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It’s Meme Time

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

40 odd things about me . . . I got this from Facebook. Don’t judge me.

  1. Do you put ketchup on hotdogs?
    • It depends. I don’t eat traditional hot dogs very often. I eat mostly plants. My favorite hot dog would be a veggie sausage and almond cream cheese with hot sauce.
  2. Choice of pop?
    • Dr. Pepper Zero, but I also enjoy sparkling water as long as it’s plain seltzer or club soda (the difference is salt).
  3. Do you put salt on watermelon?
    • Yes, and it is every bit as delicious as my favorite candy, chocolate covered pretzels.
  4. Can you swim?
    • Quite well, actually. I was physically delayed as a child, so I took a class called “Water Babies” at six months old. Because there’s only been half a year of my life that I didn’t know how, practice alone would have done it. However, my first partner was a college swimmer, and she helped me to get even better.
  5. How do you eat your steak?
    • Seared over an EXTREMELY hot stove and baked in the oven. I let it rest and then finish with butter. I like a good crust on it with spices, but the spices don’t have to be fancy. Just salt, pepper, and garlic. That combo is the end of Ratatoullie for me. It’s being in my late 20s and falling in love with Dana. Warmth envelops me, because at the time I thought I’d been made for her. I may have to recreate the dish because I had a thought that really stopped me. “What if I’ve been avoiding steak all these years because I don’t want to feel pain?” When I taste that kind of home, it’s devastating that it isn’t still around. At the same time, it feels good to remember that home and what it was like to live there day in and day out. If it sounds weird that I would attach something so profound to steak and spices, remember that both Dana and I were professional cooks.
  6. Favorite type of food?
    • I don’t have one. I just have foods I eat consistently. If I say something is my favorite, though, I mean it in terms of individual items. I am very brand loyal, because companies that make vegan food all do it differently. If you find something you like, buy 12.
  7. Do you believe in ghosts?
    • I am not a person that tries to explain the unexplainable. When people tell me their stories, I believe them. My experience of the world is not theirs. In my own life, I have not had ghostly experiences, but I do talk to ghosts all the time. I just know that they’re in my head, and I have divided off one part of my brain and I’m having a conversation with it. I especially do this with people I’ve been close previously, but for whatever reason are no longer in my life. For instance, sometimes Dana and I go for coffee in my dreams just to catch up. It’s real intelligence creating the script and not artificial. I have a library of Dana. A chat history that if it was printed would take 25 years to read and digest. It’s practically an uploaded consciousness of who she was seven years ago. Therefore, I can take old jokes and build on them as easily as “we” can rehash old conversations that have different responses due to the passage of time. I dream all the time about what I would have done differently. This is because I believe that an apology is nothing without changed behavior. I couldn’t save the real relationship from collapsing under its own weight, but what I can do is be genuine with the fictional version of her and really listen to what she says, because there may be wisdom I missed the first time she said something, or the new response brings her closer to me- but only the dream version…… getting on a plane and going to get her? Worst. Idea. Ever. #comicbookguy In terms of how I want to proceed with the real Dana? She has been one of the great loves of my life and I would like to continue loving her, so I think no contact is the right call.
  8. What do you drink in the morning?
    • Insanely strong black tea with milk and sugar, although most of the time it’s an energy drink slammed while walking out the door. I need to take the extra time to make the tea with whole fat milk and real sugar. I’ve lost nearly five pounds in the last month, and not in a good way. I didn’t have five pounds to lose. I remember what being curvy was like. I’ve never looked more like a woman. Then a crazy amount of shit happened and my reaction to it was to shut down and stop eating. I developed coping mechanisms using protein shakes because I could bring myself to drink. I don’t know why I have gotten like this in the past, and my best guess is that when things spiral out of control, I get ADHD hyperfocus to what I can allow myself to dictate. I haven’t gotten close to that level, but my appetite has waned for about a hundred different reasons. It’s amazing how self conscious and annoyed I am that I look like a teenage boy from a distance and yet have been entirely dismissive of putting on weight. That it would happen naturally over time. I’m tired of waiting. Stay tuned.
  9. Can you do 100 push-ups?
    • In another life, maybe. Now, I would make a formal announcement if I was capable of one.
  10. Summer, Winter, Spring, or Fall?
    • It used to be fall, because I lived in a very hot climate. Fall and winter hold a special place in my heart because of it. I didn’t grow up with snow, and DC has a lot of it at times. The District is brilliant any time of year, but it is stunning in the spring. The cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin are unique and beautiful.
  11. Your favorite animal?
    • I haven’t asked her name, but there is a pygmy hippopotamus at The National Zoo that I’m pretty sure is in love with me. It’s asex/aro, but we make it work. Seriously, though. I know that animals don’t process emotion like humans, but she knows that if she plays around and gives me a huge gap-toothed grin, I will take her picture.
  12. Tattoos?
  13. Do you wear prescription glasses?
    • My problems with sight are mostly neurological, so I don’t truly need glasses to read unless the print is tiny, but they help.
  14. Do you have a fear?
    • Not anymore. It’s a spectrum. My biggest fear used to be that someone would find out my biggest fear. I fixed it.
  15. Do you have a nickname?
    • A million of them if we’re talking one on one, but nothing that has stuck universally. I like it when people call me by my last name instead of first, but it’s not like it happens all the time
  16. Rain or Snow?
    • Snow. Raindrops are heavy. Snowflakes are not.
  17. Can you change a tire?
    • Yes, but I can’t think of a case in which I would want to. It’s not my know-how, it’s my size. A 124 pound person is never going to be very good at changing a tire. I will help you chain up, though.
  18. Favorite flower?
    • Roses, any type or color. I lived in Portland, Oregon for 12 years. I’m particular to fire and ice- a blood red to white gradient.
  19. Can you drive a stick?
    • I have only bought one car in my life that was an automatic.
  20. Can you whistle?
    • Yes. My favorite tune is one of the trumpet parts from Vivaldi’s Two Trumpet Concerto.
  21. Where were you born?
    • At Mother Frances hospital in Tyler, Texas…. with the statue of Jesus outside directing traffic.
  22. Surgeries?
    • Nothing notable………… yet.
  23. Shower or Bath?
    • A bath, time permitting. Shaving is my moment of Zen.
  24. Last song you heard?
    • Not a song, an orchestral piece called “Clearing Iranian Airspace” by Alexandre Desplait used in the movie “Argo.” I listen to that score on repeat because I’m such a music person that if the music is new, I cannot focus on anything else. The writing has to come first.
  25. Broken bones?
    • Nothing major. A couple of bones, but none needed surgery and healed quickly. It was forgettable.
  26. How many TV’s in your home?
    • I rent a room in a huge house rather than having my own apartment because I discovered I was less lonely that way. So technically I own one display that has an over the air antenna with every channel available except the one that runs Jeopardy!, a desktop PC, and an Amazon Firestick 4K that I’ve hacked to run Kodi and some amazing plugins, like getting ad-free YouTube through the official YouTube Kodi addon. It is still worth it to purchase YouTube premium to block ads. If you have YouTube Premium and you visit any web site that references a YouTube video while you’re logged into Google Services, ads are blocked on *that* web site as well.
  27. Worst Pain?
    • Two things are competing in my mind. The first is the knowledge that Dana and I had a wonderful life together, and we did an excellent job of running it into the ground. The rock bottom part is twofold. The first was loving Dana to the ends of the earth and wanting to protect her, and knowing I couldn’t because I wouldn’t be able to lie if someone asked me how I got an ugly bruise that hurt because she jammed my eye socket. I carried physical pain for a couple weeks, phantom pain for at least a week after that, and being hit by my wife altered my pathology permanently. I had never told anyone that I have lingering triggers. After I told someone who didn’t deserve it, I published that pain and fear instead of keeping it to myself. The second is that my emotional abuser set up in me an undercurrent of sex and friendship- that it was the same thing when it wasn’t. I am sorry to every woman I’ve ever sexually harassed by idiocy and not malice. It doesn’t take away from the fact that I hurt you that I came by it honestly. My apologies particularly to to a Marine, a Seaman, and a car wash attendant I completely confused and offended because I thought I was very, very funny. They didn’t. It’s a tight spot to be a victim and a perpetrator of something of something as huge and dark as sexual harassment.. I have worked through my issues and I’m a better person now, but they won’t know it. I am part of the problem and I see it. Our relationship is over, but I see you and I’m apologizing profusely even though it doesn’t make a difference. It changes me to really feel remorse.
  28. Do you like to sing?
    • So much so that I have trained for classical auditions that would surprise you given the way I look. I have a voice I can make as straight tone as a Westminster Abbey choir boy, or add the vibrato of a round-heeled diva. I’m not Renee Fleming or anything, but I get around (I love Tupac as much as I love Bach)
  29. Morning person or Night…?
    • Morning. I’m so hyped when I wake up that by 0600 I’ve written enough to be done for the day, and I don’t have coffee or energy drinks until noon because it’s noon to 1700 that break me.
  30. Are your parents still alive?
    • One of them is. My mother died in October of 2016. It’s a whole other thing when you lose your first apartment.
  31. Do you like to go camping?
    • Sort of. During the day it’s fine. At night I get too cold. I would rather make a fire in someone’s backyard.
  32. What do you binge watch?
    • Science fiction. I’ll try anything once, but particular favorites are Firefly, Orphan Black, and Doctor Who.
  33. Pumpkin or pecan?
    • Neither. A sundae with pumpkin ice cream and apple pie in it with pecans on top. I think Cold Stone Creamery makes something like that, but it’s not vegan, FYI.
  34. Add photo of yourself.

Doing Blue Steel with my tiny phone still attached.

No, there aren’t actually 40 questions, neither are there people who can count on Facebook.

Lesbian Years

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

OMFG. I have finally solved every issue with Sam I’m ever going to have in one joke. Thank God when closure came, it was with laughter and not tears. The funniest jokes are ones that hit hard, and this one punched me in the stomach.

I came out to myself when I was 13 years old, and Sam is a toddler in lesbian years.

I laughed so hard there were tears and snot on my face.

Now let’s talk about the serious part, and why it affected me so much. It was another huge life lesson. I don’t want to date women who have only had one relationship with a woman. This is not hard, as I do not mean people who have been married to one woman for a long time. I want to date someone who has lived in this world, been out for a long time, is absolutely clear in her communication so thinking that our relationship could end because a woman thought being married to a woman was something it isn’t is off the table. It just makes one more thing we have in common rather than one enormous red flag. I also don’t want to make other women feel bad, because I’m not counting those married to men for a long time out. I just have to get to know you well enough to see whether my judgment is accurate or I’ve been a dickhead for stereotyping you after marrying one and dating three women who were n00b.

Knowing what that means is also important. I am l33t. I want to be able to communicate in my natural language and environment quickly without having to explain beforehand. Scratch everything I just said. Knows how to communicate on the internet like it’s 1999 over brand new to the girls’ club, but high school and college girlfriends count. No one needs to have married a woman before. It’s not a society you engulf all at once. It takes years. Learning to communicate with women to the level in which you would marry one takes an eternity. Additionally, you don’t have to be Mr. Robot, but if you are, let’s buy a house…… but my housemate Sam has said that she requires a W-2 in order to date me. I’ve had all the fancy things in life, and the simplest make me happy. But it’s not like Sam’s an idiot for trying to ensure that her friends are thriving. That actually means more to me than the person I’m dating being rich.

