I took a break from blogging because I didn’t want to tell you that I didn’t get the job. The woman from the church that called me said that the meeting went on for a long time, that they thought I was brilliant and that I had a bright future in ministry, but that I was just a little too green. I asked her what might happen if the already ordained ministers got a call for churches of their own and didn’t last very long. She said, “well, we might be having a different conversation.” So I know that I did very well in the interview, and one of the things that they thought was interesting is that I was the only one that interviewed the kids as much as they interviewed me. None of the other candidates thought to ask the kids what they’d like to see in their own youth group. It got me big points with the committee, and lots of fans. She said “you cannot believe how close it came because we liked you so much. We just thought you were a little green.” I could agree with that assessment, and I thanked her for being honest about what went on in the meeting so that I had some context. It’s never happened to me after a job interview before, that someone would actually describe the meeting that happened without me. There were many people on the committee that were sad that I didn’t get the job, because they saw a passion and drive in me that they didn’t see in the other candidates. I have a feeling I will know who those people are, because they’ll come up to me at church and tell me so. Even though I didn’t get the job, I actually feel good about it. I impressed several people, more than I thought I would, and they gushed about me. I think I will volunteer so that if the pastor running the program does get a call to a church of his/her own, I won’t be so green anymore. I’ll have one more thing to put on my resume unless I get a call of my own from another church as well. I am not hesitant about that possibility. To have a committee fighting over me was very cool indeed. I do have the mad skillz. I just need more on my resume to convince people of that.

Matt told me that my resume didn’t have much in the way of youth ministry, and why would I want this job? I told him that I’d been running from a call since I was ten… and then later in the meeting, I said that I’d run from a call since early adulthood. One of the other ministers in the room (it’s a joint youth group with another church) said, “I thought you’d been running from a call since childhood. Speak to that.” I said, “this is the first time I’ve ever put my money where my mouth is. I have been running from a call since childhood, but I didn’t know how to get there from here. For the first time in my life, I’ve actually applied to school with the intention of finishing my MDiv, and the $50 I spent to apply to Howard meant more to me than gold, because it represented a new chance in life, one I knew I would take eventually, but now I’m ready (je suis prest).” He asked me why I chose Howard. I said, “first, it’s a UCC school. Second, I’ve been to majority white schools my whole life and if it is my job to be Christ in the world, then I have to understand race relations and how it affects us nationally and globally.” He said, “I have so many more questions to ask you, but I won’t in the interest of time.” We could have gone on for hours, and I hope we will meet again. If anything, I need him as an ally, because the UCC and the Presbyterians have joint ordination. It would mean a lot to me to follow in the steps of Katie Morrison and Michael Adee, who were the first lesbian and gay candidates to be ordained in the Presbyterian church. I met Katie at the More Light conference in Portland in 1997, and then in 2001, when I took Kathleen to Lambda Rising, we found a book that featured both Susan Leo AND Katie Morrison. Her chapter was called, and I remember this clearly, “Black Leather Bible Dyke.” In 1997, meeting her was one of the great moments of my life, because not only did she have her head on straight theologically, she was, in two words, fucking hot.

I keep up with Michael Adee on Facebook, and he is just a joy. His feed lights up my day, because he always has uplifting quotes and stories that don’t focus on negativity, but how we are all Christ in the world, degreed or not. I found him on Facebook because I remembered his name in all the articles about Katie and Michael getting ordained. He’s like an angel to me, because we haven’t met on the ground, but he blesses me from the cloud.

And now that the interview is over, I want to go on the record as saying I think joint youth groups are a terrible idea. The idea is to feed your own church with growth. What happens if all the youth that are supposed to go to one church end up feeding the other because it’s more “fun?” Then, one church is effectively poaching kids from the other…. and their parents, too. It also skews the relationship between the churches if the events are held at one church more than the other. In the interview, they said that I would have offices at both churches and I’d go to church there as well. The possibility of growing two churches at once floored me with awe, until I came back into my head and realized that this relationship was probably going to end poorly. They say it is working now, and I hope for them that it continues to be true. However, my church has many more programs for kids and it is word perfect (I see what I did there). I could see the poaching happening and it did not make me happy, but of course I did not say anything about that in the interview. It’s just something I saw happening in the long term, rather than right here, right now.

They also missed a chance to mold me exactly how they wanted me… that I would learn more on the job than I would in a million years of Google (from whom all blessings flow). It was a disappointment, to be sure, but not one from which I can’t rebound. I have the confidence I need because there were people on the committee set on hiring me, and in the end, they lost. But the fact that the debate was so long makes me feel incredible. I am blessed beyond all measure, and it is my plan to keep it that way.

Amen.

As I am starting this, I have exactly two hours before I go in front of the search committee in front of my church. The hymn that keeps going through my head is just as I am, without one plea… I just want to be accepted for exactly who I am, because the things that make me fallible also make me invincible. I am one narrative, and I hope they see it. I also hope they see the light of Christ that they are looking for, because I certainly have stopped hiding it. In fact, my life got a lot better when I did. When I started living simply, the light within me shined as bright as I needed it to be to change my life and heal my pain. With the frenzy of the last two years, I lost my light because I didn’t have the ability to see it. When you feel worthless, you act it.

Getting out of a crazy existence allowed me the time in the desert I needed to find myself in the middle of the mess. My own resurrection, in a manner of speaking. I couldn’t be the person I am now if I hadn’t seen the destruction of which I was capable. I couldn’t see how gigantic my love could be until I got that out of the way. It was the shock of cold water, or perhaps the smelling salts, God saying, “wake up, dumbass. I need you.” I stopped playing with darkness and started drinking tea and sitting still. I started dreaming forward, which I’ve never really been able to do. I have had the ability to endlessly ruminate on the past, but I have not had the ability to see my own future. I clued in, but it took a whole hell of a lot for it to happen, emphasis on the hell.

I am wearing the necklace that Lindsay gave me at her wedding as a maid of honor present, and in some sense, I feel that Diane is here with me, too, because even though we are apart, I know she would be doing gymnastics to hear that I finally accepted my call. Plus, Sandi Patty is playing in my headphones, reminding me of the time she was flipping through my CDs on a road trip, found a Sandi Patty album, and proceeded to sing every single track. I couldn’t help but laugh and remember our time at St. Mark’s. Plus, it was a small car and she has a BIG voice. I think we ended up rolling down the windows so everyone could enjoy the high As. 🙂

The last track I listened to was Rutter’s For the Beauty of the Earth, which was the last anthem the choir did at Bridgeport and one of the only things I remember singing with her at St. Mark’s. We went out like we began, and as I was singing I remembered her elbow on my shoulder, dressed in her preppy, looking all cute. I was about 13 and she was about 24, and the last Sunday at Bridgeport was 20 years later. No matter what happened, there were parts that were an amazing journey, and the music is one of them. I am getting to the point where I can listen to those songs again without pain, because there are so many reasons to smile when I think of her. There will never be a way to let her back into my life again, but at least our music is sacred to me again.

I need her as the angel on my shoulder, because she’s seen this calling in me since I was in middle school…. a cheerleader of massive proportions. I’m going to take her into the room with me. I’m also going to take my mom, dad, and sister, without whose love I never would have thought I was strong enough to take this interview in the first place. I’m also taking Sash and Bryn, whose love at Bridgeport became action. They both see this dream as clearly as I do, so they’re my angels, too.

And finally, I’m going to take Dana. She knows I’m going to ace it, even if she doesn’t say so. But I’m not taking Argo. She doesn’t do church or organized religion. I’ll see her tomorrow at Pizza Night, where I can dish all the dirt over Jack. My angels are the best, and they take me places I never thought I could go……..

just as I am.

A feeling of calm has come over me that I haven’t felt in weeks. I’m going to get this job, or I’m not. All I can do is my best, which I believe is pretty amazing. I gots da mad skillz. I just have to prove it. If nothing else, I get time in a room with power players in the church, getting to know them and how things work. That is invaluable as a member as well, in case I want to be on any committees in the future. Nothing about this interview can go badly, because I am solid about the fact that whether I am an employee, this is my church and I love it. It’s an eight-minute walk to my house, and all of the other churches in the area are quite a bit farther than that. It would take me almost an hour to get to the Episcopal church by public transportation, and as much as I love the idea of using my red BCP every week, I also find that being in close proximity to a church allows me to be involved on a much greater level than just Sunday mornings. I have said that my church needs me. If I believe that is true, then I need to be available for more than one trip per week.

