I tested positive for the flu. They prescribed Tamiflu, Zofran, and atropine, and told me I’d be fine to go to work on Monday because I won’t be contagious after 24 hours. I’m glad to hear it. Staying home does not appeal to me in the slightest, and I do not have one of those jobs where I’m out in the heat all day. If anything, I have to carry a jacket because the A/C is too cold.

I once had an allergic reaction to atropine, but I was a tiny kid. It doesn’t bother me now, and for that, I am entirely grateful. Immodium AD doesn’t touch the flu… and if you’re thinking to yourself, “flu season is early this year,” you’re right- I’m only the second case they’ve seen at urgent care.

I posted this on Facebook, but I will reiterate it here; if you haven’t gotten your flu shot yet, let me warn you that Tamiflu is $144 with insurance. WITH INSURANCE. When the pharmacy clerk asked me if I was aware of this, I said, “I don’t care. It’s not like I can do without it.” And then I said a prayer for all the people that would absolutely freak out because they couldn’t afford it, and I know plenty of them.

I think it’s time to put on a movie and go back to bed. I cannot even anymore.

The Orioles game was a blast, as I thought it would be. We only lost by one run, which was ok because Boston lost as well in terms of standings… in terms of my heart, I will always be a Red Sox fan, because when I was younger, I heard a preacher say that they went to Harvard Divinity School and used to do their homework at the games, which to me looked like the perfect life. When I get to Howard, I will have to switch my allegiance to the Nationals if I want to do that… Walgreens hat included.

I do love baseball with a passion when I’m actually at the games. It’s one of the few games I understand… although I understand football a lot better now that I’ve binge-watched Friday Night Lights.

The problems came in when I got home from the game. I must have eaten something bad, because I didn’t drink any alcohol at all. I woke up in a stew of undesirable things, and just had to put towels down until morning, because I was too weak to carry all my sheets and blankets downstairs and into the wash. I haven’t felt this weak in years. I think I am dehydrated, and I have slammed water and one regular pineapple soda to replace sugar and salt. I stayed home from work yesterday, and even though it has been proven that bosses rarely believe you when you say you’re sick on a Friday, I guarantee that he wouldn’t have wanted to come to my house and check. The word “wreck” doesn’t even begin to cover it. These are the things that happen to single people, because there’s no one well in the house to help you out. I am not lamenting being coupled, just telling the truth of the matter. Being single only really sucks when you’re so sick you can’t get out of bed…. and you know you’re sick when you’re 39 and still only want your mommy.

I am still nauseous to an enormous degree, but I can’t seem to make myself throw up to get rid of whatever is ailing me. I think I will go to urgent care, because it started on Tuesday night, but it wasn’t bad enough to stay home until yesterday. In fact, it started after a pizza from Pizza Hut, and even if it had nothing to do with it and I have the flu or something, I doubt I will ever eat Pizza Hut again. If I did get worse from something at the game, it was nachos with fresh jalapenos, which are a thousand times hotter than pickled, and yet I ate several trying to calm down my sinuses because I didn’t have any Sudafed on me.

Whatever the case, I am not a little bit sick. I feel like death warmed over.

In other news, I got a “how are you doing?” from Hawkeye, and it made my day. I didn’t dump my sickness in her lap, just said “glad to hear from you.” I don’t know if she’s back in the US or writing from Germany, but either way, it lifted my spirits.

But not as much as thinking about urgent care and the possibility of some Zofran.

I should go. More on the flip side.

It is lunch time and I am sitting at my desk completely alert and looking forward to the day ahead. I am also really excited about tomorrow, because we’re going to Camden Yards to see the Orioles!!! I haven’t been to Camden Yards in 15 years, when I went with a group from XOM. Tomorrow will seriously be boss, because I’m riding with my favorite coworker and there will be plenty of time to talk while stuck in traffic on the way up. 95, BW Parkway… it doesn’t matter. We’re screwed. Might as well start a conversation and get lost in it as we inch toward Baltimore.

I love Baltimore with a passion, which is why it’s ridiculous I haven’t been back yet. The Inner Harbor is one of my favorite places on earth… although Alexandria and DC are both in the midst of trying to build on the Potomac like that. If you haven’t been to the Waterfront in DC, it’s worth the trip… especially if you knew what it looked like before. It’s beautiful now, because while Alexandria has always been tony, SE & SW DC have, in the past, looked like war-torn countries. Gentrification is driving down crime, but it is also making it impossible for the average person to live in DC. So I wonder where all those people went, but at the same time, it’s nice that those areas are safe(r).

I am alert and positive today because I went to bed last night around 8:30 and let myself sleep until 7:00. I needed it after staying up late the past few nights. I generally wind down about 9:00, but that doesn’t happen if I meet people after work, because I can’t meet earlier than 7:00 PM and construction often makes the traffic heavy even at night. I’m grateful for those experiences, but I also don’t like my schedule being thrown off to an enormous degree, so I choose my outings carefully. I probably won’t get home until 11:00 tomorrow night, but as you can see, it will be worth it. I would go to extraordinary lengths to see baseball in person. I don’t often watch it on TV unless the Astros or the Giants are playing, but I enjoy eating my way through every inning.

One of my coworkers says there is an amazing BBQ place in the ball park. Being a Texan, I will judge that for myself, because while Texas-style BBQ is my favorite, I also enjoy other styles. The only kind I haven’t tried is white, which I hear is fantastic.

I need BBQ in my life. It tastes like home… and while I do not have any plans or desires to return to Texas, I do like reminders of it. Besides, there are a TON of ex-pats here… UT grads, mostly… and a friend with whom I went to Clifton. So if I start to miss Texas, there are lots of people to help remind me of it…. and for my purposes, being reminded of it is enough. The people in charge of running that state are mostly idiots, and people who live there agree with me. Greg Abbot is just a stack of shit in a cheap suit, and how he got elected is beyond me. Probably due to a lot of fear-mongering.

