I can’t do it.

I can’t change her name in my phone.

Dana’s name has been every other letter is an A for seven years. For seven years, I have called her “Naganalanad.” Before that, I called her Bana Damberger. It took me longer than it should’ve to realize that when she was saying my name, she was switching the letters in her head, too…… they’re just THE SAME, dumbass. It is embarrassing how much I love her. Just embarrassing. I am not shy about shouting it from the rooftops, and never have been. I am slowly coming into my own with her, though, because there are times when I can separate my grief from all this madness and stop ruminating in sadness and enjoy her for the little time we have left. At other times, I feel like attaching myself to her pant leg, knowing that she can still walk out if I do, but it’s fun to pretend I could stop her, anyway.

Last night was the best night we’ve had in weeks. Dana likes my Bluetooth headphones, so she offered to buy me a new pair and take me out to dinner. I wasn’t hungry, but I went anyway, because hey. New headphones. As I sat and ate my chicken schwarma (Fadi’s Meyerland, HOLLA!), I just flooded out in silence. Dana is not a person. She is an event. I can remember and see all the way down into our history, and it stays with me like an open book with pictures. Most of the time, I don’t write about Dana. It’s not to protect her confidentiality in the slightest. It’s that those feelings run so deep that I cannot access them…………… yet. #prayingonthespaces

Dana’s chord to me is the biggest one I’ve seen of them all, second only to Diane because we’ve known each other longer. There are 15 years more history with her, because she’s known me since I had permed hair, mall bangs, and an insatiable desire for preppy clothes that looked just like hers (I am not releasing my inner INSERT NAME HERE, you jackass! Sorry, inside joke. Talk amongst yourselves for a second while I smack Argo on the ass. [I love you. You complete me.]). There’s a reason that for me, Oxford shirts and Doc Martens are sentimental and nostalgic.

Speaking of which, that’s a great story. I was talking about the aforementioned INSERT NAME HERE with Argo, and said, “she doesn’t show enough cleavage, and I believe it to be a flaw in her character.” Isn’t it wonderful just wondering what the punch line was? Come on. I gave you the only two letters that matter in our entire relationship (:P), and the setup to a great joke. I’m not giving up any more, but please let me assure you that in our relationship, I only give the assist. She’s the forward. It is just ball and net all day long, she never hits the T-bar, and that’s what I miss the most. Knowing that she put her boobs trust in my hands and I wasn’t responsible with it kills me to this day. I want her back, but I do not want our dysfunction. Auna said that my blog is a good way for her to judge whether I’m healthy enough to interact, and maybe she’ll drop me a note when wanting her has faded into nothing. Don’t count on it, Argo. People don’t get over you, and anyone who says they have is fucking lying. You’ll have to dig into that one on your own, but know this. You are one of those million dollar packages, too. Auna isn’t the only one, because you don’t just get one in life. You get lots, but only if you’re paying attention enough to know what you’ve got. I am sorry for all of those moments when I treated you like a blender when you were the winning lottery ticket, especially when you laugh.

Auna and anyone else who might date me needs to know that you have NO idea how high my standards are for a significant other considering Argo’s only flaw is that she won’t trade penis for a live-in personal chef. It’s a pity, but what are you going to do?

You’re going to find someone else who makes you feel like she does. It will never be a comparison, because Argo and anyone else is comparing donuts to Chevrolets. There’s just no way to do it. There will never be another Argo, and there will never be another relationship like ours. But I hope that my next girlfriend has some of her amazing qualities, with a passion that ignites my soul. I am not in love with Argo because she’s in love with me. Loving her changes her in plenty of other ways that do not include her breaking me in half in bed. 🙂 Loving her also changes me. It makes me a better person, makes me believe in myself when I’m at my lowest. Sometimes I can’t hear my voice, but I can always hear hers. What it says is that I am Christ in the world, just like all Christians. So what am I going to DO WITH IT? Stop fucking around with darkness and get with the program. She talked. I listened. I changed. I didn’t change for her, though. I changed because she was articulating things that I knew intimately but didn’t have the words to explain. She thinks I have an inflated sense of who she is. I think she doesn’t believe in herself enough.

But I digress. This is about Dana and my absolute refusal to change her last name back to Bamberger in my phone.

Even after spending time with my thoughts about Argo and Auna Rose, I cannot disconnect from my feelings about Dana enough to hit Edit. I am sure it will come with time, as I dive into the wreck. I cannot stop saying that line. I am using Adrienne Rich as a lifeline. She’s so fucking good at it.

I take my solace in writers and poets, because my girlfriends might change, but their words do not after they are put in print. I am turning inward. Reading The Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen and Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman. Taking my time. Using my bubble. Creating the greatness that God has given me since I was a little girl. Even then, I knew I was powerful. The river is running. All I have to do is step into the flow. I am almost ready. But don’t talk to me. I have to sweat blood over what I’m about to do, in all cases, really. I don’t look at Good Friday as a bad thing this year. I desperately need to repent and reflect on all the things I’ve done, and all the things I have left undone. I have certainly not loved my neighbor as myself. I have been an arrogant jackass most of this year, because I got tired of not having a voice. I got tired of everything happening to me. I got tired of being stepped on all day, every day, because I was too meek to get anything done. Now that I have tapped into my power, I am not so much letting things happen as making them.

My parents don’t have to worry about what will happen after they’re gone. I’m going to be a well-respected author and theologian way before that. If they don’t see it, that’s not my problem. I do. I will stop at nothing. Two things. I am this smart and capable. I CAN do this. I am 38. If I am going to do this at all, I better get started.

Please, dear Jesus, let my ministry explode with our agreement. We made it when I was a kid. We have so much talking to do that I am practically buzzing. Let’s do lunch. I’m free Tuesday.

I started thinking about this Sunday’s gospel reading and how maybe I should, you know, read it. Jesus hits me where I live, dude. It’s one of his better badass moments, in my humble opinion. The heading for the pericope is “Jesus Predicts His Own Death.” Yeah, well, he does, but just like every pericope in the Bible, that’s just one take. That’s taking what’s literal and holding it out as the entire meaning of the passage. The take home message is not the action Jesus took; it is our own reactions to it.

The story starts not with Jesus’ prediction, but the Greeks who showed up. Take any group that’s been hated over the years, and you’ll get the underlying message. The Hebrews did not like the Greeks. As Lisa Cressman said at Epiphany a few months ago, it was kind of like a corporate merger. The Hebrews have little cups of creamer, and the Greeks have powdered. You cannot combine those people. You just really can’t. It’s like trying to get Jeopardy fans to watch Wheel of Fortune. Most Jeopardy people consider Wheel of Fortune a redneck game show. I am only a Wheel watcher when someone else has it on in the background. I don’t say anything. I just play with my phone.

Do you get the enormous thing that is going on here? GREEKS showed up to PASSOVER. Let’s put this in perspective. What if atheists showed up to your revival? Would you let them in? Would you possibly expose them to new experiences, or would you kick them to the curb? Can we party with the Haiti-ians, or can’t we?

So like, right now for example. The Haitians need to come to America. But some people are all, “What about the strain on our resources?” Well it’s like when I had this garden party for my father’s birthday, right? I put R.S.V.P. ’cause it was a sit-down dinner. But some people came that like did not R.S.V.P. I was like totally buggin’. I had to haul ass to the kitchen, redistribute the food, and squish in extra place settings. But by the end of the day it was, like, the more the merrier. And so if the government could just get to the kitchen, rearrange some things, we could certainly party with the Haitians. And in conclusion may I please remind you it does not say R.S.V.P. on the Statue of Liberty. Thank you very much

This is one of my favorite scenes in all of moviedom, and it illustrates verses 20-22 perfectly. In his response, I understand Jesus more fully than I did before I got up this morning. Jesus says in verse 23 that “the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” To me, this is shorthand for the thing that Diane and I call “the bubble.” Right before I sing or preach, leave me the fuck alone. I have too much to process on my own to worry about you. Let me stew over what I am here to do and how I’m going to do it. When my bubble is uninterrupted, I can sing better, and my sermons will come out clearer because I’ve had time to run it in my mind once before I get up in front of you. Jesus will not allow the Greeks to interrupt him, but it is not like they can’t join the party like everyone else. Do you see the distinction? In verse 25, it says that ANYONE who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it……

ANYONE. Greeks. Jews. Haiti-ans.

