch at the hospital, where she had a ton of surprises waiting for me that never materialized. The hospital changed around me as all the people who talked to me cleared out.

The other story was that I’d caused Heytch to lose a race, that I’d introduced infidelity into the campaign that never happened. That her misfortune was all my fault, and “I am the best.” But the story still ended in me being forgiven, and me being invited to live with Heytch and her husband as simply part of the crew…. because Heytch isn’t like that.

The Facebook message was complete with a video of the hotel we were going to, and a picture of Heytch’s hand bound seemingly to mine in her art (I didn’t even know she painted…. and maybe she doesn’t depending on who was behind all this). Again, I am very confused and it’s part of why I ran from Aada. She is the only person on earth that has enough information on me to make my experiences a reality.

Some of my experiences were nightmares.

I still don’t know who brought the green shirt into the hospital, or how to explain why it affected me so much. Smell memory took me back to a closet in the Big Yellow House.

It was very much like the Wizard of Oz, where I woke up to “and you were there, and you….” But it was just Facebook Messenger and the ability to delete everything once the conversation is over.

Because of course this sounds like a hallucination if you weren’t sitting in my bedroom with me. It sounds like a hallucination that I talked to Counselor, but I know I said “hi.” And then I choked.

Counselor.

What in the hell was I up against?

I felt like I was in a deposition pretty quickly. My editing software went haywire.

It was Wicked.

But it also landed me a diagnosis that I don’t think is correct. My information doesn’t come from my own echo chamber, but a trip down memory lane once I got to the hospital. Everyone I’d ever loved walked through at one point or another.

There were other traces of coincidence or not…. like the especially pointed edition of “Our Daily Bread.” Like the coloring book with Amy Coney Barrett. Like a guy walking up to me and saying, “if I was dead, you could have her.”

No, the hell I couldn’t and who are you talking about?

My hospitalization was overall a success, but I really didn’t start to heal until I got out and into my Cognitive Behavioral Health group. It’s sort of like AA in that we share our experiences, but departs from it into dealing with our disorders. Most of us are bipolar. A few are schizophrenic. We’re all struggling together. Most, if not all of us are neurodivergent in one way or another. We’re all struggling together. It’s the struggling together that makes us better, and though you have that in the hospital, you don’t have it for long.

There’s two people that were in the hospital with me at CBH, and they’re the ones I see and smile because it’s a way to chart progress. I still believe that what happened to me was real, but I am trying not to dwell on it because it’s such an elaborate scheme I can’t believe anyone would want to inflict that much pain.

But I know it was payback for all the pain I’ve inflicted on others…. or at least, that’s how I took it. These people are trying to tell me something, so I might as well listen.

The problem was that absolutely none of it was true. Heytch didn’t even show up at the hospital, much less take me to Finland and Africa. If I’d had the sense God gave a goose, I wouldn’t have gone to the hospital at all and would have relied on the fact that since it’d been 12 years since we’d spoken, this claim was bogus.

What I did believe was that I was invited to live with Heytch and her family after this was all over, because that part seemed sincere, as well as the “we’re not like that.” I believed the right story and was comforted by it. It was up to me to choose, so I picked the one that sounded the most plausible.

Heytch even had an organization set up on my release, but I wont’ tell you the name in case it gives too much away regarding her identity…. of which I have already probably given too much.

But I have to tell my own story, and this is what happened to me. I will be incredibly sorry if Heytch doesn’t know anything about this and has to piece together who would do something like this to her.

In the moment, everything was real because it was. Afterwards, I couldn’t prove anything.

So what do I think?

I think that’s how the story is supposed to end.

Fin.

Growing Pains

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

It’s 3:35 AM as I start writing this entry. I am normally asleep at this time, but my schedule has been thrown into disarray that not even a sleeping pill could override. I wasn’t altogether ready to come home from Texas, because my dad was sick and his birthday was 9 Oct. However, I think my family was ready to get back into the swing of things, and that meant me getting back to where I belong. I’d been in Texas since 22 Sept, when my stepmother lost the ability to swallow and if I was going to get to say goodbye, I better come now.

We had a good conversation and farewell.

The funeral was beautiful and ethereal because it was so grounded. All of my stepmother’s doctors and nurses wore their scrubs.

But because of my time blindness, it did not feel like I was gone that long. In fact, the events were so packed together that I wish I’d slowed down a little.

The only real time I had to myself in Texas was driving back and forth between Bastrop and Houston. Now, I’m faced with as much alone time as I want, up to and including total isolation. My cognitive behavioral therapy group wouldn’t let that happen for long, though.

My point is that if I want my life to be different, I have to be different. The last 12 years have been built on isolation, and I know I do not want that anymore. I need to plug in somewhere and be of service, and I think that it’s time to find a church.

It’s the only way I know how to make friends as an adult. I generally join the choir because the language of music makes easy kinship. How much I get involved in church past that really depends on how much I like being there.

But I will always choose the church with the more strenuous music program because that’s the main reason I go. I can pray in isolation, but I cannot be the whole choir by myself.

It would be good to get back into music education because it’s a reminder that there’s something bigger than myself out there… a connection to the divine through the cunning use of math and physics. I’ve missed it, both singing and playing my horn. Playing my horn is unlikely to happen unless I get my mouth overhauled. My teeth cannot take the vibrations.

I like the idea of getting back into working those muscles. I’m a strong singer because I started in band, and singers who read music (especially sight reading) are rare. I don’t have that problem, but I’m also not the best singer out there. I work hard, and that’s enough for me.

I’m trying to get back into the rhythm of reaching out instead of reaching inward, because I do believe that there is a time and place for self-reliance. I also believe that the pendulum can swing too far and you get in danger of needing a life preserver without being able to ask for it.

I decided that I could be embarrassed by my entries, or I could heal myself with them instead. That’s the kind of self-reliance I need, because when everyone else goes away I still have this space to connect with the still, small voice inside me. The fact that strangers listen to this voice and comment when I’m finished will never not be strange, but it is strange in an uplifting way. A stranger cares.

Some of you are not even strangers as I look at my stats and think, “I know who lives there.” It’s interesting to see that people who’ve walked out of my life for any reason at all are still drawn here. It makes me feel weird that while I’m not fit for friendship, I have entertainment value.

Or perhaps I’m just being watched to make sure I’m not crazier than advertised, and that’s okay, too. I’m sure I’ve caused a lot of unrest over the 48 years I’ve been alive, and readers are readers……

I am not crazier than advertised. I have no problem talking about my struggles with mental health issues and have no qualms about saying “these are the things I struggle to manage.”

One of the biggest things I’m struggling to manage is how to convert the feeling I got when I wanted to write to Aada into the feeling I need to write a blog entry…. that there’s no information that needs to go specifically to her anymore and that energy needs to be directed. I have a feeling she’s reading every word, anyway, just based on a good hunch from my stats.

Sometimes I wonder if she’s struggling with not being the place I write before I write here. I know I struggle not having that sandbox, but every piece of information that I wish I could write to her will appear here eventually. There’s just a time and place for everything, and a lot of what I went through the past two weeks needs air.

Or needs Aada, I don’t know which.

What I do know is that she would have heard the notes of sadness in my voice and wrapped her digital arm around my shoulder.

When I think of her that way, the relationship doesn’t feel so over. I don’t get freaked out that she’s still a fan. If she’s still a fan, it means that she still wants some sort of connection to me to make sure I’m doing all right without her. It makes me wish she was a blogger so I could do the same- make sure she’s all right without interfering. But that’s just wishful thinking because even though she’s a great writer, blogging’s not her jam.

It doesn’t feel fair that she gets to lurk in my life and I don’t get to lurk in hers, but life’s not fair. I chose to be a public figure, she didn’t. She gets to keep her privacy, I don’t.

That’s why it is fair, it just doesn’t feel like it. I chose this life where my feelings are on display. Aada didn’t like it, especially when the people around her put two and two together and figured out who she was here. Believe me I do not want to know how any of Aada’s work colleagues know who I am, nor do I give two shits that people in her personal life figured it out because I was tasked with being so careful. I told Aada that I could never be careful enough, that we’d run into problems if we didn’t work together.

