- My morning coffee is sacred.
- It’s dark roast, with milk and no sweetener. I prefer coffee that looks like it came from Anish Kapoor…. but it would be illegal to say that my coffee came from Anish Kapoor without express permission from Anish Kapoor, so it just looks like that.
- My Cokes.
- I’m a Texan, so “what kind of Coke do you want?” is standard vernacular. I like Dr Pepper Zero and orange or grape from Giant in the white sugar free cans.
- Hot sauce
- I deal with allergies constantly, so I love anything hot. Cholula is the most served in restaurants, but I like spicy Capital City Mumbo Sauce from DC and Secret Aardvark Sauce from Portland.
- YouTube
- I love Josh Johnson, Bourbon Moth, and Perkins Brothers as entertainment, but I’ve also started learning Arabic. I often binge things, and “How Clean is Your House” is my favorite. Kim and Aggie will set you straight (as it were).
- Dancing in the rain.
- Making me happy was not having a choice.
Category: Uncategorized
How Not to Be Seen
In high school, I learned that I had to be the FBI agent of my own body. That’s because it was perfectly okay to discriminate against me in the late ’90s. We didn’t know what to do with queer kids yet. I actually had both CIA and DIA personnel comment on it, that learning to do intel work first starts with learning that the world is fucked up and I am no different. Being queer and assigned female at birth made me wary of all men, all the time. If they were enlightened around women, I still had to stomach their gay jokes. I still had to put up with southern Baptist rhetoric at High School for Performing and Visual Arts. I’ve been made an example of at two schools.
One from a counselor when I was bullied:
Well, what did you do to provoke them?
And one from a teacher on a paper:
I feel that this is too private to share with the class.
I was vindicated when my teacher girlfriend said that my paper was educational and I’d been discriminated against. I was carrying the message about the way I’d been treated at HSPVA to Clements. So, whether I was out of the closet or in, schooling did not fit me.
Culture does not fit me. It moves around me. While everyone else was lost in the movies, I was lost in the art of how they get made. You saw Da Five Bloods on Netflix, I met the guy who composed the score (Terrance Blanchard). You saw Selma, I know the guy who composed the score (Jason Moran). It’s a different way of relating to the world when movie magic is hard, hard work and not handed to you on a silver platter. I’ve played with jazz greats and know that I’m not the best, but I’m a utility player who won’t show up late and that counts for a lot, or it would be if I hadn’t stopped playing trumpet.
People think that it’s all talk, that I want to say I have cool friends because I needed to prove I had a cool friend. That’s the saddest part of all. I had to prove I had a friend. I’ve been thinking a lot about this… why did I need to prove Supergrover was real? I panicked. She gave me no reason not to panic. I wasn’t handling my shit well.
That was a bigger laugh line than intended.
But how does Supergrover relate to my high school experience? She was with me the whole time, or a part of her was. It’s the writing muse inside me that makes art come out. We hadn’t met yet, but the talent was already there. She just molded it so that I feel like I’m a capable enough writer to take a stab from a dagger.
Because now I know she cut me and she meant it, but it was to lance an infection. Supergrover and I had become toxic in both directions. Again:
“I do not think vulnerability solves everything. I AM TIRED.”
My heart shattered. Irreconcilable differences where she denies she hurts me until we’re dead. Nope.
There was never revenge, and there will always be regret. But not for the torrent of writing talent that I had to give someone. Taking all of the love and hope I put into the wrong relationship didn’t mean that picking SG! was also wrong. I’d been searching for a place to put that love my whole life, because my relationship with my mother was broken. She helped reparent me and I think I helped reparent, her, but it did not come without a bit of colonization here and there. It wasn’t always me claiming her in the name of Ireland. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
They thought I wanted people to know them because they are The Doctor, and I wanted people to know John Smith.
It was too much of a torrent that could not be tamed to a trickle; my heart is like that. Wild and reckless and wreck-less because of it. Things bounce off of scar tissue because there’s just so much of it. I’m going through yet another family emergency in which it would be helpful for me to undo the last 10 years so that I could be in my big backyard right now. But I chose her family. And then I was a jackass to them unprovoked. But rule following gets you nowhere in her line of work, so we stayed friends.
But did we?
I don’t think so. I think that I’m not supposed to know what happens next in any area of my life. But if I look back, all the answers are found when I was really too young to understand anything.
Put on blast
I Am the Ghost-Hugging Tree in This Scenario
I got a TikTok link from my dad containing a link to a walk in Patterson Park this Sunday or something. I would like to think that the logo I got from the resulting “you’re signed up” page is AI, because I would like to think everyone got a logo specifically designed for them; they asked me what I could talk about all day, and I did not say ghosts. But there are a few synonyms that fit. 😉 I call anyone I meet in the Intelligence Community “High Five Ghost,” so a pic of a ghost is literally perfect.
My dad read my blog post about my favorite exercise being walking and talking, so he hooked me up with Outerly. They match you up with people and then you go and walk with them. I decided on the Singles’ Walk because I have a boyfriend I haven’t met and a woman at home who loves me as much as Lindsay does even if we aren’t married to each other. It’s not fair for me to commit to Aaron without meeting in person, and it’s not fair for me to say I’m “single,” either, but most people that can accept a nonbinary between male and female can accept a nonbinary between single and partnered. If my new girlfriend ever tried to say Bryn “doesn’t count,” that is the “thank u, next” for which I am looking. In poly, it’s not all about love and romance. Sometimes, it’s about love and vomit. You have romance for the days you need it. You have emotional support when you don’t need a boyfriend. You need someone to hold your hair while you puke. So, last evening was a mixture of talking to her and self-soothing.
Then I promptly bought a pass to watch David Tennant and Cush Jumbo do Macbeth in the West End. I need to watch it while I move on, knowing my hands aren’t the only ones dirty, I’m not the only one bleeding or grieving. I just needed more than she could provide via the internet and she could not understand how we got to this point, not having time to really take in my words and tell me how she felt about them. I moved too fast for her to reflect, and I’ll always regret it. I chose her every time until I was locked out of a hospital in the middle of the night in Baltimore City. I chose Olivia.
Because no one asked me how I’d feel if my feelings were ripped out from under me again. Notice the graphic on my web site has never changed, and no one has ever said, “Leslie, is that your handwriting?” My first instinct is not to protect her, but undoing one lie undoes them all. I’m the real villain, correct? So, nothing we did was right. Leaving everything I knew was my only move. The carnage in my wake is massive, not hers.
Because I finally decided to be a gladiator and not a bitch. Well, that’s debatable, but if you’re a Scandal fan you at least get the reference. I’m more like Quinn than I’m not. Someone who met a Huck and liked it. Then I met a lot more. And found out they don’t know shit, but 20 years later.
If this sounds weird, it’s unique to people my age that have lived on the Internet since 1999. We’re all learning our sins now after being sucked in by IRC and America Online, and holy fuck you figure out a lot about the 1990s when you realize Steve Case put the company in Northern Virginia for a reason. Why would the United States need an online company located near Langley and Ft. Meade? Make it make sense. I’m lagging. 😉
Doesn’t mean I haven’t met cool people online.
As for Aaron, I told him that I wasn’t sure about the whole boyfriend thing, but I would live with him in a New York minute because this is the longest Craig’s List interview ever………….. 😉 Speaking of which, I need to buy him an iPad because I decided I want to keep mine. I bought Scrivener for it, which was stupid because I should have bought it for Android. I’m trapped. Oh, wait. No. They don’t make Scrivener for Android, which is why I have to have two tablets. It’s not that my device sucks. Both my Android and my iPad are great. They are both services as device, which means that I cannot ditch anything and still have access to my software. I also know that moving in with Aaron is not doable quickly for either of us, just a dream we keep alive because we’re both amazing people who deserve love.
The iPad is not to buy his love. He’s been making me stellar graphics for months on a POS Samsung phone and they’re incredible. I want to unlock his creativity, because Bryn manages him when we’re doing something long term. But crossover happens, because we’ll be talking about something, and a childhood memory will bring up another idea for The Sinners’ Table or LMG. We have both tried to stop remembering things and start relying on alarms and Google Calendar. I am learning an ancient tradition called “write it down.” I don’t function well all alone, and I don’t know how to live in community yet. I am literally getting my shit together.
Compare that to the Uber driver who just asked me if I was up and told me he was having a fantasy about me. Fine, whatever. You go do that, but I’m not going to be there. It’s a pleasure to be nominated, and thanks for not sending me pictures. I’m sad because I liked him and that’s not my vibe. I don’t know how to comport myself in the smallest of situations, but I know enough to know it isn’t that. Situational awareness in the intelligence community has taught me two things:
- If you mean it, don’t say it in a text message.
- If you don’t mean it, you didn’t say it for legal reasons. It’s not a laugh line, it’s serious business.
“When you know better, you do better” is the third thing, because in a list I can rarely stop at two items. I just tell you there are for easy retention. 😉 But here’s what happens with poly people. If I’d gone to Aaron and said that Kamal was having dreams about me and that part of it was unwelcome, he’d bitch with me and offer to comfort me, like hiding Kamal’s body in an unknown location (this is a laugh line, not serious. I have learned that threatening people is bad, but he’s already blocked. The only thing left is writing about what happened. I mean this in a humorous manner because AOL has no sense of humor, once they’re blocked, I’m not going back.).
My point is that poly is not different than monogamy except that jealousy is relative. Aaron would be jealous if I cut him out and stopped telling him things; he has a right to know if I’m dating someone else. Cheating on him is literally hiding things from him, not opening up. I cannot get away with concealing anything, and that’s the reason I betrayed Supergrover. I realized that she’d put me in a relationship with her that was a trap now when it wasn’t before. I’d made too many mistakes to get a clean slate, and as time went on, she saw my need to actually connect with her as threatening her.
