The air was cold and wet the day of my first protest against the war in Iraq. Since it was my first protest, I didn’t know what the hell to think. Christopher Hitchens made some reasonable assumptions and so did Hilary Clinton. On the other hand, I, like everyone else from the middle of the nation, didn’t know shit. It was January, and I’d just moved to Portland the last November. Sights and smells were burned into my brain- the fleece of my jacket and the wet rain penetrating the cheaply made water resistance in the fabric. Holding a man’s hand like I meant it for the one and only time in my life it made sense.

I loved him because he soooooo wasn’t her. I was newly divorced and it woke up my brain for the first time in months. It allowed me to feel something when what I’d grown used to was nothing but someone dedicated to beating down my soul, but less than she was beating down her own. Her reaction was to lash out and cheat, my reaction was to run as far away from Washington, DC as I possibly could, mentally and physically. Seeing this in retrospect is cleansing. Up front, it was terrifying.

All of this was running under the surface of my skin as I walked toward my group of friends. Every single one of them. Every. One. looked like they had seen a spaceship land and little burritos walked out. To be fair, I’d never come out as bi. I’d always identified as gay. I looked like a fuckin’ dyke and I knew it. The thing they didn’t know is that it was truly ok with him. He didn’t care what I looked like because intellectually, we were soulmates in the Elizabeth Gilbert definition- someone that gets so close to you that the relationship begins to burn because it is so intense.

In that moment, my bisexuality became real (Dad, I owe you five bucks– called it Junior year). It was the first and only time I’ve ever had a bisexual relationship as an adult, which made it even more super weird. The lesbians in my life were catty to the point of de-evolution. During that time, I was very close to a woman that had never fallen in love with a woman before. She decided that plumbing didn’t matter, and so did I. We went to a Portland Lesbian Choir concert together and one woman was wearing a t-shirt that said, “100% Lesbian.” We sat there for twenty minutes trying to decide what percentage we were.

At the end of the day, though, I knew I could date him now, but I didn’t know how long I could keep up the attraction. I decided it was better to break someone’s heart after a few months rather than trying to be the woman he really needed, which was someone who could *see* spending a lifetime with him when I knew that most likely, my life partner was supposed to be a woman… which is not really all that bi, but bi enough to know that I am an open-minded sapiosexual when I want to be.

I call myself a lesbian not because I do not have the capacity to love men, but because I am married to Dana and my energy is not supposed to go to anyone but her, anyway. When it leaks, we have ways of working through it that are quite effective and the equivalent of several “Hail Marys.” Not like, the end of a football game. Confession and prayer. Explosive, passionate lovemaking to ensure that the leaks are stopped cold and the connection is renewed. Our focus becomes the one thing in our lives that will ever matter- each other. ADHD people are so sensitive to sensory perception that even touching Dana’s skin grounds me and sends me over the moon at the same time, like I own all of time and space every time we kiss. Touching Dana, even in the slightest way, is the best cold shower I know.

That level of emotional connection never happened with him, and I wanted it to, and that was running under my skin as well when we started singing.

We are marrrrrrrching in the light of God
We are marching in the light of God.
We are marchiiiiiiiiing.
We are marchiiiiiiiiing, Woo-Oooo
We are marching in the light of God.

Siya Hammmmba yuken yeni kwenkos
Siya Hamba yuken yeni kwenkos.
Siya Hammmmbbbbbbbbbaaaaa.
Siya Hammbbbbbbbaaaa, Woo-Oooooo
Siya Hamba yuken yeni kwenkos…….

Walking through the streets of downtown, lost in my own thoughts, like the smell of his neck and the warmth of his kisses…..

Siya Hamba………

Marching through the streets voices loud singing for freedom from oppression and coming out as a bisexual for the first time. So trapped. So free. So lost.

My voice carried me that day, even the words I couldn’t say out loud. The music kept the train from running off the rails, but at least the train of thought always moves forward when it’s repaired.

I have a lot on my plate emotionally right now, so today I took some time to just sit in the quiet without any noise– lounging in the quiet looking up at the ceiling fan.

———–

My eyes have never learned to track together. My brain chooses one eye and the other drifts. I am right-eye dominant, but there are some times when my field of vision has shifted and I have caused vehicular damage. I have brought shame on my people, because I am the stereotypical woman driver you love to hate. I have been the “oops, my bad” of my generation. I’m not proud of it, I drive like a grandma to avoid it most of the time, having gotten older and somewhat wiser. I relax to the music (She’s So Mean, Matchbox Twenty) and just stop thinking about how many people are passing me on the right. It is wonderful that I have an amazing inner landscape, because I am so lost in conversation with myself that I forget to have road rage. It isn’t worth the energy. I have better things to do. I would rather talk to Sarah, Rebecca, David, Daria, Gregory, Kermit, Keela, and someone you haven’t met, Det. Sage Mallory-Weiss. Sage is a bastard that verbally wrestles me to the mat until my arm is behind my back, but at least we go out for drinks afterward… and if you get that joke, go to the head of the class (Let me Google That For You).

Sage because he thinks he’s God. Mallory as a salute to Carol O’Connell, because Sage is much like Kathy Mallory. He leads charges into hell, but sometimes metaphorically forgets to bring the right shoes and falls ass over teakettle without even trying.

