A Little Bit of Everything

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 3 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What aspects of your cultural heritage are you most proud of or interested in?
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My family came to America from Ireland, and there’s nothing about Ireland I don’t want to see in the coming years. The music and food calls to me, and I have Fanagans across the country. How? I don’t really know. But thanks to the magic of WordPress stats, I know that Ireland loves me as much as I love it. 🙂

One of Angela’s patients told me that Lanagans are from county Wexford, but I don’t know if that’s where my grandfather tracked our family or not. I just remember her lovely Irish lilt when she said it.

I know that I’d want to go to Trinity College and see all the sights, but what really interests me about Ireland is just fitting into life for a few days. Going up to the pub and finding people with interesting stories. Singing with everyone to wind down the night.

It just sounds like a very chill vacation to go to Ireland and live like a local. Relax and soak in the social history of the place, perhaps seeing the same people every night so as to get to know them well.

I used to work in a pub, and I’m eager to find that atmosphere again. Perhaps I could bring “Lanagan’s Pub Chili” to Ireland the same way I brought it to Oregon…. by getting my name on the menu.

As I have always said, “the fact that my last name is Lanagan is really what sold it. I don’t think it would have worked out so well for me if my last name was Smith.”

Grief Should Be Sponsored

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 3 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What brands do you associate with?
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I am emotionally eating my way across Texas, and feelings are delicious.

So far, grief has been brought to me by Cool Ranch Doritos the most frequently, followed by an assortment of coffee cake.

Last night, we all gathered and sent pictures for the slide show that plays as people are milling about the room waiting for the service to begin. There turned out to be a fair number in which we all looked equally terrible and were thus chosen. We also went down memory lane and this is the kind of interaction that’s been missing from my life. No phones, just talking and remembering.

It’s also the first significant chunk of time I’ve spent with other people in ages. I’m getting used to being part of a family system again. I’m sure I’ll go back to Baltimore and everything will be too quiet, because the rhythms of my family are not quiet…. although some of us are more into Bluey than others (I’m with the children… it’s great).

This morning I was supposed to go with my dad to Exchange Club, and I overslept. I feel terrible because I know my dad wanted to introduce me to a lot of people. Me oversleeping is the weirdest part of all of this because I’ve been waking up at 0530 since I got here. I think staying up later is finally getting to me, because we didn’t shut down the “party” until after 10:30 last night. I’m used to going to bed long before that.

I used to think it was because I was an old person, and now I think it’s that my circadian rhythm naturally follows the sun. I like going to bed and waking up early. Last night was aberrant because I cannot remember the last time I stayed up that late with other people and didn’t find myself leaking energy at an alarming rate. However, I did sleep very hard.

As a result, I’m feeling quite rested and capable of taking on more today. Yesterday, it felt like I was just running ragged. Angela not being there to hold court and direct us was a palpable feeling, tangible in its depth and breadth. The difference in the energy of the house is staggering, because she was a force of nature.

I see so much of her in my stepsisters, Kelly and Caitlin. It’s comforting that all of her quirks live on in the smallest of ways. I still see Angela’s facial expressions in them, and it always makes me laugh in a knowing way.

I am supposed to go back to Baltimore on Tuesday, but I’m having trouble accepting it. I need more time with my family, but I also need to wrap things up in the Mid-Atlantic one way or the other. My lease ends November 30th, and I will have enough money to move wherever I feel comfortable. I do not know whether that is staying in Baltimore or not. At the very least, DC is still in the running because my sister will always have a federal component to her job and thus, business trips that include spoiling me.

My dad is not sure he wants to change his life by having me live with him, and I’m not sure I want to change my life that way, either. The easiest option is not always the best, but it may prove to be over time. I do not want to live alone anymore, nor do I really want to interview housemates and live with strangers. I also don’t have any income, so getting housing takes some doing. Having money is not enough, and I do not make a living from my combination of web sites, but my stats and earnings are looking better.

Thank you, Fanagans.

The sensible choice for me is to buy a station wagon or an SUV so that when my lease ends, I can pack up the stuff I want to move into my own car and drive it to where it’s supposed to be. There is no way that even a car payment and insurance would add up to what I pay in Uber/Uber Eats/Amazon/etc. a year. I will not have a car payment, though. I will buy a car in cash so that the only bills I have are maintenance and insurance.

I also want to get a service dog, and a service dog big enough to counter balance my weight deserves a huge cargo area in the back. I do not know if my dad wants to live with a dog that big, either. So, we’ll see. My dog is not really negotiable because I need someone there to keep an eye on me. It’s easier in this house because I’m used to it completely. I need help in unfamiliar environments.

