When I was in high school, I wanted to be in the Air Force. I had no idea what being a soldier would entail, but a jazz band called “The Airmen of Note” came to HSPVA and blew my mind. I think the words “hot damn” came out of my mouth more than once, especially when the trumpet players were up in the stratosphere. I talked to a recruiter for about an hour on the phone, explaining my medical condition (monocular vision), and the hour ended abruptly. They wouldn’t take me, and I was never going to be an Airman of Note unless Jesus came down and spat on my eyes. I remember the conversation like it was yesterday, because I had a million questions before they got to the part about how I wasn’t fit for duty.

As I said, I had no idea what being a soldier entailed, and I wanted to find out before I signed on the dotted line. The gist is that it would take a long time to work up to being in the jazz band, because I’d have to become a soldier, first.

I was maybe 15 at the time, and of course, at  15, you think you’re going to live forever and you can do anything under the right circumstances. I didn’t have a problem with scary or violent. It just came with the territory.

Many of my classmates went on to join the military, and as they rose in rank, they became something that I wished I could be, but wasn’t. They became guardians and gladiators in the same breath. The ones willing to rush toward danger when I couldn’t, willing to put themselves in harm’s way just to keep me safe, and I never forget that fact.

They get to see a chessboard that most Americans aren’t even aware we’re on, much less able to see the pieces move. Russian bishops and Iranian rooks and African queens and on and on and on and on. As we go through the drive through at Starbucks, as we watch our iPhones for every piece of e-mail and Facebook notification, as we go to church and work and school, they’re out there… and out there is as nebulous a place to me as it is to many others.

It is in these moments I have nowhere to go but gratitude. When it didn’t happen all that often, I’d see a soldier in uniform at the airport and my eyes would water with tears. I would struggle to hold them back as I went up to them and said, “thank you for your service,” or “thank you for your sacrifice.” Now that I’m in DC, I see uniformed soldiers all the time, and the tears have dried up but the gratitude has gotten deeper. There have been times where I’ve walked up and down the Metro stop, shaking each soldier’s hand.

There’s been one time I’ve completely lost my shit in public, though. Just snot and tears running down my face and I COULD NOT EVEN. It was the military float in the DC pride parade, one soldier from each branch and all the flags. I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t move. I was just thinking about what it must have been like before.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was a crock of shit as witch hunts continued to take fine men and women from the careers they deserved, sometimes even when they weren’t gay to begin with. Back then, and I know this because a soldier told me, a straight guy was caught in a gay bar hanging out with friends and “gay by association” was close enough for government work.

We’ve come such a long way since that phone call when I was 15. They didn’t ask, and I didn’t tell. However, I do not have to wonder what my life would have been like had my eyes not kept me out of my precious jazz band. My friends have filled me in more than once, a painful education no matter who was talking.

Being a soldier is tough shit, straight or gay. I’ve heard stories that curled my hair, straightened it, and curled it again. You don’t come away from stories like that without being changed, hopefully for the better because it moves one to act instead of just shaking hands.

When I was younger, I had a soldier friend in need and called in reinforcements to give him Christmas. I could have just shaken his hand, but I knew too much. Service and sacrifice were daily words with a depth of meaning that we, as mere mortals, could never understand.

I don’t always agree with the Commander in Chief, and you don’t have to, either. But my take on it is that boots on the ground deserve all we can give them, because we’re not talking about The Powers That Be.™ We’re talking about people who sign on the dotted line as boys and become men on the job. We’re talking about women who, despite all odds, have overcome incredible obstacles just to be thought of as equal.

I hear their stories, and sometimes I cry. You have to let pain out somehow, and as salty, bitter water drips down my cheeks the only thing I want is to be able to take that pain away, not for me, but for them. You just come to a point of helplessness because there’s nothing you can say that will do it.

Except, perhaps, to listen…. and at the end, say simply, “thank you.”

I found this sermon in my Google Docs folder, and wanted to put it here for safe keeping.

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(singing in Gregorian-style chant)

The law of the LORD is perfect
and revives the soul;
the testimony of the LORD is sure
and gives wisdom to the innocent.

In ages past, Psalms were sung rather than spoken. This is because elders in all religions discovered that if they gave their congregations melodies to put with them, it was easier to remember. The practice is not limited to the Abrahamic religions, however. Surviving from the 3rd century BC is a collection of six Hellenistic hymns written by the Alexandrian poet, Callimachus. It is an astounding discovery in the modern era that these ideas, the ones that occurred organically in those days, are now at the forefront in the healing arts.

Doctors are unsure of the complete explanation as to why, but over the years, several theories have been examined. Dr. Paul Broca, whose research was publicized in the 1880’s, is most famous for his discovery of the speech production center of the brain, now called “Broca’s area.” He arrived at this discovery by studying the brains of aphasic patients- persons with speech and language disorders resulting from brain injury. He was most focused on a small area in the frontal lobe, which he discovered aided in the sequencing and rhythm of words. Another part of the cerebral cortex, Wernicke’s area, discovered by Dr. Karl Wernicke, is responsible for creating pathways to understanding the meaning of words.

This is all technical information that boils down to a simple idea. Music literally makes the two areas of the brain work together, forming deeper neurological pathways. Religious leaders learned that before science. People remember music because they are, quite literally, wired that way. Music therapists have long discovered that if either area of the brain is damaged, the other one will compensate, creating new neural pathways to restore the brain to normal… and sometimes, the easiest way to jump start that process is by singing.

Think about it. How many of you could recite the words to your favorite song, completely out of context? Yet when you’re driving in your car, listening to Journey, all of the sudden you know every word to Don’t Stop Believin’?

Or when you’re walking along, and the soundtrack to your life starts playing in your brain. All of the sudden, you can remember every word to Twisted Whistle’s cover of Gin & Juice. [Note: The lead singer of Twisted Whistle was in the congregation that day and I sang her version in this small bit.] If you’re like me, you’ll forget where you are and all of the sudden, with so much drama in the LBC, it’s kinda hard bein’ Snoop D Oh-h Double G. Somehow-w some way… It’s the same for Snoop Dogg’s version. Rap gets under your skin not because of the melody, but because of the rhythm and sequence of words.

Bet you never thought you’d hear Snoop Dogg quoted in a sermon.

You’re welcome.

No one is a better example of the strides in this research than Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona congresswoman. After a major gunshot wound, she traveled to my hometown of Houston, where one of the most advanced clinics of neurological rehabilitation resides.

From the time she was wounded until the time she could speak full sentences was about nine months. One of the reasons she made such incredible progress was due to the use of music in her therapy. She couldn’t recite the words to songs like “Happy Birthday,” but because she was familiar with the rhythm and sequence of the music, when she started to sing, the words came to her easily.

It is at this point we are ready to study the letter of James. He writes:

Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up.

In order to research this sermon more fully, I turned to the Biblical criticism of theologian William Barclay:

Here we have set out before us dominant characteristics of the early church. It was a singing church; the early Christians were always ready to burst into song. Christians speak to each other in psalms and hymns and spirituals; singing with thankfulness in their hearts to God.

James, meet Paul Broca. Paul Broca, meet James.

SINGING ALLOWS THE BRAIN TO CREATE DEEPER NEURAL NETWORKS, WHICH LEADS TO A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF THE MATERIAL.

Singing to God is literally understanding God.

This higher consciousness, this reaching for the divine, is a gift that only humans have. Apes may have a special fondness for God in their hearts, but they will never sing about it. That’s because Broca’s area is nowhere to be found in their brains. This ability for sequence and rhythm supporting comprehension is only found in us.

When you think about it that way, it just becomes more and more apparent how great a blessing music is to the life of a church. And while music is gaining more and more ground in physical rehab, it has long been a voice in the emotional healing of a family, a community, a plantation:

If you get there before I do
Coming for to carry me home
Tell all my friends I’m coming too
Coming for to carry me home

Easy to remember codified instructions set to music. If you get to the plantation before me, and can only take some of the slaves, tell everyone else that I’m coming for them. In short, be ready. You never know when I’m going to show up, and when I do, your bags have to be packed.

