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Don’t Kill the Chicken

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What was the last thing you did for play or fun?

The last thing I did for play/fun was finally install Skyrim: Anniversary Edition on my new desktop. At first, I didn’t think 512 MB of VRAM was going to be enough for that game, but it runs flawlessly, even with scripts running in the background. I like Bethesda games because I have no problem toggling God mode and carrying a thousand pieces of firewood if it means only having to make one trip.

If you’ve never played Skyrim, it’s not really a video game so much as a classic role-playing game. You can buy a house. You can get married. You can invest in local businesses, or add a mod where you can literally build your own town (I use Silverstead Mine, but I like player homes so much I have mods for Dawnstar and Haafinger as well. Of the vanilla houses, I like Severin Manor the best, and if we’re not including Dragonborn/Dawnguard, I like Hjerim. Honorable mention to Vlindrel Hall, but even in video games I have trouble navigating steps, so seriously. Fuck Markarth and Proudspire Manor. 😛

The mod I use for a player home in Dawnstar is called “Morskom Estate,” and it’s just the most fun house I’ve ever had because it has a sauna and a dock with travel boat. In the Anniversary Edition, apparently you can take it fishing, but it’s most useful getting from Dawnstar to Solitude or Windhelm. Interestingly enough, it will only take you to Windhelm. It doesn’t make sense that you can’t “drive yourself” to Solstheim.

I also like the Serana Dialogue Overhaul, because it adds follower tweaks that Serana doesn’t have in the vanilla game. The best is that you get a spell to bring her to you. Before that, I had a bat file to take me to her, because Lord knows if you need a companion they are off doing God knows what…. Except Lydia. Lydia is always in front of the door you need. I get “Companion’s Insight” from a Black Book on Solstheim and I will literally hit her with a shield to get her to move out of the way. I do not advocate violence, but I do not have time for Lydia’s foolishness. She’s gotten me killed more than once.

Now that I’m an advanced player, I have access to magic that will actually accomplish something, like conjuring warriors instead of fighting myself. I also have spells that will cast a bow or a sword if I don’t want to carry them. I didn’t think those spells were very powerful, but I have taken down several things that I didn’t think I could. I enchant everything to make archery easier, so I’m guessing that spell is particularly powerful (the spell is called “Bound Bow”).

In fact, I downloaded a clean save that has all the main quests finished. Nexus has clean saves of all kinds, because we’ve all heard the same dialogue a million times. I have killed Alduin so many times I think he thinks, “oh my God. Not this bitch again…” Even with all the main quests finished, there’s still hundreds of hours I haven’t played, because I haven’t been able to install Anniversary Edition. Therefore, I haven’t had access to those mods (included in the game, but made by fans), nor have I played the most famous ones like:

  • Beyond Reach
  • Wheels of Lull
  • Vigilant
  • Darkend
  • Interactive College of Winterhold
  • Beyond Skyrim: Bruma

I’ve downloaded more than that, but these are the ones I haven’t done a complete playthrough. Beyond Skyrim: Bruma is particularly massive, because it’s basically putting half of Oblivion right into Skyrim (Oblivion is the previous game in The Elder Scrolls. I didn’t find it as much fun as Skyrim because there are no dragons there. However, the storyline is a banger and the main quest ended me emotionally. I have never in my lifetime been that surprised at a plot twist. I nearly fell out of my desk chair. If you haven’t played Oblivion, it will run on your computer far easier than Skyrim and it’s worth a look. But again, you can’t fight or ride a dragon………).

The best mod I’ve found if you like playing an explorer type is “Legacy of the Dragonborn,” and it’s even more beautiful in the Anniversary Edition. Basically, the museum is located in Solitude, and you can store all your stuff there. They’ll even give you a safehouse with every crafting station you can possibly imagine. There’s even a replicating device, so that if you want to use a weapon or whatever, you can make a fake and the original stays in your inventory. You’re walking around Skyrim doing archaeological digs, finding old coins, old weapons, etc. Just fascinating because it also covers weird gems, sea creatures, and a weird quest in which you go into your Natural Science wing and every creepy creature you’ve previously put stuffed on a pedestal comes alive…. except the dragons, because you have already taken their souls. I also don’t believe they can fly inside.

The best part of Skyrim is just exploring things. It would be fun even if you disabled all the combat, because you’re just meeting people, crafting items, selling stuff, and decorating your home.

In terms of organization, I use a mod to keep track of everything. You fill out an item list, and then you say “store all,” and everything goes back into the cabinet. You link the cabinet to your workbench or grindstone, you don’t have to carry ingots and leather and all that crap on you. All my soul gems and alchemy ingredients are arranged the same way. Although I did download a fish mod, too, because I have a hatchery in Haafinger, and you also get one at Winstead Manor (the Morthal player home). I’m almost ready to join the Thieves Guild so I can buy Shadowfoot Sanctum. 😉

I’ve said this before, but I love The Thieves Guild because it reminds me of spy shows. It’s not smash and bash unless you want it to be. The smart way is to use invisibility spells and, failing that, a soul trap dagger. 😉 It makes me happy to enchant a sword with a bandit who tried to kill me and didn’t know who he was messing with. I enchant and improve the shit out of everything, so if I hit you with an arrow or a bolt, you’re probably going to be dead in one hit. This is because as a long-range archer, most of the time it’s a sneak attack. There’s 3x damage for that, and my bow’s base damage is 512 before the Chaos Damage and Fire Damage enchantments.

Speaking of Chaos Damage, I think it’s the most effective enchantment in the game, and you can combine it with anything. Paralysis or Frost/Fire damage is most effective, but definitely use Frost Damage on Stahlrim weapons because frost enchantments are 20% more effective. Even so, a Stahlrim bow just does not have the power mine does- it’s made of dragon bone, with dragon bone arrows. I also carry a dragon bone sword. I would like to say I picked them up in the Soul Cairn, but no. I crafted them myself.

I have climbed up the ranks in Skyrim so many times that I have scripts for all that now. I load a clean save and then godmode the shit out of it. I have one that will give me all my smithing materials, and one that gives me Daedric armor and weapons, all the enchantments, all the Shouts, 90 dragon souls, one of every alchemy ingredient, maxes out health, stamina, and magika, sets my level at 81, and gives me all the perks in every tree. I can do that now. I paid my dues. 😉 I’m not giving myself an advantage, I’m not starting over every time I reinstall Skyrim. It’s still annoying to start a new game because you still have to unlock all the shouts, destroy all the enchanted items to gain the “recipe,” and I have to find a place to store everything I’m carrying when one bat file means I’m carrying 3,400 pounds.

A few things about Skyrim:

  • I see The Blades’ point.
    • I have never agreed with them.
    • I have never even looked up a video to see what happens if you kill Paarthurnax, nor could I blow up Megaton in Fallout 3.
  • I can’t play an outright evil character all the time.
    • It’s always my Virgo nature vs. my morality in Skyrim because on the one hand, I don’t want to be evil. On the other, I cannot look at an empty display case. I must have the required item if it kills me.
    • My favorite player home has a glitch where even if all three Elder Scrolls are in my inventory, it always says Dragon is missing. That’s why I keep my stuff in the museum, and how I became a shady character. You really have to watch with player home mods, because they aren’t always as stable as in-game homes….. in case you, also, hate to see empty display cases.

Legacy of the Dragonborn feels like Indiana Jones and Satchel from “Atomic Blonde” had a baby, and I’m here for it. The best part is that LotD has been around for so long that you can add display cases for all your mods as well.

There are a few places in Skyrim that I could go over and over. For instance, I have spent hours wandering around the Ancestor Glade. It’s so beautiful I can barely take it in. I also really, really love my house in Dawnstar because it’s up on the hill across from the docks and looks out over the water. Plus, there are those huge cauldrons full of coals that you light in both the front and back yards, plus the hanging lights in the living room. It’s really funny, I saw a playthrough of Morskom Estate where this woman was saying, “how do you light those things?!” I thought, “lady… you are a wizard.” (you point the Flames spell at it).

This is the first playthrough I’ve ever done as a Nord, because the clean save character was Nord and I didn’t bother to change it except for makeup and hair. Normally, I play Bosmer because they’re naturally good at archery. Even as an elf, I still love the Nordic carved armor and weapons. Even though I carry dragon bone, I’m constantly making Nordic carved swords and shields for my display cases.

The one annoying think is that you can really punch up Auriel’s bow to crazy o’clock damage, but in the Serana Dialogue Overhaul, she gives you no small amount of shit if you carry it. It’s the bow that killed her father, so she will badger the piss out of you if you take it out. The only way to stop that dialogue is to put it in the museum. I haven’t done that quest yet, so it has a slot at Haafinger Hall. It has a display room for all the masks, paragons, Black Books, special weapons/staffs, etc.

I’m a simple player, though. I get out there and either shoot long range or drink an invisibility potion. I don’t like to cut off heads, and I have in power moves. In fact, I just cut off Tilisu Severin’s head earlier….. not that I meant to, I just hit whatever mouse combination does a power move and her head sailed across the room. Oops, my bad. Should I leave a note?

Game mechanics are so weird. The funniest thing is using your Unrelenting Force to magically throw someone off a mountain. The best is a frost troll, no doubt. If I had to pick my least favorite villain, it’s the Forsworn, because there’s just so many of them, and they’re also good at ranged attacks. It’s amazing how many times you can be hit without noticing, then all of a sudden “thank God there’s a potion for that.”

Because Skyrim is so popular, it has been the source of many memes and is a fandom all its own… but really, there are only two rules. The first is “don’t kill a chicken.” Everyone in the town will start attacking you, and you’ll get bounties in whatever hold you’re in. I’ve never made that mistake, because it’s so storied I knew not to do it probably a year before I even played the game. The second rule is that you have to put a “muffle” enchantment on Lydia’s boots or she will 100% sell you out. She cannot sneak for shit, and she will get you killed, particularly in the early game when you have no way to stop her. There’s a mod called “Amazing Follower Tweaks” that helps with this, because you can change it where a companion never leads you into battle, they’re always behind you.

There are two mods that have made my playthroughs so much easier. The first is “Longer Candlelight and Magelight Spells.” It increases both spells to 10 in-game minutes, which is invaluable in dungeons because you don’t have to carry a torch. You rarely have to cast it more than twice. That way, you don’t have to use destruction magic, you can switch back to your bow or sword. Another thing I learned is that if you have “Candlelight” in one hand and “Bound Bow” in the other, you cannot cast a spell. That’s because “Bound Bow” becomes a two-handed weapon. If you know the game well enough to know what level enemy you’re going to be facing, it’s perfectly adequate. Just not as good as something crafted to “Legendary” status.

The other is Carriage and Ferry Travel Overhaul. It gets a little more specific. The first is that you can add a lanterns mod so it makes the carriages easier to see. The second is that it will take you to multiple places in the hold. You pick the hold, and then it will list the capital city and then a few around it. Like, if I’m going to Haafinger, it will ask if I want to be dropped off in Solitude or Dragon Bridge, etc. Very, very handy.

If I had to pick a favorite quest, it’s going to Wolfskull Cave and driving out the people trying to resurrect Potema, because the second half is so cool. I love crawling around in the Solitude crypts with vampires and skeletons. Also, “Marked for Death” and “Drain Vitality” are amazing shouts to use when you’re facing Potema herself.

If I had to pick a favorite character, there are three, all Dark Elves. The first is Geldis Saadri, owner and proprietor of The Retched Netch, the pub in Solstheim. The second is Councilor Morvayn, and this is totally because I think he’s hot in a weird way. The third is Neloth, the wizard that takes you to get the black book about Miraak. Neloth sounds like a bitchy queen and I love him SO MUCH. Just the way he talks alone. If we’re limiting ourselves to the vanilla game, it’s probably Karliah, but I won’t tell you why because I can’t tell you who she is without a spoiler. Perhaps you all do play Skyrim, and the spoiler is old, but I know my crowd. They don’t generally play any video games, much less fanatical about one.