Sage is Rebecca’s across-the-street neighbor. The kind you invite over for tequila and Cards Against Humanity because you’ve run out of beer. He’s kind of a filler character, comic relief more than anything else, but in his gruff, funny-as-crap way, owns a large part of Rebecca’s heart. She’s grown up her whole life with people like that- Texas good ol’ boys who’d die before they’d let you know their pain. She’s been bred to act the same way- genteel and hilarious, vetted as “one of the boys,” comfortable in Doc Martens AND high heels. They’re connected at the brain, because even though Daria is clearly Rebecca’s hetero lifemate, Sage is the grandfatherly smartass that will flip you shit just ’cause.

————————

As I sat there burning Sage into my memory, my eyes started to drift toward each other so that I could see my nose in 3D, and in the backgroud, two ceiling fans turning like cogs in a watch. I thought about my non-fiction book, planned as the last one I want to write because I believe it is my magnum opus. Staring at Myself is the title of my autobiography, because I want to go on the journey toward stereo. With the work of Susan Barry, MD I have a shot at being well… being able to see through the spaces as well as pray on them.

It was the right thing to do.

Telling Tony it was over, I mean. Most of the time, you don’t do that with friends. You don’t have those official break it off words. But this time, I had to, and not for her. For me. Our relationship went to such a dark place in me that I had to admit what I was doing and come clean. I was living with her in her stories, and ignoring anything that had to do with my actual life, the one where my wife lives.

Dana’s jealousy was never that I would leave her. It was that Tony was taking up so much room in my life that she started to wonder if there was anything left for her. I just didn’t worry about it until it occurred to me that there might not be enough room for me, either… and please don’t misunderstand. Tony is not the problem here. I am. I stopped taking up room. Period. Her stories became more important because that’s what I’ve always believed- that others’ stories are more important than mine. My past history says that when you suit up, I’ve done something wrong. That obviously you are suiting up because I am a bad person and you cannot trust me.

That exact thing happened. I sent my sister a snippet of an e-mail that I wrote her, and when she found out about it, she automatically assumed that I was sharing *everything.* Her words and reactions including mine.

The problem was that I hadn’t.

She started treating me as if I was guilty before she even knew whether I was or not, and that feeling never went away… even when I said I hadn’t done anything wrong and she claimed it was “water under the bridge.” It’s not water under the bridge if you’re acting like your friend is suspect even when they have flat out said that no one will ever be able to get information out of me. No one. Ever. I would die first. Literally. I’d take a gun and blow my brains out to protect anything she told me if it was ever serious enough it required that kind of protection.

She blew away a piece of me. That piece that says I am a capable and good secret-keeper, because I’ve been doing it all my life. She attacked my integrity, the piece of me I try so hard to keep together even when the rest of the world is falling apart.

Stepping down onto firm ground and saying, “no more,” was my only shot at being able to heal the part of me that broke.

There’s a great rock song called “Inside of You” by the band Hoobastank. It was popular in the dark ages, when I was in high school or college or something. It’s about sex. All rock songs are, in some way or another… well, the good ones, anyway. But what happens when you aren’t having sex with the one you want to get inside? It becomes a metaphor for being able to hold her brain in my hands. The guitar cuts into my ruminations and reminds me to car dance the fuck out and LET IT GO. I broke up a friendship, and a good one, because I felt as if it was only honest on one side… and that’s not fair. Let me re-word that. It was plenty HONEST on both sides, but very little recognition until it was much too late that I was in deeper than she was because nothing that happens in my life would ever threaten Olivia Pope, let’s just put it that way. NOTHING.

So, to extend that metaphor, I realized that I was signing on to a lifetime of being Jake… that guy Olivia loves beyond all measure and at the same time, would drop him in a hot minute if Fitz had a free hour.

In this metaphor, Fitz is not another lover. It’s her job… which makes it doubly difficult because it’s not a matter of “I won’t tell you.” It’s a matter of “I can’t.” My way of dealing with that was to absolutely understand, drop comms immediately, etc… and then while she “goes to the bank and the post office,” I become so short of breath that even my coworkers are starting to ask if I’m okay because they can see the tears in the corner of my eyes for hours at a time.

I went to her and said, “I can’t handle this, I need help.” And she said that she would no longer be communicating about certain things. Period. Because that was the answer. To make it where the anxiety I already felt didn’t have a place to go. As I told her, there is no future. There is only right now. I feel anxiety right now.

And yet, even that wasn’t why I left. I left because there were so many things outside the purview of what she could say and she couldn’t that she wouldn’t talk about anything without SUITING UP, when in the beginning, it never felt like she was doing it. Perhaps she was, and I never noticed. I’ll never know, and that’s ok with me. What I know on my own is that in the beginning, we were both in jeans and t-shirts…. or at least, IT SEEMED THAT WAY TO ME.

Later on, it became clear that she wears bullet proof vests under her t-shirts, and I, however, do not. Our relationship became a great habit for her, and I was so glad to help- to feel like I was helping- until I realized that it was getting impossible for me to love a gladiator without wanting to be one myself. I disappeared into this relationship into an entirely different way than I did with Diane- with Tony, it wasn’t that there was the promise of sex. It was the lure of soft power. I don’t get to be a power player, but I get to hear about them, get to know them third party, and excoriate them in novels based on juicy bits of information I just happened to find on my own, like it dropped down in the middle of the street.