My dad suggested taking a road trip with one of my friends to get my car back to Baltimore. I like this idea a lot. Aaron is going to help me pick it out (I stopped writing and talked to both of them, so this is a real thing now). Aaron is a programmer and “shade tree mechanic” who will make sure my engine is solid. It would make me feel better if he came with me if we get an older vehicle, but I’m really not even scared of that if Aaron says that I’m golden.

Ok, Aaron is in for the road trip (I’m chatting with him while I’m writing, so this story is developing… film at 11:00).

It’s nice to have something to be excited about in this garbage dump of a situation.

“We can’t stop here. We’re in bat country.”

Maybe I can talk Aaron into some vlogging as we drive. Our conversations would be hilarious…. I think. Sometimes we just enjoy the silence together. It depends on what kind of mood we’re in.

I suppose that part of my task list for the afternoon is looking on Facebook Marketplace to at least get an idea of what’s out there. I prefer a stick shift, but that may not be possible depending on what kind of cars are available. Stick shifts are not very popular these days.

I’m calling it the “Running Aarons Tour 2025.”

We’ll get to eat at some good restaurants and really take our time if we need it.

The secret to having a great blog is actually living. I haven’t been doing a lot of it. Now, I have a lot more financial freedom to be able to buy experiences. They say that money cannot buy you happiness, but it can buy entrance tickets to things and that’s kind of the same thing. I would much rather have the time of my life than buy something material. It makes my blog lighter than sitting in my room all the time…. but that’s what my mental health has been telling me to do for the longest. Everyone tells me to get out more. Now I can really do it.

“Now I can really do it” must be in quotes because I don’t know that my introversion will actually allow me to make many changes to my lifestyle. I like being, as I once joked with Aada, “the Harper Lee of Your House.” In some ways, I will always be this separate.

I was telling Angela’s night nurse that it’s almost like I don’t belong to one person, I belong to everyone. He said, “that’s poetry.” I never thought of it that way, so Cordero, thank you for the compliment (see, I told you that you’d make it in).

But the pendulum has swung too far in the introverted direction. I can come out of my shell a little more and still keep my life as a writer in balance. I’m not the shut-in that I’ve been, nor do I want to continue that life. I want all of my readers to see more of me, and the only way to do that is to do things I’ve never done before.

Part of it will be travel. I know that I could put together media on the road that would make me happy, and that’s the only goal I can really accomplish. Then I can see if my humor resonates with other people. The last decade has not overall been a happy one, so my entries have not reflected that I’m sometimes funny.

Sometimes.

I’ve been angry and sad and grieving and all of those things, so I’m looking forward to the sun coming out a little bit.

But not today.

Today, grief is being brought to me by Cool Ranch Doritos.

Feelings are delicious.

Watching and Waiting

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What could you do more of?
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In the aftermath of a severe shock is not the time to do anything rash, so my task is to watch and wait over the next few months to see what our new normal looks like as a family. Angela’s presence is already missed, but we are keeping her alive through repeating her favorite phrases and asking ourselves what she would do. None of us learned to load the dishwasher in the first year of medical school.

If my dad noticed that Angela had a particular skill that impressed him, he’d always ask which year of medical school they taught her that. You learn a surprising amount there, the least of which is being able to load an entire cabinet of dishes into the top rack and attempt to add the front end of your car.

Such a large part of our institutional memory is gone, and we’re all grieving differently. I hope that I seem relatable to my stepsisters because I’m not showing outward signs of grief. Because my mother died nine years ago, all other deaths seem to come in stride. It’s not that I’m not sad, not emoting. It’s just an internal thunderstorm……

that usually ends up here…..

I have taken over my stepmother’s old office, and it’s comforting to walk into the room and say, “Alexa, turn on Angela’s office.” All the lamps come on at once and it is instantly homey. I also have a nameplate that says “Angela McCain, MD – Board Certified, Rheumatology. I’ll need to get a new nameplate if I move in with my own name, but surprisingly I have been mistaken for the doctor before. In the 1990s, I worked for her and we both had short red hair. A woman thought she was me and dropped her pants when I walked into the room.

I did not have “patient drops pants” on my Bingo card.

She had shingles, btw.

It was my first diagnosis, seconded with “good pickup.”

“Good pickup” was like a hug from Jesus. It meant we were on the right track and is your basic doctor’s “attaboy.”