I just enjoy playing this game once in a while. It’s more fun to be in that world over and over than it is to play new games because most people have comfort shows. It’s the same for me, mine is just interactive…. and because my computer is up to snuff, the game is stable. There is nothing like having an hour’s worth of gameplay hosed because of a scripting error. You boot the game up and think, “please have saved somewhere near where I was…” It hardly ever does, because Fallout 3 has a great mod for autosaving and Skyrim doesn’t, or at least, the ones I’ve tried haven’t worked, and in fact corrupted my save file worse.

That’s how I got onto the idea of “clean saves.” You need something that doesn’t already have dependencies on mods, so there are people who have run through the main quests at level one to make them as easy as possible so that the save still starts you out on a relatively low level. For some reason, there are people who like to make the game harder. I do not. I have potatoes to plant.

Whether I choose to plant them in Skyrim or Morrowind remains to be seen. I do so love Severin Manor. I found a mod called “TNF Homes” that redecorates every vanilla player home in the game. The only thing I don’t like is that Severin Manor already had all the crafting stations in the basement, and they took out the forge and the smelter.

And as we’ve established, that’s like half the game. I like to change clothes a lot. I just made mercenary armor…. for fun.

Thinking and Its Implications

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I think out loud by writing, and I don’t consider others’ feelings when I’m writing if the relationship is so long gone and irreparable that it doesn’t matter what my feelings are anymore. It’s why I dive into memories vs. writing about my current life. It is easier to write about people once they’re gone, because what I have noticed is that according to the people around me, I am only a good writer when I say nice things.

It is a truism that when you’re a blogger, people love when you say glowing things about them and hate you when you call it like you see it from both ends of the spectrum. If I am going to describe life as it is from my own perspective, you’re looking at my painting. But for the people in my life, it’s a mirror. Bryn likes it when I write about her because she likes the mirror I hold up. She gets that not everything is going to be sunshine and roses all the time, but it will be both ends of the spectrum for the rest of our lives. She’s so much a part of my journey now because her philosophy is “say what you want. We’ll work it out.” Zac has basically said the same thing, I just can’t get specific about where he works or anything like that. I say that because he said that to me, not because I actually want to write about Zac at work.

The only notable things about Zac working in an intelligence agency are that he has access to the best gift shops and he has seen the seal on the floor at Langley and I haven’t because God is unfair. After that, it’s more fun to talk about “our home life.” Tomorrow I’m going to his house for date night, and then the next night is his Solstice Party. I think I’m going to help him get ready (he took the day off work), and see how it goes. I might feel like going to a party, I might leave before it really gets going. I have a love/hate relationship with parties, because it’s way too much sensory overload and yet necessary to meet people. You forget how important socialization is when you go too long without it.

I need to move forward and have more life on which to reflect, because I’ve mined what I need to mine about this chapter. It feels over, because I’ll always accept Supergrover back into my life, but I will not seek her out. It needs to stop mattering to me, and it can, because I don’t have to carry my feelings around with me. They’re already here.

She could have gone radio silent for any number of reasons, but I have a wait and see attitude about all of it. It has never been true that she’s stopped reading, and it’s never been true that she doesn’t have feelings for me. She does, they’re just very different. I am lost because I don’t know what they are, and I’m tired of being treated like a judgmental dickhead when I am expressing emotions like an adult. If someone shuts you down every single time, it’s a toxic pattern. It also means I don’t have the right to tell her to change, I have the right to need it and the right to walk away when she can’t provide it.

The easiest way to get out of a conflict is to tell someone that they’re wrong or crazy because there is no problem.

And at the same time, I thought about the implications of saying that she was more important to me than Dana, because I absolutely meant it in a way that Dana would concretely understand. It was not a value judgment, but phrase with many different meanings, none of them meaning my love for one or the other was greater, but the priority list.

Supergrover doesn’t think she has a problem with being avoidant, she things I have a problem because I think in order to have good communication, she needs to stop running from it. The reason there’s so much rage is that we both have unresolved conflicts (emotional and professional) and all our reactions about more shallow things come from that black hole.

So, if I’ve said something that made her run from me, it’s 100% something we could work out, but I won’t go back to a relationship in which I am always wrong, and then if I complain about it, all of a sudden I’m extremely impressive……… but the change in tone goes back to “you’re a dickhead” almost immediately. I was not crazy to notice this, and it’s not a bad thing to want to correct it. It’s a bad thing if nothing changes and I put up with feeling horrible not to rock the boat.

I feel like most of our problem is that I’ve written her beautifully crafted pages over the years, but I haven’t met her in person. It takes away my barriers to communication in some ways, and not in others. Her tone is so brusque it feels like she’s angry all the time. It became her tone with me because I hurt her, and it never went back to how she talked to me in the beginning. I could understand in the immediate aftermath. I can’t understand 10 years later. If this was some kind of joke, it wouldn’t have lasted 10 years.

I think about the word associations I have with her all the time, because lines she wrote run through my head and they’re funnier coming out of my mouth. I owe her a lot of royalties on a few of them.

The problem is how to extricate myself from the relationship, because it’s one that’s not inherently easy to stop myself. There are so many things that are unresolved and I am getting closure on my own. It’s not that I don’t want input, none has been provided.

My story would have been completely different if she’d been open and vulnerable, because then I wouldn’t have had to explain my reactions to you based on what I thought at the time, not what she did. She is not vulnerable, she is running the entire relationship in her own head and not telling me about it. What boundaries are in her head that she hasn’t expressed?

All of them.

This is also not a relationship where I could put toothpaste back in a tube. I didn’t shy away from telling her that, either. That I can’t be a Christmas and Easter friend, because I either have to feed our bond or ignore it and there’s no middle ground. She doesn’t feel as deeply about me as I feel about her, so it wouldn’t make sense to her why I would say something like that.

Lesbians, how easy is it to be in a relationship with the straight woman you absolutely knew was going to wreck you inside and you just decided to enjoy the trip?

It’s so stereotypical I could vomit, and it’s true. If’s every bit as hard as maintaining a relationship with an actual ex, because even though those feelings didn’t exist for them, they are very, very real for you. I put away all that crack smoking foolishness years ago, but it’s still like being in touch with an ex because it’s hard to deal with the loss in priority when our “honeymoon phase” was so explosive. I don’t think I’ve ever had bigger NRE, because her energy is bigger than most people’s. Remembering that kind of dopamine and trying to to maintain a relationship that’s a shadow of its former self is something I’m no longer willing to entertain.

It still feels like a breakup because even though she was never my romantic partner, the loss of response is palpable. She’s unique, and I pride myself that no one will ever love her like I do because the situation was so weird and wonderful that it couldn’t be duplicated in a million years. No one will ever love me like she does, either. It’s just irreconcilable differences, because there was no mediation.

I had to work for a long time to forgive myself for walking into that entire wall of bullshit. The entire course of my life would have changed and I self-sabotaged. I want to get back to my Mama Wolverine, but I want her to hear me when my claws come out, too. I’m younger, smaller, and slower, but I would not hesitate to bite the ankles of her enemies. 😉

Not that she is not capable of being a badass on her own, it’s just my protective nature kicking in just like hers does when I’m butt hurt over something. I suppose now it’s just time to take those feelings away, and feel like “somewhere out there,” that love is being returned. I choose to believe that it is, both because I don’t want to live in enmity and because I know that not telling me her story is not personal. It’s controlling in a relationship not to tell someone your feelings, because then you can blame them for not doing what you wanted. It’s scary to show up to a conversation and say, “I don’t know, either, and this is difficult. I’m willing to work on it. I don’t have the answers, but I showed up.”

It’s the kind of thinking that causes the correct implications.

The Sunday Shop

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

List your top 5 grocery store items.

Here, in no particular order, are a few of my favorite things- minus raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens….. sadly, even if I order food from Amazon, it still won’t come in brown paper packages tied up with string………. the dog bite and the bee sting in the whole operation.

  1. Dr Pepper Zero
    • Of all the no sugar sodas out there, I think it tastes the most authentic. Everything is held to Dr Pepper Zero standards, and few have met it. If Dr Pepper Zero was unavailable (at Safeway, it usually is), I don’t mind any of the zero colas. DPZ is just my favorite. Interestingly enough, I don’t buy a lot of it anymore. I used to drink a ton of soda, but now that I drink flavored water, soda is on the back burner.
  2. Water Bottle Mix-ins
    • Most of the things on this list will probably be drinks because I don’t go out of my way to eat. I know it sounds weird, but most people with ADHD or ASD (or AuDHD) have trouble remembering to eat, or get demand avoidance with cooking. I do stay hydrated, though, and my favorite are the little sticks of drink powder you can add to a water bottle. Giant makes a lemon honey green tea that’s very good, and so is Crystal Light Pure.
  3. The Crab Chip, Utz
    • They’re too salty, and you notice quickly. You will never stop eating them at any point. There are other brands of Old Bay flavored potato chips, but this is the gold standard. It’s also not a requirement to like Old Bay when you arrive in Maryland, either, but I will say you’ll have a hard time adjusting if you don’t care for it. 😉
  4. Beyond Italian Sausage
    • I know that this is going to sound weird, but I like Beyond Italian sausage vs. pork/beef in everything requiring it. I can’t even explain to you why I think it’s better, I just think it is. There’s no moral judgment here, I’m a line cook. I’m telling you what I like. It’s very good sautéed loose for spaghetti sauce or in the casing for sandwiches. It’s probably better for you in saturated fat, but that’s not why I eat it. I like what I like. 😉 I also don’t know who needs to hear this because I don’t have a deep fryer. Beyond sausage tastes amazing dropped in a deep fryer and just served on a bun. You don’t even need condiments.
  5. Tillsmook ice cream
    • If you’re an Oregonian, cheese identifies as Tillamook. We don’t have any other brands. It has extended to all dairy for me, because it’s the brand I trust. Their ice cream is every bit as decadent as their sharpest cheddar. I usually get Oregon Dark Cherry, but I’ve gotten other flavors in the past…. but not for at least a year or so, because I find something I like and eat it until I’m tired of it. It’s very, very hard to get tired of Oregon Dark Cherry ice cream. The only thing better is if I could get marionberry instead.

If there is a bonus, sometimes I grab a 5 Hour Energy in the checkout. They’re great with a seltzer “back,” and even though the vitamins don’t taste ideal, I do need them. I’ve just cut down on caffeine an enormous amount, because I realized that I couldn’t replace sleep with drugs, as much as I’d like to be able to do so……… I’ve checked with me, though, and sleeping the correct amount is non-negotiable. I’ve missed a lot of tricks from being tired, because my disabilities don’t have a chance to be less annoying if I keep getting more and more exhausted without recharging. I’m not even sure I have USB-C yet. 😉

It has also been years since I’ve been grocery shopping in person, because I started getting my groceries delivered during the pandemic and I never stopped. It’s a necessity for me because I’d still have to Uber home with all my groceries, so why not just pay someone else? It works out to be the same.

Also not a grocery store item, necessarily, but I love it that stores have SBUX inside. I love to drink an iced tea when I’m shopping, and the only time I do that is when I’m getting prescriptions refilled and have to pick them up in person.

If there’s anything you should be glad I get at the grocery store, it’s my medications. 😉

Friendship with The Doctor

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

If you are not a Whovian, you might get something out of this. You might not. But I do know that most of my audience is overseas, and there’s more a chance that they’ll have seen it than my American friends…… so I’m going global by going micro. I love Doctor Who an autistic special interest amount (and I am choking with laughter as I type this). There are just so many things I want to know.

For instance, at first, Amy Pond was The Doctor’s companion, and then her husband, Rory, joined them…… and Rory never stopped working. They did not explain how this was possible, you just had to assume that Rory was able to make it to work with time travel. They also never showed him at work, so it seemed like he never went home at all. I think it would be hilarious to explore another companion’s real life in reaction to The Doctor. Like, what does it take for The Doctor to get them to school, work, doctor’s appointments, etc?

I also want to know more about the companions. What they go through emotionally in their real lives regarding the pull of traveling and the responsibility of family. This is because even with time travel, their experiences are worlds apart and they lose connection easily. Normal people stuff just doesn’t register like it used to, and parents and partners notice. I am so glad that in the last special, they made it clear that Sean Noble was going to be all cool with everything, because it’s a lot. Sylvia and Wilf know that better than most.