Don’t worry, it looks insane from the outside that I’d throw it all away, too. I just realized that I didn’t want to be a gladiator unless she needed me to be that, because otherwise I am a shy, quiet writer in love with her wife who is content to stay home and watch Scandal on TV, because having Scandal in my living room was causing me to split into two separate and distinct personalities- the Leslie I’d always been, and the new Leslie, who wasn’t afraid of anyone or anything.

I am a gladiator because she helped make me into one. She helped turn me into the gorgeous woman I am today, because she taught me how to use emotional separation to get what I wanted in a positive way, like being able to separate out emotions so that I don’t just explode all over the place and have to apologize for it later.

I wish I could do that in this case. Nothing would make me happier than to go back to her and say, “this was all a mistake. I love you and I couldn’t have been more wrong.” I did think that at first, and then the more we started talking the more I realized how incredible our relationship was for her.

Yesterday’s sermon on “render unto Caesar” got me thinking about my church and what I can do to help. You cannot even imagine how large our budget for ministry is, and there have been a series of unfortunate events which has caused that financial security to be in jeopardy. It’s hard for me to hear- extraordinarily hard- because since I love Epiphany so much when I hear we’re in trouble it’s just like “shut up and take all my money.” I wouldn’t have made it this year without Douglas. He is literally my light in the middle of the mess, because his 13-year-old voice and his 13-year-old hugs are as beautiful as prayer, because he has something that I don’t…. a childlike innocence that feeds my soul.

Douglas has a brother and a sister, so I feel horrible that I talk so glowingly about him when his siblings activate my mother lion just as much. Douglas is special to me because we’ve spent time together, not because I don’t want to spend time with other kids besides him. 🙂

I have been going through a very dark period in my life, especially in my writing, because I’ve had to have a way to exorcise some demons that could never be talked about in reality. I need the separation of fiction to be able to explain the unexplainable in metaphors. My church family, especially the children, pull me out of that dark place and into the light. It was actually at my friend Nicky’s suggestion, because we have a few of the same dark spaces and his kids keep them in check, too. Since I don’t have kids, my church kids are ALL my kids.

And don’t even get me started on Joseph.

Joseph is my choir director, but that’s his professional title. His personal title is closer to dragon slayer, because he takes care of me in a way that no choir director ever has. I finally sat him down and said, “this is going to sound crazy, but I need you to believe me the first time.” I laid out everything. It has given me the flexibility to be able to say things like, “could you switch the rehearsal order because I cannot sing “Be Thou My Vision” under any circumstances tonight. It is literally one of my biggest triggers. Normally, I am fine, but I need to Messiah and get the hell out of here.”

He didn’t make the rest of the choir rehearse it, either.

And then there’s Frances. My heart literally flips when she walks into a room, because we have that friend love like nobody’s business. I don’t know how old she is, just that she has more gray hair than me, and I cannot even tell you how much that doesn’t matter. We have shown each other that we are the same age in more ways than one, like passing notes down the aisle in the choir stalls.

Plus, we’re Episcopalian. Stephanie, Dana’s sister, is an Episcopalian. Dana and Steffi’s parents are Anglican. Stephanie is in California, we are in Texas, and the parents are in NoVA….. and yet each Sunday, for exactly one and a half hours, we are in communion together, saying the same words that people have been saying together for hundreds and hundreds of years. I know that communion will outlast Dana’s parents lives, and then Dana, Stephanie, and I will kneel every week and STILL have communion with them, loving them in their “light perpetual.”

Lastly, my love for Christine and Lisa is legendary, but only from the standpoint that they consistently theologically hit it out of the park and leave me thinking, “Keep. Up.” I grow with them and write about them because they give me so much spiritual food to chew on that I am in theology nerd heaven. I also love that Christine invites people to the pulpit that excite me just as much- that the level of theology nerd doesn’t drop when she’s not there.

I don’t have any monetary suggestions yet, because Dana and I need to walk through what tithing would look like and if not tithing, how much CAN we give? I decided to look past money and tell you with my heart what I see in this congregation and just hope that one or two of you will decide to show up with a hideously large sum of money.

I’m just kidding (no I’m not).

Being in a relationship with someone over the Internet, no matter what kind, is dangerous. There’s an element of that “Stranger on a Train” feeling, where you can tell anyone anything and there are seemingly no consequences. Adrenaline is jacked up because you’re talking about things you wouldn’t necessarily talk about with anyone else- that you’d feel safe enough. That’s because in an Internet relationship, you don’t know each other’s friends, their families, their work colleagues…. you don’t know anything except what you’ve been told. Once the rabbit hole is established, things come through it at an alarming rate.

It becomes a relationship built entirely in the cloud.

And by that, I mean that you don’t necessarily think of real world consequences when you’re giving away things about yourself in the first place. I have been doing this Internet thing a very long time, so for me, there is no separation between physical and virtual. I have friends who I’ve only met via Facebook who have come all the way from DC to Portland to spend the weekend with Dana and me (Pri Diddy and Nina, take a bow). It would never occur to me that my Internet friends aren’t my “real” friends, because enough of them have met me in the flesh to know that there’s no issue with them, either. They stepped off the plane and literally started talking about the last time I’d pinged them, like 20 minutes before they boarded.

