The original article was written in 2005, by a group I belonged to then called “RevGalBlogPals.” I wasn’t a minister, just a velveteen one, and they let me join anyway. The questions are so good, I want to try and answer them every few years.

Am I content with who I am becoming?

Finally, blessedly, yes. I have been trying to help myself for years, but it wasn’t until I met my current pastor that I felt safe enough to be able to let my guard down and just let her take care of me in the way that my pastor should have been doing all along. Because my dad was a pastor when I was little, I am a terrible parishioner… in exactly the same way that a doctor is a terrible patient. Every pastor who’s parented a child will smile when they read this. It is true. Learning to see what other people see in their pastors when they haven’t grown up in the church has been so freeing.

Do my family and friends recognize the authenticity of my Christian spirituality?

I hope so. I think everyone is surprised at the way I approach it, though. I don’t modify my fucking language, I dress however the hell I want, and I don’t care if you like my hair or not. People think that I am an immature Christian because they see my image and not my voice. My image is not for you. It’s for scared teenagers who need someone who looks like they do, talks the way they do, and spends their time in the world looking like an acceptable person to befriend even though they know I’m over 30. Senior pastors, I am THAT youth pastor. You know the one. The one that brings more teens into your church than you know what to do with but at the same time, cannot get me to behave when the bishop comes. Yup, that’s me. Deal.

At the same time, I have been to the mountaintop in terms of sin and have walked away every time because I know for sure that my God is stronger than my temptation for wrongdoing. God is that voice in my head that tells me not to be an asshole. God hears my anger when God tells me that I’m doing something wrong and I don’t want to be told that I’m doing something wrong I want to do what I want to do and you’re not going to stop me goddamnit I’m going to do what I want… God is capable of taking your rage. God is capable of taking your furious justifications for wrongdoing and calmly listens until you are finished. All the way until you are finished. God is the moment that dawns on you when you realize what you’ve really been fighting. God already knows you feel bad, and isn’t adding punishment to what you will already give yourself. God is that one consciousness that sees all the evil in you and just waits for you to figure out on your own which kind of person you choose to be.

Is my prayer life improving?

Everything that I’ve felt my entire life is starting to deepen. If I prayed in my childhood, now I’m praying more, because I feel the same urges I always have, it’s just that now it’s weighted with more meaning. When I concentrate on praying, I have no idea how much time goes by. I am so focused on God seeing everything that it takes me a while to get it all ready. I hem and haw and think and look off into space until a memory catches, and when the dam breaks, God is there to just receive. God receives whatever I feel about the memory that broke me open. Sometimes it’s joy, and sometimes it’s pain. God is a safe space because God has heard me use very colorful language on a number of topics. So, yes. The best thing that has ever happened to me is that I’m not afraid of God anymore. God doesn’t give a fuck whether I say fuck or not. God doesn’t care if I’m gay or not. In fact, I’m pretty sure God has never even noticed. Actually, the one thing God has ever said to me about sexuality is that I was right for being afraid of Angelina Jolie.

Have I maintained a genuine awe of God?

Awe doesn’t even begin to cover it. You only get as much out of a relationship as you put into it, and I learned that lesson indelibly seeing the movie Shadowlands. The movie is about C.S. “Jack” Lewis, a revered theologian and children’s book author. There is one scene that brings me to tears every time, and here it is:

Harry: Christopher can scoff, Jack, but I know how hard you’ve been praying; and now God is answering your prayers.

C. S. Lewis: That’s not why I pray, Harry. I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God, it changes me.

I pray because God’s reaction is not my responsibility. I pray because God is big enough to take all my shit. God is big enough to let me be anxious and needy and self-serving and mean and snobby and generous and loving and gorgeous and human because I AM ALL OF IT AND SO IS GOD.

The awe is breathtaking.

Is my lifestyle distinctive?

I may need a few more parameters, but I think I know what you mean. I have no problem talking about my spirituality in public. I think Jesus was one of the best preachers and teachers in the entire history of the world, and I am not threatened by any theological doctrine in all of creation. My God is bigger than all of them combined and you still wouldn’t be able to see a fourth of it. My lifestyle is distinctive BECAUSE YOU CANNOT SAY THAT YOU KNOW GOD BETTER THAN I DO, BITCH! Because the truth is that no one knows God. But we try to anthropomorphize God, anyway. I’m tired of conservative Christians tell me that I’m an outcast, and not because I’m a lesbian. Because even if I was straight I couldn’t swallow their hypocrisy. It makes me feel crazy when I show up at a church and there are clearly imbalances of power between men and women and for people to tell me that I’m a hideous sinner because I don’t realize that women’s subservience is how it’s supposed to be. I’m sorry, what? Jesus was the Gloria Steinem of his day. Do you have any idea how many kinds of weird it was for Jesus to allow Mary of Bethany to sit with him and all the other men while he lectured? Do you know how many rabbinical laws were broken before dinner? Can you imagine having enough power to be able to walk into a room and say, “I’m not going to let you get away with your inequality bullshit as long as I’m here?” If Jesus walked on earth, there is no way he would recognize Christianity. And he for damn sure wouldn’t recognize the whitey with his name on it.

Is my “spiritual feeding” the right diet for me?

It is now. I think that everything I am has led me to this church, and I will not stray. The thing that sets Bridgeport apart is that it is the first church that gave me a chance. They listened to my first sermons, they taught me how to lead a crowd, they’re just there for everything I could need as someone who wants to preach without necessarily being a pastor. My congregation feeds me by being willing to hear me think out loud. I pray just as incessantly as Jack Lewis because I don’t feel a need to prepare for it. Praying is thinking and thinking is praying. I believe all religions have that in common.

Is obedience in small matters built into my reflexes?

Yes, to the point where it has become detrimental to me and I’m trying to undo it. I can’t live this life anymore where people are content to walk all over me and just expect that their behavior is okay. Obedience is a blessing, but so is self-preservation.

Is there enough celebration in my life?

My celebration never ceases to amaze me. I love my friends, I love my family, and I love my wife. She is the cream in my coffee, and grieving her loss would be like trying to replace one of my legs, or Waffle House or something like that. Something that MATTERS.

Am I generous?