The one thing that’s really cool about being a companion is that you have a job for life if you want it. Kate Lethbridge Stewart has taken in lots of former companions at UNIT, and as I joked, “UNIT candidates being offered 60,000 pounds a year was the most realistic part of this episode.” For intelligence officers all over the world, the government has the money for making deals and such. They’re just regular government employees. But good on Donna for never accepting the first offer. 😉

I am so happy that lots of people are saying the show is too woke. It means that the show is doing what it’s always done, which is create a space for the dispossessed to feel powerful. Most autistic people I know describe being neurodivergent as feeling “alien.” There is a reason there’s a large number of people on the spectrum at sci-fi conventions. In utopia, we all belong.

I am also glad that Russell T. Davies has clarified that 14 is retired. They’ll mention him, but there is nothing to take away from Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor in it. It makes me happy because I knew it would be an issue if David continued. Let’s not pretend that Conan losing The Tonight Show had nothing to do with Jay Leno’s refusal to just go away.

I am not being mean to David Tennant, either. I think that it might be a good idea to reboot Torchwood as well, and 14 can be an employee like everyone else. That way, Ncuti and David are playing two entirely separate roles. If they reboot Torchwood, David’s doctor would be more like Al Pacino in “Slow Horses.”

I’ve always loved the interplay between MI-6 and Doctor Who, so it’s been a kick to see CIA on it as well. In the Torchwood reboot, I’d love to see a project with UNIT, MI-6, and CIA all working together. Plus, David has already played a detective in Broadchurch, so I think he’d make a bang up intelligence officer archetype as well.

In case you are completely lost, UNIT in the Doctor Who universe is an intelligence agency in the British government that deals with alien attacks. The Doctor is basically “C Emeritus.” Other people run UNIT, but he’s the last word. The acting head of UNIT right now is a woman with a long history with The Doctor, so she makes her own decisions and The Doctor can override them. Her name is Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, and she’s the daughter of The Doctor’s dear friend, the Brigadier General Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. Because of their long history together, they trust each other implicitly and work well together. However, I think the reason they get along so well is that The Doctor is not there to drive her up the wall all day. That’s the part David Tennant would absolutely smash.

“Do I have a desk?”
“No.”

The idea is funny just based on The Doctor’s episodes with James Corden as a roommate and the episode where they’re a houseguest at Rory and Amy’s. I cannot imagine how much it would play with your emotions to have The Doctor as a coworker, because you can love them and also want to stab them with a fork.

The Doctor even knows they’re annoying, which makes it funnier. My favorite line about this comes from a conversation between 12, Clara, and some random character. The random character asks who Clara is.

Clara: I’m his carer.
Twelve: Yes, she’s my carer. She cares, so I don’t have to.

For my Americans, in Britain, a carer is someone who works in a nursing home. Peter Capaldi was much older than Matt Smith, and I loved how they worked that one in.

I also hope that Neil Gaiman does more with both Doctor Who and Good Omens. I don’t want him to limit himself to those shows if he doesn’t want it. It would just be nice to get a standalone from him once in a while. Good Omens is already greenlit for season 3.

But mostly I like the way that Neil writes for David Tennant, so perhaps the answer is to lure Neil Gaiman into rebooting Torchwood.

If you see him, could you ask?

How I Became a Writer

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Describe a man who has positively impacted your life.

I’ve been a blogger since 2003, but I’d never really called myself a writer. It was something I did in my spare time until Dooce and Jenny Lawson made it big. I am not any less crazy or adorable than they are (were- rest in peace with the former Congressman, my dear Heather.

In case you’ve never read Dooce, she called her dog “Chuck, the Former Congressman” for his whole life and people that were with her from the beginning fell apart when he died). But Heather planted a seed in my mind that this was something I could do. I could talk about my life and people would show up. I was correct, and I have all of you to thank for any popularity I’ve gained over the last 20 years. Until I started reading Dooce, I didn’t have a goal. Then, I did. I wouldn’t have believed it was possible to go from entertaining tens of people to millions in a relatively short amount of time if I hadn’t watched it with my own eyes.

The one thing I will not do is craft the narrative to fit what the audience wants, because that means I’m just writing for attention, not for therapy/clarity. My basic philosophy is that you are free to disagree with me, but you are not free to tell me to stop writing. And now even that is broken, because I would give up my career in writing through blogging if Supergrover asked me. But it’s not because she has some magical voodoo power or anything, it’s that she’s a more private person than I am. I need that relationship to be bigger than it was to succeed again, and I’m guessing that we’re all done because of it. I think that because I said I was writing our story, she thought I was trying to get something out of it. That I was studying her like a journalist. It’s the other way around. She became part of my writing because she became part of my life.

She was the first person to truly validate that what I do is important. That I shed light on the abuse of children because I know what it’s like to be a child and have emotionally abusive things said to you. They’re mind worms that never go away. She lifted me up in every way imaginable, and I’m betting she thinks I’m kidding that if I do get a book deal for this fantastic idea I’ve got and all of the sudden I’m Oprah’s Book Club material, I’d like to pay off her house. It’s dreaming way too big, way too early, but that’s what an INFJ does. They live in the world of utopia and are trying to drag people into the light. They also get frustrated at other people’s refusal to look at themselves.

But before all that, before Supergrover was even a twinkle, there was Bill. I decided in Portland that I’d like to be a cook instead of in IT because when I was off, I was really, really off. In IT, I was tethered with a laptop and phone 24/7, and my writing time is sacred. I go completely off the grid and put my tablet in airplane mode. I got better fast because of it. However, in those days, I wasn’t writing every day. I am on a 53 day streak, and before that the streak was 65.

Sometimes, I write because I want to. Sometimes, I write because I have to. If I skip a day, WordPress puts me lower in their algorithms. I’m not popular enough to be able to sustain a break right now. But it doesn’t take over my whole life. I am astounded at how fast I write. The prompt just came out 37 minutes ago (as of right now, not by the end)….. and I didn’t start until 00:15.

Even taking all that into consideration, I still didn’t think of myself as a writer. I didn’t think of myself as a writer in grade school, either, because writers are a type. I swear to Christ it’s a personality transplant because before you truly start taking a red pen to your own work, you have no idea just how much bullshit you can spout unchecked. When I wrote stories in school, I didn’t think of them as better than my other friends’ stories. All kids wrote them, I didn’t think of myself in a writerly way.

Until that day.

At the pub, there was a poker club upstairs that didn’t allow alcohol, so poker players would come down for a quick drink between hands. That means I saw the same men (there was maybe one woman in the crowd) nearly every night of the week. I don’t remember how Bill and I got to talking, but we developed a very playful love/hate relationship because he and I both acted like Texas “good ol’ boys.” Because I’m genderqueer, I sound more like my dad and The War Daniel than I do anyone else, because I have that Texas old guy patois. This was a lot funnier when I was nine. Now I realize that I am a Texas old guy.

I like my sex, but my gender and I don’t get along all the time. The way I write is often different than what I would say in person, so I come across as more male in writing and more female in person. Because I don’t outwardly look like a woman in my Facebook pictures, people often assume I’m male. I got accused of being a “white knight” for calling out misogyny on Facebook today, so I told him I was a woman. He blocked me and told the rest of the group that I was a sex offender, as if no one in the group would reply to him and let me know that he said it. I was busting him up for calling women gold diggers.

All of these things are color commentary on my conversation with Bill (I’m AuDHD, every thought comes with bonus content):

Bill, clearly sloshed: What do you do?
Leslie: I’m a writer (at first, I thought, “I work here?”).
Bill: How much have you made as a writer?
Leslie: I’ve never made anything.

This man, who is absolutely hammered, puts both his hands into his jeans pockets and pulls out the change. He dumps it into my hands, and says, “THERE. NOW YOU’RE A PRUFESSHIONAL WRITER.”

The total of the change was $1.83, and that’s what’s tattooed on my right wrist……….

And that comes from Dana’s first wife, Carol, who asked me why I got my quill tattoo on my left arm because I’m right-handed. I thought, “well said. Why didn’t I think of that?”

Not in the Slightest

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Is your life today what you pictured a year ago?
View all responses

This time last year, Sam and I had broken up maybe a week before. It was a blessing and a curse all at the same time.

I loved being around her, being with her. I liked doing things for her, like cleaning up more than I needed while making coffee. Everything was nice and tidy, I just love all kitchens a professional amount. A mom of two is not going to go after a kitchen the way a line cook would, unless they’re also a mom of two. It doesn’t generally work like that. The mom of two kind of line cook hates that they can’t keep their kitchen as clean at home as they can at work. The kitchen is detail, and one of the few things I am quite detailed about, being AuDHD. It is through nothing but repetition, this iron will in the kitchen, because ADHD does not lend itself to remembering details, particularly if they have to be in any kind of order.

I told a friend I was cleaning Sam’s kitchen because I wanted to be a good houseguest, and they said, “clearly, you have UNDERSTOOD THE ASSIGNMENT.” It made me laugh, but I wasn’t doing it so Sam would love me. I was doing it because I love the kitchen, and Sam was the package that came with the kitchen. 😉 So, if I thought I’d be doing something differently this year, it’s that I thought I’d be spending Christmas with my girlfriend and her kids, but we broke up for a very, very good reason. I am no longer the person who will anticipate someone else’s needs. I will respond to yours, but I will not guess what they are. If you tell me what your intentions are with me and they don’t match what’s actually going on in your head, you don’t get to blame my reaction on me. I would have had a different response with different facts.

I’ve said this before, but Sam told me that she had a full-time job, two kids, and time management issues because of it. There just weren’t enough hours in the day. So, let’s not get exclusive right away. I agreed to that and she broke up with me while I was on my first date with Zac. She knew I had a date with him coming up, knew that if she was uncomfortable, I’d cancel my date with him (I made it before I met her), and sat on the information that she was upset until it would cause maximum damage with drama. She’s a singer. She is not unpracticed at this, I believe…………………….. I was hurt that she thought about this for three whole weeks and then smashed my heart into a million pieces. I was completely blindsided, but I didn’t mourn her. There was no point. Clearly she didn’t like what she saw, clearly she was horrible at communication, and clearly it would have been a mistake to get further involved, because if that’s her conflict resolution style, I’m done. Not everything is an opera.

Even our breakup wasn’t an opera. It was a text message. So, not only was she bad at conflict resolution, she wasn’t brave enough to break up with me in person. I was already in a relationship with someone bad at conflict resolution, and it was going so spectacularly poorly on some days that I was relieved I wasn’t going to have to double down on it with my girlfriend. This is because when someone else is bad at conflict resolution, I don’t deal well. I get frustrated and lose the plot quickly. That’s because when my trauma reflexes kick in, it’s normally rage. CPTSD/AuDHD rage is unparalleled, so I have to have an extensive network of coping mechanisms. The longer bad conflict goes on, the more I regress into a wet cat in a corner, claws extended. It’s not pretty, but I’m being real. My work is learning how to react when all my coping mechanisms fail.

This is because words have power, and you can say things that will stick with people for years. I try to say things that will tell people their actions are fucked up, but that I love them even on their bad days. I do not suddenly stop communicating with people because I don’t love them. I stop communicating because clearly you expect that only your needs matter and mine are just me complaining. 90% of the time, the problem is that I’m a neurodivergent trying to translate from and into “neurotypical,” and I’m very stubborn. At the same time, people accuse me of not listening when in reality, I’ve just spent 15 minutes beating the wrong dead horse instead of the right one.

I feel like the relationship with Supergrover holds this up. I don’t get angry at many people like I get at her, because we’ve known each other for 10 years. I have different expectations now than I did 10 years ago, because I’ve put my heart and soul into making our relationship better, and for whatever reason, I’ve been answered with avoidance and rage every time. Therefore, by now I feel like it’s not my problem. I’ve tried to change our dynamic over and over, and whether it’s due to information I don’t know or projecting my own insecurities onto someone who also has CPTSD, I’ll never know. For all practical intents and purposes, she has rarely had a day without PTSD. Trauma occurred very young. It is so easy to bleed out with empathy and also be severely frustrated and angry. I love her on her worst days as much as I love her on the good ones, but she doesn’t see it. I can’t make her do that, or even know if she wanted to be more to each other and didn’t get it. But, by “more to each other,” I don’t ever mean crossing the line from friendship into romance. I mean that my personality profile and my experience says that I have one or two close friends at a time, and I pour everything I’ve got into them rather than having a more shallow relationship with more people. It’s how I found out I was poly, honestly, because even though I wasn’t necessarily looking for romance, I realized that it would never not be true that she was more important to me than Dana. And to Dana, I apologize, but you and I both know this is true and for me, an objective truth rather than subjective. I can’t be too careless in my writing, and Dana was threatened by how much I got lost in it.. We connected on a deep and spiritual level, and nothing anyone says can take away from that fact.