Your sandals have to be on your feet. And there is no turning back.

Be. Ready. At. All. Times.

Harriet Tubman led over 70 slaves to freedom with Paul Broca’s help. She may never have read a single word of his research, but she understood the content. Put a melody to the words and people are more likely to remember it, critical because nowhere was it safe to write them down.

So what’s the take-home message here? What does this have to do with modern day life in Portland, Oregon?

(singing in Gregorian-style chant)

God can break into our lives at any moment;
Always be ready for a miracle.
If you are in pain, in body or mind,
Call upon me in song.

Amen.

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The intro to the sermon was taken from that day’s Psalm. The outro was written by me.

On Sunday, I volunteered with the youth group for the first time. I’d met Rev. Susannah at worship that morning (yes, I made it, thanks for asking) and told her I’d be there that night.

It was amazing how self-conscious I was about the way I was dressed. I wore my “Jesus Loves You” t-shirt as a joke, not realizing they wouldn’t get it (too young to have seen “Say Anything”), and I was wearing sneakers, but about half the kids were wearing Chuck Taylors and I thought to myself, “DAMNIT! I knew I should have worn my Chucks.” I wanted to fit in, not because I was trying to recapture my youth, but because I wanted to be relatable to the kids. I was shy and awkward until I realized I was one of the adults in the room… but that came into play later, when I was in charge of the high-schoolers.

At 5:30, we all ate tacos together, and then broke up into small groups so that we could put things we wanted to go into the covenant for the CCC youth group as a whole. I went up to the Rev. and asked her which group she’d like me to take, and she said, “you can either take the senior high or the junior high girls.” Since I’d been a high school Sunday School teacher before, I chose them. They’re kind of my favorite, because even though I’m good with any age, I haven’t forgotten what it was like to be in high school myself. It’s also a little bit easier for me to relate to people who are on the cusp of adulthood. I make jokes they might actually get… except for my “Jesus Loves You” shirt, apparently. Plus, junior high was so large that they divided up into boys and girls, while senior high was small, so it was coed.

The covenant is basically the set of rules we agree to live by in youth group, and we all had to come up with ideas that would then be taken all together and compiled into one list. My kids were great, but I was also proud of myself. I kept them from wandering too far with the conversation, saying “come on guys, focus” when I needed to and offered helpful suggestions, like, “have we covered drugs and alcohol? Have we covered cell phones?” Later on, I heard one of the parents say to Rev. Susannah that she loved how the senior high had come up with a framework, and I smiled to myself.

I’d known I’d be a good youth director, and getting to work with the senior high and hearing that feedback reinforced my belief. I also knew that I’d made the right move by volunteering, because even though I’m not getting paid, I am still earning street cred, and at this point, that’s worth more than money. Rev. Susannah is also her own blessing. I love that when I told her that I wanted to spend some time with her, actually get to know her, that she agreed. We’re going to go for coffee soon, and I can’t wait.

It is right now that I am learning the things I need to be able to fly solo, and I couldn’t have chosen a better group of kids with which to spend that time. One of these days, I’ll have my own youth group, and my own covenant with them. Right now it is enough for me to help Rev. Susannah create the group she wants to lead. Right now it is enough to ask, “what do you want me to do?” Learning how I can best serve now is learning how I can best lead later.

But next week, I am totally wearing my Chucks.

Following the social upheaval of World War II, many people in the United States felt a fervent desire to “restore the prewar social order and hold off the forces of change,” according to historian Barry Adam.

Spurred by the national emphasis on anti-communism, Senator Joseph McCarthy conducted hearings searching for communists in the U.S. government, the U.S. Army, and other government-funded agencies and institutions, leading to a national paranoia.

Anarchists, communists, and other people deemed un-American and subversive were considered security risks. Homosexuals were included in this list by the U.S. State Department in 1950, on the theory that they were prone to blackmail. Under Secretary of State James E. Webb noted in a report, “It is generally believed that those who engage in overt acts of perversion lack the emotional stability of normal persons.”

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Up until the night of the police raid there was never any trouble there,” she said. “The homosexuals minded their own business and never bothered a soul. There were never any fights or hollering, or anything like that. They just wanted to be left alone. I don’t know what they did inside, but that’s their business. I was never in there myself. It was just awful when the police came. It was like a swarm of hornets attacking a bunch of butterflies.

-Shirley Evans, neighbor to the Stonewall Inn

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Homosexuality is, in fact, a mental illness which has reached epidemiological proportions.

-Charles Socarides, noted educator and author regarding “homosexual behavior.”

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We really did it, but we were going to pay.

-bystander to Stonewall Riots

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Sometimes, pride is hard. Gathering pride hurts. Gathering pride hurts because the pieces you’re trying to quilt are small and fraying. Sometimes, it seems like pride is gone. And that is when we come to you, O God. When our pride is broken, our spirits are weak, and our bodies are weighted with fatigue.

If you’ve been keeping up with me on Facebook, you know that last night at about 9:00 I posted a status update:

Why did I agree to preach Gay Pride Sunday? I don’t know anything about gay people!

Now, we all know that’s not true, but how in the world do you condense “Gay Pride” into one sermon? We’re headed for the parade as soon as church is over and this is like a three hour endeavor all by itself!

As I was telling Martina last night, preaching “Gay Pride Sunday” is kind of like being asked to do a sermon on The Bible. Are there any parameters here? Can I buy a vowel? It reminds me of the associate pastor who gets up in front of the congregation for his first sermon. It’s great! They laugh, they cry, they take up offering. Preacher is on top of the world because his first sermon is such a raging success. Monday morning, the associate preacher takes his Bible to the senior pastor and says, “that was great! Got any other books?”

Gay Pride is too big for one sermon.

I also joked with everyone that I was going to come out dressed as Boy George. I said Boy George specifically because my dad is straight as an arrow, and in the 80s, he told his MYF group (Kristan, what does it stand for?) that he had booked him.

So my dad goes on for weeks and weeks about how Boy George is going to come and visit the youth group at our church. It is at this point, ladies and gentlemen, that I began to completely fall apart laughing while I was writing this.

So, the night arrives, right? The kids are waiting. They’re out of their minds excited when BOY GEORGE starts coming down the stairs into the fellowship hall. My mother has done exquisite makeup. Flawless. My father’s face is completely powdered white. He has black liquid eyeliner perfectly drawn and dried so there are no lumps. His mascara is perfect.

My sister used to have this puffy doll face with long, long braids made out of yarn so she’d have a place to put all her barrettes, right? So, picture this.

My dad has taken the puffy doll face and laid it flat upon his head so that the yarn braids with all the multicolored plastic kiddie barrettes are falling to his shoulders. He puts on a Boy George style hat and wears one of our family quilts whose majority color is pink draped over his shoulder.

The kids are laughing so hard they can barely breathe because this is the associate pastor of the church in drag and they’ve rarely seen him in anything but a suit and tie, or in his robes during worship.

So if you’ve ever seen the movie …But I’m a Cheerleader, congregation, That. Is. My. Root.

I love that joke. I could only make it in front of a GLBT audience and have them start rolling on the floor. Thank you, thank you for feeding my ego. As a cook, I work with people younger than some pairs of my pants. It’s important to me that, on days like this, you all are here to remind me that I’m only 10 or 15 years older than your average line cook, and for me, pride is being able to tell these jokes without you reacting as if I am Methuselah. Because I’m not. Dana is.

No, seriously. All kidding aside, my dad is one of the first people to ever teach me about pride, even though he didn’t know I was gay at the time (or did he?). Pride, he taught me, is the systematic willingness to be yourself.

I think that’s worth a second look.

Pride is the systematic willingness to be yourself.

• Pride is knowing that you have to be yourself whether the law wants you to be or not.
• Pride is knowing that your mind and your heart bring something to the world that no one else ever can or ever will.
• Pride is knowing that the Gospels of Christ are meant for you in the same way that they are meant for everyone else.
• Pride is knowing that the Gospels of Christ are still meant for you even when someone else tells you they’re not.