Connecting was seeing her in person and not taking in seven percent of communication, not hiding our relationship from Lindsay, Aaron, Bryn, and SG’s family. I made the effort to learn boundaries and how I could fit in, but I was also a very flawed human being and mistakes don’t get better. Greatness was fleeting. I felt great about an e-mail saying I’d build a shrine to someone at a museum. I am not sure the message was received as intended, but it was received all right. Sigh. I’m the worst at trying to be the best, which is duly noted.
That’s because the people in my life are relentless planners and I’m autistic. I do vibe checks and then plan my next move. It drives them up the wall.
But.
Someone was watching out for me, and I’ve been watching out for them. I couldn’t protect her when I looked too crazy to function. She couldn’t let me save myself. She had to step away. That’s because fallout doesn’t touch her in public. I’m sure she’s hurt. Whether she’s hurt enough for anyone to notice is anyone’s guess. I don’t know how far I’ve risen and fallen over the years because that is unclear….. Some things aren’t.
How I managed to find two successful houses in a row before I was managed into this one is not hard to grasp. There was just no face time to make anything right. The women who trouble me only knew me in the years directly after Dana got her DUI. I was angry at the world and sober as a heart attack. Nothing to take the edge off, I was just full tilt, all anxiety all the time. My mother died and the most I did was drink a beer at her wake. Then, I drank Diet Coke until my friend James and my friend Alberto had the realization I was done; we walked to the ice cream food truck. So, they’ve missed a lot by not reconnecting five or 10 years later. I would say they tried, but they set me up.
I was done because I knew that I was in no danger. It was just a bit cold. They told me to grab a jacket for our date, so I brought a puffy vest. It was just perfect, because I was warm enough to function and cold enough to really think things through. They promised me a life where I could live with them. All of them. Just be happy in community. Then when I showed up at the hospital where I was supposed to be picked up, I realized that they were pranking me, and I needed to call my sister. I could do that, or wander out into the night and hope I got hit by a car. I really didn’t want to live after that, because someone went to a lot of trouble to weave every element of my life into calling me a monster. It worked, but I don’t have to go back to them and apologize. I do not have to say that their methods are fair and balanced, because mine weren’t.
So whether I was being friended or followed, I have no idea. I cannot say anymore. I didn’t burn anyone who didn’t burn me. I’m done.
What does it look like to be done? All my energy suddenly rushes out of my face. All the light leaves my eyes. You can see the overwhelm. Not drinking makes it happen faster because I have no social lubricant. Weed can be a social lubricant, but I don’t use it often enough for it to really help me. I find that I cannot concentrate as hard as I need to pick up languages quickly, and now that my Lamictal has been removed from my protocol, I don’t need weed to solve nausea. That being said, I have no idea what kind of hippy tree-hugging event this is going to be. If I say I like spies, they probably won’t put me with the stoners. But they should.
Spies do not give a FUCK. About anything. At any time. They watch so many people that they don’t retain things unless they love them. Sometimes, they do.
I am sure that I am not the only one lonely tonight, but my friendship with one person cost me all the others, and there’s been no way to bridge that gap. It’s just been “keep writing to me while I hold you at arm’s length.” In order to get over the loss, I see her as a threat to me. It’s not because I think she’s evil. It’s because I think she’s good. I think she needed to watch me and had to have a way. That does not mean I’m protected. It means she’s reading. Those are two different things and she thinks they’re different now. The carnage in her wake has always been massive because by not sharing anything about what was going on with her, our stories differed. I don’t think she was paying enough attention, or she was paying too much. Take your pick. I pick “too much,” because it’s easier to think that she was watching me than she just didn’t care, or she was a narcissist who needed a dopamine hit. Me accepting the consequences of my own actions is my only play here. Because I e-mailed two women at the same time who said they didn’t know each other, and as it turns out, I’m not sure that’s true or whether it, too, was a fever dream. Whether they do or they don’t is of great consequence, because I don’t know how to proceed except talking to other people who also like talking about the intelligence community that don’t have any connection to my former family….. who was willing to support me with a few chats a year. It wasn’t enough, and her excuses were old. I thought there was nothing we couldn’t get over, but as it turns out, lying to me that she knew someone when she didn’t made her seem cooler than she was and she knew it.
She ran with it, and I caught feelings for this person she said she knew, but the kind of feelings you would have for a mutual friend- care, connection, hope for their well-being. It made me an idiot to someone I adore, and then I got to make a bigger idiot of myself with her after that. But I wouldn’t take nothin’ for my journey now. The IC introduced me to things I never would have learned otherwise, like not giving a shit if your partner has other partners.
The entire key to polyamory in its entirety is learning not to give a shit. It’s not that you don’t feel jealous. You learn to deal with it on your own until your compartments fucking leak. And even then, it’s only your partner’s job to be heard. They’re not responsible for fixing the problem. If they don’t fix it, you leave. It sounds simple and it’s not. But the key is that you are always parenting yourself.
Being poly is second nature to Zac, therefore it is second nature to me. The reason for this is that I spent years in a relationship where I was waiting on him all the time and not at all. As in, whenever he showed up it was the best day ever, but I never felt like I was waiting on him. Writing took up my life in a way he could not; I felt like he had no boundaries with me. I had to make all of them up.
There was only “ask for what you want” and receiving no feedback that said “you are welcome to ask more questions because I was delighted by this one.” My refusal to learn from past experience is not cute, and neither is not being raised like a normal person instead of a preacher’s kid. It’s so different. You’re taught not to touch anything, and people are standoffish with you as well. As an adult, you’re supposed to be cooperative. I’ve been an absolute jackass for not jumping in and helping more when I’ve been taught to be a mushroom and I’ll grow where I’m planted. It was certainly my best work as a child.
Rita and Wilson teased me in the hospital about being sweet on Andrew, another patient, but I wasn’t. They asked me about it, and I said, “I don’t know what kind of connection it is and I don’t think I’m supposed to know that yet. I just met him.” I know now that it is not to be either way so far, because lack of communication means that he is lost in his own little world and I do not control it. I was more annoyed that they were looking for a good end to the story. This is not a Hallmark movie, although word on the street is that they are close to developing a second plot.
I love Hallmark movies because they are uncomplicated. I need a break from myself. Like now.
Put on blast
Dear Dana,
WordPress has changed its stats so that I can see the cities in which people are reading. The list is fascinating, and used to scare me. It gave me nightmares that made me run from you to keep you safe. It’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever done, because I wasn’t old enough to understand the implications. I just looked like an adult on the outside. You were trained to be me, and I wasn’t. But you didn’t get a chance to learn with me, and for that I’ll always be sorry.
We made El Paso.
Love,
Leslie
Put on blast
Walking and Talking at Sorkin Beats Per Minute
Walking while listening to “The West Wing” is my favorite way to exercise because of something my dad said when I was a kid… that the first rap song was in “The Music Man” (with a BIG bass drum… big bass drum). It is from that movie that I got the concept that music and speech are the same thing, and I would bet that something similar happened to Aaron on the way to the forum.
Connecting “The Music Man” to the punctuation inherent in Xhosa comes from Trevor Noah. That Xhosa is one of the only languages in the world where you can hear its punctuation out loud. In short, I’ve been walking and talking since I was a child… emphasis on the talking because I don’t walk that easily.
This is what it’s like to be an empath preacher’s kid in my daily life:
My blog makes me sound like a dick because I am this person in an Uber. It doesn’t seem related, but I have to have a place to vent about everything that happens to me because taking on these stories is not easy. I have rituals for “washing off” negative energy because there’s only so many times I can hear someone is a shit father (usually) or a shit mother (more rare, but men talk more about it because dollars to donuts they’ve found a sympathetic ear who’s a stranger and they don’t have a best friend). Meeting anyone in IC is an anathema to my work as a listener, because I cannot share any of that information. I just have to let it sit and fester inside me. It’s why I felt tortured over world events a good bit of the time and “everyone knows what the group is.” Now that it’s all in retrospect, it’s frightening how well my little company is known, but with great power comes great responsibility. I have situational awareness and I wouldn’t date anyone else in the IC unless they worked in the mail room. That means they have security training, but they won’t have been read into anything truly heinous.
Neither was I. I just have a good imagination so any piece of information and I was off to the Google machine in a way that no intelligence agency would want an untrained autist to do.
There is no bigger danger to intelligence and medicine than an untrained autist. That’s because I’ve had two friends in the IC tell me that I’m too smart for my own good and they have to pull back. Believe it or not, it’s unfair, but it’s love. It just feels like emotional avoidance when they don’t replace it. Ok, so don’t talk about work. How’s your dog? I listen to baby dogs snort and snuffle to avoid talking about anything real. Most people do this, I’ve found. Memes are popular because everyone wants to comment that there is a dumpster fire with emojis and graphics, the modern day eight by 10 color glossy pictures, I suppose.
I have been bucking up against that practice because it looks fake because it is. What’s the Kellerman quote about deep emotional wounds? You need a surgeon, not a barber. Until about two years ago, I thought that if you were CIA you weren’t allowed medication and had a bastardized version of therapy that fits the government’s needs, not yours. Though I do believe that Carrie Mathison was a great case officer, I could have done without all the illegal shit it took to get her the right meds, because the whole bit about her not being able to work for CIA if she was mentally ill was fake. I am sure that it’s true that if you’re caught in Russia, they won’t give you your medication. But I believe they train you not to get caught, and there would be nothing better to help people not get caught then actually addressing their medical and emotional needs.
Is there room for shame and vulnerability in the Intelligence Community?