You don’t get to speak to Jesus. Have some wine and get with the program. See if you like it. Refer to John 3:19 (where the take home message is that people live in darkness because they WANT TO) and it will give you a better understanding of what Jesus means by the difference in eternal lives. Basically, it boils down to this. You can live in darkness if you want, but the direction you choose to go dictates where you’ll go eternally. As a liberal Christian, I don’t believe in the traditional ideas of heaven and hell….. but as part of the body of Christ on earth, I want to have a legacy that bears the story of “I once was lost, but now I’m found.” Speaking of which, Lindsey (7^th and 8^th grade friend), Mr. Witkov saw me wearing a t-shirt with Jesus colorblocked on the front like Andy Warhol and the words, “I once was lost” on the back. He said that I should change it to “I’m always lost.” Fucker. As a Jew, I forgive him. It would have been funny to me had I been older. At that point, I knew I was lost in the darkness and I couldn’t get out. I needed Jesus more, not less, and the more I needed him, the further he felt away. I couldn’t invest in Jesus, because he couldn’t invest in me. I was gay. I was nothing. I was a sinner who knew it and was doing it on purpose…… as a child. I did not choose to have sex with women as a child, but just like every other child in the world, I knew who I WANTED to kiss by then. Sexuality is not independent of personality, which is why there are so many celibate gays in the priesthood. Gay people still take their vows of chastity seriously, but it does not erase WHO THEY ARE. No one has ever had to sit a straight person down and explain to them why they can’t be straight and try to beat them into submission until they cry uncle. Going to church for gay kids can be torture if left in churches that say they’re sinners before they can drive. The sum total of their worthlessness can be found in pews where conservative pastors don’t give a shit what they say to the youth group. It’s just the youth group. They don’t pay attention, anyway.

I don’t know about straight ones, but what I find from gay youth is that the message their pastor sends is that they are miserable sinners…….. but I love you. It’s the “but” that kills us. It’s the “but” that sends youth from their homes to homeless shelters instead of loving families. In the United Methodist church, there is a book called The Discipline, and I’ve been fighting with one line since I was 13. The Discipline says that “The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. Therefore self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be certified as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church.” I lost my home before I even had it. I will say in my dad’s defense that none of this bullshit was coming from him. My internal struggle is that I have always been an empath with a drive to help people. Why wouldn’t I want to be ordained in the same church that baptized me?

It was not until Susan started Bridgeport United Church of Christ that I started to believe that even though the United Methodists weren’t on board, other denominations were. I could let go of my past and move on. I could believe in my idea that I belonged to a God that wanted me, and my considerable talent(s). I’m going to stop deprecating myself. It does not help. I want to know myself as well as the Greeks, those outsiders who wanted to be let in. They knocked, and the Disciples were told to let them in. I guess what I am here to say is that constantly hiding my light brought me so much darkness and I lived there because I thought I wasn’t worth anything else. My last year in the Texas Annual Conference, they were voting on whether to erase the line in the Discipline that says homosexuality is incompatible. My dad gave an impassioned speech saying that it’s easy to exclude “homosexuals,” but it is hard to exclude your parishioners, your aunt, your sister-in-law, your daughter. The vote was the closest it had ever been, but I sat in the gallery as my dreams were crushed and I knew that what I was doing was the right thing…. just slinking away with my tail between my legs. Luckily, my UCC experience got me ready to be an Episcopalian. It’s a head church less than a heart church. We want to study theological academia. We want to have the reputation that Atheists cannot call us stupid. Most of us abhor the Anglican church, and feel well within our right to dismiss them as crazy. We will accept them again when they aren’t stuck between 1950 and Leviticus. One day, I hope we will come back together when the Anglicans finally admit that they’re the assholes Jesus doesn’t want to carry his kindom. They live in darkness because they choose to make everything shame-based. Jesus is the person you come to IN your shame. You should not be shamed into salvation, but I promise that it is there. The difference does not come from God’s agreement. It comes from yours. Where are you on your acceptance scale? I know you can accept your family. Will you accept homeless people in your church? Will you accept whatever Greek might walk in your door?

In the Episcopal church, there’s a line in Rite I that just swallows me whole. It is such a beautiful sentence that I hate Rite II. It’s the remission of sins, bitch.

But I digress.

The line is, “we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, the blessed company of all faithful people; and are also heirs, through hope, of thy everlasting kingdom.” Jesus, would you look at that? We’re all in. The gate is open wide. Stop thinking of this passage as Jesus predicting his death because even in the midst of it, he’s still widening the net. Still thinking. Still doing. Still helping people even though he is encased in pain so great that even after 2,000 years, people are still talking about it. All Jesus did was continue being his sweet and loving self, hiding his pain so that he could be many seeds of hope instead of just one.

It’s the fith Sunday of Lent. We are approaching the cross, the stone, and the plan. Jesus said this out in John 12:35: You only have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you.” What are we going to do while Jesus is still here? What great things might be accomplished in his name rather than living in darkness and complaining about it? If you always do what you always did, you’re always going to get what you always got.” It’s a new thing I’m trying out.

Believing in myself.

Believing in my ability to receive the Greeks where they are, and invite them into my silence. They might listen. They might not. But their reaction is not my problem. I am looking for people who walk in light, not in Christ. How you get to God is how you get to God. I just relate to Jesus. In some ways, I think I am him. Not in a psychotic, should go back to the hospital sort of way. I have his spirit. I have his silence. I have his ability to move people with words. It is not that I am now walking in light, it is that Jesus showed me it was there. It was always there. I didn’t have to hide it anymore. People who believe in themselves to this degree are frightening. I get it.

But in the immortal words of Steve Jobs, “the only people crazy enough to think they can change the world are the only ones who do.”

Get out of your darkness. Let the Greeks in. Show them what you know. Share. Give them some damn creamer cups so that they will see their superiority and give up on that powdered crap. But like I said, nothing will happen unless they agree to it.

And they surely won’t agree if you don’t ask the question. I have stopped worrying about what comes out of my mouth so much. I know I am secure enough to handle people’s responses no matter what they are, because I have been a miserable sinner before. I have been through darkness. I have been in this hole before, and I know the way out. #wwld

Just like Cher Horowitz.

Auna and I made tentative plans. She ditched me to go to dinner with a friend. She’d been flirting with me all day. She said she would see me tomorrow, but e-mail me her thesis tonight.

No. I told her that I could not see her anymore, because I really, really liked her and it was not possible for me to enter into any relationship where equality didn’t exist. I was not the girl who would wait for you and work on your paper while I do it.

I am not that girl anymore. I was that girl in high school. Meag was the goalie on the soccer team. I got an A on her senior English paper and a C on mine.

Capiche?

I used a pseudonym, Denyce, in the beginning; I was scared to tell the world her real name, and then I decided that I could get over it. Now she’s a recurring character. You will get to know her over time.

Dana told me that her eros energy for anyone is gone, so please. Date anyone you want. Distract yourself. I will try to be nice to her. I said, “my history with you is that you get very possessive.” She has in fact helped wreck my relationships with two previous women because they would see us in a room together and know that to us, they weren’t really there. Angela and Katharin both knew that I was going to end up with Dana to some extent, but I was really in denial because we weren’t attracted to each other. What changed my mind? The fact that cute is a dime a dozen but the people who will get down in the shit with you are worth way more than that. She, over time, became the face I loved more than all others in a forever sort of way. The last few weeks have not destroyed that, but they have for right now. Dana is not coming back any time soon, and yet wants to be friends in the same way that we were in Portland.

That is not reality, and needs to change. If Dana is set on not getting back together, I cannot let her in to the degree that I have in the past because my ACTUAL girlfriends feel supplanted. Our connection was so strong and so tight that even though I was attracted to other people, they faded into the background as we used each other’s minds as a metaphorical playground. We GET each other…. although I understand that we both need new heuristics for life and when we’ve learned them, it may not be advisable for us to be together because it might take a week or it might take a year, but we would lapse back into old patterns.

One of the key disagreements that we’ve had thus far was whether I was justified in posting about our separation on Facebook. I am not offering excuses, because I think I’m right and she doesn’t. This is just my side of the story. I asked her, “who was more important that we call first? Your parents or mine? Who’s sister is more important? Yours or mine? Who’s………..” You see? it gets harder and harder when your family of friends is in the 200 range. Hierarchy becomes impossible. Plus, to me, it gave my life a sense of definition that the State of Texas could not grant…. a day in court to dissolve our union in front of all the people we wanted to invite. The UCC does a wonderful job with divorce ceremonies, because to us hippy liberal Christians, how you leave a relationship is just as important as how you start it. It’s definitely not the ceremony I’d planned to be having this year, but what’s not to like? We all get to get together and get drunk, anyway. I’m Irish. It’s the law.

