In first grade, my teacher for half a day was Mrs. Matthews. I didn’t like her very much, and I don’t think she liked me, either. I was one of those kids that couldn’t stay seated for more than a few minutes at a time, and then I wanted to get up and talk. It didn’t matter to whom. I would have talked to a sign post had it been available. Possibly it was the beginning of a long school career afflicted with Attention Deficit Disorder. Perhaps it was just that I was seven. At this point, I’ll never know. As for Mrs. Matthews, she was very overweight and had no patience for running after seven year olds, regardless of how much attention he or she was able to pay.

Which is probably why it’s such a blessing that for the other half of the day, I had Mrs. Grant… Mrs. Grant was everything that Mrs. Matthews was not. She was tall and slim and usually wore a bright-colored smock so that if the class wanted to play with finger paints at a moment’s notice, she was ready. In Mrs. Grant’s class, I don’t believe I was any more well-behaved than I was for Mrs. Matthews… with one slight exception. In Mrs. Grant’s class, every time I got out of my seat, I wanted to talk to HER.

And thus began my sordid tale of first grade Fatal Attraction.

It started out innocently enough. During one of our five minute conversations, Mrs. Grant let it slip that she had a daughter. “A daughter?” I thought, a little restless at the idea. As a first grader, it had never occurred to me that teachers had actual lives outside of school, or that they had other people to love besides their students. The thought nagged at me. “Mrs. Grant has a daughter that’s not me at her house? Mrs. Grant has a house? I thought she lived here, like Mrs. Matthews. Why would Mrs. Grant want to have a daughter at home when she has me here at school. I am a good reader and everything.” Surely it couldn’t be true, but there was only one way to find out. I would go to Mrs. Grant’s house and see this alleged daughter.

The thought of going to Mrs. Grant’s house stayed with me for the next few months as I became increasingly more curious about the lives that teachers lead when they’re not in front of the classroom. It just didn’t make any sense. Every day, when my mom dropped me off in the morning, Mrs. Matthews greeted us like she was just refreshed from a good night’s sleep, so it made sense to me that the teachers probably napped on our cots when we weren’t using them. In the afternoon, Mrs. Grant always looked glad to see us… as if she’d been waiting all this time just for us to show up.

You’ll have to forgive me, as this part of the story has grown very fuzzy with time, but the little bit I do remember is that somehow I was asked to raise money for something, and I asked Mrs. Grant if she wanted to buy whatever it was I was selling. She said yes, and I gave her the form which required her name, phone number, and ADDRESS.

When she gave me my paperwork, I glanced at her teacher-ish handwriting. It wasn’t at all squiggly or slanted like my mom and dad’s. I was able to read the address perfectly. 3728 Pine Street. PINE STREET? Mrs. Grant had lived on my street all this time and I didn’t even know it! Since I lived at 3102 Pine Street, I could probably walk there all by myself!

I waited for the day when Mrs. Grant’s goods would arrive with baited breath. It would only be a little while longer before the mystery was solved. I would get to see where Mrs. Grant lived. I would get to see the daughter that wasn’t me. And if I was really, really good, maybe I could even convince Mrs. Grant that I was a better daughter than her daughter and she could just throw that one out.

When the day arrived, I was so excited that I couldn’t even wait for a measly little thing like my parents to wake up so I could tell them where I was going. I packed Mrs. Grant’s goods, whatever they were, into the little basket on the front of my bike. I put my red London Fog coat on over my jeans and striped rugby shirt. I got on my bike, and rode down the driveway.

I got to the end of our block and stopped, checking both ways for cars like my dad had said. Once I knew the coast was clear, I rode across. All I had to do was follow the numbers. 3303, 3305, 3307… Gosh, it was a lot longer ride to Mrs. Grant’s house than I thought. Now the houses all looked unfamiliar and there was a dog barking at me and I felt afraid. But I couldn’t turn back. I needed to know where Mrs. Grant lived and I wasn’t going to stop until I found it.

Six blocks was entirely too far to ride on seven year old legs. By the time I reached Mrs. Grant’s driveway, I was huffing and puffing so hard I thought I might blow her house down. But inside, it was a small victory. I had ridden ALL THAT WAY by myself. And I was going to see where Mrs. Grant lived. I would be able to tell all my friends about it in first grade, and they probably wouldn’t even believe me anyway. Everybody knows that Mrs. Grant and Mrs. Matthews live at Parker Elementary, even the janitor. He told me himself.

Well. When I rang the doorbell, I was SHOCKED AND APPALLED. Mrs. Grant did not have on her smock. She did not have on one of her teacher dresses with the apples and the school buses. She was wearing HER PAJAMAS! And they WEREN’T EVEN NICE PAJAMAS, EITHER!

For the first time in my life, I felt shy. I didn’t know what to say, and frankly, I don’t think she did, either. I stood there kind of dumbly for a minute until she noticed that I had her stuff in the basket of my bike.

“Is that stuff for me?” she enquired.
“Yup.”
“Well… come on in. I’ll have to write you a check.”
“Ok.”

I had this strange feeling that even though I’d waited for this moment a long time, it was going to end with the contents of my breakfast on the floor. In order to keep my cool, I started looking around the room. Her husband was sitting in a lounge chair in the living room, staring at one of those enormous projection screen television sets that if you’re really close up you only see big red, green, and blue lights. The carpet was orange shag and looked like there were dogs in the family. My eyes lit on a number of (I thought, with my seven year old taste) tacky tchotchkes strewn about the mantle. And, sitting in the corner, was a girl slightly older than me.

I went and tugged on Mrs. Grant’s pajama sleeve and pointed at the girl.

“Who is that?” I asked.
“Oh, she replied. That’s Jennifer, my daughter.”
“Does she live here, too?”
“Of course! Why wouldn’t she?”

I didn’t have an answer. Well, I did, but for some reason it just didn’t seem appropriate to say that she didn’t need any more kids if she was teaching all of us.

I left in a fog. The six blocks back to my house passed slowly, and I felt let down, like a Macy’s float after the parade.

********

There’s a familiar, throbbing pain in the middle of my stomach as I read the e-mail before me: “I do not want contact with you, including e-mail or phone. If there is ever a point that this changes, I will be the one to initiate it.” I’d gotten this e-mail based on a mistake I’d made, rooted in that deflated balloon feeling of wondering whether there was enough love to go around and not waiting for the safety and security of knowing for sure. I wonder sometimes if that’s where all of life’s mistakes are made- finding yourself in a space where you’re not sure if there’s enough love, and not having enough strength to just wait and see. Because for the most part, there always is.

I designed my tattoo in PhotoShop, then took it to the artist. It took less than an hour, and really wasn’t painful because my adrenaline level was so high. What took the longest was searching through hours and hours worth of Christian artwork to ensure I had designed something original. Leslie’s tattoo

I chose the ichthus because of it’s ties to both early Christianity and professional ministry. After Jesus was crucified, Christians could not be open about their faith for fear of persecution. They created a kind of “underground railroad” system to determine who was trustworthy with information. To check and see if someone was “in the know,” one person would take his foot and draw the lower arc of the fish. If the person did share the same faith, he would respond by creating the other arc, thus completing the symbol. In terms of professional ministry, Jesus calls the disciples to be “fishers of people.”