It is interesting that today’s Epistle to the Galatians we talk about the law in just this respect. At issue in the new church is whether Gentile Christians must keep certain Jewish practices to remain Christian. It is a bit like what the Jews and Muslims of Spain experienced during the 15th century, as Muslim Spain gave way to Catholic Spain. Those who remained often “converted” to save their lives, but didn’t give up their original faith.

Paul says this isn’t right. He is a Jew, but righteousness doesn’t come by way of keeping the Law – for Jews or Gentiles. Instead, it comes by way of the faithfulness of Jesus, who lives with us and works through us. Before Christ freed us with his own covenant, there was no pride in spirituality. Spirituality was by the book. Spirituality was “27 8×10 color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence” (If you get that reference, you’re allowed to react like I’m Methuselah, because obviously we are professional colleagues).

It is here that we can do a little bit of rabbinical exegesis, which is a cool phrase for “we’re going to study this in-depth for a second.”

There’s this new Internet video going around that I will absolutely not show you in church because it’s filthy called “Samesies.” The premise for the skit is that it’s an early tribe of people (most probably Biblical, but not necessarily) who have no idea what sex is or really, what it does. What they have noticed, however, is that when they do “samesies,” no people come out.

It is an hilarious demonstration of Talmudic law. The leader of the tribe decides that they will do “opposites” so that they can grow the tribe, which is what binds Gay Pride with our Scripture for this morning… as absolutely freaking unlikely as that sounds.

Talmudic law prohibits every kind of sex that does not try to further the life of the tribe. Any sex that does not lead to procreation is forbidden. However, with Seven BILLION people on the planet, our need to “further the tribe” is not as dire as it once was. It is a law that is no longer useful to us as a society, but I do not base my response on science alone.

Paul tells the Galatians that this upholding of these type laws isn’t right. He is a Jew, but righteousness doesn’t come by way of keeping the Law – for Jews or Gentiles.

Instead, it comes by way of the faithfulness of Jesus.

The faithfulness of Jesus?

What does that mean?

How are those two things different, the laws and the faith of Jesus?

When you were a baby queer (and I apologize if that word offends you- I am only trying to be absolutely inclusive), were there rules?

Come on. Stay with me. You know what I mean- you have worn that place on your skin; there are rules to being gay. What are they?

• You can’t be fat if you’re male
  • Magazines tell our men that they are not skinny enough, that the bodies they have are less than perfect even when the scale doesn’t lie and neither does the mirror. Everything is in the right place and nearly flawless but you believe the article that says you only need three or four hundred calories a day to function.
• You can’t be too femme if you’re female
  • Well, technically, you can be as femme as you want if you’re in a relationship. I have never seen a woman successfully pull off the blonde cheerleader look with any success while single, though, because no one will actually think you’re a lesbian in that kind of outfit.
• You can’t be poor
  • Gay culture tells us that spending money on toys, clothes, and cars is your ticket to being fabulous. Your house has to be a beautiful memory picture. You max out your credit trying to understand the rules of being up and coming, fashion forward, and whatever else the industry tells you to make raging debt look attractive.
• You can’t be sober
  • We all know it and we cannot avoid this truth. Our culture started in bars. Going to the bars was a rule of being gay.

Lucky for us, this last one is changing as gay becomes mainstream and the need for utmost secrecy has dissipated. In very few places do we literally have to look over our shoulders for gay bashers. Never let us forget, though, that when we had no place to meet, no place to be ourselves in public, bar owners took us in and gave us shelter. Very few of them were even gay. Some of them were even run by the mafia. I don’t say this to scare you, just to impress upon you how awful a situation it must have been to be gay in the ’50s and ’60s if running to the mafia was the safest choice.

Even advancing in time, there are just so many rules.

As for myself, I carried a picture of the woman I loved in my math book, and I had a very strict schedule as to how I would look at it. I think I only allowed myself 2 peeks a day, and actually felt very angry with myself if I cheated. My rules were important to me because I thought they were helping me to hide the fact that I am gay. I have always been gay and it takes hindsight to see just how ridiculous it sounds. But I had rules, and I followed them.

We give our rules away when we realize we are carrying them around for the sake of “that’s how it’s always been done” and not because they are helping us to achieve any particular goal. It’s deciding when they aren’t useful anymore and getting rid of them that’s the hard part.

As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5, the old is passed away, the new has come. It is a call for reconciliation so that Jews and Gentiles might live together as one body, both reconciled through Christ. Ultimately, this is a call to participate in Christ’s own faithfulness, by allowing him to live in and through us. It is also an invitation to throw out the rules, and live in the love- apart from sexuality or any other constraint that takes the focus off our humanness.

As Carolynne Hitter Brown puts it:

All work toward social justice, then, is based on the principle that Christ lives in us. As we strive for reform, we do so in a manner that loves and respects others, believing all people are called to covenant with God through God’s grace. So throw out the rules.

We’ve all heard of those churches where there’s no dancing, there’s no music, there’s no laughter… no pride. We’ve all heard of those churches where hiding your light under a bushel was the safest option at the time… even if the church itself is completely safe and it’s your own mind stirring up trouble.

When I was 12 years old, I saw someone for the first time… at my church. If you’ve ever had a romantic feeling ever in your life, you know what I mean. She was the one for whom time stood still, the only one in color in a room full of gray. She was so stunningly gorgeous that, at first, I forgot to notice that she was female. In fact, I forgot to notice she was female until I realized that I wanted my lips to touch hers… and that girls didn’t do that with other girls.

It was a trap. I knew that my lips were supposed to kiss girl lips. I also knew that since I was female, this might be considered, well, a problem. For starters, this girl was on my radar. There wasn’t a way that we wouldn’t run into each other. I had to find a way to ration out feelings, because to leak out too much was to “show.”

I didn’t want to love my girl because I thought I would “show.”

No pride that day.

When I was fourteen years old, I told a girl in my class that I liked her. She took me into a practice room in the instrumental music department and yelled at me until her voice was hoarse. Then, her friend came up to me and said that the girl I liked was now throwing up in the bathroom because I’d told her I liked her and she was straight.

No pride that day.

When I was fourteen years old, the girl I liked in the instrumental music department told everyone in my entire grade that I was gay. When the bell rang at lunch, several people with Bibles marched over to my table at lunch and started a dramatic reading of all the Scripture that would damn me to hell.

No pride that day.

When I was 18 years old, my girlfriend and I kissed in the dark, arms around each other, windows steaming… until she had to go and meet the boy her parents thought she was dating.

No pride that day.

We all have these moments. We all have these flaws and insecurities that pop up all day, every day, and we listen to them. We listen to the moments in which our minds tell us that it’s ok not to be proud of ourselves. It’s ok to treat ourselves like crap, because hey! Everybody else is doing it.

If we wait long enough, the domino reaction is that everyone’s brokenness collides. Pain meets pain and pride meets pride so that pieces of both are inextricably interrelated, scattered on the floor in no particular order… just as are we,
gentle souls, flung to the corners of the earth, complete pictures of pride and pain walking upright on solid ground. You are the complete picture of pride and pain, flung to the four corners of the earth. You are the reconciliation of the laws of the old testament and the loving Christ of the new. You are what God holds in God’s own hand and calls you perfect by name. Rejection of the law and acceptance of Christ to heal all the ills of the world.

And may we all say it together:

We’ve all got pride today.
Amen.

My sister introduced me to a web site called “Thumbtack,” where you can basically hang out your shingle and get into business quickly. Mine is computer instruction, because there are plenty of little old ladies that have no idea how to use an iPhone in my zip code. I also put that I can lock down routers, because in my neighborhood, there are an alarming amount of homes with no security at all. I’ve got a profile up, and paid the money for a background check. However, what I did not know going in is that if you get a text message regarding a job, you have to buy credits in order to be able to answer them. For instance, if someone says, “I need an admin assistant,” to reply is 3 credits. 30 credits is $35.00, but I didn’t pay it (at least not yet), because the admin assistant position has gone off on my phone four different times, all from different people, and talks about package delivery in Vermont that can be done via e-mail. I believe it is spam, because never in my lifetime have I been able to lift a 50-lb box using only the power of my typing skills.