She didn’t listen to me for 12 years that I thought I could hurt her on my blog and she continued to say that there’s nothing I could write that would hurt her until it did.

She liked reading The War Daniel’s takedowns of me, but didn’t think it was fair that I posted her flame on Medium, as if she was more different, more special than anyone else in my life and deserved more protection than any of them. Whether that is true or not I do not know and didn’t take care to learn.

She didn’t protect me from consequences, so I didn’t protect her.

I should have, anyway. I should have let her get away with lying to me because I should have been the bigger person.

I’m wondering if Aada is thinking of me right now, because I got a hit on her Finnish baby post yesterday. It could just be a fluke, but it’s a nice thought nonetheless. Comforting, if not based in reality.

I do get a lot of hits from her location.

People do come back and find the entries they like after a long time when they want to feel close to me, but don’t actually want to reach out. It’s like they’re mourning me while I’m alive, and I get to watch from above. I’m definitely not sure that’s healthy, and why I want to promote myself with some ads- try and get my stats high enough that people can afford to be anonymous to me.

It’s really the next step on the ladder of success. I just need to research what kinds of ads will do the most good. It’s also about finding the right entries to promote, so I’ll start with the ones that have gotten the most praise already.

I’d also like to write more articles that have an academic focus for Medium, and I’ll be getting together topics for them. I’m capable of more than a scratch journal, and I intend to prove it.

My mind keeps going back to the thought that Aada is thinking of me even though she doesn’t want to reach out. I find it both comforting and sad…. bittersweet and melancholy in all the right ways…. but it could be that my mind is making all this up.

But what does one do other than comfort themselves in the middle of the night? In the middle of the night, all things are possible.

I miss her, too, and wish I could go back over her e-mails to me, but I deleted them all. Well, not all. I have the most recent ones. But the bulk of them is gone. There are no longer millions of words between us and that is positive. I would spend forever trying to prove to myself that moving on isn’t real.

Moving on is very real, but I hope she knows that this is her choice and not mine. That I am cognizant of the fact that she’s doing what’s best for her, but my feelings of regret are genuine and my door will never be closed. I don’t want to close myself off from proving that trust can be rebuilt on both sides, starting at zero. I do not pray for much these days, but I do pray for that.

I don’t think that either one of us gave the other the grace that love requires. I would like to prove that I’m capable of it. But I don’t want the same relationship with Aada that I’ve always had, either, because I don’t think that amount of isolation did me any favors.

What would it be like to introduce Aada to Bryn, Evan, Aaron, even my sister and my dad?

It would give us a basis in reality, everything we lost being a secretive bubble unto ourselves. Isolating did us no favors, because there was no one to referee the match.

It would have been a different relationship altogether if her husband and I had gotten to look at each other with knowing, amused looks and said, “it takes a village.”

It felt like living in the closet, because I’m so close to this person but I’m not allowed to say anything about them?

It would have been a different relationship altogether had we not trauma dumped everything, cultivating an instamacy that sunk us both in the end. I am much more circumspect these days, and keep my story to myself. I have learned that rabbit holes are almost always more trouble than they’re worth.

I think, and this is important for her to know if I am indeed correct, that the longer she reads the more I hold out hope that this isn’t the end of our movie. That I’ll go on to write more and different things, getting away from this time in our lives and making her feel comfortable enough to reestablish contact. If I stopped seeing that particular location in my stats, I would be sad, but I would know that our movie has ended. If it is my responsibility to stay away from her, then it is her responsibility to stay away from me.

I don’t want all of this to be any harder than it has to be, but again I am saying my father’s mantra:

  1. Nothing will ever be the same.
  2. Everything will be okay.

My life and career will not go the way I’ve planned for the last 12 years if Aada and I do not make up, and that’s okay. Just because the future is not going to be the same does not mean it won’t be okay. There is always a Plan B, or however many plans it takes to get to the one that actually fits you.

International Man of Mystery, Part II

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
If you had a million dollars to give away, who would you give it to?
View all responses

Apparently, I should have waited until today to say that I wanted to be a philanthropist. 😉

Yesterday, I picked to give money to Water.org, and that is still at the top of my list just because I would hope it would lead to more projects with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. But there are other organizations that are near and dear to my heart. So let’s just pretend that I have already achieved the billions of dollars it would take to fix the world and this is just free money- I’m writing a check to World Central Kitchen.

Or perhaps I’m writing out that check to me, to make The Sinners’ Table a reality. It’s a project I’ve been working on in fits and starts for a long time, bringing dinner with dignity to the homeless. The chef I was working on it with, John-Michael Kinkaid, was killed in a car accident last December and I’ve been floundering on it. But “dinner with dignity” isn’t a trite phrase, it’s fine dining for people who couldn’t afford it, plus a place to plug into the kitchen if they’d like to learn a trade.

I still think it’s a good idea and would like to work with more people on it. But my fire for the project is tempered as it becomes the John Kinkaid Memorial Sinners’ Table. That part may or may not make it onto the t-shirts, but the project doesn’t have anyone else’s fingerprint on it except mine, and mine isn’t worth much. It’s why I’d like to go to culinary school and re-learn the basics, plus earn a degree that will help me. I have scouted out Finnish culinary schools because they are free, but it depends on a lot if I’ll be able to go. Alternatively, I might have enough money to go to culinary school in the United States, but I don’t know that yet, or even if I’d want to do so. Part of the appeal of going to culinary school was getting out of the United States…….

Perhaps the answer is to apply for a job at World Central Kitchen so that I have some experience working inside that organization before I build my own. I know that it would be different than working in a restaurant, that the pace for prep and service would be a marginally slower pace than in a restaurant. It might be something I could hack, and even better if they had jobs answering phones or collecting donations. I would like to know how to run a nonprofit just as much as I’d like to cook.

I have so many pie in the sky dreams that it’s hard to know where to start, but the basic premise of the prompt is easy. I have a million dollars to give away. I chose World Central Kitchen to receive it all because according to yesterday’s prompt, I am already a billionaire philanthropist who cannot fail. 😉

Jose, the check is not in the mail because this is a fictional exercise, but know that if someone gave me a million dollars to give away, I would be hard pressed to find people more deserving than WCK. My sister and I hit up your restaurants all the time because not only do we eat well, we feel good about supporting you as you feed war-torn Europe and beyond.

But see, the thing is that I would love to be in charge of sending checks to organizations that help people in need. The perfect job for me is giving away money, or it would be if I was talented at finance. In my head, I am capable of giving away money. Realistically, I need to hire someone who will tell me if I can give away money or not. 😉 I am the type person who would find themselves unable function after giving their last dollar to someone else.

I should at least think about volunteering somewhere, because there’s no shortage of opportunities with World Central Kitchen and the thousands of other ministries between DC and Baltimore to help the less fortunate. I’m in a stronger position with my disability case if I am a volunteer rather than working, so now I have arrived at a direction.

In choosing my next neighborhood, I’d like to have a church within walking distance. That narrows my search down a little bit because there’s only a handful of churches I mean. If there’s no rainbow and Black Lives Matter flags in the yard, I don’t want it.

Most of my ability to give without thinking comes from the idea that Jesus was sent here to distress the comfortable, not to comfort the distressed. It’s a paradigm shift from white nationalist Christianity- I am unapologetically in favor of liberation theology. It’s what sets me apart as a social justice warrior who thinks that more people would be happy if they stopped thinking about what happens after they die and try to bring heaven here.

A million dollars won’t bring the entirety of heaven to earth, but it’s a million dollars closer than I was before this prompt.

Vulnerability

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What’s the trait you value most about yourself?
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The trait I value most about myself is that I’m not afraid to say the quiet part out loud.

I’m learning that there aren’t many quiet parts in life because the more you’re able to be vulnerable, the more you’re able to get empathy. The more you’re able to get empathy, the more you want to give that feeling to others. Shutting yourself off from the world is definitely a thing you can do, but how it helps? Not so sure I liked it when I was touch starved and lonely for so many years. I’ve had more hugs in the last few days than I have in the last four or five years.