Having drinks with a lawyer next week. God, I love lawyers. I hope she’s a pit bull. She’s definitely a Whovian, I’ll give her that. She knows her shit. We could probably talk about that for hours without moving on to the scales of justice. I doubt she knows I took Con Law in college and thought about reading for law myself, and have a paralegal certificate in the state of Texas, which I’ve never used, but only because every law firm to which I applied wouldn’t take on a newbie. Plus, at this point in my life, I’m pretty set on not reading codes of civil or criminal procedure. It wasn’t boring, by any means, but I have this whole pastor thing going on, and it’s kind of my jam.

In other news, I woke up with a zit just above my lip, because of course I did. God, I can’t wait for this to end. I switched to really harsh soap for my face, some brand of Irish Spring, because dry is key. I use a washcloth for exfoliation, but I am still surprised at the amount of crap the witch hazel still finds. I thought I was done with this in college, but it’s not the acne, it’s the environment. I barely ever had a pimple in Oregon. It’s the South. All the humidity, and I highly doubt the air is as clean.

I’m not the only one with problems in this area. It was a terrible idea to move the federal capital to DC, because the humidity will slowly destroy all of our old documents if we let it. Dry is key. 😛

I also have a bit of a cold this morning, because of course I do. It started yesterday, but luckily has not progressed to a cough. I’m just stuffed up in my entire mask. Pseudophed and Afrin are helping mightily. I can almost even like, breathe and stuff. I would say that it’s allergies, except I have been on Zyrtec since I got here, and it’s working. I remember clearly saying to Samantha, “could you take me to the grocery store? Like, right now? I am dying because of all these plants.” She took pity on me and we were on the road within ten minutes. So I got that goin’ for me. I bought two months’ worth, because Zyrtec was on sale and Claritin might as well say “does not work” right on the box. Besides, it takes about two months for Zyrtec to build up in your system to really stop allergies cold. Spot treatment and Zyrtec are not two things that go great together. Also grateful to be in Maryland, where I only have to sign for pseudophed rather than having to get an actual prescription like in Oregon. It’s because the meth problem is so bad. I understand it, but it’s damned inconvenient to go to urgent care for just the sniffles.

Trying to decide what I’m going to wear tonight. All the people I’m interviewing with will be coming from work, so I’m thinking business casual. I can rock it, but not going to lie. I prefer my brown pants and surfer t-shirt. It’s my favorite outfit ever. Plus, the ever-important question. Shoes. Always Shoes.

Speaking of Kelly, I broke the cardinal fucking rule. I text-message broke up with Argo. Linday Lohan is going to kick my ass, as is Margaret Cho. I deserve it. With friends, you don’t usually break it off like that, but I was a deck.

Kumar: You’re worthless.
Roldy: I’m not worthwhile.

Technically, it was an e-mail. But that doesn’t make me feel any better. The Dana equation was getting serious. I didn’t want to hurt Dana anymore, and at the same time, I thought she was making a great play to get me isolated from someone I really loved. In short, it worked masterfully. She said Argo didn’t love me, that I was putting energy into a relationship in which I’d never get anything back.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. I just thought it could be, through Dana’s eyes. We could have been buds for life if Dana had just respected that love comes in many forms, and one it doesn’t is trying to pull me away from my other friends because of petty jealousy.

I was not impressed, which is why I packed up my shit and moved to the East Coast. I knew I wanted to start over in a way that I never had, settling down lifetime roots and trying to become the person I’ve always wanted to be.

And now I’m ready.

My dad was looking through one of his old sermon boxes this morning and sent me a copy of this hymn I wrote when I was a kid. I must have been about 14 or 15. It was my freshman year at HSPVA. Being almost 38 now, it’s fun to look back at my growth and development, both as a liturgist and as a human being. For instance, I wrote that. Literally wrote it. I don’t write much these days…. too crippled from carpal tunnel syndrome to make that a thing.

I believe that I will plagiarize this from myself someday, updating it with inclusive language because I was a Methodist back then, liberal bastion of theology that it is. Of course, then I’d never heard of inclusive language, so perhaps it’s not really the Methodists’ fault. I give a lot of crap to the church that raised me, but at the same time, I grew, now didn’t I?

I was joking with people at church that DESPITE being a preacher’s kid, I still wanted to be a youth minister. It got a laugh every time.

I laughed out loud that I used imagery for God and Christ in the same verse, and then I was all like, “TRINITY, BITCH.”

There’s hope for me yet.

I thought I was going to read On the Origin of Species next, but I didn’t bother to search my Kindle for it. I was on the Metro and wanted something fast. I chose A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. I’m several chapters into it, having had to go from Silver Spring all the way to Tenleytown just for a SuperCuts (worth it- I’m hot again), and I am just gaga over it. The beginning reminds me of Outlander, in a way, because it talks about the absolute genocide of the Native Americans that seems reminiscent of her style. He talked about how if a woman no longer wanted to cohabit with a man, she would simply put his stuff outside the house……… Also, Christopher Columbus was a very, very, very bad man. Write it down.

Now, I’m up to slavery because in the US, white slaves were not being sent at a fast enough rate from Europe and the Americans could not force the Indians (his word, not mine, because Europeans called all brown people “Indians”) into it because they were too rebellious. Enter black people.

Part of slavery’s crack-smoking foolishness was that the white Americans did not know or care about mental illness. They didn’t realize that it wasn’t that black people were inferior. It’s that when you chain people up in a boat where they cannot move- cannot even roll over onto their sides for months at a time- you get a different person on arrival than you did when you left. Of course they seemed inferior. Look at how mental patients are looked upon even today. The white settlers did not realize that if there was any mental inferiority, they were the cause. Because why would they?

Fucktards.

I have heard people in the South talk about how slavery wasn’t wrong because Africans enslaved each other. Zinn posits that while this is true, it wasn’t anywhere near the level of cruelty that Americans bestowed on black people, because black is dark and brooding. White is pure and clean. Africans used more of a feudal system where “serfs” could get married, own property, and even inherit.

We didn’t even count them as people.

So, this book is fascinating and one of the reasons I chose it is that there’s a movie version narrated by Matt Damon, which, if you’ve been reading this web site for a while, you know that he is one of my favorite people of all time and space. Two reasons: first and foremost, he’s a writer. Good Will Hunting was a play for one of his English classes at Harvard. Ben Affleck helped adapt the play to screen, but the original idea was all Matt, all the time. Therefore, he has my respect. Second of all, how can one human be that smart and that hot all at the same time? #gaynotblind

Ok, there’s also a third thing. I love his voice. I would pay money just to listen to him read the phone book. Start with the As my friend. Jason Bourne is magnificent, and he can make shivers run down my back with two lines….. “Get some rest, Pam. You look tired.”

So, anyway, reading this book is fascinating and I have a documentary narrated by an American God to look forward to. That doesn’t suck. It’s probably better that I’m reading this now. I don’t know if I could read another evolution book so closely after Signature. It is surprisingly scientifically dense, but the story is fascinating.

I need to take a shower because the little hairs on the back of my neck are driving me crazy. Then I’m going to get back to reading, because seriously. This book will rock your world.

Also, Diana, I miss your words. Could you please put out another Outlander book soon? I am really missing being lost in that world, and I FREAKED OUT when I realized that Paul, Jerry, and Frank all knew each other. You’re the bomb, sister. Sorry it took me so long to figure that out. Also, Jerry. Heartbreaking.

You should never get a haircut the day before a job interview, but I’ve been putting it off and putting it off and now I feel shaggy. I’ve been wearing it in a crew cut with it a little longer on top because I have a bald spot on my right side from an EKG contact when I was a baby, so I have to have my layers a little longer…. or perhaps I will go the asymetric route, which Auna calls “sex.” So many comments, so little time. I mean, Jesus. I love Auna. She just says whatever is on her mind and most of the time it makes me fall over with laughter. But if she thinks I look hot, I do. I just can’t decide what I want, although my hair is long enough now that I could do the David Tennent or the Matt Smith, depending on how I feel when I get there. Right now, when I put it into a crew cut, I look like “Syndrome” from The Incredibles.

I met a soldier a couple years ago that I just dug the fuck out of, and we kind of have the same facial structure, so I tried a crew cut and I liked it. Technically, I took a picture of her to my stylist and said, “can you do that, except all punked out and bedhead like she’s been doing heroin for three days?” Mission accomplished. That same soldier appeared in a picture with Dana in one of my Facebook albums, and when Samantha was flipping through it, she said, “oh, is that your ex-wife?” I blushed to the tip of my hair and said, “no, the other one.” Samantha said, “hmmm… I just thought your wife would look more like you.” I still haven’t stopped blushing to the ends of my hair over that one, and as you know, I’m blushing more right now because my hair is longer.