Besides, I like choosing when I will be in Texas, so that I can avoid the heat. Houston is FABULOUS… in the winter.

I will go back when I feel like I have a safe enough distance from it. At the moment, all I can think of is how ridiculously hard my heart was broken there- two or three times, actually…. but not all my exes live in Texas.

Now that I’ve gotten that song stuck in your head, what else can I accomplish today?

Nothing worth as much as that.

In the interest of moving forward, I went out for Indian food with the woman from OKCupid, the one that works with deaf children. We chatted easily about music and work and all the stuff you do when you first meet someone. It was a pleasure to talk with someone who absolutely didn’t know me from Adam, except for the few things she’d read about me online. I didn’t feel a spark, but I rarely do on a first date. Attraction comes over time rather than being immediate. We didn’t make plans to get together again, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen later. I am just proud of myself for being willing to get out of my comfort zone and being willing to entertain the idea of continuing to branch out. I don’t think I realized how long it’s been since Dana and I broke up until I had to say it out loud. It was a moment where I really felt stuck in my own life, but it has not come at an enormous cost. I have needed it. I have needed time “not to surrender my loneliness so quickly,” in the words of Hafiz. You can rarely analyze by partying.

I’m walking a little taller today, if exhausted. As I mentioned yesterday, I am not feeling 100%, and I stayed up way too late for my taste… because of course, when I got home I had to think all the way through what had just happened. When do I not? She was kind, funny, easy on the eyes [;)].. everything I would’ve hoped for and more, but at the same time, the last few years have taken an enormous emotional toll on me and I waffle on whether I’m ready to be happy, let myself have that enormous dopamine rush of “new relationship,” and I don’t mean with her. I mean with anyone. Am I capable of letting go of the ways I’ve truly fucked up relationships in the past? Am I capable of healthy reactions? Am I capable of being the person I want to be instead of the person I’ve been?

Until I have those answers, all I can say is a solid “maybe.” Cognitive dissonance is not one of those things I avoid. I will see both sides of an issue until Jesus comes (look busy) if I have to. I am so conflicted over where I’ve been and where I’m going. The one thing I’m not conflicted about is knowing that I need to be more careful with other people’s hearts when they give them to me.

I’ve been way too tied up in ego, possibly for the first time in my life, as I have struggled with the balance between self-preservation and just being seen as a selfish dickhead for having too much. But in those moments, I live in Argo’s words of “looking inside yourself isn’t for sissies.”

No. No, it isn’t. It’s backbreaking emotional work every day. Those words make me walk taller as well, because I know that even though it’s hard, it’s worth it… and there is very little anyone can do to keep me from it. And perhaps that is why I am so ambivalent about letting someone new into my life as well, because what am I losing in that transaction? Mostly the ability to manage all of my own time. Meeting someone new in a romantic sense is not a goal at this point, because I am still wandering through the desert in isolation to try and come out on the other side with clarity about who I am and espousing the values to which I aspire and often fall short.

There will never be a time in which I am perfect; the hard truth is that no one has that luxury. But at the same time, I am willing to do more to be more later on. Leading by self-improvement is the lot in life of the INFJ- introspection is at the top of the food chain. But if I observe without actually changing anything about my mood and behavior, I am missing the point entirely.

Rock bottom was this realization… that I noticed, but couldn’t rise above the rage I was handing out. I think I’ve mellowed over time, unless someone comes along and knows just what buttons to push to get me to regress. I don’t want to lapse anymore. I want my eyes to be set firmly on the future and the possibility it holds, rather than being held hostage by all the feelings I couldn’t express and therefore, raged instead. It was a lot of protection mode, a barbed wire fence as not to let anyone get past my defense mechanisms, firmly in place over years and years of hiding pain… not unlike a wounded animal who walks in the world claws first.

The truth is that I have a large heart. I am only now learning to use it.

I think I’m coming down with something. Nothing hurts, but I can feel a cold coming on. You know, one of those annoyances rather than full-on “I have to stay in bed because I feel like if I don’t, I’ll actually die” kind of things? The kind where everything is weighted down by not actually being able to stay in bed and drink orange juice, because you’re just not sick enough? I think I’ll run to CVS this afternoon for some Sudafed, the real McCoy and not PE. PE works for everyday, but it won’t touch severe congestion and dripping. At least in MD, we don’t have a meth problem severe enough to require a prescription as they do in Oregon.

Alternatively, it feels better to be at work than to be at home. Nothing is going on that I’m trying to avoid, I just have less time to think about my own problems and more time to worry about things I can actually change. Today I walked one of my coworkers through a process that runs in DOS, and he told me that there were ways to automate it… working smarter instead of harder. #smallblessings

It’s amazing what a very small script can do. I am constantly fascinated by it.

Rumination ate my lunch yesterday, as I’m sure it did for many others. But today is new, and I am sitting in its promise. Today I may actually have some things to crow about rather than moo, which is my code with Aaron for bragging as opposed to ruminating. It works for us, our own emotional shorthand. We came up with it years ago and it still stands up.

Looking forward to Monday Night Football, because I’m not really that big a fan, but there are certain games I don’t want to miss. Tonight it’s Redskins vs. Steelers, and though I am equally divided on whether we’ll win or snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, it will be nice to have something to talk about tomorrow. My coworkers are rabid sports fans, and I do not like being left out of anything. I hate the name “Redskins,” but it won’t stop me from supporting the team itself. The team doesn’t have any control over what they’re named. The #rethink #rename campaign is big here, with angry people on both sides. It will be interesting to see how it plays out over time… although I can’t think of a name I’d rather see. Just as long as the graphic designers are smarter than the ones at MLB, who made the Nationals logo look like we all shop at Walgreens.

Which is why I root for the Orioles. Being a graphic design/font nerd, I can’t get over it. I should, but I won’t.