I also never have to worry about a background check. I once worked in an airport as a line cook in a pub. If I can pass that one, I can pass any of them. As you can imagine, airports are quite strict about who can be there every day.

The other thing I’m working on is tremendously difficult, but not because it’s beyond my capabilities. It’s just methodical and time-consuming, a mountain of work for what hopefully is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I signed up with a web site called Udemy, which is similar to Blackboard or WebCT, and making a basic linux class. The copy for it flows naturally. The hard part is recording my desktop. The David Attenborough part comes later (is there, in fact, any nature video not narrated by David Attenborough?). “So you see the cursor in its natural habitat, about to strike the submit button…”

It’s going to be a series of at least ten videos, because I don’t just want to demo linux. I want to be able to show people that you can get an operating system and a full set of software for free dollars. It’s not just about having a linux desktop and knowing shell commands, although that’s part of it. It’s being able to tell people that you don’t have to pay exorbitant sums of money for Microsoft Office, PhotoShop, Norton AntiVirus, etc… and you especially do not have to go to Best Buy just to get software to backup DVDs and Blu-Rays.

When I walk into a software aisle, it literally makes me sick, because manufacturers are releasing products that have a pretty box and it costs money so it must be better… and in fact, the more money it costs, the better quality it must be.

I will probably create a separate course for LibreOffice all on its own, because the ways to create formulas in Calc and format paragraphs in Writer are just enough different to make an inexperienced user’s eyebrows go over their foreheads. I am surprised at the number of people who cannot wrap their brains around software just because it looks different, but has the same functionality.

But then again, I wouldn’t make any money if people actually read manuals and tried to learn software on their own. It’s just little things that surprise me, like the upgrade from Office 2003 to Office 2007. The ribbon wasn’t introduced until later, so the products looked basically identical and people were still frozen in fear.

In fact, one of the reasons that LibreOffice is so popular is that it looks a lot like Office 2007 and people who still can’t use the ribbon have a word processor again. Because I’m not mean, I’ll also tell people how to install Microsoft Office on their linux machines. This is because sometimes documents do not translate from one suite to another as easily as LibreOffice says they do… but I do not view this as a drawback because Microsoft Office documents won’t stay together formatting-wise in different versions of *itself.*

In terms of my personal preferences, if no one else has to edit the document, I print to PDF. That’s because I’m a font nerd, and I want my resume (or whatever) to look the way it did on my screen. If I don’t, it will end up as Arial and Times New Roman (most likely). I like to branch out a little, and if the font isn’t installed on the receiver’s computer, it will be replaced with something else.

Did you know that? If you didn’t, here’s a free sample of what I can teach you if you hire me.

Have SmartCard, will travel.

My sister was into Girls for a while, and when she’s into something, I generally check it out because she’s cooler than me. I binged a little bit of it when I split my tooth down the middle and had some time on my hands due to the Tylenol 3. I watched a little more last night because I went to get a new temporary crown (the first one broke, so they gave me a stronger one), and the benzocaine topical anesthetic made me a little loopy. I think they may have given me a little too much, because I was, as my family calls it, “duh-headed,” for several hours afterward… but not duh-headed enough not to realize that I’m not afraid  of much of anything except Hannah Horvath.

I am old enough now that I would not make the conversational faux pas of asking her editor’s widow if she knew the name of a new editor because her book had been shelved, but I did see myself in her egocentric world and her complete downward spiral… although, for me, it was a warning and not shared experience. Yes, I thought about killing myself, and got down far enough that I realized something must be done about it or I would succeed.

And to tell the truth, I didn’t notice. Argo did. She just put it succinctly (as she does, and I love her for it) that I needed to help myself, and it was good advice. I don’t think I would have responded as easily to people trying to hospitalize me as I did to someone just saying “figure it out.” No one would have tried to hospitalize me, because I never would have let anyone know how much I was suffering. It was something I had to do on my own, because I had to prove to myself that I was worthy of getting better.

I say that it was not a shared experience because Hannah’s mental illness manifested itself differently than mine, but it was no less traumatic watching it on TV. It was a warning to watch myself as I continue writing, because I believe that there is a correlation between telling your own story and how it affects one’s brain. You, in a sense, spend part of your day living in the memories that cause you pain and trying to turn them into something if not beautiful, at least thought-provoking.

It also hurts that when people I know accuse me of revisionist history, they’re not remembering that I’m going to have different memories than they do. OF COURSE they’re going to have different stories than me, because their stories are their own, as well. Using Diane, Dana, Argo, and Aaron as examples because I talk about them the most, if you read what they thought about me, some things would line up perfectly and some would seem like stories from a different planet. There are so many levels to communication and memory which come into play during stories.

I also think that when they hold the mirror up to my face in the same way I do with them, sometimes I don’t like what I see, either. But it’s not my story to tell. It’s theirs. They have as much emotional room as I do, and I take nothing away from it, although I have not been as gracious about it in the past as I am now. I needed to calm the fuck down, first. Because of my PTSD, I was living my life as this big ball of id, my ego and superego underdeveloped because of the trauma I experienced as a teen.

Sarah (my therapist) and Leighton (my nurse practitioner) are helping me in a way that I’ve never experienced, because I’ve never had enough money to have both kinds of therapy at the same time on a consistent basis. Medicaid is slowly and clearly saving my life, not that it is still in danger, but because I have been failing to thrive. Every day was a battle of will to put on the mask and let go of my emotional background so that I could think logically through practical things.

It has been a job all on its own to adult. My old tapes rendered me into a puddle on the floor, my mind struggling to accept that I didn’t have time to think about them, because it was indeed a skill. In dealing with trauma, it’s a fight to keep moving on.

Watching Hannah deal with her own insecurities in some ways gave me tools. In others, it gave me nightmares. I don’t want to be so insular that I don’t notice the world around me… and yet, it’s my job. If I want to keep writing, I need to notice the world to have something to write about. If I want to keep having friends and loved ones, I cannot be so wrapped up in myself that it seems like I don’t care, when in reality there are times that I take on their problems more than my own. I do care, deeply, but sometimes showing it is hard when I am driven and focused to the point that I can’t see anything around me but what’s on my computer screen, staring back at me.

My biggest fear is a blank page, and I combat it daily. I attack it with gusto, because in healing, there is no way you’re going to come to this web site and get platitudes. You’re never going to hear me say “just snap out of it.” You’re never going to hear me say, “God has a plan for your life if you’ll only tap into it.” God doesn’t have a plan for shit. Divinity is reaching up for the mystical, but I do not believe that it works the other way around. Many people think that doing good works is what gets you into heaven. No, doing good works is what brings heaven to you. I do not believe in fear-based theology, that if you stray one little bit from what the Bible tells you, it means that you are going to burn in hell.

I believe that if you stray from the things that the mystical and divine are trying to tell you, you bring hell to you. God doesn’t happen to you. God just is. What you do with it is up to you.

It works the same way for Atheists. It doesn’t take belief in God to realize that if you are making bad decisions for your life, you are creating your own hell. It doesn’t take belief in a deity to know that when you put good into the world, it comes back to you.

The bottom line is that Christianity needs to stop focusing on the afterlife, because it does not take death to go to heaven or hell. We have heaven and hell right here. Why wait? Why “store up your treasures in heaven” hoping that the next life will be fruitful when you have the ability to make this one powerful?

I hold myself to higher standards than you can possibly imagine, which is why it’s so hard to watch myself fail. For a long time, I didn’t realize why I couldn’t get it right, especially in relationship with myself. Finding out that trauma wires the brain differently helped to an enormous degree, not to have an excuse, but an explanation.

I write so much because I believe in the power of context. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Not only do I have to own my role in relationships, I am a product of my own circumstances as well. I do not see cognitive dissonance in believing both. There are things I can control, and there are things I can’t. The journey of this life, the creation of heaven and hell for myself, is realizing what those things are and how to tell the difference.

I can’t control everything, and I cannot give in to the temptation that comes with not controlling anything. When I try to control everything, life bites me. When I control nothing, life owns me instead of being able to create my own reality. Control of nothing is a central theme of abuse, as is trying to control everything, and each path is its own hell because there is no balance. No give and take.

