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

 

I called Dana about 4:30, and said, “I want to write about my chemical dependency class in the hospital, and it led me back to when you got your DUI. I promise you, it won’t be a slam. It will be about everything we fucking learned.” She agreed, and I said, “I LOVE YOU FOR THIS!” Yes. I told her I loved her, as I did every day and am maybe a little gun shy about it now, but I still mean it with all that I am. My next door neighbor and I were talking and I said, “I’m going to wait a year and a half or so and then ask her out again.” I am not planning on the answer. I am planning on the ask. This is because Dana and I define day in and day out love. We know it like we know the earth is round. We know it to the degree that attractions to other people don’t bother us, because we know that attractions come and go, but our love stays the same. You know why? Because I realized long ago that I have the emotional capacity to love more than one person, but I didn’t have the time or the will to manage my feelings to that degree.

I learned this by dating. I loved the ability to go out and do things with different people, but I did not like the time constraints that go with it. Jealousy ensues. There’s infighting and lots of it. As you know, Dana tends to wound me about Argo, because even though she’s a breeder, in the past Dana has even said that eventually, Argo will fall for me anyway. I laughed so hard my desk chair sagged. I have about as much chance with her as I do with Matt Damon and Oprah. I just enjoy her humor, which is good because there’s a lot of it. She throws me a bone once in a while just because she knows I fucking eat it up, but that’s the extent of it. For instance, I was talking to her about this phenomenon of bending her to my will.

“How can I decide whether I’m in love with you or not if I haven’t seen your rack? What kind of idiot do you take me for?” I laughed out loud when her reply hit my inbox.

Two letters.

DD.

Actually, I laughed out loud for several days over that one. I’m laughing now as I type this. It’s such a great memory that I have to pause and smile and glow because Argo gets me. I don’t have to be in love with her to love her for all she’s worth, and I sit in it constantly.

The only reason I can do this is because Dana made room. Dana and I have been through so much that even connecting with someone else on an explosive level didn’t give her much pause, but she had to sit with it for a very long time. Still sitting with it. Still sitting with anger and resentment that she thought I was trying to replace her and I thought I was trying to save her from me. Argo listened to all the thoughts I had- those moments where a quick note with an aha! Moment led to hilarity and a depth I’ve never experienced. I needed a safe place to fall, and even though Dana had her sister, she didn’t realize that I needed Argo in the same way. I needed a sounding board to vent about our issues so that I had more tools to work with in our next encounter, whether it was romantic or angry.

Of COURSE because of my history with Diane, I struggled with the difference between bff and crush because those two relationships are wired in my head to be the same. Seriously, THANKS FOR THAT. However, it was so much easier for me that Argo is straight because for her to be a lesbian would face me with an impossible choice. I needed both of them to make room for each other, because I didn’t want either to go away.

The fact that Argo and I haven’t spoken recently and Dana and I are getting a divorce is both devastating and liberating. I have been caught in this mind fuck for two years, and I am ready to be on my own. I need time to process these last seven years until I can understand them inside and out. I want an M&M (Mortality & Morbidity) that lasts years, because that is what it will take to get both of them out of my system if that is what they want our future to be. I am not holding my breath on either of them, because I have done enough. As Dana’s depression got worse and worse, I kept running to Argo for emotional support that she couldn’t give anymore because I needed her more than she needed me. It wasn’t always that way, but it is now. It is as if the mission is over with both of them. I needed them desperately at this time in my life, and though it is devastating to think what might have been, it is even more exciting thinking about what is to be.

But in order to understand the future, you have to understand the past.

Dana had imbibed a little more than normal, but I was even more fucked up so I didn’t notice and didn’t call her on it when she wanted to drive home. We went through the drive-thru at Taco Bell, so close to our apartment that when the cop started following us, we ended up in the driveway of our apartment complex, lights flashing. There is an official report in Portland somewhere that says Dana failed a field sobriety test and a Breathalyzer, and I had Taco Bell lettuce on my face.

So there’s that.

I am so drunk that I cannot even see straight and the officer asks me who I want to call. I am sobbing as I say, “Volfe.” At that point, he’s the only one I want to see and I want him to pick me up and fireman carry me to safety, as he has done so many times metaphorically. If there’s anything I miss about living in Portland, it is the proximity to my soldier.