I am generous when I remember to live in the vision of bounty instead of scarcity. I cannot be generous when I feel afraid that I will not have enough. When I do have enough, I shower generosity on everything because I am so grateful for what has been given to me.

Do I have a quiet centre to my life?

My quiet center is my friend _______. There are two names that go here, and they both know who they are. One is local, one is not. One sees me all the time, one I’ve never met. But when we are online together, magic happens. We are able to talk about things that are absent in our daily lives but present in the arcs of our lives. It is a deep, abiding love that allows both of us to feel supported all the time and chastised when we need it. Because I want to know the truth, even when it’s bad.

Have I defined my unique ministry?

You’re looking at it right now. 😉

Amen.

I got nothin.’ No one has sent me anything. E-mail me and send me a question, or post it at the bottom. I can’t answer if you don’t question. It’s not as fun if I write the question. I already know what I think about those. 🙂

Drama has just been swirling around my house, but it’s all been of my own making. That’s what being Bipolar II gets me. The ability to create a play even when no one else knows it’s going on. I do not get wigged when other people do not play their parts. People think I do, but my annoyance has nothing to do with the fact that you don’t want to act what I wrote. Nine times out of ten, it’s because the part I wrote for you takes the high road, and people are much more, well, human than that.

I do not try to create drama so much as I learn to function in it. When I was really young, my mentor was an opera singer. When I was a teenager, I went to High School for Performing and Visual Arts. I am a writer who has had some success. There is no moment of my day when I am not able to emote clearly. I may not know exactly what I think, but if what you’re saying is the kind of thing that gets people worked up, it will work on me. In other words, I may not have the response you’re looking for, but I will definitely have a big reaction. I differentiate between the two because a reaction generally doesn’t have any thought behind it.

Incidentally, the difference between reaction and response is one of the joys of my getting older. I don’t have to react to the world, but I do have to respond. Sometimes it’s hard for me not to jump in right away. My mind works at 500 miles an hour. I have to be careful because I know I have a large capacity to hurt people. I’m excellent at being underhanded emotionally, and my life’s work is to heal the rift that made me think this was okay.

It’s hard to say it out loud, that “being underhanded emotionally.” it’s one of those things that’s true of everyone on earth, but it takes cojones to make something like that self-referential. But that’s the journey right now. I’m not throwing out any part of myself until I know what’s there. Here’s the thing about getting ready to be 40 (I will be 36 on Sept. 10, so it’s not that far…)- you just want to stop wading in bullshit.

No, wait.

I already know that I’m wading in bullshit, and that life is just like that. However, what I can control is the bullshit itself. Am I processing it correctly so that I’m not constantly dealing with old bullshit? When does the new bullshit arrive? Where do you put the old bullshit once it’s processed? Can you sell it on e-bay?

The bottom line is that I was emotionally abused from the day I turned 13. The reaction is that I’m going crazy. The response is that I’m writing it all out so that I can be crazy in my head, and still the calm and gorgeous person you know on the outside. The reaction is severe because I’ve been holding down my feelings about this abuse because everything was a secret. Everything.

Having that big a secret convinced me to keep other, bigger secrets so that all of the sudden, I was weighted down in ways that a 13-year-old just can’t process. Protecting my abuser from the people who had abused her became the play in my mind that I was acting. But my abuser needed no help. She had moved on from having power taken from her to taking mine away, instead.

My natural responses turned to dust as her siren song echoed farther and farther across the universe.

I think it’s particularly important for me to say categorically that I was abused by a woman, because so few people believe they are capable of it. Power and control is not the domain of men, because in this case, her only weapon was words. In fact, some of the most powerful words in the universe have to do with soft power. If you don’t know what I mean, think about the multitude of things you would do for your partner if she only looked at you that way.

When she looked at me that way, there is nothing that I wouldn’t have done for her. My 13-year-old determination allowed me to move mountains at that age, and I did. I achieved things I never thought possible in the names of love, courage, and empathy.

The disconnect is that it was only love for me. For her, I was a puppet. She had woven my strings into her fingers so that she could not put them down. I thought it was love, so I was content to let her pull them.

She manipulated me, and I manipulated her right back. With our age difference, though, I was outmatched. Being outwitted my whole life up until now has given me the determination to want to be alpha dog, and I see that change in myself, especially as I write for this web site. I believe that I am that person, that she is the one I would have been without having to live in someone else’s shadow. The challenge is to stay Type A. Type A is exhausting. How do you people do it?

I think my anger fuels me. It’s what gets me out of bed. I pump anger into my day, but not to reinforce negativity. To reinforce that I am taking all of this negative energy and pouring it into my own recovery so that what goes in as toxic comes out as inert. I want to be that person who can forgive as much as they love.

My path is to figure out how love always wins, instead of that still, small voice that says it’s ok to kill you if you cross me.

Your clever’s title.

Clever Title Goes Here, bitch.

Ohhh, here we go.

You’re going to regret making friends with me.

I’ve hated you for 35 years and that hasn’t gotten me anywhere. Liking you is a new thing I’m trying out. So far, it feels good. You’re a lot more awesome than I’ve ever given you credit for.

Leslie, that’s because I’m not really you. I’m the sub-you. I’m not your arrows, I’m your compass.

Look that that metaphysical shit going on. Where did you get so smart?

You’ve always been this smart.

Have I really?

Yes, for evil and for awesome.

That’s a new thing I’m trying out, too. Liking the bad parts of myself. Because disliking them wasn’t getting me very far, either.

Do you think it will work?

Do you?

[…]

I’m going to a meeting tonight.

Is Tall. Mustache. Fishing Hat. going to be there?

No, that’s the other meeting. I’m trying a different one.

Why?

Because I just am. Maybe I’m having a mid-life crisis and actually meeting chicks!

No you’re not.

Yeah, you’re right. I’m not.

This is depressing.

No, it’s not. You just realized the joy of being a married person. You don’t have to go anywhere or do anything and that’s more appealing than meeting chicks.

I’d like to think I’m more adventurous than that.

Why do you want pretty women around you all the time?

Why don’t you?

Because Dana might get mad.

You’ve MET Dana, right? Since when has she ever objected to having pretty women around her?

That is how we do that, isn’t it? We just share eye candy instead of being jealous. The advantage of that is that we each find some the other misses and we’re eternally grateful.

How is it that you can even do this together?