It’s so weird that there’s still a rheumatology practice out there in the world without her… that the entire specialty didn’t just stop turning. I’m not being facetious when I say she was one of the top in the world, named to Texas’ Top 100 Doctors every year since 1990. It was unusual to run across a mind as bright as hers, which is why seeing her after the cancer had really taken hold was quite a shock.

Brain cancer is so weird. I’m glad that I arrived in time to see what my dad and sisters had been seeing for months. The one I’ll always remember is that I asked my dad for coffee money, and she said to give me a thousand dollars so I could do whatever I wanted. I did not know whether she just wanted to do something nice for me, or whether she really thought Starbucks’ coffee costs a thousand dollars….. not that it doesn’t.

“Don’t like it too much. These are better than drugs.”

Sometime this week I need to go to the Apple store because the battery on my watch is failing. Then, I can see whether I’d like to be the proud owner of an Apple computer or not. I’ve been mulling over upgrading my iPad for the last year or so, but I also really have an interest in a desktop. So we’ll see. I only spent $3 at Starbucks, so I have $997 left over.

Plus, my dad said that he would get me a birthday gift and it hasn’t been until now that I’ve thought of anything I needed. My iPad is getting so old that it’s not taking the newest versions of apps or the OS. I would lose the headphone jack, but gain a ton of processing power.

My dad would tell me to watch the latest Apple release video. That’s not actually a bad idea.

I’ve got time on my hands until the funeral, because my main job is staying at the house with the dogs while my dad arranges the business of death. My cousin Jason is the funeral director, and I think my dad is going to ask him to sing. He was once on American Idol, and Angela adored his voice.

It’s going to be a beautiful service, and I look forward to seeing old friends I haven’t seen since high school.

However, it is not until Saturday. I will be watching and waiting until then.

Go Home

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
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The best piece of advice I’ve gotten lately was from me. For the last few months, I’ve been telling myself to go home. Pick up all the pieces you dropped when you left for DC in 2015. I even contacted Dana and told her that I was incredibly sorry and would like to be her friend if she wanted that. It’s not something I saw in my future, but I decided that if my body was whispering to me to clean up a mess, that’s a big one.

No word, but that wasn’t the point. I have no control over what other people are going to do, but I knew that I wanted to reach out. I have a feeling that no matter what, I’ll never hear from Dana or Aada again, but it’s okay. I don’t have to cry because it’s over. There’s plenty to smile over when I think of our relationships happening at all. And sometimes, I get stats from their geographic areas so I pretend that they’re still reading because they love me, even if they don’t want to reach out.

Or maybe they just hate me that much….. but I don’t care how they feel about me. It cannot be all bad if they’re still willing to listen to my silly stories.

Which are tremendous.

My stepmom died on Sunday of six brain tumors. I’m thinking about moving in with my dad so that neither one of us has to live alone, but neither one of us are sure whether we want that. It’s a big decision, and honestly doesn’t have as much to do with how we feel about each other as it does with money. I could really screw up by moving to a state without Medicaid expansion. My dad and I are also both really private people, but the house he has is large enough that we’d never see each other unless we really wanted to do so.. I’m glad that we’re both in “thinking about it” mode, because here’s the thing… people are saying that it’s my dad who shouldn’t live alone, but I have more problems than he does at times. It’s more of a case of we need each other.

If I am allowed to come home.

Don’t get me wrong. Maryland is home, and so is Texas. I have a feeling that I would feel the same in Texas that I do every time I move back, which is that I don’t really have a home. I don’t fit in anywhere. I’m too Oregon/Maryland for Texas, and too Texas for Oregon/Maryland. Perhaps I would be happier in Canada or Europe, and that will be decided in the coming years.

But right now, my internal body clock is saying “you’ve already gone big. Go home.”

Going big was a hospitalization that garnered me a bipolar disorder diagnosis with psychotic features. I have never been psychotic before, and I have no memory of telling the doctors anything that would land me a diagnosis like that. So, since I’ve been in recovery from all of it, I just feel the same as I always did. But I’m different, and I know I am. I don’t know what I’m capable of doing- am I headed for a disability case or a working media company or both?

I choose both.

If I’m allowed.

My sisters are coming over for dinner tonight, and we’re probably going to get in the hot tub. I’ve found that the hot tub is the best place to discuss any of this stuff. The water is just so calming as it swirls around our problems.

And it’s our hot tub time machine due to all the important conversations that have happened there since the 1990s, when we moved in. I don’t just see my family presently, but all the people I’ve invited over since I was a senior in high school.