So he comes to get me and takes me to safety and I wake up yelling, “DANA!” Volfe sits down and sighs. “Dana has been arrested and she is in jail. We have to go get her.” I have no words. The color has drained completely out of my face as I remember in bits and pieces what happened the night before. We were drinking and throwing darts, and to say it got a bit out of hand is probably accurate. We had the judgment of drunk people, which is exactly how I ended up driving Dana to the airport at 2:30 every morning for three months straight. You cannot possibly understand how inconvenient it was for me, because I hate driving. Being the only one in the family that could drive was scary and intimidating, because I couldn’t rely on her to let me check out and just run the music. I got more confidence about driving in those three months, but mostly I learned how much I love Dana.
It terrified me when Volfe and I showed up at the Multnomah County jail and Dana had been released a half hour earlier and taken the bus home. We didn’t make it in time. She thought she’d been abandoned. I was screaming inside because SHIT. I FUCKING FAILED HER. I wanted to be there to receive her, to tell her how much I loved her and how it was ok, we’d make it through, we can do anything. I did when Volfe and I arrived at the house, where she was wailing, and rightfully so.

In those moments, you need to be left to self-soothe, because it is the only thing that will really get you motivated to never let these things happen again. My AA friends let me fall against them because they knew Dana and I. We’d made a horrible mistake by taking the car home that night, but we weren’t absolute lushes. They heard the cry for help, though, and came running. I could tell them all of the things running through my mind as I felt the responsibility of caring for someone who couldn’t drive and had the worst possible choice to drive her around now. I have always had anxiety about driving with Dana in the car, because I love having her as a second pair of eyes, but she also turns into the archetype coach who teaches driver ed when we’re out and about. I am sure that I need it. I just resent it because it’s pedantic and yet necessary.

She also hates the GPS, because she likes to memorize a map and direct herself. I am not competent to roam the streets without Siri. This is not because I can’t memorize a map. It’s that if Siri didn’t remind me where I was going, I would just wander around until I got wherever I was going, which may or may not be the place I originally intended. It is serendipitous, certainly, but not so much with the direct. I use Apple Maps and Google Maps so that location is not something I have to store. I am thinking in seven different planes and the GPS takes care of one of them for me. It is marvelous.

Driving Dana in the dark made me a better person. The night crew at 7-11 became our friends. We’d stop for caffeine and most of the time for me it was coffee with cream and marshmallows. For my Portland readers, it’s the one at Powell and 65th? Somwhere around there, anyway. It’s the one that’s next to the two stop lights in a row that annoy me to this day.

Yeah, maybe I should let that one go.

I loved the way that I was able to jump in for Dana without judgment, and went to all her open classes. In fact, I paid $50 for one of them, and it was the best $50 I have spent in ten years. If there is anything you need to know about me, it’s that I am fascinated by medicine. I can read journals for fun. So when I paid my hard earned cash and sat down, a woman appeared on stage and said “I’m a nurse.” Brain. Engaged. Hyperspaaaace! She taught the class how alcohol and marijuana affect the brain during all decision-making processes and an MRI of a 22-year-old who had huge clumps of grey matter missing. Then, they brought up a guy who’d wrecked his truck by slamming into a J-wall at 75 mph. He’d worked at Fred Meyer, so the entire catalog of SKU numbers was still in his head and he couldn’t remember what he’d eaten five minutes earlier. Long term memory intact and short term memory ripped to shit. The guy couldn’t even drive because he’d forget where he was.

In my chemical dependency class in the hospital, I opened up about what it was like for me to go to AA with my friends when they were having birthdays and chairing meetings. It was finding God in the middle of the mess. The people that taught me the best way to live life is this mantra: “Son of a bitch, everything’s real” (SOBER). By that I mean that beer culture is not my culture anymore. It makes my depression worse, but it’s not like I don’t love a drink now and again. If I have $20 to go out, I am the one that will get one $15 drink instead of four or five shitty ones…. because now I know what my brain looks like. It’s losing grey matter I don’t have to lose. 🙂

Since those lectures, I haven’t drunk more than one beer out and driven home. Decision-making ability starts at the first sip. I cannot lose control like that anymore, and I do not like it. What I have learned is that I was living in a culture that’s all pubs all the time, and when I moved to Houston, it wasn’t a thing. I learned that I would rather be at home not spending money, and even though diet soda is a chemical shitstorm, it replaced alcohol as the default beverage of choice. If you move to Portland, be prepared for the onslaught of beers you’ll be asked to sample. Some people handle it well. Some people do not. However, it only took one night of bad judgment for us to say “no more” (Cue Billie Piper, will you?).