If they were, I’d like to still live simply and enjoy the absolute hell out of spoiling everyone I know and doing amazing philanthropic work. I’d start a foundation, and the first thing I’d do is hire someone else to run it. I would trust a bag of hammers faster than I’d trust my own judgment on business and finance. The fun part would be doing it anonymously to people I perceive to have wronged me. At the moment, there are at least six houses I want to pay off in that one regard…….

This is another lesson I learned on PBS and retained it because it involved my favorite subject. The phenomenal Portland chef, James Beard, was queer as a three dollar bill. He was uninvited from Reed College for “homosexual activities,” so when he became a celebrity chef and got very, very rich, so did Reed. Having to grit their teeth and respect him was everything. Just the most enormous shade I’ve ever seen thrown down.

My work in progress really does have the potential to be big, because if I can get license to publish from a real person’s estate, I have a built-in marketing strategy. If the fictional version of the real person doesn’t work out, I will just create another fictional character of my own that drives the same plot. Therefore, it’s entirely conceivable that I will be a very hot commodity and able to start a foundation with my own money…. if that isn’t possible, I have the option of doing whatever I want with any money it does make.

If it’s my money, I have my eye on who I want to hire. My money, my organization…. that I will promptly give to more capable hands. When I told her about my work in progress, she saw its potential and agreed to be the steward of my money immediately. I will also need someone to take charge of the logistics in paying everyone who even thought about helping me get to the New York Times and everyone who’s ever even thought about telling me I was a loser. Brandon Sanderson also talks about this. The question he was asked was regarding “what do you do when you say you’re a writer and the only two answers are ‘where’s the money’ or ‘you poor fool?'” He talked very seriously, and then closed it with a joke.

Sanderson said “I waited years, but I finally got my moment. I was at a party and this guy asked me what I did. I told him I was a writer and he said ‘oh, so you’re unemployed.’ I said, ‘I hit The New York Times’ Bestsellers List last week.'”

Since the work I’m planning is so ambitious, I have other projects that I’d like to develop that may take off before it. I’m almost certain there’s a young adult fiction novel in the works, as well as an elementary age explanation of what being gay is and how to ask yourself those questions………. and how to know if the answers are right for you now, or right for all time. I even surprise myself, and I thought I was old. Because of this, my attention is entirely overloaded all of the time and I want to be conscious about choosing a partner in whom I feel there are as few communication issues as possible, like not being threatened when I say “guard my time with your life. Here’s my cell phone. Only come get me if it’s an emergency call. How will you know? Someone that is actually in my contacts list will pick up the phone rather than texting.

It’s not that I can’t protect my own boundaries. It’s that it will make my partner feel important that I trust her enough to be one of my Guard Roosters. Man, if you remember Gayle and Oprah, you are an OG. No, I will not link to that entry. If you’re an OG, you know. You are my LaFawnduhs. #peaceout I have a thing about my phone. One of my friends works in intelligence, a Navy Reservist and intelligence analyst at a smaller agency than C/DIA, but collects raw data from all of them. I have another friend that works for Defense. I have another friend that works for State. I would never care if you were going through my phone to see if I was having an affair. It’s because you’d be reading stories that aren’t mine to tell. If you can’t respect that, I won’t allow you to become close to me. I also won’t respect your right to tell your story the way you want to tell it. I mean that metaphorically, as it’s how writers support writers. We do not want story ideas. We want you to obsess over our craft. Partners don’t decide plot. They’re editors.

It’s not that I don’t want to be someone’s guide, necessarily. It’s the energy involved. I won’t discriminate until I really assess the situation. When QEII died, something occurred to me that had never occurred to me before. My mother had died, and half my life is over. What am I going to do with the next half? The two have combined to give me enormous strength. The worst thing that could ever happen to me has already happened and I am officially “I don’t give a fuck” years old. I remember exactly when it happened for someone I admire, and I was inspired with laughter at the memory…… but that’s a story you’ll have to get out of them. I will only say that it was impressive. You should have been there…………. and it involved the biggest Astros fan I have ever met in my entire life bar none. I was much younger then, and I remember dreaming of the day when I’d no longer care about someone in such a deep and meaningful way that I would hide my emotions, not set boundaries, and roll with any decision anyone ever made. And to call people out when they’re being ridiculously rude rather than bending over backwards to be lovely and kind when your conversationalist isn’t.

In short, I don’t have time to be a guide.

I want to be able to lay out my dreams and if they don’t line up, move on as quickly and quietly as possible. By quietly, I don’t mean that I was wrong to write about Sam too soon or anything like it. I mean not wrecking other people. Leaving them better than I found them rather than burning bridges.

I also don’t care if I find a partner at this point. I’ve been single for seven years. I have too much to write on this planet to worry about anything else.

My multimillion dollar franchise idea is an alternate history between two imaginary friends… fictional versions of people, one of whom moves in time to stop a world event from happening, but it’s not science fiction. I am literally moving their life backward so that the fictional version of them is even less like who they actually are/were.

I am doing what Brandon Sanderson would call “borrowing structure.” The idea came to me from Steve Martin, who wrote a novel called “Picasso at the Lapin Agile,” a fictional account of a meeting between Picasso and Einstein.

It involves intelligence, because I think it’s a story that the fictional person would have written, not because I have a real life love of non-fiction spy books. It’s because I read spy non-fiction that I’m not threatened by writing about that world. Jonna Mendez even announced on Facebook that she’s publishing next year, so that’s one more book to add to the pile.

If there’s one person I adore, it’s George Tenet. When he declassified The Canadian Caper and allowed “Argo” to happen, it really caught my interest because my cousin James’ dad was a helicopter pilot for the CIA and DIA (D is Defense). He is no longer living, and one of the stars at Langley is mine in terms of knowing if I was allowed to visit, when I saw the wall I would take ownership and pray. It crushes me that his helicopter went down when I was a toddler, because is is a person I would have adored. I know it. He was my grandmother’s brother. Why wouldn’t I have been absolutely 100% convinced he was Jesus?

I also would have already put him on salary by now.

Since that isn’t possible, I study very hard. I need a college level course on both a European and an Asian nation. If I can swing it, I have a friend in one of the countries and I’d like to go live with him for a few months so that I can work locally. I am a Virgo, which is an earth sign. There’s a reason I love the ground and feel connected to it. I cannot do setting justice until I can be barefoot there.

I have also never been brave enough to leave the West, but now I am because I have a male chaperone. I’m a feminist, but I’m not stupid. If I’m only going to be there for a few months, I’m not going to stick my neck out by announcing I’m 32 in lesbian years.

Notable Observations

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

This entry is not from today. It’s from last weekend, and I liked it so I’m sharing it. The fact that I’m no longer with Sam doesn’t mean it’s not good writing. It’s just gardening that I liked, and not because I’m my own fan. I liked who I was when I wrote it, and it shows.

I am not sure that Sam is the right person for me yet. That should be clear, as we haven’t been dating that long. What I am sure about is that I am enjoying having an actual friend who is okay with letting me kiss them in public. Call her my girlfriend or don’t, we don’t care. The important thing is that when I take off into flights of fancy, she knows it. I can throw stuff out there like, “I notice you don’t have any pets. Do you want one ever or are you not a pet person?” And she knows I’m wondering if *I* can get a dog and just laughs. It’s funny not to beat around the bush.

I’ve had other flights of fancy, like cool ideas for a house or things to do with the kids, and she just rolls with it. She knows that images are pouring into me and I’m just talking about them. That as the pictures narrow, I’ll know what I actually want and not just a pie in the sky desire for every possibility that I see in front of me and making plans for all of them.

The best part is that I don’t feel the need to move, now or ever. That’s because I love my house, and I love hers. They’re both in great locations. It’s just that Sam can’t move in with me. We both have housemates, and hers are permanent. But it feels good that I don’t have to freak out about learning yet another new area of the country. I got lucky in that respect. Most of the time, when you meet people online, you are setting yourself up for failure if you meet someone really great. Logistics get in the way extraordinarily quickly.

Sam does something that is licensed by the state, so if we were to stay a couple long term, we can’t leave Maryland until she retires. I’m sure there’s all kind of equivalency exams, etc. but why? Maryland is amazing. So, while it’s a possibility that Sam and I might want to find a house of our own, it is not a possibility that the house will be anywhere outside of the area where I already feel comfortable, there’s great public transit, and pockets of small town life that still feel very urban because they’re not too far from DC and Baltimore.

That’s what feels right about this relationship, and right about letting my mind wander outside of time and space. The environment is right. I have found someone fantastic that gets my personality type and isn’t threatened by it. We have extraordinarily similar senses of humor, although I tend to be a lot raunchier with my line cook upbringing. Surprising, since Sam was a soldier for so many years, but that’s just not her vibe. Her vibe is extraordinarily sweet and then jokes that come out of nowhere occasionally that are so astute I have to fight to keep from choking. The laugh is not just the laugh….. it’s the surprise as well. It’s funnier coming from her because you don’t expect it.

In other news, I’m glad to be alive.

My house caught fire a few days ago. It was no big deal, but it could have been a disaster. An electrician drilled through a live wire. The wire was hanging and spitting sparks all over the place…. near a gas main. We almost blew ourselves up and several city blocks. That is not what happened, though. The electricians got us all out and got the electric company and the fire department out to our house in minutes. The fire burned some in the basement, some in the living room, but the house is structurally sound and we are all back in.

I’ve been through a house fire before…. that one ended badly. The entire house burned to the ground. I didn’t have flashbacks so much as the smell bent me over. Time flashed back and forth. I was eleven and 45 all at once. It was an interesting situation, because so much was up in the air. But luckily, I didn’t know about the gas main until later. My one comment on it is “it could have blown. I wouldn’t have cared. I wouldn’t have even seen it coming to care. Not being a nihilist or anything, just the percentage of what you can control in that situation is absolutely nothing.”

Salt

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

One of the things that Sam and I joked about was being polyamorous because she knows I’m dating Rachel Maddow in my head, but Susan is her primary. 😛 And then I told her that I was also dating Helen Mirren. Obviously, I have a very busy inner life and Google Calendar.

My very busy inner life made me happy yesterday, because I laid out everything that was going on with me and why, and my stats boomed. I don’t want to tell you exactly how many because I don’t want to scare Sam by telling her just how many people think she’s an idiot. The 20 shares the post got should give her an indication. I have entries where thousands of people have read them, and yet not one person shared it.

I am enjoying this moment of schadenfreude, but not because I am being vindictive. Quite the opposite. I’m feeling better about myself in a way that is completely separate from anyone I’ve ever dated, not just the last one. When Sam walked out, it only ended a future that didn’t happen. I’m not upset anymore. A three week relationship isn’t worth crying over any longer than necessary. I just don’t know how I feel about a relationship for me anymore.