Because most of the time, we are two fifteen-year-old boys living in an apartment together. We are the type people that think Doctor Who could be a religion. We are such nerds that we are kind of like Bart and Milhouse in every episode of The Simpsons ever. If Bart and Milhouse ever realized that they were butt crazy about each other, it would resemble our marriage greatly.

Meaning?

Meaning I don’t give a shit who Dana thinks is gorgeous because I’ve got my own list (and most of them know who they are). Dana knows every thought I’ve ever had in my life, so as far as she’s concerned, she might as well let me have crushes ’cause she’s going to hear about it one way or another. I’m not threatening, I’m just annoyingly verbal.

One of these days, she’s just going to turn around and yell, “FINE! Just fuck her. Seriously. If that’s what it takes to get you to shut the hell up, FINE.”

It’s at this point that I realize that I am way too obnoxious for my own good and we go back to talking about television and housework. It’s not a bad deal. In fact, it helps us be married that we are not contractually obligated to like each other all the time. We have built-in escape pods that allow both of us to be ourselves, so that we don’t become LeslieAndDana. Crushes, as long as they’re inert, are fun as a shared experience. The trouble is when you realize that you are projecting too much energy into the crush and you haven’t paid as much attention as you want to your spouse. It’s your job to limit contact with the crush and bring your partner into the relationship, because the only way to keep a friendship with a crush is to talk about it with your partner frequently. Let your partner tell you if he/she thinks it’s getting out of hand. Once you stop seeing that as a threat and take it for what it is- a caring warning- you are well on your way to a much healthier relationship.

The thing is that you’ve got to be willing to take as much as you give. If you let your partner talk about their crushes and you shut down emotionally, then you are internalizing the frivolous fun of having a crush as a serious threat to your relationship and not the silliness that it is.

A Warning: If you’ve never done this before (because Dana and I have been best friends for almost a decade), limit yourselves to celebrities. Fucking amateurs will not walk into their houses and announce that Leslie said it’s ok to tell you I have a crush on our next door neighbor, who will live here just as long as we do and it will be absolutely that awkward until we move.

The flip side of the coin is that Dana and I have several people in common on our “Door List.”

The door list is people that we get to fuck, but they have to come to the house and knock on the door. For instance, I do not think that Kerry Washington knows where I live. But if she did, Dana would have to admit that Kerry went to extraordinary lengths to find me and that this is the chance of a lifetime that cannot be wasted.

See? There’s A LOT of fifteen-year-old boy in each of us.

It’s why we get along so well.

Wanting to fuck other people helps your marriage?

Why wouldn’t it? From what I’ve seen, what destroys marriages is that people have crushes that they don’t talk about so they fester and then it gets so big that they tell their crush and it could possibly turn into an affair in the time it takes for you to tell your spouse about it. So talk about it first. If you pretend that crushes don’t happen, then you are completely ignoring the spectrum that is sexuality and that most humans are wired to couple up with one person, but when they meet, it does not render either of them blind.

I use Facebook when I have short blurbs instead of full-length essays. Because of that, I write on Facebook a lot more than I do here. For some reason, I have a Twitter account. I don’t do Twitter. I can limit myself to a paragraph but a hundred and forty characters? Come on. I know that people say it makes you a better writer- to be able to say an idea in its most empirical form- but at the same time, it doesn’t really allow you to speak in depth and breadth that you might like. When I have good ideas, I like to write them down, but I don’t like how much text message-speak there is to express one analogy. I can only compromise my standards so much, and one of them is using letters as words. U dig?

And come on. The 140-character limit is complete bullshit because it has to include the link that backs up your great idea. Screw that. Facebook is my platform, and I hope I use it well. I want to educate people, I want to bring people together, and most of all, I want to emote.

I have been the type person that holds in feelings- sometimes, really painful ones- for years and years until they threaten to undo me. Because of that, the keyboard has become my last bastion of safety. A blank page is the closest thing I know to be a cure for the magnitude of ideas you want to present when you realize that you’ve been a walking zombie. You go years and years being afraid of other people’s reactions, and you hold on to your emotions more and more because the times you do let your guard down, people distance themselves and you can’t live without other people at all.

The message in this essay is that for me, bottling emotion could have driven me into a truly unstable mental place. My saving grace is that I caught it before it became necessary to be hospitalized, and that I had an outlet in this web site. I pour emotion into it because the more I do, the more people across the globe confirm that my ideas matter in a way that nothing else could even attempt. When I write my own stories, you believe they are true, when a lot of the time, the people that they are about do not. Their reaction is not my responsibility, either. My responsibility is to get the help I need so that life does not push me in the water and stand on my head.

The reality is that you always want to connect with people who don’t have a horse in the race. I don’t write about myself to hurt the people close to me. I write about myself because I’m the one that’s moving in the world and writing about it. I don’t write for your reaction. I want to know what Canada thinks. I want to know what Australia thinks. I could give a crap about Portland, Oregon because I’ve got Jesus on my side. You know why? Because if nothing good comes out of Nazareth, then nothing good comes out of Portland, either.

My writing is my art, just as Jesus’ message was his. He doesn’t give a crap what you think, either. He puts it out there, and you have the option to listen to it.

Just like me.

I get comments all the time that my writing is full of pain, it’s heavy, etc. My reaction is always this: if it’s too heavy for you, don’t read it. I’m not here to please anyone. I am here to rescue myself through my own writing. Your response is not my responsibility. I care about you as an audience- you are the body of people that put shoe leather in our writer/reader relationship. When I post, you show up in droves. At the same time, though, I cannot engineer what I write to suit any one of you, much less all of you at once.

I find that I can be a better human being if I know how and why I’m thinking about, well, everything. I am so intentional about the energy that I put into the world that if it has to be negative, I want to balance it. When you come here, you’ll see lots of funny as well. It’s just that those posts don’t necessarily show up on the same day. If you want something that’s not quite so heavy, send me an e-mail with a writing prompt. If I can work it, I’ll post it. I don’t mean for my writing to be a bummer. Quite the opposite. I want my writing to reflect my pain so that I don’t have to carry it around with me. It’s all in here for safekeeping should I ever want to look back, but in a sense, once it’s recorded here, it’s gone. I have told that story, I do not have to tell it again.