It’s how I realized family was so important and that I needed to cultivate it in Baltimore if I was going to stay. Going home would be the easiest choice, but not necessarily the right one because it’s the most expensive.

But perhaps the most expensive is the best for my mental health, and I have to do what’s best for it. I would have to learn to ignore a lot of the world around me and focus on making myself a better person, because there is nothing I can do about the state of Texas politics except vote and encourage others. But I’m not going to release anyone from a cult, and that’s what Texas politics has become in its service to the president.

Houston has a lot of crime, but there are also a lot of Trump voters here. That’s why I doubt that Houston’s crime rate matters. It’s more politically expedient to target Democratic strongholds. Baltimore is probably going to be next. If the National Guard cleans up the city by actually cleaning, that would be great. There are parts of the city that look absolutely war-torn, and we could use the help. But that kind of help is not what the president means to imply.

I am hoping that the National Guard will show itself to be for America by protecting protestors rather than creating violent situations.

But thinking about all of these things makes me focus less on taking care of myself. I don’t mean to be selfish, but taking care of myself is work that I’ve been ignoring. My social masking and compensatory skills are off the charts for all the adaptations I’ve developed to cover my weird, but now that I’m old they don’t work.

My body cannot compensate as fast, because what medical disorder gets better? I am at a loss as to what to do, because I need my family in a different way than I ever have before, but my safety and security legally and medically is in a blue state.

Plus, I love access to the water. Whether it’s the Potomac, the Willamette, or the Chesapeake, I just like being on the coast. I know within myself that Oregon is probably off the table for right now, but may be a possibility later in life if Evan and I are successful at writing this cookbook and need to collaborate full time.

I will be able to make a better decision once my car gets here and I can spend the day driving around and looking at neighborhoods. I’m becoming convinced that both Baltimore and the DMV are possibilities, I just have to make up my mind quickly. The DMV is easier for Lindsay and there’s plenty of support for me in Rockville. I already have everything set up here, but it would be easy enough to transfer.

I am also pretty sure that I am Baltimore weird and not DC dress-up. Now that I have a car, it doesn’t feel like I live any further away from downtown DC than my friends in the outer reaches of Northern Virginia. It just feels longer to people from Virginia. 😉

I suppose it can be with traffic, but I don’t have to get out in it. I can wait until it dies down, though there’s always a little bit of traffic between the two cities.

Again, it’s too early to tell without a car to explore, but I’d love to live in a walkable neighborhood so that the only time I needed to drive was to pick up groceries and go on road trips.

Short ones, if I’m by myself.

I look forward to them, as my next will probably be to visit friends for Halloween in upstate New York. I have mentioned this if you are a fan. I’m mentioning it again because it’s something to look forward to down the road, literally.

In the meantime, I’ve been staring at my stats wondering why I appeal to such a worldwide audience. What is it about me that translates to India, for instance? I have a lot of Indian fans and it makes me happy because it’s fun wondering what their daily lives might entail. I’ve also thought about getting a t-shirt made that says, “I’m kind of a big deal in India.” I just don’t know what to say when questioned. 😉

I am not “kind of a big deal” in India. I’ve just noticed that most of my overseas fans are from there. And in fact, I’m interested in all of my nonwhite fans, because I speak out on a lot of issues that should be people of color’s voices first.

I get it wrong sometimes because I’m white. I’m also capable of being taught when I’ve erred. White fragility does not apply to me because I’m desperately interested in learning how to be a better ally. I’m trying to show that I may not have walked a mile in a black person’s shoes, but as a queer person I know where they pinch.

I wish that people would feel the same outrage they’d feel at SCOTUS overturning “Loving” for “Obergefell.”Too many straight people feel that being queer is a sin, voting on things that have never affected them and shouldn’t be up for debate. Gay people getting married should have had to be approved by straight people. We exist and want to partner up whether you’re in our lives or not. I wish that settled law would stay settled, but if “Roe” has been overturned, there’s no limit to what could happen in America’s future.

It’s why I’m still thinking about school abroad while Trump is president and then reassessing whether I’d like to come back. It just depends on who would have me, but being nonbinary opens up options.

It really depends on what my dad and sister think. I wouldn’t want to put myself in a situation where they couldn’t come and visit easily. But that is relative because they both love to travel. I just need to focus on myself so that I can take these big changes in stride.

Nothing is more important than getting a good night’s rest, because I find that I can handle more during the day if I sleep well. I am trying to create a morning routine for myself, which is being met by resistance from my demand avoidance.

My therapist has their work cut out for them, as do I. The hallmark of neurodivergence is not being able to create habits… that every task takes the same amount of energy no matter how many times you’ve done it because nothing goes on autopilot. I haven’t been coping well in the past, which is why cognitive behavioral therapy is so important to my future.

It takes a lot of chutzpah to admit that anything is wrong with you, because of course I care about what people think. I just care about telling my truth more, because it attracts the right people to me. I wouldn’t get along in life very well if my friends and family couldn’t put up with my blog entries.

I have already had one friend accuse me of using my blog to manipulate her, but I hope that is fading now that she’s out of my life and my story hasn’t changed at all. I am using the Oasis model of “Don’t Look Back in Anger.” I’m not a manipulator, and no one says that when they first start reading. They say that after they’ve known me for a long time and are a part of the story.

I don’t know how to manage writing about my life without ruffling any feathers, and in fact told Aada that I would burn the whole thing down and start writing books if she’d edit them. It was a bargain that didn’t work because she was too angry to listen to me.

But I don’t have a history of lying to her.

It was my way of saying, “I know your career is more important than mine and I know I messed up.” It was not an insincere offer in the slightest, because at the time, I’d had enough of blowback and thought relaxing with an editor would slow all of that down…. posting every day leads to possible blowback every day.

But writing about my life would be uninteresting if I had no friends and just sat in my own echo chamber, and I know that because I am not interesting to me as I sit in this apartment. Aada became my focus because she was out there living her life and I was sitting here hearing about it…. but I wasn’t really creating a life outside of that.

It’s a new era. This morning I woke up and walked to Wendy’s, where I was standing in the world’s longest line…. and just got out of it and left because I realized that if I waited to order I’d be late for my psychiatrist’s appointment. We’re doing telehealth so I only had to dash back to my house, but it was still a close call.

Then, this afternoon I walked to the convenience store to get a can of Hawaiian cold coffee, a Diet Dr Pepper, a Gatorade, and a watermelon juice. I drank the watermelon juice as I walked home, because it was new and novel to me.

That’s two walks I would have had trouble making before I left for Texas, because I seem to have come back a little more gregarious. I think I had to be reminded who I am.

I wasn’t agoraphobic the entire time I was in Texas, but I had my sisters, dad, and friends around me.

Again, it all comes back to vulnerability and saying the quiet part out loud. I will have friends and chosen family in Baltimore, it’s just about being brave enough to ask.

International Man of Mystery

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What’s something you would attempt if you were guaranteed not to fail.
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If I was guaranteed not to fail, I’d become a billionaire philanthropist and just go around fixing things, like Dolly Parton (get well soon, Dolly). I would join Matt Damon at Water.org, because I think that clean water for the third world is such a worthy goal, and I’d like to write with Matt and Ben Affleck, anyway. The easiest way to meet the people you want to meet is to get involved in their periphery.

For instance, I wanted to meet Jonna Mendez, so I bought her books.

That’s where being an “international man of mystery” comes in. I’ve had more fun with her nonfiction than I’ve had with fiction in years, because real spy stories are right up there with reel… you just have to adjust your expectations to what real life governments can accomplish and forego movie magic.

The police did not chase Tony and the Houseguests down the runway in “Argo.” It was still scary as fuck trying to get past security at the Tehran airport…. but how do you convey that fear to an audience when the terrifying monologue is internal? Just because it didn’t happen in real life doesn’t mean those scenes didn’t play out in Tony’s mind.

