I am not a politician. I am just a private citizen. I barely know how to work WordPress blocks… even though I thought WordPress hung the moon 25 years ago. I prefer the classic editor, but it does not make my entries appear in the same way. So, I put up with blocks because a Fireside chat is what we all need right now. The world is a mess, and I’m going to try not to curse as much as I normally do because I have found that people are very precious when you curse online, but not when they do.
I’m introducing the Fireside Chat idea to interest you in a community conversation. So far, it’s all been me. You’ll have access to premium content on an app that’s available worldwide. One of my problems is that the Finland category on Medium is not actually available in Finland. Subscribe here for premium content if you like to read. Subscribe to Medium if you like audiobooks. I do not read my own stories (I get too choked up), but there’s a handy dandy AI voice that will read them, and it looks cool to see my name on my phone when I’m listening.
My favorite conversation this week came from Christy, my social media maven because I’m old and she’s not.
Leslie: I like to listen to myself on Medium because I have to find out how, in a sense, it preaches. Christy: That’s why you’re a professional.
When you are chosen by God to be a leader, not in a political way… more akin to being sick to your stomach because you know you’ve been given talent, and you cannot refuse that call anymore. I am the product of everything I’ve ever been, and the thing that most people miss about me is the entire saying………..
That a jack of all trades is often better than a master of none. It’s not better for everything, but it is better for synthesizing information as you take it in. What gets me up in the morning is working on solutions to big problems. The American left is under attack with people thinking it’s perfectly ok to say to the press or introduce bills in Congress to erase progress. Do you think that trans soldiers who have been discharged deserve it?
At that point, you can sit and spin… today only, you can take a ride to the shoulder.
I shouldn’t have to take this much anxiety medicine to deal with my day. I am used to taking .5 of clonazepam to prevent panic attacks. Because I get 60 pills a month and don’t take them every day (I save them up in case my scrip is on hold at the pharmacy. I cannot go a day without some in my bag, because it’s a comfort item. I know I am prepared. I could go a day without taking twice my normal amount before two things happened at once. My US passport was invalidated, and a man broke into my apartment.
I’m being picked up in two minutes because I will cut a bitch for a Diet Coke right now. Time for some hardcore Wawa action.
Hold please.
I am home with pies and all is right with the world. I buy them for breakfast, my safe food in the toaster- apple with some sharp cheddar cheese fresh out of the oven is better and healthier than a doughnut. But I like doughnuts, too. I just eat them less. I don’t tend to go with big meals when I first wake up. I just need a little something on my stomach so that my coffee doesn’t burn all the way to my asshole. This gets worse when I drink alcohol or make spaghetti, so I switched to nonalcoholic beer and pesto sauce to survive middle age.
I eat the French way, because when I was heavier I gained a lot of wisdom from “French Women Don’t Get Fat.” It’s applicable for men, too.. The entire point is that French food is too rich to eat a lot of it, so don’t.
American portions are out of control. When I order from a restaurant, I will order one meal, or two if they’re buy one, get one free. This will last four days. When I go out to eat, I don’t go out to eat. That’s because I’m an Uber One member and getting food delivered is cheaper than taking an Uber to the restaurant. I will walk if I want something that’s within a half mile. It’s the time of year. I enjoy snow, and it’s snowing right now. Truly, it’s not a problem to walk in the snow. It is a problem to walk when it’s snowing. After the roads are frozen, you have little pieces of ice blowing at your face. So, I don’t wait until the snow melts to get outside. Just stopping is fine.
However, if you go to the restaurant, you don’t get the buy one meal, get one free deals. I go and sit at the bar with my Diet Coke with grenadine sometimes just to talk to people if I feel like socializing, but as a general rule I write while I’m listening to nothing but the HVAC in the background. The sound of my own typing mellows me out, and I have upped my anti-anxiety medication in order to stop my physical panic and allow me to slow down. This is yielding results.
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It’s a double entendre because on the Internet, I cannot shut up. In real life, I try to escape talking any way that I can. It’s almost as if I social masked for so many years that I decided I was over it. The turning point for me was establishing that I do not like the phone and I do not care if you think I’m weird. I will adjust to the fact that you think it’s weird I don’t like to talk if you will give me a heads up that I need to talk to you…. and even then, I cannot always respond. I get demand avoidance over speaking because I need to choose my words carefully. I need to pore over every one as if they are precious pearls of wisdom…. because they are.
But only to me.
This web site is not useful for fawning all over myself, and if you’ll notice, I have noticed. That there’s no guts or glory without “writing about what hurts.” It is not because I will get a bigger audience that way; it is not that I will be adored any more or paid any more if I capitulate to the demands of my audience. It’s that I will have written a mountain of work that does not teach me anything about myself when I go back and read it.
I don’t want to know what I had for lunch today, and I can bore the everliving shit out of myself when I go on about Linux. I do it anyway because that is what is interesting to me that day. I just don’t go back and read it. That is for other people who have not stood where I was standing when I wrote it.
I am not immune to the fact that a lot of my stats are bots and are therefore inflated. But over a thousand of you get my words delivered to your desk or phone most days- today three times because I’m agitated about the whole world. That’s actually a thing about being neurodivergent. Our sense of injustice is fine-tuned, which is why I beat myself up badly for every mistake I make and also apply that feeling of anger towards the world when it is burning.