The writing inside the fish is Hebrew for YHWH, or Yahweh. Yahweh is the name of the creator of the universe, and comes from the scripture where Moses asks God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” Then God says to Moses, “I am who I am.” Yahweh literally means “I am.”

It was also important to me to have a design signifying my faith without the use of the cross. As I have said before on this web site, Jesus’ death is not really a part of my “guiding principles,” because I believe that the political messages of equality that he gave the people of his time were way more important than the way that he died.

And, as I quipped to the tattoo artist, “look at it this way… if I lose my faith, I can always add feet.”

Once again, your Friday Five.

If you…

1. …owned a restaurant, what kind of food would you serve?

Oh, wow. I totally have this great fantasy going now. It would be an Indian restaurant, with every tacky, gaudy piece of Indian artwork ever produced inside. Our specialty would be Vindaloo curry, where the Vindaloo would be $1.95 and the water would be eight bucks. I would try to do the voiceovers for the commercials myself, but after we made enough money, I would ask Sir Ben Kingsley.

2. …owned a small store, what kind of merchandise would you sell?

My milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard, ya dig?

3. …wrote a book, what genre would it be?

This is actually very difficult, because eventually I do want to write a book and I’m convinced I only have one in me so I better get it “write.” When I was a teenager I used to come up with titles in homeroom.

a) an autobiography- Trumpet Players Don’t Wear Lipstick… would have been great had I actually turned out to be a trumpet player as planned in the eighth grade.

b) a non-fiction account of gay rights in America- If Silence = Death, Why Aren’t We Screaming? I came up with this one when I lived in Tom DeLay’s district because back then I didn’t know any other gay people and I assumed that if they were out there, they were being pretty damn quiet about it.

c) A novel for preteens- I am consistently amazed by all the GREAT fiction there is for preteens, like Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume, The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi, and Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicolson by Louise Rennison. Incidentally, Confessions of Georgia Nicolson is a series, and the ones that follow are just as funny. They are On the Bright Side, I’m Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God, Knocked Out by My Nunga-Nungas, and Dancing in My Nuddy Pants. They’re a lot tamer than the titles seem… relax, Georgia’s British.

4. …ran a school, what would you teach?

a) How NOT to Drive
b) The Finer Points of Finesse: Good Writers Paraphrase, Great Writers Steal Outright
c) How to Negotiate a Better Grade by Making Your Professor a Web Site
d) Creating a Distraction When One’s Foot is in One’s Mouth
e) Learned Helplessness: the Blessing and the Curse
f) Channeling Your Inner Child for Fun and Profit
g) Diplomacy is the Best Policy, Bitch

5. …recorded an album, what kind of music would be on it?

If I had to perform everything myself, I would break it down like this:

4 tracks big band jazz (preferably me with Big Bop Nouveau)
2 tracks jazz combo (preferably me with The Bandwagon)
2 tracks jazz combo (preferably me singing with Jason Moran and the Bandwagon)
2 Indigo Girls covers with my sister singing the high fluty parts and me singing the raspy cigar and vodka parts
2 tracks ska with my sister as the vocalist and me as the wacky trumpet player in the back

Originally published in June of 2003 on Clever Title Goes Here.

I’ve been making my silly-yet-sheepish “just met a girl” face for about forty five minutes, and I’ve definitely been trying to tuck my hair behind my ear, which I do when I’m nervous and I like someone. What’s unfortunate is that my hair is cut around my ear now, so it really just looks like I’m tucking phantom hair… Gosh, I’m rambling. Well, that makes it official. I must really like her.

I wish I had taken pictures. I normally don’t have fun at clubs, but tonight was a blast. Gaby, Sarah, Allison, and I went to the Egyptian Room in celebration of Pride. Molly was standing by a post on the edge of the dance floor when Allison nudged me and told me to go ask her to dance. Whoa! Hold the phone. Me? Ask someone to dance? I’d rather ask them to give me a root canal. In what can only be explained as the Red Bull and vodka running through my system, I decided to play against type and see what happened. It was dark and noisy. If she said no, it wasn’t like there would be a choir heralding my rejection. Plus, I had the added bonus of my father’s voice running through my head, “All she can say is no.”

When she said yes, I nearly tripped and fell. I mean, it wasn’t the signing of the magna carta or anything, but it was a small victory. I do not picture myself as the type of person that picks people up at clubs. In fact, my view of my dating self is very much like the character that Drew Carey plays on The Drew Carey Show. So the fact that this totally cute girl said yes was really, really cool.

After we danced for a while, I asked her if she wanted to keep dancing or if she wanted to take a break and get a drink. She led me over to the bar, where we stood in what we thought was a line and talked for about twenty minutes. By the time we figured out that the “line” wasn’t going to move, last call had come and gone.

Luckily, we were still able to order sodas, so we sipped Diet Coke and talked some more. When her friends came over to tell her it was time to leave, I asked her for her phone number, wanting it with a sincerity that I hadn’t felt in months.

And then my friends came over to tell me it was time to go home. What great timing. I needed to get home… needed to get to my journal… had to make this moment last as long as possible…

Because I’ve been making my silly-yet-sheepish “just met a girl” face for about forty five minutes.

Originally published on Clever Title Goes Here as a two-part series in May of 2003.

I was not prepared.

In the suburbs of Houston, Texas, there isn’t a whole lot of hiking to be done. And when there is, it mostly involves stepping over strollers, skateboards, and geriatrics in the mall. There is no uphill, there are no gargantuan tree roots, and there is certainly no snow.

I was not prepared.

I showed up at the church at nine a.m. on Saturday, ready to greet the morning with gusto. We were going hiking, and I hadn’t had a good walk in a while. This was going to be fun. We were going to eat our lunches on the trail and then walk back home. I was approximating a sort of Brownie Troop atmosphere.

I was so not prepared.

We arrived at the base of Larch Mountain, which is when I felt the first of several lumps in my stomach. I thought to myself, “we’re at the base of a mountain. This is going to be pretty steep. I hope I’m wearing the right shoes.” The “work” boots I had bought in the little boys’ department at Payless suddenly seemed frighteningly inadequate. I wondered if I could just shut off my brain for a while and feel this thing out, because nothing is worse than trying to get through a situation when your brain is screaming obscenities at your adventurous-yet-often-misguided spirit.

I took a deep breath. It was time to get out of the car. A cool breeze greeted me, washing over my skin like a linen sheet that’s been line-dried in the middle of a meadow. “Wow, I thought. Anything that starts out like this can’t be all bad.” My group started heading towards the trail. I followed.

Three minutes later, I was breathing heavily and desperately wishing I had looked up hiking in an encyclopedia instead of trusting that my suburb-influenced definition would suffice in the Williamette Valley. Of course, if I had done any thinking at all beforehand, I might have come up with this: “I live in the Williamette Valley. That means that the entire city of Portland, Oregon is surrounded by MOUNTAINS! Note to self: most Portland outdoor activities involve going uphill or downhill with varying degrees of difficulty.”