And then for that day, I have no burdens at all.

I don’t want to talk about the situation. Sometimes, I don’t even want to think it existed. I didn’t know what was happening for the longest time, and when I figured it out, I had the type of epiphany that causes your face to lose blood. I didn’t use them. She used me. It was such a paradigm shift that I had to think about it for almost a year before I was truly ready to face the truth. The thoughts I was having were making me so ill with co-dependency and withdrawal from it that it felt like the physical part of the first few days of rehab. It makes sense, really. Enablers (the people who have been chosen as recipients of abuse) are addicted to the emotions of others, because they are taught early on that they can’t trust themselves. They can’t make their own opinions because opinions have been programmed out of them. It is a learned behavior that can be corrected, but if you are in the throes of abuse, recognizing it is so difficult… because they love you.

I say this facetiously because abusers do love. They love quite a bit, actually. It’s just that for whatever reason, they have no idea that what they’re doing in a relationship is abnormal. The scary part, though, is that some people do know. Some people do know how much power they have, and they’ve harnessed it. It’s a two-sided coin, and you may never know which kind you’ve got- I differentiate between them with one question: “I know this person very well. Is he or she doing this maliciously, or are they even aware of it?” I haven’t met a complete sample of abused people to know if my suspicion is correct, but it seems to me that if the intent of the abuse was malicious enough, it probably started in childhood.

I’ve told this story before, but my ex-wife and one of my childhood friends were both abused in the most insidious way of all… violated sexually before they were even old enough to know what was really going on by adults they trusted. I became enablers to both of them, trying at all costs to keep both of them happy when really, they were just pouring their abuse into myself hoping that it would make them happy enough that they would both start to treat me with some respect. Surely they would see all I had done for them. Surely there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I raged with injustice that I’d given up everything while they’d given up nothing in return.

In response, every relationship after that was modeled on them. I didn’t feel happy in a relationship until I was doggedly subservient because that was my role. I was used to it. In time, there was no fight in me at all. I was trying to love both women as if to say to them, “I love you so much that I’m willing to take on your pain if you’ll just do stuff to make it all worth it.” But that’s what a normal relationship is like. The vicious cycle of abuse is that you absolutely live in the hope that they’ll change. And because they’ve engineered it that way, even if you cut off contact, you’ll still be wired to think about that person’s welfare. You don’t know what to do with the time you have now that you’re not constantly wrapped up in someone else.

That’s where I am now. I have been in the eddy of verbal abuse and now I am finished with it. I am struggling with both the handcuffs and the ring. Because that’s what abusers do. They get down on one knee with seduction and propose. You are the object of their affection and the apple of their eye, until your personality fades to black.

Getting better has, for me, involved integrating the two parts of my personality. There’s a part of me that will love my abuser in a love that will last the ages. And then there’s another part of me that wants to kill her for what she’s done. In no way am I serious about this. I mean it as the revenge fantasy trip you never take because not only would it be a hell of a lot more trouble than it’s worth, you’re destroying the moment you hope for in the end. That your abuser will come back whole and healthy, having realized just how foolish they’ve been.

The moment a part of me died was when I realized I had to give up to save my own life, because I was losing it. I didn’t want to go down the road of complete insanity. I was doing just fine at “a little bit,” and I didn’t want to find out how deep the waters got.

I called in reinforcements immediately when I realized what was going on. I’m married now, and one of the things I know about marriage is that if you dump something this heavy on them, they care about you so much that it can actually cause them to stop functioning, too. In that way, we both desperately needed help.

As I began to get better, I realized that it was because I was finally learning to integrate the two aspects of my experience with an abuser. I was seduced with sunshine and cast out in chill. Binding it into one narrative allowed me to forgive more fully than I could have ever before. Finally, I understood both the negative and the positive in both my own behavior and in theirs. I cried with compassion at the abuse my abuser must have faced in order for her view of a healthy relationship to fracture.

I understood as a child what most people never do. In some ways, it was worth it.

There’s a reason people are suckered into abuse. Sunshine takes all different forms. Sometimes it’s sex, sometimes it’s drugs, and the most terrifying to me- sometimes it’s just words.

The reason verbal abuse is so scary is that most of the time, you cannot see it’s happening. Verbal abuse is written off most of the time, and people are horrible to each other. Just a few conversations will lead to incredibly intimate details and you’ll walk toward your abuser with open arms, because they’ve engineered it. Now they are desirable, and they know they are. They’ve set it up where you have to chase.

Relax. You can’t ever fucking catch them.

I think about everything because I cannot think about nothing. I lack the fundamental capability to completely get lost in any one subject, because there are always about five mind worms running at once. I wish I could stop the train, because I’m ready. I’m ready to be able to hold one thought steady. Touching Dana. Making dinner. Meditating. Even the fundamentals are out of order and upside down because even though I am quiet on the outside, inside it seems like I may be about to birth a volcano.

No, that’s too dramatic for what’s happening right now. The volcano has erupted, and the liquid hot magma is killing the ideas in my head. I am headed for the promised land of spiritual and emotional healing, but I have sympathy for the fact that you cannot get over something traumatic unless you experience it in a “makes you breathe faster” sort of way. Because the more you can get those big reactions out of the way, the subsequent ones will be smaller and easier to manage. What I have learned over time is that I am an empath, so I feel emotions extraordinarily deeply. I also hold on to them for longer than I should, which is partly my introverted personality and partly a learned behavior. So therefore, if I don’t deal with grief right away, I stuff it down into my socks and just hope it doesn’t come back up.

The volcano erupted when I began to see everything that I’d kept stuffed down. Confusion and rage mixed with tears and anguish, which left peace and tranquility in its wake. It’s how I know I’m an empath. Getting in touch with how I feel about other people’s stories allows me to release them, because when I don’t, I walk around in other people’s problems. I’ve gotten to where I’m brilliant at figuring out your life, but don’t ask me to figure out mine. In some ways, I let other people’s stories become more important than mine… to the point that I would completely self-sabotage in order to protect someone else.

If the behavior is engrained enough, you’ll react so that you’re protecting someone even when you don’t realize it. That is the sign that things may not blow up soon, but they will indeed blow up. Because once you’ve realized how many emotional tools that you’ve used on someone else that could have been used to propel you, I predict that the conversation you have with yourself will NOT. GO. WELL.