She says that I only know random factoids about her life and I’m telling you things that aren’t true. I have more evidence than you will on why this isn’t true. It’s not that there’s not emotion in what she said, far from it. However, because she’s not connected with her emotions, she thought she was saying something logical and hated that I responded emotionally. If there’s any speech I could give to her that I’ve heard recently, it’s Ncuti Gatwa’s monologue about how exhausted The Doctor is because they never stop to think about how fast they’re moving to avoid emotional injury.

This is because when they get into a scrape too big for them, they die. And the regeneration energy convinces them that “they’re fine.” It hits close to home because we all go through it. Regeneration energy making you think you’re fine. In polyamory, this is called “new relationship energy,” or NRE for short. It’s a thing. You have to know whether you’re losing established boundaries or whether, when a partner meets someone new, they’re just “high.” No, I wouldn’t know anything about that, and I bet you don’t, either. People are poly all the time, they just call it an affair…….. when the reality is most people are afraid of cheating and lying, not that their partner is spending time with someone else. I noticed in “Christmas at My Own Pace” that I just sat around waiting for Dana to be available. I did not seek out other people at all. Even with my closest friends, I couldn’t be arsed to go out that often. And in reality, it doesn’t matter if you’re romantic with multiple people or not. I predicted and did that losing Supergrover’s friendship was worse than getting divorced because the situation has been far more tense and unpredictable than it was with Dana. Neither of us has any idea what to do with the other, and we show up with guns in a knife fight.

Meanwhile, “There’s a Place for Us” is playing in my head, because “showing up with guns to a knife fight” reminded me that Supergrover and I trade off being Sharks and Jets…… but I’d like her to settle in France. If she is 14, I’m The Doctor Leslie……. although I have never and will never be a temp in Chizzick. 😉 If we’d ever spent time together talking instead of writing, she’d also see that she’s 14 and I’m part 12 and part 15. Ncuti is at playing The Doctor as queer, and it’s a welcome surprise. I feel like this should be canon, because there’s no way they’re not bisexual after a regeneration being female. You can sort of tell because 14 had “Captain Jack” energy. Also, just because The Doctor can change genders from male to female doesn’t mean they didn’t marry River Song. Now, I just love the idea that The Doctor has settled into family life, being best friends with Donna and uncle to Rose (Noble, just to be clear).

(Speaking of which, I totally believe The Toymaker got in her head, because think about what she made with her institutional knowledge…… and it stands to reason that The Toymaker is “the boss.”)

With Sam, there was no hierarchy like that. I didn’t feel like Sam was The Doctor and I was a companion. It was a death knell for Supergrover and me because I never gained ground as an equal. The hierarchy came from her keeping information from me and blaming me for it. I knew that if we’d survived Sam’s feelings about this issue, I would slowly come undone at being steamrolled all the time. Plus, I think it’s good that she’s not run over by the autistic brain, because her son is also autistic. That being said, I may be projecting again because it’s unlikely that she’s not autistic as well- or her ex-husband is- because neurodivergence doesn’t come out of a vacuum. It’s not an indicator (necessarily) from observing mood and behavior, just Gregor Mendel’s pea plants. It is almost impossible to know whether you’re autistic or not before you start doing the work, because the quirks you think you have aren’t quirks at all. Your brain is just different. What you say when you say, “I’m autistic” is never what people hear.

And that’s why I am nowhere near where I thought I’d be this year. I didn’t know myself well enough to know I was being treated badly, and I had a right to stand up for myself. It felt often that Supergrover was annoyed by me, and I was having to fight through that annoyance to get to a better place, but she didn’t respond to it. That was my cue to leave, because I get the right to say “you’re not helping me, you’re hurting me…” and if nothing changes, to walk away, because clearly they don’t care about my feelings and it’s okay to stop thinking about theirs.

I have all my own theories as to what happened, but we’ve never talked about it, and I’ve ensured we never will. That’s because I’ve noted and observed that she doesn’t open up to anyone, and it’s not personal. It became personal when her behavior affected me….. I felt that she felt the more she annoyed me, the more I’d go away…… and got angry when that didn’t happen.

So, as of now, I am spending Christmas by myself (seeing Zac for the holidays, just not on Christmas Day). I am excited about this, because it’s my favorite day to wander around the city and take pictures. I will absolutely freak the fuck out if it snows on Christmas Eve, because it’s the best time to take photos when there’s a light dusting of snow on the monuments…………………………………………. That was an inside joke for Dana, because once she wanted to go to Beth Israel in the snow, and it was a light dusting that day. What happened was that we got in our Jeep and crossed the river, going up to a higher elevation. By the time we got to Beth Israel, we were in it up to our knees. We looked like idiots, because the caretaker said, “where were you yesterday?” He did not appreciate having to do work in the snow, I’m guessing.

It was good we had the Jeep, because we needed it. I can’t remember if it was that week or whether I’m mixing snowstorms together, but one of Dana’s coworkers came up to us and said, “I hate to be stereotypical, but do you guys have some sort of lesbian vehicle, like a Subaru?” We laughed and took six people home. One of the perks of being on the bus/train is that if we get into a simple car accident in the snow, the bus is going to win. My travel never gets waylaid by snow, because even if I don’t get an Uber to the station, It would only take 20 or 30 minutes to walk to the Metro, and 20 minutes to get there by bus. I try to walk as often as I can, because then I can justify a shake at Shake Shack or BurgerFi. That’s a once in a while treat, though, because they’re nearly $10 apiece and I get get a pint of Jenni’s for that. 😛

This year, my goal has been figuring out my sensory issues. I started buying the same food every week so that I could focus on more important things, not that my structure is so iron I don’t want to taste anything new. It’s protecting my bubble.

So, I am exactly where I thought I would be this year in that respect. So much Oregon Dark Cherry ice cream, not so much with the shakes…… although Zac did get me an immersion blender. Maybe I don’t need to buy a shake as much as I need to learn to make them. 😛 Also, so much Zac. He’s really made my year better because I had that friend I could call if I needed something and he’s always responded in a way I’m not used to and don’t expect. It’s probably the most healthy relationship I’ve ever been in because I insisted on it.

If I had guessed a year ago that I’d be perfectly happy with a boyfriend, I would have laughed in your face. But I surprise me all the time.

Christmas at My Own Pace -or- How Did I Not Know It was AuDHD?

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 2 Comments

I’m posting this now because it seems the timing is “write,” but I actually wrote this in 2007, when I was living in Portland. If you’re still there, you should go to The Grotto. It was a very spiritual experience.

Dana and I have completely opposite schedules most of the time, which means that even though we live together, we really don’t see each other any more or less than when we didn’t. I find myself with lots of time alone at home with the cats and the Tivo, and I’m very happy with it. Especially as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become less willing to put up with an evening of trying to meet people.

But then there comes a point where I know I’m spending too much time alone- a sign I’ve come to watch for as a depression indicator- and I force myself into new and different situations to try and reverse the downward spiral.

On Friday, I came home and looked through the Willie Week to see what was going on. I thought about seeing a play. There are several going on right now that are inexpensive, and it’s been a while since I’ve done the theater. But then something caught my eye that I thought was just right.

Billed as the Festival of Lights, there are decorated trees, a petting zoo, a live Nativity, and many, many different sets of carol singers. It’s going on from now until Christmas at The Grotto, Portland’s National Sanctuary to Our Sorrowful Mother. Sanctuary is kind of a misnomer, because The Grotto is not an expansive building with cathedral spires. It’s more like a labyrinth or a Stations of the Cross-type setup. As you walk through the lighted displays, piped voices tell the birth story. When the Christmas decorations aren’t there, the walk is contemplative regarding the rest of Mary and Jesus’ life (Joseph, fortunately or not, gets very little airplay).

Normally, I am not a big fan of piped voices, but against the backdrop of the lights, it seemed fitting. It felt more like a museum tour with headphones than the muffled sounds of a speaker system whose last job was a drive-thru.

After I took the short baby Jesus tour, I arrived at the top of a hill. From there, I could see a chapel, the aforementioned petting zoo, and a small stage. I made a beeline for the petting zoo, because I am a big fan of those goats that are almost as small as my cat.

I also managed to charm a camel named Fezzic into taking a carrot from me, which was far more entertaining than my last run-in with a camel. When I was a little under five, my mother and father took me to a Nativity play and a camel spit on me. Who knows, maybe I deserved it. In any case, I liked Fezzic a lot and resolved to work on my camel issues.

After I finished at the petting zoo, I went to listen to a quartet of singers that really impressed me. They didn’t seem like paid professionals- more on the level of the best singers in their church choirs. There was something comforting about it- took me back to the days of standing around my friend Suzanne’s piano with all my friends from my own church choir… which brings to mind a memorable year in which I was wearing a sweatshirt that had jingle bells sewn all over the front (Mother, I will take your apology for that shirt now). My friend David said that I “tinkled when I walked,” and started shaking the everliving bejesus out of me when Suzanne started playing “Sleigh Ride.” I don’t think my cerebral function has been quite the same since (shut it).

So there I was, absolutely freezing my bits off in the cold, lost in my memories of Christmas past, and I realized that this was the first time in, well, as long as I could remember, that I was able to take in Christmas at my own pace. I wasn’t worried whether everyone else was having a good time, I didn’t have to be anywhere, the hot chocolate was overflowing and the music just kept getting better.

I ended the night by going to the chapel, where the choir from St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church did a setting of English carols- some even by Andrew Carter, the composer who wrote the solo I sang at Trinity last year.

I relaxed and listened to the music as I pondered the things in my heart. Christmas for the past few years has been stressful. This year, it has wrapped around me and comforted me before I even realized what was happening. It has made me more grateful for the life I have, for the people I have around me. Christmas isn’t all about busyness, though there’s certainly that aspect of it. But my advice is not to get so wrapped up in someone else’s Christmas that you end up missing your own.

It was a worthwhile experience to go to a Christmas festival alone. I chatted with some people while I was there, but for the most part, it was just me and my (cheap) camera phone. I saw Christmas more fully- introspectively, I suppose- as an active observer of both music that conveys sentiments for which there are no words and pictures for which words do no justice.

I saw a three year old boy kiss a sheep’s face.

The Mention of the Christ

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I used to belong to a group called the “RevGalBlogPals” and we did this thing (a meme, which is where the current picture term comes from, but back in the day it was bloggers who sent each other a writing prompt. We did the Friday Five, and this comes from one that said, “what makes you laugh at Easter?” It’s still 100% true, and I wrote this in 2007:

Dana.

Dana made me laugh so hard that I almost wet myself when I went to lunch at her house for the first time, which was, in fact, Easter 2003.

The funniest thing was that she didn’t mean to make me laugh, and I think she might have even been a little offended that I laughed, but come on. When you hear what I laughed about, you’ll laugh, too.

Dana’s family has LAMB for Easter. It’s a tradition. Apparently, lots and lots of people have LAMB for Easter. I did not know this.

Perhaps Easter lunch should *actually* be roast lamb, fava beans, and a nice chianti.

And yes, it is not lost on me that communion is Jesus’ body and blood as well. Transubstantiation isn’t any less disgusting an idea when thought of literally, either.

But then again, with communion there are no leftover Jesus sandwiches.

This is from Good Friday the week before Ash Wednesday of the same year.

I can’t believe it’s already time for Ashed & Smashed! Such a great time was had by all at last year’s, and this time shouldn’t be any different. In fact, it’s getting bigger. We’ve invited just about everyone we know, and as it turns out, we know a lot of people.