I said something to the effect of, “well, I think her husband would get mad.” She just gave me a dumb look and said, “that girl is straight?” I said something to the effect of, “yes, and she probably has a string of disappointed women everywhere.” Samantha laughed. But I told her what I told Argo in a letter after I met her, that “it made me root for her even more because the world has to know there’s more than one kind of straight girl. I call her the hottest dyke that never was.” Samantha laughed even harder at that one, and then we moved on to other topics, such as how we were going to get me married off to someone rich so that I could just be a writer. I love Samantha. She requires references and a W-2.

It isn’t her, exactly. For YEARS I have loved soldiers. Every single one. It wouldn’t hurt if my next girlfriend was a soldier, because every time she put on her Class A’s I wouldn’t be able to breathe without wanting to rip them back off. 😛

I don’t think it would work out, ultimately. When I am with military people, I am just lost in a world of acronyms that I have no idea what they mean. When her soldier friends came over to the house, I think I would just hug them all and excuse myself to go write. I love it when soldiers tell old stories, but not so fond of how quickly I can’t understand them. Because they had to go the PCA to get to the SOB to get to the PX to get to the LOW to get to the CTP to make AOB…. I just made those up. I’m just sayin.’ I probably just ordered a strike on Montana. Get ready.

I also think a haircut would make me feel better. I have been in a funk lately and I think it’s due to all of my isolation crap. I haven’t left the house since Sunday morning for church. I am nervous about this interview because I want and need the job so much, and when I get nervous, I isolate to prepare. But that comes with a bit of keeping my head down that doesn’t allow for fun. Perhaps I will walk to the grocery store so that at least my endorphins are up. Or, I might Uber just to have conversation along the way. I love Uber for that. I never go anywhere far, so it’s a nice relationship. I see them once, I learn their stories, and then the relationship is over.

I also got a match on Tinder, a sweet Finnish or Swedish or Danish girl. I can’t tell. I just know that one of the languages on her profile looks suspiciously like Scandinavian voodoo shit. Of course, I didn’t look at her profile before I swiped right, so I didn’t know that she was Scandinavian when she matched me. From her profile, I’m not even sure she speaks English. But that’s probably prejudiced because I think all Scandinavians speak English to some degree, and she lives here, so there’s that. I definitely want to meet her, if only to see what she’s like on the ground instead of in the cloud. But I think tea or coffee would be fine. I’m not ready to date anyone. I’m really not. When I swipe on Tinder, I am hoping for friends, not hot and heavy. If it comes later, then maybe. But right now I am content with my books and my tea. I want to know if there’s a spark of friendship before anything else, because I know for sure that romance doesn’t last long. It comes in waves. Winters and summers for the rest of a couple’s life. If there’s no friendship spark, I’m not interested.

Plus, no one likes that girl who still talks about her exes, and I’m not finished processing what happened with Dana. Her words make me furious and I love her beyond all measure. It just isn’t fair, the way this relationship ended, and that includes owning my part. We had such great love and mutual respect until we started hiding things from each other. For instance, Dana read everything going in and coming out of my e-mail in terms of Argo, but she was loathe to tell me what she thought unless we were in a rip-roaring fight because it was an easy win. I’d just fold. She claimed that it wasn’t really Argo, that Argo could be any woman.

No. It couldn’t. Argo was special and unique and we needed our space, but not because we were in love. Friendship deserves space. It also deserves a little bit of secrecy because friends are sounding boards for each other. There were things I could tell Argo about Dana that she could look at and say, “you’re being a jackass,” and it would change my mind on how I interacted with Dana for the better. But that didn’t mean that I wanted Dana to see those jackass moments, and she did, because I couldn’t let her think that I was having an affair. I wasn’t. I was just struggling with old patterns that needed to be addressed because every single time it came up, it was unwelcome and scary for Argo in a way that I didn’t want to scare her until I, in my infinite wisdom, thought “if I drove her away, then Dana won’t have to worry anymore.” It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life. The worst. I pushed away someone I loved to the fucking ends of the earth. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have done for her, and I am still in pain over my own behavior in all of this. That’s why I don’t want a relationship that consists of more than talking and tea. I just can’t handle the thought of being with someone else until I can truly say I have forgiven myself for what I have done and what I have left undone.

I got a notice that Argo’s present will be delivered on Friday. I expect nothing in return, but I do expect to feel better about myself… that I thought about her and found something that she wouldn’t buy for herself, necessarily, but is very cool indeed. It would make me feel better to think about my own generosity and selflessness when I have been such a right bastard to her in the past. I want to continue to be selfless and generous, because I see how I have been so wrapped up in myself that I lost the ability to see anyone else. I lashed out in fear and anger when it wasn’t necessary. She is part of my heart, and in my grief, I cannot help but want to atone for my sins. But it doesn’t matter if she responds. It matters that I am a better person to her than I used to be, not because it matters to her, but because it matters to me.

I finished The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert, and if you know the story, you’ll know why I am moving on to On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin next. It is amazing that in science, I have found God yet again.

Thanks, Elizabeth. Maybe one day I’ll get your haircut, too.

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Technically, it wasn’t even morning. It was closer to 11:30 AM, the moment at which I’d planned to be at Starbucks in Columbia Heights, drinking tea and working on my interview for Thursday. The reason I wasn’t is that I stayed up nearly half the night reading. I had to put down Ulysses for a while, because it is thick, hard reading and I am finding that it is so theologically heavy for me that I need to read it in short bursts. Last night I read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and got about 25% (according to my Kindle) through The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert. I read very, very fast, and I was engrossed in both books, although I must say that of the two books, I am enjoying Signature much more. Handmaid gave me the absolute heebie jeebies and I just wanted to prepare a bug out bag the whole time. Plus, I’ve read everything Elizabeth Gilbert has ever put to paper and she is just one of my favorite personalities on God’s green earth. I worship the ground she walks on, because I read Eat, Pray, Love and like every woman in the nation at that time, I developed a girl crush on her.

Because it wasn’t just the book. It was her. Every interview was just personality all over the place. Bright and bubbly that underneath goes as deep as I do. I would love to spend an afternoon with her drinking tea, just trying to get into her mind to see how it works. I want to know if she is in “show mode” or if her personality is integrated. I do not know, but I believe it to be true that she is actually an introvert, because all writers have that drive to be alone with their thoughts. And then there is another layer to her that just exudes the love of God. I don’t know that she would put it that way, but she is just namaste and weirdmaste all rolled into one. Honestly, I was disappointed that she did not play herself in the movie version of Eat, because I think she is even more cute and bubbly than Julia Roberts, but don’t tell Julia I said that.

But back to my morning. I was really grumpy and decided that a bath would take it out of me. I shaved with Dove and just luxuriated in it. I have other soap, but Dove is better than shaving cream, in my humble opinion. Incidentally, when I am not shaving, I use an African Black soap I found at Whole Foods. It is $3.50 a bar and worth every penny. I bought it because it had what looked like bark in it for exfoliation, and said non-comedogenic right on the package- important because as you know, the heat is making my face break out like a pizza. I just make sure to keep it dry so that it lasts a long time. It smells delicious, and you can use it all over, even as shampoo. Between my two soaps I feel like the richest woman in the world.

Except for this morning. When I got out of the bathtub, I smelled delicious, and went through the routine of waging war on my face. I use a cream cleanser in the shower if I’m not using the African Black soap, and then I use pads with witch hazel and rub a great amount of acne cream mixed with non-comedogenic lotion on my face. I’m trying to make it as dry as it used to be with Accutane, and I am brutal because I know it works. I don’t care how dry my face gets. Again, this is war. I do it again in the evening, because if I am not diligent, even for a night, I will wake up with another battle.

So after I put down my weapons, I’m grumpy again. Waging war on acne is not for the faint of heart, but I do it because when I was in college, I had systemic acne that was so bad I am glad there are no pictures of it. Accutane literally saved my skin, but my dermatologist told me that eventually I’d probably need to do it again. Now that I’m on Medicaid, this will be possible. If I get the job at CCC, it will come with benefits from the UCC, making it even easier for me to take care of myself.

It’s the reason I wake up grumpy. I have been ignoring myself for a long time, and now I ache in places unusual for someone as young as me. The only person I want to see in the world is Meagan, because I believe that she could unlock me from my back pain. Now that I live on the East Coast, I may try to hit her up, because a road trip to Ottawa might become possible. It’s about the same distance from DC to Ottawa that it is from Portland to Sacramento, a drive I’ve made many times. I just have to get a car first.

Or maybe there’s a train. Flying to Ottawa, even though it’s a short flight, is damned expensive because it’s international. It is infinitely cheaper to drive. I wonder how much Uber would charge? 😛 I guarantee that it would be less than flying.