No more.

Learning ourselves in that moment was finding Gallifrey, except it had been on the TARDIS console the whole time… a round piece of glass and a slice of time.

This is just a guess, but I think it has legs. What I know for sure is that River has her finger on my lips saying, “Spoilers!”

I make my own spoilers now. I know what’s coming, and I am impressed. My Fanagans have really started getting the numbers up, which makes me feel like I must be doing something right. I think I am, because my gratitude flows like a river for those of you that know I am just taking up my space in the world and if you don’t agree with me, you have the right to say what you want. I am not entitled to your opinion unless you want to give it. Knowing it gives me strength for the next day, when I look at my tattoo and imagine the knife needed to make the blood flow. My tattoo is based on the saying, “writing is easy. You sit at the typewriter and slice open a vein.” It’s on my forearm, where I see it every day. Every day I know pieces of me leave my body and stream into this space. I can wander and wander and dream of what will be, because that is my destiny. To prepare the way for you…. not because I need to. Because God has asked, I sat with it for 20 years, and I am going to do something about it. I will no longer tolerate my indolence on this issue because if there is anything that AA has taught me it is how to be courageous……… because being courageous is nothing more than knowing yourself inside out. As I said in my chemical dependency class, “I am so jealous that I can’t go to AA because I’m a normie. Where’s the AA for people who don’t really drink and yet still can’t get their shit together?” Everyone laughed, hard, and my AAdar went off when I said that I love AA just as much as I love church, because somebody’s higher power could be Burger King and yet, it still manages to get their ego out of the way. The leader of the group smiled and said, “that’s exactly what AA is like.” She nodded at me KNOWINGLY and I met her eyes. I received her gaze with a smile, kind of like when you figure out someone’s gay and you need to let them know without words that whatever they’re about to say is ok.

And that’s what I learned from Dana’s DUI.

Everything they’re about to say is ok, and everything I say is ok, too.

The job that I wanted in DC isn’t right for me because they won’t take 15 years of experience over a Bachelor’s degree, but that’s ok. I have found plenty of tech jobs where that’s not a problem. No one in my department at Alert Logic had finished college, but they can administer servers, program anything, etc. They started on the job in college just like I did, and made more money than we thought could be made and fuck college, that’s how. I do not want to tell you why I left college, because it’s a long, tragic story that will take me 15 years to finish. I have other things to work on, mostly a resume that showcases exactly what I’ve done to say that I have this much experience with computers.

My background is academic technology, and if a job came open at a university, I’d go. It’s the best place to be the most well-rounded at work. The computer support is basic, and the benefits of working for a school are obvious. Like, hashtag obvious. More days off than everyone else, more benefits than you can use, etc. It was stupid to follow Kathleen to DC because I could have stayed at University of Houston until I retired. However, following her to DC was a choice I needed to make because it was the first time that I was living on my own with no parental involvement at all. I wandered around the city, even the bad neighborhoods that I was told to explicitly ignore because more than one person said I wouldn’t come back. They were wrong. I have met more friendly people in Anacostia than I ever did in Alexandria. Because here’s where the rubber meets the road- poor people need each other more than everyone else. We survive by banding together, and in DC, that never meant anything racist. Girl, we are all poor together.

So today I went to the shittiest apartment complex I’d ever seen and walked around in amazement. There were construction workers all over the place in beautify mode. I am interested in apartments where they keep the grounds looking nice, and there’s a pool and a playground on the “campus.” Everyone speaks Spanish, but that wasn’t a thing. I went up to a stranger and said, “Donde esta la offcina?” (Where is the office?) He told me and I walked totally in the opposite direction. I went back and said, “Lo siento, mi espanol is muy mal. Repite por favor, y habla despacio.” (I’m sorry, my Spanish is very bad. Could you repeat it and speak slowly?”) They were so kind to me in my broken Spanish that a man dressed as a vaquero walked me there himself. We chatted and he said, “It’s ok, my English isn’t very good, either.” I want to move into this complex, if for no other reason than in a year I’ll be fluent. My Spanish IS bad right now, but I had two years in high school and multiple mission trips to Reynosa. I am EXCELLENT at speaking Spanish when I am dropped into immersion mode. In order to speak Spanish well, you have to be able to think and dream in Spanish, too. That happens in immersion mode. When you don’t have the choice BUT to speak Spanish, it’s amazing how quickly you adapt.