Tony and Jonna were the geniuses behind the Argo movie and book, because I guessed and was correct that Jonna was an uncredited writer on “Argo.” And in fact, she said that the book was green lit after the movie because so many people wanted to know the real story- and one of the criticisms of the movie was that America got too much credit, so the book says, “thank you, Canada” about every five pages.

Thank you, Canada, from me as well.

Me being interested in spies starts with Argo, the story of how CIA needed to create a Canadian film crew disguise to get diplomats out of Tehran during the uprising in ’79. I would not have been as interested if my first girlfriend wasn’t Canadian, because it was like I had this weird connection to the story. I realized that I wanted to write scripts that were funny and serious about espionage, but that I’d like to collaborate on scripts because I know so little about both screenwriting and spy craft.

I’ve tried to bridge the gap by reading excellent fiction and nonfiction in the genre, but it’s not the same as being a spy and learning the jargon yourself. So if I was guaranteed not to fail, I’d apply at CIA and see if they had any use for me, because any job at CIA would be useful to me. I would bet that I would learn more by working at the Starbucks than I would in operations, and that’s a fact, Jack.

The world is built on information, and no one pays attention to Starbucks clerks.

What would it be like to out Little Gray Man the Little Gray Men?

I might be the first barista to be invited to a meeting on the seventh floor because I tend to overhear things. I also have the kind of personality where people spill to me without realizing they’ve done it. I would like to be able to use those skills for good, and I think CIA could harness them.

But I’m serious about working in Starbucks, or the mailroom, or anywhere you’re likely to run into people cross-discipline as more effective a job at CIA for being a writer. You don’t just want to learn the jargon of one directorate or department, and each has a bit different patois depending on the area of the world.

Because in the end, it’s all about the writing. Being an international man of mystery is a secondary goal, because what I’d really like is a career similar to John Le Carré. But he had to go through the trenches at MI-6 to get it.

Of course, the other thing that appeals to me is social media direction at CIA, becoming one of those characters like “Molly,” who brings you inside the fold and tells you what you’re allowed to know. For instance, according to Molly, the Starbucks at Langley is the busiest in the world.

Which reminds me of the Burger King in MiB. I have thought for a long time that MiB is a documentary, that we are all citizens of Locker C.

If I was guaranteed not to fail, I could prove it.

My Duolingo Streak

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What was the hardest personal goal you’ve set for yourself?
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Duo is mad at me right now because I broke my streak when Angela died and I haven’t gone back. I will, but I focused on my family and just took a vacation from the bird. Ironic because I actually needed Spanish on my trip (my car dealer didn’t speak much English).

In fact, it was cute. We signed all the papers and we were just standing around and he shyly says, “do you like Monster?” I said yes and he brought me one, and we had a toast to the sale.

“Do you like Monster?” It was one of his only full statements in English, and touched my heart with the way he said it. There was a tinge of sadness because I think he was sorry he didn’t have any champagne. Little did he know that given the choice between champagne and Monster, he’d already bought the perfect bubbly.

I am currently in waiting mode as my car is being delivered from Texas. When it arrives, I will go and buy another Monster to cheers it again. It’s kind of our thing.

It’s always good to know an honest car dealer, and we met one. The only thing I didn’t catch was his name, because he never gave me his card. I’ll have to ask Aaron if he remembers, because Aaron is my mechanic friend that I took with me to make sure the car was safe and reliable.

This morning, my personal goal was a coffee at Starbucks, and now it has been achieved. I got a pumpkin spice cold brew (shut it). I slept okay, but not great, so I needed this boost. I’m feeling pretty nice right now, as my ADHD brain feels the caffeine washing over it. Caffeine just massages my thoughts enough to put them in order, and I’m hard pressed to find a more effective medication. I have been on Ritalin and Adderrall in the past, but sometimes it has been too much correction. Coffee seems to be the happy medium, with the occasional energy drink thrown in when my acid reflux says, “no more.”

I didn’t have to feed the dogs this morning, and I miss them already. I don’t have any pets, so my dad’s dogs provided me with some much needed puppy love over my “vacation.”

It seems odd to me to refer to it as a vacation, but that’s what it was. Angela was not supposed to die in the middle, she just did. Cancer took her faster than we thought, but I was already planning to go and see Brené Brown with my sister for my birthday. Angela’s funeral was one of the highlights of my trip because watching my father was a master class in working through pain. The service was absolutely beautiful and his sermon has become everyone’s mantra:

  1. Nothing will ever be the same.
  2. Everything will be okay.

I am not the only one repeating those words all the time, because people have commented on it.

I understand what it took for my father to organize and prepare that service, as well as preach it, in a way that my sisters never will because they’ve never pinch hit for a pastor before.

I also understand that it is the work that saves you. You have a laser like focus on getting the message across.

Getting the message across seems to be my personal goal without actually ever setting it. I work through pain and elation. However, I have never worked through losing a spouse to cancer on this web site. My father curated a beautiful service from beginning to end, and people will quote him forever. It was a uniquely beautiful service to attend, and I’m so glad I could be there in person.

I didn’t want to leave my dad, because he was sick the day I left. I took an Uber to the airport while he was battling it out. It was harder to leave him knowing that he will come down from all the adrenaline of working through Angela’s funeral. Someone else will have to be there to catch in person while I’m only available by phone.

This doesn’t sit well with me, but it is how it is.

I told my dad that I wanted him to come and visit me in the new year, after I’m settled (I’m moving soon). I hope he’ll take me up on it, because we always have a good time checking out new restaurants together. Plus, I think he likes driving my car. 🙂

I like driving my car, too. It’s a personal goal to be a safe and responsible driver. For me, that means reading about the technology available on my Fusion to assist me in driving. My car will be here sometime between today and Saturday, so I’m counting down the minutes.

I have picked up this entry several times today, and I don’t generally scroll up. Because this is a scratch journal and not meant to be me, all dressed up, I tend to repeat myself when I write that way… but it’s not altogether a bad thing. This journal is for me- you guys just pick out the lines you like.

One of these days, an editor is going to come after me with a red pen and I will be unrecognizable to myself. Janie the Canadian Editor has offered and I have fallen down on my part of the project, which is going through and picking out entries I’d like to use in a “bound edition,” shorthand for Kindle store.

I’ve also been asked why I don’t just Google literary agents and have them comb the site. Well, that’s easy. I don’t know what stuff of mine is good enough for publication and what’s not. I figure that my followers are connected enough that a literary agent could lurk on their word alone. Basically, I want any success I have to come from you, not because I think I’m all that and a bag of chips.

I may promote a few things like the marriage article because it would be nice to have enough fans to support myself, and a post that has already received an enormous amount of praise is a good place to start. It would be ironic as I am nowhere near the same person I was when I wrote the article, but the sentiment behind it still stands.

I will love Dana forever because of that article- she became the seed of a new era for “Stories” in more ways than one. Any success I have today can be pointed to that one piece, because when my blog was popular before it was under a different name and URL.

Although anything I wrote back then that I liked, I think I’ve managed to import. There may be one or two pieces I need in the Internet Archive, but I feel like I’ve mined it for enough gold.

Later, my personal goal is to go to the office to get the parking pass for my Fusion, because all cars are subject to being towed if they don’t have one. It would be a dumbass attack on my part if my car was delivered and I forgot.

But that’s exactly the kind of thing that would happen to me because I don’t tend to set personal goals in advance. Lack of preparation on my part does not create an emergency on theirs, etc. It’s just that lack of preparation is par for the course with neurodivergence of all kinds…. which means that neurodivergent people like me are often hurricanes in other people’s lives without knowing it. The parking pass is the most inert example I can think of, but there are many others in my life that have caused harm.

I need a harm reduction personal goal and plan, because these disabilities and disorders have to be managed. Cognitive behavioral therapy is teaching me foundational things I might have missed, and providing me an outlet to make friends locally.

Most of my friends live remotely, which is why it was so nice to be in Texas for so long. I didn’t get to see everyone I wanted to see, but I did get to visit Aaron in Bastrop for a few days while we car shopped and then I waited for my check to clear.