Fat lot of good that information was doing me now, though… I began accepting my fate. I would fight valiantly, but I would probably die here. I wondered if the ski patrol existed on mountains where there was no skiing, because they would be the perfect knights in shining armor, whisking me down the mountain on their medically equipped go-carts. Then I began saying goodbye to all the things I loved about this life: Opera… As Seen on TV products… Hooters…

I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn’t even notice how far we had gone. All of the sudden, the temperature started getting cooler. The climb became a little less steep. I was energized in a way that I hadn’t been all day.

Which was good, because pretty soon after that I started hearing a familiar crunch from the people ahead of me. Two and two came together. Colder air. Less steep. Crunch. SNOW! WE WERE GOING TO HIKE ON A TRAIL COVERED IN SNOW?!?! Most of the group was in shorts, including me. At that point, though, there was no point in turning back. We were much closer to the end of the trail than we were to the beginning, and as long as no one fell and got wet, we wouldn’t have to worry about hypothermia.

It wasn’t very long before I realized that those of us in shorts had an advantage over those of us who weren’t. We could brush snow off our bare legs and the wind sweeping over them would help dry. However, if snow seeped into any pant-like fiber that wasn’t waterproof, it would stay wet and cold for a very long time. It’s honestly the only example I have of “less is more,” because those of you who know me best will know this- to me, more is always more.

I know you’re thinking, “how did Leslie know all of this bare-legged strategy?” Simple. I fell approximately 358 times, and each time, I was able to shake it off and keep going (minus the nightmares in my mind of winding up ass-deep with no one around to call for help). The biggest problem, and all mountain hikers and climbers will back me up on this, was fatigue. I knew from skiing that you could sit down in packed snow and it would act as insulation from the cold, so therefore, each large blanket of packed snow that we passed looked like exactly that- a blanket. We had only been hiking for about four or five hours at this point, including lunch, and all I could think about was, “I wonder if everybody would be down with me just stopping right here to take a nap.” The water that I had brought was long gone thanks to very poor rationing and the idea that “certainly three bottles will be enough.” Though I wasn’t tired and whiny enough to start really coming down on myself for being stupid and uneducated about hiking, it was headed that way.

I slowed down my pace considerably, and doing it just killed me. Even though it was completely unrealistic, I had started out the day thinking that I would be one of the ones to finish first. The reason I wanted to do this escaped me then, but after having had some time to think about it, I know it’s this: Brianna, Sara, and Tania hike all the time, and it’s a big part of their hanging out together. I believed, and wrongly so, that if I could make it through this hike as one of the first finishers, than maybe I was tough enough to run with the big boys. (Let me tell you how ludicrous this was: Sara and Tania were laughing about how slow we were going, and I was doing good to hold on to both my lungs at one time.)

As my emotions started setting up for the pity party, my friend Holly slowed down her pace as well. She is a very experienced hiker, and I think she knew that I was having trouble keeping up. Feeling sorry for myself turned into the joy of knowing that I wouldn’t be alone. Holly gave me water. Holly said it was okay not to be Sir Edmund Hillary your first time out. Holly told me I was wearing the wrong shoes and carrying the wrong bag and that the next hike would go MUCH better.

I’m sorry… the next hike?

I looked up. We were at the edge of a highway. Elation rushed into every pore, every vein, every artery… we were here! Apparently, elation in my body also translates into channeling the spirit of John Lithgow. “I never thought I would see this moment,” I exclaimed. The group laughed. It was okay. They had no idea what an accomplishment this was for me. I’m not an athlete. Hell, I don’t even run if I’ve missed the bus.

Inside, I was glowing. I thought to myself, “yes… there will be many more hikes, because this is where God lives.” And the more I think about that statement, the more I know it to be true. We had started out in sunshine and cool breeze, and ended up in snow and fog. It was just so glorious and rich and… full.

The next morning at church, Wendy came up to me and handed me a small pin. I grabbed her and gave her the biggest hug. The pin reads: “Columbia River Girl Scout Council, Portland Oregon 1987.

That’s when I knew I had really made it.

Originally posted in March of 2004 on Clever Title Goes Here.

For some reason, my father really likes Walgreen’s. I mean, really. So he got all of us started really early on that if we were bored or restless or whatever, we could just go there and shop around. I mean, what else are you going to do? There are only so many places that are open after 10 pm, and Walgreen’s doesn’t even have a dress code.

Tonight, with many thoughts in my head and a heavy heart, I thought about what to do. I could call up some friends and see if they wanted to meet for a beer. I could go to or rent a movie. It came to me in a flash. I could go spend time with my thoughts AND shop for AS SEEN ON TV ™ products AT THE SAME TIME! It turned out to be more than I bargained for.

As I walked in the sliding glass door, a woman wearing a denim pantsuit came running up the makeup aisle. “I want to buy this foundation, she yelled. It’s free by rebate. I figgered I don’t actually need it, but if it’s free by rebate…” I was not feeling well. It was all I could do not to yell, “Lady, what makes you think you don’t need it?” Then I remembered that this trip was supposed to be about SELF reflection and I held my tongue.

I’m trying not to kid myself that I have the right to be bitter because I don’t have a girlfriend any longer… knowing that if anything could ease the pain, it would probably be found in this sublime crapfest of a store.

I shopped for hours. I didn’t find a damn thing.

The woman I met on Tinder is named Chanika, which rhymes with “Hannukah.” It was a GREAT evening, and I can’t wait to do it again. We ended up with drinks and Sri Lankan chicken curry, courtesy of the fact that Chanika is a badass cook. I’ve worked professionally and her knife skills look like it. She has nothing on me. She says it’s because when she cooks, she always cooks for large groups of people. I can attest- I have seen pictures of her village and like every small village, if you cook for one person, you’re cooking for them all.

Last night, the group was the two of us, the aforementioned gays, Dru and Steven, Chanika’s American “older sister,” Sarah, and the also aforementioned coworker, Shay. Chanika books appointments for the massage clinic, and Shay is a massage therapist. It was a good mix of people, and the conversation never faltered. Steven and Dru work for a company in Alexandria that coordinates between other companies like TicketMaster and StubHub. They’re sort of like customer service, except that they don’t actually have to talk to customers. I jokingly said, “JESUS. Where can I get a job like THAT?” They’re going to ask. Sarah is in the middle of planning a wedding, and her fiancee, honest to blog, looks like Bradley Cooper. She’s in between jobs, just like me, but it works out in her favor, as anyone who is in the middle of planning a wedding will tell you.

Chanika had just been released from the evils of finals. I said, “I know you probably haven’t gotten your grades back yet, but how do you feel they went?” She said that she already knew she had an A- for the semester in pharmacology, and was a bit perturbed that they wouldn’t give her the half a point she needed to make an A. I teased her about getting an Asian F, and she got the reference (Glee, if you’re wondering). She wants to be a nurse practitioner eventually, but says she needs some nursing experience, first. So far, the rotation she’s liked the best is oncology. I agreed with her- there’s a lot more actual patient care in oncology vs. being an ER nurse where the visit with each patient is relatively quick. I told her she might want to apply at Georgetown, because as a teaching hospital, she’ll see everything under the sun. That’s the key with medicine. If you haven’t seen it before, you won’t be able to diagnose it as easily.