Make no mistake, I am an internal dumpster fire looking for ice because I am overloaded with the needs of my friends both spoken and not. Just because I am not in contact with my friends doesn’t mean my mirror neurons don’t feel them moving in the world. My heart walks out of my chest on a daily basis because I actually know people in Finland and Ukraine who feel threatened. I know Finnish immigrants who are scared for their relatives, and same for people in the US with relatives in China.
It scares me to the point that I will never visit, because my favorite Chinese blogger was threatened by the CCP. He escaped to Hong Kong and is now being actively blacklisted from the YouTube algorithm because apparently the CCP has some influence there.
I do not go where I am not wanted, and China sure the hell does not want me. I would bust them up when I got home. That’s because I notice everything that other people don’t.
I won’t remember your name.
But I’ll remember the way you smiled and what shoes you wore if they were cute.
I’ll remember little things forever, like if I offer you a Diet Coke and you say, “make sure it’s loaded with Jack,” I’ll remember you like Jack until I die.
But your name will not be important.
Your face is.
I memorize lines in faces and go carefully over them, like Mary “pondering them in my heart.” In a lot of ways I am breaking open over the mistakes I’ve made because they’re final and I have to grieve them even though they were necessary to let go of the person I was and become something new.
My whole fight with Supergrover revolved around us both slinking away because we thought we didn’t deserve each other, over and over in a loop that didn’t end until I finally called an end to it. I was rude and rough because I was wet cat claws out. It wasn’t necessary for her, but it was necessary for me.
I didn’t have enough strength to leave without being angry, because hers is the only picture in my mind that’s in color and never desaturates with time. It never will, because the chemicals she left on my palm metaphysically do not lift and won’t.
You do not accept grief, you learn to live around it. I fully believe that there’s a part of each of us that believes the other is not real and are too scared to face our demons. It was easier for her to run than it was to put on her big girl panties and talk it out. Over and over it was this way until she finally told me my narrative was tired.
Easy to pigeonhole a narrative as tired when you’ve never actually addressed anything and I have. Like, I still have questions that now I have to care won’t get answered, and I feel that she has a fuck ton of responsibility that she just decided wasn’t there.
She used my crush as an excuse for years not to get close to me after already dumping everything about her into me that made her interesting in the first place. So I just carry it, and it sits while I wrestle with her all night, walking away with my hip disfigured. It’s just better this way because now I’m only getting the responses I want because I made them up. She turned into a wire monkey long ago, ignoring my cries for affection and closeness as she twisted in a net of her own making.
We alienated each other because we got too close, too fast. Then we pushed each other way….. until the trauma bond started to itch and we’d come together closer than ever….. for a little while.
Kuuma.
Kylma.
Caliente.
Frio.
Hot.
Cold.
Over and over through the years, which is why my pattern recognition says that even though she’s not talking, she’s always listening. A pen pal relationship lives inside you, always. It’s funny that her words come out of my mouth constantly and yet I cannot imitate her properly in person.
But I’ve got her patois down.
What you are seeing is the product of someone completely different than me also being me through social masking what I thought she was. All autistic people need models for social masks, and in retrospect it’s a mixed bag that I chose her. That’s because in some sense, she’s taken on my personality as well. I have turned her into a cook, she’s turned me into a boss.
I couldn’t have made it here without her, and yet I’m good. Thanks.
She broke me down and built me up because her way of thinking was so different than mine. I don’t mean that she emotionally manipulated me in the slightest. I mean that she grew up in a military family and it provided her a lot of structure that I never had. I was social masking perfection and trying to be interesting to someone I view as the brightest mind in the natural world.
I wish I were being hyperbolic.
You just have to understand why my brain is on steroids, why I no longer struggle with suicidal ideation or really depression and anxiety. It’s all autism. All of it. When I can manage my emotions, I do better. Managing my emotions comes from writing it out and not bringing my voice into it. I’m too emotional on the page- in person I’m overwhelming and I know it.
The thing I liked most about her is that if I’m complicated, she’s The TARDIS.
She’s popped off at me too often now. When I try to defend myself, it’s manipulation. All her darts are fair game. Her narrative is tired. Write all you want and I’ll respond.
That turned into “I’m frightened by your output even though I logically know you’re a writer and I’m not so I will completely shut down and hope you don’t notice.” I noticed.
I’m there when she’s all snuggles and light, but I realized that was her social mask. That in all honesty, if I was getting the bitch on wheels, I was actually getting her inner monologue instead of the bullshit that everyone else gets. What made her invincible made me realize she loved me because she realized she didn’t have to front. She could just say, “Lanagan, fuck off.”
Sometimes I wrote it at the end of my letters just to save her some typing.
I feel bad that only my side of the story will ever get told, because she’s more wonderful than I am.
We are both perfect in our flaws, and I want our relationship to rest in peace. She’s back where she belongs, because she decided that traveling with me wasn’t worth it about the time I decided I was done. It was a natural conclusion because I know what I don’t want and it’s someone that completely shuts down and expects me to guess what they’re thinking and what mood they’re in. I don’t pick up social cues.