So in my grumpiness the thought of letting Meag get her hands on me is comforting, which is exactly what she said when I sent her a picture of my back. I have a corkscrew scoliosis and my spine sticks out in the worst place possible- I have literally bruised my spine over and over from sitting in hard chairs. The only time I’ve ever had any relief from it was when I was working at ExxonMobil, and again when I was working at Alert Logic. At XOM, I had an Aeron chair, and at Alert Logic, I had a fabulous knockoff. In fact, I think I liked the knockoff better.

So this is what I am thinking in all my grumpiness when I go downstairs and see a package on the table from one of my best friends on this earth. It’s lumpy, and I think I know what’s in it, but there’s also a surprise- a large paperback called Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. It’s only the second paperback I own because I am so Kindle-driven.

But the thing that I did know was in there made me cry because it was so beautiful. It’s a set of shams like the ones I saw at Jonathan Adler, the ones with punctuation marks on them. My favorite is the ampersand. I need to go to a fabric store to get the filler, but I assure you that I will sleep on that ampersand until it wears out, it is so me.

My grumpiness melted into gratefulness for the beauty of my pillow shams and the hands that made them. I don’t know who is The Doctor and who is the Companion in this equation, but our relationship is like that. Deeper than friendship, the kind of relationship I’ve wanted my whole life but have never had. It is the type of relationship that I tried to cultivate with Argo, but failed miserably when I realized my feelings had gone too deep.

I am out of that hole, and I sincerely hope that she will return to be my Doctor one day (hey, The Doctor needs to be a woman once in a while). But my relationship with my current companion is one that started long ago because we saw ourselves in each other’s mirrors and loved the reflection.

She is my straight girl, the one that lets me lose myself in dancing with her, the one that literally holds my hand when I feel things aren’t going that well. It doesn’t matter that she is 3,000 miles away. I feel her hand in mine regardless. It is the one relationship in my life that I can say we are truly equally yoked. Not in marriage, but in loyalty and passion for life and self-improvement. I’ve talked to her about the mess I’ve made in my life and she just listened. I talked to her about the breakdown with Diane that came over years and years and suddenly exploded with Dana and Argo’s words.

The one person in the world that I wanted to love me for all that I am I now encourage to run as far as she can, and my companion listened to that anger. I begged her to say out loud “I believe you.” She sent me a voice message that said clearly, “I believe you.” I still have it.

I listen to her stories and they are not mine to tell, but as I said, we are equally yoked. We each have those rough places in our lives that need attention, and we are finding them together, even when it gets scary. Because when it gets scary, we each have a hand to hold. I remember the best Christmas Eve sermon that Susan Leo ever preached by saying that on Christmas Eve, the membrane between heaven and earth gets so thin that we can touch it. I feel that way about my companion, that at night the time and space between us evaporates so clearly that our fingers touch. It is the first relationship I’ve ever had where I can truly say that she is worthy of me and I am worthy of her. We deserve this relationship. We deserve the space to explore life for all its worth.

When her heart is next to mine, I feel God working through us to make us better than we could have been on our own.

Grumpiness over.

Today I met a woman at church that had a boy going into eighth grade this year. I found that out when I told her I’d applied for the youth director job. She told me about him at length, about how he was high energy, ADHD, and a great kid. I said, “can I tell you something? I am high energy, ADD, and a great kid, too. I know the struggle.” She looked at me with palpable relief. I told her that even if I didn’t get a job, to call me if she ever needed a babysitter. But this was after a long conversation in which she told me that she was the chair of the youth education committee last year. I got some info on how things work, and some of the personality types involved. It wasn’t anything negative, just general knowledge as I go in front of the search committee on Thursday. I didn’t really want dirt, just to be prepared. I asked some pointed questions, and she answered them thoughtfully. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she believed in me, and it meant more to me than gold.

She said that the church needed someone who could work with youth, work with adults, and not have to pay them a whole hell of a lot… and how by the grace of God could the church do that? I said, “well, if I have my way, you’ve just found someone.” She laughed and I told her that I was a writer- that I wanted to live simply so that I could afford to be a writer and go to school and prepare for what I know is coming in the future. It was the best 15 minutes of my week.

I am starting to walk with a purpose. I remember an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show where a black woman asked Oprah what to do with her son… how to keep him in school, how to keep him on the right track. Oprah said, “you tell him that plenty of people have died to give him the right he has now to get that education, that the crown has been placed upon his head, and all he has to do is stand up.” It was a mic drop moment. The entire crowd was silent.

It is the feeling I have right now. I have watched ministry in action. I have acted as a lay pastor. I have worked with youth since I was a young adult, and young children since I was nine or 10. There is nothing that this job could throw at me that I wouldn’t have the ability to handle, because I have seen so much. Seeing is everything. And then, when I moved to Portland, I was promoted from seeing to doing. If seeing is everything, then the vision will flow from thought into action.

The crown has been placed upon my head, and all I have to do is stand up. Many people have fought for the right I want now, which is ordination as a woman and as a lesbian, two separate issues. There are still some Christian denominations in which my sexual orientation wouldn’t be a thing because they wouldn’t ordain a woman, anyway. Some people are not ready to hear the words of God working through a woman’s mouth. In the immortal words of Jesus, “fuck that shit.”

Yes, that was a joke.

But not really. Because in one of my sermons at Bridgeport, entitled Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There, I talked about how Jesus included Mary of Bethany with his other disciples, saying that she would learn more by sitting and listening than she would back in the kitchen.

Jesus was a feminist, at least in that instance. I cannot begin to think what Jesus thinks about anything, but at the same time, I do not believe it is within him to bar women from bringing his words to life. I don’t think it is within him to bar anyone from preaching who is willing to give their lives to the God that sustains them… and in a world that is becoming more and more secular, why do the words of God matter, anyway?

God is big enough that God doesn’t require worship. What happens in worship is that it changes you. If you believe that there is a higher power, whatever that higher power might be (God, running, peanut butter, whatever), your ego is not the biggest thing in the room. You do the thing you think you cannot do…. Submit. You start asking for help, for discernment, for discipline.

All of these things are hard for me, because I am so proud. It’s the sin for which I atone the most often, because I think I know what’s up, and I clearly do not. Pride comes before a fall, always, but in every case, I feel like there’s a safety net under me. I cannot get low enough that the love of God leaves, because God is inside me and all around me, a safety blanket and a piece of my heart all at once.

These past two years have proved it to me. Last night I prayed that I knew everything would be ok, regardless of how things turned out with the people I’d burned. I have done everything I can to say I am sorry, and now it is time to focus on other things, because I need to make room. I can rest in the fact that I have a piece of Argo that no one else does. I have a piece of Dana that no one else does. I have a piece of God that no one else does.

And through this rest, I am preparing for more… for bigger things than I ever thought possible only through the grace of God that came from surrender. I did the thing I thought I could not do. I submitted. I learned. I prayed. I cried. I screamed and yelled and beat the fence until my knuckles bled because I was in a prison of my own making and didn’t know how to get out.

Turns out, it was pretty easy. I got down on my knees, and stayed still. And while I was still, the world moved. I arose into a different reality… the one that gave me the confidence to say in terms of ordination and ministry “I got this.”

#prayingonthespaces…………………………..

One of my friends from high school, Rev. Dan, stopped me in my tracks today. Literally knocked me on my ass because what he said hit me like a ton of bricks and I still haven’t recovered from it. I was recommending a band to him that one of my neighbors from Portland helped found, and he said, heck yeah!!! thanks, Rev!!! This goes into the pensieve because Dan is the first person to ever call me that. Ever. He just knows that I’ve set my mind on it, and I will do it, whether it comes from working toward ordination through my denomination or graduating from Howard. It doesn’t matter which. What matters is that someone who is already a UCC pastor sees it in me. Knows my truth. We also have the same birthday, but I doubt that has much to do with it. I don’t think. I am not an astrology babe, but I will take anything I can get.

Anything I can get is turning out to be A LOT. It is as I told Argo in one of my letters, you have to see the blackest black before you can see the whitest white. Divorce from Dana and separation from Argo was rock bottom for me. I couldn’t have gotten any further down if I’d tried. I incinerated my life in a big way, and it gave me the motivation to find out who I really was. As it turns out, I didn’t need to move forward. I needed to move back.

In a way, that doesn’t make sense unless you know that before I met Argo, before I met Dana, before I met Diane even, I had a calling to ministry. It didn’t feel like “going into the family business.” It felt like there was something great in me, that I knew I was meant to do something lasting, to create a legacy. I am not talking about being famous. I am talking about being well-respected in my field. That I would do something that no one else has done, or write something that no one else has put to paper. I ran from that calling like the plague because my father was so talented that I did not want anyone to believe that I was just riding on his coattails.