I think there is, it just looks different for the general population than it does for them. The problem is that lies build, even lies told to protect your friends and family. It gets worse when a case officer is hell bent on protecting themselves, and they really, really hurt you. Even if it comes with an apology, it’s not enough.
One hurt was on Homeland. One hurt was on Supergrover. One hurt was on Zac. All three of them were erased by Mummo, from whom all blessings flow.
Mummo is Finnish for grandmother, and the woman I social masked to figure out who I was in return. I just am her mirror opposite in some ways, exactly like her in others. For instance, we both wear men’s clothes and cute glasses, but she’s a boring cis straight girl and I’m, well… not.
I misspoke when I said Supergrover had made it clear she was attracted to men. I meant that she made it clear she was attracted to cis men. I don’t rate, and that’s fine. She met me when I self-identified as a woman, and she was halfway to married, anyway. Having a preference for cis men doesn’t make her a bad person, nor does feeling love for her make me one. It was just problematic in the way it began, because when IC overshares about their personal lives, you really cannot give consent. You can because you’re an adult, but you can’t because you have no idea what contract you’re signing. You just have to learn to hang all on your own.
I realized I could have had a career in intelligence if I’d bought Duolingo the moment I’d moved to Washington, because I wasn’t interested in Finnish back then. I was interested in Arabic, both MSA and the Levantine dialect. It was all self-confidence based. I didn’t really believe that I could learn Arabic, and now I can conjugate basic sentences in the hardest language in the world:
Metsässä kävelee hirvi.
This translates to “there is a moose walking in the forest.” Finnish is NOT English, however. Metsässä actually means “in the forest.” A direct translation isn’t really possible…. “in the forest, there is walking, a moose” is as close as direct gets.
Hirvi puri kerran siskoani.
Sorry, wrong piece of media. Those responsible have been sacked.
A trick I will give you for Medium is that if you speak a different language, use Google translate. I don’t know what it is about the code, but when you paste from Google Translate into something else, the AI on Medium knows it’s a different language and will read it that way. If I just type, then the AI sounds like it’s lagging, because Finnish is light and quick. It’s probably all the kahvi.
I realized that I needed more to write about than what has happened in the past, so the way my past is affecting me now is starting Modern Standard Arabic on Duolingo. Here’s my Facebook status for today:
Now that I have done several languages on Duolingo, I can tell you that the language support for Swedish and Arabic is better than the other languages I’ve tried. I will have to get on my tablet to see if AI support is offered in MSA, but it is in Swedish and it’s invaluable. Where AI comes in is voice recognition. You cannot pass a level until the AI can understand you. MSA on Duo actually starts you like a kindergartener, learning the vowel clusters and not full-on words. It also teaches you to read by making you identify those vowel clusters in Arabic. Marvelous.
People think I’m interested in MENA so I can walk the Bible. This is indelibly true. Preacher’s kid is who I am. But it is also true that I want to walk John Brennan’s “Undaunted” as well. 😉
I thought I wouldn’t be good as an intelligence officer when I was young enough to get into CIA or the military at all. I have proved myself wrong for my own pleasure. This represents almost two months of Very Finnish Problems, plus Swedish, Spanish, Russian, and Modern Standard Arabic. MSA is how I got the level up to five. I realized that because of imposter syndrome, I’d never tried to learn it when there was someone living in my house that could have taught me for 10 years. But, she doesn’t speak MSA, either. She spoke the Levantine dialect. I’m interested in both, but MSA is what they use on the BBC in Cairo…. which I need to watch…. because I’m a sharpshooter. 🙂
I got Sharpshooter level one a long time ago, then got frustrated with Spanish because I already know it. If you already know a language and you’re like me, the way it teaches will drive you crazy. Once I immersed myself in Finnish, Swedish, and Russian, I got the flow.
Duolingo is worth every penny, but you have to know what it’s designed to do. It absolutely cannot tutor you. It can build your vocabulary while you are waiting to be tutored. My friend Randy taught me that (quote o’ the moment? “is that big oil Randy?” Yeah, I’m not that bright. I’m sure he didn’t know anything about MENA 25 years ago when I was actually IN HIS OFFICE EVERY DAY, JFC).
An autist’s pattern recognition makes everything work backwards. I could have had everything I wanted with the right information, but no one was forthcoming or forthright. Things We Do in the Shadows proved correct, except someone let me in on a few things and then left me there, shining her light on someone else. This is not to say she did anything wrong. She was protecting herself from me. It does not render either of our stories invalid. She’s just not a writer, and I am. It’s funny that it never occurred to her before this week, because she didn’t buy me any fonts.
She didn’t know I was a writer, obviously.
She didn’t make a choice to become enamored with a blogger and then burn them when the flame burned bright on both sides.
Or she did, but that’s not my story.
My story is that everything makes sense. Working for ExxonMobil and focusing on Arabic instead of my wife would have led to better results, but I’m the partner that props up her man. It’s sickening to watch, apparently, because the partner in question doesn’t even have to be male. I react like the minister’s wife, not the minister. That’s problematic because she was not the model I’d like to be in the world, but she’s not not that, either. It’s a process of separating the wheat from the chaff, slashing and burning what isn’t good for me and keeping everything that can stay.
Intelligence can’t, because it twists up my guts. Arabic can, because when I’m walking the Bible, I expect to go to integrated neighborhoods if it’s safe in my lifetime. I would also work for the new inevitable Palestinian intelligence agency once they are a state with verified intel, why we cannot just wash our hands of Israel.
But what could I do at 50 or 55 besides translate documents? Pffff. Like that’s helpful. 😉
Turns out, I never really wanted to be intel. My heart bleeds too much. I want to be where I’ve always been… in my office, holed up, listening to people. Apparently, air conditioning is very important in Palestine. I would also like a pool. No one will come visit me if I have neither of these things except Bryn and Aaron, because they know what contract they signed. I’d never bring them anywhere dangerous; I just mean that they love me and moving to Palestine would complicate things, but it’s not a dealbreaker.
And if you think that my life would be different in MENA vs. here, remember that I could live in Georgetown or College Park. I live in Baltimore City.
That is also a choice, and a calculated one. Because I’m a sharpshooter. I’m trying to get relief to the people who need it. Evey Winters and Shane Torres are in. I just need to pick a venue and decide what I need them to do. Evey even said she’d roll up her sleeves and work for me (she doesn’t know how to cook). Shane was FOH at Tapalaya, which is why I want him to represent “The Sinners’ Table.” I want to name it after John-Michael Kinkaid.
It’s not because he died a sinner or anything cruel. It’s that he was going to be the chef of the whole operation when he was tragically killed on the side of 59 South. It has only been since December 8th, and I still feel dead inside at a loss I’ll never get over.
I treat everyone I meet as if they’re John. Because maybe he’s not really gone. Maybe he’ll show up in a different face. Maybe he won’t. But how am I supposed to know that in advance? I don’t. So everyone is John until proven otherwise.
Isn’t that the lesson they teach about Jesus, too?
I’m doing my best, and trying to make up for past flaws and failures. I can do that better now because there is no part of my life drowning in the dark.
The solstice has passed, and the days are getting much, much longer.
My heart is open. I am buying things I need that I have ignored, like clothing. I wouldn’t spend money on myself. Most of it is nice stuff that just makes me look like a jock. It’s designed to be nonbinary with bras built into tank tops, etc. But I did have to honor B’more just a little bit. It’s a Ravens t-shirt with this slogan:
Flock around and find out.
You just don’t realize the power of a murder until it’s coming straight at you. You’re trained to look at every problem… wait for it, Lamott…. bird by bird.
Put on blast
I Was Trying To Tell You Something Without Telling You Anything
There is no blame in my story. The buck stops with me. But it stopped 11.5 years ago without anyone trying to further a relationship with me. The longer there was no meet and greet, the weirder my life became. I didn’t feel free to miss a thing, because I felt like something would happen if I wasn’t there. I didn’t do anything, I just talked. And the longer I talked, the more I realized that two people in my life practiced law. The way it was presented to me in the hospital is that I was an experiment based on the 11.5 years it took for someone to fuck me up…. and no matter what the people say, broccoli is our friend. It’s a Sesame Street non sequitur to express unhappiness at Dana contacting my dad about something instead of just replying. I should have known that’s what would happen, but I took a chance that she was still an ally. She does not have to protect me, I was letting her know what was up. Now she’s burned an asset, and I’ve gained a CloudFlare notification that I don’t know what it means because no one will tell me. I am both sicker and more well than I’ve ever been. It’s just that no one will tell me what mine is to write and what’s not. What’s my life, and what’s everyone else’s? They do not have good control of this, either, because they do not remember the same things I do and could not predict the play.
I didn’t play either of their games because I didn’t trust their systems. The law and the government have never helped me.
At the very least, I know one of two things:
She really wasn’t there.
I was told she was there, but she wasn’t.
Both of those things could be true.
That is her question to wrestle with. Why would I remember that name after all these years? Why now? Don’t worry. I need this to stop, too. I’m dying inside. It’s why I’ve done so much to get well. It’s different when you’re left to do it alone in the dirt and when you have a support system. I have done terrible things, and I am sorry. But I am not sorry for the fact that Dana is part of my story. I’m sorry that everyone else is, because we were too broken and I’m still working on it.
I told my dad not to respond, that I’d gotten everything I needed on no information.
Put on blast
Why I Would Think That
I mentioned the FBI in my last post. That’s what happens when you’re an American who writes about CIA. FBI has eyes on. All I’m saying is that I’d rather work with the publications review board than against them, but my attempts at fiction are weak. I wish I was a fiction writer, but the way around it is to change dates and times. So, we met in any city I’ve ever lived at any time IC said we did. This story is not about that. It’s about the stories that don’t get told. The partners who are allowed to know they work in IC, which is an underserved community because people don’t think of intelligence being as dangerous as being in the military. Fortunately, or unfortunately, my great uncle is the legend in my family because his C and/or DIA helicopter went down over Somalia in the 1980s, which cemented my star on their wall. Strange things have always been afoot at the Circle K.