I didn’t so much talk as just listen and soak up everyone else’s stories. I made lots of jokes, but in terms of actually revealing anything about myself, mostly it was age. No one in the room had heard of Bette Midler. Let THAT one sink in for a few minutes, bitches. Not even the gays had an opinion on Team Barbara vs. Team Bette, because they didn’t know who Streisand was, either. Steven, however, is not ignorant to music- he can freestyle rap like no one’s business. I was telling him that as a writer, rap is my favorite genre because it’s all stories. He agreed with me, but only to a certain point, saying there is a lot of shitty rap out there.

Ummmmm. Yes. There’s also a lot of shitty music in every genre, but I’m talking about the greats. Biggie. Tupac. Nas. Talib Kweli. Kendrick Lamar. Eminem. I asked him if he’d heard much Tupac, and Drew was like, “…..because he’s (Steven) is black?” I said, “no, because he can freestyle like a motherfucker, but it’s interesting that was your first leap.” To me, it would be like asking a country music singer if they liked George Jones and having someone else in the room say, “is that because he’s white?”

They won’t know who George Jones is, either.

With Chanika, though, age is relative. She doesn’t get a lot of cultural references anyway because she’s an international student, and the village where she lives in Sri Lanka is TINY. Her English is impeccable, but she also has her own Gloria Pritchett moments that make me laugh. I won’t share them because I don’t want to embarrass her, so you’ll just have to meet her in person. I am thinking this won’t be the last time we hang out, because their group is tight and to get an invitation was marvelous. They are definitely friends I could see growing with.

I just ended a sentence with a preposition. I’m having Gloria moments, too.

Chanika has a lot of responsibility on her shoulders because her family is working so hard to send her to school in the US. She takes it seriously, and her drive to give back is enormous. She can adult a hell of a lot better than I can, which gives me a drive to protect her from me because I’ve got shit to do before I am comfortable standing toe to toe with her. I may be older chronologically, but I think she’s a hundred years older than me mentally… a sage old owl in a young dyke body. I am comfortable enough to admit how much I don’t know, and I suppose that is the wisdom of being chronologically older. The drive to have the answer to everything is just gone.

My nurturer kicks in hardcore, though. For instance, Shay has lupus and I was on it in a half second. What are they treating you with? How long? Do you take pills or do infusion? How are your organs? She gave me a lot of food for thought because as a massage therapist, she does a combination of eastern and western medicine that turned on my brain like a supercomputer. In terms of actual clinical knowledge, what I know about SLE (systemic lupus erythematosus) could fit on the head of a pin. However, having worked in a rheumatology practice for two years, I at least know the right questions to ask.

Maybe next time, I’ll let them ask questions, too. 😉

I met someone on Tinder, like I said before, and we’ve been chatting enough that we want to meet. So, tonight I am getting together with her, her gay male best friends, and a coworker from the massage clinic where she works. We’re either going to sit around and talk, or go see The Avengers. Either way is fine with me. I just want to know who she is in real life, which, unsurprisingly, has become quite important to me. I have spent the last two years chatting with someone I adore to the ends of the earth, even though we have been so shitty to each other in the past that I’m not sure I deserve a real life meet-and-greet, and I’m not sure she does, either. To say that I don’t deserve it is undermining my own worth. We have both been equally shitty to each other, and as much as I make amends, she doesn’t. My behavior, according to her, is intolerable, while her behavior has been spot on perfect.

The truth is somewhere in the middle.

I’ve crossed lines, and so has she, by the nature of our internet crack relationship. But the lines we crossed were different in nature, and are like comparing “peanut butter and ladies.” I am devastated by the lines I crossed, because they drove her away. She is not capable of hearing how the lines she crossed changed me in kind.

So, no more internet crack for me. If you’re not willing to give me an address and a phone number, then we probably can’t be friends. I can’t go through it again, and I won’t. My personality divided in half and I ended up in a psych ward because I could not handle being married to Dana and having secrets with someone else. I was so “cracked out” that I couldn’t function, and luckily, the hospital was there to catch me. My cohort was amazing and listened through my wailing and gnashing of teeth.

And even still, I didn’t come completely clean, because I couldn’t. I didn’t think of either one of us as the problem. I blame the internet, and the wall it creates between two people so that they say anything and everything without really grasping how they’re changing each other because they cannot SEE IT.

So, no more “strangers on a train.” In a way, I am done with the internet. I crave real life, and I get out in it. I meet people all the time as a result of public transportation, and my reactions are real time instead of waiting with anxiety over a response that may not come for days…. if at all.

Yesterday, I met a guy named Barrington that wanted me to write all of his stories, because as he says, “they’re all true.” He learned how to cook in the military and cannot anymore because he has chronic pain and cannot lift more than five pounds. As a cook, this makes a job impossible. At Tapalaya, I routinely watched Dana carry 50 lb bags of flour up the stairs into dry storage. I could do it, too, but not without wheezing and possibly falling down the stairs. The funniest incidence of this is that I was putting away things in dry storage and came down the ladder facing the stairs instead of the kitchen. When I got to the bottom step, I didn’t know that there was a full rondo of fryer oil waiting to be given to a person with one of those cars that always smells like chicken. I stepped in it up to my knee. I was wearing leather shoes, though, and they really never looked better.

For once, my klutziness paid off.

Barrington is trying to get disability so that he can afford to move into an apartment. Right now his hustle is buying cigarettes at the 7-11 and selling them for a dollar apiece. He’s also a licensed massage therapist, so sometimes he’ll put out a chair and a tip jar. I told him that would eventually pay off and to keep at it. If you want to see him yourself, he’s usually close to the Silver Spring Metro, and I guarantee he’ll do a good job. I hired him for five minutes at a dollar a minute and now I can move my shoulders. I need to go back and get him to do my wrists. If you’re a computer geek, you need to go see him, too.

I told him that I’d really messed up by not learning a trade to the best of my ability. Cooking is the wrong one, because now I am getting too old to trust my knees for an entire shift. I should have gone to cosmetology school or something. My friend A-train went to Aveda and cracked me up with the fact that since they can’t test on animals, they test on little old ladies instead. I would have loved that job- R&D at Aveda with customers that would treat me like their grandchild.

Grandparents love me. Seriously. I used to go to the nursing home with my dad when he would preach there, and I am EXCELLENT at batting my eyes and saying, “tell me some more.” My favorites were always the old soldiers, because their stories were better than everyone else’s. No offense to non-military people, but there’s no way you can top them. It’s impossible. Don’t even try. However, old people love me because when they talk, I sit still and listen, which I gather doesn’t happen to them all that often.

Their stories are often sad, because they don’t talk about their early lives unless you ask. First they’ll talk about how lonely they are because they feel like they got dropped off and left in an alternate universe where EVERYONE ELSE is old but them. Seriously, old people feel like they’re 21 trapped in a body that’s betraying them one day at a time. it doesn’t take much to get them to open up about politics, religion, history….. they’ll talk about anything you want as long as you want because hey, they’re not on a schedule.

Hmmmmmmmm….. that gives me an idea. I’m going to apply to work in a nursing home. My mother was the recreational director at one when she was young and she loved it. I’m going to guess that not many people apply, because anything in geriatrics/gerontology scares most people to death, literally, because working with old people makes you face your own mortality regularly.

I’ve already faced mine. Several times, in fact. I’m not scared. I’ll do anything if you’ll just keep talking. I’m a writer, and your stories matter.