Even though it’s St. Patrick’s Day, I am sober and enjoying the evening at Dana’s so I can work on my 17-inch iMac instead of my Android tablet and bluetooth keyboard. I just feel so much more productive and focused at my own desk. It is destroying my rhythm to post elsewhere. I know the feel of my own keyboard the way my mother does to her piano. I cannot type as fast anywhere else, and the layout of the BT keyboard isn’t standard. The punctuation is in weird places with function keys. Better than a touchscreen, but not by much. But I am not banging on the technology. I just can’t do as good a job on the go as I can when things are blown up enormously large.

But still, I’m thinking about Auna, who called to tell me that she couldn’t thank me enough for helping her before her job interview because she was UT’s newest Admissions Counselor. This was after I went to her house, where she showed me two collections (a book and a coffee table book) of African-American art) that she’d brought to life. Yes, that’s right. The Art Historian has two books in print and the writer has none. It scares me how smart and capable she is. She can adult so much better than I can, and she is ten years younger. What makes her that way is her whole approach to life. She sings all the time. She laughs with her whole body. You’re probably thinking that she’s capable of distracting me from my grief. Look at my life. Am I ever distracted by grief? Nope. I pretty much live there… not because I enjoy walking in darkness, but because it has more life lessons to offer than pent-up rage. Exploring darkness means there’s at least a pinpoint of light somewhere, and you have to look hard for it. I have lost Dana and Argo. Therefore, there is no other female in my life looking out for my heart in a way that I can accept.

I cannot accept Dana’s friendship because I want to work on our relationship so much that she is tired of hearing the question, and thinking about it. I think she wants me to date Auna so that I will stop focusing on her in a very immediate sense. I don’t want her to leave me because the reason we got together in the first place is that when we were with other people, we couldn’t keep our minds off each other. So we would just be kind of half showing up to both relationships oh my God Dana doesn’t know how to function if I don’t have a girlfriend and it got easier for her to relax into that role when I met Argo…. although not completely because she didn’t break my relationship with Argo for me, but she helped a little bit. Argo got really tired of being Dana’s excuse in our relationship. It was a cheap political point for her to say, “Argo’s just going to fall for you, anyway” because it showed Argo how clearly Dana did not get it. I am extraordinarily honored and pleased at Dana’s faith in my ability, but damn. Besides, if telling her that I’ve cooked professionally didn’t work, nothing will. I know Argo. We’ve met.

That constant Eeyore-like line from Dana has been haunting our marriage from day one. Except until Argo came along, there wasn’t a name attached. Dana has been sure that this was going to happen for a long time….. meaning me leaving……

I cannot decide on whether I want a future with Dana, Argo, or even Auna…… but when she said I deserved a makeout session for all my help, I at least thought about it for a second. I am ten years older. She makes me feel every bit of it. And 20 years younger all at once. At first I thought that we weren’t going to be attracted to each other that way, but when I walked into her historic Third Ward home, I felt all the children that had run through it before ours. It scared me and then I remembered that my personality constantly dictates that I see things as they could be and not as they are. It is not reality. It is a version of the future. If it doesn’t work out with Auna, it doesn’t mean it was a bad thought. It was just a future that didn’t happen. However, I did send a letter into the universe asking for what I wanted, and it arrived.

It’s like that scene in Doctor Who where Matt Smith is jumping all over the place because he’s gotten a mail cube…. There are moments when I look at Auna and I can see her at 70. The thrill is opening the package to see what’s arrived….. all eighty million parts. She says she’s never kissed a white chick. Can my little lips handle hers? Well JESUS. With an opening like that, how can I resist? It hasn’t happened yet. But knowing that there’s a possibility that it could is enough for me. Right now is not about what is solidly there. It is about diving into the wreck to see what’s left of me, just me.

I had a black girlfriend once before. It did not end well. She wanted to marry me after six weeks and I was barely out of high school. However, what I learned from that relationship is that in Texas, if you’re an interracial couple, no one will notice you’re gay. #smallblessings

All of the sudden, I feel like I have untapped potential all over the place. It’s not that I haven’t had the answers, it’s that I haven’t asked the right questions. Getting the answers to the questions I didn’t know I needed to ask has brought me so much more peace than continuing to think that what happened to me in middle school and high school was normal and sane. I am not the same person that I used to be because who this person was got lost. She’s been hiding, crippled with fear, waiting for Argo’s touch. It’s not that I knew who I was waiting for. It’s just that I know her name now. Argo will never be my girlfriend, but she is the only one to ever kiss my soul directly.

If only she would stop slipping me tongue. :P~~~~~

I spent the night at Aaron’s to ensure that I would not run into Dana today, and failed to execute corrrectly because I remembered everything I needed except my medications. Luckily, I got to the house before ten, and I am not sure whether she was awake or not. If she was, she let me get my stuff and go in peace…. which is exactly how I want things. I will manage my stuff if I have to, but other than that, no length is too great to avoid the terrible, gut-wrenching pain that comes from separating from someone that is not just half of your brain and your heart… it is your entire life. She has said that the thing she will be the most sad to leave is Wi-Phi. She can have him, as far as I am concerned. Obviously, their relationship is more important than mine. For whatever reason, they have bonded, and we have not.

I am so disconnected from everything and everyone that finally, I feel as if I can hear what I think. Other people have great suggestions, but especially after the fistfight and the hospital stay, everything is overwhelming for me right now. The best that I can do right now is to get up, get dressed, and have something published that day. I will give you a secret to my blog that no one knows. The more I write about memories, the less I am happy with my real life. If I am lost in old tapes, I am ruminating about the past to avoid thinking about the future because it is safe there. I know what happens when Dana rejects me; what will it feel like when someone else does it?

I want to find out.

Denyce, the girl I mentioned on Tinder, texted me last night. “how do you pick the pseudonyms?” Here’s how it went in her case. She is black and went to grad school in Ohio. My friend Giles once babysat for Denyce Graves’ dog at Oberlin.

She said that she was doing something today and I should come meet her. I do not have a new girlfriend. I want what’s going to happen to happen, without worrying on either side that this is a relationship with a capital R. I want her to be my friend, and if in the course of that time she realizes that I am a stone cold fox, then we will talk. For right now, I have exactly what I need. Someone that texts me just to see how I am doing that is not related in any way to any of the shit in my life. When we talked for hours, we talked about culture, history, art, politics, etc… she is so much like my letter to my potential significant other that I had to sit the fuck down and say to God, “How the hell did you do that, because that was awfully fucking specific?” God is smirking.

You want to know HOW specific?

She met Aaron. I can hear Argo screaming from here. why WHY would you do that? Because Aaron said word for word what Argo would have said in her place and it was the same thing I was thinking as well. If you say that this could be a thing, mean it.

I was way ahead of him. I told her straight out that I really liked her the longer I spent with her, and it was driving me away from her as fast as I could go because the timing isn’t right. So please, don’t flirt with me. Because we could have a REAL thing if we put it off until later, and that if I was going to hold myself out as an example of Biblical dating, I did not need to be banging chicks as fast as I could find them. Anything I did right now in that arena would only be feeding my lizard brain and not anything higher-level than that. It is, simply, not the relationship I want with someone I value this much. Her mother is a storyteller and art gallery owner in Little Rock. Her father is a doctor.

It is this point at which I’ve realized that God absolutely answers prayers, but only if you can articulate prayers where PEOPLE can hear them. For instance, Argo isn’t religious, but in a lot of ways, I believe I have heard her confession. Not as her priest or pastor, but I have heard her speak in the same voice one gets into when they’re on their knees. It was the joy of my life. I am sorry for the way it ended, but as I heard her prayers and she heard mine, it transformed both of us in ways for better or for worse. She has always said that she wants no part of this breakup, that she should never be the reason I didn’t work it out with Dana, and now I can safely say that she is not. I realized that because I had done so much damage to both Dana and Argo, and they to me, that we could not interact anymore. Every wound was flaming and infected. Everybody needed antibiotics. But the bottom line is that Argo was a bad reaction to a good catalyst. She asked me over and over about my definitions of love and marriage because I gave a lot of lip service and not a lot of action. I would say that Dana was guilty of the same. She says that she chose not to open up to me because every time she did, she was told that she was wrong. From Argo, it was “once again, Leslie, everyone is wrong.” Yes. They are wrong. They are locking me into my old personality and not growing with me as I evolve. It is really true that because they have stomped on me to this degree, I don’t feel very generous…. and at the same time, to them I am such a monster and/or mental patient that my words have lost credibility. Argo summed it up as “losing the faith.”