Plus, who doesn’t want to live with Mexicans? Seriously. Why the hell would you want to live in a community where no one knows how to fix things themselves? The minute your car breaks down, you’ve got three Tios and two Primos with the hood up, telling you what’s wrong and all the aftermarket stuff I can add (whoa there, cabron…. you know it’s true…). The Mexican people as a whole just make me happy, and I want to say it out loud. Of course we have people from different Central and South American countries, but let’s face it, in my neighborhood it’s all Mexico all the time. You can tell by the futbol flags. You can root for Mexico, or you can move. There’s really no other option.

YAY MEXICO!!!!!!

But at night the abuelitas will sit around and tell you stories and feed you until you think your guts are going to explode and then say, “it’s time to fix dinner.”

The apartment itself is a one bedroom with den for $710. It’s more than I want to pay, so I have to keep looking. I just don’t want to. This one is perfect.

Tios included.

 

That’s the tagline for the lawyer’s firm that I will call “Counselor” for the rest of my life. If I can’t get closure with her, I will get closure without her. She is one of the lights of my life, being Dana’s sister, the one that she could go to with everything because I am only one person and sometimes I am the problem, not the solution. She is the reason we were married as long as we were, because she was Dana’s safe place to fall, and always will be.

She carried so much weight in our family, sometimes being stuck in the middle as Dana and I both rebelled against parental approval. We didn’t need it. We were going to be married whether they liked it or not, and they could get on board or they couldn’t. Their actions did not affect us. Our reaction was constantly not to have one. To pretend that it mattered was to stop being us and start being what they wanted, instead. She looked into us and called it good, even though we had to be selfish and set boundaries because the more we let them in, the more they had the power to destroy. They thought I was a deadbeat. They thought I was holding Dana back. They have thought this about every person Dana’s ever been with, because they have a perfect video tape of Dana’s wedding that does not include me or any other vagina.

She stayed with us. She prayed with us. She never let us forget that she was on our side just as much as she was on theirs. Her reaction was constantly not to have one, because there was nothing left to do but be judge and advocate for us both; handy because she like, does that for a living. As I told Argo, I love her sometimes more than myself for it. She didn’t have to be kind and loving, but she was. She didn’t have to be accepting, but she was. She didn’t even have to like me, which is good because we are both so strong that we cannot help but fight like first children, either. But with Counselor, fights end in hugs and tears and cheek kisses, because even when I don’t like her, I love her as easily as breathing in and out.

The funniest one is that she got mad at me for changing the settings on her washer because it cost more money and I joked with Dana and her parents that I was going to go to the bank and get ten dollars in pennies and just spread them out all over the top of the washer. I will not tell you whether the joke landed, because that would be inappropriate. I don’t mean to embarrass Counselor, only to tell her that I accept her for all her fire and all her ice and everything in between. I also cannot help flipping her shit about being the older child that I am. Peering down over a book most days.

And that is the beginning is the end is the beginning. It doesn’t matter whether Counselor loves me or not, just that loving her makes me a better person in all the right ways. She is strong, admirable, one of the great loves of my academic life…… which is why I generally date second children. I can’t help but burn bridges with first children, because we have a pathological need to be right. Injustice is grievous unto us, and we are vocal when wronged. It’s a lead the charge into hell relationship all the way around……..

Which makes me think.

The thing that always helped Dana and me is that she kept me grounded and I kept her from swinging at every pitch- until our roles reversed and she was climbing the ceiling with want and I was the one to say no. The relationship fell apart when Dana felt wrong all the time. It was not reality; I am a verbal processor. She wants to apologize once and have the conversation be over because she does not want to talk about touchy feely shit most of the time. That’s why we’re breaking up- I need time to process without the conversation ending.

I will get closure with or without her.

When I was at Epiphany, I had a revelation. I told it to Christine and told her to run with it, no credit to me because all preachers help each other. She hasn’t used it, so I’m stealing it back. We have to talk about the comma, people, because I think we’re screwing it up. There are hundreds of commas in the Book of Common Prayer, but this one knocked me on my ass (which was pretty easy since I was kneeling in my choir stall at the time). It’s in the Nicene Creed. When I say it, you’ll all recognize it and think, “HOLY SHITBALLS! Why didn’t I think of this before?”