When I moved to Portland, though, my dad had left the ministry several years before, and I was 1800 miles away from him. It allowed me to find my own identity within the church, and I did. I remember the first time I did a bulletin for church. I didn’t crib anything. I wrote the entire service, front to back. I wish I still had a copy, but it is lost to history. However, you cannot imagine what it was like to hear the call and response of my own words. I was preaching that Sunday, and so I was standing at the front of the church, saying the pastor’s part and having my congregation read the words that I wrote back at me. It was then I got an inkling I was in the wrong business entirely. Computers would feed my bank account, but there was no feeling on earth like the one I got in front of a congregation.

My church was not one of those where you had to dress up on Sundays. Brenda thought I should have something that marked me as a leader (this was a different Sunday, because I preached at Bridgeport for several years). Brenda put a stole on me, and my heart literally skipped a beat. It was a MOMENT. A huge one. THE one. I just had to put it in the back of my mind because I didn’t have any money for school and I was having trouble finding a job all at the same time. I felt like I could see the vision, and had no idea how to get there. I still don’t, but if I get this job as a youth pastor, that will be the first step on a large and winding staircase. I am hoping that the search committee sees what I do… that this is my destiny, and something I was born to do… need to do… because I was made for it.

In terms of the way I’ve incinerated my life over the last two years, you have to know that pastors are not any less human than you are, sometimes even more so because we’ve got that ego thing going on that needs attention (and by attention, I mean beat down with a 2×4). A pastor is nothing but an ordinary human with an extraordinary calling. There is nothing I can do to erase my past except atone for my sins and keep running away from them, not in terms of hiding them, but it terms of not doing things to create such chaos in other people’s lives. Learning and being able to move on. Going to therapy to learn how to manage my own boundaries and my own healthy choices. Making sure that my medication is working and not doing anything to affect how well it works. It’s important to run away from the things that make you feel guilty and shameful, and run toward those things that make you feel whole.

In fact, let’s not call it “running away” at all. Let’s just stick with the “running forward” idea. Running away suggests that there are skeletons in your closet. Running towards sounds more like you’ve owned those skeletons and released them to make room for so much more than you ever thought you could. Goodness and mercy WILL follow you all the days of your life, if only you’ll let it.

In case you missed it, that was an invitation. That invitation is for you to put goodness and mercy into the world, because that’s how it comes back around. If you give goodness and mercy with your hands, it will come back around and touch your butt.

You’re welcome.

I put fire into the world, and I got it back threefold. It was a Holy Spirit violent wind moment where I realized that the common denominator in the entire mess was me, and I ran away from it and towards myself. I had to spend my time in the desert preparing, and I am still wandering. I don’t think theologians ever stop. There is no end to understanding the Bible and all of the commentary that goes with it. Every denomination and every thinker has their own take. I have attended so many churches since I was a kid that I used to call myself a “MethoLuthoPalian.” In 2005, I started following the Eightfold Path, and I called myself a Buddhapalian (which goes nicely together, if you’re wondering).

I didn’t join the UCC until I was an adult, because Susan and Diane were starting Bridgeport and when I moved to Portland, I went there, too. Diane would have been livid if I’d sung in any other choir but hers. 🙂 However, as the relationship between Diane, Susan, and me deteriorated, Dana and I started going to Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. I started to doubt my faith because of everything I’d been through in terms of the breakdown in communication both within the church and in “our family.” Bill Lupfer, then the Dean of the cathedral and now Dean at Trinity Wall Street, saved my faith in a major way. Every time I heard him, it was like he was speaking directly to me and no one else. The other thing that saved me was the liturgy, the Community Mass by Richard Proulx. The setting I’ve linked to is much slower than I’ve heard it in the past, and in my book, there is no such thing as liturgical tambourine. Just. No.

In that time and place, I could not always believe that God existed, but what I COULD do was come faithfully to church and do the ritual. The ritual, in turn, fed my faith so that I could keep going in my journey. Christianity is not a solo endeavor. It is much more than advertised. You don’t just go to church. You are the church.

Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are remembering the man that brought you to that place in that time. What does that remembrance say to you? I cannot think it for you, but I can tell you what goes through my mind. In every church, at every communion, no matter whether it’s an Episcopal church or not, I say two things from the BCP to myself. Sometimes, there is not enough time at the communion railing to say everything. I do not like cattle call communion, but it happens. When you have 500 members and the Redskins are playing at noon, something’s gotta give.

Anyway, what goes through my head invariably are these two phrases. The first is we are not so much worthy to gather up the crumbs under Thy table, but Thou art the same Lord whose property is always to give mercy. The second is most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against thee in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.

I express the universality of God in my emotions. But thou art THE SAME LORD. It doesn’t matter what you call God. God just is. God is like grits at Waffle House. You don’t order grits. Grits just come. The same Lord that blesses me blesses everyone else, and if you don’t believe in God, can you at least believe that for a few moments each week, it is humbling and cleansing to get my ego out of the way? What I’ve done and what I’ve left undone in some cases are small things and some are, to put it mildly, not. There is a God, and I AM NOT IT. God, in all of God’s perfection and awe, does not take on human characteristics. You cannot anthropomorphize God. You have to take responsibility for your own actions in front of your own conscience, and honestly, that perfect part of me is God as well. I have to confess my sins to the part of me that wants to be perfect and fails miserably in the process. But that never means I stop trying to achieve enlightenment. It is what we all strive for, especially in moments of great need. Donna Schuurman, one of the world’s leading experts on childhood grief, gave me the best prayer I’ve ever prayed and I say it all the time. It’s simple.

I get down on my knees and say, “SHIT, GOD!”

It is the end of the frayed rope prayer, the one that says oh my God I have no idea what to do help me.

Sometimes when I go to the communion rail, I just say that. It is emotional shorthand for “how do I get out of this mess I have made and it is all my fault?” Going to the communion rail is like going to therapy. You’re not going to get better on a few moments a week. Sometimes you have to go home and say, “SHIT, GOD!” to yourself until the answers come. Some people talk to themselves. Some people ruminate with others. I write it down. I start with “SHIT, GOD!” and hopefully end with something better than that.

I remember the exact moment I fell in love with Dana. Diane had broken my heart so badly that I couldn’t even breathe, so I went hiking into the gorge with Dana, and then separated from her to go and stand in the cold, cold water. I couldn’t feel my feet as I SCREAMED into the heavens. I cried, I prayed, I yelled at God and told God to go FUCK GODSELF. How had this relationship eaten up so much of me? How could I have let it go on so long, even in my head? She was going to continue to torture me the longer I let her live there. I wasn’t going to get her back, and I had to stop trying because it wasn’t hurting her. It was killing me. All of the stories she put into me. All of the lies. All of the secrets upon secrets in order to keep my parents from finding out what they were smart enough to figure out on their own.

Dana was watching me twist in the wind, just letting the thunderstorm of emotion eat me alive, and she was crying. Dana was crying simply because someone else had hurt me. That was it for me. That was when I knew. It was a MOMENT. Dana saw me praying my frayed, end of the rope prayer and wanted to help, but didn’t know how.

No one is supposed to know how to help you when you get to that point, because that point is the one that teaches you the way up. You have to rely on your own strength, your God strength, the peace that floods you when you don’t think it can get any worse and it’s going to go up from here.

Anne Lamott says that there are only three prayers.

Help.

Thanks.

Wow.

I have been praying Help. for the past two years, and Thanks. and Wow. are coming together. In fact, I once was lost, but now I’m found.

I found who I really am. And who that person is wants to be a pastor in her own right, ordained or not, with teenagers all around her to guide in their growth and development, because if that doesn’t get one extra points in heaven, I don’t know what does. When Matthew and I taught senior high Sunday School together, by the time class was over we both had the look of two people who desperately needed a drink.

But we knew we’d done our jobs. The kids had connected with us and we with them. We had those perfect moments, the ones where kids open up and tell you what’s really going on in their lives… a sweeter sound never heard. I hope to do that again. I have an interview on Thursday to be a youth pastor again. Sometimes it’s really true that going backward leads forward, because sometimes you forget which is the direction and which is the distraction. Luckily, God was there to remind me that my work wasn’t done… and as I ran further toward distraction, God’s voice got louder until I couldn’t ignore it anymore. You can see from these pictures how much I want it. Now, all that needs to happen is for God to decide that my church needs me, too.

Amen.

One of my Fanagans, and I’m not sure which but I have a good lead, sent me a package through Amazon. It contained Girl Scout Cookie Nestle Crunch in Thin Mint, Samoa, and Peanut Butter, 12 Packages of Happy Cola, and two large packages of Walker’s Shortbread. I now have diabetes. However, it is one of the sweetest things that anyone has sent me (literally), because they have no idea how much walking they’ve saved me to get those precious Happy Cola in the first place. Last time, it was almost five miles, and I am not kidding.