In this relationship, I never could have done that because I never had the safety of knowing whether our Internet relationship would transfer or not, and it became apparent to me that it had better. There were real life consequences for our future that neither of us really talked about…. like what would happen if our Internet trust was ripped to shreds and even though we don’t want to talk to each other, we still love the rest of our families beyond all measure. And honestly, I’m not even sure that she doesn’t want to talk to me. That was unfair. What I know for sure is that I don’t want to talk to her, because our relationship robbed me of something precious, which is the feeling that our “Strangers on a Train” relationship quickly devolved into first children who always have to be right, even at the expense of feeling safe.

I told her that it was starting to feel like an emotional affair because it felt so clandestine. I’m not even sure she knew what I meant by that, because it wasn’t romance. It was the fact that she kept saying that she never asked me to keep her a secret, that our relationship has always been above board, that all she wanted was for me to keep a few things back because everyone is allowed to have a personal life, etc….. while at the same time, saying flat out that we have no connections except Facebook. Those two things in the same breath undid me, because it was cognitive dissonance. Is it ok for me to tell everybody we know each other, or are you going to flip your shit when our families find out? Is everything above board, or do I have to pretend that the only thing I know about you is that you like dogs and books, in that order?

My emotions were getting so jacked up that I couldn’t live in two worlds anymore, because Dana was on the ground and she was in the air. I had to choose. Where did I want to build my house? I chose the ground, because I could *see it.* My trip through the air was salting my ground, and at a rapid pace. I was giving the air more time, and my crops were withering.

I finally realized what I was doing to myself, and I had to stop it. I didn’t want any more cognitive dissonance, I didn’t want any more of Dana feeling left out, and I didn’t want any more of Aaron (my actual best friend) rolling his eyes every time I brought up her name because he knew it was going to be some kind of obnoxiously long and involved rumination.

Most of what that rumination contained was feeling like I was in a relationship on two fronts, and handling both of them poorly. With “tony,” it wasn’t sexual. Just tender beyond belief. When I felt things that made me go all starry-eyed, I knew she was doing it without even trying. If you let them, straight girls’ll do that to ya. 🙂 She never did anything, anything that ever made me feel like this was a romance. The fault was in our secrets, not our behavior.

The secrets we didn’t have, because outside of Facebook, we have no connections.

The friendship I was trying to resurrect was a worthless endeavor, and it pains me so much to say it, because I don’t mean that I got so angry that I don’t love her anymore. I mean that she has every bit the inner landscape that I do… more so, even. When that inner landscape became threatened (on both sides), we each did things to push each other away that cannot be fixed. The reason that it is so incredibly permanent is that we are first children. I don’t know what that will mean for her, but I can tell you exactly what it means to me.

For the purposes of this essay, we’ll call her Tony just so I have a name instead of long blank spaces. That’s boring.

The long and short of it is that because our inner landscapes were threatened, we can never go back to being leslie and tony. There are too many defenses to keep that from ever happening again, especially as voices across the Internet with no context *other* than that. We needed each other desperately when this started, and now the mission is over.

She told me that she had enough to worry about in her actual physical life to worry that she was dragging me in, too. I feel exactly the same way, and also, fuck that noise. I didn’t love her like she was virtual. I loved her because we’re not related by blood, but we might as well be. The piece that you don’t know is that Dana has known her since she was a little girl, so that’s why there’s no thing about me being absolutely, 100%, over-the-top in love with someone’s mind that is not Dana’s. She knows Tony. They’ve met. Let’s just say Dana thinks that my attention is………. justified. 😛

Or, well, it was until it became too much, too close, too fast. Neither of us were breathing through the choices we were making, just allowing each other an all-access pass.

Or were we?

As time wore on, it became clear that something was very, very wrong. I was still leslie, and she had become Tony, Trademark. tony was gone.

I allowed her to walk around in my inner landscape because I *thought* she was letting me walk around in hers. Turns out, I only have a very surface perspective and I would like to keep it that way. I cannot know any more because I do not want surface platitudes. I want her inner landscape, and it was seeing my entire world disappear when she said that what I knew wasn’t really much at all.

While she knew everything. Everything.

When you are friends with me, the moment you start walling off your feelings, I’m out. I’ve been in that relationship before, except that time, I was never told that I wasn’t getting the whole story and waited around for a quarter of a century before I figured it out on my own. This relationship is different because when tony started paying attention to me, it was the best thing that had ever happened to me, and I smiled like I’d been knighted. I’m not sure exactly what she does for a living, but it’s something Olivia Pope-ish. Who doesn’t want to know Olivia Pope? Who doesn’t want to crawl around inside her brain like it’s a transistor radio?

The thing I liked about being tony and leslie was getting to know popcorn and wine Olivia, and not the GLADIATOR in a SUIT.

All of that went away when the fixer broke me. It cracked my reality. You mean I have given you access to anything and everything and you’ve repaid me with telling me a version of the truth?

No. No. No.

It feels too close, too personal, too beautiful a way to keep me on a leash, wondering if tony will ever reappear.