For the unfamiliar, Ashed & Smashed began when Dana (my best friend) came to hear me sing at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, Oregon. Afterward, we went to Jake’s Grill, a little bar on the first floor of the Governor Hotel (10th and Alder). We had *so* much to eat, and like, two hurricanes apiece. So we started throwing names around for this brand new holiday that we’d just created.

Was it going to be:

-Blessed and Blasted?
-Kneeling and Reeling?
-Crossed and Canned?

Ashed & Smashed got the most votes by far, and there was only the two of us. Last year, the tradition was continued here in Houston. Dana came to visit and we invited as many people as we could think of. We ended up with a table full of friends, but surprisingly, no sketchy management of alcoholic beverages.

It’s probably because Ashed & Smashed will always fall on a Wednesday. Few, if any, jobs like it when their employees show up smashed, ashed or not. Tis the merriment of the holiday that counts, and there’s always lots of that.

Last year, a minister from Resurrection MCC stopped by our table and said that he could see all of our ashes and wanted to know if we were *celebrating* Ash Wednesday. We started talking and we asked him why we didn’t see HIS ashes. He said, “HELLO!!! I’m BLACK!”

And what do you say after that? We fell on the floor laughing, and went back to our drinks.

The One Where I Write Like Dr. Wall…… and it shows.

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I wrote this in PDX in 2006.

Someone, and I will not name names, wrote me this very pissy e-mail about how since I’d started writing about politics, I’d gotten a lot more conservative.

That’s not true. I’ve gotten a lot more indifferent. As a senior political science student, I do research that leads me to believe every damn day that both parties are completely insane and neither one of them really deserves the attention that the average American gives them… because in order to fix the parties, what really needs to happen is that the average American needs to start giving the Democrats and the Republicans more attention than they know what to do with.

Because believe me when I say that constituents intent on content are like kryptonite to Congress. Say that three times fast. I’m on a roll today.

There are members of both parties that would sell their mother for Jack Abramoff to take them to Scotland… and a good bit of them are trying to sell their mothers right now because Jack Abramoff did. If you haven’t gotten a chance before now, start reading Vanity Fair. It’s a little biased to the left, but even if you’re a right-wing conservative, you’ll still have plenty to chew on. My personal favorite was the roughly five page article that started with the President denying that he’d ever met Abramoff, and five (count ‘em, five) pictures that state otherwise.

For all you yellow dog democrats out there, are you following the story of William Jefferson? I know you’d like to think that the Republicans are the axis (or “asses”) of evil, but Jefferson is a Democrat accused of orchestrating a corruption scheme- demanding cash and prizes for negotiating African business deals. Now, I’m not a lawyer, but I think they’ve got some pretty convincing evidence:

The investigation became public on Aug. 3 when FBI agents raided Jefferson’s homes in New Orleans and Northeast Washington, where they found about $90,000 in cash in his freezer, law enforcement sources have said.

In the freezer? If you’re going to claim innocence, you for damn sure don’t hide shit in the freezer. This story will get weirder before it gets better. Law enforcement officials are lucky all they found was money. There could have been a severed head.

And if the two parties weren’t causing enough trouble, let me play a lawyer on TV…

My first love is constitutional law. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the Feds have the right to enter congressional offices and loot around. It doesn’t even have a sentence from which you can extrapolate the right to fuck up their program.

I was just about to say something very naive, like “when the founding fathers were writing the Constitution, they probably never dreamed this would be an issue…” Then I realized I’d only be saying it because it sounded good, not because it’s true. Half the Constitution was written by taking the right people and getting them too sloshed to move right before they were supposed to vote.

Surely the Framers figured out that something like this was bound to happen. So what we have now is a truckload of evidence and no way to use it… a lot like the OJ case, actually… (And confidentially to the pretentious fuckwit who told me to cite more recent cases because it made me look like a rookie, THIS is going to be the next huge precedent in Fourth Amendment violations. ) The problem is not that there’s too little evidence, it was that it was obtained in an illegal search and seizure. Whether or not they had warrants, Justice does not have the right to wrestle Congress to the mat during Saturday Night Smackdown. If you remember nothing else from this web site, remember this- one branch of power does not have the authority to make any other branch his or her bitch.

I’m Learning That I’m As Good a Writer as Everyone That Has Complimented Me Said I Was…….. Also, Law

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 5 Comments

What skills or lessons have you learned recently?

I’ve been spending some time reading my old blog, “Clever Title Goes Here,” and it’s the easiest way for me to see myself as a different person, often losing all the context around something, even forgetting the people I was with at the time. It’s what hits a home run for me every single time. I am batting a thousand at recording my own life, and I cannot tell you how valuable it is to me. I am only in charge of what I’m putting out there, not what I’m receiving. That means I can’t count on you to like my writing, it would just be nice. I’ve had imposter syndrome for a long time, but I realized two things. The first is that if I’d gone into journalism when I was young, I’d still be there. I know this because I can sneeze a thousand words, and it only takes a little bit longer than that to type them. I am connected to Mark Twain on a deeply spiritual level…… “I’m sorry this is long, but I didn’t have time to make it shorter.” I am a Stephen King kind of bitch. I start writing and who knows which way I’ll go, and I’m as fascinated by the way I think even more than everyone else because my eyes get opened quickly when I am no attacking it with a red pen. It’s so long ago I don’t care.

Today, though, I have a “guest blogger.” He doesn’t even know it. His name is Dr. Ken Wall, and he taught me Constitutional Law in 2006. I posted one of the lectures on my old blog and it fascinated me today. Mostly because I thought they were lost for good and Ken was one of the best teachers I’ve ever had. Since this is an hour lecture, you might want to bookmark this page because he’s worth the read.

When I’m in my classes, I type every word the professor says. Last week’s lecture in Foundations of Law was incredible, and I thought you might want to read it.

The Myth of Moral Justice

We need laws

Think of the legal system as an unloaded gun.

We need law. If there wasn’t law, people would come up with their own set of rules. We all have our own internal rules… laws that we live by. Very few of us are completely spontaneous because we need guidelines. We like the laws to be enforced and we enforce the laws ourselves. But we don’t want them enforced to the point where we get pulled over for doing 4 miles over the speed limit.

When you get married you inventory the situation. You move into the place that’s bigger, and then you find out that there are loaded revolvers in drawers, under the bed, etc. You don’t like loaded guns in the house. We all like to get along with our partners, but through no fault of our own, we make them mad, and all of the sudden there are GUNS IN THE HOUSE. The government is like an unloaded gun- I want it there, and I don’t want to be afraid to use it.

The problem is what do we really want out of the legal system?

I’ve not actually been sued or sued anyone. But I know if I were sued or if I was being sued what I would want is to win, but that’s an unfair thing to say because we don’t always deserve to win. What do we really need? To be heard. You want fairness, you want juries that are fair. You want fairness until you are the one that’s disadvantaged.

What are we looking for from the system?

  • Consistency
  • Justice
  • Fairness
  • No bias or prejudice
  • Facts
  • Truth
  • The bottom line
  • Remedies for grievances
  • Equal treatment
  • A soul?

What if every time you went to court, the judge said a different thing? Is it fair to make someone tear down a $35,000 garage because it’s two feet over into your property? Do you want your opponent to come in and say “hello, Uncle Fred” to the judge? Do we want the law to be feeling?

One of the major problems with law is what people want from the law is not what the law is set up to provide.

Falsehood 1

The law is in the business of seeking out the truth. It’s in the business of seeking out the facts. I’m driving along the street and there’s a 35mph zone. I’m doing 40. The light goes yellow, then red, and since I’m in Texas, I just go through. As I get through the intersection, a little boy steps in front of the car. I hit him and do serious damage. I’m going to be sued. One of the big questions is going to be how fast I was driving and what was the color of the light. Those are important facts that the court needs to determine to make their decision. This little kid wasn’t paying attention, might not even know his colors yet. There’s only me and my passenger, who is dependent upon me for her college education and everything she needs in life. Passenger corroborates the story. The other two people on the street say he was going slow. The young lady says, “I’m not sure. One of the lights was green.”

What color was the light? It was green. All the evidence says it was green. It was really red, but there is no way for the court to prove otherwise.

What is the law really trying to do? Find out the facts based on the evidence presented. It can be very confusing. We keep out more than we let in. We often keep out evidence that is highly relevant because of hearsay or copies instead of originals.

What if we changed the facts just a little bit and another car as the kid is laying there in the street and I’ve pulled on ahead to check my tires and see the kid “awww, man!” I go back and the mother is screaming. Another guy runs almost instantaneously through the light and runs over the kid again. The testimony in my lawsuit is that it was green and because I’m a nice citizen I testify for the kid in the other case because he got sued. The facts are different even though the truth is identical. Although the truth is the same, when the facts are decided by the court, it’s usually not the same.

Falsehood #2: The courts are here to do what is fair and what is right; Justice equals just, fairness, or morality

They’re enforcing the standards of the community. They want to come to the bottom line. Move it, tear it down, or leave it alone. In some cases the law does what is fair, but it’s an extra. Even ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Another example would be that there are people with certain expertise. Let’s say I’m an art expert that knows Old Masters. My little old lady next door neighbor is having financial difficulties. I’m over there sympathizing with her and say, “you could sell some stuff and make some money.” “All I really have is some old stuff that my parents brought over to the old country.” It turns out to be a Cezanne and a Rembrandt. They are dirty and need cleaning. The moral thing to do would be to tell her that she’s rich. But you tell her, “the paintings are okay, but no one will buy a picture of a fat lady. I’ll tell you what. What was your bill the last two months? I’ll pay your bill if you’ll give me the three paintings and we’ll call it even. We sign a contract. You read in the paper that I’ve just bought Galveston island. LOL cannot sue to get her paintings back. She accepted the offer, I’m not a merchant so it doesn’t have to be in writing. There’s a legal term called tough noogies.

Falsehood III: Negotiated pleas and settlements based on falsehoods are not allowed.

I don’t want to know how many times you’ve been arrested and pled guilty, but it does happen. It used to be and is still in a few jurisdictions that for whatever reason the head prosecutor won’t allow plea bargaining for criminal cases. Some other guy who looked like me was in a jurisdiction that didn’t allow plea bargains and I couldn’t make any agreements on charges, etc. Between 90 and 98 percent of cases are plea bargained. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if every case went to trial that if you got arrested you wouldn’t go to court for thirty years.

Deals are made. Defendant pleas guilty. “Has any agreement not in writing been made concerning these charges? The judge will gavel down guilty. When you work out certain deals on civil cases, although maybe not quite as bad, the attorneys will decide how to work it out. We’ve all got dirt on our spouses that work in our favor. House of cards, house of lies.

I hope that I never knowingly took someone to trial that I thought was innocent. (He’s a prosecutor.) I don’t think I ever used the shotgun method- take every statute involving criminality and just load ‘em into the gun and start shooting. Charge ‘em with 100 different things because SOMETHING has to stick.

Falsehood IV: A lawyer that fastidiously maintains all the ethical requirements of his/her profession is a fair and honest lawyer.

It doesn’t mean that justice will be done if you follow all the rules. One of the codes of ethics says that you can’t knowingly present false evidence to the court and try to pass it off as truth. So I’m defense counsel, the question I NEVER ask is “Are you guilty?”

Now I know because I’ve seen the bank video that he’s guilty, but I don’t want to know so that I can always say, “I didn’t know because I didn’t ask the question. The video could have been manufactured. The witnesses could have been lying. I had to believe my client.”

Falsehood V: The reasonable person test is a good method of determining what one should do in differing circumstances.

I’m driving along talking on the phone putting on my makeup drinking a Slurpee. Would they be doing all those things? Probably, but is it reasonable? Today driving and talking on the cell phone is reasonable because that’s what most people do. There have been some tests that talking and especially dialing the phone is more dangerous than driving at .08 BAC.

Was it reasonable for the black man charged with raping the white woman to run? Generally, running is an admission of guilt. In the 30’s, no matter how innocent he was, it was reasonable for the black man to run. A black man that would have stayed would have been shot and the girl’s father brought down as some sort of hero even if no rape had occurred. (To Kill a Mockingbird)

If the community believes that the legal system is there to do what is just and to discover the truth, then the adversarial system of justice may not achieve a legitimate sense of the truth.