I have to focus on local so it calms me enough to talk about global. I am over focusing on problems. I am focusing on solutions. The plan to expatriate is real unless the people revolt. There’s probably not a chance of that because Kamala flat out lost. She lost both the popular vote and the electoral college. America has spoken and Project 2025 is everything they wanted and so much more that people regret their votes after being told over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over that all of this would spell destruction and it just wasn’t worth the time to pay attention or to vote. When people get overwhelmed they tune out.
Pod did not, in fact, save America.
I am not bitching about one election loss. I am saying that out and out fascism is already here and enough people aren’t alarmed enough to care about me and my issues, so why not go to a place where they already do? If Democrats continue to capitulate, it will not take one election to restore my passport rights, it will take eight of them alternating. My rights will always be up for grabs and my passport always at risk of being invalidated.
There is a possibility gay marriage will become this way again, and abortion already is. I’m not old enough to be able to relax on body autonomy because I cannot think of a worse idea than pregnancy at 47
I’ve thought about it for almost a minute now. Still can’t come up with an idea worse than that.
I am not cut out to be a mom. I am cut out to be a babysitter. I have never had the energy for other children, even when I was a child. I love them more now than I did then. Back then I was just a third grader who’d swallowed tweed.
It wasn’t until I realized that I had picked my lane early and social masked my way out of it that I became strong again. I’ve always been one of those autistic people that cannot survive in the real world because they live in a world of their own making- you have to literally pull them out of it. It’s just that no one recognized they had to pull, and I couldn’t tell them. I didn’t know the symptoms of autism, and I was not allowed to isolate.
Neurotypical people know better. The room should be loud and interactive. This is true for neurotypical people while I have to Perform Happiness.™️ I don’t have the energy anymore. I want to be authentic so that when I have a bad day, I’m surrounded by people who love me and are not dependent on that mask staying in place.
I am stronger and more capable at my computer than I am in conversation because I do not process voices well.
I come across as demanding while I’m passionate and easygoing when I’m not. You have to know me for a long time before you get into that rhythm and stop taking everything personally. That I am passionate about an idea, I am not “on the attack.” That I cannot perform happiness while talking about devastating things.
Devastating things like money, financial planning, business costs, etc. They are not devastating in and of themselves. It’s that I begin to burn and itch with discomfort because I know my logical function is poor ahead of time and being taught these things is not easy for either party.
I have to learn them cold, because I’m not about problems like these…. I am about solutions that allow me to dance above the clouds when the weather is poor.
A Fourth Reich is coming, because people didn’t believe it was possible.
I have an enormous task in front of me, and that’s supporting myself in another country. I have a cushion, but not really. It will go fast without either an American job to pay me overseas or a job in another country. I am looking at every single way to do that and school in Finland is probably the last thing anyone would recommend, but it’s not the United States. I know everyone thinks I’m panicking for how good I have it, but if I want something to happen I need to direct the flow. The United States does not deserve my talent and I’m not being precious about my writing. They don’t need my cooking labor. They don’t need my tax dollars. They don’t need me. I am trapped here until the end of November because I do not want to break my lease. That means I am being loud enough about my intentions to make a move like this happen. Because when I’m loud on the Internet, people take notice.
I’ve already had people offer support in helping me get out of the country and I know it will still be there later on. Repatriation takes forever and no one believes it’s real until all of the sudden they actually don’t realize you’ve been living overseas for six months due to the nature of how Facebook works.
For instance, I would bet that some of you still think I live in DC. I don’t. I live in Baltimore. I moved a few months ago and it has been mediocre. I am not completely happy, and I am not sad. I think that a lot would be fixed by moving into a different apartment on the property, so I’m not even necessarily looking to move at the end of this lease, either. That’s because the next application period for Vami isn’t until September. Until then, I’m sending out resumes all over the world while also trying to build my writing into something viable.
I’ve made a lot of dumb choices in my life and am trying to rectify them now, but some of those things will never reconcile. Dana and I had a solid, nuclear, family and we both blew it all to hell. The fallout affected us differently. As I reflect back over all of those choices, I alienated people I need now and it’s too late.
The regret of those choices cannot eat me now, but it has tried for many years. I have treated myself like absolute shit because of those regrets and I feel like I’ve paid all I want to pay for them. It would be a blessing to be able to mend fences, and because I know that is not possible I do know that scar tissue makes you stronger. “Til I Collapse” is running through my head because the Finnish, Mexican, and English languages are duking it out in my head. Wait. Mexican is a murre, not a kieli. Puhun espanajassaa y tengo preguntas con sandias/juevos/whatever your country uses for “balls.”
“Wait. Mexican is a dialect, not a language. I speak Spanish and I have questions with watermelons/eggs/slang for balls here.”
“Questions with Balls” is the best way I could think of to describe asking hard hitting questions. Why do they let me write here? Oh. Wait. I pay them. I am starting to wonder about your taste, but don’t worry. The fact that you read me speaks highly in some circles. Just not in all of them.
But that’s starting to change as well. I make a habit of meeting people all over the world. People in Europe and Canada are objectively more frightened for America than we are for ourselves because so many more of us still believe in the cult than outside our borders. We are taking harsh, harsh criticism and by that I mean that I have been wounded many times with anti-immigrant rhetoric in both directions.