I am cutting my losses to save my sanity, because I feel violated. I feel like I did everything to become a powerful woman’s secret-keeper, because she told me that publicly, we had no connections beyond Facebook. What I realized last night is that I’m not sure it ever should have been more than that, because we each torched each other as only first children can, because we’re both exceptional at it.

I honestly don’t know what I have in me in terms of writing about sex or violence. Let me flex my muscles. I am so, so sorry if this is the literary equivalent of beginning oboe. I already know I don’t know how to do this. I am not offended if you decide to go back to Dooce.

Violence

My tools are laid out meticulously- mise en place for murder. Bourdain would be so proud. There’s a cigarette lighter, a 12-inch flexible boning knife, a scalpel, and a blender on the table next to me. The blender is mostly for intimidation.

Mostly.

I’ve been thinking about this for so long that I can’t decide which way to take it. The man who continually abused my abuser raped both of us emotionally by robbing us of normal growth and development. For her, it was physical. For me, I never felt like I was enough, and over time my emotions dwindled into shades of rage so intense that now I can literally disconnect my id, ego, and superego. Every decision in this room is a measured conversation, and we’ll all fight to the death. It’s not a question of whether we’ll fight, only how long.

I decide to start with his hand and see how long it would take me to find inspiration for something truly memorable. I take the flexible boning knife and tease it across his palm. When I see the droplets of red gather in his lifeline, my metaphorical penis stands at attention. It used to bother me that I got off on violence, and then I realized that I didn’t want to apologize anymore. I wanted to use it. If delicately filleting human beings for information doubles as a sex toy, well, then, we’ve just used the tools we’ve been given to accomplish our goals, now haven’t we?

Blood is pooling in his palm now, and it’s starting to look painful. He’s sweating, and there is nothing soaking up the pools gathering at his feet. Slow, humiliating exsanguination has become my style. I take the knife and lay it on the table, then reach into my right breast pocket, where I’ve been hiding the ace up my sleeve. Two pills. One aspirin, one Warfarin. I have just allowed things to get quite a bit more interesting.

My hand is steady as I force the boning knife down into the meat of his cheek, saying in a sweet, childlike voice; “come on baby… just the tip.” He’ll take this blood thinner one way or another. He’s starting to whimper. The more he whimpers, the more I disconnect. Just because he’s in pain doesn’t mean I have to do anything about it. He didn’t. I pictured the woman I loved giving him a blow job and when he came the knife slid from the corner of his mouth down past his jaw and into his neck. I didn’t hit any major veins, just cut him enough to make him severely wish there was a drink to be had. I smirked. There was Lone Star in my trunk and I’m not the sharing kind.

I told Jack this was a good place for a “mindful pause” and handcuffed him to take him to the car. He could sit and spin until I finished. Like I cared it was a hundred degrees. Fucker wanted sympathy, he should have thought of that years ago.

I take my longneck and drink it til my mouth feels like it’s been kissed by an angel, as Texas beers are wont to do. I’m starting to hit my limits in terms of options. I need accomplices so that I have more eyes on this thing. I can keep him alive, but it’ll be close. I need to call Daria. Now.

Sex

-frog.- had just turned 15. Keela, or as -frog.- liked to call her, “kee,” was 18. -frog.- called her “kee” because it was emotional shorthand for the little girl that lived inside his hero, and Keela deserved his reverence. “kee” was his equal.

-frog.- was in the unenviable position of having met someone he wanted to marry at a time when the odds said it was impossible. He was a freshman in high school. Keela was a senior. The only time he ever saw “kee” was in his backyard, on the hammock between the oak trees covered in shade where she would take off her t-shirt just to let him listen to her heartbeat and reassure him he was real. It hadn’t been sexual- to hear her heartbeat was a miracle, and had been since he was 12. Today, though, something was different.

He was lying on top of her when he felt her quicken, and had to think. Keela was so strong, and “kee” was so weak. How could he tell them he loved them both? He looked down at her with new eyes. “kee, if this feels right, choose where you want me.” -frog.- saw her eyes flash, and then she was on top of him, guiding him past the temple gates, teasing him that the extra half an inch he’s been hiding from her will come in handy… and it did, for ninety whole seconds. He’d worshiped at the temple and only had time to offer one prayer.

-frog.- felt guilty. He hadn’t done anything, just let her ride him until his penis literally felt like it might need rehab, and he thought that sex should be more than that.

For those ninety seconds, though, she was screaming and holding her hair in pleasure, and when the earthquake stopped, she kissed him deeply, as if the rest of the world were in black and white and he was the only one in color… and then she came again, squeezing him into her further, and in that moment, -frog.- knew he’d found his religion.

The real meat of my novel will be in the relationship between Kermit and Keela, the son and daughter-in-law of Leila & Gregory Doyle. By then, Rebecca has been missing for almost ten years. Kermit was 20 when he watched his “stepmother” get into the back of a cab and never come back. It’s been ten years since his last hug, kiss… he thinks of his stepmother’s touch, her fingers tangled in his hair, and for a moment he is happy and for a moment he can forget the possibility that she is dead.

Keela is the only person that knows his pain… that knows his joy. She has traveled into his inner landscape and back out, willingly diving again so that -frog.- never has to feel alone.