And as for shortbread and Girl Scout cookies, they’ve obviously been reading closely.

It’s like I’m their Lamb today, and it feels amazing. When I put good out into the world, I get it back. There’s a sweetness and light to it that I have only found by crawling into myself and getting to know her. She’s amazing when she wants to be. For instance, yesterday, I felt like I truly saw Argo, really saw her without any of my own perceptions and wanted to do something nice for her without any expectation in return. Today, someone did the same thing for me- there wasn’t even a return address on the package. However, when I figure it out, there will be great surprises. 🙂

The best part is that even though I have enough candy to feed myself into a diabetic coma, I have cheerios and oatmeal downstairs. Well, the oatmeal is in brownie Cliff’s Bars, but that counts, right?

I eat so well.

I think I have finally wrapped my brain around why it’s so hard for me that Argo has walked off. It’s like the parable of the one lost sheep that the shepherd searches for until he’s finally found her. Of course I care about the other sheep. Of course I do. But one is lost, and some part of me wants to search for her until she is found, rejoicing and fireman carrying her to safety. This image is hilarious in my own mind, because I can’t fireman carry a 2-liter of soda without getting winded. But anyway. Lost sheep. My other 99 are fine.

I wasn’t a very good shepherd back then. I was too proud, too anxious, too wrapped up in my own life to see beyond it. I couldn’t be the person she needed me to be, because honestly, I couldn’t see her. God, I tried. I just didn’t see the ways I was failing her until it was too late, and Dana’s ruminations on the subject did not help, because they drove the relationship further into my own madness instead of back toward safety. So that sheep is lost to me, and instead of focusing on the other 99, I am lost in the wind and the rain of trying to find that one.

Yesterday I was lost in thought, wishing I could tell her about my interview at the church, and I ordered her a present online that is cheap and very unique. Thought she might want it for her office or something. When I put the shipping address on it, it asked for my name. So the label looks like I’m sending it to myself at her house. D’OH. I e-mailed her and said that a package was coming and the mixup in the label. No reply, but it didn’t matter. To want a reply means it wasn’t sent in the spirit of giving, anyway. I literally just wanted to say, “you’ve meant something in my life.” I so want to spill the beans on what it is. I can’t keep a secret for shit. But this is so unique that I can’t take a chance it won’t get back to her somehow. All I will tell you is that it is made of glass.

So the spirit of giving is alive and well, because at least if my lost sheep stays lost, it’s not like I haven’t sent out a rescue mission.

Amen.

Facebook Posting I Just Wrote:

I promise that in front of the kids I will be entirely age appropriate, but FUCK YEAH I got the interview at the church. I am so high I can barely stand it. I came to DC to do the work I’ve been saying I was going to do and I’ve taken a step down on HOLY GROUND. Thanks to Nadia Bolz Weber and Jay Bakker, I learned that I could be myself and still be a minister. I have tattoos. I have piercings. I am a little edgy for prime time on my web site and on Facebook. I am also a humble servant and I know my church needs me. Will you pray with me? My interview is on Thursday, August 13th at 8:15 PM. I know I’ve got the skills. Help me build the confidence I need to know that God is talking directly to me. I have run from this calling since 1995. It’s GO TIME. I cannot believe this is even happening. I am so excited to be the person I need to be.

It’s time I got a clue. I was born for this. I am an INFJ who’s been trained her whole life in “show mode.” I am the introvert writer who can hold you in the palm of her hand during worship. I can preach. I can write liturgy. I can sit through a finance meeting and not get bored. 😉 I know how to make the ask in terms of donations. I know every part of this job, down to the nuts and bolts. God has been calling me forever. I finally picked up the fucking phone.

I can’t help but think of Susan and my dad right now, because they are the ones that prepared me for this. Susan even more than my dad, really, because everything I learned from my dad, I learned by watching. Everything I learned from Susan was, “here it is. Do it.” It took a lot for me to have the confidence to fly solo, and even though I will be an unordained youth pastor if I get the job, it does not mean that I will not get to exhibit my other skills as well. Plus, it pays enough that all my expenses are covered and school won’t get in the way, and neither will writing.

Please, Fanagans. I’ve never needed you more in my life. Pray for me and the ministry I’m starting, because this is go big or go home time. I need to impress the search committee. I need this job as a stepping stone to having my own church someday. I need your prayers and your PRESENCE. I need to feel your love and your confidence in me.

In the words of my favorite hymn, won’t you let me be your servant, let me be as Christ to you? Pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant, too.

Believe it or not, the title of this blog entry is actually a URL. The one I use most frequently is steep.it/black, because my favorite is really, really caffeinated black tea with either CoffeeMate or whole milk. I just don’t think green tea suits me, because it doesn’t have that thick and rich mouth feel of which I’ve become so fond. It has literally replaced coffee for me. The only time I have coffee is when I’m in two places. The first is La Madeleine, because their French roast is not to be missed under any circumstances, and Einstein Bros. bagel shop, because they give free refills and their coffee is better than Starbucks. I mean, of course Starbucks has good espresso drinks, but when you’re talking about plain drip, most of the time Starbucks over-roasts their beans and you have to get it fresh to make it taste really good. If you want Starbucks drip, buy the beans and take them home to ensure you get a fresh cup every morning. When it sits, it is really, really shitty. Oh, and I forgot. I have a third place. The coffee at Panera bread is revolutionary, because they’re honest. They actually put signs on the coffee to tell you how long it’s been sitting there so you know which one is the freshest and which one they’re about to refill. Their refills are also free. It’s good to know where there are free refills, and which stores don’t mind writers using their stores for offices. Panera- not so fond. Einstein’s is usually empty, so they don’t care. And at Starbucks, I have Larry (remember Larry?).

I am trying so hard to get a real job. Yesterday, I applied for a cook’s position at a vegan restaurant because I want to learn to cook vegan food (it is revolutionary). Then, last night I applied for a job as a busboy at Busboys and Poets, because I would be in good company with Langston Hughes, the “busboy poet.” Plus, the no. 14 bus goes right to it and that’s the one I catch at the end of my street. It’s very close to the Takoma metro station, although I believe they have other locations.

Why am I applying to these low-end jobs? Because I’m a writer. I cannot have a job where I am on call, have homework, or have to spend half the week traveling. If I get one of those jobs, it will come with a ridiculous amount of money, so I will have to consider it. Like I’ve said before, I’ve applied everywhere from restaurants to Cisco. I am not ruling anything out. However, my standard of living is ridiculously low for the DC area. My house is all bills paid, and I am on Medicaid. ANY job will cover me.

I am hoping that I will find someone that will call me back, because the situation is getting dire. My parents help me out to the extent that they are able, but I am too old for this shit. I want to be on my own, so that I can be really proud of something. I am really proud of this web site, and I had a donor yesterday that said it was important for me to keep up my pro status. She’s a better writer than me. That one line says it all.

I don’t know what I’m going to do with the money yet, because this web site doesn’t need anything and I don’t need anything in terms of professional development since the last donation allowed me to buy all my Linux books and a membership to LinuxJobber. I think I will let it sit until the domain name needs to be re-upped, because I like my URL a lot, even though I didn’t come up with it, exactly. My friend Chason started calling himself “theantichason” online a million years ago, and I liked it so much that the moniker fit me as well, with the exception of my name not being Chason, kind of a pity because I like the name so much.

In a way, I am steeping myself. I am using this time while I don’t have a job to read and write as much as I can, because the words of Will Hunting about the education you could get for $1.50 in late fees at the public library have stuck with me like a mantra. For God’s sake, I am reading Ulysses, greatly considered to be one of the most difficult novels to wrap your brain around in the history of the world. Some people say it is genius. Some people say it is madness. I think it is somewhere in the middle.

I am also still wrapped up in the Revolutionary War, because 1776 and John Adams are incredible. I love David McCullough like I love Happy Cola. After I finish those, I am planning on reading Ben Franklin by Walter Isaacson, because I loved Steve Jobs so much. After that, I’m planning on skipping to Edmund Morris, because I read his biography on Reagan, called Dutch, and it was outstanding. In fact, I don’t have it with me, but in my father’s library in Sugar Land I have an autographed copy of it. I do not agree with Reagan politically on nearly anything, but he is a very interesting man. Did you know he was a lifeguard when he was young? Betcha didn’t. 😛

As you can see, I love reading biographies of great people, because I want to be a great people. It seems logical that in order to be a great person yourself, you need to read how other great people did it. I mean, Walter Isaacson may never write Leslie Lanagan, but it’s not in my nature not to try. Some of my sermons have been very widely shared, and the reason I haven’t preached in a while is because of the Klonopin. I was taking one in the morning and one at night, and it made me so sleepy I couldn’t do anything but take a shower and get dressed. Seriously, it was like being the Indian in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I was dressed, but I couldn’t really talk. I was just this zombie, a walker trapped in a body that was still alive.