There’s a guy in NYC who was depressed and homeless. Decided to commit suicide by jumping in front of a subway train. Train missed him. Suffered severe shock. Wasn’t pushed. JUMPED. Sued the city of New York and was awarded over 3 million dollars. Tried to commit suicide and got MORE money from the city.

In this case, with these facts, should the city have put up a barrier to keep the guy from jumping?

In the next lesson, we’ll go over ways to fix the problems with the legal system. A lot of the problem is the way the law is set up in and of itself. It’s hard to get people to change. You’ve got to look at an opinion that just goes stupid to see what changes need to be made.

What is the goal of the courts and the law?

-to move cases. Period.

Oh, The Places I Would Go…

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 4 Comments

What cities do you want to visit?

I don’t have one top favorite, so I’ll give a few of them. I’m not a huge traveler, so I would rather get an AirBnB for several weeks than try to flip body clocks twice in three or four days. Just not my style anymore. “I’m older and I have more insurance.” But if money were no object, I would love to see:

  • Paris
    • I have been to Paris once, but only for a few days. I definitely hit all the highlights with my dad, but I don’t know what it is to sit at a cafe and people watch. I don’t know what it’s like to go to Paris and do nothing, and that’s why it’s valuable. You don’t go there to find things to do. You go there to walk around in its culture and see what sticks. Then, you either commit yourself to finding out what coffee shop David Sedaris frequents- or perhaps going to Pere Lachaisse for inspiration. Oscar Wilde and I had a marvelous time. Just because I am living and he is not doesn’t mean we weren’t both entertained. I told him that Stephen Fry played him in a movie once. He said it was perfect casting.
  • New York
    • I have never spent more than 24 hours in New York, so it’s the same idea there as in Paris. I’d like to go there for a little bit and then get back out. There’s a rhythm, and it’s intimidating to me. It’s sort of like Las Vegas in that the culture is different but the level of sensory input you receive when you get there is just as heightened. In 2003, I wanted to retire in New York, and I have absolutely no idea what I meant by that. I do remember past trips there to be fun, but not in a way I’d like to live there- except maybe someone I liked wanted to live there, so I did, too. Now, I just want to find hidden treasures on out of the way side streets.
  • Ho Chi Minh City
    • I have to do a lot of research on the Vietnam War, rightfully called “The American War” there. I’m writing a novel about it, and I don’t think I could do setting justice if I just made it up. I mean, I can and I will,if I have to, but there’s a lot to be said about putting effort into understanding something fully. I have studied political science since I got to college- the news junkie in me drove me to poli sci and it hasn’t given up. With political science comes lots and lots on international relations as well. So, I know the story from the American side fairly well, but I don’t like to write from the perspective of only trumpeting American interests. The military and C/DIA had many faults and failures during this time, and since most things more recent than Vietnam are still classified, I don’t know that either organization has really wrestled with our actions in that theater in a way that processes out institutional pain. Vietnam was the first war in which it was clear that we might not lose, but we don’t have enough money or resources to outright win, either. The Vietnamese have the right to call us out on that, because American soldiers were responsible for a lot of atrocities. We have the reputation of being feared, and not in a healthy way. It’s why we’ll never win a land war in Asia……. and death is on the line.
  • Seoul
    • Before I started watching both Josh & Olly, I’d never wanted to visit Korea before. They’re responsible for making a lot of people feel that way on their YouTube channel, Jolly. Josh met Olly in college (I think- British system), then went to university in Seoul. I think. I haven’t done all the math. Anyway, when Josh and Olly were both done with uni, they decided to start making videos about what Koreans think of English people. Hilarity ensues. I’m not sure how often Josh and Olly get back to Korea, but one of the fun things they do is “red carpet” style interviews while they entice celebrities to talk using Korean food. It worked very well on Ryan Reynolds. 🙂
  • Enseñada, Mexico
    • I have been to Enseñada once. It’s a small enough city that I could picture myself living there. I don’t speak much Spanish, but I took two years in school and have spent time in both Texas and Mexico speaking Spanish. My language skills aren’t as good now as they were in high school, because I was going to Mexico regularly (Reynosa and Progreso, both on mission trips). I could not land in San Diego and drive across the border without incident, but within a month or so I’d be all right. Within three or four years, I’d be fluent. It’s amazing what you can do when you have no choice. The water is gorgeous. La Buffadora (Buffalo Snort) is magnificent, a geyser that makes me feel the power of nature unlike anything else. I’m sure Papas & Beer is still there, it’s an institution. I don’t know about Habana Banana, which used to be my favorite Mexican clothing brand. I bought a ton while I was there, and at the time, they didn’t offer online ordering or international shipping. So, part of it is to find another clothing brand I like just as much…….. the rest of it is to sit outside with a Coke (we’re in Mexico, after all) and see what nature is saying around me. I live my life like the sound track is 4’33. I think it would kick things up a notch to perform it outside. My past performances have all gone very well. No one even knew I was “conducting it all while I sleep…. to light up my yard.”
  • Vancouver
    • I didn’t live in DC very long before I went to visit Meagan in Ottawa. However, I lived in Portland for 12 years and never made it to British Columbia. I have heard I would love it, now I need to go see it for myself. I will admit, though, that there is some truth to only the Canadian provinces with her in them being interesting. It wasn’t a draw while I lived there, but now I’m just curious. I sort of know what life is like on the East Coast of Canada because Meag has lived in Alberta, Ontario, and New Brunswick….. maybe more, but I’ve slept since then. But West Coast Canada is completely different, it seems. They don’t have bagged milk there. 🙄 Now that I’ve had time to reflect, I regret not going when it was only a five hour car ride. It would be a much bigger deal now.
  • Washington, DC
    • I live in Silver Spring, Maryland. It’s a suburb that has everything I could possibly want within walking distance. As a result, I can go as long as a year without needing anything from downtown…… and most of it is that the bands I like don’t play in Silver Spring- some of them do, though. If I want to see something relatively big, it’s at The Kennedy Center, not The Fillmore. I also haven’t been to Wolf Trap in 20-odd years, mostly because it’s such a hassle that I think about going to Wolf Trap and back out. I feel about Wolf Trap the same way people feel about Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. It’s going to be a long concert, there’s no easy way in or out, and there’s a thousand people all screaming at once. I much prefer smaller venues, and wish Indigo Girls would play The Fillmore once in a while. 😛
  • Helsinki
    • My love of Finnish Independence Day led me to believe that one day I’d make it to watch the celebrations live- I watch them every year on YouTube from here. It’s not just that, though. I’ve said before and I’ll say it again that the palate for that part of the world is completely different- they don’t even have the same flora. Learning to cook there would be a whole new experience, and Anthony Bourdain introduced them to me through the magic of television. Why yes, I do want a large reindeer pizza. I also want to fly into HEL and drive up to Kilpisjaarvi so I can sleep under the aurora borealis in a clear-top tent. I also want to dress up really warm and sleep outside, just to see if I could do it. 😛

Special K -and- O Canada

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

From October of 2003.

I got an e-mail from someone who works at ExxonMobil the other day, interested because I mentioned being an out lesbian and working there in the same weblog.

So I talked a little about my experiences in Fairfax, both the good and the bad. I started with Kathleen and I walking in Dupont Circle and picking up a copy of The Washington Blade, then nearly dropping our ice cream on the pavement as we read a quote from senior media advisor, Tom Cirigliano. I’ll paraphrase it here: “ExxonMobil does not support domestic partner benefits, but in countries that allow LEGALLY BINDING gay marriage…” We started planning our trip to Vermont that afternoon.

But the real fun began after we came home.When Kathleen presented our certificate to Human Resources, they acted like they had never heard of civil unions, and to be fair, they probably hadn’t. We were assigned a caseworker and given a possible date at which we might be given more information. That date came and went. We finally called back. We were given another date at which we might possibly be given information. We went to church. We prayed. We crossed fingers.

Another month went by, and the date at which they said they’d call us back came and went, and we were assigned another date at which they might possibly give us more information. It was a nightmare of bureacratic red tape. What we didn’t know is that the senior media advior had spoken without any clear definition of what he was talking about. They were literally having to write a proposal for how they were going to include us from the moment we presented them with our certificate. No advance planning had gone into it, presumably because they thought no one would take them up on it.

Another few months went by, and I was hired by ExxonMobil Research & Engineering, which alleviated our concerns about joint health coverage. Now that I had my own, we weren’t concerned about my getting ill- but it was still a justice issue in that each of us wanted to be listed as the other’s spouse in case of a true emergency.

Another two or three months went by, and we finally sent a letter that was very kind but firm- something to the effect of “if the next time we meet we are only given another date at which we might possibly be given more information, we would like to seek legal counsel.” It was worded more diplomatically than that, but our intentions were clear nonetheless. I sent copies of every e-mail and every transcription of every voice mail to the ACLU, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and sincerely thought about the Washington Post. In retrospect, I would have had a lot of compassion for the people in HR if they had just e-mailed us and said, “we didn’t really think anybody was going to use this, so be patient with us while we write this thing from the ground up.” Wading through months and months with no inkling that any information would ever be forthcoming was the hardest part.

This morning as I sat down to write I didn’t particularly feel like writing about anything. But people who work on the assumption that you only write when you feel like writing don’t get book deals. So with that in mind, I went to Yahoo! and searched for “writing prompts.” The first site that came up was a writing resources page for people who teach junior high. Most of them were pretty inane, but this one just cracked me up: “What does Canada mean to you?”

I’m assuming that this prompt was meant for Canadian teachers wanting to bring out a small bit of patriotism in their students. But in the interest of having a good laugh, I’m going to attempt it anyway. So here it is, for your viewing pleasure:

What Canada Means to Me
by Leslie Lanagan

I am pretty sure that if Canada weren’t around, it would have taken the world a lot longer to realize just how ignorant and egocentric Americans can be. For instance, when I was in high school, I dated a girl from Fort St. John. Her accent was so thick you could cut it with a knife, so when we would go out together, people would instantly start in on this conversation in various forms:

Random person: Hey, that’s a great accent. Where are you from?

Girl I Dated: I’m from Canada.

RP: Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever met someone from there. Do you guys have Christmas on the same day?

GID: (flustered) Of course.

RP: Say out and about. Come on, please!

GID: Ok, let’s just get this out of the way: Out, about, house, mouse, boot, shoe, sorry. Is there any other word in the English language that you’d like to hear me pronounce before we move on?

RP: End a sentence with “eh.” Come on, you know you want to.

GID: (turning to me) That guy is a total fucking hoser, eh?

As an American citizen, Canada also means easy access to good Cuban cigars and cheap European imports. Hey, let’s not forget that even though I am sympathetic to the fact that Canadians have little to no identity outside their own country, I am also one of the egocentric bastards they do their best to avoid.

The end.

From October, 2003: My Old 100 Things You Probably Don’t Know About Me

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

From October of 2003.