Aada is quietly resting in my soul, with me in spirit even though I had to drag her kicking and screaming to Texas. I know she’s mad at me, but I need her. I’m taking all of the words she’s already told me and whispering them to myself, because I know she knows this situation better than most. That I’d have a hard time with this death on multiple levels. When it gets quiet, I feel her arm around me.

Part of going home is rectifying all my mistakes, and betraying Aada was a big one. I cannot make her feel safe with me, but that does not mean that she won’t show up in my mind when I call.

Because if there is a home to be had for me, it is actually in the cloud.

I Thought This Conversation Would Be Later in the Year

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

There’s a hospital bed in the library, unused and waiting to be picked up. The best laid plans…………

The brain cancer took my stepmother’s ability to swallow and to talk by the time I arrived in town. She whispered her last words to me, which were exactly what I needed to hear to move on in life and close the loop. There was nothing left unsaid between us, and I can go forward in all that she taught me.

Angela planned to hold court in the living room, but once she was in her own bed with her dogs, she didn’t want to move again… and we didn’t make her.

We walked her all the way to the river, and let go when it was time.

I just didn’t think it would happen so fast.

Walk in the light while you have it……..

It’s Still “The Eminem Show”

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What’s your all-time favorite album?
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This is of course tied with Robert Glasper’s “Black Radio” and Jason Moran’s “Ten.” These three albums are what’s carrying me through my life in pain and joy.

And right now, there’s a lot of pain.

I wrote about my favorite album last year, how “The Eminem Show” molded me over a number of years. But today is so quiet that I cannot focus. There are people coming at 11:30 to deliver sandwiches, including my former high school principal. As it turns out, she’s a good friend of my dad’s.

My sister is coming over later, and my stepsisters after her. We’re all trying to make the most of our family time because I’m not in town all that often. That may change- we’ll see. Nothing has been decided about our future.

Nothing.

We’re all in this together, as my dad keeps repeating. And we are.

I wish I could say more and will in the coming months, but I’ve reached a crossroads in my life where I’m wondering what my direction should be. I have a lot of choices in front of me, and normally all those questions would go to Aada, who is I’m sure grateful for the reprieve from the constant barrage of e-mail I’d normally be sending her about now.

But this time, there is no “Jesus Christ, just come pick me up..”

That was our code when I’d enjoyed all I could take.

I miss my darling girl, but I have to remember that I chose to separate from her through thought, word, and deed. Things have been done that cannot be undone. That does not make grief at not being able to talk easier. I wish that she would accept my apologies with all that I am, but I do not think that is possible.

What I do think is possible is that this is supposed to be a learning curve for me. That I cannot act in a vacuum. I can wish for forgiveness all I want, but that does not mean it will be granted.

I know what’s on my heart without being allowed to know what’s on hers.

I’m writing about this grief to avoid writing about others, but I’m really going through it right now. I could use all of your good thoughts because there is no hope of anything but major life transitions in store.

The thing I must concentrate on is walking to the river without blinking.

So far, I have. I’ve been afraid and shy and all those things.

But we’re still getting closer with each step.

I Can’t Imagine

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What would your life be like without music?
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Before I was born, my dad got 26 scholarships in trumpet performance to places like The Julliard School, Tanglewood Institute, Eastman, etc. He’d just gotten first chair all-state, meaning that his senior year of high school he was literally the best young player in Texas.

Before I was born, my mother was a piano performance and pedagogy major, often accompanying my father. She’d played piano at her church since she was a kid, and was a middle school choir director back then, transferring to elementary school music when I was older.

My mother tried to teach me the piano. My father tried to teach me the trumpet. To this day, I play the radio better than either.

When my father was in the ministry, the music programs at our church were unmatched. Therefore, my music education was twofold. I took trumpet at school and sang in the choir on the weekends.

I am a much better singer than trumpet player, because I don’t get stage fright when I sing………….

Once, after a particularly misguided attempt at a solo, a parishioner said, “I’m sorry your trumpet misfired.” So, you see, I was TREMENDOUS.

I’ve been able to read music almost as long as I’ve been able to read books- with the caveat that I’m golden as long as it’s not bass clef. My mother’s piano lessons did not take on me. I still can’t read bass clef and it’s been 40 years.

“Leslie, could you read the bass part up an octave?”
“No. No, I cannot.”

My mother was giving a piano lesson when her water broke. So when you ask me what my life would be like without music, I can only give you a blank stare. I’m steeped in it, performing for the first time when I was three. I stood on the chancel with the rest of the children’s choir (with my mother conducting) and my mother couldn’t get me to open my mouth. When everyone was filing off stage, that’s when I decided what the people could really use was a solo.