If I bring up a problem, a Republican will say, “you don’t like it? Get out.” I say, “I can’t even change my gender on my passport because you decided I wasn’t a person. I’m trying to get out as fast as I can.” Then I’m a coward, a traitor, and a Nazi. But Elon Musk and Donald Trump are not.
If I bring up a problem, a foreigner will cry with me and say “don’t come here.” If I say I want to immigrate to Finland, I become part of their immigration rhetoric, because they only have one idea what “immigrant” looks like and they are picturing a brown man that possibly wants to live off the government.
When people find out that I’m an American and want to start a media company, it all of the sudden becomes, “well, I don’t count that. You’re not one of them.” I am absolutely one of them, because I’m NOT LIKE US.
Only once have I ever gotten back up on something like this… not this. One woman made a complaint about immigrants drinking all day, and I said, “geez… I hope no one would care if they saw me having a drink in the middle of the day because I work odd hours. What they don’t know is it’s been six weeks since the last one, not last night.” This woman says, “I don’t count that.” Then, this guy says, “well, maybe you shouldn’t make such sweeping generalizations, then.” Sweeping generalizations are how countries function now, especially because of the Internet. What they know about American culture comes in soundbites.
I am taking everything I have ever learned from my time in DC and building it into something new. It’s a miracle what you can do when you don’t have a choice. I know that I will look back on this time in my life and realize that it was the most productive, the part where I really found my true voice and people who read me 10 years ago wouldn’t always recognize me now.
I have limits. I have boundaries. I have tolerated far too much because the only advice I’ve ever gotten in life is to grovel. That eventually someone would be able to put up with me…. as an employee, as a partner, as an anything.
Now, I do not care if I am any of these things, I deserve a voice and I use it. I wish other people would. I wish other people were willing to scream as loud as me and they are out there but not in my apartment. They’re in the UK and Canada and Europe and Africa. One local friend tells me that her kids are AuDHD and queer and there’s no life for them here. I am hoping that she does not notice I’m standing there on moving day…………. She has six children. I’m pretty sure I’m golden.
She is also Finnish, and sees WWIII landing on our doorstep. I do not disagree. I am just too far down the road in planning a Finnish move in the fall to know anything about immigration policies in any other country (except Canada, because I exhausted that research for months when I was 18). Canadian vitriol has convinced me I don’t want to go there. Meag has made it clear that she does not want contact and I don’t know anyone else. I have made it clear with myself that I do not want contact because she was a shitty friend to me from the beginning and doesn’t deny that. I just put up with a lot. So, whatever it is that she’s mad about can rest in peace, because I feel like our entire relationship has been both of us caring about her.
This is not “All Pick on Meag Day.” All the women I have ever loved become my special interest to a degree that they do not want. So, I went the other direction. I decided not to invest in any one person ever again. That, however, has been recent. All of the women in my life are still on this blog in tribute as I age because as much as I might like a mind eraser, there is no such thing. Passing over trauma has never worked, so working through it has become a mantra. Once I really started examining my hangups in fine detail, I could resolve it and move on to bigger and bigger things. My purpose feels enormous, because I know that I not only have the power to communicate, but to facilitate others’ success.
My heartbreak was worth writing down so that I could see later what was really important and what was just filler.
I have watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind several times to remind myself that love is always worth it. Sometimes it even works.
I have a friend who’s an immigrant from Finland (actually, I cannot remember whether she is an immigrant or whether she was born here- whatever, the connection is close) who says that we should not move to Europe anymore, that we should build a queer future in New Zealand. As a fan of Finn Bell, I agree with her. However, I still have concerns about moving anywhere other than Finland despite Russian aggression. This is because I have found a way to move there for cheap. Of course my living expenses would not be covered, but my school tuition is. I don’t have to work very hard to get into culinary school, because I already know I’m a talented cook. I am not the best, and I do not have to be. I could make a bazillion dollars….. if I had it…. by bringing authentic Mexican food to the ski lifts of Levi, and don’t think I haven’t thought of it. I just know that running a restaurant is literally the most expensive thing I could choose to do.
Learning to cook is not.
I know that I do not want to run a restaurant. I know that I want to live the life of a student so that I actually have time to create content for the web. I am slowly networking in Finland, reaching out to Dave, Aleksi, and Cyril (other content creators in the area… Aleksi is actually Finnish, Dave is from the UK and married to another content creator, also Finnish, and Cyril is a student at the culinary school where I want to go, but he’s Indian). Because I want to work with Cyril, it is possible we could open a restaurant once we start making money from our media. It is not “using” the Finnish government for school if you decide that food costs are too high after you graduate. A culinary degree is good for anything, particularly intelligence. I know where I want to go, and that’s not CIA. That’s a quiet agency in the ass end of nowhere.
New Zealand is not “nowhere,” but it’s less exposed than the US. I have been making very inflammatory statements online because they deserve to be heard, but I am not immune to the fact that those are the people the president singles out first. I have loved the US my whole life. I do not want to work for foreign intel because I have any information to contribute; I would only work for US allies, anyway. What I do know is that real life intelligence gets me out of bed in the morning, but in ways you wouldn’t think of when you think of espionage. Like, how does it all work? I don’t have a particular allegiance in mind and generally don’t care that there are foreign spies in the US because don’t hate the player, hate the game.