I got a great letter from a woman on OKCupid who works with deaf children. She said, “I like the way you think, and I like that you think.” So I got that goin’ for me. She told me that she looked at my profile and loved it, and I was like, “oh Lort. What did I say?” The only line I remember from it is that “no writer likes their own writing. It’s like having the same magazine in the bathroom for a year.” I also included my URL, so she’s checked out my blog. I reason that if you can make it through reading it and still want to meet me, it’s a great way of “separating the women from the girls.”

I am still ambivalent about dating, but it’s always nice to meet new people no matter the context, especially people who like my writing and “get me.” I want to be able to drop the Argo storyline, because her character says the same thing over and over. I call her a character because they’re my words about her and not representative of who she actually is. I am sure that she is star-spangled awesome, but I may never know for sure… and that’s ok. It has to be. I am certain I have done enough.

I pushed her away when I needed her more than less, my kindnesses waning instead of getting stronger. In retrospect, that was a terrible mistake, but not one in which I cannot bounce back. It’s just taking longer than I thought. It’s amazing how words get under my skin, and they slice into my heart to an enormous degree. She is every bit as verbally flexible as I am, and that was definitely part of her appeal.

But it is of no consequence now, and there’s no percentage in continuing to beat myself up over it. I feel very small and inadequate at times, strong and versatile in others. This is because it’s taking all the strength I can muster to walk away and mean it. I am trying to put all of the feelings I have about the whole situation into a closed box rather than one that constantly leaks and spills. There will never be a time in my life in which it is air and water tight, but we’ve both made it clear through thought, word, and deed that this is what needs to happen, and probably should’ve long ago. We have come to at least 700 natural denouements, neither of us unable to resist tweaking each other, trying to work it out and failing miserably. What I can do, though, is to realize that when it was good, it was really, really good, and when it was bad it was wicked… on both sides of the equation. That level of toxicity isn’t necessary for anyone.

She has seen me in both my best and worst moments, but it will still never be the same as if we’d ever seen each other’s faces, which I maintain would’ve cleared up a lot of unnecessary bullshit right away, because words couldn’t have run away with us in an operatic swell of emotion on the page. I am not my writer personality all the time, not as verbally flexible in person, not as willing to put myself out there, not as willing to open up unless asked. It would have been a different scenario altogether, and that’s on me. There was nothing stopping us at that time in our lives, and we should have made it happen. But hindsight is 20/20.

There’s nothing I can do now, and I doubt I’ll ever hear from her again, which again, has to be ok as much as I hate the thought of it… but most of the hate comes from not being able to own our own stuff and move forward without the spectres of who we used to be to each other, and how those experiences changed us.

For better or for worse.

I learned a lot of things from that experience, ones I will carry with me for a lifetime, because you forgive but have a much harder time forgetting.

My lack of being able to forget is probably why we’ve gone so many rounds, because I never wanted to ignore what happened or cover it up in cake and icing. But I think we’ve both owned what we needed to own, and now it’s my work to do, rather than ours.

I wish like hell we could have overcome those obstacles, but I was so broken at that time in my life that my words bit her too hard to contemplate actually wanting to look and see that brokenness in person and how it really didn’t represent the true depth and breadth of the lengths to which I would go to be that friend I couldn’t at that time in my life. Trying to survive the storm led me to places in myself I would never wish anyone to see, and yet it is all laid out for her in black and white.

What I can do is keep it from happening again, and the want is everything.

All the things, really.

Three hours and September 11th will be over for another year. I completely zoned out so I wouldn’t have to think about it. I watched “Zootopia” and “The Secret Life of Pets” and played video games. It’s not my first Sept. 11th here since moving back, but I think that every year the spirit of the entire city changes for the day as we reflect on what happened. No tears fell for me, but there was a pallor on the air I wanted to avoid entirely. It seems shitty and selfish, but I have enough grief in my life and to take on this, too? I am strong, but not unbreakable… but apparently, not strong to avoid it long enough to keep from writing about it before I go to sleep.

I am proud of myself that I did not let terrorism win. I was not afraid to move back into the city after all these years, when it was part of the reason I was so glad to leave. My thought process is that if I die in a terrorist attack, then so be it. In DC, I have the most advanced set of weaponry around me in the world, as well as the best intelligence, the best military, the best minds, period, working on the problem before I see it. If a terrorist can get through all of those levels and still get to me, then I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that everybody did what they could and there’s nothing I personally could have done to stop it. I mean, I could bite a few ankles, but that probably isn’t very helpful. Also not sure sending them a verbally vicious e-mail would help, either, but that’s the skillset I’m workin’ with…. ankles and e-mail. Really must update my resume.

I took my sleeping medication long ago, but it hasn’t kicked in yet. Waiting for the joy of sleep to come, knowing that when it does, it will be deep and even. Tonight is not a night to dream unless I can direct it. Perhaps I will sit on the beach with all my friends, a roaring fire between us even though it’s 77 degrees outside… in my dream I can bump it down, maybe add a cold breeze to accent the flames licking the sky.

I am regretting not going to the beach this weekend, because I think it would have been a good break. But perhaps I will take off for Rehoboth or Ocean City in the next few weeks, so that it’s cool but not unpleasantly so. It can only get so cold outside before I am begging to go in. Matthew used to call me “Leslie No-Blood” because I was constantly complaining about the lack of blood in my fingers and toes. This is somewhat abated by lacing my Chucks tightly and wearing thick gloves, but still. Lack of body fat means that I am the first person to start shivering, but I try not to complain. I love being outside when I’m dressed for it, and the first few days of snow I tend to overdress and sweat profusely, especially when I go inside and the heaters are set right below hell.

I’m patiently waiting for the snow to arrive, because I look so cute in sweaters taking pictures of the trees is my favorite thing.

Tomorrow is a busy day, but I don’t know what I’m doing after work. Thankfully, though, it will be the 12th.

So there’s that.

Here are the readings for this Sunday.