Yes, well…. I lost faith, too. I lost faith in our ability to see beyond each other’s flaws for the magnificent women that we are. But I didn’t ever lose faith in my ability as a writer thanks to the words you’ve spoken leading up to your departure. It is funny; my faith in you is inversely proportional, because I learn more when we’re mad than I do when we’re not. If learning how to fight is half a relationship, I think we have solved 75%.

Dana lost faith because Argo was trying to give it to me……. heehehhheheheee…….

“everyone says they think you’re a shit because of the way you’re handling this.”

I don’t expect my ex-girlfriend’s friends to understand. I don’t expect them to understand the nights in which I’ve laid in bed lonely, wondering when Dana was going to get better. I don’t expect them to understand the enormity of her emotional abuse, which she is very good at hiding while talking about mine. She thinks that I am abusive because I tell her how I think and feel, and I think she is abusive, because it would never occur to her to open up. Our relationship died because of all the things Dana was holding in. This is not that I don’t ever do things wrong, or that I am any less of a miserable sinner than she is. I just want to clear up the misconception that this is easy for me. Dana said something about “you said that you would have to get a new girlfriend to make me jealous.” I said that as a joke, because there is no way that anyone will ever be able to get in as close as she is… And to say that anyone could is absolutely untrue. There will never be another Dana, and there will never be another relationship like ours.

But last night was the final straw, in a house that was a very stable to begin with. I realized that living with Dana was just reinforcing my want to keep on working, but eventually we would get it right. Last night Dana told me that she did not want me to wait on her, and that feeling I was waiting on her was putting pressure on her to decide. She said that anything I did I had to remember was my choice. So I made it. I ask her to get a new apartment as quickly as she could possibly find one, because it was not good for me to live with her. That living with her just made me feel how incredible a loss I was experiencing, and to go on as just friends was torture every goddamn day. Dana says that she has chosen to separate herself from those emotions, until she can deal with them inappropriate way. I told her that my personality was integrating and I no longer have the ability to separate out like that… there’s no way on gods green earth that I don’t look at her like my wife every time I pass her in the hallway.

If there’s a reason that you’re seeing flippancy in my post, it’s because this is the absolute worst thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life. We both know that we wrecked this relationship at her own hands, and I would like to think that I have the ability to rebuild, but knowing that Dana does not want to is enough for me. So jokes about new girlfriends, and meeting new people, fall into the same category. They help me to feel like I’m not as absolutely worthless as I feel. I do not get validation or sanity from being with Dana in this house, so I have to go out and make new friends.

The other thing I told Dana is that I don’t give a shit what she or any of her friends think. There’s a reason I chose a separate place to fall, and there’s a reason why I gave her Epiphany and left. Joining epiphany was the first time that I’ve ever seen Dana actually integrate into this culture. It was the first time that I ever really saw her go out and try to make friends. To take that away from her was in conscionable, and I could not do it. I ran as quickly as possible, because I knew that there were other churches and other friends for me.

I am in self preservation mode. I will do anything to keep myself safe. To me, keeping myself safe is keeping myself the furthest away from Dana I can get. If that means that you all think that I’m a shit for it, go to hell. You cannot see inside me, you can only see inside her. And take her words for all their worth, but know that they are only one side to one story. She has it wired so that she looks like the ultimate victim in all of this, and has no recognition of how hard her depression has been on me. It is entirely convenient, and the reason that we cannot be friends. This is because her best option is to ignore everything that happened, and my best answer is to explore it.

It was a mistake to think that we could re-create friendship right after breaking up. It is only based in financial need, and not what either of us need emotionally. However we are stuck this way. Dana says that she’s paid her rent, and that makes her entitled to everything in this house as she decides where she’s going next, even if that takes a month or so. Meanwhile she is very happy for me to leave and find new places to spend the night every night. Things would only settle down if I can just remember and roll back into our friendship, but every time I do that I fall in love, and that is unacceptable. To either of us.

This is voice dictation. It might’ve come out wrong. Or maybe I’m just a shit.

Yesterday I was talking to this girl on Tinder, and she seemed really cool. I knew up front that I didn’t like her in a “let’s go on a date” kind of way, just an “I’m lonely for a movie and ice cream” sort of way. I called Dana and told her that “Denyce” would be here when she got home and that I thought Dana would like her, too. I’d forgotten that it was Wednesday and Dana had church, so they actually didn’t get to meet… but there’s always another time. Denyce is very different from Dana and me. Black and Southern, although went to Ohio for grad school- has a Master’s in Art History and still deciding on whether to go for the PhD (student loan deferment, holla!)

We talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked. The best moment of my entire life was when she was on her way out and said, “even though you older…. I would still fuck wit choo.”

Thanks. I will make sure to put that on my resume.

There’s this article going around Facebook right now about this woman that’s giving away her Maine inn via a 200 word essay contest. Several people have said I should enter. It’s posted twice by two different people on my wall. To the first person, I said that my essay should be something akin to, “do not let me win this. I will let the whole thing go to shit because all I will ever do is write in that house.” To the second, I said that I would write the essay, but they were responsible for the $125 essay and the cost of the upkeep for the life of the house. It’s not that I do not want to move to Maine and become a writer. I do not want to move to Maine and own a hotel. Did you miss the part about 17 hour work days? It is amazing that my friends think that I am capable of winning, but I assure you that I would be “winning.” As Matt Damon famously said in Project Greenlight, “first prize is making a movie with Miramax…. second prize is making two movies with Miramax.” I am eager for adventure and excitement, but probably something that gives me less time for writing than I already have is not the gig for me. The only way I could really see this idea having legs is that if Dana and I were still married and Chef needed a gig. That way, Dana and Chef could run the inn while I lived upstairs like Boo Radley (don’t think I wouldn’t, bitch).

Here’s the essay. I don’t think it will win. Why? I haven’t entered. But here’s the essay, anyway.

I hate the cold, and I will wear the same clothes for days in order not to feel that nanosecond of frigid air on my skin, especially at night, when the bathroom isn’t steaming from the running shower. Though, when I look at my life, I am probably in the best and worst shape ever to make winning this a reality. I don’t have a family, so hard work is necessary. I cannot focus on anything else except what is right here…. in my hands. I can focus on a hammer. I can focus on a knife. But do not ask more of me. I do not know what I think about love or hate or kindness or grief, but I do know that working with my hands keeps me from doing anything else. And it’s the “anything else” I need to rid myself of the most. I would come to Maine like most people, I imagine. Ruddy-faced and excited….. for three weeks. The rest would be earth-shakingly terrible in the way that all writers need to be struck down and kicked without mercy until all the unnecessary words fall away and I am spent. It is only page one.

Today, I heard the very end of a podcast and they said that it was recorded at Argo studios and I thought, “yeah. I’m going to pull over.” I just needed that moment. That one moment of perfect grief so that I could let it go and it flew away from me just as quick. This is because I have finally learned how to change my own mood. I can take control of the thoughts I think, and I’ve never had the ability to do that before. That’s because now I have a wide range of coping mechanisms that do not include sitting in grief all day long. Again, I think this hospitalization should have been done when I was much, much younger. Being this old before I dealt with my past is just shame.

I felt locked into this relationship that I couldn’t talk about. Ever. That’s because I knew it had been screwy and not quite right, but there had been no clear sign that she’d ever wanted anything beyond friendship and that I was taking crazy pills to think otherwise. The first time I knew I was on to something was when I was groomed again by my great uncle. I was on AOL (just like everyone else), and we had a great time chatting until he messaged me with a screen name like SexyDaddy88. I don’t remember what it ACTUALLY was, but the screen name alone gave away its intent. I didn’t know what was going on, but it gave me the same feeling in the pit of my stomach that I’d had when Diane handed me her journal.

My intuition screamed run away. I created an entirely new AOL account because of it, with no identifying details. I think I said I was a professional skier or something. I wasn’t, but online I can hang with other skiers. I’m about blue good, but if I spent an entire winter at it, I know I could graduate to black diamond. Skiing is the only sport where I do not feel clumsy. So anyway, my screen name became NoPnNoJn, the slogan at Winter Park near Denver. The mountain is named Mary Jane, so “no pain, no Jane.” In real life, I pronounced it noppin noshzhn. I’m predictable, I guess. 🙂

I had to lose my identity on AOL because my great uncle turned out to be involved in a child pornography ring and is in jail somewhere even hotter than hell. Even though he’s my great uncle, I think he got exactly what he deserved in life, which is the ability to evade me. I think we’ve covered this. The ability to evade my silver pen is probably the only kindness I will ever give him. I have said enough. But what I will say is that he went from hero to complete creepster in a nanosecond and I don’t forget things easily and I was 17 and it still stings.