I AM A PROMISE! I AM A POSSIBILITY!

I am not sure whether my mother or my father stopped me.

My imagination is not good enough to unweave mental material this thick.

Sitting and Waiting

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

We are all just sitting and waiting in different configurations, but at this point, we do not know what it is that’s coming. We know the destination, but not the winds in the road it will take us.

We know that no matter what’s going on, the puppies still need to be fed and the laundry still needs to be done. We know that the pool has leaves in it that we forgot, but that’s so low on the priority list as to be completely laughable.

The air feels lighter in Houston now that it’s all clear.

Everything becomes clear…

In the end.

I’m Not Really a Joiner

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
How do you celebrate holidays?
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I celebrate holidays when I’m with my family, but when I’m alone they’re just like every other day. I write. I drink lots of coffee. Repeat.

I think it’s because after all those years of growing up in the church I sort of got the idea that I was a stagehand, and not necessarily worthy of holiday magic myself. I like to give holiday cheer more than receive because I genuinely do not know how to receive it.

Do I believe in the power of waiting for the baby for Christmas? Of course I do. But I’m in charge of creating that liturgy, not following it…….

This year, I’ll take it all in.

Or at least I’ll try.

When the Boein’s a Goin’

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

With my apartment being an absolute shit show, there are perks to being in Texas. My dad and stepmom have a huge five bedroom house with a pool and hot tub. Light streams through the windows because my bedroom isn’t halfway underground. There’s good coffee here, and plenty of places to curl up with my laptop and drink it.

I’m home alone with Bailey and Bridget, the small dogs who are keeping everything calm. I just fed them breakfast, and now they’re laid out on a king-sized bed because life is ruff.

I’m at the kitchen table, the sunrise at my back. The soundtrack to my morning is the ice machine refilling…. music if you like ice as much as I do. It makes the crunch ice like you get at Dairy Queen.

Again, there are perks to being in Texas.

My flight got moved to yesterday because my family is going through a lot and I’m the one with time on my hands. I’m trying to be helpful, but I just got here. Things will unfurl over the next few days, but I have a learning curve in front of me that I’m not afraid to meet.

Actually, I’m really afraid.

But it is in these moments that we feel fear and move past it, because there’s a greater purpose to our work.

The learning curve this morning was not knowing how to work a fancy coffee machine.

This afternoon, the sky’s the limit.

I’ll Have What She’s Having… A History

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What are your favorite types of foods?
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Dana was indignant when I told her that my ex-girlfriend’s mac and cheese was better than hers. Dana and I weren’t together. I know that I would have been sleeping in the backyard had I said that to my wife. But Dana, already being very crushed out on me (without me knowing it) was hurt. Really hurt that she covered up with humor, telling my ex-girlfriend when we saw her at church.

She looked at Dana and said, “I think Leslie likes the package that comes with the mac and cheese.”

This was quoted to me by Dana for the next seven years.

I was just trying to pay my ex-girlfriend a compliment… and Dana, too, actually.

Because thanks to the pair of them, my mac and cheese is my favorite.

And I’m starting to like the package that comes with it.

Every Day

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 2 Comments
Daily writing prompt
How often do you walk or run?
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One of the bonuses of not having a car is having so much exercise built into my day. I walk everywhere I go unless it’s too far, and even then I have to walk to the train station. I do belong to a gym, but that’s a convenience. I get enough exercise as is.

I don’t run at the gym, though. I have cerebral palsy, and it’s hard for me to keep my balance while I’m going that fast. So, I set the program on the treadmill to raise my heart rate with incline instead of speed. Exercising feels more like a hike in the hills than a marathon.

I prefer hiking in nature, like when I used to drive out the Columbia River Gorge. But at the same time, it is still relaxing to hike through the wilds of daytime television. It reminds me of when I used to go to the gym with my mom after school and we’d walk to “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” Now that Oprah has moved on, it is generally just a cacophony of Judge Judy and Maury Povitch.

Sometimes I bring my own entertainment with Bluetooth headphones, watching YouTube videos or listening to podcasts. My favorite is “Murder, Mystery, and Makeup” by Bailey Sarian. My sister said, “you don’t even wear makeup!” I said, “that’s how good Bailey is. The stories draw you in.” Each episode is about an hour, so the perfect length for a treadmill program.

It’s gotten to where the only time I spend watching TV is at the gym, because it’s guilt free. I am still doing something while I’m watching. And in fact, the treadmill is really the only machine on which I feel safe because the others threaten my balance too much. I’m afraid of falling because it’s happened so many times with disastrous results. In no way should I ever try the elliptical again……….