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

OF ALL THAT IS,

When I realized that I thought that pause was important, I started using it. I stopped saying the creed out loud so that I could dwell on that comma for as long as I wanted without it getting weird. That comma, to me, is the enormity of human life, because if I believe that I am God and God is me and we are all God together, then that is our purpose…. to BE all that IS, seen and unseen. Stop seeing the Grandfather in the Sky and know you are him. If you are female, you are her. Take off his robes of majesty and let God walk beside you, a humble servant in Christ Jesus, knowing that he is not struggling to be more like you.

Amen

Last night, for the first time since our fistfight, I was invited again into Dana’s silence, and I listened. I sat on the floor outside her room because I wanted to hear her, but I did not want her to feel threatened. She didn’t even have to look at me unless she wanted to. But I wanted to know some things- and I wanted to know what she thought about me. We healed a lot of past injuries because when I expressed myself, Dana heard me and did not reach for the phone to call someone else. The breakthrough, and the one I will take with me, was that she finally said, “I’m sorry I caused you phantom pain. Where is it?” Then I had her touch my cheek where it still hurt. As she was touching my cheek, I reached out and hugged her and sobbed harder than I ever have in my life. It healed a part of me that I didn’t know would ever come back. She apologized in a beautiful, beautiful way and it really did make things look better. It wasn’t that she couldn’t apologize enough; it was that I could not name what I needed from her to move on.

Now, I have, and it feels so much better. For those of you reading my blog as if every sentence means hope, you can shut that down. If you think that one hug means that we’re getting back together, you obviously don’t know how separation works. We’re still a mishmash of feelings that need to be processed on our own, but as I told Dana last night, “I think I can at least be a little friendlier to you now.” The hard part isn’t loving her day in and day out. That part is autonomic, like breathing. It’s the liking her. This goes on both sides. I am an asshole and an angel. So are we all. I think that separation and/or closure is where you own both sides of yourself in their entirety. Dana says that I never told anyone that I punched her first. “Yes, I have.” I said. “It’s just that most of the people I’ve talked to have said that since you pushed me first, I just went off like a rat dog.”

Well, there’s that.

I know myself. We’ve met. It is so true that there aren’t better words for it. Dana said, “did you tell everyone that you charged at me with a Coke Zero and threw it in my face and then ran off?” Ummmm, yes. I did. I’ve also told them that I thought it was a “get the fuck away” warning shot and you took it as reason to charge. I am not running away from this fight. I am owning every bit of my 5’4 inches and my 118.4 pounds on ER arrival. I know I am not a saint; I would never expect anyone to think so. But I do expect that someone who bullied me realizes their own strength. Dana is the receiver for a liquor store. She can move pallets by herself. When she was working at Tapalaya, she routinely carried 50 pound bags of flour up the stairs over her shoulder, using the other hand to hold onto the rail. At my 170 lb heaviest, I have never had that kind of strength, and that was ten years ago. I lost the weight by beating Dana into submission.

Get your mind out of the gutter.

I mean that I had just met a French-trained cook, and everything she cooked me had 2000 calories and huge portion sizes. I finally made her give in to the tyranny of the Mediterranean and cook with some damn olive oil once in a while. Taught her all the snacks I know that taste good even though they don’t have a lot of calories. I lost a lot of weight quickly. Dana did not, because she was not ready to give up cooking butter-fried butter for dinner. This was early in our relationship, before we were even dating.

The moment I moved in, I went from “you can eat like this when I’m not here” to “oh hell no, not on my watch.” I wasn’t worried about Dana gaining weight. I was worried that if I kept up her diet, it would ruin mine. Eating became about willpower because I could not give in and let myself eat a thousand more calories than I needed.

Dana strains to understand why I control my diet the way I do. It’s because I know what I look like at 170, and I prefer 118. It’s not about how I look. It’s about excess. It’s about not making my body too big for my frame. It’s about giving myself everything my own body needs, and denying because I want something, not because it’s bad for me. For instance, I would almost always rather have a second piece of chicken than a piece of cake. So I eat two pieces of chicken, realizing that I have traded the calories I had left over for cake for chicken now.

Dana would serve me two pieces of chicken, all the fixins, and a beer and then ask me if I wanted cake. I couldn’t even move. And if you are reading closely, I have just told you the story of our entire marriage.

Zero 7 is playing in my head as I write this; I’m debating whether to interrupt the silence by actually pressing “play.” I’m sitting in my office, and Dana is at work. When I close my mind, things are the same, and I am not spinning in the devastating tailspin of divorce. Shit just flies everywhere. I would imagine that things will be calmer from now on, because there is no way on God’s green earth that we can work this out. It’s too big, too difficult, and at the bottom of it, the cliche phrase, “irreconcilable differences.”