Watching Hannah try to navigate life by focusing only on herself was watching the consequences of taking without any give, because she wasn’t attuned to it. The best she could do was mutual weirdness.

I tried to control my life in a major way this weekend, and it failed. There was no balance between preaching on this web site and being responsible for showing up at CCC. I worked on my sermon until 6:00 AM, and told myself that I could watch TV until it was time to go to church, because I can ususally do that. Because I didn’t feel good anyway (this cold is hanging on), I fell asleep and didn’t wake up in time for choir or church. I worked on this web site for St. James and let a whole bunch of people down, because we were singing something high and difficult and I could do it in a way that the other sopranos couldn’t, not because they’re not good singers, but because I am more practiced at it than they are. It takes an amazing amount of work to keep a sectional high B flat in tune, and we had it when I was there on Thursday.

I don’t know what happened on Sunday, and it weighs on me because I wasn’t there to know. I was so driven in working on me that I dropped out of being a team player. It was a secondary injury, because the primary injury was thinking I could control not sleeping until I got home from church the next day.

And in terms of my sermon, I Monday-morning quarterbacked and realized that I could have said a million different things that could have had more impact, and then I realized that the scriptures I was working on would come around again in three years, so that sermon is done. 🙂

Small comfort for a big mistake, though. I lost control of myself at a time when I really didn’t want to. Because I was so sleep-deprived, there was no amount of caffeine that helped, because I took a caffeine pill and had a cup of tea while I was watching TV and didn’t go to church, anyway.

I created my own hell when I could have created my own heaven- getting enough sleep to wake up early before church and finish my own sermon before I went to choir. I thought I was being selfless in trying to get out my sermon before Matt’s, which I always try to do so that if anyone from my church reads this web site, they know that my ideas are my own and not something I picked up and decided to use it.

In the end, though, selfless became selfish. Watching “Girls” showed me in HD the ways I was capable of it. I didn’t show up… and showing up is how both heaven and hell happen in an instant…… whether you’re trying to control it or not.

My instinct as an abused person is that the more I let them down, the less they will want or need me and I become more insular. The battle is to keep breathing, and find ways to create the balance that Hannah could not. But at least she scared me into keeping up the trying and not so much with the isolating.

It’s wrong to think of hell as a place to go when you die. Hell is isolation into your own head, because you can drive yourself crazy better than anyone else.

I saw it on TV.

I met Brian O’Leary at GLOBAL (which I think stands for Gay, Lesbian, or Bisexual Alliance; it’s been too many years for me to really retain that kind of information.) He and his partner, George, had moved from Boston after George graduated from Harvard with his MBA. He was traveling the world because at the time, he was a consultant for McKinzie & Co. While he was gone, we partied at their house, thus the picture for George to enjoy while we drank at his house without him. It is one of my fondest memories of college, because not only was I crazy in love with the girl holding the small G, I’d been chatting online with the guy holding the capital G, who’d just moved from Ohio after attending Oberlin conservatory and wanted to know more about GLOBAL before he attended his first meeting. It was love at first e-mail, since my high school girlfriend was Canadian and Giles is from Nova Scotia. He was also a vocal performance major, and that also won him accolades in the new friend department. It is interesting to note that all three of us are now living in the DC area, although Kathleen and I are still estranged.

Whether that’s good or bad, I really don’t know. But what I do know is that when Brian posted this picture on Facebook, I saw it this morning and was filled with gratitude at the reminiscence of it all.

Giles and I are both much smaller than we were in this picture. We’ve both lost a lot of weight, and now Giles looks like a model while I look like a 7th grader (except for the wrinkles around my eyes, which is the BEST part about getting glasses). Case in point: my roommate, Samantha, smokes Marlboro Lights, and I agreed to buy her a pack if she would just drive me around for a day because it was much cheaper than Uber. I got carded and the clerk nearly fell on the floor when he saw my birth date. It’s the little things in life. It really is.

But back to the party at hand. I was in a happy-go-lucky mood, and I really enjoyed hanging out with the GLOBAL crew, as well as getting to meet some of Brian and George’s other friends. Additionally, the house was gorgeous, with sumptuous chairs and what looked like a professional decorator had their way with them. Turns out, it was all Brian all the time. He did a wonderful job of making the house look modern and comfortable all at the same time. It made me jealous that even as a college student, Brian knew how to adult LIKE A BOSS. He also knew (knows) how to be a gracious host and a fine mixologist, meaning that he put everything out on the table and let us experiment.

The thing I remember most about that party is it was the time before social anxiety, one where I could just relax and start up conversations with everyone without feeling all self-conscious and like it was time to go home 15 minutes after I got there. Shortly afterward was when Kathleen and I moved, which was really the start of my downward decline into Friday and Saturday night Netflix and pajamas, or books and cookies with hot tea. Now I throw parties with me as my own guest, the kind where I only have to put on pants if I want to……. the exception being if you’re coming over to have Netflix and kettle corn or read with me in companionable silence. 😛

And, of course, if you come on Friday, it’s pizza night. That is beauty in and of itself, because I know my way around pizza. If you don’t like what I pick, we’ll order two.

Thanks to Humibid, Pseudophed, and ibuprofen, my cold has not gotten any worse… but I’m not better yet, either. To top it all off, today is the first day of my period. I just feel like crap all over. Seriously, body. Thanks for that…. although it does explain why, two days ago, I ate half a pan pizza all by myself. Then, the next day, I ate the rest of it. During PMS, it’s the only time I am truly hungry. My body just says, “EAT ALL THE THINGS.” The rest of the time, I am content with very small meals and a granola bar every now and again.

I need to go to the grocery store (still), because I am running out of things to eat AND I still don’t have any cough medicine. It’s time to up my game. When I truly have a cough, I skip right from Robitussin to Delsym, which I believe is actually the better choice. It also comes in my two favorite flavors, orange and grape. When I’m on Delsym, it really does work as well as codeine, except that sometimes codeine works better at night. We’ll see how it goes. My GP wants to see me back in two weeks, but if my cough gets any worse, I may go back earlier and get a prescription for the codeine version of cough syrup. It makes me sick to my stomach, but it’s worth it when I’m asleep and can’t feel the nausea, anyway.

Speaking of nausea, and I’ve had a lot of it over my lifetime, my favorite remedy in the world is ginger Altoids or Gosling’s ginger beer. Gosling’s is the best ginger beer on the planet, because it gets real. It’s hot and spicy, amazing straight out of the fridge as not to water it down with ice. I’ve been on Lamictal for almost ten years now, and one of the manufacturers of the generic included an ingredient that made me feel pregnant all the time. I called it the “blue diamond of death.” I also carried ginger Altoids in my bag to avoid throwing it back up, thus my nausea recommendation above. Haribo also makes an amazing lemon-ginger gummy that works just as well if you can find them- they’re pretty rare as children don’t like them much (they burn with the hotness).

Now that my pharmacy has a different manufacturer, I don’t get that ever-present nausea anymore, because the “blue diamond of death” has been replaced by a white, round pill with no side effects at all. I am a simple woman. It doesn’t take much to impress me, but this certainly did. It improved my quality of life by quite a bit.

As of right now, I am sitting in bed with my iPad and Bluetooth keyboard, with a roll of toilet paper (I don’t have any Kleenex, either.) and a trash bag next to my bed so I don’t have wads of toilet paper all over my room. Yesterday, I was in full-on nesting mode, what Dana and I used to call “lose the egg” day. My room is spotless except for the full laundry baskets filled with clothes I need to wash and put away. In order to motivate myself, I am listening to a channel I created on Spotify called “The Real Slim Lady.” It’s everything that Eminem has ever put out.