I felt guilty. Like I’d let a part of myself go that wasn’t supposed to disappear and I just let it happen. I still feel guilty. I’m not sure that will ever go away, because I didn’t disappoint anyone except myself.

The worst part is when you can legitimately, empirically state “it’s not my fault,” and you think you’ve taken it in and you still feel guilty.

Because deep down, you know you are.

How do you deal with family members whose belief in God is one where they disagree with gay marriage? How do you say to someone who says “my God would not allow that to happen and believes because I am gay or a non believer that I will go to hell and ‘thus they choose to believe.’” On a side note wouldn’t it be ironic if they arrived at God’s gate to be told, “you perpetuated hate in my name when I love all.”

Nutmeg

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

-Maya Angelou

Too many people spend too much time wondering what’s going to happen in their afterlife without opening their eyes to the hell that’s already here. They live in a comfort zone about thisbig, because the fear of going to actual hell keeps them in a very straight and narrow line. I am sure that in some respects, it makes life easier, because there are black and white solutions with clear answers to almost every question if you believe that there is no translation needed between a desert-based nomadic set of tribes two to five thousand years ago (eh, I’m estimating) and modern day. Holy crap. Seriously. Can you imagine what Moses, et al would have thought when they saw, say, New York City? Can you imagine Paul walking through modern-day NoPo?

Reading the Bible this way, though, is comforting. You can take everything at face value. You can trust your preacher that he’s not going to fill your head with conflicting views on anything and say, “make up your own mind.”

Your pastor is supposed to know (so you don’t have to) the basic tenets of the faith. Most lay people don’t know what to even call the tenets of Christianity, like “transubstantiation” and “substitutionary atonement.”

Editor’s Note:

Transubstantiation is a Catholic idea that translates to “when you put the communion wafer into your mouth, it literally becomes the body of Christ. When you lift the communion chalice to your lips, when the wine enters your mouth, it literally becomes Christ’s blood (which to me means that I need to write a book paraphrasing Bertrand Russell- “Why I Am Not a Catholic”).

Substitutionary atonement took place when Jesus died on the cross for all our sins so that we ourselves could die with our sins forgiven. (I really like this part, because for all its flaws, the doctrine says “I accept you for who you really are, because your sins are forgiven… not forgotten.”)

It is astounding to me that people who say they are Christian have not studied the doctrines enough to know what they are actually called. It’s because they don’t have to look up anything. It’s fine the way it is. How literalists can preach without opposing commentary is beyond me, because how do you decide what you believe if you only hear one side of the story? Besides, the Disciples themselves didn’t understand Jesus, even when he spoke slowly and didn’t use big words. How could you possibly work through the jigsaw of everything that happened without wanting to know everything you could get your hands on about the topic? THIS IS YOUR FAITH. YOU DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT TO DO WITH IT.

You get to choose whether you are the type Christian that believes you have the right to discriminate against others, because “God will back you up.” You know who won’t? Jesus Christ. Jesus never said anything about homosexuality, so, as Jim Rigby points out, it cannot be essential to his teaching.

According to most mainstream theologians, when “God” (in quotes because the actual writers were human) absolutely damned “homosexuals,” God did not mean to trample on a loving same-sex couple with matching small dogs and stylish glasses. In the Old Testament (Genesis 19:1-25), the literal interpretation is that God destroyed the city of Sodom because of the homos.

The serious-but-not-literal translation is that when the angels appeared, the rest of the people in Sodom wanted to rape them. Abraham was so desperate to protect the angels that he offered up his teenage daughters instead. Then, as now, rape was about control, not sexual orientation. In fact, some scholars say that males raping males was quite common in the day because it was a very effective path to adding a humiliating insult to injury.

As for Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13, it has been used as “proof” that God hates gays for so many years that it has hair on it… which is ironic because Christians are not bound to Talmudic law in the first place. If you want to use the Old Testament to damn homosexuals, then you’re also going to have to accept the idea that you can never get a haircut or a tattoo. Ever.

Checkmate.

The last point I’ll make, and believe me, it is not the last point I could have made… I just don’t want your eyes to glaze over before you get to the end… Perhaps this will become a series on “Stories” where I just take all the Fundamentalist ideas about homosexuality and destroy them on international television (which is what I call the Fanagans while I’m waiting to post).

But I digress.

Abomination. (You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.)

Throughout the Old Testament, the word abomination is translated from the Hebrew word toevah– and means something found detestable by God because it is unclean, disloyal, or unjust. The word is used to mean acts committed by both homo- and heterosexual couples because most of the time, it refers to cult prostitution- a Canaanite religious practice.

So that’s it. That’s my Fundamentalist lecture. This is my go-to answer for any question that involves why I am eternally damned just because I wear comfortable shoes. I am giving you all the ammunition you need to start an intelligent debate about why Biblical restrictions on homosexuality are no longer useful to us, just like we decided it was ok to touch pig skin even though the Bible says not to because hey, football.

I don’t see Northeast Texas giving up their religion that damn easily, okay? In fact, let’s solve this problem right now. Say to every Fundamentalist in the nation that starting today, all equipment for all sports is now going to be made from pigskin, so that if you decide to call someone a fag, you’re immediately off the team… because if you believe in one Talmudic law, you have to believe in them all.

And just in case you’re wondering why I started talking about football, it’s because Fundamentalists tend to write me off as an elitist jerk. I can’t use facts to change anyone’s opinion, because it seems that Christian fundamentalists do not get the concept that cultural attitudes change toward myths explained by science. Homosexuality is neither a mental or physical disease. Homosexuality is not the same thing as pedophilia, even though Fundamentalists thrive on telling you that it is. I can’t appeal to Fundamentalists through science, so I just have to ask them a few questions:

• How would you react if you were a gay kid growing up in a church whose message is a relentless false claim that he or she is a child molester?
• What if that kid was yours?
• What if your church isn’t saying that your kid is a pedophile, but you are?
• What does it feel like to intentionally choose your church over your child?
• If you have a gay son or lesbian daughter and you are trying to urge them to be straight, at what point do you just give up?
• At what point do you have to concede that you can either love your kids or you can’t? I know that sounds incredibly harsh, and in a way, it’s meant to sting. But you’re the one that has to look in the mirror every morning and know that you’ve destroyed any chance of relationship with your child beyond Christmas and Mother’s Day. It’s not that gay people hate their parents; it’s that when they visit and the entire stay is filled with what a piece of shit they are, the obligation to spend time with you ceases.