Maybe I’ll just date people until I die because I am too emotionally intense to limit my emotions to one person. They run so deep it’s scary for both of us. For instance, I told Sam once that even when she’s not with me, she doesn’t leave the room…. and it was so true then that it hurts to remember. But it’s true. Once she got under my skin, I wanted her there in some capacity for life. Married, friends, whatever. That part didn’t matter. I just liked her. Period. I thought she was a good person, and I was wrong, at least in how she treated me. I’m sure she’s wonderful to other people, I just never became her priority. I wasn’t someone that she would do anything for, much less end our relationship in person. I didn’t think of her as my girlfriend, I was more casual than that. But that’s not the message she took home. The message she took home was that I was falling in love with her too fast…. when in reality I was furious that she trashed our potential, not anything we’d already done. I saw pictures of our future and thought, “I want that.” At no time did I say, “I want that tomorrow,” or even a couple of years from now. I thought I didn’t have to worry about all that stuff until her 15-year-old graduated from high school.

I was certainly infatuated, drunk on the spirit of attraction. I also loved her platonically in a way that said, “I’m ok with just being your person. If you need something, call. There is no time in this life where I will not pick up the phone if it’s you.” For Sam, I think she underestimated philia and overestimated eros. Philia is the love that gets ignored. If we lose a friend, it’s not an acceptable form of grief…… even though it happens ALL THE TIME. Love is such a confusing word in English. It should be all Greek to me.

The thing I keep ruminating over is timing. Sam could have asked me to be exclusive so much earlier, and even when I was on said date, she never left me…. even after she broke up with me and I had to try like hell not to lose my shit over a girl when I was supposed to be on a date with someone else. It was so embarrassing. Just one of those “I hope the earth swallows me up” moments.

The other thing that really irritates me is that we had plans for dinner on Monday. When she broke up with me, I said, “I asked you if we could talk about this later and you break up with me?” She said that Monday was too far away. The longer I think about it, the funnier it gets. It’s so easy to be amused by the youngest of four, because I’m the oldest of four and she fucked around and found out. Don’t come at me with your bullshit, you’ll just be windmilling your arms while I have my hand on your forehead.

And by the way, I apologize for sounding like an asshole yesterday by seemingly giving conjecture about Sam being a miserable walking disaster as if I needed it to make myself feel better. I don’t. I just forgot to say that one of her last texts to me was “I’ve been crying for two days, I have a killer headache, and a bloody nose. And none of that matters.” It was unbelievable. Her audacity struck me dumb. You’d rather cry over me than tell me what’s wrong? You can’t wait to sit down together and use your words like a grown-up? Her impatience and jealousy got the better of her. Once you set up a bad pattern, you never get back out of it.

That’s what convinced me to go no contact, not that I thought she was actually going to rush right over and apologize. She sent me an apology text, and that’s like, the same. As my friend Michael said, “it was the reaction of an 18-year-old boy.” I don’t date children.

What’s New in Breakups

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

As of today, Sam is a PNG. But I do want to talk about me and how I’m reacting to the most grief I’ve had since my mother died and how I’m doing right now. Sam is certainly involved, but that’s because I learned things about myself from her, not because I am trying to talk about her specifically. It just is.

I learned that the relationship was a much bigger deal to me than it was to her, or that’s how Sam made it look from the outside. She has kids, people who live in her house to give her affection. I do not. Even having someone hold my hand was legendary in my mind. Having someone look at me differently turned my world right side up. Having someone lovebomb me into submission was amazing. The thing is, though, I didn’t pick up any narcissistic vibes from her, but I should have.

I actually canceled our first date and she begged me to reconsider. That was the first red flag. She picked on me for not having a car, and I’ve lived without one most of the time in DC. I know how to get around. In fact, I know it so much better than she does that it never even occurred to her that public transportation is a thing that exists and that I’m used to it and I like it because I can read. From minute one, it was like “I don’t want to date someone without a car because I can’t handle those kind of logistics.” This is because she never let go of letting me handle my own logistics. Not once did she say, “I’m going to X. Meet me out there.” I would have. Now I have money on a Baltimore system that I have no idea what to do with, but I do have a free ticket to BWI any time I want and that’s no love lost.

So, anyway, I picked up on her apprehension about me not driving, and called her out on the carpet. She said that she was sorry she didn’t listen to me and that of course I was making the decision that was best for me and please still go out with me?

Against my better judgment, I went. And that’s when the first life lesson hit. My DV PTSD kicked in and I noticed how enormous her hands were. I imagined her fist coming at my face. I’ve never told anyone this before. Never. I should have. I have one friend in particular who would have kissed it and made it better. But I didn’t. I told Sam instead. I told her my biggest, deepest, darkest secret because I thought that as my girl, she ought to know. She told me that she would never raise her fist to me in anger, and I believed her. Of course that was true. Dana and I got into a heated situation and she lost it. I never got angry enough at Sam or she at me to even produce something close to my level of emotion in those first few moments, kneeling on the floor.

Also, now do you see why I don’t write about Dana? Why that toxic mess will be with me for the rest of my life? Nobody cares about two girls fighting. Lesbian DV is invisible.

So, I trusted Sam in a way that I’ve never trusted anyone. Our breakup didn’t have anything to do with it, only that she proved I was wrong to be so open and forthright because she was not a safe person to talk to. She’d never been through it, so she thought nothing of my issues surrounding it and whether abandonment might be one of them. So she broke up with me by text. Abandonment is a recurring theme in my life. People get sucked into my orbit (which I have only recently realized is a thing), and get caught up in all the ideas I have, and then realize they’re in too deep and I’m so emotionally intense that they can’t take it. I do not do this by choice. It is my personality type, and I know it sucks. Visionaries do what they do naturally, it isn’t malicious. We see pictures of the future and depending on future decisions, change. It’s “we could do this, or we could do this, or we could do this…..” ad nauseam.

I need people who can stand up to that, and say “I’m not ready for this” rather than “I’m out of here.” I am extraordinarily emotionally flexible and sensitive to the fact that my personality type is rare and exhausting. I’ll do whatever I can to make my loved ones comfortable with it, but they have to let me know that they’re having a problem for me to do anything about it. They wait until they’ve already made up their minds about who I am and what our relationship is like and it’s always going to be the same.

I am never the same across time. Never. I bend and adjust to what’s in front of me, and plan for the future based on the information I have. In a sense, I feel like The Doctor, because of Matt Smith’s one line, “I’ll never forget when The Doctor was me.” I have lived several lives by now, at least four regenerations, one for every decade. I just haven’t picked a new face to do it.

I am so emotionally complicated that it’s isolating and lonely. I know my emotional quotient is off the charts, that I would be in the Mensa of EQs if that were a thing that existed. I see patterns of behavior like most people breathe. One of the things that I said to Sam was, “don’t do this. Not only can I see how you’re wrecking my life, I can see how you’re wrecking yours.” I have seen true joy on her face. I have awakened something in her that wasn’t there before. I have changed her, and I have no illusions about that. She is every bit as miserable as I am, crying all the time just like I am, and it’s incredibly sad and depressing watching her be miserable and shooting her own foot repeatedly.

Or maybe not. She had a lot of conversations during our relationship with not only herself but friends as well that I wasn’t a part. There’s no way of knowing what I might have done to cause such a reaction. But what I do know is that she’ll regret the way she treated me for the rest of her life, because she set so much on fire that there’s nothing to reconcile. I don’t even trust her enough to be my friend, because my friendship runs so deep that my friends become a part of me, and I don’t want that with her, either. She told me who she was, and I am choosing to believe her the first time. I am not going to let this get any worse. And that’s another life lesson.

There’s just so much here. The first is that I take good care of my relationships so that if they end, it’s without animosity or cruelty so that there’s a chance of rebuilding later. The way she left was monstrous, and there’s no coming back from it. She lied to me and said that everything was fine while she had all these dark conversations with herself about the things that were going wrong. She never let me in, because she never wanted me there in the first place. She wanted a magical experience for a weekend and couldn’t allow herself to just say that because she’s not that kind of girl. So she trumped up a relationship and then extracted herself in the most ugly way possible. It was childish and it will resonate with me for years. Because that was the moment I stood up and bent the spoon. I was not going to teach her to walk all over me. If she said she wanted to talk about the end of our relationship without being open to the possibility of rebuilding, then I never wanted to see her again in my whole life, and that if she contacted me or wrote to me, I would lose my shit. If she showed up at my house because she finally pulled her head out of her ass without telling me she was coming, I’d get the police involved and I wouldn’t deal with her directly.

I was clear about boundaries. If you walk out now, never come back. You’re going to set too much on fire. I am being clear and I want you to respond and tell me that you understand this is it. You will never see me again. I wanted to light a fire under her ass to DO SOMETHING. This is crazy. It makes no sense that we are each crying desperately for each other in our own houses instead of talking about what we’ve been through and what we each need. And now it’s too late. She’s been cut out of my life and thrown away like a bad penny. What she has done has been childish and painful. I am in no hurry for a repeat performance, but I know I’ll have one.

Because people are afraid to be vulnerable with me, and it’s easier to cut and run.

Over and Out

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I had two relationships end in the time it has taken to write two entries. The first was a friendship I’d had for many years that needed to die a long time ago because the person was emotionally unavailable to me and used quite a few scare tactics to let me know that she was peeved. I am not innocent. I was also terrible to her. But her pain doesn’t matter anymore, and neither does Sam’s….. the other relationship I mentioned. I’d like to write out all my feelings about the relationship, but I know she can read them. So it’s a balance. Do I want to write the story the way it happened, or make her look better than she actually is?

We spent three weeks together that were as magical as they come. I thought I’d found something rare and special. I found nothing but pain. I wasn’t ready to be exclusive yet. She said that was fine. Then, she waited until I was at the other person’s house spending time with them to throw a shit fit and break up with me because even if she doesn’t recognize that she just wanted attention, I do.

And the weird thing is, I would have been perfectly happy to be exclusive. She just said that she thought we’d be moving too fast and she was glad I had someone else because she couldn’t give me what I wanted right now, but she could in the future if I was patient. So I was…. and would have continued to be if she’d said, “could you hold off on that date? I think we should talk some more.” What actually happened was that everything was fine right up until it wasn’t. Sam isn’t on my wavelength, for many reasons…. the biggest reason is that she’s just as smart as me, but she doesn’t synthesize information as quickly as I do, so for every 50 sentences I wrote, she’d just listen adoringly and tell me how wonderful my words were…… and not actually say anything.

I’m sure she has her own reasons, but she was unwilling to open up to me, unwilling to listen, unwilling to change anything about the small little life she’s built in her small little town where nothing changes. Change is hard for her, even when a fantastic relationship is waiting for her. She’s told me that she accepts absolutely a hundred percent of the blame for taking a sledgehammer to the plans we had the week after Christmas, and that’s just a start. She went scorched earth after assuring me for weeks that she was totally cool with everything and we’d be able to spend time together later. She got jealous and words came out of her mouth that cannot be taken back. So, in my opinion, good luck to her. She ruined what would have been pretty great by being scared, even lacking the courage to break up with me in person. She sent me a text message.