The title is a cross reference, coming from Mark 9:23-25, but speaks to today’s Epistle. The author, speaking in the spirit of Paul, proclaims that the strength that he has been given because God judged him worthy is worth more than continuing in his unbelief because in it, he gets redemption and therefore freedom from what he has done wrong.

I hate confessional sermons, because I believe that they tend to focus on the author/speaker more than they focus on God or The Christ… and as I have said before, I choose to focus on the light of God instead of the light of me. But there is one paragraph in this letter that stands out as representative of the mission on this web site:

I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners– of whom I am the foremost. But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life.

The author puts it out there that no one is a better sinner than he is… and whether it is true or not (it’s not, because everyone does things they’re not proud of… even me), he is willing to put himself out there and talk about the grace of God by showing his own flaws and failures first. I would like to think that if the light of Christ shines in me, it is because I am willing to put out my own flaws and failures on the page, and hope it resonates in others. I am not the classic evangelist, because I believe that true salvation comes with recognizing the things about yourself that need changing, and that doesn’t come exclusively to Christians who believe in eternal life. That peace comes exclusively to anyone who asks, no matter how. Maybe you receive it from talking to yourself, and I believe that’s how the spirit of God emerges, anyway……. whether you believe there’s “someone else up there we could talk to” or not.

Resurrection, grace, mercy, and peace are yours even if you’re an atheist… those ideas just come from different places than they do for me- but the function of them is the same. To one friend I’m thinking of, I said, “it worries me that you don’t pray. With as much as you’ve got on your plate, there has to be room for a still, small voice somewhere.” She told me that she runs as a form of meditation, and I said “ok, that’s perfect. I’m not worried about the faith, just the function.” Because when we focus on fear and doubt, that’s how we live our lives. When we ask for peace and redemption, we do likewise. Life imitates art and art imitates life and we live in the reflection of both.

For instance, if I am irritable and cranky, or up to my eyeballs in grief, so is my writing and preaching. If I am tied up in the promises that God has to offer, peace comes to me on the page. When I read over my own words, those moods return to me, often tenfold, and I am letting life imitate what I’m putting out into the world…. so my light and darkness is directed where I choose.

So if I want to live in light, I have to write it down to reinforce its efficacy.

I have to live like the author of Timothy, who chooses to direct his light toward giving others the same peace he has inside himself… to use the ways God has changed him so that he is living the example and not just preaching it.

When I was a kid, Lindsay was awed by one of my dad’s sermons. After church was over, she went up to my dad and said, “Daaad… was that really true or were you just preachin?'” Lindsay’s words come to me every time I sit down to write. What is “just preachin,” and what am I doing to really live my own words instead of just saying them? What am I doing to further the Christ’s light through me, rather than directing it around me, instead?

Directing light around us happens all the time when we give others grace and peace but won’t allow ourselves to drink from it. We are more apt, in the idea of the Gospel, to search for lost sheep than we are to exorcise the demons that reside inside…. because other people’s problems are so much easier to solve than our own. This is because with others’ problems, we don’t have an emotional attachment to them. We can see with more clarity the solution because we are not stuck inside it.

Light is directed around us, rather than through.

This is not a bad thing, because we all rejoice when lost sheep are found. We are happy to see friends getting the blessings they so richly deserve… but do not always think we are worthy of them, as well.

There is an old trope in medicine- “definition of major surgery… mine.” I am using this saying to illustrate that, like the author of Timothy, we are more apt to think that our own sins are so much worse than everyone else’s. Again, though, this is not a bad thing. It shows compassion for others and a willingness to see past our own egos. At the same time, though, what are we losing by giving blessings to everyone but us?

This is the 15th anniversary of the day when we poured out our emotions for the victims of the Sept. 11th attacks on New York City, Arlington, and Stonycreek Township. Their loved ones were our “lost sheep,” and our hearts went out to them.

I, like many others, had to get over the idea of “competitive suffering.” Surely I, having heard the attacks happen and living in the terror of the sights and sounds afterward, suffered more than the people living in the heart of the Midwest. Those moments were among my most selfish, angry, and bitter. However, I failed to take into account that nearly everyone I met had some deep connection to the story. Everyone in the US, including foreigners who just happened to be traveling in the US at the time, suffered a great loss. There were no winners and losers, only broken hearts as far as the eye could see.

Some Christians fall prey to this every Sunday by thinking that Jesus on the cross suffered more than the victims of Auschwitz-Birkenau…. or the countless people needlessly slaughtered by Pol Pot… Idi Amin… Saddam Hussein… Slobodan Milošević… Vladimir Putin…. or by thinking that people are suffering from the lack of Christ in their lives and trying to help them see that Christ is the only way to receive the blessings with which we’ve been endowed… that they have suffered more because of the lack of Christ in their lives than we have.

We see these people as our own lost sheep, and when we invite them to church and they are moved by it, take it as a personal victory because we’re the ones that got them there. In those moments, light is directed around us and not through us because we see ourselves as their saviors, and not the one who really is.

We also fill up on light at church, the moments where we are all vulnerable and open… but do not carry it with us because for whatever reason, it wanes as if a candle has been blown out. We see ourselves as one when we are all in the same room, but that does not translate to forgiveness of ourselves when we are alone in our own rooms… because in our quietest moments are when our sins start to show themselves as so much worse.

What would it look like if we could carry light past the door of the church, into the doors of our homes?

What would it look like if we didn’t see the church as the building, but the collective body of the people gathered there?

What would it look like if we continually examined the light as flowing through us, rather than directed around us?

What would it look like if we weathered the storm within us before trying to throw out life preservers into the storms around us so that the people enmeshed in distress knew we were strong enough to take it?

My guess is that it would look a lot like the spirit of Paul.

Amen
#prayingonthespaces

When Asher, my Maine Coon, was alive, Dana and I used to call her “the princess who lived on the stereo,” because we had an old stereo sitting on the floor and Asher would crouch on it as if it was her personal dais…. And now I wait as my new car stereo is installed in Eggsy. I just wanted to upgrade to Bluetooth in the car so that I could talk while I drive to fit in with all the other seemingly schizophrenic drivers in MD. I don’t have much time to talk except when I’m driving, so it will add a lot to my life in terms of having more time to bug Lindsay.