I stopped the Klonopin during the day and I came back into myself.

Yesterday I went to Macy’s because my mom gave me a gift card to that store, too, because I told her that I wanted to get my birthday wish in early, which was a gift card to Macy’s and nothing else. Just load that bitch up. She left an envelope on my dresser among my other mail and of course, I didn’t find it. She had to call me and tell me to look for it. When I opened the envelope, there were three gift cards- one to Starbucks and two to Macy’s. I have no idea how in the hell she got the Macy’s gift certificates. It was like magic.

So, anyway, I took the gift card to Macy’s and went to the little boys’ department. This is why I like Macy’s so much. They have men’s clothes in miniature that fit my small frame. I got three Tommy Hilfiger shirts (which Meag used to lovingly call Tommy H, so technically I got three “Tommy H” shirts). The first is a red and white pinstripe oxford, and the second and third are the same shirt in different colors because they were so damn comfortable. They’re both long-sleeved, which I need because I love t-shirts and yet, I’m always cold (my friend Matthew used to call me “Leslie No-Blood”). They’re both color-blocked in horizontal stripes. One is navy and grey, and the other is red and pink. Seriously, I have never had a more comfortable t-shirt in my life, which is why I couldn’t get away with only buying one. The red and pink is kind of loud, but I decided I liked it because it plays against type. Most of the time, I wear blue and navy. And that’s all. I have branched out lately with red, orange, and teal… but even that is pushing it. The thing that pushed me to buy the red and pink t-shirt is that I knew it would look incredible with either my navy hoodie or my black jacket. I’m trying to buy a Garanimals-type wardrobe, where everything is classic and I can pull just about anything out of my closet and it will match. I am succeeding mightily. The one piece of clothing that I want and do not have is a blue blazer. A size 16 in the boys’ department is only $99.50, which is a great price considering what I’m buying. All of them are name brand, such as Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein. I’ve already got one, but it is black, and I don’t wear black that much because when I’m in black pants I feel like a waiter. The red pinstripe Oxford and black blazer may change that. I would kill in that outfit, especially since I have blue wire-frame glasses. God, that is so DC I can barely stand it. I’ll wear it the next time I hang out with Pri Diddy and Elena so they can tell me if I’m hot enough and that outfit is approved. I have a black leather belt and shoes, too. Are you impressed yet?

I still have some money on my Macy’s gift card. I may need a pair of black Chucks. I can get away with Chucks and Dockers just about anywhere. Speaking of which, I have brown leather Chucks with brick red laces that would make you kvell. They’re made of the same kind of leather as the helmets in Leatherheads, and the tongue is sewn in so that my feet never get wet if I step in a puddle. Now do you see why I have hipster tendencies? I have brown pants and brown Chucks. It’s a thing.

I was at church a couple weeks ago and met this couple that I’d like to hang out with socially. We had a great time talking about being hipster, because I told them I’d lived in Portland relatively recently and that I wasn’t hipster myself, but definitely had hipster tendencies, especially since I was wearing brown pants at the time. The husband said, “oh, don’t worry. Brown pants doesn’t mean you’re hipster. It just means you don’t work on The Hill.” I nearly spat out my tea.

It’s true. I am definitely more Takoma Park than Capitol Hill. For those not in the know, Takoma Park is the equivalent of what Montrose used to be in Houston and Hawthorne in Portland is now.

I think it’s time to get back to reading. I’ve caught you up on everything that’s going on in my world right now, especially since I am wearing the most comfortable t-shirt in the world. Seriously. Buy an expensive t-shirt. You won’t notice the difference between an expensive one and a cheap one until you do. You just want to luxuriate in it and never take it off.

Mine already smells.

I need another cup of tea before I start reading. Ulysses requires it. In fact, it makes me thirsty for tea because they drink tea in the book. Let me tell you my favorite line so far since I just finished the Outlander series. The setup is that one of the guys is an English whiny bitch:

The Sassenach requires his morning rashers.

I highlighted it just for fun.

Oh, and one more note. I really feel that Stephen Dedalus is Joyce himself, because the writing in Ulysses is so much more polished that it’s like Stephen grew as Joyce did.

It’s like he was steeping.

Outlander took a lot out of me because of everything that was going on when I read it. Even though Argo never participated in romantic feelings for me, it didn’t erase mine for her… and I was still deeply, madly, desperately in love with Dana. It was a different kind of love. They both dug deep down into my soul, but Dana had been there a lot longer. So the ties between Claire and me were apt. I didn’t want to leave “Frank” or “Jamie.” And then Amazon with its Dime Bag approach to book selling had me reading Dragonfly in Amber about 13 and a half seconds after I’d sworn I needed a break.

You know how I said that I skip around a lot in terms of authors so that my voice doesn’t start to sound like the last author I’ve just inhaled? Weeeelllllll, I came to the end of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and it just ends. It’s like the end of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. So OF COURSE I had to start Ulysses immediately to find out what happens to Stephen Dedalus. It does not disappoint. In Artist, Stephen says he’s going somewhere. In Ulysses, you find out where he went. It’s a brilliant ploy to sell books, but I remember sitting on the Metro earlier today and finishing Artist with no small amount of indignation. It reminded me of going to see the first Lord of the Rings movie with Kathleen at that big monstrous cineplex on King Street. I had not been a fan of the books as a child, so I was seeing the story cold. The credits roll and I turn to Kathleen and say, we just sat here for almost four fucking hours and they didn’t get anywhere? WHAT THE HELL. All of Gallery Place/Chinatown Metro stop heard me gasp in exasperation because surely if Stephen was going somewhere, Joyce would give some indication of where that might be. And, not to put too fine a point on it, but I thought Artist was a fine compilation of A Separate Peace by John Knowles and my own ruthless wandering into my own mind. In fact, toward the end, I started to think of it as Stephen’s blog.

I’d known that Ulysses was a modern retelling of The Odyssey since high school. Since I graduated in 1996, I’m hoping I’m not spoiling that for anyone (he was dead the whole movie, Luke is Darth Vader’s son, Beth dies, etc.). However, I did not know that it was such a massive work, or that it was so lauded. I just got very attached to Stephen Dedalus, as you might imagine I would if you know him (aren’t those characters you feel you know?) and me simultaneously. Stephen thinks of being a priest. His musings on God go on for pages, and he’s just lost in his own head trying to work out who he is and what he believes. We come out on either end of the spectrum, but his musings are interesting to one so theologically driven as myself. His dying mother asks him to pray for her, and he is so absolute in his agnosticism that he won’t even do that. I say agnosticism rather than atheism because when one of his friends asks him about it, he gives a “meh” kind of answer. I don’t believe in it, and I don’t NOT believe in it, either.

So we began this kinship, Stephen and me, and now I can’t quit him. I have to know why Joyce chose him to retell the tale of Odysseus, and what part he might play in the novel. I have read that he is an important character, but not which character he ties to directly in the Homerian epic. If he is Jason, I will fall dead on the floor. DEAD.

And on that note, I have to get to reading before my vitamin L kicks in. That’s because I was going to call Klonopin vitamin K, but realized that was potassium. Then, I couldn’t call clonazepam vitamin C, because obviously. I call it Vitamin L because it means “Vitamin Leslie is a nicer person.”

Fuckitty Bye.

I love my little town. It’s right on the line between DC and Maryland, the first stop on the Metro that’s an actual suburb. I live right between two Metro stops, one close enough I can walk if I am feeling industrious (it’s about a 30 minute walk). The other one is one is the first stop in DC, and the bus that takes me to it comes to my actual street, as close as the school bus stop when I was a child. Plus, there is a 7-Eleven at the Takoma stop that carries two things I desperately love- the gummy cola bottles for which I would walk 500 miles (I see what I did there), and tallboys of cherry Pepsi Max.

I do not understand why you cannot buy cherry Pepsi Max at the grocery store, but it’s probably better that I can’t. It has more caffeine than any other soda on the market, and I am the type person that drinks soda incessantly, although I am trying to cut down. Right now my soda obsession is diet grape. It is the soda with which dreams are made. This web site is fueled by diet grape soda and an insane amount of black tea.