If I were to give her any break at all, it would be the text message, ironically. I might overlook it if she just said, “well, you’ve said other heavy things over text and I didn’t see this as any different.” She didn’t. No awareness at all that she was ending my life as I knew it in a way that was so impersonal I didn’t even get to say goodbye. It’s hard when you do everything right and are clear with communication and think three weeks is too soon to know that we’re going to marry each other.

The thing that’s the most harsh is that she went on and on about our unbalanced relationship and how she thought I was moving too fast while berating me for dating multiple people. So, her idea of a relationship was “I’m only available rarely and you need to sit at home and wait for me and be miserable and lonely all the time because you’re definitely my girl, but only at the times and places I deem fit.” Where’s my agency? Where do I get to think and feel?

All of my adrenaline has run out and I’m just sad. I’m in the unenviable position of wanting more of the poison I’ve drunk. It’s time to get it out, but I’m running low on ipecac.

Nothing You Could Say Could Tear Me Away

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been waiting for seven years to say that I’ve met someone and not have it be an April Fool’s joke or clickbait.

Today is that day.

I can’t tell you much about her because she’s a mom. Her kids know she’s dating someone, but not who it is. It’s too early for them to meet me, but acceptable for them to know that if their favorite sci-fi novels are missing, they haven’t been stolen. I hope they know what their mother has done having told me I could read anything I want. 😛

Editor’s Note: This week I borrowed “out of my mind,” by Sharon M. Draper. It’s about an 11 year old girl who has a photographic memory and is trapped inside her body. She can see everything, but she can’t tell anyone about it because she can’t write. She finally gets a voice, and not everyone is eager to listen.

I can give you details that have nothing to do with my girl’s current life, though.

She has a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Vocal Performance. When she’d gotten those done, she auditioned for one of the specialized choirs in the Army, and got a secured chair as an alto before she shipped off for basic training. After she retired from the Army, she directed church choirs for a while, then reinvented herself yet again. I absolutely wouldn’t tell you what that was, anyway, because it tends to make people ask her for things as if her time doesn’t cost money.

One of the things I truly love about my girl is that she reminds me of so many people I’ve loved over the years…. The professional musicians that raised me, including my biological parents, teachers at Clifton, HSPVA, Clements, private instructors in trumpet and voice, beloved choir directors, et al. are the lights that shine behind her, strengthening our connection with shared language. She’s also from New Jersey, not Texas, so she doesn’t remind me of any one musician from my past, or any of them if we’re strictly talking personality. The Texan church musician is an archetype all its own, can I get an “amen?”

And now you’re going to ask if her voice makes me cry, and I’m going to have to decide between snarky comeback and my vulnerable truth. I’m going to go with it.

The truth is that even when she’s just driving and singing absentmindedly, my heart flips. If I was sitting in the audience of one of her performances, forget about it… I’d be gone. She’s got the kind of heart that I know she’d be singing to me no matter how many people paid to be on the front row. What really makes my heart clench is singing together…… You can coax me into crying with that mental picture almost a hundred percent of the time.

But that doesn’t stop her from giving me shit about being a soprano and a trumpet player, and I love every second of it. Because she’s a choir director, she already knows all the inside jokes that are going to make me laugh, especially because her field choir traveled with a band and that rivalry never goes away. For instance, a lot of her friends have gone from the Army Field Band to professional work all over Washington and Baltimore. I am only one degree from Marin Alsop now, and I will not tell you anything about those conversations. I will only say that no matter what I’ve heard, it’s trivial. I’ve heard it all in my own musical life. I still want to see Alsop conduct. Whether she’s Jesus incarnate or Lucifer, every time she gets excited and does that little Bernstein hop, I’m drooling like a computer programmer at a Star Trek convention.

Here’s the best inside joke according to me:

My Girl: Voice is the superior instrument with choral music being perfection.

Me: Back the fuck up, Wilhousky.

Here’s why it’s an inside joke. Peter Wilhousky wrote one of the most famous, glorious arrangements of the Battle Hymn of the Republic I’ve ever heard in my life. My choir director at church from seventh grade to ninth loved it, so I’ve known every note to the soprano, first trumpet, alto, and second trumpet part since before I could type. I have also dabbled in first tenor because I will never drop out of the the a capella section in rehearsal. It’s just too chewy.

One of the first things I asked her was, “since you were in the military, just how many times have you done the Wilhousky arrangement?” She said, “a million, and I’m not even exaggerating.” One of the reasons I like it so much is that whether I was singing or playing, it was so damn fun.

My girl and I have other things besides music and the full on church experience regarding how the sausage is made, but I feel they might be too identifying, and thus, too private for now. But if we stay together long term, I’m sure more details will be allowed to creep out. I know we’ll be having discussions about how much I can say and when, and later on if things go really well, asking the kids themselves how much they want said about them because they’re teenagers. They can make up their own minds. I would also rather sign up for shock therapy treatment than become, for lack of a better term, a “mommy blogger.”

I’ll tell you right now, though, one of the kids and I are obsessed with the same thing. I’m not aiming to be a parent. The kids already have two parents. However, if neither of them are as into this shared thing as me and the shorty, it’s on like Donkey Kong. I tease my girl about it all the time…. I get fake disgusted with her assessment of something in said activity and say things like, “if I ever meet your kid, I’m going to assure them you’re only there to hold my bag and my water.” Teasing that hopefully never even gets close to the line of actually hurting is our thing.

This is the first potentially serious relationship I’ve ever been in where we’re not thinking about having kids. She has kids already. So, time is deliciously limited and every moment counts. It’s a little bit tricky because even though we don’t live that far from each other, it’s not really close enough to meet up on a whim. This is because I live in Maryland, a few miles further northwest than the line between Maryland and The District, still inside the beltway of the city. She lives in a suburb of Baltimore that’s closer to BWI, only 30 minutes from my house by car but two completely separate transit systems. The closest I can get is taking the bus to the Metro station and getting on the MARC train, with either my girl picking me up at the airport station (which thankfully, is very close to her house), or a quick Uber ride to get myself there if she’s tied up at work or something.

I downloaded the public transit app for Baltimore and added one ticket to BWI and a funds card with a few dollars on it. It’s for both of us. I can escape if something goes wrong and I just don’t feel like talking about it right that moment, and if nothing ever goes wrong, it’s just handy to be self-reliant. I’ve also watched too many couples break up because one person always has to do the driving… or if that wasn’t the main problem, it certainly didn’t help anything.

It’s something of which I’m aware, but I’m not as panicked as I would be if I lived in Houston. Now, I don’t have to be reliant on my girl to get me anywhere in either city/suburb. Any time she wants to pick me up to save me time or to spend more time together, it’s welcome and I am always grateful. I just don’t want to feel like a big issue later on…. Driving is one of those things that’s irritating enough if you’re rarely the driver… more so if you’re the only one who does it. When the honeymoon period wears off it’s generally the first knock-down drag-out fight.

Only one piece of the puzzle is left, and that won’t get solved until we decide to get really serious. If I move to the same city or the same house, we’ll gain the ability to do one more thing that we don’t have now…. being able to call each other up and say “I’m going to the pub with the crew. Meet us in 20.” It’s still possible if plans are made early enough in the day, but right now I’m at door to door in somewhere between 90 minutes and two hours. Her town is small enough that I could walk to a pub in 20 minutes if I was local. As long as I stay put, though, 90 minutes to two hours door to door is much faster than I could do it by car, because between traffic and construction there’s no time of day where it takes dramatically less time than others.

It’s so easy that next time my girl might not want to drive here, either. Our friends in Silver Spring would haul us around or we could Uber. So much better than sitting in traffic and driving. It’s sitting in traffic, reading and cuddling. The reason it’s not sustainable as a solution is that if we’re a committed couple, I would lose my mind getting to her or the kids if there was an emergency. Anything less than immediately is unacceptable. “Less than two hours” might fly in a long distance dating situation, but in a partnership is cruel to everyone. Being reliable is important to me.

For now, it’s a delicious thing to will time to stand still; things can progress slowly… I can take things out, try them on, think about them until they’re not foreign anymore. My girl and I can create a private bubble of writing to each other and dates where we really get to know each other with more senses than just reading words on an electronic page. If we’re playing for keeps, we need to be a team, starting with learning how the other one communicates.

I find that I communicate best in writing, especially when I have to say something hard. I can take as long as I need to flip out about it, and then calmly craft a response. My emotions are enormous. Most people don’t deserve my kneejerk reaction. They deserve my response after I’ve walked off and written about it. Just one of the things that lets me be an INFJ on my own without scaring the bejesus out of anyone… and then when I get to the part where I need to say something out loud, I’m confident because I’ve worked it out on my own. I simply need input. If my girl feels strongly about something, my own conclusions need to change. If we’re chatting about it online, I have two things. The first is the ability to copy and paste my thoughts into a letter. The second is that a moment expands when I read about it later…. and in a much more beautiful way than if I just tried to think about the conversation and remember it that way. That’s like trying to read a series of novels and then being tested on which events happened in which book.

I love going back over our conversations and rereading, because different things jump out at me than they did the first time, because I’ve walked away and am looking at it from a different perspective than I was even ten minutes ago.

There’s another advantage to rereading our conversations, and it’s invaluable. Because I’m rereading our conversations and replying to things as they come up, it’s like conflict repellant, and every bit as effective as bug spray. One of my triggers is having someone tell me that my perceptions aren’t accurate. I spent so many years doubting my own perceptions and instincts when I am actually extremely astute. Not much gets by me, and doubting my abilities as a visionary and truth teller when I can bring the receipts is a flat out rejection…. yet another reason why it’s taken me so long to open myself up to a romantic situation.

Only once has this happened, but I went on a date several years ago with a woman who’d gotten the URL for this web site from my OK Cupid profile. Then, she asked me out for coffee. When I accepted, she turned out to be a drooling fangirl who wanted me to be the voice I am here. It’s something that doesn’t seem like it would be problematic. This web site is me. I am this web site. Here’s the rub. At no time during that conversation was I ever allowed to deviate from anything I’ve already written, as if writers are never allowed to change their minds. Particularly with bloggers, entries are just verbal pictures, not even videos. It’s 2D with a timestamp. She’d quote me to me and then accuse me of lying, even if it was 2016 (or whatever, I don’t even remember that much- just that it was before my mother died) and the entry was from 2014. It made me express something verbally that I’ve always known with my other senses. I love respect. I hate fame.

Blogging is a stream of consciousness first draft in which I’ve given myself permission to write absolute shit. This is nothing compared to the heights I can reach with research and dedication. In some ways, I should never have become a blogger in the first place. I laid out every problem I had, including my struggles with mental illness, in hopes of “leading from the back.” Wounded Healer, Henri Nouwen, et cetera.

The pro was that people I didn’t know flocked here because I was saying things that connected. Those closest to me started trying to judge the stability of my mental health by my silly observations. I have the same relationship with my blog that I do with preaching in public. I can lead one person or a million, but not two…. as in, it’s very easy to talk to people I don’t know. People I do know tend to think that they are excellent detectives. Not once have they ever been right. They are right that occasionally I do spiral out, and as bad as they think. But not when.