I didn’t realize how much pain I was carrying until a healer in Portland looked at my old tapes and said, “who’s _______?” I hadn’t thought of that name in 20 years, but she couldn’t have just pulled it out of a hat….. and if she did, who the fuck cares? It made me feel better. And this wasn’t someone trying to fleece me. She was doing it as a friend, and it proved her invaluable worth to me, because there was no one else in the entire world that could see beyond my facade to that degree.

It was from her that I got the imagery of a chord running between Argo and me, often joking that I put things in it. For instance, peace, calm, and Red Bull when necessary. She says that the chord is broken now, that I have destroyed things beyond repair. It is so liberating to hear, because once I’d broken her still, small bff kind of heart I fell off the pedestal of “this great writer I just met.” She fell off the pedestal I’d created for her in return. Our mutual admiration society wasn’t any longer. I allow myself to grieve, but not to dwell. When a picture of her or a line from her letters crosses my mind, I smile to myself. I am not sure where we are going…. whether time will heal wounds or not. But what I do know is that our past is precious and I am grateful for it. I would not be the person I am today. I wouldn’t dare to dream this big. Argo taught me that I could. That I was every bit as smart and capable as I thought I was, and if you knew Argo the way I know Argo, those compliments do not come easy, at least not after the pride that killed me.

I recognize that I fell hard with her, and I don’t mean fallen in the “in love” sort of sense. I mean that I fell. I skinned my knees, my elbows, my hands, my face……. She doesn’t want eros energy from me, and I talked about it anyway, because I didn’t need her to hear it because I thought she would respond positively. I needed her to hear it because I wanted her stories of when someone turned her head that was inappropriate. I also thought that there was some part of her that loved me in a way that I could not recognize and ran from in terror. That is because even in the darkness of being in love with someone to a degree that the relationship couldn’t sustain it, I stood there because I wanted to. I wouldn’t walk toward her clean, white love- instilled as daughter, mother, sister. I had to struggle with my ideas about love and fidelity. Was it cheating to send an e-mail, or did fidelity begin and end with an actual blow job taking place? What I knew for sure is that Argo was a safe place to fall that would boost my ego in all the right ways because her end of the relationship couldn’t sustain being together. If she had called my bluff in the beginning, I never would have been friends with her in the first place. It was such an explosive connection that I couldn’t control how I felt about her. She was a paragraph in and I was charmed. Just hooked on every word. I needed her to be the hall monitor, because to get close to me, really close, is to inherit the remnants of my psychiatric burden. Inappropriate eros is the thing that Argo calls the mark that Diane left on me and to be able to recognize it is huge.

She was so proud, and I wanted our love to last forever, because surely those inappropriate feelings would go away. They have, to some extent. Now that she is not in my life all day, every day, there’s really no reason to pay attention to them. They’re on the back burner. I pushed her out of my life because I couldn’t handle a friendship with a woman that excited me so goddamn much. I couldn’t get my life right, and it was something I wanted and couldn’t reach because I was completely smitten by both Dana and Argo and neither one of them were particularly in love with me and my shit.

Dana’s apartment fell through. She’s staying here until the end of April, and I’m not sad. She’d found a place, and then they called back and took it away from her. I am totally ok with being the bff for another month and a half. We’ve had some great moments, such as me showing her all the Tinder likes I’ve gotten (I’m not looking, but it is such an ego boost when I see just how many people swipe right on my picture. Plus, I’ve never been able to review Tinder, either……). We have rolled back into amazing territory- the one of bff. I asked her if she could bring wine and possibly buy a pair of yoga pants. She said she would consider it.

I am the luckiest ex on earth. I hope that you all can take it in, and realize that it is possible to divorce with dignity if you can stop getting all up in your feelings and treat them as the fabulous person you met however many years ago. Obviously, you found something redeemable in them then, right? Dana is special. I have no idea what’s going to happen with her life or whether it includes me.

Ditto for Argo.

But what I know for sure is that I couldn’t have asked for a better time for both of them to fade into the background. Not so EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE. For Argo, it’s easier because we don’t live near each other. For Dana, it’s harder because we live together…. it’s just a blessing that the house is huge and we can still live together and make our own space in it. Neither one of us is threatened by the other dating, not because we wouldn’t get jealous, but because we are both in self-preservation mode. There is no dating. There is hanging out together and giggling about other people.

It doesn’t work any other way. When you hold on to your anger, you’re holding on to the inability to see people in a different light.

Just like I did to Argo. I was angry that she couldn’t listen to me without reacting in such anger that it scared me, but I’d made my own bed and now I have to lie in it. It’s ok. It doesn’t mean much to me.

Except for those moments where I think, “yeah…. I’m pulling over.”

The discussions with Casey are tough shit, because he gave me a theological grilling… ecclesiastical questions that blew my hair back. I felt simple-minded, and in fact, I think it creates the best theology of all. If Jesus said that children would lead us, then perhaps we should start acting in ways that help us to understand them. After all, they’re picking your nursing home. Dream big.

What do I mean by this? Realistically it means having time to go to out for fro-yo and just letting the kid rattle on, because theology happens in their stream of consciousness. They’re just entirely bathed in truth, and it will nail you every time. For instance, my friend Donna was preaching at Bridgeport UCC and told the story of a parent who said that when she tried to explain the death of their cat by saying it was going to God, that the kid replied, “what would God want with a dead cat?” I laughed until I stopped the entire service for a nanosecond while I composed myself.

Especially in church, I tend to be loud because when a joke lands, I know it is the most inappropriate time to laugh which only reinforces embarrassment because I just cannot even. Bill Lupfer, who is now at Trinity Wall Street after having been my priest at Trinity Portland, told a joke which involved a kid’s mother’s Chapstik and a cat’s anus had me literally falling over in tears. I wish I could remember the details, but this was like ten years ago and I think it’s more fun for you to wonder how the hell Bill tied a cat’s anus to God.

You’re welcome.

I am betting that Trinity Wall Street will find this blog entry. I hope someone does, because I am sure it will up Bill’s attendance considerably.

You’re welcome.

As for me, I’ve really started to delve into the idea of Biblical literalism and how it reinforces shame when we don’t think we’re worthy of God. That it adds to the shame to feel an enormous amount of guilt that you are not the perfect person that everyone manages to look like on the outside. No one knows each other’s skeletons, and the more we don’t talk about them the farther away God feels. It is so hard when you get abandonment issues with God, because you don’t realize that you are giving up peace within yourself that you cannot get any other way. You don’t have to go to church to be a Christian and you don’t need approval from a Christian to be anything else. How you get to God is how you get to God. I am furious that anything the Religious Right doesn’t understand is deemed unhealthy and unworthy. Shame spreads, especially if you don’t have any money.

If you are poor you start isolating. Not because you want to, but because you can’t afford to meet someone anywhere that costs money, even if it is just for one cup of coffee. I remember trading buying coffee often when Volfe and I started meeting early in the morning. When I couldn’t afford it, he and his then-girlfriend would somehow manage to cover me because it was more important to them to spot me than it was not to see me at all. This is why poor people share, and as they get access to more and more money, stay with the people who have known them the longest. It is my dream to be able to spend money on other people. It’s my favorite, especially at Starbucks. My friend Ron bought the coffee of the girl in front of us at Starbucks (Hawthorne is my favorite) and I kvelled. You should meet Ron. You’d like him. Maybe you will if you become my roommate.

You’ll join a house of four- three roommates and hipster Jesus. He knows three chords. He has a gig next week.

People tell me that saying things out loud makes them real. Here is my letter to you, whomever you are.

You know the difference between being stationery and having stationary.

You know the importance of caffeine, and you will not give me shit about how much I drink.

If you are a Texan, you’ve got to be okay with not at some point. I am not planning on moving, just that my work moves me. As a writer, you go where the money is. This is getting less and less true as we submit electronically, but I think it would be weird if I was offered a book advance to spend a year in Kenya writing about elephants and we didn’t actually go. You can always go. You’re part of me. I’ll put it in every contract.

If you are a workaholic, then you cannot have jealousy issues and still be with me. If you don’t have time for me, don’t hate the people who do. If I say, “we’re going to Africa to study elephants” and you say no, don’t spend every minute I’m gone resenting the people who said yes.