In real life.

You amaze me. Everything from your body to your personality. And by “your body,” I am not talking about attraction. I am talking about the ways your body stretched to accommodate new life, and how your personality stretched to go with it. I am humbled beyond belief at your ability to bounce back, even though in some ways, you don’t have a choice. I think it takes being an adult to really appreciate how much you’ve sacrificed for me, a child who may never have children but understands the magnitude of your gift.

I was going to be a mother. I read all the books, I prayed for my journey, and I happened upon the path more than once. However, it just didn’t take. Dana and I were embarrassed the first time we went to our OB/GYN, because she judged us on the clothes we were wearing and not, as Martin Luther King, Jr. so eloquently said, “the content of our character.” At the time we were making big bucks. I was working for a software company and Dana was working for a high-end grocery store. We did not need help with providing for a child, but at the same time, our doctor was right AND offensive when she said, “my pregnancies are $14,000 give or take. You can’t afford me. You should just find a friend and go home.” We’d put on our Sunday best for this appointment, and she crushed our dreams in 15 minutes. There was no way we’d go with a known donor, because we didn’t want to deal with a custody battle later.

We were so baby-crazy that eventually we decided to try to accept our fate. Every straight guy we asked was confused and wanted to sleep with me. They did not understand the concept of passing on genetic material without it. The gay one understood, and was up for it, but by the time we were ready to conceive, our finances weren’t. People kept telling us that if we waited until the right time, we’d never do it. Perhaps it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, because we weren’t going to bring a baby into the world in poverty. We did not put any investment into a baby after that, because we knew that our baby plans were on hold indefinitely, and we wore the shame of our OB/GYN appointment like button-downs. Maybe my next partner will want children, or already have some, and that’s ok with me. However, I am not looking to get my MRS. degree just to bring life into the world. I already have children and parents around me that need me as a support person now. I don’t have to wait for my own baby. Exhausted parents will give me theirs for hours at a time and that’s really all I need. To be close to a baby, because it makes my heart, body, mind relax in a way that I don’t get anywhere else.

BABIES ARE AWESOME.

I used to be a baby. I was awesome to someone, too. However, I was a difficult child for my mom to raise, because within minutes of being born, my lungs collapsed and I was deprived of oxygen, leaving a cerebral palsy with it. My parents never sued the hospital for malpractice, but they were well within their right. But, they reasoned, most of the problem was that I was born in East Texas in 1977. Unless they’d Life Flighted me to Dallas, there wasn’t much technology that would have saved me from always tripping on everything. Additionally, my eyes never learned to track together, so between that and the palsy, I have never physically moved in the world like everyone else. In fact, the only reason I can walk at all is due to my mother’s diligence in physical therapy every day. Her first move was to get me into a swimming class at 6 moths old, because babies are born with what’s called a “dolphin reflex,” which allows them to learn swimming at an incredible rate. By the time I was a year old, I could probably swim better than my mom could.

She also exercised my legs constantly, and at first, it was very painful for me. She would scream and cry just as much as I did, because I was using muscles that I hadn’t before and it hurt. I didn’t grow very fast. When I was a year old, I looked like I was still at 6 months, because I was eight weeks early with legs that couldn’t support me. In fact, my mother was in the grocery store once, and a woman insisted that she was a ventriloquist and was throwing her voice because I could talk in sentences.
It’s amazing what I could do verbally because I had no choice but to just lie there, not moving, but soaking up all the adult conversation I could muster. My first words were “car keys” and “peaches.” I have no idea where I got the idea for either one, but it set me on the path of being an intellectual that would never play baseball. I couldn’t run very well, and with no depth perception, I couldn’t tell how far the ball was from me so I could catch. I loved soccer because depth perception was easier when the ball was on the ground. Depth perception is also the reason I decided to give up my car and take public transportation. Honestly, I am regretting that decision a little bit, because since I have a cerebral palsy, I fall all the time when I’m walking. It’s not pretty. But at least I’ve been tripping on curbs since I was young, so scraped knees are just part of life. For instance, I have Neosporin on both knees right now.

Through it all, my mom has been my best cheerleader, because she’s the one that cured me of being disabled…. Because I surely would have been without her dedication.

When I think of what my mom went through to raise me, it gives me greater respect for all the sacrifices that mothers make for their children, because so far, I haven’t met a mother yet who’d say that their child needed more than they could give.

Amen.

It did not occur to me that since Nasim is from Iran, and only halfway fluent in English, that she might not know what a homosexual was. However, it DID occur to Samantha. Nasim had been very uncomfortable with men living in the house, and Samantha did not see me as any less of a threat… and good for her. It’s not that I thought I would ever hit on Nasim, but I might unintentionally make her feel nervous even with a compliment such as, “you look nice today.” Because for someone who doesn’t know what a homosexual is, they might be prone to think that I am a predator. I am inappropriate, loudmouth, and rarely think before I speak (and even when I do, see “inappropriate” for details). To someone who comes from a country where they kill people for being gay, Samantha thought it was easier to talk to them early. And by “them,” she meant both Nasim and her best friend Sahar, because she was originally living in my room, moved out to live with her boyfriend, and is now moving back into Courtney’s room (or at least, tentatively she is taking over Courtney’s room. At this point, it’s not solid.). Sahar is as lively and funny as Nasim, and it is hilarious to see them together. At first, ironically, I thought Nasim was gay, because Sahar stayed in her room overnight and I didn’t know that straight girls did that. I mean, at 14, ok. As adults? Not so much. But no. It would never occur to them to have sex with each other. First of all, they’re straight. Second of all, they’re Muslims. When Samantha told Hayat that she needed to talk to them, that’s when she found out that they were completely oblivious to me.

I could have “played straight” unknowingly for years, depending on how long it takes me to get over the two rabbits I was chasing and the grief when I realized I’d never catch either one, because they ran in opposite directions. I am talking to a Sri Lankan nursing student on Tinder, but at this point, it’s just a few lines of chat a day. No forward motion is happening, and I like it that way. I am looking for jobs, and she is in finals hell. It just feels good to have someone to text “good morning” that also texts back in kind. I have gotten used to being single, and at this point, it’s what I need more than anything. She’s ten years younger than me, and Samantha said, “you DO like ’em young.” I said, “I just swipe. It’s not dependent on who I like. It’s dependent on who texts back.” She said, “point well taken.” My age range on Tinder is like, 27 to 47 or something like that. I don’t care about age. I care if you’re a dumbass. If you can’t hold my attention intellectually, please take your fries and drive through. The thing that got me with this girl is that I asked her what her last final was in, and she said “pharmacology.” She passed the “not a dumbass” test with flying colors. We shall see what we shall see, but again, I’m not looking for anything but the first and last text of the day. Anything other than that is just icing.

If you think that I am moving on fast, first of all, shut the hell up. Second of all, I mourned Dana for the last two years of our relationship, because I could see the changes in both of us and how we were both letting go of each other while I was wrapped up in Internet crack. By the time I called it, we were still best friends, and even still attracted to each other, but being married was a whole different endeavor. Besides, remember that Dana is the one that when I’d calmed down after our fistfight enough to see reality again, didn’t want to get back together in the first place. She could see the horrible fighting patterns we’d developed just as clearly as I could. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with flirting with other women, because I am well enough to know my own limitations. I cannot start a hot and heavy relationship until I can really say that grief is at least almost behind me, and not an ever-present deluge.