I decided to publish some of my old stuff from “Clever Title Goes Here,” which has been archived in “The Wayback Machine.” However, I cannot download all the data at once, so I’ve been picking through things to see what’s still good. 😉 I have a list of 50 Things already, but I got a new one for 100 Things…………

  1. I cannot wear high-heeled shoes properly.
  2. Current favorite beer: Bridgeport India Pale Ale
  3. Current favorite wine: Rosemount Estates Pinot Noir
  4. Current favorite spirit: Bailey’s Irish Cream
  5. I am currently housesitting for my friends Ann and Scootter. Therefore, for the next three weeks, I have a dog. She is a boxer and her name is Radley. I love the name so much I might name my first daughter that, but she will never know it came from my best friends’ dog. Unless I’m mad.
  6. Ann and Scootter call people they like by both their first and last names, and fortunately or unfortunately, I have picked up the habit. If I don’t call you by both your first and last names, though, it doesn’t mean I don’t like you. It just means I like other people than you MORE.
  7. I do not like white wine, and I get migraine headaches from red. But does that stop me from ALWAYS picking red? NOOOOOOOOO.
  8. I am married- but not emotionally… and divorced… but not legally. It’s very complicated. In short, no matter how much you love someone, do not fall for that old “let’s get a civil union certificate in Vermont” line.
  9. I am a native Texan, but currently I reside in Oregon.
  10. I have dated three women seriously… and two boys.
  11. I met my current girlfriend through Friendster, and it has caused no amount of grief among my friends.
  12. Especially when we moved in together after a month. Well, technically I’m just staying with her until I find a new apartment/house, but it was worth saying that just to give my parents a heart attack. 😉
  13. I sing in an all-women’s chorus called Belle Voci. It means “beautiful voices” in Italian. Some days, I’m not so sure.
  14. My father’s family is from Ireland, and there’s a fairly interesting story behind it. Apparently, our family is not related to anyone else with the last name of Lanagan in America because my great great great great great grandfather was the captain of a ship during Ireland’s cholera epidemic. Therefore, he was out to sea when it hit and our clan survived.
  15. I am active in my church, Bridgeport United Church of Christ. I sing in the choir and I teach senior high Sunday School. If that doesn’t get me extra brownie points in heaven, I don’t know what will.
  16. My father is the clinical coordinator for Angela McCain, M.D. Incidentally, Angela McCain, M.D. is my stepmother.
  17. My mother is an elementary school teacher in a neighborhood so horrible that the teachers in the accompanying junior high and high school receive hazard pay. Her husband, my stepfather, is the Chief Financial Officer for the Port of Houston.
  18. Once, on a job application in high school, I was asked this: “Give an example of extraordinary customer service.” I replied that one time a blind man had come into the Eckerds in which I was working and needed a greeting card for his daughter. So I read him an entire aisle’s worth of cards until he found just the right one. It didn’t happen to me. But it was a damn good story, a tearjerker even, so I wrote it anyway.
  19. By now you’ve probably learned that for me, morality is a sliding scale. This happens to a lot of writers. I hope it doesn’t get in the way of our friendship.
  20. I hope that clears up before I start seminary. I want to be a minister when I grow up.
  21. The best book I’ve read this year is The Solace of Leaving Early by Haven Kimmel. I wish I could explain it to you, but I like very complicated stories and I only have so much room…
  22. I also like John Grisham novels, however, as I believe that they are the literary equivalent of crack.
  23. The man who sat next to me when I was volunteering at Oregon Public Broadcasting thought it was HYSTERICAL that I wanted to be a minister. I’m trying to decide if he thought that because I was sitting next to Jenn and clearly indicating that she was my girlfriend, or if he just knows me entirely too well for sitting next to me in that short of a time period.
  24. I am horrible with e-mail. I try to keep on top of it as best I can, but I get so many a day that I think my brain is going to explode. So if I haven’t e-mailed you lately, don’t give up hope. One day I WILL wade through it all.
  25. When I was in grade school, I was such a dork. I had braces and a headgear and I wore glasses. But just look at me now, baby!
  26. I have met most of the really great trumpet players: Maynard Ferguson, Marvin Stamm, Dizzy Gillespie, Wynton Marsalis, Clark Terry, Barry Lee Hall, Jon Faddis, Dennis Dotson, Lew Soloff, etc. The story about meeting Jon Faddis is the funniest, because when I went to meet him I was absolutely punch drunk on the experience. I had just met Lew Soloff, the lead trumpet player for Blood, Sweat, and Tears, who thought that if I knew who he was then I must be a trumpet player myself (well, kinda…). He told me about an audition in New York for the Manhattan School of Music, which I took down for a friend. So after that, I was on cloud nine. I went to Faddis’s bus and told the guys already on board that I was a big, big fan and I wanted an autograph. Total MISTAKE. The guys started ragging on Faddis like, well… like junior high band geeks, frankly. So I finally get my autograph and my few minutes in the “FADDISPHERE” and I just about walked away on air.
  27. I WATCHED CANADA SHUT OUT CHINA IN THE 2003 WORLD CUP, AND I WILL NEVER, EVER FORGET IT! Miracles do happen, and I was there for one of them.
  28. I have managed to turn my girlfriend, Jenn’s, attic into usable space, but only because I have a futon and an electric blanket that can be turned up to HELL.
  29. My favorite blogger in the whole wide world is Heather Armstrong of dooce.com.
  30. My butt is starting to hurt, and I still have 70 more to go.
  31. I was born in Tyler, Texas at a hospital that has a statue of Jesus looking like he is directing traffic.
  32. I am still in touch with my first love.
  33. I have always been a voracious reader, and I would rather read than do almost anything else. Currently I am rereading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and reading David Sedaris’ Naked for the first time.
  34. My grandfather died when I was in junior high, and I played Amazing Grace on my trumpet at the funeral.
  35. What is really weird is that although the only people I’ve dated seriously have been my age, I don’t normally have friends that are the same age as me… but I do not discriminate. That’s just been a force of nature.
  36. I am three years older than my mentor was when I met her, therefore I regret just a little bit not getting to “catch up” to her because she’s a different person now. We would have been great bad girls together.
  37. I am starting a writing class on Sunday regarding spirituality. Our first assignment is writing about something that’s a curse as if it’s actually a blessing. So far, I’ve got nothin’.
  38. For some reason, actresses do not appeal to me. Perhaps it’s because I prefer really down-to-earth, crunchy granola girls, or perhaps my crushes are on actors because I’d rather be them than be with them.
  39. I’ve had four Diet Cokes today. It’s a sickness.
  40. I have now been to Seattle, and while I was there, I ate at the restaurant in which the tiramisu scene is filmed. Or at least, I think it’s the tiramisu scene. There’s a big picture of Tom Hanks in the front window.
  41. For the first time in my life, I am dating someone who is ALSO a first child… but we’re still very, very different.
  42. My favorite recording artists (in no particular order): Eminem, They Might Be Giants, Ben Folds, Live, Panic in Detroit, Koufax, Indigo Girls, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Staind, Tenacious D, and Weird Al Yankovic.
  43. Favorite character in the Potterverse: Arthur Weasely. His fascination with the Muggle world is endlessly entertaining, particularly in the fifth book.
  44. Though I’ve only seen him once on Comedy Central, my favorite comedian is Stephen Lynch. He does this great show with beautiful music where the lyrics are all twisted, such as, “Had to see you one more time, there’s somethin’ on my mind… How about bitch, gimme my money…. Gimme my money and I want it fast…
  45. No, of course I’m not bitter. Why do you ask?
  46. I have never cheated on anybody, but I do, much like Jimmy Carter, lust in my heart.
  47. However, having been cheated ON does not make me a martyr. For long. Two months tops. Okay, four, but that’s my final offer.
  48. My favorite driving experience was loading up Kathleen and Lindsay and going to Manhattan. I drove the entire time, and I wasn’t scared once. It’s a new record for me. In fact, it was especially cool cruising down West Side Highway and looking out over the water.
  49. My two best friends in the whole wide world have the same name… Sorry if it’s not you.
  50. I’ve really begun to feel the responsibility that is involved with the term “faith community.”
  51. I often have ideas that do not stick with me, so when they do, I know that they’re worth pursuing. Right now my dream is to retire in Greenwich Village. Therefore, somebody better tell both Simon AND Schuster that I’m alive.
  52. I wrote in my last 100 Things that my friend Giles is getting his Master’s degree at University of Montreal and I was wrong. He’s at McGill. In Canada, that’s like saying, “he’s at Harvard.”
  53. My standards are bendable. If I truly hate a movie and all my friends want to watch it, I’ll go ahead and give in for the greater good. Though I think it’s prudent to think of a way my friends can pay me back for all the crappy movies I’ve sat through.
  54. At ExxonMobil I had a 21-inch monitor and an Aeron chair. It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
  55. The reason my hair isn’t red anymore is that it costs money for hair dye and I’d rather spend that money on other things. But the hair will be red again when I have copious amounts of disposable income.
  56. My favorite DC memory is standing on the roof of Molly’s apartment building watching the fireworks over the Potomac… and the ones in Virginia and Maryland in the distance.
  57. Even though I am 26 years old, when I hear a song that was played a lot during my senior year in high school, I forget that I’ve aged at all. I particularly enjoy Back for Good by Take That, Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Deep Blue Something, and Santa Monica by Everclear.
  58. I have daydreams of the lovers/friends/acquaintances I’ve lost over the years that will suddenly flock to me when I sell my first novel, short story, and or New Yorker article.
  59. There is a cry that comes from deep within me that I know is the sound of true sorrow. Fortunately, I’ve only cried that cry three times: when my parents broke up, when my first love left for college, and when my first wife told me that we should get a divorce.
  60. It’s been over a year, and I still can’t believe that I now have to say first wife. Because I still believe in marriage. It will just take a lot longer for me to enter into it.
  61. My church is throwing a Halloween party on the 25th of October, and they have asked me to be Dr. Frankenstein. Perhaps because I have nice knockers?
  62. Meagan was the first person to whom I ever wrote a REAL love letter, and when I gave it to her, I learned just how much time could slow down while people were reading.
  63. My friend Chason says that I have a bigger smile than anyone he knows, and I really can’t dispute it.
  64. My AOL Instant Messenger Buddy List has 42 people on it. My screen name is Leslian.
  65. I was so premature when I was born that my six month old pictures look like the day I came home from the hospital.
  66. I have a long scar on my chin because I busted it open three or four times and had to have stitches. I think each time was due to the concrete steps at my nursery school.
  67. Speaking of injuries, I once had to be rushed to the doctor because I had watched my dad put in his contacts and then at school stuck a red sequin in my eye.
  68. I’m not terribly fond of the Thanksgiving/Christmas holidays.
  69. My biggest pet peeve is when something doesn’t go with my outfit. Like if I’m wearing a brown shirt and I don’t have brown shoes, or I’m wearing a belt that has a gold buckle and I can only find my silver earrings. Being ADD means that I’ve just learned to deal with it because I never remember to put things back where I found them… mostly because I don’t REMEMBER where I found them.
  70. I love the heaviness of a good fountain pen, and the absolute dazzling quality of a good purple or deep red ink.
  71. Radley just farted under my desk.
  72. I have a membership to SuicideGirls. It was a birthday present that I did not ask for, but well loved nonetheless.
  73. The thing I love and hate about being in long term relationships is that if they end and you move on, there are still really intimate details that you don’t need to know anymore that stay with you.
  74. The entire time I’ve been writing this, little ants have been crawling around on my desk. Ew.
  75. I’ve probably had 400 ideas about what to write on this list, but haven’t put them all down because I can’t think of a way to phrase them correctly. I am SUCH a writer.
  76. My girlfriend has gotten to meet David Sedaris, and I am so jealous that I could spit nails. But not at her. Directly.
  77. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I think about the piece I’ll write that will get me on Oprah. I don’t know why I like Oprah so much, but ever since she played Sofia in The Color Purple I’ve followed her career both as an actress and talk show host. I didn’t much care for Beloved, but I thought The Women of Brewster Place was great. I apologize if my admiration for all things Oprah makes me sound more like a Midwestern housewife than a crunchy granola Portland lesbian, but that’s just the way it is.
  78. My hair is terrible in the mornings. Scootter calls it HAIR NOT FOUND IN NATURE.
  79. There are only three commands that I would like to teach my dog if I ever have another one of my own: 1) Sit. 2) Lay down. 3) Bring Mama a Diet Coke.
  80. I’ve only smoked pot once, and I will (probably) never do it again. The reason why is because Matt was using a broken lighter and set my fingernails on fire. If that isn’t enough of a deterrent, I don’t know what is. You might think that one cannot set one’s fingernails on fire, and you would be wrong, grasshopper. If there is plenty of acrylic on the tips, it lights most magnificently.
  81. But I will sit in the backyard and smoke cloves with you if you bring me one, INSERT NAME HERE AND YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE(S).
  82. I thought Spirited Away was the most fucked up movie I’d ever seen in my life and I can’t believe they show it to small children VOLUNTARILY.
  83. I never knew true natural beauty until I went to the Columbia River Gorge for the first time.
  84. Some of my best Portland memories so far are about being in a kitchen with lots of women and making soup… I’ll probably write about it- Divine Secrets of the Church Lady Sisterhood.
  85. I’m not afraid to disagree with people as much as I used to be. My girlfriend can attest to that.
  86. I am not the guy that you want implementing or wrapping up your project. But I am definitely the guy you want comin’ up with the ideas.
  87. Listening to my friend talk to her father after the Cubs lost the NLCS championships made me incredibly homesick, not only because it made me miss my own dad, but because she and her dad have roughly the same accent as we do.
  88. I opened a tampon just to see what was inside the little plastic thing. What do you mean, why? It wasn’t that exciting, so let me save you a tampon. It’s cotton. It’s string. No big whoop. I thought it was somehow going to be more than that if you have to put it in your hoopdedoo. Big disappointment.
  89. I did not like breakfast food until I found French toast flavored bread. I think you are supposed to use it to make French toast, but I just like to put it in the toaster and then add butter. Normally my breakfast is a smorgasbord of whatever leftovers there are in the fridge.
  90. I find it ironic that when I went to Boston, I was not nearly as taken with the history of the city as I was with The Real World firehouse.
  91. Though I have several different online handles, I don’t generally let people call me by them because to me, when you get called by your online handle it is proof that you haven’t been spending enough time offline.
  92. Last night I went walking with Radley and Kristen whereupon I proceeded to fall flat on my face on the sidewalk because I had my hands in my pockets and couldn’t break my fall. Surprisingly, I walked away with just a scrape on my pinky and on my knee. But they both hurt like a mofo this morning.
  93. Sometimes, if I can’t get into whatever is being said at church, I lean up against my friend Diane or Matt and think about what I’ll wear when I meet Matt Damon.
  94. I eat too much because I am such a foodie.
  95. Before I was asked to play Dr. Frankenstein at the Halloween party, I had come up with several ways in which I could make a SpongeBob costume. That’s right, kiddies. I was going to be SpongeBob for Halloween. Bring it around town.
  96. I am often accused of being on drugs and it is always a moment of displeasure for me when I have to reassure the accuser that no, really, I am this way. Sometimes even on purpose.
  97. I should never get manicures. Each time my girlfriend has manicured my nails, I’ve forgotten about the polish and it just starts chipping away week after week. Since the last time she painted my nails I asked her to make them “margarita green,” it looks like I have little pieces of booger clinging to the ends of my fingers.
  98. I am just now starting to realize what a gift I am to the world. Before now, I needed lots and lots of people telling me how wonderful I was and I didn’t really believe them.
  99. I still remember how cold the surf was in the Pacific Ocean when I stepped into it.
  100. Life is beautiful, but the movie of the same name rendered me into a puddle on the couch