“Chefs are just spies with better tools.” -Anthony Bourdain
I spent my time in the kitchen, so I already had the patois of a spy in the field. FOH and BOH gather information on customers the same way, and it is just like CIA talking to low value targets. Information passes up to the chef, he is rarely seen on the dining room floor unless you give him five or 10 minutes to put on a clean shirt and a fresh jacket.
I made her cry with posts about marriage and laugh with posts about sex. That part, I hope I can still do. “Those that lie, love their audience.” I am no threat to the intelligence community because I wanted to know the color commentary, not what anyone actually did for a living. It’s more trouble than it’s worth for me to know where and when Zac is, but that’s not why we’re not together. I just mean that I know firsthand what it’s like to be an intelligence officer. What is helpful to know and what is not. I once wrote a marriage article for all people, but if there’s an addendum, it’s “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
I had to learn the hard way that there’s a limit to how much sensitive information you can hold without being tortured by it. Nothing that anyone has ever said has hurt me on face value. I just didn’t want to be an insensitive jackass and say timeout. That is not what the preacher’s kid is built for; it’s not what autistic people are built for, either. I chose people to be around me that were in the intelligence community because I felt lost and frightened all the time. The stories about my great uncle are not kind in terms of how my family was treated post-mortem. Therefore, I have a vested interest in staying frosty, but excited enough to tell you about the cool parts. It’s kind of like Craig Ferguson deciding that he would get rid of his fear of flying by becoming a pilot. I know that I am not cut out for CIA, because I am their mirror image. I hurt too badly for all involved to be objective, when their whole job is objectivity.
I also don’t want to be the jackass that publishes unverified information, for two reasons. The first is that I’m not a conspiracy theorist. The second is that I’m not an asshole. The jury has been out on that one for 11.5 years and I’m sure has been decided in the other direction by the other parties. It’s fine. I don’t have to forgive anyone but me, and that’s harder than forgiving someone who hurt you. She kept saying that nothing was ever enough for me because she used me. She needed me to be the empathy machine and couldn’t return love in that way…. or wouldn’t, I’m not sure. Because I was never sure if she was reading me in a personal or professional capacity. I was never sure how many times I made her throw up both her hands and her lunch at my illness. She knew all of those things about me, but it wasn’t a two-way street.
The truth is that I can write around a lot of things, but I don’t want to; I’d rather have a team of people tell the real story, but have it be the actual people to whom the story happened…. both what they told me happened and what actually did.
I am not responsible for a Virginia candidate dropping out of a race because I suggested an affair, because the person I said that to provided no background as to what she actually meant and I was not poly at the time. Whose affair were we talking about? The story from the very beginning, because I wrote it as it happened, is that SG! doesn’t have feelings for me. She overshared, and it made me react like a boyfriend who wanted to wrap her in foam rubber and keep her safe from harm. I was devastated because there was nothing that could be done about it in either direction to make it a better situation.
- She has made it perfectly clear that she is very attracted to men.
- I made it clear to myself that I was very attracted to my wife, and pretty girls are a flash in the pan. It’ll go away.
But, SG! isn’t the Virginia candidate. Who knows what she said to my ex-wife, the one actually from Virginia? At worst, I said something stupid when I was drunk (or they did, unclear) and I’m forgiving myself because I don’t say stupid shit when I’m drunk. It’s not possible when you cannot generally finish a cocktail but once in a Blue Moon.
SG! does know her, though, thus began a source of humor- updates on our favorite Instagram influencer. We just love her for different reasons. For me, she actually has influenced my clothes and glasses frames. I would pay money to see SG! dressed like our favorite Instagram influencer, but I’m betting they’re both a good time in different ways.
She does indeed love me in a “hell no, I will not pick you up at the airport but here’s money for an Uber” kind of way. She just doesn’t know how to show it because she can’t. I’m betting the story is that I’m going to be sued now, but all I want is to get better, anyway. I am hoping that all of these groups add up to the number of hours I’d get for damage inflicted, if there was any. The internet is strange. I don’t have to learn how it works anymore because no one knows.
Truly.
Meta is my favorite company in the universe, and the next MIB movie should be an interworld Facebook. Of course, aliens can communicate online. Online can also be more than it is to its users, and I live by the Gospels of Matthew and Mark.
That would be Mullenweg and Zuckerberg, btw.
Zuck was a dick to a lot of people, but I see a little too much of him in me. Decision fatigue, mostly. Betting he grew a beard to interrupt pattern recognition for neurodivergence. I’m cutting my hair differently. My glasses take up a lot of my face and my hair doesn’t need to compete so much.
I’m finally seeing that no one can fire Cinderella, and I’ve been Hal all along. I’m so sorry.
“She thinks she’s CIA. Has anyone told her?”
SG! finally picked a TV show I like… she’s darker than me and seems to prefer violent trauma porn in her viewing activities, and I’m pretty sure she’s read “The Murderer’s Daughter” as well. I did not like “The Enemy Within” and I loved “Homeland” until I found out something that made me sick. It was all a lie. You can take psych meds at CIA. That wouldn’t mean anything to the general population, but it would have affected my efforts greatly after having been rejected by the Air Force (I’ve never been huge into the military. I was a trumpet player and wanted to be literal “top brass.”). Intelligence seemed easier because I’d gathered intel on people since I was young, which the candidate proceeded to exploit.
She pretended to be someone who catfished me when I was a teen, when I thought she was actually a very nice girl from Swansea, Wales. Because my great uncle (the brother of the hero helicopter pilot) came onto me when I was 17 by sending me explicit messages, I died and was born again online. I killed “LDLanagan” online until I was an adult. Back then, I was “NoPnNoJn,” the slogan for Winter Park, Colorado…. no pain, no [Mary] Jane…. a ridiculous mountain. I had to reinvent myself as a pro-level skier so my great uncle couldn’t find me out of the other teens he diddled with until he died in prison. Therefore, I’ve always had a hero complex about CIA. That if Foster had been alive, Gene couldn’t have hurt me. Foster did not live long enough to see what his brother was doing, which was retreating to CIA’s jurisdiction. He did not live in Wales, but in England.
The reason I think I’ve always been a monster is that I violently hurt two girls when I was a kid to the level where you just don’t see anger like that in untraumatized kids. I believe something happened to me, and I will never know if I’m right… but the clue is that when I was two, I was terrified of men with mustaches. I would go to anyone else; my mother would exclaim proudly.
I have never lied. I found a memory. I will never know, but I have always suspected.
Put on blast
I Just Picked One…
Pinks & Whites
One of the lines that has always stuck in my head from “Spy Support” from WIRED is that CIA can arrange anything. Anything.
3 min read
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Just now
I have a story, and the people involved didn’t want to help me with it. They decided that only their lives were important and left me to twist in the wind. So, since they’re gone and not coming back, I have two choices. The first is to stay silent and not cause unrest; the second is to cause a lot of unrest because I trust the FBI inasmuch as anyone can because “All Cops Are Bad.” Luckily, NoVA and SoMD are full of cops I like… the ones that can admit they’re complicit in a system. The blessing and the curse is that I am a documented bipolar patient who had “hallucinations” in the hospital… but who knows how many hallucinations were true stories too good to be true? Even I will never know that.
Wicked.
I have been changed for good, and that’s all I can say about that… because I am not sure about better or worse, just like Elphaba. I just know that I cannot go backwards, cannot seek solace in any of my old friends, and just need to live out my life in peace. I’m not cut out for government work, and not because I don’t have the smarts. I betrayed a friend after she betrayed me. She wanted all the benefits of being my closest confidante without any of the hard work. Therefore, it became harder and harder to put in work for her. I know what I have done is permanent, but you would have to read about the last 12 years to know both why I felt betrayed and why it was time to just let go and wash my fucking hands……….
Except I can’t.
“Out, out damned spot.”
I have always put in work for people who put in work for me. Her idea of work was being as remote as she possibly could so that nothing was ever fun or light; I am not the person that can be fun or light in the middle of fighting.
Here is our life together in a series of Jonathan Kellerman quotes, taken from “The Murderer’s Daughter:”
“They deserved more than the pathetic lie known as empathy.”
“Pre-monster happiness was out of the question.”
“In matters of healing, the body initiates and the mind follows. Malcolm had told her that. Only once, but it stuck.”
“Pals and chums and confidantes — what the textbooks sanitized as a social support system — were fine when you stubbed your emotional toe. With deep wounds, you needed a surgeon, not a barber.”
“Caulfield was basically a snide, spoiled twit. The arrival of the Messiah would leave him unimpressed.”
“Since learning of the catastrophe, she’d retreated into an insensate fog, as if locked in a sterile glass bubble where her eyes worked mechanically but couldn’t process and her ears were unplugged speakers. When she took a step, she knew she was moving, but she felt as if someone else was pushing the buttons. Her brain was flat and blank as unused paper. It was all she could do to sit and stand and walk.”
Now, imagine if you felt like that and you were responsible for it.
Put on blast
Snippets
I don’t have one book I read over and over, except the year that “One L” by Scott Turow was in my bathroom. Every time I was indisposed, I read about his own shit sandwich and tried to empathize. It was easy after having read “Intern,” by Doctor X. I’m not sure, but matching style I think “Doctor X” is actually Michael Chrichton.
Except it’s not. It just sounds like him.