That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

Hayat and Samantha did not know I was gay when I arrived, or if they did, they did not say anything to me. That is because our neighborhood is easily 40% homo, and it’s just not a deal. Yes, that’s right. I randomly picked a place to live and ended up in the gayest neighborhood in town. You can’t throw a rock without hitting a gay person from our porch (well, maybe for the purposes of this essay, that was inappropriate………… see “inappropriate” for details). Because of the neighborhood, it seemed implausible that Nasim did not know what a gay person is. However, because she doesn’t have a word for it, she would never even think that someone wasn’t a heterosexual to begin with. It tickles me that Rhonda & Ann come over to our house and sit on the porch with us and it still doesn’t click, because if you look up “dyke” in the dictionary, it’s just a picture of me and Rhonda. Thank God Samantha was on her toes.

Hayat’s approach was to tell them not to look at me as bad or wrong or anything like that, because I would be able to pick up on their distaste. She said, “Leslie will feel the same way you do when you wear your hijab in public and people stare at you.” It was the most perfect conversation ever, and I wish that Samantha had recorded it, because I would have liked to hear that sentence in Hayat’s voice. But no, Samantha and I were on the front porch shooting the shit about anything and everything, watching the dogs and the gay people and the straight people all together.

Because together, “we all fruit.”

I don’t feel well today. I think it’s because ever since I got here, I’ve forced myself to go someplace and since I don’t drive, that has entailed a lot of walking. Uber is a little more expensive than the bus, plus, if I Uber everywhere, I am defeating the purpose of walking. As I said earlier, when I first got here I was 117 pounds and barely hanging on to that. I had so much fear and anxiety that I would go days at a time without eating…… ironically, because I felt like I’d bit off more than I could chew.

I didn’t have any anxiety about moving to Maryland, though. I had anxiety because everyone does when they’re going through a divorce. Even if you initiate, you go into shock. I have to hand it to Dana, though, because I didn’t blindside her. We just came to a fork in the road and kissed goodbye. As I have also said earlier, I have had a lot of shitty breakups in my life, so it was nice that God gave me a break with this one.

I think it is directly correlated to how much time we spent being best friends before I fell in love with her. Dana was sure she wanted to be with me within six weeks of meeting me. I took three and a half years to see that she was right. I am not sure why, but moving to Houston together undid us. Dana was unhappy from day one, but not because of Houston itself. She was unhappy because she set a goal for herself that fell through, and it sent her into a downward spiral of unworthiness not unlike the one I was experiencing myself. Ultimately, two very depressed people undid each other, which is why we decided to move on. We’ve both agreed that when it was good, it was really, really good, and that maybe we’ll try again and maybe we won’t, because we are so special to each other that taking getting back together off the table is absurd. But let me be clear. It is not a *goal.* It is a possibility in a realm of millions of permutations.

That was a large journey for me. I had to come to that realization over time, because making it a goal wasn’t helping either one of us. We didn’t need to be in a relationship for our own sanity, especially with each other because it got ugly at the end. When you irk each other to that level, something’s got to give, and it was me that called it, and yet, something I regret. However, the words of Soren Kierkegaard ring in my ears. “You cannot live life backwards. You can only live it forwards.” Since I hear them all the time, they’re finally sinking in. However, in some cases I can live life backwards, because I have an incredible repository of past memories in this space. I cannot change the past, but I *can* keep from repeating it.

The past me would not be able to function right now. The past me would not even bother getting out of bed. This time, the “afterthemath” has been easier. This is because even though things got ugly with Dana at the end, we had time to make up and forgive each other before I moved to DC, and when I moved, my life took off in a great direction that I didn’t think would ever occur, because I was too depressed to think that I was capable of it.

Now, that is not a problem. This church will be a reality, and I got so fired up about it with Judy that I realized it just couldn’t NOT happen. I realized that I was driven to a level I’d never been before, and even though I have to get a “real job” to be able to support myself, if it pays enough, I can afford to work part time. For instance, all of my contracts at Dell payed close to $20/hour, even though I was just doing simple stuff like transferring data from one computer to another, and it was all automated by shell scripts (“Go away, or I will replace you with a very small shell script” is my favorite t-shirt on Thinkgeek.com). I am capable of a lot more than that, but the thing with Dell contracts is that you can choose when you want to work and what type of projects you want to take. I originally started with Robert Half Technology, and have my application in now. We’ll see what comes of it, as government contracts often take a long time to get going, but at least I know that I will be solvent eventually.

In the meantime, I am proud of the work that I do on this web site, because I know that there are people with me on my journey that have been with me since the beginning. I have a list of subscribers and how long they’ve been reading, and some of them go back to the very first entry. Maybe one day I will be “flaming liberal Christian Dooce.” Maybe I won’t. But at the same time, I feel like I am at least decent enough a writer to try. I am relentless with my flaws because if I don’t name it, I won’t erase it. I am the type person that will never be satisfied with stagnation. I am too curious about the world to always stay the same. I have also made enough mistakes in my life that it would be pathetic not to learn from them. Sometimes, the best life can offer is making new mistakes rather than old ones, so if everything feels like it’s going down the drain, at least you know it’s a different sink.

For instance, I finally broke down and got a keyboard and mouse so that I didn’t have to use the touchpad while I’m blogging. Erasing 800-1100 words (because it’s happened more than once) is c’nest pas acceptable. Sash, see how I did that there? Actually, my Canadians will think my Frenglish is funny, too….. or as Honore de Balzac once said, “60% of English is French badly pronounced.” Bad French pronunciation happens to be my specialty. I learned this by taking a French course by CD from Michel Thomas. I listened to the first CD over and over and over, because I would lose where I was in the process and start over just because. I am *that* person. The one who always goes back to the beginning, because as a Virgo, I can’t not. I may not be able to organize my stuff for more than a week at a time, but I am anal retentive about starting from the beginning when I lose my place. This is why I have watched the beginning of Casablanca six times, because I’ve fallen asleep before the end every time. In fact, I still haven’t seen the end. I haven’t seen the end of “Return of the Jedi,” either. This is because I fall asleep at the Ewoks every single time.

This leads me back to a hiking trip with Dana, wherein we were almost to the top of Angels’ Rest when she said, “you know that scene in Return of the Jedi where Yoda dies?” I said, “YODA DIES???????????” and promptly fell over into a bush. Seriously, no hands out, complete surprise, ass over teakettle.

Sorry if I spoiled the end. Too soon?

I am home today because after walking as much as I have, I hurt all over. Therefore, today is being spent in front of my computer because there are now no jobs in which you do not have to fill out an online application, even fast food. I am applying for everything from Linux geek to burger flipping, because I am a burger flippin’ ho as well (wink).

Who knows? I might even end up at a car wash.

I accept tips.

Today I met Judy for lunch, and we sat and talked for two hours. It was the best I’ve felt in weeks, because we are in somewhat of the same place in our lives. I wish I could elaborate on that some more, but I really can’t. All I will say is that she understood the level to which I was hurt and in a lot of ways, metaphysically kissed it and made it better. She also gives really good hugs.