The Mundane and the Insane, to Riff on Irving Stone

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Tell us one thing you hope people say about you.

Some days, I talk about how much I love Diet Coke and cartoons. I talk about that to not talk about the ways in which I’ve emotionally abused people because that’s “how I was raised…” Not by my parents, but by someone who became a parent figure because my mother checked out. You cannot convince me that she didn’t let it continue because she didn’t want to raise a lesbian daughter, and you cannot convince me that despite my mother’s warnings, I got hurt anyway. However, it is a truism that the more you tell a story, the more it loses power. Supergrover is coming to mind less and less because I realize there is nothing more I can do except turn my attention. She’s going to be whomever she wants to be, and I can’t help that. If she wanted to make anything better, she would have come to me long before now.

Funny thing about that, though. Once I said something healthy and would return her fire with healthy boundaries, she wasn’t interested in me. She’s not a narcissist, so she wasn’t using me as a dopamine source…. but she only knew how to answer rage with rage, so when I answered it with “I love your anger- let it out,” she was done. It let me know that we were always going to fight like that, because I did the work and she didn’t. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have had the willingness to walk away from someone I truly, deeply love. She doesn’t understand me, because she doesn’t understand her. When she says she wants to understand her, she will- and not before.

She also won’t learn it from me. My breaking her trust was the beginning of something for her, because we had to resolve our conflicts in order to go back to loving each other as rabidly as we do when other people hurt our friends. If she learns like I do, someone else will say something that triggers her back into my letters, and they will make sense to her in a way they didn’t before, because it’ll be the same thing I’ve been saying for 10 years, but it’ll look different coming from someone else because she’s not attaching her preconceived notions about me onto their words.

It’s something she will really love learning. She’s a people pleaser, but not at work. That’s because she can negotiate logical boundaries and gets lost with emotions. If she was in the military, she’d do very well because she’s a perfectionist. If she was a therapist, she’d burn out quick because in addition to being a boss, she’s also a people pleaser because her reality is just as fractured as mine was; I started my own therapy- my blog more than my psychologist. I am almost solely responsible for my recovery and not because I had a shitty doctor or anything. It’s that there is no possible way to recover from PTSD on one hour a week. Just like having diabetes, the doctor doesn’t hold your hand every day. You go in for appointments, but they can’t manage you every moment they’re not there.

I have been startlingly self aware since I was a child, but I didn’t have the confidence that I do now. I didn’t say things like:

  • That’s mean. Please rephrase.
  • I am too tired.
  • It’s not that I don’t love you, it’s that I need space. Please go away and leave me alone for X amount of time. We are all good, I’m overstimulated.
  • I am not lazy, I am autistic.
  • I am not flaky, I have ADHD.
  • AuDHD is a lifetime gig, and we’re going to have to manage it because otherwise, you’re going to get angry and resent me your whole life if you’re my partner.
  • If you cannot handle any of these things, you cannot be in my life.
  • I am responsible for my actions, but I’m not responsible for yours.
  • I am not “throwing things back in your face. You don’t want to admit that you do the same behavior repeatedly.”

The reason I drop people quickly is that I have good boundaries. If I’m not happy, it’s because I tolerated something I didn’t like, some times for years and years. I am using my own examples to bring insight to others on why they do what they do………..

laying out my own flaws and failures from the mundane to the insane…….knowing joy does that, too. If there’s anything I hope people say about me, it’s that it works.

A Few Lines at a Time

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Tell us about your first day at something — school, work, as a parent, etc.

Some of these are just vignettes in my memory.

On my first day of school, Lindsay was an infant and my mom was having a tough time letting me go to school all by myself when I was just as happy with Lindsay all day. She was the extrovert of the two of us- still is. I remember Mrs. Youngblood, and what she looked like down to the green smock she wore every day. My mother remembers that I walked over to a girl that looked sad and a few minutes later, she wasn’t sad because she thought she was going to be alone the whole time.

On my first day of work, I learned about shampoo. My first job was as a receptionist at Supercuts, and they saw me coming. My register never matched up at the end of the night, but at least the first day was a blast. I really enjoyed working there when people weren’t yelling at me about their hair, because I didn’t cut it. I swept, mopped, did laundry, and sampled everything. I was there when Tea Tree from Paul Mitchell hit the shelves. One of the first people to try American Crew (white people pomade). Those two things are my favorites today…… mostly because they don’t smell too girly.

Editor’s Note:

Apparently, this would not be a plus to a rando that just messaged me. He led with, “don’t take this the wrong way, but are you a woman?” I said, “how am I supposed to take it? I’m genderqueer and play around with gender a lot, but I’m genetically female.” He said, “I don’t even understand your answer.” I left it on “read,” because no matter what I respond, it’s going to lead to no good….. for him. Although I have to say that just because I’m not the one he’s looking for, some men love it. Some men have never had a queer girlfriend before and that in and of itself is novel, because they’re buying into something much bigger than themselves- or me. But the first step is always saying, “I bought rainbow boxers because I don’t know if I like them, but I knew you would.” I did. It made me feel incredibly loved and supported. Straight guys are getting there. Just give them another four hundred years.

The day of my first sermon, I was more nervous than I’d ever been in my life. I kept repeating something my dad said. He said it about other people, but here is what I heard. “I have big shoes to fill.” “I BROUGHT MY OWN SHOES.” I’d forgotten my cell phone that morning, subconsciously on purpose so I could focus. I was dating someone in the congregation and wanted to impress her, and I did…… but right as I was the most panicked and about to hyperventilate, someone came over and said the most beautiful words I’d ever heard. “Leslie……. it’s your dad.” He couldn’t get ahold of me on my cell, so he called the church- much to the parishioners’ astonishment. He gave me a pep talk and sent me out there.

You can even tell me if I did well.

The way I got to that time and place is not dictated by a “first day,” but first impressions. Here’s something I wrote about it in 2005 on “Clever Title Goes Here.” It’s what I remember from the day she invited me to visit her at school when HSPVA did a concert at UNT. I was 16 and so nervous I thought I was going to throw up everywhere, and now I still do, but for very different reasons.

Your stationary feels heavy in my hand, and I’m glad there are several pages to flip through. I wish you were next to me while I read your letters, because your handwriting is so unique that even after years of reading it, there are words I can’t figure out. I laugh to myself, glad that one of my strong points is context clues.

I’m glad grad school is going well. It’s fun to think of you as a student again, and kind of cool that one of the requirements of being a student is teaching younger singers. Do you have any good ones this term? Better yet, any REALLY bad ones?

HSPVA is tough shit. I’m on academic probation again because I’m in three performing groups and rarely have time to do homework… and when I do, it’s usually half-ass because I have four subjects all piling it on at once. I wish there were more hours in a day. I’ll probably be able to get back on track with English, Physical Science, and American History, but Algebra I is a wash. I’ll be lucky to get a 50 for the semester, never mind the six weeks. I think I’ll just drop it and take it again next year. My teacher is way over my head- she teaches at Rice for half a day, so I don’t think she has much experience with the mathematically illiterate. Well, maybe illiterate isn’t the right word… mathematically terrified is more like it.

Funny story- I had a HUGE trumpet solo in my last concert, and during the performance I came in a measure early. The ENTIRE band skipped that measure with me so that it wouldn’t look like I messed up. No harm was done, but Katrina looked at me like, “COUNT, YOU ASSHOLE!” Mr. Carter told the low brass that when he realized what was happening, he wanted to take them all out for a beer.

Church is so different without you.

We have a new scholarship singer, Stephanie. I wish the committee hadn’t chosen a soprano, because even though she’s good, her voice is so different from yours that it makes me a little teary-eyed, kind of like, “you’re replacing HER with THAT?” But the good part is that since Stephanie sits next to me, we’ve kind of gotten control of our sectional sound. Much less old lady vibrato. It’s not the same, but I suppose over time it’ll be tolerable.

I told my friend Amy that I’m gay today. I didn’t know she was Southern Baptist, and she dragged me into a practice room and started screaming at me. Then she ran to the bathroom. Her friend Laura told me that she was throwing up. I don’t know if I believe her or not. If I called Laura a bitch, I’m pretty sure it would insult bitches everywhere. How do you deal with all this shit? I’m so confused. I know I was wrong because I only told her that because I like her. I didn’t expect her to come down on my head over it.

The worst part is that after I told Amy, she told everyone else. I was sitting outside with my friends when Amy and her group of airheads walked up to me with their Bibles and started reading me all this crazy shit. I ran to my counselor about it, but she didn’t do a fuckin’ thing. She just asked me what I did to provoke it.

…….

I sat next to Scott on the bus ride up, my palms sweating with nervousness. It had been two years since we’d seen each other, and a person can change a lot in two years.

I didn’t recognize you at first, with your super long permed hair and painted nails. And not that I would ever hold it against someone for losing weight, but you hug different and I’m not sure I like it… as if these things are up to me, right?

Thanks for the compliment on the performance. I was a little nervous about the triple-tonguing section, but I think I got it out ok. At least I didn’t have to play really high and triple-tongue at the same time. It’s murder on my chops. Dude, a LOT of things have been murder on my chops lately… I was put dead last in chair tests this week. I must not be practicing enough, but it’s such a vicious cycle. If I play more, it really hurts- but the only way to get it to stop hurting is to play through the pain. Theresa, my trumpet teacher, says it’s an embouchure problem that will take weeks to correct. What a thing to say to a musician three weeks before a jury! Dan told me the same thing in eighth grade, but I didn’t listen to him then, either… it was three weeks before my ‘PVA audition. If only the world would stop spinning long enough so I could fix this thing.

Oh, and what’s up with calling jazz masturbatory? The only time I really feel lost in the music is when I get to write my own… and that’s all a solo is- taking the music in my mind and putting it out there. Maybe if I was a better player, I’d agree with you… but most of my solos sound like muddy water.

That could be my jazz name. Muddy Water Lanagan. It has a ring to it.