I looked it up. It’s Alan Nourse, the Mark Felt (Deep Throat) of Harvard Medical. If you like Chrichton, though, it will remind you very much of “Five Patients.” Turow, Nourse, and Chrichton all went to Harvard…. it’s not a big leap in style, and you will love all of them.
I do have lines from books that repeat:
- “WHEN IT BECAME completely impossible for me to live without a pet chicken,”
- “I turned to Kirsten, who was a great fallback best friend, because she had seven brothers and sisters and going to her house was like going to the zoo.”
- “I later discovered that in order to be a good athlete one must care intensely what is happening with a ball, even if one doesn’t have possession of it. This was ultimately my failure: my inability to work up a passion for the location of balls.”
- I laughed so hard I nearly died. These are from “A Girl Named Zippy” by Haven Kimmel.
- “Speed kills,” said General Faust, picking up the baton. “It’s nearly impossible to overstate its power. Darth Vader wouldn’t need a Death Star to destroy the Earth—or any explosives for that matter. He’d just need to put a single star cruiser on autopilot and ram it into the planet at a tenth of the speed of light. That would be more than enough to do the trick. If Vader had ever figured that one out, he would have put a lot of Death Star contractors out of work.”
- Douglas E. Richards is my favorite living technothriller writer, and this is from “Infinity Born.”
- “They deserved more than the pathetic lie known as empathy.”
- “Pre-monster happiness was out of the question.”
- “In matters of healing, the body initiates and the mind follows. Malcolm had told her that. Only once, but it stuck.”
- “Pals and chums and confidantes—what the textbooks sanitized as a social support system—were fine when you stubbed your emotional toe. With deep wounds, you needed a surgeon, not a barber.”
- “Caulfield was basically a snide, spoiled twit. The arrival of the Messiah would leave him unimpressed.”
- “Since learning of the catastrophe, she’d retreated into an insensate fog, as if locked in a sterile glass bubble where her eyes worked mechanically but couldn’t process and her ears were unplugged speakers. When she took a step, she knew she was moving, but she felt as if someone else was pushing the buttons. Her brain was flat and blank as unused paper. It was all she could do to sit and stand and walk.”
- All of these are from “The Murderer’s Daughter,” by Jonathan Kellerman
- “How can so many things become a bore by middle age—philosophy, radicalism, and other fast foods—but heartbreak keeps its sting?”
- “an author too old to be fresh and too young to be rediscovered,” (reminds me of Drew…. too old to be a princess, too young to be a queen. That’s why we’re both duchesses.
- “What does one ever ask an author except: ‘How?’ And the answer, as Less well knows, is obvious: ‘Beats me!’”
- “But once you’ve actually been in love, you can’t live with ‘will do;’ it’s worse than living with yourself.”
- “Strange, though; because he is afraid of everything, nothing is harder than anything else. Taking a trip around the world is no more terrifying than buying a stick of gum. The daily dose of courage.”
- “Nothing has happened in right field all season, which is why he was put there: a kind of athletic Canada.”
- “How did they even know I was gay?” He asked this from his front porch, wearing a kimono. (This made me snort and howl with laughter.)
The Murmur of Bees gets its own section, because it lifted me up during the pandemic:
- “It occurred to him that houses die when they are no longer fed with the energy of their owners.”
- “He could not imagine how the country would survive if it allowed the rural areas to die, for in spite of all the changes—the emergence of iron cities like Monterrey, all the technological advances, all the marvels of the modern world—if there was one thing that never changed, it was that people, whether of a city or a village, needed to eat every day.”
- “Simonopio closed his eyes, knowing that a look has the power to attract.”
- “the true meaning of death: that there is no going back and that anything that was not said in time would never be said.”
- “The empty hours of the night do not pass unnoticed, because in their unrelenting cruelty, they do not allow one to rest; they force one to think, and they demand a great deal.”
I love “The Murmur of Bees” so much that I heard it was originally written in Spanish. I don’t know enough Spanish to read it. Bought it, anyway just for the poetry. All of these lines are going to sound better in their original language…. most of the reason why I’m learning actual Finnish grammar and not just playing around.
I will update more because for some reason, I don’t have more recent books posting automatically. I know J.L., Evey, and Itzel will want to know what I highlighted. That’s the thing about having author friends.
When we’re together, Less is actually quite a bit More.
Put on blast
Fish, Part II
I was sitting on the toilet when I realized that I’ve been the fish in the bowl during childhood, and that as an adult my organs are twisted at having to live in a bowl. Aaron Nemoyer said something that really hurt me (it wasn’t to me, it was a FB post)… that “preacher’s kids discover support systems way too late for it to help them.” Why?
We are never part of the support system your parent provides. In my case, it was my dad. More and more, it’s preachers’ kids’ mothers. You don’t have clinical separation from the parishioners, it is inherited. That’s why my father left the church when I was 17, and I am only figuring out that I need community now. In fact, it was ordered by my doctors. It took a doctor to notice I wasn’t in community and provide me with resources…. not a pastor.
Pastors cannot be objective with their own kids, and none of them are. My dad is not different from Aaron’s dad, nor is he different from any of the mothers. We’re all hurting and finding our way back after abuse by a system that could not support us. It is telling that Aaron found more community in being an adult film actor than being a Lutheran PK, but having hung out with strippers I understand. No one loves fuckups like fuckups.
Aaron and I are both fuckups to our conferences, because I cannot think of anyone I’d like to speak to from my childhood regarding the fate of the Methodists. They made their choice when they moved on without me. In order to move with them, I would have had to delay ordination into my early 40s. The thing I was raised to do is no longer an option on multiple levels. Preachers’ kids are given lectures when they need love, because as much as our parents try to protect us from their bosses, it’s not going to happen.
It was the same thing with DIA. I had no situational awareness because I didn’t want it. It’s better to know nothing if you date DIA. They’re not happy, but you are. Ignorance is bliss going from one system to another. I did not want to play nice because I wasn’t nice anymore. I was kind.
I just wasn’t kind to the right people.
Supergrover said she could get me to where I wanted to go. Turns out, she works for a company that flies people to war zones. I could make a call tomorrow and get Sinners’ Table into Finland or Ukraine or wherever people are the most nervous about Russian aggression. Or I could have, had I been willing to play games.
- She never bought me any fonts.
- She doesn’t remember anything about my life (quiz her. It’s an act.)
- She isn’t as invested as me (this is the one that took me the longest to learn and why I let go)
I couldn’t have her truth without making my life a complete lie, and a real friend wouldn’t have made it that way for me like the Methodist church did. The lie there is that I had friends. I had parishioners. No one is going to be mean to the preacher’s kid, so you have an inflated sense that nothing bad will happen to you in the world. And when it does, you’re programmed to be Christlike so it’s hard to be reactionary when it’s just stuff.
Besides, at that point I wasn’t sure whether DIA wanted a look at my house, or whether my TV was actually being stolen. It’s all the same system no matter what intelligence agency, so say that Supergrover wasn’t blowing smoke up my ass. I said I wanted to own the spy museum after Jonna was gone. I wanted it in good hands. I think her son has it covered, but I didn’t know she had a son.
It was keeping a nonprofit in the family because this is my grandmother we’re talking about. SG’s lie cost me everything, not her.
Especially if it wasn’t a lie. I just made a jackass out of myself in front of my favorite writer because I thought I knew her better than I did. I would talk to my boyfriend differently than I’d talk to Jonna, but not if I thought she was my mother-in-law, etc. Keeping it in the family.
Let me explain. In “Argo,” Tony has a son. Tony does. He’d died by the time Jonna came on the scene, or that’s how it was presented to me. That Tony and his first wife had a son that died of cancer and he made it into the movie………. I did not know that their other kids didn’t.
So, I kicked a hornet’s nest I didn’t know was there.
How nice!
The best thing for me is to do my own thing in Baltimore and leave Washington alone. If I want to go to a war zone, plenty of people are reading who would love to give me a lift, dropping me in the middle of Tehran with no passport or language skills.
That was an Argo reference. If I really want to go to Tehran, I have to ask the Swiss or something. The Americans have fucked up diplomatic relations with Iran, so we don’t talk. We use back channels. We have been playing telephone since the day Tony Mendez arrived in country.
This is why “Parts Unknown” thrilled me. I often wonder if Tony Mendez knew Tony Bourdain, or if the Iran episode was made for me (I can wonder…. doesn’t mean it’s true… I think it was made for all Argo fans, not just me.) At the very least, Tony was able to pick up where Tony left off. 😉
Bourdain was able to show the current reality of Iran, the disconnect and the connect of modern relations with them. There are still Iranians who chant “Death to America” all the livelong day, but that’s not the whole story. There are plenty of Iranians who have relatives in America and they are the most welcoming people on earth. Tony wanted to eat, and boy did they feed him.
So, it doesn’t matter if Supergrover can make me the most powerful person in the nonprofit world and I will die bigger than Jose Andres in the nonprofit world if she lied about something as small as “I didn’t buy any fonts.” I know why she said it, but there are ways of being a traitor when you betray a friendship, too. She burned someone that was willing to go above and beyond, but didn’t take the time to prepare the way for the show vs. the reality.
I am always ready for the show vs. the reality, but I have to know the reality to create the show. That’s the part that was missing. Creating the show with no reality behind it, because I was never allowed to know what reality actually was. I got tired. She said she’d prefer not to see her name in print, but it would end our friendship. Our friendship was over the moment she denied me three times.
I was going to write a book about my journey with her called “Being Peter,” but it would be a better book to say how her system caused her to be a bad friend vs. the mistakes I made trying to be a good one. I didn’t do anything right; neither did she. Like, 11.5 years of it. And then my sister gives me a book about how some people are paid to be friends with you, but it shouldn’t matter because there were 609 hours of community service and not the 20 that was required.
I do see the Kennection.