I was asking Aaron this morning if he would ever date a non-technical person ever again, and he said, “no.” We’ve both realized that if you don’t work in technology, you don’t even have a shot at understanding what we say when we get home. It has never really been a problem before- I have had tech jobs in the past- but this has been different because I didn’t have a web site launching then, either.

My web site launch has been the death of us, and I won’t apologize for it. Dana made the choice not to understand me, and she is making the choice to move on. I am not saying that I want to be together and Dana is fucking it up. I mean that the relationship was suffering under the weight of being two totally different personalities that really didn’t have that many interests in common unless we worked incredibly hard at it. The more Dana got lost in herself and her own needs, the easier it was to gutter snipe me into the ground. She wanted me to take care of her and I wanted her to take care of herself. I was too busy to be there for her every need, and she chose to take it personally rather than seeing that I was trying to reach out for something better than I have.

What do I mean by “taking it personally?” Dana doesn’t see my writing as a “real job.” Dana does not see that when I post on Facebook or Tweet, I am reaching out to people that actually have resources that I don’t. How do you reach donors to a vision in this day and age? You use the Internet. It’s not really done any other way. The only reason Scandal is still on the air is that Kerry Washington and Shonda Rimes started a social media blitz that saved it from cancellation…. and I suppose that’s what I’m asking for in my blog. Don’t cancel me.

Although, for people who just like to read my writing to criticize, you are free to walk out the door at no charge. Change the channel and don’t read my shit. I promise you, if you stop reading my blog, then you won’t have to worry what I am going through and that is preferable to me than hearing your opinion. I am creating my own opinions by going back and reading my entries and deciding what logic is valid in all of these emotions….. because all emotions are valid, but the logic behind them gets screwed up quickly. This blog is kind of like the rough draft of my life, and I am crafting the finished piece. What you are seeing is stream-of-conscious, but I don’t live my life that way. It takes a million thoughts for me to choose a direction.

Yesterday, I posted on Facebook that I wanted to know if Dana was right- do the glasses make me any hotter? I could tell that the consensus was that I shouldn’t be asking the question. Bitch, please. I don’t want to date anyone ever again, and I am happy to die alone with my books and my computer. No, SERIOUSLY. I am complete and whole in myself because I know myself so well. I didn’t need a lecture on when to start dating again, because it’s just not going to happen.

I am in love with Dana, and it is going to take time to undo it. I have friends who let me cry on them and hug them and get angry that life is so unfair. Those friends are the people who allow me to be single and not ever feel weird about it. I may not have a life partner, but I DO have a family. That’s what I need right now… just people to love on me without any romantic energy at all.

Because that’s what happens when a relationship ends with violence. You make jokes about dating again…. hell, you might even go out on one date. But in the end, you can’t get over the fact that they are capable of hurting you. The last one did. So you go home and read a book instead. I cover up my fear with bravado, and Dana is infinitely sorry that anything she did caused this in me. I believe her, I forgive her, but I cannot walk away from the pain just because I have said, “I forgive you.” I am giving myself enough room to forget, because Dana is so close to me that I could not walk away from this relationship with anger, and constantly replaying the tape of her fist coming toward my face isn’t helpful to either one of us, because it reduces Dana to a fraction of a person and not the whole spectrum that she is.

Plus, I’ve been telling Argo about all of Dana’s manipulations for two years (not saying I don’t manipulate, I’m just writing about Dana at the moment). Even without feedback, I could go and look at what I’d written to her and realize that we should have broken up long ago. We were both manipulating each other to get what we wanted, rather than taking out our damage piece by piece in order to solve the communication problems that come with me being an abused female.

I honestly have detachment issues in a lot of places because I have been abandoned just enough in my lifetime to think that’s how every relationship ends, but I don’t protect against it. I just know that sometimes relationships work and sometimes they don’t. It was awful that it took us seven years to figure out that we should have stayed friends all along, but who doesn’t want that romantic story with their best friend? I’m glad it lasted as long as it did. No relationship ends with one fight. It’s just that right now. I am too crispy to talk to Dana without it devolving into our past. At first, I did not realize how serious she was about breaking up, because she approved the Facebook post and said she really liked the part about “if you think you deserved a phone call, we do not owe it to you. We do not want anyone to say “they knew first.” it was the right thing to say at the right time, because when you are in a fight with your significant other, the LAST thing you want is your gramama, your ontee, and Big Pam wrestling it out and thinking that they’re helping.