We actually talk a lot when she’s on the way to stuff, too.

She’s the little sister I look up to, because she’s amazing and smart and, last but not least, taller than me.

Today is my 39th birthday, and it’s scary to think that in exactly one year, I will be 40… not because 40 is scary. It’s that I will have four entire decades to look back over… knowing that 1-10 has practically faded away. So far, the hardest bar none has been 10-20, because 10 was when I began to struggle with my sexuality, two years later I met Diane Syrcle, and at 17, I actually had my first real, live girlfriend…. which was amazing and also difficult if you know the climate of Houston towards gay people in 1995.

After high school, things got better, but it really wasn’t until I moved to DC that I started escaping all my Texas demons. The thing about having a birthday on Sept. 10th is that the best day leads to the worst day… and yes, I have read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I’ve also seen the movie. As always, the book was better.

The thing about having a birthday on Sept. 10th in DC (technically, Alexandria, VA) is celebrating and waking up to terror. Yes, terrorism, but my own personal terror because I heard it. I HEARD IT. The house resounded with vibration, and then the fighter jets started flying over my house. There was no relief from that kind of sound for days, not knowing if Kathleen and I were safe or not. In effect, it wiped out a lot of good birthday feelings, because at my birthday dinner, I ate some bad clams and got food poisoning. I wasn’t even supposed to be home that day, but I was throwing up my toenails. I worked in Fairfax, at 495 and Gallows Rd. It was a fluke of enormous proportions that I heard it at all. And then I was home by myself until Kathleen arrived, the secondmost scary time of my life, because even though I was close enough to hear a terrorist attack, I wasn’t personally as invested in it as I’ve been enmeshed in grief these last two birthdays.

Losing innocence was bad. Losing Dana & Argo at the same time was worse, because not only did it happen to me, in a lot of ways, I ensured it. So my actions during that time bother me a lot more than my reactions to what I perceive they did to me.

But today is a day of celebration, so I do not have any more to say about that.

I do not have any plans with anyone but myself today, because I didn’t plan anything in advance and Thursday was birthday enough. I didn’t plan anything for today on purpose, because honestly, I like hanging out with me. I’m a lot of fun. Besides, if I go places alone, I am much more apt to talk to strangers, which is the potential for new friends to one day become old ones. So perhaps I will go to a restaurant with a bar so I can sit next to other “parties of one.” It’s my birthday- it may be a Dogfish Head kind of evening… though just one, because I have to get up for church in the AM and more than one means wasting a whole day mired in migraine. I’m already feeling one coming on because I had chocolate for breakfast…. #adulting.

In fact, I had Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies courtesy of my mom, who included them in a giant care package. I haven’t had Thin Mints in years. They remind me of someone very dear to me that I’d loved and lost, so I’d put them away in the memory box of her that lives in my head. Today I realized that all triggers aren’t bad. Sometimes being triggered into a memory of someone is great.

It’s a holiday.

Or it should be.

Something is blooming, and I am just the right kind of dumbass that forgot to take her Zyrtec for the last week, so I have no immunity to it. So today I remembered my medication because *I* was blooming. I will probably stop on the way to the office and get some Sudafed PE. I also took some Excedrin migraine to stop the swelling/pain in my “mask” and get some much-needed caffeine on board.

In other news, because the word “mask” reminded me, I didn’t go to choir last night. My therapist and I decided together that it wasn’t worth it, for a multitude of reasons. It will be worth it in the future, but for right now, it’s a rat’s nest of triggers to be avoided entirely. This is because if you know Diane and me at all, you know that music is a huge reminder of all that has happened, and it makes me go into fight or flight. There are certain pieces where I cannot breathe all the way down and I break out in a cold sweat. It becomes an out and out panic attack which comes on whether I’ve taken Klonopin or not. Anxiety that severe isn’t worth that much of my time every week. So, I don’t know if anyone from my church is reading, but if they are, don’t take it personally. I told Sam, my accompanist, that I’d love to collaborate with her on some solo stuff (because I have control over what’s sung). She excitedly said yes, so I’ll give you a heads up when the pieces are ready.

Ron asked me once if I minded if he showed up. I don’t mind if all my readers show up at once. Come on in. The gate is swung wide. I go to Christ Congregational Church at Indian Spring & Colesville. It’s always nice to have friendly faces in the crowd, and I’d like to think I’m worth it. Judge for yourself…… The piece I’ve linked to is the one I’m proudest of, but at the same time, I’d like another shot at it because I was so sick that day… again with allergies and congestion so bad that I woke up with complete laryngitis and sat in the shower for 45 minutes until I could talk again. In light of that, it is the most perfect recording for which I could have asked.

I sang it as a solo in the 9:00 service, and at 11:00, I introduced the choir. At 9:00, I blew the roof off the place and all my adrenaline ran out at once. I was still good at 11:00, but it was a moment of “shit. I still have one more service to do and all I want is to go home.” My favorite comment on that solo comes from The Divine Mrs. B, who said that I should have an oboe player follow me wherever I go. I also remember Dana’s mom grabbing me and saying, “that VOICE! Where did it come from?” Years and years of hard work, mostly. Joseph Painter was the one whose voice lessons opened me up to that caliber, and I thank him wholeheartedly.

I love doing solo stuff, but my favorite is being in a quartet. As a soprano, I’m kind of “lead trumpet player” of the group, and in this piece, I am in the antiphonal quartet in the balcony.