My mother gave me a Starbucks gift certificate (for hosting her while she was here) so that I can further my tea addiction. There’s a Starbucks that literally sits at the bottom of the steps to the Silver Spring Metro station, so there are very few times that I can go to the Metro station without stopping in. You can’t take your drink on the Metro, so there have been plenty of times that I have ordered a double shot of espresso and drunk it like a Flaming Dr Pepper. The rest of the time, my order is iced black tea, no extra water, five Splenda, and half-n-half. It is delicious, and a cheap treat that makes me happy. It takes so little. I sit here for a long time when I have it to spare, and Larry, the manager (remember Larry?), only charges me 53 cents for a refill. I think he likes me. It’s good to have friends in high places. I mean, seriously. Who is a better friend for a writer than the manager at Starbucks?

This is the best move I have ever made. Ever. Finally, I made a life decision all on my own that’s paid off in spades. Sometimes I get lonely for my family, but when I lived in Houston, they were so busy that I hardly saw them, anyway. The best part about living in DC is that I might get to see my sister more often. She’s taken a job that has her traveling all over the place, and DC is one of the cities on her list. I am hoping that if she comes here, she can extend her trip to have a day off, because she wants to run on the Mall and I want to take her to my favorite spots, like Kramerbooks/Afterwords and Teaism. I am sure that she’ll want to do some touristy shit as well, but I want to show her MY DC, because she came to visit me the last time I lived here, but we only got one night to do things here. She flew into DCA because my mom was performing with her choir in Carnegie Hall, and Lindsay wanted to road trip with Kathleen & me from DC to NYC. That road trip was one of the most fun things I did when I was here last time, and believe it or not, I drove the whole time. The one that hates driving with a passion because she’s scared she’ll run into something drove in New York City. There’s a reason for that. Kathleen is one of those people that freaks out in unfamiliar situations, and I’m the type person that gets more calm and quiet the worse things get (I can break down later). So I drove in all the traffic and the beauty of cruising down the West Side Highway. It was heaven on earth, except for the cost of parking. Lindsay also left us a parting gift. Half a sandwich in the back seat of my car that took me six weeks to find because it was buried under the driver’s seat.

Which leads me to tell the story of Lanagan Lunchmeat Syndrome. We all have it, even Dana. She may not be a Lanagan anymore, but I assure you she still has Lanagan tendencies. It’s hard to get them back out once they’re ingrained. Sorry about that, D-money.

So, the first instance of LLS was that I needed to get out from under a car payment on my Saturn, so I shipped it to my stepsister, Caitlin. My dad felt sorry for me and sent me an old Mercedes (my favorite car ever and I still weep for it. I had to give it up when the repairs cost more than the car.). Kathleen and I rode around in it all the time, and we noticed a smell that seemed like something had died. We searched the car for at least two weeks before we found a pound of sliced turkey under the carpet in the trunk.

When I moved back to Houston in 2002, I got my Saturn back and drove it to Oregon. It took me forever to find a job, so again, I sent my Saturn back to Texas and rode the bus everywhere. Again, my dad felt sorry for me and sent me a cute little Ford Focus. When it arrived, there was half a hot dog in the center console.

I drove that car until the wheels fell off. It was so comfortable and zippy. Even Dana loved it. Long before we were dating, I made her drive me everywhere. It was easier than thinking I was going to crash her into something. Hey, she had 3-D vision. I had a nice car. It worked out well. I would drive up to Dana’s apartment complex, call her to come down, and I’d be sitting in the passenger seat. It would just make her crack up. I know my place in the car. It is running the radio and playing with my phone. Besides, I think I have said this before… when I drive, Dana becomes the football coach driving instructor you never wanted. It was a LONG three months when she got her DUI. Looooooooooong.

I traded in my Ford Focus for a Jeep Grand Cherokee, just absolutely loaded out. It was used, so I got the most beautiful Jeep in the whole world for a mere $297 a month. How did I do this? I threatened to walk away from the sale until I made the finance manager swear and call me a bitch. However, he wanted the sale so bad that he gave me what I wanted.

And then Dana left a Subway sandwich in the center of my console and she, too, made me a victim of LLS. As you can see, it has become a thing- but at least it was still wrapped. I was not that lucky with Lindsay.

It’s hard for me to think about Dana and the funny things that have happened over the years, because I just miss her so much that I cannot even. She’s my heart. She’s part of my soul. She’s the million dollar package that you only get once in a lifetime if you’re lucky, but at the same time, our relationship had run its course and I just couldn’t deal anymore. I didn’t have the right emotional tools to deal with both of our depressions at once. I would be lying if I said I didn’t hope that we found each other again later in life, but it is probably a dream dried up. I can’t imagine with all I put her through that she can see hugging and kissing me like she means it. Our time apart has just reinforced how much I need to be single and focus on myself so that I am worthy of any million dollar package, much less her.

And thinking of all I put Dana through inevitably leads to Argo and the enormous love I feel for her in a friend sort of way, because I let go of the part of myself that thought I needed to be with her to enjoy her for all of who she is. Friendship can and does that, but in my past, nothing told me that was true. I have given up the one person in my life who makes me greater than I could ever be on my own, because when I do dumb shit, she’s the one person in my life that will actually say, “Leslie, you’re doing some dumb shit.” When I told her I was starting a church, she said she didn’t do church or organized religion. I said, “I don’t need you for that. I need you to be the one that when I start talking to God, I don’t start to believe I am one.” She said, “I can do that.”

Yes. Yes, she can. I told her I didn’t think it would be a problem in the slightest. Everyone needs that friend who can knock your ego down a peg or two when you clearly need it. When I think of losing that part of our friendship, I go back to kicking myself mightily for the way I handled the end of our relationship. I was so naive. I was such a teenager. But inside, that’s what I am. My development was arrested into a fourteen year old girl in a 37 year old’s body. It is only now that I am “aging up,” in no small measure because of her. When I opened up to her, my stranger on a train, she helped me kill the monster under my bed. She didn’t do anything but listen and point out the flaws in my reasoning. The best thing she ever could have done was to keep repeating, “it wasn’t your fault.” It was a Matt Damon/Robin Williams moment. Do you see how stupid I was? I will beat myself up over the end of this relationship for all time, because I made a great big miscalculation. She said in the beginning that there was nothing I could do that would make her love me any less, and I thought that if I got my act together, we could fix this. That she wouldn’t leave for good because she could see that I wouldn’t always be the asshole I was being at the time. I was strung out for a number of reasons, and getting my act together, unfortunately, needed to be leaving everything I knew and starting over in a place where I could thrive instead of just survive.

Houston makes me go into the smallest version of myself, and I think that’s why Dana was so successful there and I just wasn’t. Houston is the place where all of my abuse took place. I have talked about this before, but for Dana, it was moving to a new city and starting over. For me, it was really fucking creepy. I have tried to move back to Houston several times since my abuse, and every time, it’s lasted two years. Apparently, that’s how long I can stay before all my old memories start to eat me alive. And now that Argo and I have had all of our talks, the memories I have of Diane are even creepier and it hurts me even more, because I don’t have all the love attached I used to. I only have the memory of an adult using a child.

Perhaps she doesn’t believe that her abuse was sexual, but at the same time, you don’t use a child to deal with adult situations. I believe it was sexual because of the journal she handed me with poetry about her sex life at college. Maybe she thought she was just giving me a glimpse of who I’d become as an adult. But let’s skip that. I was 14 when she told me her roommate was an alcoholic. I was 14 when she told me her roommate was a drug dealer. I was 15 when she told me that her roommate was actually her partner, and my heart dropped into my stomach because I thought we were going to become a thing. I wanted to protect her beyond all measure, and I couldn’t think of other women without believing that I was cheating on her. Our boundaries were not clear until after she gave me her journal, and perhaps this was because our relationship was starting to show to everyone at her job (she was a scholarship singer at my church) that it was getting serious and inappropriate. Who knows what would have happened if our relationship had managed to be on the downlow the whole time? But I can’t what-if. What happened was what happened, and what happened was enough. There were so many layers of lies that I couldn’t keep track of them all, and I should never have had to participate in them in the first place. But that’s what happens with emotional abuse. You get hooked, and there’s nothing that can separate you after that. It’s seductive, even if it isn’t sexual. I wanted that relationship, because it made me feel older than I was.

It didn’t show until everyone else was older than me.

This is why I miss Argo like I miss no one else. She showed me that I was capable of handling so much more than I was. She showed me that I had an incredible wealth of emotional tools that I just wasn’t using. She was also one of the first people that believed in this web site, and if you know me at all, you know that the sweetest thing Argo has ever said to me is, “you must have custom fonts.”

It would be the joy of my life to thank her for these things in person, but I feel that thanking her for them here will at least put them in the pensieve so that if she’s curious down the road, she can see for herself what I really think of her and just how much she means to me. It’s also for me- I never want to forget this time in my life, no matter how painful it has been on all three of us.

But if I had the chance, I’d share my gummy cola bottles with her. I’d also be careful not to leave lunchmeat in her car.