Don’t judge me. The Slim Shady albums (both I and II) are AMAZING. “Headlights” on SSII brings me to tears every time, especially if you’ve seen “8 Mile.” I have therapy at 4:00, plus some worksheets I need to finish before then. There are certain “homework assignments” that my Medicaid requires to make sure I’m progressing in the right direction. It’s the “gangsta rap and handle it” approach this AM… although I don’ think Em is really gangsta because there’s so much pop mixed in. I may need to switch to Mike Jones later in the afternoon to make sure I’ve got it “all sewed up.” Sarah will be so glad to hear about my job interview, even though I didn’t get the job. I can’t wait to tell her all about it. Afterward, I think I will go to the liquor store and treat myself to a six-pack of Gosling’s. It makes me feel wird to go to a liquor store just to buy soda, but I haven’t found a grocery store that carries it.

The last time I went to buy it, one of the other customers asked me what it was good for. I told her there were two excellent cocktails she could make- Kraken and ginger or Old Overholt and ginger. Rye and ginger carries so much weight in my heart, because I’d never heard of it before I went to Ottawa and hung out with Meag. Apparently it is not popular in the U.S., but one of the best cocktails I have ever put in my mouth. It was another Canadian that introduced me to Old Overholt, a friend invited to “orphan Thanksgiving” at Susan & Diane’s. It has a great price point, about $17 a bottle and tastes much better (to me, anyway) than anything much more expensive… the exception that I don’t have any because I don’t drink much anymore. I’m just over it. My taste buds have changed, with the exception that I was so nervous during a date I drank more than I should’ve and suffered the consequences.

Being two years away from 40 makes hangovers not even worth it, especially since I don’t enjoy alcohol much anymore. For instance, Dom gave me a 12-pack of Tecate left over from one of his parties, and that was in June. There are still six left. It doesn’t matter- I am so up for fun and shenanigans that people think I must be drunk, anyway.

There are two things that began changing my taste buds. The first is that I do not enjoy drinking in front of people in recovery, and I have a lot of friends who have suffered with addiction.  The second thing is that I would rather make caffeine my drug of choice, because it makes the evening last longer. I remember going to clubs and karaoke with recovering friends in Portland. The first time I came home wired for sound because the bar gave free refills to designated drivers, and I must have had, like, seven Diet Cokes. The second time, the bar sold Monster.

Mission accomplished.

My favorite energy drink is Rock Star Recovery. I am sure it is supposed to be for the seriously hung over, because it has B vitamins in it. But it is delicious beyond belief. Most convenience stores carry the lemonade, but the orangeade seems to come straight from heaven. The grapeade is good, too, and so is the coconut water.

When I worked at the airport as a line cook, though, I depended on Monster 2x. These are not for the faint of heart, but work beautifully if you are on the brunch shift.

Speaking of the brunch shift, one of the funniest lines that Anthony Bourdain wrote in “Kitchen Confidential” is that he’d gotten fired from some kind of fancy restaurant, and the only job he could get was brunch cook. He wrote that “the smell of failure is Hollandaise.” At the time, I was a brunch cook as well, and I laughed so hard there were tears and snot running down my face, especially since I HATE THE SMELL OF HOLLANDAISE… although one of the best compliments I’ve ever gotten from Dana is that my Hollandaise is better than hers (she’s Cordon Bleu certified), and she was REALLY impressed that I never used a blender. I would just add the eggs and the vinegar or lemon juice and whisk like a motherfucker until I reached sabayon and began to add the butter.

Luckily, at Biddy’s we didn’t use Hollandaise, but Bearnaise. It smells so much better that I actually do like it a lot. Even though the smell of Hollandaise makes me nauseous all on my own, there was another tipping point. The dishwashing liquid we used at Biddy’s smelled strongly of lemon, and washing the egg pans at the end of our shift (Dana and I worked together at brunch) made it a hundred times worse. No, I take that back. It made it a THOUSAND times worse.

Sometimes I wish I could go back to that time in my life, because Dana and I were so good together in the kitchen. We had the dance down perfectly. Not only did we have “the dance” perfected, we also had such a strong connection to each other that we could save tons of time on tickets by being able to have entire conversations with our eyes. There was only one time that I made a true mistake. I had a migraine and thought I could handle cooking on my own, anyway. I cut Dana and she went to the bar for her shift drink. I got so sick I just wanted to curl up on the floor, but according to Oregon law, if you’ve had an alcoholic drink, you CANNOT come back into the kitchen. That was a pump up the gangsta rap and get it HANDLED moment as well.

There’s nothing like cooking in a pub when you’d literally rather be dead than feel the migraine coursing through your capillaries. I can’t remember who walked to the convenience store for me, but one of the cooks did and got me a Monster and I took some ibuprofen. I “Kept Calm and Sold the Rail,” but it was literally the worst day of my life in terms of professional cooking. You cannot imagine my relief when the kitchen closed for the night.

It makes me go to my happy place when I think of working at Biddy’s, especially since I feel so bad right now.

Kleenex me, Jeeves.

As predicted, the recruiter called and said that I was not smart enough for a basic computer support position. She didn’t use those words, of course, but that was the gist of it. I get it. I am not a math person. But never in the history of my career have I had to figure out equations in order to say, “Thank you for calling, my name is Leslie. How can I help you?” Even when the computer support job involved knowing command line linux. As I told her in the interview, those things are different skills altogether. It’s back to the drawing board, but I know something will come up. I saw a Hulu commercial that made me laugh- something about getting a job in McClean and “what can silver do for you?” For those not in the know, the silver line is basically the train to the tech corridor.

Apparently, I interview well. One of the things that the recruiter said was that I was great to work with, and I think that if the decision was up to her, I probably would have gotten the job. This is the second interview in which I have done well, but other people have done more weller than me. It’s ok. I will find the right fit, even if it’s flipping burgers. I’m actually really good at that, by the way.

I think it’s funny that I’ve called Argo a burger-flippin’ ho as a joke many times, and now I might get that chance to be my own. 😛

I can’t remember whether I’ve told you this or not (too lazy to look it up), but despite all of our strife, I got the sweetest letter from Argo that I’ve gotten in months, so I printed it out and I keep it in the pocket of my Kindle case so I can look at it when I feel sad or nervous. She has this way of building me up that no one else ever has, so it is wonderful to be able to read that e-mail when I’m about to go into a stress-filled situation. It’s one of her superpowers as I wander trying to find my own.

One of them, apparently, is interviewing. I’m not taking the rejections with me. I am taking the sweet words that the people rejecting me have said, because I know that they are sincere… especially the ones from Christ Church, because I know for sure that it was a hard decision for them. I look forward to earning my superpower as youth volunteer, because I need it for my resume in case I find another youth director position that doesn’t require being ordained. I can’t wait to meet Rev. Susannah and work with her to accomplish her goals. If she wants me to, I can also help with visioning, but that is her call and not mine. Perhaps she is a visionary as well, and I will help her carry her mission forward whether I agree with her or not. As a volunteer, it is not my job to work against her, but to help her as much as I can.

I read a post on Facebook that resonated with me to the point that it hurt. It said to be careful of destination addiction, that what you’re seeking is somewhere else. I have fallen prey to that many times, and I am committing to settling in DC forever. If something goes terribly wrong, that doesn’t mean I need to run. It means that I need to take my Klonopin and Neurontin, pump up some gangsta rap, and get it HANDLED. DC is my home now, and I am putting down some serious roots. My choir director is overjoyed that I will be here over Christmas, because we are doing some serious work together.

I am starting to believe, really believe, that singing is one of my superpowers. When I warm up, I use different muscles than I do in my daily life, and it makes me walk taller with much more confidence than usual. I am going to commit to asking Nae if he needs a wedding singer, because that would help bring in money, even if it’s a small honorarium. I have thought about looking for a job as a ringer in another church, but I can’t. CCC is my home, and it is helping me mentally as I get my shit together. I also, under no circumstances, want to stop working with Nae.

I will also commit to asking Giles if he will work with me as well, because he was my first voice teacher and carries so much weight in my heart because of it. He’s so busy during the school year that it may not work out, but all he can say is no, and he will definitely say no if I never ask the question. Giles and I met through GLOBAL, the gay/straight alliance at University of Houston. He became my voice teacher when he was taking a pedagogy class and needed a student. He listened to my recording at Epiphany, and he made me feel so good about it. He told me how much stronger my voice has gotten since we last worked together, which of course brought tears to my eyes.