You are fascinated by history, medicine, art, or just anything, really. I do not care what it is that you are fascinated by, only that you have passion for something and can explain it to the world. I do not want to be with you if you are not entirely curious about how the world works. People who are content to be Republicans because their grandfathers were Republican scare me. It’s not about politics. Be a Republican. But know why. It also wouldn’t hurt if you were a constitutional law scholar, because that was my favorite class in undergrad. Anyone that doesn’t want to know what SCOTUS thinks is probably not the right person for me.

You are fascinated with writing, and would never say that I don’t have a “real job,” because you know that now is not the time for fruit, but the seeds have taken their hold and as a Virgo, I am tied to the land. What this means in practical terms is that you don’t go behind my back and make excuses for my lack of income (I will always have a job similar to a grocery clerk, because I cannot give more of my time to making money with other things than that). If we were wealthy enough, I’d want you to be okay with letting me work from home and not make anything until that person that’s supposed to find my writing does and we end up on the cover of several magazines at once. That way, there’s someone to manage the house- my part of the bargain unless we have a maid. This dream is not negotiable. EVER. I am too good at writing already to be forced into giving it up because I need to make more money. It is not a conversation I am ever willing to have. I am willing to live in the motherfuckin’ projects so I can make it on my $10/hr, but I will NOT take on a job in which I would be miserable just because you need me to make more money. I am really talking to myself. I do that a lot. You’ll get used to it.

It is not necessary to be a Christian or even to believe in God. That being said, I’m a writer and theologian. If you haven’t been to church in the past, you’ll go with me. Not for any reason other than you love me, not that you agree with what is said. However, it will be our church. I am not stupid enough to think that you will not be my partner in ministry, because even though you may not play the organ, it is a burden to be my confidante. Ask every person whose ever had the job. I am tough shit.

You are convinced that couples should share one bank account because my money is your money is our money. If we break up, that’s why it’s called dividing assets. I want to take the fight off the table that I took your money or you took mine. No, bitch. It’s ours.

You have a working definition of what marriage means. I don’t care if you’ve ever fallen in love before. I need to know that you know that when you marry me, you are going into it knowing the enormity of work we have ahead of us, especially since I’m in my late 30’s. There are going to be things you don’t like about me. I want to know whether you can love me, anyway.

I want to know that you have the emotional capacity to live the type of life I’m creating. I am working toward being an author, and hoping that eventually, my words will have authority in the world of theology. If you know who Marcus Borg is and can quote “The Historical Jesus,” fuck it. Marry me. We’ll work it out (also my declaration to gay hairdressers). Ditto for Anne Lamott, Jim Wallis, and the rest of the mostly-ignored-but-getting-louder Christian Left. You have to be ready for us to be famous at any moment. I know this sounds crazy, but I’ve been writing for a long time. Within our relationship, I could take several phone calls that turn me from the sweet nerd you met to nationwide or worldwide recognition. I need you to meet me where I am, and love that nerd for all she’s worth, and grow with me.

You know that I know myself better than anyone else, and you are not threatened by it. You also have a big personality so that you don’t feel steamrolled by mine.

We have a dog.

Looking forward to dropping my pen at the bank, bumping into you at Starbucks, or asking you to move over at church sometime soon.

Love,

Leslie

1. What time did you get up this morning? Around 7… now puttering about and typing on my phone…. inconvenient.

2. Diamonds or pearls? Why choose? They’re both colorless enough to match anything.

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? The Imitation Game- it was FANTASTIC!

4. What’s your favorite TV show? Scandal. If you know anything about my story, I am choosing Olivia while Jake and Fitz fend for themselves.

5. What did you have for breakfast this morning? I didn’t. It’s early yet.

6. What’s your favorite cuisine? I reach out for Italian in all things except restaurants. The markup on pasta is ridiculous and no one makes better pasta than me, anyway.

7. What foods do you dislike? hot dogs, pico de gallo (hard to avoid in TX)

8. What is your favorite chip flavor? I like the chili limon Fritos that you can only get in Mexican neighborhoods. It is not white people food.

9. What’s your favorite CD at the moment? Dear Ella by Dee Dee Bridgewater- she is sunlight in the middle of the mess with her little yellow basket.

10. What kind of car do you drive? A “customized” Toyota Corolla. It needs new everything. Donate, bitch.

11. Favorite sandwich? Turkey and Branston’s Pickle or peanut butter and Sriracha

12. What characteristics do you despise? Self-absorption, negativity, any of the faults I find in myself that I don’t want other people to have, either……..

13. What is your favorite type of clothing? Oxford shirts, Dockers, and anything else that looks comfortable and yuppie at the same time.

14. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation? The Columbia River Gorge, with just my backpack and my journal.

15. What color is your bathroom? Well, what color does hairspray stuck on linoleum make?

16. Favorite brand of clothing? It used to be Old Navy, but now I buy almost exclusively Ralph Lauren at Macy’s boys’ department. I’m a hundred and like, 20 pounds. I’m going to go with getting a discount as long as possible by buying boys’ clothes instead of mens’. It’s the same fabric, the same weight, and the shoulders fit. What’s not to love? Who gets to buy a blazer for under a benjamin? Seriously.

17. Where would you retire to? Ensenada, with all the other poor gringos who can’t afford to live in the states anymore.

18. Favorite time of the day? The first moment I wake up and thank God I did.

19. What was your most memorable birthday? My wife took me to a tapas restaurant in Old Town Alexandria and we got a little tipsy on red wine. So tipsy, in fact, that my head was killing me and I stayed in bed the next morning and heard a plane crash into the Pentagon.

20. Where were you born? Tyler, Texas… at the hospital with the statue of Jesus directing traffic.

21. Favorite sport to watch? Astros baseball, although I am also partial to the Nationals. The Yankees are evil and this is not negotiable. It has been this way since I was in my late teens. I may have been influenced by the ENORMITY of Giants fans that have taken over my life since. I am also partial to the Red Sox because one of my friends went to Harvard Divinity school and she would buy tickets in the cheap seats most afternoons to do her homework.

24. What fabric detergent do you use? I don’t know, and I am about to find out. Dana does all the laundry, and we’re getting a divorce. I think I need something in a lavender that has actual chemicals in it. If you go to Whole Foods and get their lavender laundry soap, if you look closely it says DOES NOT WORK right on the label.

25. Were you named after anyone? My mother went to a church service and when she got the bulletin, the organist was listed as Leslie Diane. She thought it sounded pretty, so here I am.

26. Do you wish on stars? Yes. And I am the moon to someone else.

27. When did you last cry? Watching my friend Casey preach. I have known him since he was 15, and he is just amazing.

28. Do you like your handwriting? I used to, before I got carpal tunnel syndrome from typing. Now I get tired just signing my name.

29. If you were another person, would YOU be friends with you? I think so. I’m really funny in a crowd, but I’m also intense and moody. It depends on what day I met myself.

30. Are you a daredevil? Yes. If ONLY someone would come up to me and say, “Leslie, I DARE you to finish your goddamn degree and get ordained.”

31. Do looks matter? Yes. If you cannot imagine kissing them, swipe left.

32. How do you release anger? You’re supposed to release it?

34. What were your favorite toys as a child? The same ones I have now… my computer, my cat, and everyone knows that a few Pop Rocks never hurt anybody.

35. What class in High School was totally useless? Health. But the teacher was hot, so I had that goin’ for me.

37 Favorite movies? Good Night and Good Luck, Steel Magnolias, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, and countless, countless others

38. What are your nicknames? Leslian (even, ironically, when I was dating Matthew)

39. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? No, I kick them off and bend the heels.

40. Do you think that you are strong? Thanks to Argo and Dana, I am six feet tall and bulletproof. You only feel that way when everything has been ripped away and you look at yourself and say, “CAN I LOVE YOU?”

41. What’s your favorite ice cream flavor? Ben and Jerry’s Pistachio, Pistachio or Cool Britania

42. What are your favorite colors? I tell everyone it’s red, but my entire wardrobe is blue.

43. What is your least favorite thing about yourself? I’m nice, I want to please people, and when they do something to hurt me, I am consistently, doggedly passive aggressive.

44. Who do you miss the most? The people that my father, my sister, and I used to be before my parents’ divorce. I wrote this line in 2002 and it is still true. I do not wish for my parents to get back together. I wish for them to be well, and well in us, their children.

46 What color pants are you wearing? black

47. Last thing you ate? A slice of cake I made last night- confetti with lemon pudding powder and strawberry syrup. Therefore it is light, lemony, and pink! I love pink so much, but I pair it differently than most women. I like brown, maroon, and teal with it. One day I will have Sarah Silverman’s bedroom all to myself.