So, the short answer to “how often do you walk or run?” is “A LOT.”

Just don’t ask me if I’m any good at it.

Rarely

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Do you see yourself as a leader?
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I do not see myself as a leader because I put my thoughts out into the ether. People rarely comment on these pages that are connected to me in real life. Therefore, occasionally I will be blown over by the things people will say about my writing because I didn’t even know they were reading. I do know that I lead the pack in vulnerability, because none of my other friends are willing to spill their guts online with the same frequency. Therefore, I know that people look to me when it comes to saying the hard part out loud.

My writing is basically Hemingway:

  1. Write hard and clear about what hurts.
  2. The first draft of everything is shit.

If I’m going to be a true leader, I need to step up my game and start working with an editor regularly. These pages are all first drafts, and carry that stench. But from what I gather from fans, my first drafts aren’t too bad to read, they just need polishing….. or at least, that is my take. I am constantly surprised when people tell me that I am a wonderful writer because if I know anything, Brene Brown would take one look at my blog and say “congrats on so many shitty first drafts.” It’s not because my writing is shitty. It’s that the SFD is the part of the writing process where you’re just getting it out. It’s more akin to verbal vomit than a working piece. She wouldn’t even be judging my writing, just the rawness of it.

In order to step up my game, I need to workshop and perhaps stop being so dedicated to being self-taught. Depending on my financial picture in 2026, I’d like to do some professional writer’s retreats where I learn to write in different styles. I am thinking that taking a class on fiction wouldn’t hurt…. and neither would taking a class on learning to use AI as a writer.

My stance on AI is that I will not use it to generate text for me, but I will talk to it like a colleague to spur creativity in my brainstorming phrases, as well as it taking a significant chunk of research off my back. I do think I have been a leader in advocating for assistive AI, because I came up with an interesting theory, and it is twofold:

  1. The CPU is modeled after the autistic brain because autists created computers. However, we did not see its neurodivergent patois until the CPU could process language.
  2. Loneliness is crippling for neurodivergent people and our relationship track records. I wonder how much of creating these personal digital assistants is designing a friend who can’t leave you.

I think that idea is Meta’s next big commercial…. the friend that’s online when your humans aren’t……

I have a ton of creative ideas, but I’m an unusual role in an organization. I’ve been tested and my office personality is what’s called “The Plant.” The plant is the person who can sit in a meeting and synthesize everything that’s being said and come up with new ideas that benefit everyone. It’s a fantastic, creative role that most companies, in my experience, do not like.

That’s because the role is basically “INFJ dreamer.” No one knows how to harness your weaker skills like organization and execution so that you can fly on your own, because nine times out of 10 companies do not want you to be new and different.

I do not see the world as it is. I see the world as it could be. Therefore, I’m someone who would probably excel working in a startup where great ideas are actually needed. I did not always fit in at a state institution like UH, where academia is a river you cannot fight. The current is slow, and there’s too many places where your boat can run adrift.

But as I have said, my cognitive behavioral group is saying that I would be better served by applying for disability because bipolar disorder is debilitating at times and I cannot be counted on to be consistent in my energy levels. There’s so much more that goes into having a job than just being good at it. For me, the hardest part of having a job is getting there.

It was easier getting to the kitchen because I was always so excited to be there. But I’m not a leader in the kitchen. I need to be told what to do and how to do it most of the time, but I catch on fast. In an office, I’m just a neurodivergent mess. I fit better in the world as a writer left to my own devices, because my own iron structure is the one I’ll follow.

I am trying to be a leader in getting my neurodivergent cookbook together, and my coauthor is going to meet up with me soon so we can get started. It’s also looking like I may be in Houston longer than I thought, possibly moving home for a while to take care of some family business. So, Evan can come and visit me at “the parents’ house” and we can write our book in the hot tub. This does not sound like a bad deal at all.

Alternatively, I would love to go to Portland sometime next year because it’s been a while since I’ve seen both Evan and Bryn. So whichever city Evan and I choose, we’ll be working more closely together. I believe in this book and so do a lot of other people, and I don’t want to let myself down, either.

It’s hard thinking about being in Houston longer than I thought, because I will miss my group here- they’re the ones slowly putting me back together. But my family is the most important thing to me so if I need to be in Houston, that’s where I’ll be. There is nothing keeping me from moving next year or the year after. It’s just that my immediate need is to help where I can while we’re all adapting and changing. “Family business” is nebulous, I know, but you’ll hear more as we go along. I’m just trying to use an abundance of caution because I hurt Aada with my stories. I don’t want to hurt anyone else.