The difference in my writing voice is not mania vs. depression. It’s “in the creative zone” vs. “I haven’t written in X number of days and I am itching to get everything out.” The other differences that are seen as lies are actually easily explained without being excused. I can only write one line at a time. My mind is a multi-core processor. Every time I tell a story, it includes thoughts from all the cores and not just the one I was using at the time the story was originally written. My details don’t get larger or smaller. They just get more dense…. or in layman’s terms, “I can bring the receipts. I don’t just make shit up.” Well, unless I’m preaching. One of the funniest things my little sister has ever said was “DAaad? Wassat true, or were you just preachin?'”

Returning to this moment, it’s foreign to me that someone wants to date me… will hold my hand walking down the street, will give me quick kisses and put her arm around me as if we’ve known each other our whole lives. It’s been 10 or 11 days. Nothing is being rushed about our relationship. It cannot be for all our sakes. We’re not thinking for two, exactly. Well, we are, but it’s not the two of us. I have an activity to do and she has a bag and a water to hold.

I’ve thought about kids two other times in my life, and shut the door permanently. I can’t remember what year it was that Dana and I went to the OB/GYN to check and see if we were good to go, but I was much younger then……. even still, it would have been a geriatric pregnancy. I am almost positive that if I had to make a choice between getting an abortion and having a child would be torture, because some kind of trauma was probably involved. I’ve also wanted a child since before my mother died, but I know my biological child would look like her even if the biological father didn’t. The flip side of the coin is that I would be much crazier than advertised if I decided to carry the pregnancy to term. I already have to choose between physically and mentally sick (physical drug side effects). A pregnancy would make that distinction as clear as it could possibly be. Both my medications (I think) are pregnancy approved…… but what if they don’t work for me while pregnant? Yes, I have thought a lot about this. Maryland has everything I need if something were to happen here, but I go to Texas more often than I travel anywhere else. Southern men are typically sweet and genteel. If they are liberal enough that they don’t have a problem with homosexuality, sometimes the flirting gets intense because we both know it’s not going anywhere.

If they’re a conservative crazy, and the percentage on that in Texas is not zero, it’s not impossible that they’d say they love Jesus while shooting me in the chest, or letting me live but raping me because “you’re only a lesbian because you haven’t had a real man yet.” Let me really drive it home for you. After the shooting in Colorado Springs, I had a panic attack. I was filled with survivor’s guilt. My only accomplishment that day was living in Maryland. I met my girl not long after, and it was like coming up for air after free diving. When she kissed me, I remembered what I was fighting for. I fall asleep thinking about her, and all I would do to keep myself strong so that she can lean on me. It’s all any couple wants. That the idea of support in government via marriage tax breaks and support in community through erasing prejudice is just crazy and we have to tear down all the progress we’ve already made is Looney Toons. Of the two, though, I’d rather have the love and support of the community. I’m kind of over entangling marriage and the government. Laws can move legal protections. They can’t change hearts and minds because that’s not what they’re designed to do.

As for me and my girl, we’re being careful not to become examples of the lesbian U-Haul stereotype. It’s good for the kids, but we see why it’s not that big a deal for other people (especially if it’s just the two of them in a very large house). Because of our shared language and library of images, I believe we could move in together tomorrow and with some counseling, make it work. There are multitudes of things that make us unique, but we are also extraordinarily similar. Both musicians, birthdays five days apart (although she’s four years older), both fluent in church lingo for an amazing understanding of my life before she arrived. It’s a whole bunch of things that would make us able to start off with good communication and get better at it, not constantly trying to make it work and needing counseling to keep from throttling each other. Getting by is just not the goal, though. It’s both of us thriving and growing together and not at each other’s expense.

Actually, there are ways in which it would be eerily difficult to tell us apart. There are others that are wildly different, but not in any way that would cause conflict. The kind where her life experience differs greatly from mine and brings a whole new skill set to the table. At her core, she’s the kind of peacenik musician you’d find at Interlochen and Julliard, but of course she also had to go through a program physically designed to make her fail to get into this professional-level program. It’s akin to winning a chair in a major symphony (or medalling in the Olympics). By contrast, I synthesize ideas very fast and often throw out thoughts before saying “do you have the bandwidth to listen to……” I am also highly adept at taking on the emotion of every person in the room, and thus have inside information as to their motivations. I’ve always had instincts in that direction, but I’m deadly accurate now that my bullshit detector has dropped.

Speaking of taking in the reaction of everyone in the room, my favorite thing is still being the only one not drinking. Sometimes I do, but I think it’s more exciting to relax with a non-alcoholic beer (especially in a glass) so that people forget two things. The first is that you’re not really drinking. The second is that you’re a diarist. You’re not talking to a reporter, but definitely reporter-adjacent. At parties, if I don’t know you and you have a dumbass attack in front of me, you’re probably going to become a funny story on this web site. If I do know you, I’ll at least ask you if I can write about it because you can laugh about it and I’m not hitting a real nerve. Live and learn.

I feel so good around my girl that it’s a great surprise she’s told me I do things for her that help. I don’t feel as if the relationship is one-sided. I feel wanted in a way that I haven’t in years, that I am a priority and she drops everything for me the same way she checks out of our relationship when we’re apart so that other people also get her full attention. It’s priceless, and feels healthier than trying to manage five conversations at once.

I honestly forgot how much all people need these feelings. I was so focused on independence that I forgot about interdependence, and how nice it can be as well. I’d let the pendulum swing too far into loneliness… particularly because I didn’t notice I was lonely. I used to be the real life Linus Baker, just American and not British…. also not from the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, but that’s neither here nor there.

Now, my life feels whole. I have amazing friends, and a chance at a real thing with someone I’m crazy about. It didn’t feel real until she told the kids, though. Doesn’t matter that she only told the kids she was dating someone. Fine for them not to know it was me specifically. It just made me feel important that she thought our dating life was important enough to mention. Maybe now she’ll let me have diet soda at her house (I can hear it now… “friggin’ sopranos…..”). Even if she doesn’t, there are times when I think my heart can’t get bigger; it always does.

Like when she took me to Ingrid Michaelson and held me while Ingrid sang… some dates are close to magic… when you can feel the night stretching to accommodate your wishes. We went for half smokes and fries at Ben’s Chili Bowl, then walked to Jeni’s ice cream for a “nightcap.”

The next day we took in a matinee of “Into the Woods,” and then it was time for her to go back to her real life. It was so hard to let her go, knowing that I was stepping out on faith that we’d find a way to keep seeing each other if our paths aligned.

My faith is in this being the start of something big. She feels the same way, but I don’t want to speak for her on anything more than that. Wanting to be together for keeps if we continue being successful at communication is the one thing I don’t have to fact check. How we feel is deep and intense, passionate in every color across the Scandinavian sky. At the same time, I’m 45. She’s older than me. Combining lives is not an easy process, and when kids are involved, sometimes love isn’t enough. Unclear communication regarding division of labor kills a relationship faster than lack of love ever will.

I have issues with having brilliant ideas and an interesting relationship with follow-through. Luckily, my girl has plenty of experience in dealing with people close to her that have mental health issues. My girl can recognize a coping mechanism and roll with it, or help me create one. I will never get over the idiosyncracies that my mental health presents, but I can always use more cognitive behavioral therapy to make it manageable. It’s the same with medication. I take meds to make it better, but it’s a pill…. not a magic wand.

There’s one last connection that we have that I can tell you about, because it’s probably the thing I feared the most in putting myself out there in terms of dating. My grief is deep, It is ever-present. There is no moment of any day that I’m not away from it. It’s a constant dream, waking and sleeping. Her mother is dead, too. So much I don’t have to explain when we share that particular frame of reference. You just join the shittiest club on record. It’s something you literally can’t explain to anyone else who hasn’t lost a parent, because the feelings are too deep to put into words. Losing anyone is painful. Losing a parent rewires you from the inside out. Putting things into words gets easier over time, especially for writers because they’re constantly exorcising their demons whether it’s fiction or not. My girl and I are also in roughly the same place in our process. It’s not overwhelming anymore. It’s a dull buzz that’s occasionally triggered into an alarm. It makes our music connection that much more intense and primal. If you know me in real life, you got here several paragraphs ago.

I need to write this down for posterity, because it is a moment I’ll never stop treasuring. I remember her sitting on my couch. I was kneeling on the floor so I could look into her eyes. It was too much. Too powerful. Tears started rolling down my cheeks. I said, “thank you for bringing the music back.”

Nothing you could say could tear me away from my girl.

It hit me all at once that I was dating someone my mother would have loved and wanted to adopt. James Lipton was famous for asking this question from the Bernard Pivot questionnaire…. “If heaven exists, when you arrive at the pearly gates, what would you like to hear God say?”

My favorite answer is Harrison Ford’s…. “You look just like me.” My own is a delicious smirk and “see what I did there?”

We’ve Been Here Before

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I absolutely, 100% believe I came up with a multimillion dollar franchise idea yesterday. It all came together in a flash, just picture after picture. I’m glad that I’m 45 now. I could not have done this ten years ago, and I’m not even sure I can do it now. However, it’s *such* a good idea that I can’t sit on it. I want to tell you all about it, but of course more people are reading this than just my friends. All I will tell you is that it starts off with one book… that publishers will KICK THEMSELVES IN THE ASS for not thinking of before I did.

I will say that it’s a spy novel, but there are a bazillion different kinds, so that doesn’t really give it away. What’s different about this time is that I asked my dad to help me write it. It was a very specific choice for one reason alone. I learned everything I know about writing from watching him craft sermons, Bibles studies, etc. He was the one person I could think of as a writing partner where it would be almost no trouble at all to meld styles, because brass tacks, we’re the same person.

The last piece of the puzzle is that I know Langley has a book/script/media review board to review what spies are writing to make sure they’re not giving away sources & methods, as well as helping people who have never worked for The Company and would like some help with jargon, etc. If I can figure out how to work with them, then that’s my next call. I don’t talk on the phone, really, but I would for this.

It’s passion, and as a Bipolar II patient who rarely goes into hypomania, I don’t feel it often. It’s nice to have something I’m excited about because I don’t have to write a book, I want to.

I’ve also asked my friend Heather to check in on me every once in a while and see how I’m doing, just to be accountable to someone. She’s not my editor, but she IS an editor for textbooks and standardized tests in higher mathematics, so she knows what it’s like.

Heather is a new friend who I hope one day will be my old friend. Her brain is the second sexiest I’ve come across, but she’s not in second place. It’s love all, nil/nil, etc. Additionally, we are so much alike that we can’t shut up, and contain enough multitudes that we are also completely different. I mean, in what UNIVERSE am I good at math? If there is one, I wouldn’t know how to find it, but Heather would. Maybe I should ask?

We Can Do Hard Things

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

The title of this entry is the title of Glennon Doyle’s podcast, but the podcast is not what I’m pondering. It’s the catch-22 of how to be a white person and call the black community out on some shit that is very harmful to me… but without making it sound as if it is equal to or more disturbing than anything white people have done to them. It’s just that in this instance, I’m not speaking as a white person, especially not a white person with entitlement. I have it when I choose to use it, which is never. I’m speaking as a lesbian. I am not the person that you think I am at face value. You cannot attribute the same attitudes toward a white minority that you can toward the white, straight, cis majority, because I’m fighting them just as hard as you.