-frog.- struggles to understand the depth and breadth of Keela’s love his entire life, because every time he thinks he does, she surprises him beyond belief.

That will never be more evident as -frog.- overhears “the plan.”

1. What was the last thing you put in your mouth ?

Dana’s ear (giggle)

2. Where was your profile picture taken?

At a bar called “Sam’s” in Portland, Oregon

3. Can you play Guitar Hero?

Very, very, very poorly.

4. Name someone who made you laugh today?

Josie, my friend Aaron’s three year old daughter. Her laughter lights me up from the inside.

5. How late did you stay up last night and why?

I think I went to bed around 12:30. Hard to say because Chef (John-Michael) came over and we sat out on the back porch and talked for several hours. I asked him to be one of the attendants at our wedding, because both Dana and I have worked for him at different times, and he is the culinary love of our lives. When he talks about work, it just makes me hot.

6. If you could move somewhere else, where would it be ?

Washington, DC. No lie. I want to be a DC-based novelist. If I don’t make it that far, maybe Austin, because Texas politics are way weirder than anything federal.

7. Ever been kissed under fireworks?

I’m not sure, but I hope that I’ve caused a few.

8. Which of your friends lives closest to you?

Robert- he’s our next door neighbor. The first time I saw him, he was wearing an Adventure Time t-shirt and he stole my heart on the spot. 🙂

9. Do you believe ex’s can be friends?

Depends on the ex. Depends on you. Can you let go and drop all your teenage crap? Having tried to be friends with an ex before, I know I can’t.

10. How do you feel about Dr Pepper?

As a Texan, I am supposed to say that it is the nectar of God Almighty, forever amen. It’s lucky that I actually believe it.

11. When was the last time you cried really hard?

Yesterday, I cried with a cry I’ve only had three times in my life. The first was hearing that my high school girlfriend started dating someone else when she went to college and lived with her for a month before she bothered to break up with me. The second was when Kathleen broke my heart by cheating on me while I was at my mother’s wedding…. with three of my coworkers in the same weekend. Yesterday, my friend Argo said she wasn’t, and a part of my heart stopped functioning. She is literally my dragon slayer, and I will be grateful to her for the REST of my life whether she ever talks to me again or not.

12. Who took your profile picture?

I think it was Dana…….

13. Who was the last person you took a picture of?

I honestly don’t remember. I don’t shoot memories, usually. Mostly landscape.

14. Was today better than yesterday?

Anything is better than yesterday.

15. Can you live a day without TV?

Not if Doctor Who is on.

16. Are you upset about anything?

No, I’m absolutely fine (I’m lying).

17. Do you think relationships are ever really worth it?

What would make you say that? They’re the only thing ever worth it.

18. Are you a bad influence?

I make no qualms about the fact that I am the sweetest, most delightful person on earth….. and a homicidal maniac in my dreams. Think love child of Dexter and Julie Andrews.

19. Night out or night in?

Night in, always. Would prefer having friends over than going out.

20. What items could you not go without during the day?

Food, water, shelter, sex, Internet. Dana will be so happy that I put sex before Internet. I think she thinks I’m connected by the belly button (I am- it’s what I do).

21. Who was the last person you visited in the hospital?

I am not exactly sure- I haven’t been to the hospital in *years.*

22. What does the last text message in your inbox say?

From my dad- I forgot to tell you, they told me I would have no trouble finding Springbok stuff. What size do you wear?

23. How do you feel about your life right now?

In the grand scheme of things, it’s perfect.

24. Do you hate anyone?

I hate the person that abused the person that abused me. I hold him entirely responsible and I hope he’s dead, but even that is too good for him. If I found him first, you would choke on vomit when I told you what I’d do to him.

25. If we were to look in your facebook inbox, what would we find?

Fucking heartbreak. Are you paying attention?

26. Say you were given a drug test right now, would you pass?

Depends on the test. 🙂 I once got in big trouble at ExxonMobil because they read me the riot act over amphetamines before even checking if it was prescribed to me.

27. Has anyone ever called you perfect before?

Yes, and it makes me uncomfortable every time. I am perfect in my flaws, but perfect is too big a stretch.

28. What song is stuck in your head?

A Thousand Miles, Vanessa Carleton

29 . Someone knocks on your window at 2:00 a.m., who do you want it to be?

The only person in my life that could make knocking on my window at 2:00 AM make sense.

30. Wanna have grandkids by the time your 50?

That is less than 15 years from now, and I don’t even have kids.

31. Name something you are doing tomorrow

Hopefully doing SHAKE AND BAKE with my favorite soprano, Douglas. Douglas is an amazing soprano, and until his voice changes, I try to sing with him every chance I get. Plus, he can sight read and I can’t. Handy.

32. Do you think too much or too little?

We’ve met, right?

My parents’ house backs up to a protected wildlife area so the only thing beyond our backyard are trees, deer, and the occasionally photogenic bird. Dana and I are staying here while they’re on photo safari in Africa, so this morning I’ve been sitting in the backyard on the deck with my grandfather’s pipe, smoking Black Russian tobacco (chocolategasm) and thinking that someone should take a picture of me because this is obviously the book jacket look we’re going for.