Here’s where I draw the line.
The line was drawn in the sand when Donald Trump went into CIA’s house and told them that he trusted Russian intelligence more than theirs. It deserves a “Meet the Grahams” level diss track, because the president is a Russian asset. He’s not even bothering to hide it anymore, and Reagan knows all Republicans are going to hell for ushering Russia in the front door…. Hell, let’s just give Putin keys. And if that is not what you, Republican voters, were saying in the last election, then you need to take accountability for the fact that perception is reality. All republicans are traitors. All of them.
There was a mountain of evidence that a felon was not capable of being president, nor was there a mountain of evidence that Trump would change his behavior to the straight and narrow if he got the job. He didn’t even promise to quit drinking like Pete Hegseth. Speaking of which, I wonder how that’s going?
All Republicans are traitors, and the horrifying aspect of it is that you have to have sympathy. They were genuinely taken in by a cult. You cannot be mad at Mitch McConnell telling Kentucky voters that something is bad for them when he should have been doing it for the last 10 years, but here we are.
All Republicans are traitors because the party was lost and you stuck to the message. You stuck to the message that it was ok to be a convicted felon and to be president at the same time. What kind of future have you set up for your children?
All republicans are traitors because they didn’t know they were voting to have the AP press wire barred from the gaggle.
That’s because when AP calls it “Gulf of Mexico,” they’re the ones spreading disinformation. The first echoes of fascism started coming long before now. It wasn’t until I put it together that no one was actually holding you accountable that I decided to get loud. News anchors aren’t allowed to yell “WHAT IN THE ACTUAL EVERLIVING FUCK HAVE YOU DONE TO THIS COUNTRY, YOU BOTTOM FEEDING LOW LIFES?” It was bad when they wanted to kill Mike Pence. It was bad when they wanted to kill Anthony Fauci.
But then you came after Marianne Budde and I realized that I’m not a violent person, but I will slice your throat on paper.
The problem with American Evangelicals is that they are drawn to power like a moth to a flame. They do not care that Jesus was a poor itinerant preacher who loved his friends deeply and valued teaching and praying quietly. If you want to be Jimmy Carter and not Joel Osteen, you’re going to have “Christians” yelling that you’re not good enough because you just don’t hate enough people.
That’s the thing about Evangelicals. Their God hates everyone they do.
When you advocate for that “old time religion,” do you ever stop to think about what it is you’re really cheering?
White straight people had a good time back then, but fuck everyone else up the ass no K-Y.
You are advocating for Jim Crow, for women with no bank accounts and possibly no vote, queer people in the closet and all erasure of gender/sexuality rainbow excluded….. which shuts our country down in education behind the rest of the world. I do not know what everyone else is doing, but I am not going to sit around and watch everyone get dumber. Christian Evangelicals have ruined my life since it began, and you can all go to hell.
I am sure you will get there, because you profess the faith of the master and not of the slave.
I’m not black, but I’m not like us, either.
I’m autistic and depressed, so you think you can control my medications better than my doctor?
I’m nonbinary, and you think you can have that discussion with me as the USG than my doctor as well?
I’m AFAB, and you think you have the right to access to my body that I don’t have? Go fuck yourself.
It’s also amazing that we still have a problem with gun violence in this country considering we haven’t tried anything.
If you get sick, you can just go die.
Love, “Christians”
I am done with all of this and I’m not an emcee on a mic but I definitely feel the energy of a halftime show where America is concerned.
“God bless America? God damn America.”
The black UCC pastor had it down in 2008.
You’re 200 Late.
If I am lucky, fascism will die out quickly. Pattern recognition says I’m screwed for life and I’m dealing with it.
Today’s lesson in Finnish (Suomi in that language, Day 26) started with learning how to negate something. I’ve been able to say what I am for a long time. It is a relief to be able to say both that I am not an adjective… and I do not have a noun.
The worst sentence (lause) in every language is “Meillä ei ole kahvia.” Finns, calm yourselves. I am actually okay. I have enough. I have to say that out loud because this sentence would send shivers down any Finn’s spine…. “We do not have any coffee.” However, I am not opposed to getting Finnish coffee in the mail. I have resources.
It’s good to have a friend on the ground who said she’d let me mail things to her house when I buy my tickets to Finland. That’s because it’s actually difficult to buy Finnish products over the internet. I am having a hell of a time finding Moomin books in Suomi, so please advise in the comments. I do not want a new boxed set. I want one that has been colored in, dog-eared, and annotated in Suomi because a child loved it so much. Moomin is the new picture I carry in my wallet… er… phone.
This is not an official, licensed picture. I asked the WordPress AI to do a line drawing of Moomin for me, if that is a thing you needed to know you could do, @one4paws. I needed to make that clear because it doesn’t exactly look like Moomin to me, either. However, I do think that if she were alive Tove Jannson would think it was inferior yet clever. I would have gotten one of my artists to draw it for me, but they are currently sleeping. I am often left to my own devices because my body clock is set differently than most people. I move with the sun, going to bed and getting up early.