Here’s why. If I was seen kissing my paramour/girlfriend/wife on a street corner, the race of the person who saw me would be irrelevant. There’s just as much chance of me being harassed or assaulted, even sexually as a public service, by someone with any background. It’s not about my color, it’s about my perceived sin.

I came out when I was about 14. Violence against gays and lesbians has always been very real. It was 1991, not 2022. I can draw a direct parallel between me and Emmett Till, because if I was caught whistling at a woman, seemingly making advances toward her, I would have been in just as much trouble, because black Christian Evangelicals are just as brainwashed by crazy as white ones.

Lesbians are in a tight spot. We are seen as non-threatening if men do not know who we are courting and it is just a fever dream to have a threesome with us as they spout their “Christ is love” bullshit, because it sounds dirty coming out of that kind of mouth. However, if the man does know the woman in question, particularly if he sees us as a threat to his relationship, we are well on our way to black eyes because “we’re not real men.”

Well, no shit, Sherlock. That’s why I can make her scream so much harder than you.

Now imagine me smarting off like that to a black or white man who thinks he’s tough. Now I’m even closer to death. Additionally, I can think of no worse childhood than growing up black and trans, especially if your family is religious. Black and white Evangelicals are equally guilty of indirectly killing their children because they don’t see their faith as bullying.

Add race to being queer and it is just a mess. White, straight, cis feminists don’t have the same needs as women of color. Queer women of any race have different needs than straight. Trans women have different needs than cis. In terms of trans and cis women, it is like one man has fathered children with identical twins. We are biologically the same and yet cousins because of trans women’s socialization as men when they were young.. This is on its way to being a non-issue with puberty blockers and supportive parents, but right now, it is a hard thing we can add to the list.

I watch a lot of YouTube videos on building houses, both on and off the grid. What I’m seeing is that the entire house is wonky because in the queer community, we didn’t actually create all the vassal agreements needed to be powerful as a voting bloc. What I’m saying is that the house will fall soon if we don’t go back and fix the basement.

But don’t worry. We Can Do Hard Things.

Julie & Julia

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I absolutely fell apart last night, because for the first time in legit years all I could do was cry and miss Dana…. just inconsolable that she wasn’t holding me while I cried. This is because when I heard the news that Julie Powell, of Julie & Julia fame, had died, I folded into myself with memories.

That movie never fails to bring me to tears. Watching Meryl Streep cut onions while studying for culinary school always reminds me of my curly haired spitfire, a description that one of my friends gave her and will stick for the rest of my life.

Yes, we are broken up. No, I am not confused. I have a good memory, that’s all. When I’m not thinking about it, she’s out of sight, out of mind. But we all have our triggers, don’t we? And some of them are actually sweet rather than terrifying. So if anyone, friends or potential new girlfriends, has a problem with me having memories, good luck and God bless. I’m sure you can find a woman somewhere without memories, but I’m sure she’ll also have other symptoms from getting hit on the head that hard. Bless your heart.

I would be a total narcissist if I didn’t realize that I was at fault as much as anyone else in the world is responsible for a breakup, try to learn from my mistakes, and move on completely. Luckily, I know I’m not a total narcissist because that’s exactly what I’ve done. Believe me, if I hadn’t, I doubt I would have many (if any) sweet triggers left.

Also, I think it’s important to reconcile your past because then you stop torturing yourself over it. When I look back on Dana, 80% of the time it’s to laugh and smile about a memory. It’s not like I don’t have negative triggers, there’s just so many fewer than there used to be with the passage of time. I can honestly say that we were amazing right up until we weren’t, and those communication issues went back far longer than I originally assumed. My teenage crushy, blushing feelings for someone of the opposite orientation were a reaction to something both in me and that Dana triggered at the same time. My reaction was my own, I have no bones about that. She didn’t “make me do” anything. I’m just saying that I reacted poorly to stimuli I didn’t realize was there. Does that make sense?

I thought I would start writing incessantly about her as time wore on, because I’d have some perspective on our relationship and could dive deep into the wreck. It has always been an assumption on this web site that I am leading from the back, laying out all my fears, experiences, and dreams for the future in hopes of helping someone else.

Here’s what I didn’t count on. The wreck is as much of a mess as old necklaces stuck in a drawer and somehow over the last 20 years they’ve knotted, attracted dust, and probably have gum on them and smell like old purse. Diving into it takes so much out of me that I don’t have any stomach for it. Maybe I’ll never write about it, maybe I need another 20 years. What I do know is that I lost the love of my life so far. It’s been a blessing to know I am capable of eventually having another.

Then the 20% becomes the 80% and I don’t like who I become thinking about that much trauma happening in that little time. Two years of awful destroyed some five years and change of wonderful. Only thinking about those five years is akin to loving The West Wing right up until Aaron left.

The changes in my personal life were just as dramatic, but they evened out. Maybe Aaron Sorkin writing my life was just a little too dramatic for me. Maybe Amy Sherman Palladino will call. Great writer, and she seems to be connected umbilically to Alex Borstein, so she’ll be in my TV show and I will pay Amy extra every time she gives me a kissing scene with Alex. Seth McFarlane and Seth McFarlane could play our next door neighbors if it was animated. I would love to have a weekly show on free television that stars Seth MacFarlane as a gay couple. I’m dying laughing just thinking about it.

Back to you, Bob. Let’s go to the phones.

I slowly slide back into humor, leaving the wreck untouched. We are picking chesterberries, we are running a kitchen, we are sitting outside by the fire in various states of sobriety. Drunken trivia nights where winning was dependent on who could remember the answer. Going to pub trivia and deciding that our team name should be an ellipsis and a sentence, so that when we won, it would be stuf like “And the winners tonight are….under investigation by the FBI.” Days spent working on Katrina’s yard together, or running “our kitchen.”

Phillip Hunker and Outpost were talking about living your dreams in “Grind” by saying “stop trading five days for two, and do with your love what you’re supposed to do.” It works the same way in reverse. I will never stop trading my two for five with Dana. I’m working on the other thing.

It’s what I think about when I’ve been inconsolable and crying.

The Voting Monolith

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I hate to admit it, but not being on Facebook is really, really nice. I hid the icon on my iPhone and use Messenger exclusively. Turns out I don’t need to see when I have a like. I don’t actually care. If I want to know something, it’s probably about how the world works, or how to improve my relationships… not a contest to see how many people love me at any given moment. Why worry? I already know there’s a vast tens of you somewhere.

Apparently, I am a big deal in India.

My biggest collection of foreign readers used to be Australia (I’m American, Marylander specifically). I liked that a lot. Being associated with what is essentially a large island full of people descended from criminals directly appeals to my own sense of self. Actually, that may be one of the truest things I’ve ever said. I had an ancestor- I think his name was Anthony and went by “Tony Lanagan.” I’m not exactly sure where, but there’s still a Tony Lanagan in my family, just a much younger one.

Anyway, the ancestor was kind of rough and tough Irish. Ended up on the unlucky end of a murder. I am extremely forgiving because I don’t know what the world was like back then. Yes, my ancestor was innocent in that incident where he died. Was he always innocent? Unclear.

I can’t think of many instances in which I would actually “be gay and do crime.” Well, at least until the Supreme Court takes me to my concentration camp.

Too dark? Fuck you, no it’s not. I’m not the only one warning of complete collapse. Remember when I was out in front of the Iraq war? Just one of those Portland libtards who turned out to be absolutelyfuckingright. Does this entry sound angry? It kind of is. But actually, don’t take all my ire as anger. It’s also abject fear, hoplessness, anxiety, depression, etc. Nothing is scarier to me than undoing progress.

Yesterday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Affirmative Action and the conservative supermajority is poised to overturn. Biden better pack that court IMMEDIATELY if he doesn’t want to be responsible for the downfall of all the human rights we’ve already won by the time he moves on. What a fustercluck. How sad is it that so many politicians are so popular in America and get elected easily, but because those votes didn’t come from a particular geographic location, it screws everyone in the country. So maybe do away with the Electoral College while we’re at it.

If gay marriage, Affirmative Action, Roe, and Griswold all fall (and they very well could), it points to overturning Lawrence v. Texas as well. You know, the laws that made gay sex illegal? If women have no right to abortion and no right to privacy, why do you not think gay sex won’t be on the chopping block? We’ll go back to being personified sin wishing we’d left when we had the chance. If you remember the entire world coming for Jews and gays, you better start digging that shit back up. I’m not going through that again, and I’m pretty sure the Jews are also with me on this, capiche? Get your shit together, United States.

God, I’m sure this could be signed by every minority in this country.

It’s also a sick, sick internal feeling to be white and a minority at the same time in the age of “White Fragility.” It does absolutelyfuckingnot (using it again because Heather likes it) feel like a picnic wanting to join “The Movement” and have half the black community be with us and the other half hate us so much. The Black Church is known for many, many things that are wonderful. They’re also known for treating the queer community like absolute shit.

I am not stupid enough to think that black and gay people are having the same experience of the United States. It’s not possible. But what I will say unapologetically is that even though our two paths diverge in the woods, if we each walk a mile in each other’s shoes, we can tell where they might pinch the other’s feet.

We are better together than we will ever be apart, especially as a voting monolith.

And I’m just going to leave that right there, because the truth bomb needs to sit awhile. What are we going to do? We don’t have the option to do nothing.

Now I’ve Done It

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Once the Facebook scanners find you, it’s all over but the crying. Like I said, there is no recourse because “there aren’t enough people to manage content.” So, an Evangelical Christian came at me like the brain dead idiot into which she has willingly transformed. It was epic in terms of how close she was to getting the point. It was smacking her in the face the whole time. It was like my hand was on her head and she was windmilling her arms. The entire thread has been taken down, but ended with “you go and learn everything by rote…. come back to me when you have an original thought.” She came back with “is that the best you’ve got?”

Oh dear God.

I thought I was safe because my words were originally a bumper sticker. I said, “No. Jesus loves you, but I think you’re a bitch.” #bumperstickerwisdom And that’s how I got banned for a month less than two days after I got banned for a week. Between this and trying to win a cooking contest, I really feel like I’m getting my full use of the words “inciting violence.” But maybe not as much as I want, because if I’d come back at her with an original thought, I would have been in hell, not Facebook Jail. I am so mad at being cut off from my family and friends for that long, but I have absolutely no choice in the matter.

Aaaaaaanyway, these people drive me insane. They think the Bible is all about learning facts. Facts and the Bible are not really compatible after 2,000 years. Not only is it leaving science and medicine to their own devices by taking it literally, they’re missing out on a wealth of information spiritually by not taking it seriously. No true Jesus scholar would agree that learning your faith by memorizing scripture is a good ideea. It’s better to learn concepts.

My analogy for this is cooking (again).