I kept thinking about how I should write my grandfather a letter, and I will put it on my to-do list because my hands are so crippled from RSIs that I need some time in the hot tub and lots of Aleve before I commit to handwriting anything. In that moment, though, my grandfather and I were having communion together, because he was teaching me how to smoke a pipe in my head as I was trying to get it lit. Instantaneously when I put the pipe to my lips, I was back in the cream-colored station wagon with the red interior that just smelled like him. I mentally watched him pull until the bowl would stay lit, and would chastise myself for not doing it just. like. Pawpaw.

Which was a good, safe place to be mentally because the rest of me just feels like crap.

I said it was over, and we both blew up. Me and _________. It was a disaster, just “let’s see how fast we can emotionally destroy each other on the way out.” I laugh to myself that it’s kind of like that scene in Argo where they’re trying to burn every document in the Iranian embassy. I still have a lot of scars left over from that day, and I’m not even going to pretend that she doesn’t… and that’s what I’m thinking as the nicotine buzz sets in. My mind floats above me while my body enjoys first-drag bliss.

It feels nice to let my mind go for just a sec. I am wrecked about this friend breakup. I know I haven’t mentioned it before (that was like a joke, except jokes are funny). Anything I can do to put my mind at ease for five whole seconds is a miracle. Last night I spent seven minutes making a cocktail. Seven minutes. That’s how long it took me, I was so intent on this drink being my moment of Zen. I was going to drink it on the back porch and listen to Regina Spektor. I made a DATE with myself people.

The mixer was sugar free and I didn’t notice when I used it. Made the whole thing taste like asshole… and that was just the thing to happen to absolutely BREAK me. It wasn’t about the martini. It was that I could not even maintain anymore. I poured the whole thing down the sink and sat on the floor in the kitchen, praying my end of the frayed rope prayer. “Shit, God.”

And as I was sitting on the floor, God whispered, “ain’t no girl worth this, sweetie.” My friends say she’s manipulating me and I tell them that’s fine, they don’t realize what an asshole I am, either. They say, “yes, we do” and I’m not sure quite how to take that, but whatever.

What I know for sure™ is that my friends cannot take away the thousands and thousands and thousands of lines of prose between us, and even if that is all I have left, it is enough because it has to be. I cannot live my life with this much anxiety all the time when all I want to know is whether the resurrection took or whether I am absolutely throwing my time in the garbage because I’m giving time and energy to someone who doesn’t want it.

I think of myself as a dog, loyal to a fault in all relationships, because especially when I’ve hurt someone, I whimper like a part of me is missing.

No, actually, it’s a lot like that.

I wasn’t planning on changing my entire life yesterday. I just did. Because Alert Logic has high standards for confidentiality, I can’t tell you why, but I’m not there anymore and it is a very good thing.™ I assume when you read this that you’re hitting the fan thinking, “she doesn’t have enough people to buy her book yet!” You’re right. I didn’t quit my job to be a stay at home novelist. I was only unemployed for 60 minutes.

Stay tuned.

What I can say for Alert Logic is that they are an amazing company and I will never have anything bad to say about them because they didn’t do anything wrong. It was my decision and I made it. I just wish I could tell you more than that…. I know you want every detail, but you’ll have to be satisfied with “other factors at play.”

I think the hardest part of an Internet relationship is that when things go wrong, there’s very little way to apologize. When either of you think on the things you’ve told each other, you just can’t believe it. There’s someone out there that *knows* you. Not your body. Not your bullshit. Not the armor you wear in public.

You.

So what happens when someone gets mad and slashes that level of trust? So far, the answer for me has been to regret it every moment since. She’s right. I could have handled things differently. At the same time, there’s no way to go backward, and neither of us are solid enough (yet, I hope) to go forward. Too proud. Too us.

I have to come to the realization that the resurrection may not take. The way I handled being frightened and threatened (becuase so much energy was going to her than Dana at times) was a stray cat backed into a corner that’s just had a bucket of ice water dumped on him. Oh, I take it back. I wasn’t even that nice.

I got to the place of PLEASE STOP THE PAIN I CAN’T HANDLE ANYMORE ANXIETY OH MY JESUS PLEASE STOP.

And then I couldn’t think straight anymore, as if I ever could. So I ran as hard as I possibly could, and you know what?

I got about fifteen feet before I tripped on a rock and started to cry. The problem with that is she’s a first child. There may or may not be a way to ever reach her again. First children don’t give their trust easily, and as I was reading over some of our conversations from the past year, I picked up everything that I had missed before.

She loves me so much she can’t breathe, either. I had to sit with that for a long time. Hours, even, because that means the fight was based on nothing more than not really believing that someone like that could love someone like me.

These are the moments when it’s hard for me to say that I do. I have to love me whether I’m amazing or not. And if it’s any consolation to other people that love me right now, it’s just as hard for me to love myself because I see all the irritants as clearly as you do. The difference is that you can run away from me, but I can’t.

I have to love me even if I lauched the torpedo that sank us.

I can’t promise, but what I can do is try. Try every day. Try like nothing else matters, because. it. doesn’t.