I have learned that this is all about submission to the authority of someone I trust. Me. I had to submit to the fact that I did not need to ask for help. All the answers are inside me. I have an incredible emotional toolbox that I have given away to every female who’s ever asked for it, but I have never used my skills to propel myself. Oh, God do people ever HATE that. Again, no one is used to me having opinions.

It’s also hard for me to walk in the light and create empathy for people who’d rather stay in darkness, but Jesus did, so I will, too. It makes me take a closer look at my second favorite scripture (first is Jeremiah 29:11), John 3:19- even more important to me as I start my ministry. it says, “this is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.”

Do you know why this scripture is so important to ministry? People love darkness because they hide from light when they are too shamed to reach up. Someone, something has broken them so that they think they are better off in darkness, slinking around in black ink because that’s all they think they deserve.

The light of Christ came to me through a gorgeous woman that didn’t even know what she was doing. She just showed up. I did the rest. She proved to me that Diane’s dragon was worth slaying, that I didn’t need to live in shame any longer, and the John scripture knocked me on my ass. I was hiding not because I had to, but because it was what I thought I deserved. Once I thought I deserved more than that, my life began to change rapidly.

The light became my writing, because so many people picked it up and ran with it. I would be remiss not to thank my twins and my angel. They got me through the darkest part of my life, the one where I didn’t think I was worth anything and needed more in terms of survival mode than I ever would admit out loud. I clicked off safe, I gutter sniped, I pushed them away every chance I got because I didn’t think I was worthy of people like them…. what with their jobs and their smiles and all that good, clean shit. I wasn’t anywhere near good and clean. I was a reject, even from God at first. The first step up was realizing that I’d conquered a fear I’d had since I was little. The second step up was realizing that I thought everyone was going to leave, and I pushed them away until they did. It was easier than letting them in and really telling them what was going on. That because of my past, Dana stepped into the pattern of enabler and I was the abuser, because of course everything that happens to me happens to other people. I cannot help it. There are just some days where I cannot NOT be sad, lonely, and angry.

It helps me to remember that I am loved when I think of my dad and Aaron, and all they’re doing to help keep me sane (or as sane as I get, anyway). They are the people that when I blew everyone else away, kept showing up. You would think that I don’t have clinical separation from my parents, and you would be wrong about that. First of all, when Diane inflicted her abuse, encouraged me to believe that I couldn’t trust them because they didn’t understand the whole lesbian thing.

So I cannot even let my parents in without a tremendous amount of work on myself, which I am glad to do and sorry I have to. The bitch of it is that they’re the most well adjusted, and constantly check on me in a very good way. But because of my abuse, sometimes I can’t see their help. I see it as taking away my agency. It’s a threat. It’s so bad that when my dad dropped me off at the Methodist emergency room, tears were at the corner of my eyes because even though it was TOTALLY unreasonable, I still thought he was never coming back. I’m a psych patient that checked myself in. I am no longer redeemable to anyone, because I have gone off the deep end.

Plus, while I was in the hospital, Dana broke up with me for good. She says that I “called it” by not listening to her when she was begging on the floor after I’d been hit. She did not accept that of course I could not take her back in the same moment that she physically injured me. I had to have time to process whether I thought our relationship was going to go back together, and that was not acceptable to Dana at all. I wanted to really talk now that we’d had a few days apart, and that ended in disaster- Dana calling my father and saying I was having a psychotic episode. I know I have mentioned that before, and I am still fucking furious. She says that I will not let go of a problem and let it drop. She’s right, but so am I. We don’t get anywhere in a conversation if you’re of the mindset not to try and understand me before I even open my mouth.

It was talking to a brick wall, and finally I admitted defeat. This was not going to work, she was too incensed at me for posting on Facebook that our relationship was ending, but neither of us were ruling out a second act. To me, that meant we were on the rocks, but there would at least be a conversation in which we post-mortemed that fight and tried to understand why it happened in the first place. Then I realized there was no discussion. Dana’s pathology had turned to destroy when she got into the place of being so filled with rage that I wasn’t in the room anymore.

And in the end, even though Dana doesn’t want to work on it, I think I’m done, too. I cannot take on a mental patient that has problems just as complex as mine and won’t get help, even though this fight is ridiculously huge. I am shaming myself for not calling the police, either before it got to the escalation point or when my cheek was turning purple. It was also a really hard hit because it wasn’t just Dana’s fist. It was that her fist caught the bottom of my glasses and pushed them into my eye socket. The bottom still experiences phantom pain, because all the physical stuff is over, but the emotions still haunt me.