And on that note (see what I did there?), it’s time to leave for the office. I wish Jim Halpert was there. 😛

My beautiful and handsome (genderfluid) friend Dan is home from Moscow, so tonight we met up to talk about it and to celebrate my birthday. She asked me what I wanted a few weeks ago, and I said, “a t-shirt from Russia, because we’re the same size. I know if you try it on, it’ll fit.” She forgot to bring it, which worked out great for me, because we have another get together planned in the next few weeks. Autumn and her friend Lisa met us as we were finishing up our check and we walked to a gelato store. I had mascarpone and red velvet, because of course I did.

As we caught up on our lives, I told her that the spice in the food was making me feel so much better because I could breathe again. She said she was a “medium spicy” person, and I said that I’ve gotten where I cannot take the heat anymore because my stomach can’t take it, and that’s when I realized that “middle aged” was a thing.

That became the running joke of the night…. “and that’s when I realized… middle aged was a thing.” Danni said that she was 34, and she knew that her 34th birthday was a slow crawl to 35. I said that it was a very pivotal year for me, because that’s when I realized middle aged was a thing. Except we said the last part at the same time. 😉

Danni’s birthday is in December, a fire sign to match her strawberry blonde hair. You’d never guess she was even in her 30s. Me, you get close enough, you see wrinkles. Not so much with her. But we both talked about how you can’t really see it unless you’re getting your hair cut, but there’s more grey than there used to be… and that’s when we realized middle aged was a thing.

I had so much fun bumming around Old Town Alex with them, because on my way home I was looking for a gas station and I found Union Street Public House, home of one of the best meals of my life. It was osso bucco, cooked to perfection, and a glass of red to go with it.

I don’t know if they still offer it, or even if the food is as good now as it used to be, but I promise that I am not exaggerating what it was like then. Kathleen and I stopped in on a lark, and we ended up going there many times, and I always got the same thing. I am not usually that person, but I was there.

I was thinking, “I wish I had remembered this restaurant before we’d eaten….” It would have been fun to take Danni to one of my old haunts. As it was, though, we had a ton of fun eating red curry with fried tofu. Because you know what makes tofu delicious? Throwing it in the deep fryer… because as a Texan, I’m pretty much convinced that’s how you improve anything.

It was a night of great laughter, just glad to have my buddy back in town. I have a feeling we have more to say, which is why I’m glad we’re getting together again. Long conversations are my jam, and when we came to a point in the conversation where we clearly just could have Googled it, we both consciously decided not to, because neither of us wanted to fall into the rabbit hole of noticing missed calls, texts, etc.

That came back to bite us because Autumn and Lisa tried to tell us they were coming, but it worked out. They walked in at the perfect moment…. dessert.

After dessert, it was time to come home.

And that’s how I know middle aged is a thing.

I got sidetracked this morning by cool internet videos, so I’m back at lunch to M&M the post I wrote last night (Mortality and Morbidity, not the candy. :P). An M&M is a debriefing when a patient dies at a hospital, covering what happened and when and why.

I was already emotionally crispy when I read the article about the 14-year-old girl enmeshed in an abusive relationship for five years with an adult. It started before she could vote, before she could drive, before she could drink… and still, the article about her mentions nothing about statutory rape. Her mother and her best friend even condoned the relationship because they met the abuser and liked him.

Now THERE’S a shocker. An abuser was charming in the beginning. I think I’m going to have a heart attack and die of NOT SURPRISED.

All abusers are charming in the beginning, using a technique called “lovebombing.” Once they’ve gotten you totally suckered in by their enormous shower of affection, they start treating you badly because you deserve it. You’re so needy… and you have this habit of having feelings about things.

In an adult/adult relationship, it’s not always one person doing it to the other. Hurt people hurt people, and if both sides of the equation come from less than ideal childhood, the relationship becomes a tumbling, rolling mess of sunshine and chill… the words I always use for alternately lovebombing and gaslighting each other. All arguments boil down to this:

It’s YOUR fault.
No, it’s YOUR fault.
Go to hell.
Fuck off… ad nauseam until one of us dies.

It takes an ENORMOUS amount of work to fix that dynamic, and some people never do. I can only hope that I am fixing it by naming it.

Severely and with self-compassion all at once.

[Editor’s Note: The staff wishes to apologize for that run-on. We are being sacked.]

With an adult/child relationship, the child is too vulnerable to know the tactics used by an abuser and as they grow, generally either shut down or give so much of themselves that there’s nothing left in terms of self-preservation. None of the people I’ve met so far fall in the middle of the spectrum.

I do, now… because my personalities are in the process of fusing together after years and years of thinking I wasn’t enough… leading me to hurt myself and others with my actions and reactions. In so many ways, it was accidental. In others, it wasn’t. This is because sometimes I was self-aware and sometimes I was oblivious. When I was self-aware, I was in fierce protection mode, and nothing could deter me from it. When I wasn’t, I was stomping on others’ emotions because that’s what I knew to do, not how I saw myself or how I wanted to relate to the world.

I just realized that was in past tense, and realistically, I’m not sure that anyone ever fully recovers from emotional abuse. The main thing is that we all keep trying. We all have these epiphanies that drive us forward, but that is for people paying attention to them. Not becoming self-aware is perpetuating the cycle with no hope for redemption.

And, to paraphrase Elizabeth Gilbert, “I don’t know any story of self-actualization that doesn’t begin with getting tired of your own bullshit.”

Yesterday, I realized that on this blog I’d given up my mission- to destroy abuse itself and not just what resided in my own mind. To put myself out there in hopes of people recognizing patterns in their own behavior without coming across as a “judgmental dickhead” (still laughing about that one, Argo).

Dana: Did she really say that?
Leslie: Yes… Why? Do you like her BETTER now?
Dana: [huge conspiratorial smile]

(still laughing about that one, Dana)

I feel that an “I showed you mine” approach is better than coming at it like a professor smiling down from above. If there’s anything that Jesus has taught me, it’s to get in the shit with people and not lord things over them (see what I did there?). Build a community by sitting down while all y’all are standing up.

(Jill, Lindsay… see what I did there?)

Lunchtime over.

Lanagan out.