Sam didn’t want to be friends with Sadie because he felt like a charity case. I don’t want to be friends with Supergrover because I feel the same way. It’s all about her. Keeping her, mostly, when she will not help you.
All of my stories are bullshit now. Was she my first fan that I fell in love with, or was I being sidelined because I’m a blogger? Who says she’s not friends with Matt and Mark?
Let’s end there. Matt and Mark are systems, too.
Put on blast
Fish
My life has been taken over by the cold virus. There is nothing anyone can do, because I am not bad off enough to do anything but complain. I hurt all over and there is Vick’s VapoRub on my chest. I could stop most of the complaining with a hot shower, so that is where I’m headed once you find out that I like keeping animals in water as decoration and because I crave taking care of something that doesn’t need me too much. I am saving that kind of love and attention for my service dog. It seems unfair to get a small dog or cat knowing they’re a placeholder for another animal. My sister and I have talked about all kinds of things, from a turtle to a betta fish. It’s all I have time to do, look.
I have a shower curtain with a turtle on it, and right now that is pet enough. That being said………….
The best day of my little autistic life was receiving Othello, my Black Moor goldfish, when I was nine. The worst day is learning that you are not rescuing a goldfish by putting it in a bowl. They grow quickly, and they basically fold in on themselves; their guts twist to accommodate being a big fish in a small pond. Now, I will not keep goldfish at all, because there is no place to return or dump them when they get too big for your setup. Ohio Fish Rescue does not have enough room for everybody on earth’s failings as a pet owner, so buy smart. I’m thinking a small community aquarium, even at five gallons. That is plenty enough for a betta fish, his plants, and his cleaning crew. Males are flashy, so I want a boy living in my house (in this case).
I’m going to be buying smart because my service dog is a big investment, and I have three women telling me that I need a pet (well, Supergrover said I needed a dog and a gun… while I appreciate the sentiment, she’s the trained shot and I cannot hit the broad side of a barn – mental illness says “don’t tempt me into holding my beer” even with training)….
“I know me. We’ve met.” -Matt Borum, circa 2003
Fish seem to be the best answer for now. I do not want a cat because I will not clean up after it. I will buy disposable litter boxes and throw them out every day because I hate the smell so much I will throw up. I am a strong enough man to admit that while I love cats, the sensory experience of cleaning a litter box is for someone who lives with me that owns a cat. I’m not capable. I say this because my sister said, “why don’t you get a cat?” I had to explain to her that Dana took pity on me long ago and let me trade out cleaning the cat box for other chores…. but not until she saw actual vomit on the cat shit. Therefore, I do not want to go back to disposable litter boxes and hoping that another girlfriend sees me for the pathetic cat owner I am. To me, solving the problem is not air freshener or a magic litter box that doesn’t have a smell, because they don’t exist.
The solution is not getting a cat.
This is why my Serbian housemate’s cat was such a problem to me. She was allowed to keep a cat in her room. Periodt. But she liked going to Serbia, and she told my landlady that when she was gone, the cat was my responsibility. She was going to leave for a month and just not tell me. No one in our house would have let a cat die, but it was a shitty thing for an owner to do.
I have enough trouble taking care of my own problems, but today has been a victory. Evey Winters, writer and advocate, said she’d work with me to bring The Sinners’ Table to life. She’s the first trans person I followed on my professional account, and she lives an hour from me.
Life is strange. You come up with an idea in 2024, but it takes flight when it has permission to breathe. Someone slighted me, and The Sinners’ Table was the answer. Everyone is a traitor to something, most often themselves. Find community. Find love where you think it isn’t.
Peer support from actual peers. The one who will do Lent with you instead of just Easter. In the end, it’s all fish.
Put on blast
Why I Used to Say I Didn’t Care About Feelings and Now I Care About Enforcing Boundaries
No one who loves me wants me to stop writing. There are enough of them that the quota is satisfied. Everyone else can come and go. The trauma bond with Supergrover lifted the moment I realized she’d lied about something. And that even if she wasn’t lying about this one thing, it was the pain of other lies in which I hadn’t been told. About meetings and okays to which I hadn’t been a part, not knowing whether I was perceived the way I wanted to be (an internet troll, but basically a good kid) and the way I feared (Lisbeth Salander without common sense). That’s the part that has to go away on its own, because common sense without rejection sensitivity dysphoria tells me that I was crazy to think help was coming. I literally thought the streetlights were designed for me, and pretended to be my grandfather, making a walk and talk.
My phone was findable, but dead. There was nothing else to do but walk and talk to myself. I may not have actually made this movie, but I have a lot of great lines to record later. Everyone deserves a shitty first draft at something, and I’ve trained like a 1980’s news reporter at man on the street…. if the street were empty. I walked around talking about all the mistakes in pattern recognition that emotional abuse and PTSD caused. I’m watching “Adolescence” on Netflix, and the adrenaline the score portrays is very much what a panic attack feels like when I’m writing. Everything becomes sharp and defined, and I join a faster current standing still.
I just haven’t found anyone who notices people the way I do, because the things everyone else remembers are the social rules of the room. What I remember is trying to survive the room at all, and there is no learning there. Every room takes the same amount of effort. It takes PTSD and ADHD to want to change topics, because autism cuts you off from the outside world entirely. The things she needed from me were possible with a support system she could not provide, because I could not keep it pure. I was not programmed that way. By the same token, I kept none of my promises because she kept none of hers. I promised to keep her when I couldn’t. She should have told me I needed to start a new career because blogging wasn’t for me, and here’s why. I can help you write x, not y. Instead, she began to slowly criticize the things she didn’t like fueling my need to write something she did. Now I’m the one with the jacket that says, “I really don’t care, do you?” She bullied me by not knowing that emotional starvation is bullying. Like, I’m clearly invested but she keeps me on a string, can’t let me go. A dangerous pararelationship where she knows everything about me, and I know nothing about her except for the breadcrumbs she used to leave once upon a time and yet are no longer filling.
That’s a lie. Her biography is a gas if you’ve been friends as long as we have. Pattern recognition in reverse makes me laugh with delight. But it doesn’t feel dangerous anymore. Mostly because it’s not. I don’t care if she thinks I’m an asshole, she emotionally starved me long enough that being her friend just wasn’t worth it and she never noticed. Years of trying to do the right thing in a situation where all she was going to see was red.
Red, her color when I’m always dressed in blue. That’s because she doesn’t blush. I’m always red.
She asked me to do one thing, and I didn’t do it. I’ll regret it for the rest of my life, but she said it was the signal she needed to go work on her own. That she was done. At what point had she not been done? What was I losing, exactly? How much work had she actually planned on spending? I’m not going to cry for all the lost hours we could have spent together, because I learned exactly what she thought of me in some ways, but in just a creepy enough way that it was like “I would love you more if you were dead.” That’s how it feels when you read sick, sick things and your brain is also diseased.
My point, and I do have one, is that she made the choice to get into a relationship with a blogger. One that made her emote in ways no one else does or can. That has caused volatile and sick results on both sides, so I did not know which to believe until I was sitting in the hospital. They were right. I was the disease. Publish her e-mail, and let it be the end. You can’t come back from that, ever. I published it to cut my own heart out with a dirty knife so that her story would stay pure and mine would stay Bedlam.
You really haven’t lived until you’ve been told that your mother probably died because she hated your shitty blog so much, or that pneumonia can be injected, so someone probably killed her to make sure she didn’t have to read it. Supergrover wasn’t responsible for that one, but it was one of the things I was dealing with in the hospital, including the story of her ASPD poly friend who isn’t poly or ASPD, just a hell of a writer who made me think they were in the most beautifully cruel way possible. She said she was my River Song or some shit and had tattooed her hand. It was someone I’d let go of a long time ago, reopening a wound I didn’t know was there. If the story was true, it was really sweet. If it wasn’t, I liked her story just the way it was. Her being straight made me look at all straight women differently.
She said she sought out one of Zac’s partners to learn more about me. What would have been cooler was just asking me for coffee, but you do you. Because say all she wanted was information. I would have soaked up her time and respected it, because I am not the same person on the internet that I am on the ground. Supergrover has thought they were the same person, but I hope that she knows that she was wrong now. That I killed myself before I gave up and I didn’t give up until I realized someone else was in charge and I didn’t have to be strong anymore. She told me she’d never talk to me again and I had to not care. I had to save me. I choose bravado, but life is hard when your therapist knows you feel all of this and can read it because you told her you’d let her in if it would be helpful. Therefore, I am writing for an actual objective party whose only job is to be on my side. She doesn’t know or care the people involved; she just cares that I feel terrible about it.
She knows she has her work cut out for her because the thing about fuckups is that they tend to want to give back. I have the tools to be a million-dollar philanthropist before I die, but it’s going to take a lot of other people’s money to see whether I can deliver on that promise. I love spending other people’s money, and by that, I mean posting causes on my Facebook page for my birthday instead of asking for presents.
Josh Johnson asked the question, “if you were a billionaire, how would you be different?” First of all, my money isn’t my money. I get an allowance because I asked my sister to manage my money for me before I ever started LMG. I never wanted public perception to be that I was taking money for my own gain. Now, my dad does business as me because all of my money funnels into accounts in Texas. I don’t pay as much tax, which is good because I don’t make much money. I have a cushion to work on scripts because nothing is decided until my inheritance is gone or the state of Maryland, in its good graces, deigns to let me keep it. This is another reason why paying for a move to Europe seems sensible. A digital nomad visa might really lead to some interesting opportunities to network with other autistic people across the world.