So how do I move forward? By keeping going. I am going to step out of this world and go find another one, because this one got stale. I don’t have to deal with Dana’s carpet-sucking depression and ADHD that turns her into a cartoon character. She doesn’t have to deal with a bipolar wife who takes all her medication and still sometimes doesn’t feel right. If she thinks that I’m too much to handle, being her partner is hard as fuck. I am tired of being “the sick one.” I am resentful that when we came to Houston, she waited a year and a half to find a job and let herself waste away until I couldn’t handle it and exploded at her parents. They are still mad at me for the thermonuclear way that I went off, but they were failing to see that Dana desperately needed help and she wasn’t getting it. Wasn’t even taking care of herself. She’d been rejected and she couldn’t handle it, so all of the stress of running a huge household and having a job where I really had to pay attention and needing time to write. I didn’t have the support from Dana to manage anything, because while she would pack my lunch every morning, I wasn’t sure what I’d come home to. Mostly Netflix binging.

When I left Alert Logic, it forced her to look for a job since I did not want to be the only source of income for our family. Things started to balance out until Dana started bitching that I didn’t have a job and there had been many times in my life where I hadn’t. That is because Dana is a master at taking the things her parents say and lobbing them at me after we’ve already discussed what we’re going to do without them. I always felt that we were living under parental approval instead of being in our late 30s. Her parents think I’m a fucking deadbeat and I am ok with that. In fact, I will let them think that until I am a household name. It won’t matter. Once I’m a household name, when I come up, it will still be to reflect on what a douchebag I am and how I couldn’t keep it together and it is a fucking miracle that I was ever able to make something of myself.

Neither Dana’s parents or Dana’s sister have talked to me since our breakup, which just reinforces how little they think of me. I am sure that they’re supposed to think of Dana, and that will always be ok. But I gave them a warning shot that something like this was going to happen and even though they took it seriously, at first her mother said that she was never going to understand Dana the way that Dana needed to be understood and that perhaps Dana should find a different mother figure.

Again, I’m sorry. What? Dana doesn’t need a mother that’s ok with the gay thing. Dana needs someone to stay on her so that plans become reality. She has not been motivated to take care of herself until she was offered a job that was right up her alley, and it has taken over her whole life. Even when she is not working, she is thinking about work. Yesterday I told her that I wanted to talk about division of property after she got home from work. After many text messages, it is 6:30 and she is still not home. I am sympathetic to the fact that she is working long, and pissed off because it feels like she blew me off…. especially since an hour and a half had gone by and THEN she said, let’s just talk on the phone. I could have left so much earlier, and I made the effort to stay until I realized that I was just going to have to sit and wait, no matter what. Dana’s job is more important than I am, and I will not miss that aspect of our relationship because it’s always been that way. She cannot leave when her shift is over. She has to diddle around, shoot the shit, and do any number of chores that all “take a minute” and add up to me sitting in a deli seating area or waiting in the car until she’s finally done. Realistically, I could have made myself a lot happier knowing that her shift ends at 5:00, so when she says “be there at 5:00,” it really means be there at 5:45. But no. I always waited, getting more and more resentful because she would come by to where I was sitting every ten minutes and tell me she was almost ready to go. So thinking that she would actually be on time for our meeting was cruel and unusual mental punishment for myself. I knew I was going to resent having to wait, and I did it anyway. Finally, when we were on the phone, I said, “it really pisses me off that you were so late and in the end, said we could have talked by phone. I could have left the house by now and taken care of some stuff, but I was waiting for you. It’s not an ex-wife thing. It’s a courtesy thing.” She agreed with me, but every time I say I’m pissed off about something, she goes into a first grade teacher voice that is too pedantic for talking to a woman that is almost 40 and feels every bit of it.

In fact, it’s like my whole body exploded, and I realized that I had more choices than being talked to in a voice that sounds like, “I don’t want to anger you, so I’m just going to appease you.” She is afraid of my anger, and I need a woman that can stand up to it. Throw it back in my face. Tell me what’s wrong in the moment instead of saving up her anger until she explodes. One that will talk about her feelings and let me know how I’m doing in terms of taking care of her heart. In the immortal words of Meryl Streep, there are certain things I will no longer tolerate.

The biggest thing I will never tolerate again is thinking that my problems are so much worse than hers.