My favorite fact in life is that when I told Katya that I thought Tove Jansson was a smoke show, she made sure to tell me she was a lesbian. I said, “sounds like a woman I would have liked to have flirted with.” She said, “Well….may be…. she was loved by all….” 😁
Janie the Canadian Editor says that I make her spit out her tea; this line made kahvi stream out of my nose.
The Finns are an interesting case study to me sociologically because so much is counterintuitive to some American cultures, not all. For instance, Finland is like Texas in that people are brave and daring and do lots of outdoor shit comparable to “hey Bubba…. watch this!” They just aren’t conservative socially. Finnish culture is Oregonian. It is no surprise to me that Linus Torvalds moved from Helsinki to Hillsboro or wherever it is he’s living now. My love of Linus/Linux is legendary, and it doesn’t surprise me that I would want to make the reverse move, either. I just may not end up in somewhere as warm as Helsinki because culinary school in Vaasa is free.
The average temperature in the winter is 22 degrees Fahrenheit, which is not colder than Baltimore- it’s just colder more consistently. The average temperature in Helsinki during the winter warms up dramatically…. it is 24 degrees.
Therefore, I will not have a problem when it’s sunny out. Being layered and in the sun is great. It’s the rain, snow, and wind that becomes a problem. However, you have these problems everywhere. In Oklahoma, “it’s not that the wind is blowin….’ it’s what the wind is blowin'” (Ron White). Those are the days you say inside and celebrate your sauna.
Again, I work on the internet. I don’t have to go outside unless I just want to do so…. and I do. I love cold weather, feeling bundled up and secure in all my gear. I am not a prude of any sort. I just have sensory issues with a tremendous amount of heat and there it is. That’s why they do it…. and why they don’t care that they’re naked. It’s just about being comfortable in said heat.
I have said this before, but in case it’s behind a paywall on Medium, Finland has the highest rate of neurodivergence in the world that has been diagnosed. I believe that there are quite a few more undiagnosed people due to the amount of coffee they drink. Caffeine is my go-to choice in managing neurodivergence. Apparently, they already thought of that.
Portland is the same way in terms of volume. I never really had a cup of coffee until I went there on vacation. That’s because Texans don’t drink their coffee as bitter and dark as Oregonians, coupled with the fat of half and half, no sugar. I like Texas coffee just fine, my palate leans toward bold. Therefore, I want something French roast and cream thick enough to stand up to it. It’s hard to please me in vegan, but soy milk does nicely. It’s the thickest and all coffee shops have hazelnut syrup to make the nuttiness of the plant milk make sense in your brain.
I would argue that one of the best drinks in coffee shops is a soy hazelnut latte, because soy milk is not better than cream. Soy beans and hazelnuts bond together in your mind and it just tastes better. Use cream for something else. Everything has the right application.
These are the things that keep me going, because I have found that coffee is cheaper and more efficient than energy drinks. Energy drinks aren’t bad if you buy them by the case, but coffee is still cheaper overall. Plus, I like it when my coffee every morning tastes the same and it’s plain. I haven’t found an energy drink that just tastes like Coke, Pepsi, or Sprite. Therefore, I drink energy drinks as often as most adults who liked Fanta as a kid would drink it…. occasionally to remember, not an every day beverage. The same goes for grape, cherry, and fruit punch. They make me feel like a kid so sometimes I’ll indulge, but my energy and money goes toward fine coffee at the grocery store and cutting out leaving the house.
As I told Katya, “I like working in my own office because no one makes my coffee for me. Therefore, it’s always right and I do not have to share.” I do not mind sharing my coffee, to be clear. I mind other people beating me to the coffeemaker and I have to suffer through it until it runs out and I can make the next one.
Just level a tablespoon when you’re measuring. One level tablespoon per cup. Being exacting is what makes it taste good. And if you do not have a tablespoon that is capable of being leveled, then err on the side of too much rather than too little. You can add hot water later. You cannot fix it when there is not enough coffee flavor and too much hot water.
12 tablespoons is a cup, so I do the shortcut of keeping my coffee in a large enough container to accommodate a one cup scoop. I do not make a cup at a time because coffee (especially mine) is so acidic that I don’t mind drinking left over in the morning.
I do not reheat coffee, though. I prefer it over ice once it’s already cool. If it’s cold outside and I just must reheat, it’s over the stove. Some people cannot tell a difference, but when I microwave my coffee, it seems to change the properties of the drink itself. I can’t name it. It’s just weird.
I also alternate between putting a cup of coffee into a coffee maker and putting a cup of coffee into a Mason jar with a chinois (fine-mesh sieve). The percolating process and cold brew yield different results, and I like the change. It doesn’t matter what temperature it is outside, I like iced coffee when I’m inside. We have heat here.
The point is that I have taken an enormous amount of crap over the years for drinking energy drinks because it makes me look younger than I really am. Meanwhile, caffeine is one of the most effective ADHD medications on earth. I do not need to feel ashamed of “being addicted.” I need to manage how much I drink in accordance with the laundry list of what’s wrong with me and why. For instance, one of the huge reasons that I order cases of energy drinks from Amazon (when I do) is that coffee irritates my stomach and I still need the caffeine. Soda is not as acidic, and it is also sugar free (in my case- all the flavors I really like are either zero or 10 calories). Therefore, it’s another case of application. When my stomach feels better, I go back to cold brew.