And that’s what the reality of not letting time pass creates. You can’t see a future with no discrimination because you can’t move past what someone said long before it was written down and can’t concede the point that there may have been a little “Lost in Translation” going on so you take it out on the people that love you the most by twisting a knife in their hearts and telling them that they’ll never be worthy of your love but they just keep trying for it, anyway. Say it all in one breath just like I did because by the time you get to decades of this, you can’t breathe all the way down, either.

These are the stories of my gay and lesbian friends who grew up in a fundamentalist environment. They have been kicked in the gut emotionally and, when they realize how much it hurts, they will run to someone else.

How does it feel to have your child sharing life moments with someone else?

And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is how we do that.

This is our rallying cry. This is our Viva La Raza! This is our moment, and I watched it all happen. I felt myself land on the moon, touch the face of God, and touch back down into a sea of people who have rooted for me since the beginning. It was my ticker tape parade. It was my victory.

It is also everyone else’s.

1. Am I content with who I am becoming?

Some of the time. I love the person that is full of life and deeply engaged in it. I love the person that is generous, thoughtful, and helpful. I love the person that gives a lot to her relationships and lets the people in her life know that they mean a lot to her.

I’m not fond of the person that is scatterbrained, prone to depression and worry, and forgetful when it comes to birthday and anniversary cards.

And I really, really don’t like the part of myself that just doesn’t get it. Marching to the beat of your own drummer sounds romantic, but most of the time it just makes me feel a little isolated, like there is something missing in my thought process that is present for others. People who are nice about it say I’m “lost in my own little world.” I’m not that easy on myself, though.

2. Do my family and friends recognize the authenticity of my Christian spirituality?

I think so. I think they’re surprised at the way I approach it. I’m very C.S. Lewis- I want to know all the academics behind spirituality because I’m so logical that I need a concrete reason to believe. I know that there is and always will be a gap between logic and experiencing the presence of God, but I read so much and listen to such a wide variety of preachers that when I think of the authenticity of my faith, my goal is to make that gap as small as possible.

6. Is my prayer life improving?

Prayer has helped me to know myself better, to organize my thoughts, and has created an outlet so that I am aware and genuine in giving thanks. But I don’t have the same idea of prayer that a lot of people have, which is quiet and meditative. Sometimes I write letters to God. When I lived in Portland, I would sometimes arrive early for church at my cathedral and pray in the children’s chapel before I went to choir practice. There has been at least three instances this year in which I have gone to God in prayer so broken and defeated that all I could do was cry- and not mere tears slipping down my cheeks… the kind of cry that reverberates against the walls and if you see yourself in the mirror, it only makes you cry more because you look so hideous. It’s the sound of grief that comes from deep within, my sound of true sorrow. But I know God heard all my prayers, regardless of what it sounded like.

7. Have I maintained a genuine awe of God?

There are two images in my mind that reflect awe of God for me, and I use them whenever I feel that God isn’t listening. The first is the beauty and majesty of the Columbia River Gorge. It is impossible for me to think of my memories there without adding the phrase, “this is where God lives.” The second is singing with Trinity Choir and Consort during rehearsals of Bach’s Mass in B Minor. Specifically, there are several movements in which the chorus is divided up into eight parts, and they are all terrifically intricate. When they come together, awe is the only appropriate word. All of the musicians are physically and emotionally open and together, we are creating this feeling that is so powerful that if we could bottle it, we could end wars and move mountains.

But in my day to day life, awe is mostly limited to the miracle of showing up on time and making sure that my sweater isn’t on inside out. It’s something I need to work on, for sure.

8. Is my lifestyle distinctive?

I would say that it is now, but I had to test a lot of boundaries to see why they were there before I could enforce them for myself… part of it was being logical and demanding a reason for everything. Part of it was just being young and a bit rebellious. But what I’ve learned is that the rules set up for Christians on how life works are not arbitrary and they are not based on ruining your buzz. But I couldn’t just hear that from someone else. I had to find it out on my own.

9. Is my “spiritual feeding” the right diet for me?

Oh, wow. I’ve had to deal with that question a lot this year. As of right now, it’s really not. I’d like to think that I go to church regularly because I listen to the Cathedral of Hope podcast. But listening to a sermon is just the beginning… I don’t have a community of faith that I give to or take from. I don’t support anyone else spiritually and I don’t let others support me. I go to a church once and decide it’s not right and move on. Actually, I did find a church that I liked a lot because it reminded me of my cathedral in Portland… and I have never been back because I cried so much that I was afraid to return. Afraid to tap into the grief of leaving Trinity and Portland behind, because that’s exactly what the church brought up for me. Which, of course, now I’m saying that I should go back because I need to let all that grief out instead of doing what I’ve always done, which is some variation of:

1. Deny
2. Deny
3. Deny
4. Stuff
5. Stuff
6. Stuff
7. Lather
8. Rinse
9. Repeat

I find comfort in my books. I find comfort in listening to sermons online. But I will be very happy when I find the right community of faith.

10. Is obedience in small matters built into my reflexes?

It depends. Who’s giving the order? Do I feel that person has authority over me? Am I looking for their approval? If I want you to like me, I’ll do it even if I think it’s stupid. If I don’t like you, or if I don’t think there’s a very good reason for something, I’ll blow it off. I need to know why. I’m obsessive about “why.” If you can’t tell me, I’m outta there.

On the other hand, there have been lots of times when I didn’t think that something was important and then later on realized it was absolutely vital and wished I’d responded in a different way. I’m much more careful with my responsibilities these days.

11. Is there enough celebration in my life?

When I hear Angela’s laughter, or look into her bright green eyes
When I look at old family pictures- or new ones
When I find God in a place I never thought I would
When I think about my friends
When I think of the life experiences that make me who I am…

All of these are little celebrations that happen at any time, and I am so grateful.