I am a professional cook, yet I have only one true recipe. Even that was a wild guess at how much spice to put in the dish as I worked backwards. That’s because I understood the concept, but didn’t write down the facts. I innately know that fat supports heat, acid cuts fat, sugar neutralizes acid, acid neutralizes salt. Witth those combinations, you can make damn near anything. It’s all about choices. Let’s take one. Acid. Are you going to use citrus or vinegar? Well, how much fat are you trying to balance?

It is directly akin to my reading of the Bible. It comes in bites, I chew on it until I can swallow, and then I pass on my understanding, just like I did with the whole “concepts” thing. I had to cook thousands of times until I rose above the facts… so as it goes with the meticulous study of a book…… and it’s amazing how much The Bible and Le Guide Culinaire (Escoffier) have in common. The take home message in a professional kitchen is Old Testament “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” RAGE. Way, way before that, in order to become the best of the best, you work your way through the Luncheon Lectionary (yes, I did just make that up). You don’t read Le Guide from cover to cover, although you can. You skip around depending on what you need.

There are two types of people in the world. Those that can extrapolate assumptions from incomplete data…. #bumperstickerwisdom

The Art of War

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’ve gotten so many warnings on my Facebook account that I’m now banned for seven days, after a serious escalation in how long the bans last. It has cut me off from posting, sharing, or liking anything. Why did I get banned? Well, the last time was that a black girl called me “Raisin Potato Salad” and I took exception to that. I said, “if you’re going to talk to me about food and use it as an insult, FYI I’m from the South and a professional cook. We’re gonna throw down, and I’m going to kick your ass sideways.” Every single infraction is exactly like this one… empty threats and half-kidding. It is totally the former President’s fault. Facebook has turned on these industrial-sized content management machines that scan text for violence, and they’ve shut down every single way to get a real person to look at your account. Most of the periods you have to wait to get your case looked at last 30 days, so the ban expires before real eyeballs will sit down with you.

Once you are on their radar for “inciting violence,” you can’t get back off. The noose tightens, and there’s no recourse. Facebook doesn’t give a damn anymore. Instead of working on solving the problem, they simply tell everyone there aren’t enough people to review content, like they’ve just given up and you can die mad about it.

I’m letting everyone know about this so they can avoid saying things like “kick your ass,” because if I have any friends that don’t say it, I’m not close enough to them to know that.

At last count we were talking about Theresa. That relationship didn’t work out, and I’m sad about it. But for the first time, I’m glad that I called it early and didn’t run toward total bullshit like I normally do. She just didn’t get me, and that’s fine. I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, and I needed to escape before I fell in love with her and I was completely screwed up inside. I’ve spent too many years alone to spend time thinking about a relationship that’s too hard, too early.

So, I waited about a week and then asked someone else out. I finally got mad (not at Theresa, I’m not like that). I yelled at myself. I said, “Leslie, LOSING YOUR MOTHER WAS HARD. GETTING A DIVORCE WAS HARD. ASKING A WOMAN OUT IS NOT HARD.” It was especially easy because I blocked Theresa immediately and deleted our entire conversation history.

It was not because I didn’t absolutely love her pictures and artistic flair to bits, it was that I knew seeing her face in my feed would hurt. I wanted to save myself from every single bit of it. When have I done that before? It was like learning music could change my mood from the inside out. I moved on so much easier because I didn’t give myself the opportunity to get more upset than I needed to be.

I made sure to let Theresa know that I didn’t block her because she did something bad, and I didn’t block her from using my phone number or my e-mail address. I haven’t heard anything, so I assume she’s protecting herself, too. There’s no way either of us said anything to really be angry about. In fact, I can write the experience off as a few weeks where I felt sublimely happy that only half belonged to “new relationship” dopamine. The rest was feeling myself come alive. Resurrection after “the long dark night of the soul.” In that way, there is much to encourage taking the win even though I technically lost.

She was a doll and it made me happy to blush and flirt. That’s enough, and I said as much in the last entry- that if it was only the last text of the day that belonged to her, I was satisfied.

But how did I win?

I really took care of this relationship in a way that I haven’t before. I never once used a statement that included the words “you made me.” I never once directly said or implied that anything she did caused my reactions. I think that’s the hardest part to learn in any relationship. Dana helped me learn that lesson, and I helped me expand on it.

It’s comforting and settling to remember Dana that way because it shows that we were a good team, and always will be, in a way. Especially when I’m asleep, we have coffee in my dreams or I take her to lunch… but we’re not dating. That thought literally made me cackle out loud and now the dogs are barking incessantly…. it’s a double entendre… both the idea that we’d ever start dating again AND the fact that in my dreams, I am still an Idealist and I’ve gamed all this out. I am going to die of asphyxiation. Send help.

However, in the end, I trusted my love for my friends more than I trusted Theresa. It wasn’t anything that they said. It was that I knew they loved me for me because they’d been around long enough to understand me at least as much as they were capable. I am not easy. I am a magical being, a sort of unicorn. At 45, I am finally coming into my power.

Let me explain. I am not living in a fantasy world. The dragons are only metaphorical, and Winter is Not Coming.

The reason why I am magic is that I am an INFJ. It is the rarest of all the personality types, ranging from 9-15% of the world’s population. Therefore, it is so rare that there are people out there who have never met one. I can directly compare myself to Jesus, who is historically thought of as INFJ, and Martin Luther King, JR., who actually was.

If there is a Biblical story I can relate to you so that you understand who I am, it is Moses… and to be clear this is not evangelism. I don’t care if you believe in God or not. Bible imagery is just a little more universal than other books.

Back to Moses. We’re not talking about Moses at the end of his life….. Charleton Heston and all that….. We’re talking about the teenager who killed the dude in the desert, the one that was approached by God to lead the Jews and his first reaction was “you really want my brother.”

Moses had to work through everything to claim who he was, and by the end of his life he had really owned himself. I hope to do the same, but right now being an Idealist is frightening and overwhelming. What happens is that I have the equivalent of an iCloud account in which there are like, seven billion phones backing up. The stream of images is relentless. Then, I get into a crowd, and the emotions of every person in the room are on full display, as well as past history because I can see trauma and trauma bonds.

If you’ve seen the movie MiBIII, you know what I mean because you’ve seen it in action….. Griffin does what I do.

The problem with personal relationships is that beginning them can be a right disaster. You can game out all the possibilities in front of you, they can’t and think you care about them a lot more than you do…. not that you won’t (you’ve gamed that out), but that you are trying to be prepared for all eventual outcomes and that doesn’t stop, ever, because Erik Erickson posits that the core personality is set by six years old.

So, you walk the line in terms of presenting yourself because you know if you impart everything you know, the other person will run like hell. They think you’ve gone from mildly interested to stalker in an afternoon.

….and only for the simple reason that they’ve never met an INFJ before. You know, if I’m the Idealist I claim, I probably should have seen those Facebook bans coming…. it’s comforting to know I didn’t see Donald Trump coming, either.

Letting Go and Letting Leslie

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I know the phrase is “let go and let God.” However, I have never put myself first, and I believe the God is implied. Prayer is nothing without shoe leather. We’re a duo, not a Trinity. Jesus is the face I use the most often, but it comes as Middle Eastern. I choose Lebanese most often because the family I rent from hails from its mountains.

My landlady still has an incredibly thick accent and talks on the phone in Arabic often. When we’re in the same room, I look at her with admiring eyes. I’ve told her that I absolutely love listening in on her end of her phone calls, because I don’t know a lick of Arabic. I’m not invading her privacy, but still enjoying the lilt of the language. I’ve thought about learning Arabic many times, but haven’t started yet because it would ruin the magic.

I felt the same with my former housemate Nasim, who used to dazzle me with Farsi. Of course when she told me she was from Iran I practically jumped over two people to tell her that my favorite movie was Argo. She looked at me like, “typical American.” I wish I could tell her what has happened since then.

I could almost cry thinking about not making it to DC before Tony Mendez (spy who created the operation behind “Argo”) stopped making public appearances. He died before his last book, The Moscow Rules, came out. Two things about that, though. The first is that Tony got CIA’s approval to publish the day before he passed away, and the book was a collaboration with his wife, Jonna. Jonna was on book tour and gave a talk at the International Spy Museum, and afterwards, I looked her up and asked her to read one of my blog posts (The Spy in the Room). We’ve stayed in touch casually, and it’s been very rewarding.

Thinking about the scenario of telling Nasim all this is a schadenfreude that makes me giggle. I’ve been laughing a lot more these days.

I came to a fork in the road, and I chose light.

For nine years, I’ve dealt with the grief of losing people I still love in my memories due to being both alive and dead. Since I went to University of Houston I’ve dealt with medication that robbed me of any desire to be in a relationship unless someone broke through with enough force that I noticed. For almost a decade, I have avoided romantic relationships, because it was being willing to take a chance on upending the life I had carved for myself…. the one where I was just happy enough not to notice I wasn’t really happy. I was having good times, but not consistently enough because my dopamine receptors weren’t accepting applications.

I know this is going to sound strange, but I am now open to the idea of dating because of Queen Elizabeth II. I can hear you from here. “Say what now?” Hear me out. I’ll make it make sense.

I was watching a few short videos of Her Majesty’s funeral and for a split second, I considered my mortality. And that was all it took.

I thought to myself “this is how I’m going to tell that story for the rest of my life.” When I thought I was done, the Queen forced me to consider.the last time I had romance, making me feel old and rusty. Was I really going to die thinking I wasn’t enough?

So here I am, chatting in this Facebook group for women of my age and persuasion. My ego started getting stroked immediately, and I was dumbstruck. I am rarely speechless, but this broke me open even more. Part of the reason I’m not a joiner is that I think no one will like me. But several people told me I was cute, and it made me feel better about myself.

A few days later, many filtered down to one.

We’re getting married next week. (KIDDING. LESBIAN JOKE. KIDDING.)

I was going to end it there because it was more dramatic that way. But then I realized it had been a while since we’ve caught up and this isn’t really big news………… except for the fact that I opened my heart to her. That I was brave and she was endearing. That I could see myself having romance in my life when I couldn’t before…….. but I can’t say that we’ve met. Officially. This is because we’ve only chatted online, not in person.

She’s coming to visit in about two weeks, and then I’ll know if I actually have anything to tell you or not. The reason she’s not local and it’s still extremely early days of dating is that she’s on vacation from work and coming to DC, anyway. We met unofficially when she commented on my reply to a question from her about The District, so I’m glad this is not all about me (because Lord knows I love a staycation).

So far she’s a writer’s dream woman- unavailable most of the time. (Now I’m dying laughing picturing her reading this). However, she can leave her house in the morning and be at my house mid-afternoon/early evening, so it’s not like it’s an impossible situation. It’s just right for people who have only known each other as long as we have. We can entirely avoid that U-Haul stereotype through the cunning use of direct chat.

Actually, I take it back. I do have big news, and I’m ashamed I didn’t think of it before. I’m very excited to have someone in my life I view as a kindred spirit, so even if “it’s not there” in person, what does it matter? We write very well together, and that relationship could easily last our whole lives. I am constantly saying that friendship is underrated and this one is truly fantastic. I should have walked the walk before. If there’s anything I miss about being married or having a girlfriend the most, it’s companionship. I’m constantly looking for new ones so I don’t have to depend on the same one all the time.