I talked about this on my Facebook page, but I will talk about it here because it bears repeating…. a conversation I had at The Daily Grill (but I won’t tell you which location to protect the ignorant). The setup is that I got to lunch really early, and ordered a glass of iced tea. When I got it, they hadn’t added water to it (or so it seemed).

Leslie: This tea is really, really strong. Could I have some Half-and-Half?
Bartender: I’m sorry, I don’t know what that is.
Leslie: …………….
Waiter: ……………
Leslie: Cream….. Milk……
Waiter: OH!!! (blushes)

So I wait until our appointed time and it turns out I am in the wrong location. I look up the address to where I’m supposed to be and it says it will take me 30 minutes to get there. I told the manager to call over to the restaurant where Judy was and tell her I was on my way, then Ubered my way across town to shave off time. It was easy, considering how much caffeine I’d had while “waiting for Judy.”

We have this incredible lunch and then she walks me toward the bus I need, wherein I see a Jonathan Adler store across the street and proceed to FREAK OUT. My Kindle cover with the question mark on one side and the ampersand on the other is Jonathan Adler, and he uses punctuation in a lot of his designs…. for instance, I saw a pillow duvet with a question mark on it and it was all I could do not to run up to the counter and say, “SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!” I resisted only because they were $125 apiece. Because of course they were.

I decided that even though the store was kind of out of my price range, I still wanted to spend as long as I could there…. and then, something so spectacular appeared in the corner of my eye that I whipped around and bought it. The setup is that years ago, I was shopping in Williams Sonoma and they had a tomato soap that sent me over the moon. It was expensive, so I did not buy it. When I went back, it was gone, and I haven’t been able to find it since…. and by “years ago,” I’m pretty sure that W. had just taken office. So, anyway, I see this tomato lotion out of the corner of my eye, and I ran over to it and picked it up. It smelled JUST LIKE the tomato soap I’d found years ago. I wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass again, because lotion is one of those things that lasts me ten years.

And by tomato, I don’t mean that it smells like the food. I mean it smells like the vine…. except it won’t kill you. I leave walking on air, because this is the first housewarming gift I have purchased for myself, and it is something I have wanted since the Kathleen years. In fact, Dana will tell you that it is something I haven’t shut up about our entire relationship. Every time we go into Williams Sonoma, “when are you going to bring back the tomato soap?” Now I can stop bugging them.

It is then that all the iced tea begins to hit me and I have to go to the restroom. I stopped for a few moments to check my Google Maps to make sure I was going in the right direction, and then stopped into the Hyatt Regency because I figured there would be a public bathroom in the lobby. I went into the stall and put my stuff down, and when I finished, I picked up my backpack and the Jonathan Adler bag was gone. All of the confidence I’d had all day drained, because losing both my tomato lotion and the money I spent on it put me on the ground. I cried big alligator tears because I thought that the chance of getting it back was nil. I’d probably left it on the Metro, and there was no hope. Plus, I’d been talking to Judy about what happened with Dana and my grief was just under the surface of my skin to begin with, and I just lost it. I wasn’t crying about the lotion and the money anymore. I was fucking up at life. Just STRAIGHT UP.

And then I remembered that I’d stopped right outside the hotel to check Google Maps, and maybe I’d just left it where I stopped. I ran out of the hotel like a house on fire, and when I got to the outside walkway, there was my Jonathan Adler bag, untouched, lotion intact.

That’s when I REALLY cried. What had been lost was found. I wasn’t a failure after all. I knew that I wasn’t, logically, but you can’t tell that emotionally to a person in grief and have them believe it. I can’t even tell it to myself without solid proof. I knew that I’d made a mistake by leaving it behind to begin with, but just the fact that I’d had enough presence of mind to take it off the Metro with me is the only reason I was able to retrace my steps in the first place. That had to be something, right?

I hope so.

I went to meet Prianka at lunch, and afterward, I used Starbucks as my office for a couple of hours because I had some time to kill. My next appointment canceled, so I thought, “I need a haircut and an eyebrow wax.” So I get out my little iPhone and ask Google Maps to point me to the nearest SuperCuts. This is the one time that Google Maps has directed me to the wrong place, so I ride the bus out to East Jesus Nowhere and then walk half a mile and the SuperCuts is not there. I have walked all over DC by this point, to the tune of about five miles, so I just sat down on the ground and created an Uber account. Dorsey came to pick me up within three minutes, and we ended up having such a great time that I told him I was looking for friends and since I had his cell number, could I text him again? He said “absolutely.” Rock star.

Dorsey is from the ATL, and one of the most beautiful men I have ever seen in my life. However, that’s not what made me want to be his friend (although it helps, not gonna lie). He’s a DC public school teacher, and things go to shit in a way for which he is unprepared on a daily basis. In his two years of teaching here, he’s been through a riot and two kids brandishing handguns at school. If that wasn’t enough, the charter schools offload their poorest students back into their zone schools because it affects the amount of funding they get, and teachers’ salaries are tied to the kids’ progress. So all the kids that transfer in count against him. It is a miserable system, but he says that there are things he loves about charter schools, he’s just not sure what they are. Kidding, kidding. He says that when they work well, they work really well. But the government funding issue is large because it’s penalizing great teachers who have no control over the grade point average of kids who’ve been there six or seven weeks. Additionally, he works in a high school. A large percentage of his students are alcoholics and addicts. He said that the only time he has it easy is first period, because the seniors all show up high and it makes them slow down enough to pay attention. By fourth period, though, the high is gone and the kids are crazy. He knows he’s not supposed to tell them to re-up, but it might make his life easier if they did. He doesn’t smoke at all, so he doesn’t understand how it works. Just that it’s nicer to have calm, focused students than ones who pick fights right in front of him. He told me that the first day, he assigned seats, and a fourteen-year-old said, “fuck you bitch, I’m not sittin’ there.” No ma’amela Pamela. He is from the South. He was floored.

He took the same leap of faith I did…. just packed up his car and left Atlanta the day he graduated from college. His brother went to Howard, so that’s how he got to know the city well enough to want to live here. I told him that the city was inspiring me as well, especially standing on the steps of the Supreme Court as the marriage arguments were happening. I also told him about the guy that told me my dad should have beaten the shit out of me by now. He healed me in no small measure by saying that his dad probably did the same thing to him. If he’s not gay, it was something. I said, “everyone’s fighting their own battles, aren’t they?” He nodded and smiled.

I love it when Dorsey smiles. It lights up my face. Talking to Dorsey was just as much fun as a haircut. It worked out all right.

Dorsey got five stars, and I will be calling him every time I just cannot even with the shoes and the walking and the blisters and the I fell again and hurt my knees. At least this time, my pants didn’t rip.

Small blessings….. and large ones, too.

Pri Diddy hooked me up with a friend who’s looking for content writers in Health and Human Services. Basically, it entails reading long reports and bills and synthesizing information so that the public will understand it. This job is so me that I cannot even. I mean, I’ve worked as a medical assistant, so I don’t have a problem with jargon, and anything I don’t understand about health care is probably an Atul Gawande article somewhere. I have read everything he’s ever written in print, and most of the articles he writes for the New Yorker and Salon. If Dr. Gawande hasn’t written about it, it’s probably not important.