Cold brew actually saves my stomach as well, which is why I haven’t used my coffeemaker in a few weeks. It is naturally less acidic when the water is cold, and I brew in the fridge or (when there’s not a danger of it freezing) outside. Sun coffee is just as beautiful.
“Sun coffee” is apt, as I am energized by the sun and need to be outside. My neighborhood isn’t the greatest place to walk around (it’s not dangerous, it’s just not touristy with parks and community, either. My readers might not agree that it’s safe, but one break-in in the DMV over the last 11 years is probably some kind of record- and he was so high that if the patio door had been locked, he would have moved on. He did not look like the type of guy that would break glass. He wasn’t even moving that fast. I just decided not to chase him over cheap ass shit.).
I need to find a place in the city that fits the bill. Right now it’s Panera because I have a gift card, but where is up to me. I’m glad I have a gift card to something familiar while I am looking for something permanent. I support local coffee shops, I just haven’t been here long enough to explore Baltimore. Wherever my mythical perfect coffee shop is, it does not exist in my neighborhood. I’m going to have to search farther.
For Portlanders, I’m looking for Rimsky’s Korsakoffee. For Houstonians, I’m looking for Notsuoh. For The District, I’m looking for Tryst. I am sure that there are many great coffee shops in Baltimore, I just haven’t found them yet.
Luckily, I have help here. My friend Ernest is a young college kid willing to help me get settled because I’m willing to help him get settled. I told him he could hang out at my place if his room was too loud. I have plenty of space and wouldn’t mind someone working with me during the day. His being African helps me out because the way he cooks, I haven’t learned yet. The way I cook, he hasn’t learned yet.
So, I definitely need to meet up with him soon. It’s a great story. We met on an Uber Share. I was looking at apartments and was planning to move to Baltimore. It was his second week in America from Liberia.
Silver Spring to Baltimore isn’t much of a change in demographics, only that there are more African Americans here, as opposed to African immigrants who have come over recently to study and work. Silver Spring has an enormous African immigrant population, one of the reasons I’m interested in learning languages.
However, I did tell my housemate Valentin (Cameroonian) that “francais c’nest pas comfortable pour moi.” His mother, who didn’t know a lick of English, fell on the floor laughing. Because of course when I’m on the spot, I say the first thing that comes to my mind…. “French is not comfortable for me,” a line from an old Michel Tomas recording rather than thinking out how to say “I don’t speak French.”
Puhun suomaista.
However, I am not advanced enough to know why the name changes from Suomi/suomea to suomalista. I just have to roll with it at this point, thus the flaw of being at the top of the ruby league by rote. I need more grammar study because parroting back (see what I did there?) words isn’t helping me to understand systems.
I see everything through systems, and Finnish is called a pyramid…. but it’s a garden. You pick up yksi sana, ja yhdestä sanasta tulee kaksi sanaa. You pick up one word, and one word becomes two words.
Minulla on norjalainen ystävä kuka kirjoittaa. Norjalainen kissat on viikinki. J.L. Henry on viikinki. Tämä vaustaus on oikein koska kirjoittajat ovat kuin kissat.
This is what the Ruby League has gotten me. The paragraph reads “I have a Norwegian friend who writes. Norwegian cats are Vikings. J.L. Henry is a Viking. This answer is correct because writers are like cats.”
One of the sentences that comes up in Duolingo the most frequently is “Norjalainen kissa on viikinki.” It means “the Norwegian cat is a Viking.” I have extrapolated this to mean all Norwegian cats are Vikings because I have owned one and I know that that means….
Life is about breathing steadily right now, turning panic into progress. Slowing down and making plans to breathe next week.
I’m overwhelmed with the amount of support you’ve given me over the years, so I’m paying it forward.
Duolingo is a vocabulary builder that will allow me to become C3PO. The spiritual arc is gravity’s rainbow. The bomb inside you goes off in every language.
Your life’s purpose is to figure out what kind of shrapnel there will be in advance, because you’re the one directing it.
Dedicated to a house and a refrigerator magnet no longer there.
Dear @one4paws (and Bryn B on Medium, if you’re looking for the actual talent in the family),
To the “just being helpful” brigade, I will no longer give you purchase. When people ask me why and how I’m queer or trans, I don’t always sit there and explain. I do when the person is kind and wants to be educated; when they do not, I walk away. I am not going to go 20 rounds with a homophobe, nor will I tolerate this:
Me to them:
I don’t want to fix it. I couldn’t even get married until 2001, and even then, it was a domestic partnership. Let them fix their own problems.
Them to me:
I’m sure the Nazis said the same thing.
Civil Unions did no good except on state taxes. No queer person is asking for special rights. They just call it that in the GOP to fear monger and make you think that queer people are so different. That straight people are not fully capable of evil, but gay people are… because we work in the shadows. That is not my present situation with being gay, that was my situation with being gay.