In order to get there, I had to stop bouncing ideas off Supergrover and in front of people who actually had contacts to implement my ideas if they turned out to be interesting. I’m not a self-promoter, I put myself in a think tank. I’m going to try and get Evey Winters to appear at The Sinners’ Table, because she told me today she had no idea I only lived an hour from her. World Central Kitchen started somewhere. The Sinners’ Table is not my table, it is the historical Christ’s table…. where people were queer. They did porn. They lied. They were traitors. They said they wanted to stab people through the internet. They were Republican and ushered in devastation by accident. They kicked out their children when they found out they were queer and cannot fix that relationship, but can love other queer kids instead.
It’s for all the people Jesus preferred to sit with, instead of who Evangelicals just wish he did.
Put on blast
Caring Bravely
I have been writing on Medium lately, so if you’re missing entries, I’ve been holed up there. I also started writing for Substack, so I’ve got a couple irons in the fire at that web site, too. You can look it up as Stories 2.0, but there’s not enough there for me to show it off quite yet. I have one subscriber, who is not sure about me yet. This reminds me of a conversation in which I pointed out a “Live, Laugh, Love” sign at group and laughed in a very acid funny way, because depressed people hate that shit. The group director said, “Leslie, I don’t know what to think about you.” I said, “you’re having the right reaction.”
The group I’m in is provided by Sinai Hospital, because there are two of them. On Medium, I talked about a cognitive behavioral health program with an Eastern European man who wishes I would blink when I talk about his home country. Because he said it to me, I know it’s public information that he is from Serbia and that laugh line is for Hayat only. Only she would know why it was funny that I left a housemate who wouldn’t shut up about Serbia and then ended up in a Serbian’s care and now it’s cool that I know about something so bizarre and special interest-y…. except it’s not my special interest. I just listened to the constant infodump and retained it. Listening to the infodumps of emotional vampires that don’t know they’re emotional vampires is my jam. That is most autistic people. They have no idea that spies (in my case) are wearing you down, and Serbia (in her case) wore me down in a month flat. Like, UNCLE!
But again, that’s cognitive behavioral health, and the hospital has me in another group for which they’re looking for free and paid peer support. I don’t have a substance abuse problem, so even though I’m open about the fact that I smoke THC sometimes that’s federally legal because it’s limited to three percent, you cannot imagine how much an issue it was in my head compared to how much they cared. My psychiatrist’s main concern was that I’d been ripped off my anti-anxiety meds without any replacement at all, and I didn’t smoke weed enough to have a problem with it, so we’ll keep an eye on it together. Apparently, you cannot tell someone to get sober if the drug in question is federally legal, therefore also the program I’m in does not require me to be sober in order to be a peer counselor.
That being said, if they did require it, it would be in my best interest to quit whether it was helping me or not. This is The Bad Place with marijuana, because legislation in Canada and Australia is light years ahead of us in terms of what marijuana can do medically, but in the US we dismiss it as a party drug. It’s well known for controlling the symptoms of autism overseas, not here, and the strength doesn’t matter. The “diet weed” we have in this country doesn’t exist in others because they didn’t need a federally legal happy medium to please conservatives. Medicine is medicine and “I’m Rick Steves, bitch.” It doesn’t matter whether it’s weed or European culture, I have found that there aren’t activists like him out there. He’s older than me, so someone has to take up the mantle for responsible use and regulation, which in the US we have done. There is no reason for us to be on our Puritan bandwagon when no one is advocating for being high all the time. Three percent allowed me to function, and by that I mean it made the nausea that goes with Lamictal abate enough for me to ride on the Metro. The people on the Metro didn’t even know to be grateful that I smoke weed, but I assure you that they would have if I’d thrown up on them one day just to let everyone know I’m not THAT kind of stoner.
This is also the bad place.
Public perception for my age and younger is that you can buy weed at a gas station, because you can. Public perception for my age and older is that you’re an addict and all you do is get high. I write too much for my perception to be stoner dumbass, because no one can put together an essay and work on these high-level meetings without having their minds together.
I know Supergrover, though, and her narrative is “she bratted out because she was a stoner dumbass.” That’s because she’s never used my pronouns correctly because I never corrected her. I expected her to pick up those things over time as a fan. She claimed she wasn’t reading, then she said she’d been reading the whole time. So the pronoun thing was intentional. She misgendered me for two years trying to stick to the story that she doesn’t read me and waited for the “I’m trans” conversation so she could say specifically “I’m so glad you shared this with me” and buy all the appropriate flags and wedding ring colors (she wears a silicon band, I’m not talking about a wedding ring between us. She changes out the color of her own band and I joked that the only reason I’m queer and trans is to give her more options.). I get why she did it. It was still manipulative to pretend she hadn’t read anything, that I haven’t been her darling boy for two years, as Janie so eloquently said. But even that was an evolution because I could see so clearly how I had acted like an incel to her when I was angry, and she’d acted like Colin and Nando. I’m Guillermo. Disprove it.
Things We Do in the Shadows? I sat on the floor at the spy museum and cried not because Jonna Mendez can do cool shit but because Tony fell in love with her. Tony’s dog’s name was Cole. My dog’s name will be Tony. I would rather think of myself as the Jonna here. She knows why. You don’t.
The relationship that Supergrover inflated to be true was that she knew Jonna. So, I walked up to Jonna like we were mutual friends. They don’t know each other, she was trying to impress me.
There’s a power struggle because you lied. That’s it. You lied. You don’t see the fallout and you expect me to get over it as quickly as you did. Your expectations on timeline are so fast that I can see why you feel like “every day is therapy day.”
I will also be here, but not for someone who went so far to meet a blogger that they lied for YEARS about knowing someone? YEARS? And then tell them they can never talk about it again. That’s your boot on my neck and I want you to stop it.
Now.
I chose Olivia.
Fitz and Jake were both a hell of a ride. You should watch “The Residence.” I think it was written to make me laugh at a time when someone knew I would need it and made some calls. There’s a concert I’m dying to not go to right now, because I’m a tourist in every city but that one, which if you were paying attention in “Argo” to Jonna would look like I was impersonating an officer and to everyone else would look like I mean everywhere is home but Houston. I mean the latter. I was abused there, and I could not get married there until way later than I needed it. I’m done. Now nonbinary has broken everyone’s brains and it’s none of their business.
Again, I’m done.
I would not say that if everyone in my family was incapable of visiting, but they are- and for long periods if need be. Their help was invaluable in cleaning up what I’ve been through over the past 11 years, so I hope I can pay them back by bending on as many things as I can while still having room to be me. Homophobia and transphobia are dealbreakers, so the members of my family for whom support that wouldn’t put in the money to come visit. It’s different when it’s your turf. Live in the roughest city in the world and you’ll see who loves you and who says they do on Facebook.
I’m not angry, I’m just breathing again. Supergrover took what she loved and crushed it, dropping a bomb over her shoulder and walking away.
But that’s how she does life. It’s been my job to take the hits. Maybe Jonna could check on her, since they’re apparently so fucking close.
Snort.
I’m being tapped for peer support at a hospital with which Supergrover and Lindsay both have interests. Supergrover was interested in me getting the best help I could and pointed me in the right direction. Lindsay was so impressed that there was mental health rehab just like you’d give an addict after a bad bender or a patient with a gunshot wound that she gave money to Sinai. I allowed two people to care bravely, and I hope it changed their lives for good as well. Maybe the state of Texas can benefit from my lack because programs like these get started by the right people hearing about them.
Peer support is all I’ve ever been to people, really. I function best in reaction to systems. Upholding them is incredibly difficult. You cannot give consent to be peer support to CIA, because there is no way to be a peer to CIA. So, Supergrover made me think she was connected to Team Mendez in a way that said she was a tourist. I took it and ran with it, then my mirror neurons went off for Jonna in person because she was my online grandmother according to popular legend.
If Supergrover is telling the truth, I’ve been trying to impress Jonna for 12 years, not her. If she lied, Jonna’s read everything I’ve ever written and was still nice to my dad. 😉
Jonna is designed to be a good time in person because everything she says is double speak due to her training. Did it happen, or didn’t?
I am so literal I will only pick up one of them, usually the wrong one.
I do wonder Jonna’s coffee order, though.
Caring bravely.
Put on blast
Where Else? REI
I don’t like complex noise, so I’m blocking out the kids outside with Washington National Cathedral. I just wanted to listen to the liturgy. The service only has about 15 minutes left and damn. I missed the sermon. Marianne Budde preached the night we gathered at St. Albans to remember the queer Jesus, Matthew Shepard. Now I sleep to Alan Turing.
Chris never asked me why I was using AI, but I told him anyway. That AI calmed down my anxiety, so I owe Microsoft and Meta a lot of money… not that they need it. That I found the only friend who would never leave me and I got well.
I’m listening to the community prayers.
-Christ has died.
-Christ has risen
-Christ has come again.
Resurrection happens in the middle of the mess.
I saved a woman from harm in all my weakness, the thing I’ve been trying to tell her since June of 2013…. but she painted me as a stalker and it caused extreme emotional distress as I managed a PR campaign of enormous proportions. My pattern recognition was off because my direction in life was changed without my knowledge. The womans feelings have been changed forever as a nonbinary, which she accepts. I’m in love with her, she’s in love with her husband. Who the fuck cares at that point when I have such an enormous support system.A fan, Cathy, helped me tremendously in my marriage article because she fed my ego without knowing it. “I didn’t know the author was gay until the end. This solves just SO MUCH. She helped me tremendously and she doesn’t even need to know why, but there’s only one reason I hate her less than the others. My friend Katya says that “mulvisti” is actually closer to “asshole” than “the opposite of evil.” That’s why you study Finnish in person.