The hill country is a sight to behold, and I haven’t been there in roughly 30 years. It was beautiful watching the sun come up from Aaron’s back deck.

Watching him interact with his wife, Brinna, reminded me of the love that brought you that marriage article so long ago. It reminded me to give dating another try, that I really would like a partner at least some days. I’m overwhelmed by the idea on others. But I at least see baby steps in that direction once I set a personal goal.

It hasn’t been a personal goal for me to find a partner because I was busy doing other things. Writing and dating don’t really go together unless the date is so bad it’s comical. The rest of the time, it’s just work- a conversation to determine if you’d like to have another conversation, as a friend put it.

I envision a quiet life whether my writing takes off or not. It’s not my decision whether that happens or not, it’s my public. It’s not my job to judge my writing as creative art. Once I hit post, my words do not belong to me anymore, they belong to what the reader takes away.

This entry could probably be tightened into a couple of paragraphs, but if you read me, you probably like the unedited version of Krista Tippett’s podcast, “On Being” as well.

I listened to the episode with Atul Gawande on my way to Bastrop because I wanted to feel closer to my dad and stepmom. It was the episode where he talked about “Being Mortal,” and how palliative care is changing to accommodate the important things to the patient before they die. It was a beautiful conversation to hear after my stepmom had been through those conversations with her own doctors.

I haven’t cried as much as I thought I would, because it was so clear that Angela was in pain. Wanting her to continue her life just so we could talk more would have been the height of arrogance. I didn’t cry as much over my mother for the same reason- I understood the medicine behind why she died, and it gave me a finality that being a layperson to medicine just doesn’t have.

I’m not a doctor, but I’ve worked as a medical assistant. I’m not the one that makes any decisions, I’m just the one that makes notes before the doctor comes into the room.

That particular doctor is now gone, but her spirit lives on in my dad and the four of us girls, who have built a language and blended a family over the years.

To the friends I didn’t get to see in Houston, I’m so sorry. I overextended myself. There will definitely be a next time. Though I do not know exactly when and for how long. I have time to think about moving back to Texas if that’s what I want to do, but I don’t want to do anything right now. I want to talk to my dad about this because I have so little experience trying to execute.

Right now I’m rambling because I’m hungry and waiting for lunch to be delivered. I needed some comfort food, and happiness is a cheap taqueria. I don’t think I ordered nearly enough cheese.

I should have made it a personal goal.

Everywhere and Nowhere

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’m starting to get that feeling of not having a home that I always get when I’ve spent a long time with family. Because Texas and Maryland both feel like home, neither really do. You can add Oregon to the list. It’s almost as if I belong to everyone and no one simultaneously…. everywhere and nowhere at once.

It’s kind of freeing, but sometimes the pendulum swings too far in terms of feeling anchorless. I think that in a lot of respects, my relationship with Aada over the internet was more grounding than an IRL relationship because it grounded me regardless of physical location.

“Jesus Christ, just come pick me up.”

I may or may not have said that to Aada once or twice over the last 12 years.

I will miss those unprintable replies.

It was interesting feeing like I belonged to the Internet instead of to a physical place, but I’m starting to realize that you cannot have your anchors set in the cloud. It looks stable, but the air up there is quite thin.

So why do I spend so much time both wishing that the relationship was still intact? I don’t know anything else yet. Not enough time has passed for me to be completely stable and grounded with other people. It will take time, but I’m slowly coming out of the shell I created to keep people away. I’m not shy, I just had a lot to hide.

Not having anything to hide is the theme of my life now, because I haven’t had that in a very long time. Aada didn’t want me to talk to anyone about her, wanted to be a secretive little bubble with me where we were isolated in our own echo chamber. We learned to fight a little too well, egging each other on instead of de-escalating either the fight or the relationship until we could handle it with care.

I think a lot about what I should have done when I found out Aada lied to me, and that the lie was woven into the fabric of our relationship. That trust was broken beyond all measure because the bubble was built on truth and honesty.

Her reaction was that her lie wasn’t that bad, wasn’t pathological, and I was just a manipulator. That can be her story and she can stick to it all she wants, but that doesn’t make it true. I did not manipulate her so much as we both have “stuff” left over from childhood that made us both manipulate each other to get what we wanted. I did that by being overly anxious. Aada did that by being overly avoidant. We’d just figured out how to get past all that when she told me that she lied.

But the end is all my fault? I’m not so sure about that.

I don’t think she ever had it in her to meet me on the ground because she was scared of meeting me in person. I was also scared of meeting her on the ground, but one of us had to put on our big boy pants. So part of me ended the relationship because I thought, “we fight all the time and she’s lied to me in a way that caused a monster amount of pain. I’m done.” It was a split second decision that I have been over in my mind roughly a million and one times.

I could have handled her lie better, because there was no need to get as angry as I did. It was out of bounds, and that part is definitely my fault. I take ownership and responsibility. But I also think that my anger was the last thing that happened, not the source of the problem.

The source of the problem is that I’ve told her I love her more than air, and I meant it. She does not feel that way about me, so my feelings make her uncomfortable. She doesn’t want to seem homophobic, and I don’t want to seem aggressive. So we danced around the subject for years, to mixed results.

I can’t speak for Aada, but it seems like she rejected me not only because she was straight, but also because she doesn’t love herself that much and probably thought I was a little bit crazy.

I am, just not about this.

But I don’t think she thought I knew how crazy this all sounds- that she’s such a good writer that those butterfly feelings in my stomach presented before I really knew what was happening, and I’ve never been able to get rid of them because when we’re together my dopamine goes sky high.

But I’m not pushing Aada into anything she doesn’t want. She actually agreed to be open and to have very few boundaries with me (which I appreciated and it made me cry). We agreed to love each other, each part of the other’s “wild and crazy brain.” But that didn’t mean that boundaries would get crossed that didn’t need to be. I know that she’s straight and in a committed relationship and I would never want to do anything to get in the middle of that. I was just glad that she agreed to let me love her at all.

And then I blew it, for reasons that will stay with me for a long time as I waffle between what I think and what I think.

That’s really what this blog is for. It allows me to work in longhand instead of curating the perfect life through sound bites. I couldn’t have been in this close of a relationship with Aada without being able to explain it in longhand, because a sound bite would cheapen us all the way around.

It was a struggle to accept that while Aada was my friend and that was solid, I couldn’t go to her for more than that. The less I say about that, the better. I will just say that I listened to a lot of sad music and took her joking about marrying Brené Brown so hard that I could not even.

It was harmless, a joke that just got under my skin.

So when I met Brené last Monday I have to admit that I felt a spark of jealousy.

You stole my woman, Brown. En garde. 😉

Kidding, of course. What I actually said was, “you’ve said that you’re a Liverpool fan, but how’s Richmond looking this year?” Without missing a fucking beat, she said that Richmond had a midfield problem and played it straight just like I knew she would. I also said that when I was at University of Houston, I taught her how to use Microsoft Word, so realistically I taught her everything she knows. She said, “you sure did.”

There it is, from the horse’s mouth.

I had no illusion that Brené would remember me from UH. But it’s true that I was her computer lab supervisor when she was a grad student/TA. So, she’s a few years older than me, but I can’t help but refer to her as “one of my kids.” Because back then, she wasn’t BRENÉ BROWN, TRADEMARK.

I just saw her on YouTube one day and said, “I think that’s one of my kids,” and I e-mailed her team to make sure our dates lined up. When they did, I realized that I had met a famous person, they just became famous years and years after I met them.

This happens to me a lot because I went to High School for Performing and Visual Arts. Robert Glasper sat behind me in History when I was in 10th grade, so Brené is not the only Houstonian on “List of People I’d Pay Money to See.” Robert played The Reach at The Kennedy Center a few years ago, but I had to come back home to see the illustrious Dr. Brown, who is currently skating on thin ice with me.