I’m not sure Jesus died for my sins, and whether he did or he didn’t isn’t very important to me. For me, the real miracle of Jesus’ presence on earth was his ability to create equality among people who had none. Jews were divided against Christians. Christians and Jews were divided against Romans. Rich were divided against poor. All of these factions coming together, the wall between them crashing down… that’s my miracle. The rest could be stories, and they could be 100 percent true. But it’s not what I choose to focus on. I have a knee-jerk reaction to anything involving the gory imagery of the crucifixion or the spewing forth of the precious, precious blood… so much so that there are hymns I don’t like to sing, and art that makes me nauseous. Jesus is important to me because of who he was, not because of the way he died.

Moreover, I wouldn’t call my spirituality exclusively Christian, because I love going to temple and listening to the cantors, and there are several rabbis in Houston that I view as brilliant. I’m also open to new age spirituality, which for me is an expression of my love for God, but not firmly rooted in the Christian tradition. In the words of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, “I’ll take wisdom wherever I can get it, and I don’t want to stop at a [national] boundary.”

3. Am I generous?

I can be. The motto of the Lanagan family is and always has been, “if I have something, and you need it, it’s yours.” It’s a tradition that I’d like to continue for many years. But like everyone else, I get busy and turn inward, and plans for generosity turn into panic that I won’t be able to take care of myself if I give x or y away. The lesson about those things returning to me tenfold is ever present in my mind, but the panic never goes away, so it’s a lesson that I keep having to learn over and over. In my relationships with my family and my friends, though, there is nothing that I wouldn’t do for them. I’d go to the ends of the earth for any one of them if they were in trouble, but I’ve never actually had to prove that I would.

People have called me spoiled because my family (on both sides) is well off. And while that might be true if my clan had been affluent my whole life, I think that in reality it has had the reverse effect. Because I have so much and I am thankful for it, I am more than willing to give it away, more willing to take risks because I know that there is a safety net under me because my parents all give of their resources freely. My prayer is that if I am blessed with children, that they will think the same thing about me- that I give out of my abundance and what’s mine is theirs.

4. Do I have a quiet centre to my life?

The answer to that is, “I’m trying.” There are times when I am in the depths of my depression that I am forced into solitude, but that’s a different kind of quiet than when I’m on an up swing. When I’m really feeling good, I tend to get so busy that I forget to meditate and pray, so it’s a conscious effort to take time out. I have known for a long time that I am a giver in terms of energy. I am perfectly willing to be “that guy.” The guy everyone counts on when errands need to be run or babies need to be watched. As a result, I get drained quickly and often forget to spend that alone time it takes to recharge my batteries. But now that I’m aware of my part in it, I am more careful about who I give my energy to, and more vigilant about my alone time. The part where it gets tricky is with my girlfriend. Sometimes I have trouble defining the line between “me space” and “we space.” Again, a continual process.

5. Have I defined my unique ministry?

In a word, no. One of the things that I have learned about myself over the last five or so years is that I am just terribly interested in everything and I really don’t have any focus when it comes to buckling down and deciding on a career. Everything I think I want I try to combine into something. So far, I want to be theology professor who practices law and networks her office computers on the side. I know I need more clarity, but the bottom line is that I am beginning to feel that I could be more effective as a lawyer than I could be as a pastor/professor, but that is not to say that my work wouldn’t be a ministry. When I think of the work that Dana’s sister Stephanie does as legal counsel to a battered women’s shelter, I know that she is ministering to people far more faithfully than I am. I’ve just preached a few times. She’s been in the trenches, handing out the loaves and fish.

Because of several conversations and a very satisfying Con Law class last night, I feel better about the state of gay America than I have in a long time. What those conversations and class provided was a chance to put the plight of non-heterosexual Americans in some sort of historical perspective… and when you know where you’ve been, you can get a better idea of where you need to go.

First, some definition of terminology. Here is the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution in its entirety:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

In other words, the laws of a state must treat an individual in the same manner as others in similar conditions and circumstances. A violation would occur, for example, if a state prohibited an individual from entering into an employment contract because he or she was a member of a particular race. The equal protection clause is not intended to provide “equality” among individuals or classes but only “equal application” of the laws.

One might wonder why we have to make additional laws to reinforce an equality that the Constitution inherently provides… I don’t have a legal answer for this, but an emotional one. When you’re feeling marginalized, it’s hard not to pass on that marginalization. The Puritans came to America and from the moment they landed on Plymouth Rock, they marginalized the people who already lived here. It is a vicious, vicious cycle. And don’t think for a moment we’ve broken it, either. Whenever you start to believe that the GLBT community is radically inclusive, think about just how long it took for the Human Rights Campaign to support transgendered persons. We all have our prejudices, and there are only a few instances that the Supreme Court has said it is acceptable to write them into law, e.g. to keep prisoners from starting race-based riots.

Laws may be found discriminatory in two different ways. De facto discrimination is a law that is facially neutral, but discriminatory when applied. A concrete example of this would be the separate but equal doctrine set up in Plessy vs. Ferguson. The law was meant to be neutral, but in fact set up even greater disparity between blacks and whites when it was enacted. De jure discrimination is a law that is specifically written to discriminate, such as the Jim Crow laws enacted in the South from the 1880’s to the 1960’s.

Laws can be struck down as discriminatory under the Equal Protection Clause if a minority is considered a suspect class. A suspect class is a group of people that has a history of being discriminated against, and a small percentage of the population so as to limit their ability to defend themselves against the majority. Therefore, they are entitled to stricter levels of scrutiny by the court. The Supreme Court has extended the suspect classification to racial minorities, but have been hesitant to do so with women… most likely because even though there has been a history of discrimination against them, population-wise they are not a minority.

Perhaps I should back up just a few steps and explain what is meant by “strict scrutiny.” With both de facto and de jure discrimination, there are two tiers of jurisprudence. The lowest level is called rational basis. Rational basis means that the government has to provide a good reason as to why it is ok to discriminate, and there are certain instances- such as the aforementioned prison scenario. The second level is called strict scrutiny, and the government’s burden of proof is much, much more complicated. Not only does the reason for discrimination have to be rational, but a compelling governmental interest… and the law must be narrowly tailored to support it. If sexual orientation is found to be a suspect class, then we would be entitled to have laws that discriminate against us looked at under the microscope of strict scrutiny, and a whole host of laws that previously kept us from having the same rights, tax advantages, etc. as heterosexual couples would be struck down.