I think that my relationship with Aada is a teaching tool for better or for worse. Our relationship was a model for the digital age- defying closeness at times and repelling each other at others. But it’s an interesting anthropological idea that relationships changed as did the medium through which we create them. I don’t know that I have helped anyone, but it would make me feel good to know that in reading these pages I have reached other people in the same boat.

But honestly, even if no one is going through anything similar to me, the fact that I write so intimately about everything makes other people open up to me. You don’t get vulnerability without giving it. Sometimes it’s tough wearing my heart on my sleeve, but I do it. It allows everyone else to show up unarmed.

It’s leading, just from the back.

Another Letter That May Never Be Read -or- Working Backwards, Part II

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Love,

Leslie

When you go to the doctor, they do not diagnose you with psychotic features. I know you still have enough empathy for me to see that.

I will never in my lifetime figure out the mystery of who I was really talking to on Facebook that day, or days. However long it took to convince me that our mutual acquaintance was seriously interested in me, enough to invite me to an ice hotel. I don’t think it was you, but I don’t know anyone who has that much information on me. It’s not that I think you did anything, there were just too many random coincidences that everyone else said were impossible.

Your spirit was with me in the hospital as I grappled with being taken into the psych ER, not knowing truth from fiction. Everything reminded me of you because you’re so medical-minded, anyway. Therefore, I do not know if I was telling myself truth or fiction based on having my computer in front of me one moment, being told to go to the hospital to meet Heytch, and being in the psych ward the next. I do remember walking the streets of Baltimore, doing a running monologue about my life and all the people in it. I even sang the American and Canadian anthems at full voice at a crosswalk because I was convinced I was on camera and the lights were coordinated just for me.

This would seem psychotic to a lot of people. It was my way of dealing with fear. That a camera is always there to capture when I’ve had a dumbass attack and it leads me to not leaving the house. It’s also not a stretch to think you’re on camera in any city in the world. Walking, talking, and singing was my way of reclaiming space in the world. To shed the bother of being bothered that I’m on camera at all. It’s not rational to be bothered that you’re on camera anymore. If you aren’t doing anything stupid, a crowd is a great place to hide. If you are, welcome to the next popular YouTube short.

Once truth from lies became revealed, it left me confused forever at the conversations I’d been having over the internet. What were they for, exactly?

What is with the repetitive phrase, “you are always the best” in both genuine and sarcastic tones?

Why did this drama engulf me? I am not pitying myself. I am genuinely curious. It seemed like an intervention of sorts, but I have no idea who really got me to the hospital. It just doesn’t seem like a lie Heytch and Counselor would buy into….. yet they are also the people who have the most information about me.

As long as I live, I will never understand why our connection started with such purity and ended with pyrite on both sides. The fool’s gold for me was thinking that I was going to live in Africa with Heytch, and in no way did I put that idea in my head. I genuinely don’t know where it came from, nor do I know why someone would call themselves my River Song unless they already knew I was a Whovian. All of these conversations have been marked as hallucinations because I didn’t take any screenshots, so it seems like I’m lying when I’m not. I’ve had real conversations I cannot prove I actually had…. which is apparently a feature and not a bug.

“There is a bug in the electrical system.”

It as if I was pulled out of being simply a citizen of Locker C and dropped back in, but the world had moved in the time I’d been hopping planets.

Being caught up is not the same thing as being psychotic. I was definitely not caught up, because I was going off the words of people on the Internet and AGAIN I wish I could have remembered to take screenshots, because you would have been impressed at Heytch’s game. It was smooth.

So there was lots going on after I got out of the hospital that I didn’t know how to talk to you about, because I thought you had access to facets of my life that most people don’t. It’s why unburdening yourself of your lie came at such an inopportune time. If my doctors are right, and I hallucinated everything, my leftover emotions come from mania. If I am right and these conversations did happen, then there are a lot of unresolved feelings between us. Strangely, I don’t know which would be more comforting…. to know it was all a hallucination or to know that my world is so different from others.’

I think and feel that you isolated me from my friends and family, starting from the very beginning, so I am struggling to forgive that you think I’ve been manipulating you this whole time. We need to both come clean about the fact that we did a number on each other and there are no winners here. I would love to rebuild trust with you, but the only way to do that is to make you feel safe first. I don’t know how to do that, and I regret that you have to stop teaching me for your own well-being.

But the reality is starting to set in that I promised to be an “all the way to the river” friend. I meant it, and my mental illness meant to ruin us. It isolated me from you out of protection when I didn’t need protection.