We’re talking so easily and well that I’m not worried about going on a date to see if we click. The biggest part was stepping out of my comfort zone to join that group in the first place.

I have had a lot of guilt and shame over the way I treated Dana, and hurt at the way she treated me. Then, my mother died, and because one grief hadn’t ended before the next one started, they got lumped together and compounded. I shut down all of my emotions; the brain is an organ and it was doing everything it could to help us survive. My own thoughts and feelings comforted me because I had little outside contact.

I tried so hard to keep from hurting someone else that I forgot to love them, too.

Along the way, I began to take it into account that not 100% of the blame is mine (nor is it one partner’s in any relationship). After a while, I even believed it. Now, I am only talking about the part I do own.

Innately thinking I hadn’t done bad things, but that I was a bad person, I thought I was protecting women from me. That I was really doing them a favor. When the grief cleared into a fog thin enough to see, I learned that it was a lie my brain was telling me to protect me from getting hurt again. It was protecting me from another potential loss.

I’d forgotten what it was like to have a last text of the day. If that’s all it is, then I will still be extremely happy. I’ve learned to trust again, and go with the flow. Whether this is a temporary high or a daily habit is up for debate, though, and I haven’t been able to say that in sooooooo long.

It’s delicious knowing that something could be beginning, and that there is a defined date in the future in which I get to “go see about a girl.”

Here’s what I know so far. In pictures and on video chat, she’s really pretty. She’s been a social worker, and is now a chef. When she told me she was a chef, I had two reactions: “Oh, shit” and “this is fantastic!” These thoughts presented as “not another one” and “we will never shut up.” The fact that I have been married to a chef and have cooked professionally only made me wary for a half second, just because Dana was my best friend and I miss her on that level every day.

I don’t reach out because we have our peace and I’d like to keep it. Therefore, my knee-jerk reaction to umm… let’s call her Theresa (mostly because that’s her name) was that because we couldn’t shut up, this could be something. This could be more grief down the road. A chef? I could let a chef in. That wasn’t scary on its surface, but it was a red flag that this is someone I could let in enough for her to gut me. As a chef, she’d be quite good at it. Moreso because she writes plays and acts (shut up). This had the potential to be a major disaster, and my lemon of a brain almost made me miss it due to fear.

When we were chatting privately, I said, “I don’t know if you meant this to be a date or not, but I’d be open to it.” My stomach was in my mouth until she said “I didn’t know I wanted that until you asked.” Then we were off at the races planning a great and memorable first date. I excitedly told her that I was so glad she said yes, because “even if we don’t like each other or the restaurant catches fire, we’ll have good writing later. It’s a win-win situation.” I was and continue to be lucky that she laughs easily and often.

I think she has long auburn curls, she says that they’re only long compared to my hair. I see it all the time, especially in my dreams.

Like I said, it could be something. I just don’t really know yet. What I do know is that I have been unable to feel the possibility of dating open up until now. That is the real, and for now only story I’m telling. But that the story includes her real name because she said she wanted to be a real person here is telling.

Stay tuned.

Boobs! And Cupping!

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Now that I have your attention, I must tell you in advance that this entry might be a bit boring. Or not. Looking at your own writing is a mixed bag. Unfortunately, what I’m writing about is not sex, drugs, and rock & roll. I mean, it should be. I’m not that old. Ok, I’m 44, and medical advice has changed. I didn’t think I’d be getting a mammogram for at least another year or two. Conventional wisdom has changed to over 40. I was officially NOT. IMPRESSED.

This is because I’ve heard so many horror stories about how much it hurts to have your boobs squished into a machine one at a time. Either the machinery has changed, or the women telling those stories were “jeweling the elephant.” In case you’ve never heard that term before, it comes from an Armistead Maupin novel called The Night Listener.

The main character talks about a friend who went to India for a wedding. It was small and intimate, but by the time the friend came back to the United States, the groom had ridden in on a jeweled elephant. Thus, a great phrase was born (the friend was not from Texas, but I assure you that Texans are not immune to this concept…. a three inch bass that had to be thrown back is a 12-inch keeper at the ice house). So what I’m saying is that it’s a strong possibility that the memory of the mammogram was maybe worse than the test itself. On the other hand, my previous point stands. Perhaps advances in mammography have led to the test being much less painful. I’m going to bet on that.

I felt pressure, certainly, but no actual pain (from the test itself…………………..). A few weeks ago, I fell and got a horrible muscle spasm in my back, bad enough to need muscle relaxers and a trip to an orthopedist and physical therapy twice a week. The hardest and most excruciating pain was just having to stand up for 10-15 minutes in a row.

I was also in a lot of emotional pain, because the date was my mother’s birthday. I haven’t felt the overwhelming grief of my mother dying in a long time (every day it’s a dull buzz that runs constantly in my head), but it surfaced mightily when I realized she couldn’t fly up to be with me, nor could I debrief with her over the phone. It was primal, four-year-old child “I want my Mommy.” Because here’s the thing. No matter whether you have family history of breast cancer or not (I don’t), what kind of breast tissue you have (mine is extraordinarily dense and required a couple of takes to get the test right), or whether the person doing the test has one year of experience or 20, the fact that it takes at least a week for the results to come back makes you nervous. You have thoughts that range from “I hope I’m okay” to “I’m probably dying.” I got them earlier this week and they were completely normal.

I also learned that I’m not interested in changing my pronouns or coming out again, but I had a moment of clarity in which I’d never felt more non-binary in my life. I was wearing my hair short and punk, had on both earrings and a cartilage piercing, and was dressed in men’s jeans and an old Ubuntu Studio t-shirt. I’d also brought my well-worn CIA baseball cap for after the test as my emotional support item. It makes me feel braver and stronger than I actually am.

As I was standing there naked from the waist up, I felt truly disconnected from my femininity. It was if my breasts had a life of their own, separate and of me at the same time. I was also completely focused on other things. My pain level was at a seven. I was trying to cover it up with jokes, which brought the pain down to a six and a half. I was also thinking constantly about how I had no idea what was happening most of the time (shut it).

And even though it was completely platonic and professional, I hadn’t been even partially naked in front of another woman for at least seven years, so that was uncomfortable as well… but not in terms of attraction. It was akin to changing in front of other women at a gym……. in seventh grade.

I told the technician that it was my first mammogram, and she said that I had come to the right place. She had 20 years of experience and would make everything as painless and easy as possible, plus, she REALLY loves her job. I said she’d have to, because no matter what the job is, you’d have to love it to do it that long. I made her laugh. Score. Witty rapport with her and endorphins for me.

I was drawn into her bubbly personality. I was wearing this (actually kind of cool) scrub top that tied in two places. She offered to let me drop one side of it at a time, but it unwieldy and time-consuming. I said, “would it be easier for both of us if I just took it off? If you’ve been doing this for 20 years, I’m going to bet you’ve seen a breast before.” She said that was the right answer and we’d be done much quicker.

The funniest part was that she adjusted the machine before I took my top off, and she said, “I have clearly miscalculated.” I laughed so hard that my stomach hurt, and the words of an old girlfriend floated through my head….. “awwww, you got the boobs I always wanted.” That moment of levity carried me through the rest of the test with ease in terms of erasing nervousness, and I think the laughter even brought down my pain more for a minute or so. The hardest part of the test was standing still for fifteen minutes.

A couple of days after the mammogram, physical therapy started. The first session was sublime, because all they did was have me lay on my stomach and massage me for almost an hour and a half. I thought they were all going to be like that.

Nope.

The second session started with 10 minutes on a bicycle to “warm up.” I am what you would call, as Jim Gaffigan says, “indoorsy.” I haven’t exercised in years. I learned something good about myself, which is that even though it had been a long time, it didn’t feel like my calves were going to drop off until the 10 minutes were up.

After that was when my problems really began to kick in. The whole idea is that my arthritis stems from a birth defect. It’s called retrolisthesis, and it occurs when a single vertebra slips and moves back along the intervertebral disc underneath or above it. The quickest way to fix it permanently is to surgically fuse the discs, but my doctor said to try Physical Therapy first and strengthen my core.

When I started those exercises, my other birth defects kicked in. I have a mild case of cerebral palsy, which hasn’t affected my brain or speech, but completely changes my movement and balance. I fall all the time. In fact, I fall so much that I’m bruised all over the place and can never match up which fall goes with which injury. So, of course, the first exercise was trying to balance on a board that sat atop a rubber ball. I could tell that my physical therapist thought I was exaggerating when I couldn’t do it, so I clued him in. He said, “I need you to try a little harder because this exercise is really, really important. Of course it was. And, of course, I was even more terrible at it when I felt under pressure to do well. I am a perfectionist, and any time I feel like I’ve done something less than perfectly, my anxiety kicks up and I feel like a total failure….. even in times where I get 70-80% right.

But this? Grading this would be a zero.

I also told my physical therapist that I saw a treadmill, an eliptical, and a bike, and to never, ever put me on the eliptical, even if God himself came down and told him it was okay. My balance is so off that I fell off the first time I used it. Thinking I just didn’t know how to use the machine, I tried it three more times, which led to (you guessed it) three more falls.

Two weeks ago, we also tried cupping. Apparently it’s supposed to increase the blood flow around your injury, allowing it a better chance to heal itself. I would be willing to try it again, but the first time all I felt was weirdness. Like, the strangest sensation I’ve ever felt in my life. Like other things, though, perhaps it takes more than one session to feel like it helped. But we haven’t done it again. I’ve laid on my stomach and used electrostim with either heat or ice.

The most frustrating part of all this is twofold. The first is that the physical therapy is helping, but I’m not getting better very fast. The second is that the longer I’m in pain, the more my mental health suffers, because nothing in my body feels good. My psych meds and the muscle relaxers help, but like my physical pain, I’m not getting better very fast. Also, don’t tell my doctor, but I’m cheating. She said that she’d like me to take the muscle relaxers instead of NSAIDS because the NSAIDS might make my acid reflux worse. After a week of that bullshit, I bought four bottles of omeprazole and a year’s worth of Aleve. Along with my back pain, I’ve had arthritis in my hands since I was 30, and my knees have been 44 since I was 19. All of it has to do with working in a kitchen. In college, I was a waitress. When I was older, I became a cook. The repetitive strain injuries have mostly gone away, except for the times when I’m typing like a madman. The arthritis is here to stay. Pretty sure it’s osteo and not rheumatoid, because my knuckles/fingers look normal.

That being said, my stepmother is a rheumatologist and a lot of her patients are women my age…. so of course I’m a tiny, tiny bit paranoid about developing an autoimmune disease.

The upside of all this is that my friends have been amazing, checking in on me a lot and offering to rub my back with Voltaren cream or Icy Hot. It lightens my mood, because since I’m perpetually single (by choice), the one bad thing about it is that I am continually touch-starved…. just not right now.

Next week I’m getting a different massage therapist while my current one goes to visit his family in Tehran. I nearly fainted when he said that because Argo is my favorite movie of all time and space. I joked with him. I said, “could you take a picture of the bazaar for me? I don’t have one without Ben Affleck in it.”

And then we laughed so hard I almost fell over……………………..