I also wouldn’t mind working with Zach again, because he gave me some pointers that really, really helped, like massaging my trachea before warming up.

Speaking of which, I need to see if deep-tissue massage and chiropractic appointments are covered by my insurance. I think it would really help in terms of the problems with my back. My friends Susie and Cynthia told me that I look like I walk around in constant pain, and they’re not wrong.  When I think about my back, though, it connects to the day I sent Meag a picture of it and she said she couldn’t wait to get her hands on me (no flirt intended).  She is one of the best LMTs in Canada, evidenced by the fact that the Canadian board that certifies LMTs has asked her to be on the panels more than once.

In other news, my dad is coming to visit soon. I can’t wait to have a few days with him all to myself. His superpower is that when he called, he told me he was coming over a weekend so he could go to church with me. If that’s not the sweetest music I’ve heard in a long time, I don’t know what is. Our love is a superpower that runs so deep I’m not sure I even have words for it.

Amen.

Yesterday I interviewed with a company called “Frontpoint Security.” I mention them by name because there are several reviews of the interview on Glassdoor, with replies from the company themselves, so I don’t think it’s unfair to name them here. It started as a wonderful day- cold and full of sunshine. I was excited that the train ride took almost an hour and 20, because I was reading a great novel (The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry). I arrived full of hope and the enjoyment of reading. That lasted right up until the interview began. Without any questions about my customer service experience, they handed me a five or six page logic test with math SAT questions. I had two problems there. The first is that I’ve gotten a D in logic twice, because I could not get the hang of taking verbal questions and turning them into equations. For instance, I am still not sure whether Jill is taller than Kelly, shorter than Kelly, or that Jill and Kelly are the same height just because Anne is taller than Jill. I am also not sure how many days it took for a water lily to become covered with water in the middle of a pond. The second is that I’ve never been through SAT prep, because I never had to take it. I went to a junior college for my first two years, and because they had their own entrance exams, I took them instead. I was placed in remedial math, and the very least I can say about that is I passed. I still have a ways to go in getting my Bachelor’s, mostly because I did not have time for a full-time job and advanced trig.

The reason that I skipped the SAT is that I was in the hospital with a migraine that wouldn’t quit, and I stayed there for longer than I’ve ever stayed in a hospital, except for the time I got meningismus, irritation of the meninges rather than full-on meningitis, and still no less painful. The migraine and the meningismus required the same battery of tests, including repeated spinal taps (I went to eleven). Plus, one of the medications I was given made me go from fine to batshit crazy in less than five minutes. A nurse got the order wrong, and instead of giving me a shot in the arm or hip of Stadol, pushed it into my IV. Meagan and Lindsay were standing there when it happened, and their eyes became larger and larger until my dad walked in and told Meagan to take Lindsay home. They were both in panic mode, because the effect of the drug was that I couldn’t stop talking, and at a pace so rapid that it was downright scary. I just kept saying over and over, “I’llbefineoncemydadgetshere. Iwantmydadbecausehe’llknowwhattodo….” along with a litany of orders to the nurses to get my dad the fuck here. When he arrived, he was in scrubs and I had never been more glad to see anyone in my life. I don’t remember what happened next, but I do remember that it calmed me down the slightest bit. Something was ordered for me- I think it was Haldol- but what the nurse did was inexcusable because she’d seen the order and didn’t read the whole thing. I think I missed three weeks of school, and when I was let go from the hospital, I still had to go for another spinal tap because the migraine hadn’t lifted. He told me to drive myself and lent me his van. I drove there, but they gave me a spinal tap and driving home was one of the scariest things I’d ever been through because I could barely lift my head over the steering wheel.

So, these questions are put in front of me and I realize how unprepared I am for this and begin to freak the fuck out. I asked the recruiter how much these questions counted, and did she want to know anything about my experience and career so far? She said,  “of course. It’s just that the manager came up with these questions to see how you’d get through training.” So, I told her everything I could possibly think of that would tilt my chances, including the Rock Star award I won at Alert Logic where a senior vice president had listened to my call and sent all the senior managers a note that if everyone else was like me, our Net Promoter Score was ensured. He talked about how I was cheerful at 3:00 AM, and thought it was brilliant that I chatted him up about football and Doctor Who since he was calling from the UK. The funniest thing that happened was that after I’d validated him by asking his security question, I said, “this is a question I ask all my British customers. Who is your Doctor?” He answered with the name of his GP. When I explained what I meant, he laughed heartily.

I also told her about the other Rock Star award I’d won because I was on the phone with a customer with another AL employee at the same time, and how he’d nominated me for it because of the great customer service I’d given while we were on the phone together. I was sitting there trying not to shake, but the memories of those two awards were something I focused on because it meant more to me than anything to prove that I was worthy of the job itself….. and worthy as a person. I was trying to self-soothe, because I knew I’d blown that test because I couldn’t even finish it and external validation was worthless.

She said I would hear something by Monday or Tuesday, so I am spending my weekend wound tight as a tick. I want a job where I can read all the way to work, and finish several chapters at once. I want a job that starts with great pay and ticks up with quality assurance. I want a job that has metrics out the ass because I like checking my performance every morning. It’s quite soothing not to go weeks without knowing how you’re doing…. like only getting a report card in school every six weeks.

It sounds like a great challenge, one for which I feel ready.

At Alert Logic, so much was going on with me emotionally that I crumpled with anxiety and threw up before meetings. I am not sure that I was healthy enough to take that job in the first place, having just come from Portland because I was so far down that I needed to come home and lean into my family for support. Now, I am free of all of it, and working with Sarah has gotten me on track for a wonderful life instead of one that’s merely mediocre. I came home because I was so depressed that I thought I might kill myself, but the only thing that stopped me was the dream of becoming a famous writer. In essence, I needed to stay alive for you, and I do not say that lightly.

Those feelings resurfaced when Dana and I had our ugly blowout, and I realized that I needed more help than my family and friends could provide. That was when I decided that being in a psych ward was better than leaning on people so unprepared to handle depression this overwhelming. As my romance with Dana and my friendship with Argo ended, I realized that the support system I had was slipping through my fingers, and I didn’t have anyone else that knew the ins and outs of the situation like they did. The suicidal thoughts and plans didn’t come from wanting to cause anyone pain, but to cause them relief that they didn’t have to worry about me anymore. Those thoughts are never reality, which is why Argo’s words gave me the strength I needed to take my life into my own hands and pull myself up enough not to ask my friends for help, but to submit to the fact that I was ill and needed to take my own steps to get better, rather than expecting everyone else to “fix me.”

My nature made it harder to get better in the hospital than I wanted to, because my empath mirror neurons went off and I began to believe that everyone else had it worse than me and they needed my support more than I needed theirs… another belief that probably cost me because I couldn’t recognize that we were all in the same boat. We were all broken in our own ways, and yes, I was just as sick as they were, but I took their stories on as my own, as I have done my whole life. The Lanagan Search & Rescue system became acute as my roommate told me she was a cutter and could I watch over her to make sure she didn’t cut herself in our room?

Luckily, she was not in my cohort, so I had meetings/classes all day without her. We all spilled our pasts and what brought us to this situation, this last-ditch effort to keep ourselves stable. The story that got me the most verklempt was a guy that wanted to kill himself over his job. God, no job is worth that, but his ego was tied to it and a project failure threw him into a downward spiral. Another reached hers by walking in on her husband committing adultery in their bed. Another arrived with scars on her wrists. It was terrifying and uplifting all at the same time, because sharing brought us close together and gave us hope that despite all our problems, we’d make it if we just stuck to the program not unlike AA, but similar in terms of sharing our stories and keeping it up during outpatient.

There were so many people I just wanted to take into my arms and not let go, because I am not the type person that can see suffering and walk away from it. However, the entire point of the program was learning how to soothe ourselves, and hugging was strictly forbidden. In some ways, I felt alone. I was the only lesbian, so there were few people that could really identify with me. I was also angry, because my social worker was a lesbian and absolutely lost her clinical separation and started to cry. Why would I be angry about that? Because it was my job to cry, and I didn’t want to sense weakness in the people around me that were supposed to help me because I didn’t want to take on their emotions about me. It was pity. Just straight out where I could see it, and the last thing I wanted or needed.