Really? No, not really. 😉

Writing on the Back Porch

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite hobby or pastime?
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I like writing on anyone’s back porch, but the one in the photo is my dad’s. The table where I’m sitting looks out over the pool and rockfall. It’s my last day here, as I fly back tomorrow afternoon. I had a very romantic idea of a road trip planned, but all of the people I asked to go with me before I bought the car had to back out for various reasons. It was actually cheaper to ship my car than it was to pay for fuel and hotels, so I am satisfied that I got the very best deal available. The car doesn’t have salt damage on the undercarriage because I didn’t buy it up north, and that peace of mind is worth skipping being mad that my road trip is no longer.

There will be other road trips. I am invited to spend Halloween with friends in upstate New York, and now it’s a real possibility I could go. I’m also going to visit some friends in Virginia later in the month, which has just been made stupid easy vs. the two or three trains it would have taken me previously.

I wouldn’t feel comfortable driving if I hadn’t had the money to get a car with blind spot assist, lane assist, and a backup camera. That’s not only to keep me safe, but everyone else on the road as well.

And this is why my hobby is sitting and writing- I have a lot to process, and some of it comes out as interesting.

Some of it doesn’t…….. stay tuned.

I hope rambling about my car is interesting, because I tend to do a lot of it. I’m a gear head and love working on cars when I have the chance, so I’m looking forward to getting to know my Fusion a little better. Riker says that my car was easily $30k when it was new, which means there’s more technology than I could possibly use.

I do love remote start, though, because Houston is hot and I have black leather seats. Remote start will also be helpful in the winter so that I can go from my warm house to my warm car without shivering half to death…. when the car and I both arrive in Maryland. Houston winters tend to be very, very mild. The one day a year I need ass warmers in Texas, though, I’ve got ’em.

The main thing is that the car I bought is comfortable and new enough to last me for a while. I’m enchanted by Apple CarPlay and Ford Connect, an app which will allow me to lock and unlock the car, plus start it remotely from my phone. All of the technology is keeping me from being too nervous about driving, honestly, because of course I need to be alert and responsible, but it’s nice to know that technology has my back instead of making my life more difficult.

There are practical matters to consider. I need to be able to run my own errands, and look for my own living space after this one (lease ends Nov. 30 and I don’t like it enough to stay). I will be able to go wherever I want to go, so I’m on the lookout for cute pockets of Baltimore, DC, and a new area to me- the no man’s land without public transportation. Now, I don’t have to worry about being within walking distance of a bus.

I’m starting to feel my life open up a little bit, because my order of operations is wonky at the best of times. It’s so much better for me to have a car and be able to call audibles on the road. I’m not very good at knowing where I need to go in advance. Executive dysfunction has its privileges…………… eyeroll.

I want to continue to branch out, because what started the inertia was being back with my family and friends. I wasn’t constantly having a conversation while simultaneously having half my brain composing to someone else (cough Aada cough). I was present the entire time, and continue to be.

Not that Aada is gone. She’s just not ever-present the way she used to be. I couldn’t go fifteen minutes without thinking of something I wanted to tell her, which was met with varying degrees of annoyance (I’m a lot. I get it.). Now, it’s almost as if I have to prepare to think about her. It’s a different phase of grief, because I am no longer doubled over with an empty feeling in my chest.

Often.

I’m glad I didn’t decide to go on this road trip by myself, because I wouldn’t have wanted a trip in which my mind wouldn’t settle and I kept dipping my cup into that particular well of loneliness.

I really messed up with Aada because I wanted to be her all the way to the river friend, and I destroyed our relationship in a fit of anger. I deserved to be angry. I should not have said that I was angry, because the way I said it got out of hand very, very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that now Aada thinks I’ve been manipulating her for the past 12 years. The feeling is mutual. I could go over and over the ways we’ve hurt each other, but I think I’ve already written a compendium. Sufficed to say, I am still sad. I don’t think that part will ever go away. I will just have to learn to live around it, like the other grief in my life.

It is hard to believe that both my mother and my stepmother are gone.

That’s why I’m so sad about Aada- her mom energy saved me from all of my mother’s energy being gone.

I know that I was the one that hurt her, but I deserve the right to grieve. Breakups hurt on both sides, and I know she’s hurting just as much as me. She was never my girlfriend, just a close friend, and that hasn’t seemed to make a damn bit of difference in the way we fought with each other.

But I know her pretty well, and if she says something is done, it is. Jesus will ring my doorbell before Aada says hey.

Never mind that I would do anything to make up for my flaws and failures, but I cannot think of anything that would help. If I could, it would be done. I just have to accept that my life is going to be different now.

Nothing will ever be the same.
Everything will be okay.

My father’s words at Angela’s funeral are my new mantra because I haven’t been treating myself very well. 12 years is a long time to love someone, and I didn’t really stop. I got angry… I didn’t stay that way. But a relationship isn’t up to me to start and stop. Ultimately, it’s about both our feelings, and she was very clear. No more.

This does come with perks. I was tired. She was, too.

I am not glad I hurt her, but I am glad it’s over. Aada is a six year old girl wrapped in a bazillion layers of protection and most of the time, her emotional tool is a hammer.

I got tired of being a nail.

It’s getting hot. I think I should go inside.

READY PLAYER ONE

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment
Daily writing prompt
What would you do if you lost all your possessions?
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I’d start over.

For a lot of people, this is a hypothetical exercise.

My house burned down to the ground when I was 11 years old. Life has been nothing but a series of moves in which I’ve just had to get new stuff and move on. Because when the original break with material possessions happened, it made me not care about any of them. There was nothing I could do to prevent loss, so why try? My car is the first material possession for which I’ve felt an affinity in years. It could all go away tomorrow.

When I think of losing my possessions, I don’t think of misplaced or stolen items. I see sneakers melted to each other. A hanger melted to the clothes hanging in the closet. I see the aftermath of walking through a house after it has already been sprayed by firemen.

The smell never comes out.

Therefore, I am not as careful with material possessions as I should be (at times). It’s not that I don’t care. It’s that I don’t have an illusion that anything is permanent.

When my house burned down, we started again at the beginning. And I’ve kept doing that with every disaster in my life. I am not sure that reacting to everything like your house is burning is healthy. Yet another thing to discuss with my therapist.

I suppose that losing all of your possessions early makes it where it’s just easier losing things all around. Every bit of safety you had was ripped out from under you in terms of the idea that possessions are safe in houses. The pendulum has swung too far in terms of not caring about losing my possessions over the years, because there are several things I’ve given away or didn’t pay enough attention to that have walked off.

Alternatively, I am happier having close to nothing because managing possessions is irritating and overwhelming. Losing things becomes akin to a video game reset instead of a major life event.

Mi carro es listo hoy?

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

The check I wrote for the car has cleared my bank, so I’m waiting for the all-clear from the car dealership to drive my Fusion home. I am supposed to get a call at noon today “without fail.” The car dealer is cute and I have a bit of a crush. He looks like an Almodóvar film star, shy and cute and doesn’t even know how beautiful he is.

The sunglasses in the photo are different from his horn-rimmed pair, the reason why I think he belongs in Spanish movies.

The other woman in the photo is, “the face of the company.” She, too, looks like an Almodóvar beauty, and the car salesman made me laugh. So, meet the face of Almodóvar Monaco Motors.

I speak poor Spanish. They speak poor English. We struggled along in both languages until one of the finance guys came over and translated for us. The car was on consignment from a private owner. No, he would not come down any and the price was firm.

I thought about asking someone in my media group to translate my text messages for me, but as it turns out I can just speak in my natural English and my car salesman (I didn’t catch his name- facepalm) runs it through Google Translate. The title is my first text to my car salesman after I’d written him a check. It means, “is my car ready today?” It had to have an emissions test, I had to get insurance, and the check has to clear. When all of those things are accomplished, I am off to the races.

Where those races are, I’m not sure. I’m looking forward to adding some adventure into my life. I know I’ll go through New Orleans on the way home, where I’d like to stop and have some excellent food (please leave suggestions in the comments). After that, I’m not sure where I want to go. I’m sure I will lean on Waze to direct me home, but if I’m driving and see that an attraction is close, I am not above adding a stop.

I want to roll down the windows and feel the air through my hair as I am captain of my own destiny, racing towards home.