[Editor’s Note: The new staff wishes to apologize for paraphrasing Ryan Seacrest. We are also being sacked.]

This is my theme for today. I will be stumbling upon everything, because I am fried. I didn’t fall asleep until 0300 after writing last night’s post. Adrenaline and cortisol swirled in me to create wild-eyed rage, and all I could do was sit there. I didn’t want to accidentally unleash crazy spatter on anyone, so I played games and watched Hulu instead. And by accidentally, I mean that I didn’t want to enter into any conversation in which I got irrationally pissed off because I was angry about something else.

Been there, bought the t-shirt AND the baseball cap.

So as I sat there and zoned out, waiting for manageable calm, I did find a web show I liked called “Forever 31.” Look for the first episode after the jump.

OMG Iliza reminds me so much of Bryn it HURTS… not in terms of life experience. Literally, like in speech patterns.

And honestly, I was going to write more, but I found an interview with Iliza and I stopped everything and watched it. More later. 😛

---

This article made the drop of nothing in my soul scream. It’s about a 14-year-old girl who stays with a 21-year-old man for five years, and nowhere does it talk about rape.

It’s not a relationship.

It’s rape.

It’s child abuse.

It’s letting someone get away with it by pretending both of those things are false.

These are the moments where I feel the smallest, because I can’t do anything to give that kid her childhood back. I can’t slay her dragon. But what I can do is write about it here, and hope that the next parent will see it. If you have a 14-year-old daughter that’s dating an adult, you have the responsibility to end the relationship. You have the right to monitor phone calls, e-mail, all social media, the mail. You have the RIGHT TO PARENT. It isn’t invasive. Your kids are not your equal, do not have the life experience you do, do not see why their relationship just isn’t.

They’ll call you all sorts of names and try every trick in the book to get back into their abuser’s circle of influence. They’ll lie, cheat, and steal if they have to. Talking an abused child out of a relationship like this will be constant vigilance and very, very difficult. Abusers always seem AMAZING at first. To your child, they’ll be the only one in color in a world of greys and whites. It will feel like jailing your child, and they will need it. Because they’re children.

And no matter when you notice it, even if you catch it early, early on, the first step is a psych consult, because your child will not know what to do with all the dopamine and adrenaline coursing through their bodies. They won’t be able to deal with the cognitive dissonance of sunshine and chill, often at extremely short intervals.

They’ll grow up into dysfunctioning adults, and I can promise you that. I’ve lived it, and because of that, I’ve met others in droves. We ALL HAVE THE SAME STORY.

Let me make it clear that Diane never touched me, not even once, but I would have died before I let anyone know what I was going through. Mentally, I was a basketcase and I’d brought it all upon myself. I thought no one needed to help me because it wasn’t their fault- they didn’t need to be burdened with my problems. But not telling made me an adult that regrets a lot of the choices I’ve made in my life, because I stuffed down every negative emotion I felt as a teen and just vomited them everywhere when I finally accepted what had really happened to me and got the fuck out. It only took 25 years. Don’t let that be your child’s story. Don’t let it last a minute longer than it does.

The echoes reverberate even now, and it will last my whole life if I let it. I am actively working with a therapist and still, there are days when I cannot even… and it can be traced to all the dead spots in my soul where appropriate emotional growth was supposed to occur and didn’t.

The drop of nothing those dead spots created make it impossible for me not to think about what I would do to this guy if I found him. Let me assure you that Quentin Tarantino has nothing on me, because revenge feels so good in my head. They are thoughts, not actions. I use my faith to keep me grounded and walk toward that light, because I know my propensity for darkness and I do not like it.

If I let darkness win, I walk in it instead. My eyes go dead, and my mind is empty of emotions, because they’ve been put away. Every sociopathic tendency I’ve picked up over my lifetime starts to show, because sociopathy is rarely nature, but nurture. You exhibit what is modeled.

If you are lucky, you will have friends that know your history and will forgive you. If you are not, you will alienate everyone… both in the process of trying not to hurt or be hurt by someone else. You will react to emotional violence by trying to shield yourself from it, going to extraordinary lengths to protect yourself, and worse yet, actively hurting others because you don’t know what the normal response might be.

Don’t think it starts in middle school. There are sick fucks out there that will rape a toddler, which is even more insidious because the victim doesn’t remember the trauma that caused the dead spots to grow, they’ve just compounded the hurt for years and years in “inexplicable” behaviors. There’s always an explanation, even if you don’t know what it is.

If your child won’t talk to you, find someone they will open up to because they may not be able to talk to you, as painful as it might be to hear. They don’t want to hurt you, and they’ll do anything to protect their abuser. Bank on it. Write it down.

Don’t let your kid be me. I know myself well enough not to wish that pain on them. It’s not that I’m not a good person, or that I don’t have that capability. It’s that in a lot of situations, my reactions are completely fucked up because what I would do and what a regular person would do are totally different.

One of the reasons that you have to be so “monstrous” to your kids, because they’ll believe that you taking their abuser from them is the worst thing that could happen, is that abusers often have fascinating layers of insulation around them… including the child they’re abusing.

I’ve hurt so many people, intentionally and not, with the rewired reactions of an emotionally abused child that grew up to emotionally abuse others. I’ve intentionally picked relationships with other abused children because their actions/reactions have been just as fucked up as mine, creating a world of toxicity and pain, both romantic and not.

It is totally by the grace of God that I was delivered from my distress, and up to me to figure out what to do with it… how to move forward, how to release demons, how to apologize sincerely and change my behavior so that my reactions are again rewired into normalcy. But it is not a fast process, especially because I wouldn’t talk then. I grew up into an adult that still wouldn’t talk about it, and it took someone scratching the scab to open Pandora’s Box.

The hardest part is now that it’s open, I have to figure out a way to close it again… because the last thing I want is to spend another day thinking this way. Of being capable of bringing darkness into the world when all I want to carry is light.

Right now, the best I can do is to constantly keep watch. Light is always in one of my hands. I’m trying to carry it in both.