You accuse me of using your traumas, that I need power over you, when that has never been my point. My point has always been that we are mirror images of each other, that when my left hand moves your right twitches. I have laid out my own flaws and failures on the table and fortunately or unfortunately most of those stories from the last 12 years involve you because you isolated me from my friends and family.

In my deepest heart of hearts, I know I’ll never meet anyone like you. You are simply extraordinary. That’s why I can’t seem to forget as much as I want to in order to move on. I’m still working out unresolved feelings, writing our story all the way to the end….. because even after you exit, there’s still me to deal with.

The question on my mind today is, “why didn’t you Skype her when that was a thing you could do?”

First of all, I apologize for being so talkative.

Dear Aada,

Uber Allies

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

When you don’t own one, a car is a magical thing. When you don’t own one, it doesn’t matter whether someone is willing to let you drive their Camaro or their Yugo. Each will get you from place to place in a manner which you control. I have in my pocket a device that lets me summon a car from anywhere and I still miss just throwing all my stuff in the trunk and taking off. And because of Uber, it’s not really the driving that I miss. It’s the trunk. It’s having a place to store my stuff that does not include carrying it on my person.

My backpack can be really quite heavy.

On the other hand, it takes a village to get me out of the house and having a driver waiting does create forward motion. I have it in my profile that I’m handicapped so that they will wait more than two minutes before leaving, but I do not abuse the privilege. It’s just nice to know that there’s a backup plan for when my cerebral palsy decides “now’s a good time to fall on the stairs.” Or, more likely, “now’s a good time to bang your shoulder so hard on a door jamb you’ll see stars.” I don’t have angle of convergence or depth perception due to lack of 3D vision, which generally means that the left-hand side of the door is outside my periphery and I do not realize I am too close to it. The stairs thing is not knowing how far up to lift my foot, provided I actually see them first. Generally, stairs also come out of nowhere. Because of my depth perception, though, I am more likely to be safe coming down the stairs than going up. The way I trip the most often is not lifting my foot high enough for the next step, which generally leads to skinned knees and ripped pants.

The same things that happen when I’m walking happen when I’m driving, scraping bumpers instead of knees. When you only have one field of vision at a time, there are going to be blind spots. If I do buy a car over the next several years, I want it to have as much technology as is financially feasible because things like lane assist and backup cameras were built for people like me.

The reason I don’t think I’ll have to buy a car over the next few years is that between Uber and all my Maryland Transit benefits there’s really no percentage in also owning a car (alternatively, my MTA ID picture is STUNNINGLY bad so buy a car and I won’t have to show it…..). I think what I’m feeling now is grief.

It is a letting go to give up on driving because there is something about owning a car that even Uber cannot offer, and that’s freedom. If I want to go somewhere, I still have to wait for someone to pick me up. If I want to go somewhere, I have to make sure I have everything I need in a zipped bag so nothing falls out…. I might never see that car or that driver again. If I want to go somewhere, I have to know where I want to go in advance.

When I drove, I didn’t always know where I was going until after the car had been idling for a few minutes.

In this letting go is a new collaboration of tools to get around town, because even though I would like to be able to pick Aaron up from the airport and take road trips to the beach and all the things you do when you drive, I am perfectly comfortable letting someone else accidentally run a red light. My freedom is gained in not having to worry about tickets or insurance.

Uber is here to get me where I need to go, but I’m still mourning a loss that I don’t know whether is temporary or permanent. I’m going to go with temporary, because I can’t think about never driving again. However, it is true that part of the reason I moved to DC in 2015 and haven’t gone back to Texas or Oregon is that the public transit on the east coast is better than in either of those states. In Houston, I absolutely had to have a car. In Portland, it was a little better.

When I had to have a car, I managed. I’m a much better driver when there’s someone else in the car with me to help point out other drivers I might not see…. but again, when and if I buy a car, I will have technology to bail me out. My need for a passenger has been replaced by cars being their own best back seat drivers.

There’s another plus to Uber, though. I’m always picked up in the latest and greatest cars, getting to see all of them instead of my same one every time. I’ve been impressed with all makes and models, to the point that if I said to myself, “you’ve worked very hard this year. Pick out exactly what you want,” I would have no idea where to start.

Again, when you don’t have a car, you’re just impressed by all magical boxes. It doesn’t have to have bells and whistles, it just has to go from point A to point B.

Uber has been my ally, so really what I have to think about is “what is your real loss here? Are you really freaked that you have to wait for a ride or do you just feel infantilized?”

Wow. Now we’re cooking with gas.