Though I know of no specific lobbying groups for the inclusion of the GLBT community as a suspect class, I do know that the Supreme Court has protected non-heterosexual Americans under the lowest rational basis review. In Lawrence v. Texas, the Court struck down a statute prohibiting homosexual sodomy on substantive due process grounds. In Justice O’Connor’s opinion, she argued that by prohibiting only homosexual sodomy, and not heterosexual sodomy as well, Texas’s statute did not meet rational basis review under the Equal Protection Clause.

Looking at the way that laws are reviewed and knowing more about the judicial history of other groups that have historically faced discrimination has helped me to breathe a little easier… and to know that even though the work is progressing slowly, it is going forward. In fact, I just have to laugh at all the separate but equal options are being offered to the GLBT community, like civil unions. Haven’t we been there, done that, and bought the t-shirt? Can’t we just skip all that and get to the “happily ever after?” According to the Religious Right, probably not… but at least if history repeats itself, I know there’s a happy ending somewhere.

Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

John 4:6-14

One of the biggest benefits to living in Portland, for me, is jumping into the car and speeding toward the Columbia River Gorge. Sometimes I bring my camera, sometimes I bring my journal… but the last time, I didn’t bring either of these things. I brought Dana.

That’s because Dana and I have a great time when we hike. In fact, if you’re ever in the Gorge with us, you’ll know it. You’ll be able to hear the laughter for miles. It makes up for the fact that we’re not very experienced, we’re not in shape, and we each have a sense that we’re only going to hike until beer-thirty and then call it a day.

On this particular outing, we decided to hike to the top of Multnomah Falls. I’d been there many times, but only climbed as far as the bridge before turning back- not because I needed to gather up courage, but because hiking in torrential rain is not my idea of a good time.

Here’s what they don’t tell you in the guidebooks. Multnomah Falls is rated as an easy hike because the trail is paved, but the switchbacks are kind of steep and after a while, you really start to feel it in your knees and ankles. It’s not the Bataan Death March, but it’s not exactly beginner, either. Therefore, we didn’t think to take a few things that would have come in handy, especially bottles of water.

We got about a third of the way up the trail when we realized that we were really, really thirsty. We slowed our pace. At about the halfway point, wanting water crossed into needing water.

I concentrated on the beautiful scenery. The trees around us were magnificient, and their jagged pattern provided a gorgeous, if not somewhat interrupted, picture of the river. As we climbed higher, ignoring my thirst became more difficult. My mind began to torture me with pictures… ice clinking in a glass, a bottle of Dasani, the squeeze of a lemon slice…

We reached the observation deck, and all I wanted to do was plunge my head in. The fact that the current was literally strong enough to break my neck was enough of a deterrent. I wondered aloud if there was any way I could taste Multnomah Falls, to literally drink it in.

I was so glad that I’d spoken my wish, because Dana knew just what to do. She led me a little farther into the Gorge, away from the falls, to the river that feeds the giant waterfall. It was surreal, as if it warranted a warning. I climbed the rocks sitting in the current until I could cup my hands in the middle of the river, and brought them to my lips.

If joy had a taste, this would be it. I knew the river was alive, and it was as if I’d been able to take the rhythm of the rushing current and incorporate it into my pulse. For a moment, the river and I were one being, and I felt the power of nature in all its fullness.

It was a relationship of which to be mindful. I put one hand into the water again, reaching as far down as I could to pick up a stone cradled in connection. I put it in my pocket, and continued to splash and play. My face and hands were dirty from sweat and a little mud, but I’d never felt so pure.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have lots of memorable Valentine’s Day celebrations. The earliest was when I was in the seventh grade. My boyfriend, Nathan, was staying with his friend David for a while, so I invited both boys to my house and my mom cooked spaghetti. We had a fabulous time with lots of laughs. At the end of seventh grade, Nathan moved to The Woodlands, and unfortunately I have no idea what happened to him.

Middle school romances don’t usually last that long, so the next year I celebrated with Ryan. He came with me to my choir’s Valentine’s Day fundraiser, where I wore all red and sang right to him. He took me to an Italian restaurant, La Mora, and afterward gave me a single silk rose- with an inscription that said, “the day this rose fades is the day I’ll stop loving you.” It was deeply moving for eighth grade love, and sometimes I still wonder what life would have been like if we’d been one of those nauseating couples that met their soulmate in the eighth grade. The best part is that Ryan and I are still a part of each other’s lives, cracking each other up by e-mail when we’re both equally bored.

Kathleen showed up at my dorm room wearing a beautiful blue dress and carrying a dozen roses. Back then, I didn’t have a car, so she drove me back to her house, where she had cooked a magnificient meal and we laughed about how much trouble she’d gone to in order to pick out a good red wine. Being newly 21, neither one of us knew that much about it, but she’d wanted it to be perfect… but she didn’t have to worry. It was.

Matt and I started dating about a month before Valentine’s Day, so I was nervous about what to do for him. As it turned out, a friend gave us tickets to Tales of Hoffmann, so we went to dinner and to the opera. It was perfect without going overboard.

Last year was funny and memorable… I’d bought my then-girlfriend one of those cheesy get-to-know-you type games and we took it with us to Edgefield. Now, before this story really gets started, you must know that she is one of the most competitive people I’ve ever met in my life. Not only did she want to win, she wanted to WIN BY A LOT. So she spins and the card says, “Count the number of dots you rolled and give that many sweet treats to the person on your right.” We were in a hotel room and all the restaurants were closed. She was going to have to make due, and I knew she was screwed. Though not particularly competitive, I was enjoying the fact that there was NO WAY she was going to work her way out of this one. She’d rolled a three.

She took a piece of chocolate out of the box I’d brought and dug out some of the filling with her finger (in my family, we call that a rectal exam). One down, two to go. There was a Diet Pepsi sitting on the dresser. She gave me a sip. Then things got dire. There seemed to be nothing else. “Well,” she said. “Let me dig through my purse. There’s gotta be SOMETHING in there!” She starts rifling around and I start to taste victory. I am just about to set up for the ticker tape parade when I hear an “A-HA!”

It was a mini Tootsie Pop. Checkmate.

This year, I’m looking forward to flirting with lots of people and hearing stories from my friends about how their Valentine’s Day was spent- so make it memorable!