49. If you were a CRAYON what color would you be? Cornflower

50. Last person you talked to on the phone? Dana

51. What is the first thing you notice about the opposite sex? Facial hair- I love guys who haven’t shaved in a couple days. They also must be dressed to the nines if they’re going to go out with scruff. It has to say, “Honey badger don’t care,” not “I used to be homeless.”

52. Favorite drink? Dana’s hot toddies, Dr. Pepper, any kind of beer with more hops than malt.

53. Do you wear contacts? No.

54. Favorite day of the year? My birthday, because then it’s all about me and it’s supposed to be. I don’t have to ask.

55. Endings happy or sad? Endings to what? I like dark endings, like The Empire Strikes Back.

56. Winter/summer? Winter, which in Houston, is about half of February.

57. Hugs OR Kisses? Kisses, because if you don’t like person you can kiss the air next to them instead.

58 What is Your Favorite Dessert? Banana key lime pie from Tony Mandola’s

59. What Book(s) are you reading? Tragedy to Truth by Casey Cease, Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, Better by Atul Gawande (for the third time) and Mallory’s Oracle by Caroll O’Connell

60. What is on your mouse pad? I have a gaming mouse. I haven’t needed a mouse pad in like, ten years.

61. What Did You Watch Last night on TV? I fell asleep to James Franco, and that’s all anyone ever needs in life.

62. Favorite Smells? Coffee, Clove cigarette smoke, Obsession perfume, George Trumper’s Essence of Limes cologne

63. Stones or Beatles? Beatles, but only for the benefit of Mr. Kite.

64. What’s the furthest you’ve been from home? London- and I can’t wait to get back. Also, any time I say, “I’m feeling great. I think I’ll go off meds.”

I am one of the people lucky enough to be friends with Casey Cease, founding pastor and teacher at Christ Community Church in Magnolia, conveniently nicknamed “C3.” I have come to believe that this is intentional, because this morning, the world exploded with our agreement. I’m going to be his laming fliberal theologian and he’s going to be my “not.” After hearing him preach, I cannot truly say where he is on the theological scale, because he doesn’t take in one kind of criticism and doesn’t reach out for one kind of knowledge. I’ve told him about St. James, and want to brainstorm with him some more because see, here’s what Casey does for a living. He starts churches. The agreement we made is not to start a church, but to let each other bounce ideas off of someone with whom they have been “in the shit,” to use the vernacular.

We both grew up United Methodist, and met at Clements High School. He was at First United Methodist in Sugar Land while my dad was at Christ UMC. We were both in band and choir (a trumpet player and a drummer walk into a church….. the jokes write themselves), and having had that particular choir director will bond us for life, I assure you wholeheartedly. The summer before I came into Casey’s life (the summer between HSPVA and Clements), there was an accident. People talked about it at school. Anne was dead. I arrived on day one of this enormous, auspicious first day of school, and my empathy bonded me to him. He doesn’t know this, but now he will. My mirror neurons went off for you and Sean. I prayed for you every day. It was an accident. I prayed that you could take it in and hear “it’s not your fault.” I prayed that the grace of God would find you and you would realize just how amazing you are.

Casey, today was the fulfillment of my prayers and those of many others. When Steph came over to sit by me at the beginning of the service, she was surprised that I was bawling like a baby. I know an anointment when I see one, bitch. Whatever it is that they call “it” in terms of preaching, you have it. Also, in my head, you are still 15. It was like, “MY BABY!” I especially love that you are ADHD because I can track with you from beginning to end as you unpack The Word and it falls into endless pieces that come together as a tapestry in the end. I loved when you talked about how you love your sins. We all do, don’t we?

Speeding. Cigarettes. Drugs, Alcohol, Shopping we LOVE OUR SINS, DON’T WE?

Light will save us all. The choice is whether to turn toward it. It’s the foundation of every letter in the New Testament. Casey preached on the letters of First James and First John, and after the service, I tied in this piece of John the Gnostic for Casey as we were walking out, because it had bounced into my brain while he was speaking. In the Gospel of John, we’ve learned that even God the Father is aware of this fact: those that live in darkness live in darkness because they choose it. They don’t turn toward light. They hunker down in a cave-like fashion and pretend that the patterns they have are okay but that is not the point of being a Christian and they fucking know it because change is hard, but they cannot even.

It’s amazing how long and arduous change is for adults, because the older they get, they’re less flexible. They’ve just learned a heuristic for life. To say it’s wrong is to go against everything they believe. I came to the point in my life where I had to change. I’m not a Conservative, so I have no idea how you people do it…. but here is my testimony.

I loved the dark for so long that when light was shone upon me and I saw the face of Christ in human form, I ran like a motherfucker. It was too scary to be right with God, because being right with God required change. I am ADHD, bitch. Most of the time, it’s not that I won’t change. It’s that I am hard-wired not to remember where I put my keys, much less remembering behavioral patterns from one day to the next. I can only look at my behavior by writing it down and looking in retrospect, and thus began my ministry. The reason I point to this entry is that it’s really the first sermon. The aha! moment I needed to really start thinking of myself in terms of a writer and theologian more than any other thing in my life. Two things. First, I realized that I was every bit as fucking talented as Susan and my dad. Second, THERE ARE PEOPLE HURTING FROM CHURCHES THAT LIVE IN DARKNESS. I MUST SAVE THEM! Have you been paying attention? MY JESUS!

You want darkness?

My friend Jerry told me that after we’d left one particular church, the board voted on something like a million dollar building fund and neighed giving the kids at the church Easter baskets.

You can kill a church in a single weekend if one family has paid for everything.

If you are not an open and affirming church, you are saying to gay people “sure, we’ll take your money, but you’ll never REALLY be a part of us…. but thanks.”

But this is about me. It’s my testimony. I might as well use it, because it’s going to be the only one you’ll ever get…. at least this year, anyway.

When I was in Fifth Grade, I was given the John Wesley Award at my church for being the most outstanding youth member or something like that. I can’t remember what it was for, only that my dad came up with it and I was completely fucking embarrassed when I won. I didn’t know if I was really that much like Christ, or whether I was the preacher’s kid. I never really attended another youth group after that… mostly because an older woman had gotten my attention and fuck them, that’s how. They were so juvenile to me. My “girlfriend’s girlfriend” is a weed dealer, bitch. I thought everything was boring until 11th grade. We were finally at a church large enough where I really could be anonymous. I was in the closet, I had a male best friend, and if I ever won an award, it would be in front of 70 kids and not 10. Much bigger pool of applicants.

Things were really great until I actually did get a crush in the youth group (like everyone does). The problem with that is she was Canadian and conservative (not Meag…. for starters, she is not and never has been a Methodist, at least not to my knowledge- if you actually went to high school with me, not (nut?)0 Meag, eh. The other one.). I don’t remember her name. Since she was Canadian I called her “preparatory Meagan.” Meag is going to die, Casey. DIE! Did you know I dated her in high school? Bet you didn’t. JEALOUS?????? You fucking should be, bitch.

I curse a lot, and for that I apologize. It is an homage to Jesus, in it’s own weird way. The Jesus that walks with me is just like me and the archetype for every hacker known to God and man. Jesus sits next to me with his laptop in companionable silence. We do brunch. It’s also to illustrate how different Jesus is from John the Baptist. His cousin and yet, his theological opposite. I think the most important question next to Beatles or Stones is Jesus or John? In a sense, you cannot follow both. Either you’re a part of the masses or you’re not. Either you’re a monk or a community organizer. I have respect for the monastic lifestyle and encourage all people who can afford it to do it for a year to get after it. Invite yourself into your own silence, and then GTFO. If you live life in a vacuum, you will begin with the theological mind of a child. You do, anyway, but here’s what you miss. It’s supposed to be a curve in the middle. There have been times in my life where I thought I was an Atheist and I was mistaken, but they are still my brothers.

I’m sure the question in all of you is “what changed your mind?”

One blog entry and two years in which I fell in love with my therapist and had to work my way backward. And by therapist I mean not so much. That’s just what I call it because she’s a straight girl and I’m not and have to be reminded and smacked with newspaper occasionally to maintain training. My wife did not care that she did not love me. My wife only cared about my attention. To that end, she did a wonderful job of making room and rebelling against it. She knew how hard I was trying to change myself so that I could be in love with my wife and love my “therapist” in the way that all friends should. Agape is ever present and Eros is my Achilles Heel, the thing I keep working on every single day. To remain faithful and keep my fidelity to Dana as long as I need to…. not for her. For me. Now that the absolute shock has worn off, I am off to the desert with Moses and I have murdered that soldier in cold blood. I am in the Garden of Gethsemane  with Jesus, blood dripping from my own forehead. I am a snake-bitten Israelite in need of the motherfucking Tiffany Talk.