Well, not racing. I have Adaptive Cruise Control. I will be chasing my destiny from a safe distance from the car in front of me.

A Sedan?!

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Yes, I know I said over and over that I wanted an SUV. And that may be the case down the road. But when you’re buying cars for cash you take the best deal you can get.

As someone without 3D vision, the technology on the car was very important to me. The car will let me know when I’m too close to something and is already equipped with a backup camera. I want to make sure that my comfort doesn’t come at the cost of anyone else’s.

And my comfort is great- the car’s ride is so smooth it feels like floating down the road. I don’t think there’s anything that little engine couldn’t handle, and it’s big enough to fit a dog. I checked. 🙂

I missed Aaron in Maryland, but he came and picked me up at my sister’s house in Houston so that we could buy a car together. I saw a few that I liked, but none more than the 2019 Ford Fusion.

In short, I did not get on the plane. I am going on this road trip to find myself, and to give “Stories” a different flavor than it’s had for the past 12 years, which has been mostly sitting in my room and doing nothing. And in fact today I’m thinking about how to infuse this entry with Hill Country Sunshine.

The dealership told me that I could pay for the car with a personal check, but I could not drive it until the check cleared and the money was in their hands. Fair enough. That gave me time to buy a decent insurance policy so that if someone hits me coming out of the lot, I’m not losing the car already.

I am sitting on my hands waiting to go pick it up, because the test drive was just long enough to realize it was a good deal.

It wasn’t long enough to satisfy my craving to drive. It’s been a long time, and simple things like running to the grocery store mean a lot. I’m grateful for my car because I went so long without one.

But truthfully, technology had to come a long way before I could afford something that would protect me. The Fusion will have less blind spots because of the sensors and cameras. These are the kinds of things that have existed for a long time, but were not nearly cheap enough for me to afford until now.

In effect, the fusion is between the car and me, because it shares the responsibility of driving with me more than I’d get with an older vehicle. I’m excited to find out how much driving has changed since I had my last car.

Today is the anniversary of my mother’s death, and this year, her gift to me is significant. I could not have bought the car without her working so hard and leaving money behind. She is making my life easier one day at a time with this gift, and I hope to use it to make her proud of me.

I want to tell stories about the road and how it rises to meet me. I need to remember that phones have cameras now…. a photo gallery for you wouldn’t kill me…. 😉 What kind of content I create now that I’ve got a different mojo will reveal itself over time.

First, though, it’s the little things. I’d like a 🦀 bumper sticker that looks like a Maryland flag. It will be the last thing I buy for my car at the end of the trip.

Right now, I know I need a USB-A to Lightning cable so that I can connect to Apple CarPlay.

We are starting and ending with simple things.

It’s the Running Aarons Tour 2025.

Shifting

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What’s your #1 priority tomorrow?
View all responses

I asked my dad if it was okay to stay for a few extra days so I could look for a car. He said yes, then realized he needed some alone time and I went to stay with my sister. Neither my sister nor my brother-in-law have mentioned that I could stay past Tuesday, and all three people have told me at different times that buying a used car isn’t that hard and I don’t need a mechanic with me buying pre-owned because they’re certified. I am starting to feel like a burden on my family more than a help, so unless things change dramatically between now and tomorrow, I guess I’ll just go home. I don’t want to. It’s not time on my clock.

My dad said something about how long I’d been here and my time blindness snapped to attention. It feels like yesterday that I was in Baltimore about to catch a flight to Houston and Angela was still alive. Everything has moved for me in a very fast blur. The days have all run together. I do get my dad’s point about needing space, my sister’s point about pre-owned, and neither one of them are listening to what I want, which is more time with both of them.

My dad and Lindsay have been extraordinarily busy the entire time I’ve been here. No one stopped working while Angela was dying, so Lindsay was driving back and forth from University of Houston to Sugar Land frequently. None of us have had time to decompress or even really to enjoy each other because it was all rushing around to get things done.

This was supposed to be my birthday trip, but no one has wished me a happy birthday except Hurricane Big Dave-O, because I remembered that his was September 15th (HBD was my neighbor at my dad’s house for the longest, so it was good to see him at the funeral). I have officially declared that today is my birthday do-over. My friend Jane Ann is taking me to lunch, and then my sister is taking me to see Brené Brown.

Seeing Brené Brown was the original reason I was going to come to Houston. I had to move my flight when Angela was hospitalized because she lost the ability to swallow and that was an omen not to be ignored.

I just want to crawl under my blankets.

It’s probably the number one priority for tomorrow, too.

Sweat

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
In what ways does hard work make you feel fulfilled?
View all responses

There’s a feeling to hard work, a zone. When I am in the zone, my typing speeds up to 90 words per minute and I do indeed start to break a sweat- or cry if the material is touching to me. Most of the time, I cry about an entry after it is published and I have let it go- I’m not in the process of changing it. It’s a different kind of mental acuity than watching burgers on the grill, but it is no less intense.

Writing about this week will take years, because there are so many little moments that jump out at me. Yesterday was Angela’s funeral, and it was just beautiful. My dad was a Methodist minister for a number of years, and he did the service. The main idea, the foundation of the service, was twofold:

  1. Nothing is ever going to be the same.
  2. Everything is going to be okay.

He highlighted the fact that we live in that liminal space all the time.

It was harder watching him work than it was thinking of entries to write here because I know him so well. That his reflexes kicking in to do Angela’s service was carrying him through his grief. As I told my aunt Shawn, “we’ll find a new normal. Just not today.”

Because it’s so true that there’s a difference between how you function in the immediate aftermath of a death and how you function six months later. It also feels heavier because she’s the sun around which we rotated, the name on the back of the door. We’re going to have to learn who we are as a family unit without her, and those words are excruciating to say because she didn’t like the idea any better than us.

During the funeral, my dad talked about how Angela was so proud that we’d all ended up with our soulmates. I knew that line was for my brothers in law, but lamented that Angela would never meet anyone I wanted to bring home. She’ll just have to tell me whether she approves in her own way. But the line about soulmates made me miss Dana and Aada, because they’re the closest things I’ve had to soulmates in this life. I ruined my relationship with both of them.

  1. Nothing will ever be the same.
  2. Everything will be okay.

I have reached out to both of them saying that I would like to rebuild trust. That I recognize I have done wrong and would like to make amends. Neither one of them have gotten back to me. Therefore, the only thing I can do is create a new normal without them as well.

The new normal is easier to take in Houston, where I have my sisters and old, long-time friends around me. In fact, today I’m going to lunch with my old boss from ExxonMobil 25 years ago, and Monday I’m getting together with someone I’ve known since I was seven. That doesn’t happen in Baltimore. So even if I don’t move to Texas, I’m going to take the advice of a friend and spend some more time here.

And maybe that’s really the answer- I think my dad likes coming to Baltimore and spending time with me there. Same with DC. And DC is really “my place.” I thought I needed to get out of Washington and create new memories, but as it turns out I prefer DC to Baltimore and don’t know whether that’s due to the city itself or to whether I really, really don’t like my apartment complex. I’m leaning towards the latter, because when I’ve gone out in the city and experienced good restaurants I’ve always had an excellent time. There’s nothing wrong with Baltimore, but after I move I will be spilling the dirt on this apartment complex and all I’ve been through.

I have also been burgled once, and that’s not the apartment complex’s fault, but it doesn’t endear me to it, either.

Sitting here and telling my stories does not seem like hard work until you realize that in order to create the memory on paper, I have to be willing to “dive back into the wreck.” Things get less and less painful the more I write about them, but I shake and cry when I need to do so. The entry about my apartment complex will be easy because it is full of facts. Most of my entries are about feelings.

Exploring feelings is where the sweat starts to pour.

Nothing I’ve written about over the last 12 years has been safe or comfortable. It’s all been unusual because I’m unusual. I don’t know how to do life like a neurotypical and I’m tired of trying. I see myself struggle in these pages and I don’t want to struggle anymore.

I had to sweat it out.

I had to see that my disability was real.