But back to the topic at hand. This is kind of a throwback job for me, because when I was in my early 20s, I was the content editor for UH’s Information Technology News. I am so thankful for that job, because with press credentials, I was able to weasel my way into the law school for a CLE starring……….. wait for it……………………. Helen Thomas. It was a total Wayne’s World, “I’m not worthy” kind of moment. I think I had tears in the corner of my eyes the whole time, because I was sitting 30 feet from the dean of the White House press corps. She was there when Patrick Kennedy died at less than a year old. She was there during Watergate. She nearly beat Sam Donaldson down to get to the phones for UPI on several occasions. It was humbling to a tremendous degree, just to sit in the presence of true greatness.

I am hoping that her greatness will live in me.

When I was living in Portland, Oregon, I worked in a pub called Biddy McGraw’s. My legacy there is secure, because I created their chili recipe. It is still listed as Lanagan’s Pub Chili. #humblebrag Anyway, when I was working there, we had a customer we nicknamed “Bourbon Bill,” because, well, do the math.

Bill asked me about my writing, loudly and drunkenly where the whole bar could hear. “HOW MUSH HAB YOU MABE AS A WRITER?”

I said, “nothing.”

He took all the change out of his pockets and dumped it into my hands. “There,” he said. “Now you’re a real writer.” I cried like a baby, and told him “I will remember this moment every day of my life.”

And I will. The numbers are skewed on purpose, because the plan is to add a fountain pen. The tattoo artist I’m working with gives me my tattoos for free, because I agreed to promote his ink shop as an extra social media job, especially since what I wanted was so small. One of the other artists said that I was unique because he’d never seen anyone get just a price tattooed on them. I told him it wasn’t a price, and told him the story. As a creative artist type, tears came to his eyes, too.

Because he realized that I was real, too.

Amen.

I did a little bit of flooding out yesterday over everything that’s happened the last two years, and it made me so sad I couldn’t move. I just laid in bed with tears streaming own my face, but luckily it was the end of the day, anyway, so I could take off the super suit of confidence and just be leslie. I reflected on how many changes I’ve brought into my life for the better, and when I think about the past, it only leads me to tears and regrets so huge that they won’t stop. Flooding out is not where I need to be right now. I need my focus to be on the funds I need to raise to make St. James and All Sinners a real brick building instead of clicks on a web site.

I have decided that because Maryland real estate is so expensive, I’m shooting for four million dollars. That is a building, maintenance, and an endowment to keep it safe in perpetuity. I am not saying that I can’t do anything with less. I am saying that if my dream is small and easily reachable, it is not long-term enough to provide me with complete and total change inside myself. I do not want to think small anymore. I want to be the visionary that my personality type dictates, and not worry about the small boxes I’ve been pushed into by past behavior.

Plus, especially with a homeless congregation, you don’t reach for four million dollars all at once. You take the widow’s mites and rejoice over each one. Each success builds into the next one. Mine yesterday was not being intimidated by Starbucks corporate saying no. If they continue to turn me down, McDonald’s is my next ask, because I’ve gotten to know the breakfast crew pretty well since it’s across the street from the Metro and I usually walk there early in the morning. Because I know them, I’m kicking myself that I didn’t ask them first. I should have gone to my friends for help, because I promise that if I offer coffee to homeless people, they’re not going to care about the brand. I suppose I just wanted to treat them to something they could not afford on their own.

Larry, the manager at “my Starbucks,” is taking an incredible leap of faith by going to his district manager and asking if there’s anything that can be done. I am not choosing to focus on corporate’s no, but Larry’s yes.

It keeps the flooding out to a minimum when I think about the successes I’ve managed to achieve in the short time I’ve been here, rather than in the clusterfuck I created by divorcing Dana. It is possible I will be single the rest of my life, and I am shockingly okay with it. I move in the world differently when I am alone, but that doesn’t mean that past hurt doesn’t wrestle me to the ground until I say uncle.

To that end, here are some of the things I love about living in Maryland, concentrating on the relationships I have in DC instead of the relationships I’ve managed to crater:

• When Pri Diddy said we needed an epic first convo, I told her that I felt broken right now, and she wanted to see me anyway. Just gave me huge hugs and let me talk.
• Nathan, my cousin, took me out for a night on the town and we walked and talked like the people who have known each other since childhood that we are. You cannot imagine how healing it was for me to hear that he’s sad at how disconnected we’ve become, because it gives me a goal for the future. How are we going to come back together after years of being in different times and spaces?
• I have fallen in love with the idea of “being a Nasser.” Mike, Hayat, Samantha, and Dom provide me with laughter on a daily basis, and support for whatever it is I need. For instance, Mike and Hayat were on the porch when I got home from battling SBUX, and it meant the world to me that they just listened intently and cheered me on.
• I am giving thanks for Dries (pronounced “dreece”), because a conversation that started with him making fun of me ended with a job opportunity.
• I am grateful for Judy, who has known me since I was evicted from my first apartment….. the womb with a view. I am grateful for every minute we’ve spent together in the past, and I look forward to becoming closer in the future. Judy is the type person that I ascribe to be- a citizen of the world and not just the US.
• I am grateful for the relationship I have with DC, and the fact that it is being renewed one step at a time, literally, because I walk everywhere I go. Setting has become character in my need for solitude, because when I stand in places like the Old Supreme Court, I feel like I can talk to the ghosts in the room and not feel alone. And these are some pretty badass ghosts. You could do worse than the representative from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln. You could do worse than Teddy Roosevelt, and Franklin, for that matter. I am grateful for my awe.
• I am grateful and continuing to pray for the homeless people that have accepted me as one of their own: Cookie, Stefon, Rez, BBQ, and a blonde kid who didn’t give me his name, but whose eyes got moist when he said that before he became homeless, he’d been sober for ten years, because it’s almost impossible to stay clean on the streets because you need the distraction from it. He sleeps on pressed dirt and shares his floor with his wife, and if you think that image did not impress on upon me the importance of my calling, you would be wrong about that. It is an image I carry with me daily. Cookie said that when she went to his “house,” even she cried. Cookie is homeless and cries over the plight of others when she cannot help herself. I saw myself in her eyes, because it is the journey I am on as well. I have a place to live, but I am not so different from her after all. We both want to help ourselves, and we are limiting ourselves at the same time. Same software, different case.

I know what I need to do. Flooding out is ignoring my calling and letting myself slip back into the person I used to be instead of the person I am becoming. It is easier when I concentrate on my best friend, a lab named Daisy that lives with Samantha and Dom but is glued to me when I’m around. I tease her that she’s my dog, and she just wags her tail happily. Samantha and Dom are not offended. They know where to go to get her back.

And that makes me grateful as well, that Dom and Samantha don’t mind sharing Daisy with me, because they know that having someone to kiss my tears is important. They know that I am in pain, and letting the tears fall in ablution is necessary. They don’t know much about my life before they met me, only that I am gay and divorced and a writer. None of those things threaten them- they told me to write away about everything, and that it would be cool to have a writer at their parties because they could go back and relive them. I mean, they can anyway because we don’t drink, but hey….. always nice to have support. 🙂

I am so much calmer and more alive now that I’ve given me permission to be me. Flooding out is temporary, but rising with the water level is permanent.