Lesile wept.

For me, the liberation in the darkness is being freed from all sexual attention, both given and received. I was so out of control with my life that I needed a home base from which to start. Things that would combine to make a True North when all I had was wibbly wobbly timey wimey and The Doctor cannot go back and change his own timeline, capiche? My saving grace was the ritual. The Book, the bread, and the cup. The window was closing fast and I let it. It was too much pain to let either of them in again….. or at least not until my days in the desert were over.

And that is where I am right now. In the desert. Waiting to be crucified. Wondering what eschatology I’ll come up with to explain this one. How do you sum up “I was saved from sin when a curse became a blessing?” You can’t. That’s a soundbite. That’s five seconds on the 11:00 news.

The book is so much better.

 

 

 

What has my writing meant to you? Why do I get so many readers. Please comment. Please talk. It would mean the world to me because your stories of how I’ve moved you move me. This entry is not about me. It’s about you and what I’ve meant to you over the years. Dana is the love of my life and I am crawling on the ground trying to pick up the pieces. Give me the support I need to make it through this time in my life, because if you are a writer, I will gladly tell you the lines that have stayed with me. My writing goes into rareified air every time you comment. I’ve been read by Margaret Cho and Martina Navratilova, but they are not special to me because of their fame. They are special to me because of their talent. One of the best tennis players and one of the best thinkers in America both looked at something I wrote and pronounced it awesome.

They talked right when I needed them, and I’m asking the same of you. When I pour my heart into yours, what stays?

I just wrote a beautiful letter to my future roommate on Roomster, and I clicked “Save Changes.” I then changed said page and the paragraphs and paragraphs about what it’s like to live with me disappeared in an instant. I would like to try and recreate it here.

Dear Future Roommate,

The only thing you need to know about me is that I am a writer and I cannot live alone. I spend hours with my computer and I need it to understand the world, because I reflect on everything that’s just happened to understand the future…… but I need people to pull me out of my introspection. I see patterns in behavior like a professional sociologist, but I do not have any interest in going that direction as a career. I want to be a speech writer in the White House stable, and I will not give up on that dream. I have also started my own church, named “St. James and All Sinners.” I am running it as a religious organization because I am not ordained, and praying on the words and the spaces in between as I figure out what it takes to fix it. You would think that I don’t have room for both of those dreams to prosper at once, and you would be wrong about that. Writing touches everything, and it’s the only thing that can. I love the line Mason Williams wrote about envying water because it could touch a woman fully, and he could not. It is amazing how well writing and water go together, which reminds me that I live a fucking hour from Galveston and to just get my ass over there.

I curse a lot. You’ll have to be okay with that or you’ll hate me from day one. I am also the funniest person in the room if you are okay with just how inappropriate I can get. I am a former line cook, and if there is anyone whose career I want it’s…….. wait for it…….. Anthony Bourdain. I plan to get even emotionally with a restaurant after I’ve left it, because there are always as many quirks about his jobs as there are about mine. In terms of how good a line cook I am, I really don’t know. I could hack it in Portland at a pub but I fell from grace quickly at fine dining. Here’s the problem I uncovered when I really thought about it. I cut weird because I have monocular vision, and therefore no depth perception nor angle of convergence needed to make my knife hit precisely where I wanted it every single time. I can cut easier with French knife skills than Japanese, but it’s still never as perfect as it needs to be. I have a champagne palate and shitty, shitty knife skills. Therefore, I feel best in the realm of executive chef, one that doesn’t stand there and make food all night but can rock your face off with menu ideas. I’ll never be an executive chef because the kitchen is a meritocracy…. therefore, you will love it when I cook for you and it will take less than a minute for you to love me forever with everything that you are as long as I will do this every night.

If you are also a cook because it is the greatest thing on God’s green earth, I ask that you not be a bitch about working with each other instead of against. We can be better cooks together than we can be apart, and I am not opposed to bartering my services in exchange for room and board if you need a nanny. I have often thought of adopting or having a child, and living with them is an acceptable compromise. Two of the greatest jobs I’ve ever had were babysitting for twins, a set of infants and a set of, ummm, seven year olds, I think. John and Katie, and then Jacob and Emma were the lights of my life, and I was 15 and 16 and an adult when I was their nanny, respectively. They were so curious about the world and it made me a better person, one day at a time. Plus, my dad choked knowing what a bad driver I was when John and Katie’s dad offered to let me drive his Dodge Viper (he owned a car rental place and therefore he drove cars like a drug dealer in a completely and honest full of joy kind of way). What gearhead wouldn’t want to play with every toy on the playground? I would die. Die.

I am a lesbian. Here’s what that means in terms of living with me:

Straight Boys

You want me to move in immediately because we have so much in common, including women. I am a better wingman than you are, I will bet you a thousand bucks because I know I can beat Teddy KGB, motherfucker. You will be a better boyfriend than you ever thought possible, because I am single and therefore I am boring and have time to focus on what a douche you are and how to fix it. By the time I move out, you will be a metrosexual work of art, and every woman you know will have a crush on you because I am ‘enry ‘iggins and you are fucking Eliza Doolittle, bitch. I look forward to being able to become “accustomed to your face” in a very Sherlock and Watson kind of way.

Straight Girls

You will want me to move in immediately because I will treat you like the goddess that you are. I will help you run your household and if I am in any way attracted to the way you look I will tease you about it by lightly flirting but it will never go anywhere. Maybe if I was 25. I’m not. I am single and therefore I am boring, therefore I have time to focus on what a douche your boyfriend is and how to fix it. I’m really good at it, because I understand men in a way you don’t. They will open up to me in a way that they can’t to you, because I am a loving ear without their need to act like a valiant protector and advocate. I have references. If you are the type girl that thinks you can change in front of me, get the fuck out of here. Are you kidding? Treat me as cautiously as you would a male roommate, because even if I am not interested in you, I will blush and die every time I see your boobs.

Gay Boys

I like for you to party around me. I will be the one locked in my room, writing about what I hear. If my desk is near a window over the back yard, I ask that you have a pool for obvious reasons. It would be great to be able to look at the menu without ordering, capiche? Yes, I like boys, too. Preferably gay ones so that it emotionally doesn’t go anywhere AND you’ll tell me what clothes to buy and possibly dress me like William Sledd. My perfect roommate relationship is that you are the kind of rich that wants to spoil me because I am the lesbian that wants to spoil you at home by being a GREAT companion. If you know what that means to me, you can be my Doctor if Argo regenerates. Just treat me like all the other boys you have laying around your house. We are ALWAYS going through the drive-thru at Starbucks, why are you even asking?! You can live anywhere in the world, I don’t give a shit. Just relocate me. It’ll be a new start for me and a way to have a patron without having to blow you. You will love me at the gay bars because if you’ll buy all my drinks, I will drive you home. By this I mean you will pay for the mocktails, bitch. I still want to be festive. If you are so inclined, buy me a screaming laptop and I will write about what happened while we’re still in the club so that the next morning you know to which you need to make amends. Yes, I will remind you that the car is parked on the sidewalk in front of our house until you die, and you’ll say, “too soon” A LOT. If you are a hairdresser, fuck it. Marry me. We’ll work it out.

Lesbians

I’m going to fall in love with you if you are in any way attractive to me. I will fall in love with you anyway if I live with you for more than three months. No fucking way. Not doing that…………………… again (Briana was in ROTC….. shiver). Maybe if I had a girlfriend. Not now.

Three out of four ain’t bad.

I would love it if you were in the military. Seriously. I will absorb your stories if you don’t mind me putting them down on paper (such as it is, bitch). For free room and board, I would be happy to be your companion if you are disabled and funny and offensive as shit. If it flips your shit to hear jokes that would make normal people throw up, you need to pick someone else.

If you have ever gotten an allergy to alcohol and broken out in handcuffs, please be far enough along in the program that I do not have to worry about your relapse 24/7 because I will. I will love you until I just can’t anymore to try and protect you. Let’s just don’t on that one. If you haven’t been sober for two years, I do not want to live with you. The dopamine of “new relationship” will have us blowing each other up on a daily basis if you haven’t ditched the fog of addiction and come back to your right fucking mind.

I think this is a pretty accurate description of what it’s really like to be me. I hope you’ll remember that I was so honest, and always will be.

Because I am a writer, and that’s all you need to know.

Love,

Leslie