I had to see that Aada was fake…. that we had all the components to make a real relationship, we just never used them and turned on each other instead…. because the first time Aada lied to me? Ok. That was small. But the pathological nature of the way it grew turned my stomach. She was seeing consequences play out in real time and only cared for herself. My response was still over the top and I still regret.

  1. Nothing will ever be the same.
  2. Everything will be okay.

These two sentences have now become my mantra, because of their universal nature. I also know that just because I am unhappy in one area of my life, that does not mean I am unhappy in all of them. So I am lost without Aada, Angela, and even Dana, but I can find happiness somewhere else.

For instance, Aaron is taking me car shopping on Tuesday when my original plan was to fly back to Baltimore that day. I am thrilled because I’m such a gearhead. I want to future proof and look at SUVs, because I’ve been thinking about getting a pit bull as a service dog for over a year now. His name is Tony. I don’t even have him yet, but he already has a name- Tony Kellari Lanagan.

He’s named after Tony Mendez and Tony Bourdain, the spy and the chef that have taken over my imagination.

I know that owning a dog, particularly a large dog, is a lot of hard work. I feel like I’m finally ready to take on that kind of responsibility, raising a dog from a puppy. I have the time and space to make sure that he is very, very well behaved… and a best friend that will remind me that it’s not the dog that needs training, it’s me.

Bailey and Bridget, my dad’s dogs, do not seem to be complaining about their quality of care so far. The one note I got is that Bridget was not ready to get out of bed and eat this morning. Such a princess.

If I stay in Baltimore, though, it has been suggested to me that I would be better off with several cats. In Baltimore, we like dogs just fine, but cats are business associates. Everyone’s got mice.

I like cats, too, but the pit bull is going to be a service dog. So if I’m going to get any pets, it’s going to be aquarium fish until I have my dog in hand. The pack has to be built around him, including cats.

I want to work smarter, not harder- and I want that for my dog, too. Anything to make either one of our lives easier is high on the priority list.

I am sure that the writing prompt isn’t meant to jump around quite this much, but I like taking walks where WordPress might not think to go………………….

My dad has already left for orchestra (church), and I’m writing until the spirit moves me to get in the shower. What that spirit is, I do not know. I just know that I don’t have to be ready for hours, and it’s more fun typing in my pajamas.

I think that my writing is starting to take on more of a playful nature because I’m trying to be open. I’m trying to connect. I’m trying to be a different Leslie than I’ve been for the last 12 years, because I shut myself off from everyone else. It’s painful to admit how introverted I got, because agoraphobia only made it worse. Agoraphobia came with accepting my disability and feeling like people were looking at me all the time.

They do look at me, because I walk funny. It’s called an “ataxic gait,” or the “cerebral palsy shuffle.”

I just need to stop being so sensitive to it and get on with my life. Getting on with my life is the real hard work of being disabled, because there are so many stumbling blocks in the way…. and that’s not counting the ones external to your own body.

Taking in my environment is hard work, because I’m always at risk of falling physically due to cerebral palsy and mentally due to bipolar disorder. I feel that the only way to understanding the world is understanding my role in it, so I try to be as self-aware as I can be.

From where I sit, my dad’s words are just getting louder…….

“Nothing will ever be the same, and everything will be okay.”

But I’ll sweat first.

Cafe Au Lait

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

My dad has one of those fancy coffee machines that will make any drink thanks to the milk frother on the front. Therefore, this morning I am drinking a cafe au lait with an extra shot made from Starbucks’ Komodo Dragon coffee. It’s delicious, and better than going to Starbucks at 0530, which is when I staggered out of bed.

I haven’t been sleeping well, just in fits and starts despite the large amount of sleeping pills I’m taking. It’s unusual because the bed is comfortable and I’m genuinely exhausted. But the sleeping pills don’t last very long and then there I am, exhausted to the point of tears and unable to do anything about it. The cafe au lait becomes medicinal at that point…. the point we’re at right now. I went to bed early, I woke up once when my dad came home last night, then my eyes opened for good at “Too Damn Early O’Clock.”

I shouldn’t be complaining, though. “Too Damn Early O’Clock” has brought me some incredible blog entries at times. Plus, it’s my choice to get up early………… sort of. I really could have used the extra sleep this morning because grief is running my body ragged. Perhaps I just need to go with it, and keep sleeping in shifts. I know that at least part of not being able to sleep is that my stepmother died this week, and we were not exactly expecting it.

We were expecting that she was going to die. She had six brain tumors. We were just not expecting that the cancer would take her this quickly. But, the part of your brain that shuts off your ability to swallow is also the part of your brain that shuts off your ability to breathe. One followed the other in quick succession. However, the diagnosis called all the shots. We just thought she’d make it to Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Angela was so aware of her surroundings that she didn’t waste time. Everything that needed to be said was said, as if death had sharpened her reflexes and made everything clear in the end. Therefore, I hope she doesn’t mind that of everyone in the family that could have taken over her office, I’m the one that did.

For now, anyway. I haven’t decided if I’m moving to Sugar Land or not. That’s going to take months of talking to my dad a lot and seeing if he’s feeling lonely or whether he’s keeping on keeping on. I can live where I want, I just also need a housemate and would feel comfortable here. But here is not the only place I like.

Life still has to go on at my apartment complex until November 30th, but after that I’m out of there. One possible option is to move in with my dad because he has a ton of space and lives alone. One possible option is to stay in Baltimore. One possible option is to move back to DC. And, of course, there are a lot of cities I have not discovered yet that may call to me once I’m a bit more well-traveled.

“You are now free to move about the country.”

I need to go to Portland and spend some time with Bryn and Evan, so that needs to happen sooner rather than later. Or perhaps I’ll invite them to my house because neither have been to Baltimore (or Houston). But after that, I’m really not sure where I want to go. Having a car will make exploring so much easier, because I don’t necessarily want to fly. I love road-tripping. Long live cruise control.

Right now it’s all about Facebook Marketplace. I’ve found several cars I’d like to look at, none more than the Kia Soul and the Subaru Outback. The reason for this is that I’d eventually like a pit bull, so I’m thinking into the future and how a cargo area would be useful. But if I find a sedan that has what looks to be a longer-lasting engine, I’ll go with that.

The one thing I’d really like is for the car to be fully loaded out. I want all the luxury options, particularly seat warmers for snowy days. I’d also really like Apple CarPlay, but I can add that after market if necessary. Same with a backup camera. I’m not the best mechanic in the world, but I have friends and YouTube University that are both excellent at tutorials. I like learning to work on my own car, which is my only reservation about an SUV. I could actually lift the tires on my Toyota Yaris………….

It’s been years since I’ve owned a car, and I’m excited about it. I already have mountains of laundry to transport from my apartment to Sudsville, the washateria of my dreams. I can do all my regular clothes at home, but Sudsville has machines big enough for queen size comforters and sheet sets. I also need to take two computers to Walmart and exchange them. There’s all this little piddly shit that’s not getting done around my house because it’s too complicated for an Uber…. or it’s not, but it seems so. Who knows, maybe the Uber driver would have helped carry my bags.

I doubt it.

Speaking of Uber, I am two for two on Uber drivers being Evangelicals down here, complete with Bible in the center console and the world’s worst oxymoron, Christian Rock, on the stereo.

I wouldn’t enjoy driving passengers around, but I could drive Uber Eats. That thought just occurred to me, and would help my car pay for itself. We’ll see. It’s an idea, but it may not be a good one. The daily prompt was asking about professions, and one I could turn on and off at will seems like a better plan than requiring me to be somewhere at 8:00 AM.

Anybody else out there ADHD or Autistic and the hardest part of the job is getting there?

I was diagnosed with ADHD in college, but those records don’t exist anymore. I need to go through another diagnostic battery in Maryland, and one for autism as well. I am so convinced I have autism that I self-diagnosed, but that didn’t come until I’d done several weeks’ worth of research on how ADHD and Autism are similar and I might have been misdiagnosed in college.

The reason I need to go through the diagnostic battery again is that no one will prescribe ADHD meds for me until I’m diagnosed. The best OTC medication I can find?

Cafe au lait.