I feel like such a Disciple after the Ascension. Dumb guy, eager to please, and missing direction…. I think there are elements of that in me and ________ alike. I need to read the Book of Acts, or as I personally call it, “The Gospel of Holy Shit What Do We Do Now?” We’ve had the resurrection, now how do we maintain it? There’s a lot of hurt feelings on both sides, a lot of hurt pride. First children are both perfect. There are no flaws in either of our logic. And if you believe that Dana will personally laugh in your face with her second child tongue firmly in cheek.

This entire experience has been a lesson in love, because if we are both first children and always need to be right, someone has to give somewhere. Because I was the one that freaked out, I gave first. I could not be right and alone. I gave so that my heart would lead me instead of my head. However, of course we can’t rebuild Rome in a day, and this morning, the great philosophers Wilson Phillips’ “Hold On” was playing when I arrived at my parking space. I allowed myself to absolutely lose it for the length of the song, and it was brutal. Alligator tears because resurrection happens in the middle of the mess, and the mess hasn’t ended. We’d both like to live to fight another day, and we both have the capability to emotionally destroy each other.

Did I mention that we’re both first children? I cannot underestimate this influence, because I know better than I know anything else in the world that first children are authoritative to a fault. It’s all or nothing and we will both punch the wall until our knuckles bleed trying to wrestle it out. The blessing is that even though resurrection is hard, it’s worth it. I want her to be a part of my life until one of us dies.

She knows me better than my therapist, and in some ways, better than Dana because she lets me use her as a sounding board when there’s something I need to verbally process before I talk to her. There is no one with which I’d rather do the work, because maybe we’ll learn a thing or two about compromise instead of mutually assured destruction.

We will finally come together, I think, when we can both get down on our knees like Monica and Chandler, and admit that we can’t live without each other, but at the same time, we are both going to kick each other’s asses into next week for all eternity.

I really, really love you. I give.

And for those of you who are wondering how Dana feels about all this, there are so many levels of confidentiality that I cannot even. What I can say is that if she wants to identify herself, so be it. But that’s up to her. It is my hope that neither the Fanagans or I miss this relationship. It is too good, too exciting, too amazing, too frustrating, too “SAY UNCLE, DAMNIT.”

I have never been happier.

OUT of the deep have I called unto thee, O LORD;
Lord, hear my voice.
O let thine ears consider well
the voice of my complaint.
If thou, LORD, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss,
O Lord, who may abide it?
For there is mercy with thee;
therefore shalt thou be feared.
I look for the LORD; my soul doth wait for him;
in his word is my trust.
My soul fleeth unto the Lord before the morning watch;
I say, before the morning watch.
O Israel, trust in the LORD; for with the LORD there is mercy,
and with him is plenteous redemption.
And he shall redeem Israel
from all his sins.

The resurrection of this friendship came with my recognition that I was in the deep to begin with. She’d pushed me away in order to keep me from her broken places, which I took as a personal slight even though it was never meant to be. To my mind, it was based on something small that turned into something large because I felt like I was getting cut from the popular girls’ table and I reacted with just as much teenage bullshit.

Realistically, that was just an excuse to leave. When Diane pushed me away, I reacted the exact same way, and my inner teenager liked it just as much. This relationship was never supposed to go to that place of fear, where I am so shriveled up inside that I don’t think I have any options and stop taking up room… and start taking on their stories as my own. Same software, different case.

In my dreams last night, I figured out that she had to forgive me. If this is the play that we’re acting, if her actions are exorcising my demons, so be it. What could it hurt? The thing is to stop running from it and accept it for what it is. I could not possibly be fully formed after these 24 years enough to believe that this is a separate issue, that there is no crossover.

I’m not any different, but she is.

I cannot think of two people less alike than Diane and well, anybody else but especially _________. Still a fire sign, but the oldest instead of the youngest… which apparently means that we each have the skills to verbally wrestle each other to the ground, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. We are too strong together not to fight like that. It’s a sign of passion and interest, not anger.

The breakthrough came yesterday, because Dana and I both stayed home from church and talked. We ended up talking about me and said friend, but we didn’t set out to stay home from church and hash it out. Dana has hives so bad that she can barely move, they’re agitated by stress, and she has an appointment with an allergist soon so she can’t take anything for it. She is literally in so much discomfort that it makes me cry, like watching your firstborn get a Vitamin K injection in the heel.

The silver lining of the black cloud was having the time to talk.

We got to decide together what we were going to do, because I said what I needed and so did she.

Dana said she didn’t like sharing me with _____________.

I very nicely told her to get the fuck over it.

It sounds mean, but at the same time, that’s my boundary. You can’t take her away from me and I will fight with you until you see that. I need her to sit with it and figure out how much of me that ____________ can have, because she’s not going away and in fact may help me with some writing in the future. Dana not getting over it, in short, is a big problem.

Besides, I manage my own darkness left over from Diane quite well, and in the moments I falter, __________ is right there to remind me that it’s been a year and some change and she still hasn’t gotten the gay yet, so apparently you cannot catch it from Facebook Messenger, but to be fair I’m not sure. You should probably read the EULA (End User License Agreement).

We did not need to die. We needed to be reborn so that the chord between us was only hitting the right places instead of the wrong ones… and to that end, my response is look up to the heavens and thank God for the sun as I swim up toward it. I want to lie on the water, feeling the weightlessness of it all, and how glad that I am on the top instead of the bottom.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.