Today is just one of those “I’m up… what more can you ask of me?” kind of days. Nothing hurts, but the wrong side of the bed is an understatement. I will get over it, I always do. But I have an emotional hangover from yesterday. Yesterday, I was flooding out, which is just exhausting. I did sleep well, though… so perhaps this “get off my lawn” feeling will pass quickly. I’m having a caffeine pill and a large glass of water, which will kick in about the time I finish this post.

On the plus side, I fixed my computer and got a USB keyboard for my desk, so I really feel like I am back in business. The charger was hideously expensive, but it has adapters for both my home and work laptops, as well as any laptop I might buy in the future. The instructions pissed me off enormously. The instructions said that in order to find the right adapter for your laptop, go to this URL. OK, genius. Great logic. My laptop is dead and you want me to go to a URL? How does that happen? I mean, I have my phone and everything, but what if you don’t? In the end, I didn’t bother with the URL. I just tried them until I found it, which was the second attempt. Not bad. But sub-par documentation is irritating at best to a computer geek like me. Some of us don’t even RTFM (read the fucking manual), but documentation is generally not written for our audience… I’m just an empath, and feel for the millions of people who are lost and confused by the box part and the TV part.

I’m getting excited for my birthday, because my presents are usually gadgets. Last year it was the iPad mini and the Bluetooth keyboard, which are friggin’ awesome because they make my backpack so much lighter… more necessary then than now, because I was walking everywhere… but even now, I appreciate the fact that I can turn an iPad mini into a functioning laptop on the go. This year, I asked for an Android phone so I could get out of iTunes and use my phone natively in linux. I think I’m going to get it. 🙂

The other thing about Android phones is that they generally come with expansion slots up to 128 GB, which is so awesome. Even if I can’t move my apps to it, I can still carry movies and music on my phone so that I don’t have to use my data connection for it… which ultimately saves money because no overages streaming in the car. Also, some Android phones have a radio, using your headphones as the antenna. NPR, bitches. N. P. R.

I’m still bitter about the firing of Bob Edwards and Linda Wertheimer from Morning Edition. Maybe I should get over it. Or not. At the time, I was so angry that I literally sent a “fuck you” letter to the station over ageism, because that’s sincerely what it was… even reported that way in the news, which is so illegal it hurts.

Maybe I’ve been feeling a little “get off my lawn” for longer than I think. 😛

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

I think it’s time for another round of Accutane. My face will naturally get better once the air cools, but at the same time, my oil glands are starting to grow back in from being destroyed the first time around. The side effects are extraordinarily unpleasant, but it’s another one of those drugs where you have to make a choice. With lamotrigine, it was nauseous or crazy. With Accutane, it’s clear skin or aches and pains all over, and constantly moisturizing. Not the easiest decision in the world, but I know that if I don’t take care of my skin, the acne will become systemic and therefore, harder and harder to get rid of it.

We’ve got to nip it in the bud (Barney Fife voice).

There are five days left in my 38th year, and I am not sure that the best part has happened yet. It hasn’t been bad by any means, but the old sports phrase “it’s a rebuilding year” is completely accurate.

I’ve found friends and lost them.

I’ve gained pounds and lost them.

I’ve gained perspectives and lost them.

This directly correlates to weight. If something is particularly troubling to me, I stop eating. Once I am comfortable again, food is spectacular. It is the thing that I’ve been dealing with the most this year, because when I lose weight, I look like a lost and frightened child. People tell me that they would kill to be as small as I am, having no idea that I have body issues (just like everyone else) and it hurts to hear positive reinforcement for absolutely starving myself when I am troubled by my own mind. If I were doing it on purpose, I could find a way to stop. But I am so focused on mind issues that body issues fall by the wayside. I don’t lose weight because I’m trying. I lose weight because I’ve stopped.

The thing I’ve gained and not lost is a true sense of home. I am a Virgo, tied to setting in an enormous way, and DC feeds my soul… the part of me that is awed by politics, the military, the press, and the law. I never thought I’d get the chance to move back, and though it didn’t happen this year, the true settling in has occurred. The roots that were once superficial are deep into the ground. I am rising above survival into thriving.

Some days.

On others, I am inconsolably lonely at all I have lost. Yes, still. I miss Dana and Argo both specifically and not… meaning that I miss them personally and their roles, which to me are both jointly and severally. I miss sending Argo a quick note to say goodnight and then either falling into my bed or Dana’s… and on the nights when I fell into my bed, knowing that Dana was down the hall and there would just be this explosion of joy in the morning at seeing her again. A few hours of absence only created a deep need to see her, so excited I’d jump on her and kiss her even when she was asleep (I cannot tell you how amused I was at her sometimes fake, sometimes real grumpiness at this). Now I fall asleep to memories of all of it… comforting and unsettling all at once. It is sometimes unbearable to know that you loved someone more than yourself and yet, didn’t show it where they could see it.

I am learning, and this year is proof positive.

I spent hours today reading my own writing, trying to figure out what the theme of my year was since I didn’t have one of SarahAnne’s stars to tell me. I’ve told this story before, but it freaked Dana and me out that no one knew we’d gone to the OB/GYN to talk about pregnancy and my star that year was “Expect.”

Every year at Epiphany, stars are (or were, haven’t been there in years) given out with one word to encompass everything. Expect could mean anything, but that year was a doozy.

This year has been a haze of time, malleable in my mind because it is only through timestamps on my blog that I can remember what happened when. I can remember the tiniest details of an experience, but order is not one of them. The closest I can get is what the sun looked like that day, or what was in the air.

This year, the word in the air has been “Look.” Being curious cost me nothing and everything. I lost an enormous amount of grief by being able to sit in a setting where everything felt present, alive, full of possibility… only to come home and realize I’d solved nothing at all.

I am grateful for all the things that will ultimately pull me forward later that dragged me back today… all the things I have

gained

and

lost.