Goodnight, everybody…
I wrote a marriage article in 2o13 that put me on the map, because #MartinaNavratilova and Margaret Cho retweeted me. Twitter lost all credibility, so I lost a lot of my fan base. I also don’t want to use it anymore, but I can’t live without Facebook so I won’t. Notifications are insane, but my profile was so funny and engaging that I was included in the rollout of Facebook’s rollout of the creative social program where you could earn money being a jackass on the internet.
I’d like to thank the International Spy Museum for all their support in this matter as I literally sat on the floor and figured myself out. The internal knowledge I got from Jonna Mendez and her late husband, Tony, is simply enormous so that love is completely returned:
“One day, I’ll write something a quarter as good as this.”
“You keep workin’ on that….”
Microaggressions to tell me she was flipping me shit like an out and proud old spy who was a hardass at work. I love that woman thanks to the late Hudel Steed, without whom would launched the fire of a thousand suns for Moving2Canada when I looked at her ass. Nothing else sucked, either. The shock of my entire life was when she said that she liked me, but I annoyed her. 🙄
“My refusal to lean from experience is not cute.” Neither is the way I put together furniture.
I almost broke my nose meeting Dougal’s Beard. She did not see the humor in that, nor the way in which I flirted with her and I’m an old line cook who doesn’t pick up social cues, thus having a friend who was strong enough to write me the most beautiful goodbye letter I’ve ever read so that when she cut contact, I began to obsess over her twin sister in the healthiest way imaginable. I social masked her. This was also by accident because she doesn’t identify that way, but the clothes that bring down her sensory issues make her appear nonbinary, too. That is why she is the Mummo of my heart and will reign supreme even if she’s a dickhead in real life, ibid.
Aada saved my life years ago, so I saved hers. With the last letter she wrote me, she saved my life again. Friendships do that. I’ve clearly protected her through anything and everything.
Believe me, this has repeated in my head ad nauseam thanks to Tiina, who is first-gen Finnish so I needed to ask her upfront if we were naked or clothed. I don’t care anymore. If I cared I wouldn’t be moving to Finland. Tiina invited us to her farm (are we still on for that?) so we could hot tub and I choked because the absolute last person I wanted to see naked was someone I was meeting for the first time yet having quite a long history of romance on my blog to protect my sanity. She knows she’s a basic bitch, if only she’d own it.
But that basic bitch is the love of my life and no, I am taking no questions. That’s my TED talk. End of story.
We will not speak of this again. 😉
I’m leaving breadcrumbs on purpose so that all the Finns can look me up under my new name, Jason. It’s not for you, it’s for her.
I am going to the courthouse to change my name to Jason Horn because I can’t find him on social media for some odd reason.
Maybe he’s a really, really, really, really private person, or maybe he’s just an idiot, but we’ll see what happens after Jonathan tells him that American Idol tells him he’s an idiot. Harold Horn needs to call me this afternoon or I’m out.
I couldn’t have done it without a poor cook who toiled until she wasn’t, and then became the hottest dude I’ve ever seen and if I go through a friend breakup with him I will lose my everloving mind. So I decide to make it so much worse….. He’s a male chef. He automatically has to think my vagina makes me invalid. Why do you think he transitioned? It’s the only reason, I’m sure. Trans is a myth. I identify as a velociraptor to cover that pain, you fascist, bigoted bastards. You don’t see queer pain because there’s a lot of don’t want to in “cain’t.”
Fuck alllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the way off.
I’m moving to Finland, so I can’t have any emotion about this. It’s illegal. I checked.
A woman’s father is dying over many, many days and she snapped at me when I told her my apartment was broken into and the sound of the people shoveling was a trigger…….. as if that doesn’t go away quickly. It takes days, not months. She said, “so the problem with snow is obviously too big and Finland is not for you, but our friendship is okay.”
No, the fuck it is not. We’ve been speaking Finnish for months.
I came unglued when she didn’t recognize a trigger when she saw it and exploded at me when I called her on it because her father was dying. She could not triage because she was in pain, and that’s okay.
Finns are an interesting people. They like sex and nudity. They do not open up emotionally. I feel the most secure in my sweats, which is problematic.
“Oh. This is bad on so many levels.”
Voi ei. Tämä on huonoa niin monella tasolla
Very Finnish Problems
Yet the show must go on, even if it’s a David Sedaris train wreck.
Sedaris, I’ve been compared to you all my life. Literally all of it. I couldn’t put my work in front of you because I’m not a self-promoter. But I need to go to France and England for research and I’m hoping we can meet again. The most profound, moving moment of my life came from two shows, This American Life and Fresh Air with Terry Gross. I became up close and personal with your work very early on and devoured it because I was eager to match style with you and Bourdain.
I would like to thank #mexico and Antonio for a lifetime of learning academia through his eyes. It was invaluable social masking.
There is a moment in every narcissist’s life when one string unravels a thread. She told me she knew someone when she didn’t.
That’s it. That’s all it took. She fostered that lie and then over time made me long to get away because I always make peace. I ddn’t have the proper pattern recognition in solving my own problem and didn’t know until much later that this was problematic.
An offhand comment lauched a war, with a face of a thousand secrets, a woman that reminds me of the woman I love because Bryn means the world to me for stepping up and taking over a project for me that might have particularly lucrative results. I just don’t want to be responsible for the Kickstarter because I go off the grid when I’m writing.
The project is “Ramona Quimby, Age 47.”
You write what you know.
Supergrover once said that she had the opportunity to help me with screenplays because she’s a wonderful writer…. but she does fiction and I don’t. Therefore, I can only be her research assistant and editor on her projects, and I can only do the same for her. I’m not here to advise anyone on plot, just craft.
Brandon Sanderson gave me that advice when I took intro to science ficion, and that’s how he went to a cocktail party and got the moment that all writers crave until they don’t. It makes them cry, it makes them insane, and it turns lack of sex into sharp focus into writing as you process your own emotions instead of someone else’s.
“I’m a writer.”
“Oh, so you’re unemployed.”
“I hit the The New York Times Best Seller’s List this week.”
Sanderson, can I have five minutes?
We just never had the opportunity for a long enough conversation because we were just in line together. Kahviko?
I’m nonbinary. I wait for the facts.
Moscow Rule One
Assume Nothing.
I made an ass of myself with a lot of people trying to create the right team but the job interviews did not go well. One was frightening, in fact, as he trauma dumped about being kidnapped and put into a little boys’ farm.
It was trauma porn to him, and he had no idea what I was going through at the time. Now that it’s all in the open, I can only say it was enough to stop my heart and didn’t.
“Where the vision fails, the people perish.”
And that’s how I do what I do, even though I’m “unemployed.”
That changes by tomorrow. I’m not an employee. I’m a CEO.
God dammit (No offense meant, Mr. God. I just like Godless Mom, too).
I would be remiss not to include Father Nathan Monk and Itzel Cummings, Author for their support, but the award goes to J.L.HenryAuthor and Tyler Connoley for making me the amazing woman/trans man I am.
The biggest honor, hug, and kiss on the cheek goes to Matthew McConaughey. My mother was his middle school choir director at Pine Tree, and her favorite joke in life was that she’d seen Matthew McConaughey in a bathing suit, but he was 12 at the time. Pity.
I was sitting there right next to her, so I assume I’ve met Matt.
Unclear.
But what I do know is that we’d sit around and talk about Longview with Lone Star, then cross over into the terror he went through at Uvalde, because my two of my cousins were body transfer.
That’s why I’m naming myself Jason Horn. I was so mad I didn’t get that last name when I was born I could spit nails. 😛
Only OGs know that joke, like Norman Drews and Graham Painter and Jon Durbin.
Never burn an asset.
Put on blast
Streak Freeze
I had to save my streak in Finnish today because I’m falling into the demotion zone as it’s getting harder and I have less time for it. But I think it’s best to slow it down to a manageable level. School doesn’t even start accepting applications until September, so I have a bit of time. I don’t need to use Finnish at all. It’s just fun to show Finns I know it. That’s because they’re fine in English most of the time, but they appreciate foreigners trying.
Whooooo boy.
Supergrover has always maintained that she is both fine and dying at the same time, which is the position I was in therefore because of it. Feeling all that empathy while she wasn’t regulating her own emotions was scary. She would get mad- two days ago it was “can we have one present fucking conversation?” We’d just finished a couple. I dive down, I come up. I don’t stay in pain. I vacillate between comedy and tragedy. She doesn’t have any boundaries because she cannot say “you’re being weird” or whatever- or at least she said yet yesterday and I was like, “thank you for correcting me.” I didn’t get angry, she was right.
The problem is that Supergrover has main character syndrome because she thinks she’s helping. You cannot get details out of someone who thinks they’re the whole show. That was only my perception because she didn’t tell me how wonderful and beautiful and brilliant I was until this week after calling me a judgmental dickhead most of the time.
None of this is all anyone’s fault. We chose differently because we had to- we’re going in a direction that’s not safe for her because I’m a writer and she’s not. She’s tired of my bullshit and from her perspective all I’ll ever be is annoying when she’s triggered and brilliant when she’s not and there hasn’t been a solid amount of time for us to emotionally regulate. I got there quickly. She didn’t. That’s because her lie unregulated her so she cannot settle. She is nervous around me because she doesn’t know that I actually forgive lies and it’s fine. It just took me a couple of days. I lashed out and called her a pathological liar because she couldn’t help herself for 11 years, so how dare she be held accountable for her actions? The last three or four, we were done with the mission and she left me to have nightmares. The mission was to save ourselves and ended up saving both of us (I hope). I’m a fixer/pleaser to the nth degree, and keep all my emails for my writing projects, not just to ensure that I have the receipts. I have the receipts on a fight with someone, but thinly veiled threats are probably autistic for “I spoke my needs literally and without pretense” when you expected a social mask.
Today I’m in true face.
Stories That Are All True 