What I did learn in all of this was that I was right. Diane had been a problem, and not a solution. She knew I would need her as I started coming out, but didn’t realize that my young ears weren’t the appropriate place for her to talk about her life. She was right and wrong all at the same time, and would have been a wonderful resource had she kept her clinical separation intact as well. But she didn’t, and I ached for her in more ways than one.

If you click on both links, you will see the change in my tone in talking about her. The first is idealistic and wonderful, painful and real. The second is after all of the talks I’d had with friends who didn’t think my story was what I thought it was, and proved it to me.

Now, I am alone with my books and tea, wanting to reach up for something more than just sitting by myself, fictional characters often replacing real interaction. I’m having dinner with Pri-Diddy next Tuesday, where I know that she will enfold me in one of those hugs designed to heal pain…. because I am exhausted.

Sometimes my medication gives me very intense, lucid dreams. Last night, my high school love visited me for the first time in years. We talked for hours, just catching up on our lives. When I woke up, I realized how much I missed her, and had some interesting insights on my current life (as dreams are wont to do). I remembered the days in which I was tortured that she was married to someone else, not because I was in love with her still, but because being an ex caused certain……… issues.

They aren’t married anymore, haven’t been for a long time. But I drew so many correlations between her ex-wife and mine that it was illuminating to an amazing and frightening degree. Her ex-wife ran hot and cold with me, because in some instances, she handled the closeness between Meag and me, and sometimes she didn’t. Does that sound familiar in any way to some of you long-term readers? The hot was just as intense as the cold. I want to talk about the hot first.

It all started with Tim Horton’s, as many Canadian stories do. Here is an excerpt from an entry I wrote about an anniversary with Kathleen. The setup is that we were staying at an inn in Vermont, and it wasn’t far to Ottawa from there:

I’d forgotten that Quebec is the only province in Canada where they don’t have to put signs in both French and English. The entire menu is in French. Not only do I not know what a TimBit is, I don’t know how to ask for one. I am standing there in a puddle of self pity. ALL I WANT IS A DONUT AND SOME COFFEE AND NOW I’M IN A FUCKING FOREIGN COUNTRY AND I CAN’T READ!

I go up to the counter. I ask for a TimBit and a large coffee in English. The woman points to the menu overhead. You can’t get one TimBit. The quantities and prices are scattered as if put there by someone with a killer hangover. I point to the one I want. I pay. It’s like ten dollars. I don’t care.

My order comes up, and all I see is this HUGE BOX. I have ordered ENOUGH FUCKING TIMBITS TO FEED THE ENTIRE CANADIAN ARMY, AND ALL THEIR SQUIRRELS.

We’re walking out of the restaurant, and I’m going to kill Meagan. All she had to say was, “it’s kind of like a donut hole, eh.” So I call her up. And she’s laughing hysterically. “Oh man,” she says. “I never should have done that to ya in Quebec.”

Years later, Deah hatched a plan.

She wanted me to come to the house without Meag knowing, and knock on the door with a box of TimBits. It was brilliant, especially because their daughter is named Tym, so they’re not TimBits anymore. They’re TymBits. So, Deah shows up at the airport with the box, and we drive straight back to the house. Deah stands back, and there are butterflies in my stomach as I knock on the door.

The look on her face was priceless… so full of love and absolute shock that I’m glad there’s not a picture. That look was just for me. She grabbed me and hugged me for what seemed like an hour. It wasn’t, of course, but in my memory it stays that way. Deah is smiling like the cat that swallowed the canary, because she’s managed to pull this off. It was #winning in massive proportions. We had a great time just BEING. We didn’t do anything, and that’s when Meag introduced me to The Joel Plasket Emergency, because “our song” became Nowhere with You:

Our thing was Starbucks, so we went for a coffee and sat there just as we did when we were 18. It was our “date place” in Sugar Land, there being few places for 18-year-olds to party in our quiet suburb. Her poison was a hazelnut latte, and mine was raspberry because I liked getting a “pink drink.” She told me that she was sorry we missed truly being partners, because she thought it was something we’d probably have done well. It was a compliment I’d been waiting to hear for a very long time, because we were secure in our places in life. It wasn’t a flirt, just a recognition that the way things went down was full of regret for both of us. She thought that she’d treated me so poorly that she didn’t even have a right to ask. My inner rage went to eleven internally, because I didn’t know what I would have said, but she’d taken away my choice. Then, rage melted away as I realized that we were exactly where we needed to be at that time in our lives, and to be angry about it was pointless. We’d made our choices, the right ones… at least then, anyway.

At other times, Deah treated the intimacy between Meag and me as a threat, when I really, really wasn’t. All I wanted was to be a part of Meagan’s life in a real way, and it wasn’t that far to Ottawa from DC, so I could really be present in a way that I couldn’t when we’d only see each other sporadically. At the time, her parents were living in Sugar Land, so visits home were always a path back to me and letting the ghosts of our past rise as we went by our old high school and “our” Starbucks (which, incidentally, isn’t there anymore… and don’t think I’m not sad about that fact). I remember clearly the time when we had to run an errand, and she leaned over and said, “want to be 18 again?” I said, “hell, yeah.” She rolled down all the windows, opened the sun roof, and turned up the stereo as we raced down Palm Royale.

I can understand Deah’s hot and cold in a whole new way, because it was not dissimilar to the way Dana treated Argo. She was never a threat, but Dana treated her that way, anyway. I think that was the point of the dream- to get me to understand in a way that I couldn’t until this morning. I am so thankful to whatever brought on the dream, but I would like to believe it was my God place, the one that whispers to me in pieces of wisdom that I, in the words of Mary, “ponder in my heart.”

It is also comforting that years after the conversation we had in the past, we are still in the places we need to be to grow in the right direction. Maybe one day we’ll have another moment in which we can just be 18 again, the ghosts rising from our past…

With TymBits.

Dear Bryn,

It’s been a trip around the sun of gargantuan proportions. So many ups, so many downs, and through it all we’ve maintained our senses of humor. Well, most of the time, anyway. Some shit has just been sad. We’ve walked this path together, forged when we were infants in emotional growth and are starting to feel ten feet tall and bulletproof because when we talk, we realize that we aren’t alone. Have never been alone. We’ve had each other.

I miss the days of sitting on your back porch, watching the dogs play as we delve deeper and deeper into conversation. I miss hugs that were designed to last one second longer, because we’d just emptied our souls and needed to lean in and hold on. I love that we’ve been able to keep up our long friend-love affair by having text. I thought I was an intense personality that would never find someone with whom to roam the earth, because as I get deeper in conversation, people tend to say, “whoa. I’m out.” It was a relief to meet my match… someone not afraid of introspection and hearing others process theirs.

In my personality type profile (INFJ, sometimes P when I’m not feeling like a “judgmental dickhead“), it mentions that in my life, I will cultivate deep relationships with very few people, and hold on to them… rather than having a bunch of friends I know to varying degrees. Thank you for being one of those people. I look forward to the day when I can walk with you around the streets of DC, pointing out cool stuff and saying, “ok, this is fantastic, but let me show you THIS!” Most notably, I want to take you to the zoo. It’s amazing how much inspiration I get from sitting with my laptop or my tablet and just writing in front of the giraffes. Plus, the zoo is within a park, so make sure to point out beautiful joggers. 😛

It would also be fun to go dancing again. That was one of the best nights I’ve ever had in Portland, even though that’s usually not my scene. Let’s hit up somewhere cool (I’d have to ask around, because again, usually not my scene) and take shots of Red Bull. Wired for sound to make the evening last as long as possible.

I just wanted to tell you how much you mean to me, because I figure it’s the best birthday present I have to offer. I figure that in my writing, what I can offer you is my heart. Thank you for taking such good care of it.

Happy birthday, love. I hope you get lots of presents.

Always (and I mean ALWAYS),

Leslie