Lack of being able to file jointly with my wife on federal taxes for so many years and breaking up before we married federally never saved us anything. We didn’t pay much in tax, so a state return was maybe $30. I would have been able to build up more wealth in both Texas and Oregon if my federal taxes had been filed jointly as well. The United States has cost me too much emotionally and financially. I have no choice but to slink off to Europe where my being isn’t offensive and my need for help in my disability doesn’t translate to “you’re a dumbass” all the time.
Hate doesn’t get erased. The goalposts just move.
Before I recognized that I was autistic, it was reinforced that I was a failure. I wasn’t autistic and therefore special needs. I was bipolar and had a personality disorder. It is an absolute shot in the dark as to whether which diagnosis is correct, because a lot of people have both and the same drugs work. The reason I changed my mind and diagnosed myself is that no doctor will diagnose you until you have enough concerns to speak with them.
And then you’re an adult and they don’t want to label you because it creates a stigma; 🎶 stuck in a moment you can’t get out of. 🎸
If I had a slogan for autism, it would be “stuck in a moment and can’t get out of it.” If I had a slogan for ADHD, it would be “not stuck in a moment and can’t get into it.” Perkele and saatana would walk into my brain and say, “I’m so sorry.” That’s because the two disabilities fight, and if my psychologist in Houston was right then, it does not render him wrong now. It means that I cycle too rapidly for Bipolar II and I do not know if there’s a bigger arc overall that comes in months, not half hours. It’s not a personality disorder, it’s how my brain processes logic and emotion. I do not know what you are actually saying without a tremendous amount of clarification. Only my friend @aaronbrown8cc63b4e5d4 and you, my darling friend, have been there through it all with me. The laughter and love as I loved hard and let go, refusing to give up long after I should have. I am not in that lane anymore, and have sped ahead. I do not think I have a future with anyone except the people in my life right now. I have little faith that when people are mad they have enough emotional strength to sit and work things out. Autistic pattern recognition says I’m going to be viewed as a problem, so I handle everything alone.
Props to my friends for becoming great pals and advisors on many things, particularly my clothing because all of them been to Finland, but all of them know what cold feels like and how to beat it. I have people from all over the world in the chat group regarding the future of LMG and I don’t accomplish anything alone. I am constantly looking for ways to monetize queer voices because especially women are not financially validated and suffer even more financially in a female/female couple. And if anyone is offended by polyamory, you can look on a calendar at the exact date and time as to which we even had the option of being monogamous. Pro tip: NOT THAT LONG AGO.
Children, women couldn’t have bank accounts in America until 1974, and their grandchildren think women should be over it. I am so tired of the gold digger narrative that quickly turns into “I thought you were going to wipe my ass and clean up after me” and women think, “I thought you were going to financially support me so I didn’t have three jobs, like working outside the home, maintaining the house, and raising the children.” If they say it out loud, that’s when you get nervous if there’s guns in the house.
Men expect service, and they’re not shy about asking for it, because they are entitled to these things according to their fathers and grandfathers………. while also not doing the work their fathers and grandfathers did to provide. They want a maid who supports them financially so they can do nothing while the children play. This is, of course, not all men… but it’s where our country is going. Make no mistake, women were included in Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.” Before the blue, there was a stark red and white image that said, “OfKendrick.”
I’m not saying it like that idea is offensive or anything…. I don’t care that he’s a famous rapper, but I definitely care that he’s won a Pulitzer.
I am also still peeved that Matt Damon married someone else, but that’s neither here nor there. I’ve never met him, so my take on it is that he loves his wife more than me, which is appropriate because he met her first. 😉 This does not mean that I am any less capable of being one of his crew. I see the entire cast of Ocean’s Eleven as colleagues, and I’m not kidding because George Clooney bought “Argo” and then Ben Affleck directed it. Therefore, I’ve never met them, but I feel a kinship to all of them. It’s like the Coen Brothers. John Goodman is also my homeboy.
I’m scared of Clooney, but I have picked up some tricks from Kendrick Lamar and 50 Cent……
Did you guys know that Ja Rule planned a return concert and was bugging out because the tickets were selling so fast….. only to find out that 50 had bought most of the tickets? Josh Johson told that joke in his standup and I nearly fell on the floor. He’s my favorite comic, so I joined his YouTube channel to see how he workshops his material. He posts his deep cuts to YouTube and you can see them all for a small fee. Josh is a master class in storytelling, and the point is to learn style and structure. I am not a comedian.
I am sometimes clever.
People perceive me as having a lot of false humility and virtue signaling; that I manipulate people. That is not true. I am autistic and do not pick up the proper social cues. I am also not afraid to fail. Me speaking my mind is different from me anticipating your reaction, and it took me until about 12:00 this afternoon to realize that was the case (I realize it all the time; I backslide and this is just another mountaintop day). People do not take in that their actions hurt me just as much as my actions hurt them. Such is the nature of life. I am not trying to oppress you by being me.
There is no queer agenda and there never has been. Quit spreading lies until you flip the script and get it through your (proved by science) smaller capacity to be open-minded. Realize that the queer agenda is the same rights you have. No more, no less. If we get really busy we might add laundry.
But no promises.
Don’t you agree?
I love you, Bryn. Thanks for always being there for me, and I’m excited that you’re getting to know Aaron, too. Someone needs to make him behave. Might as well be you.
Sometimes life tells you where you want to go, but not before you can silence yourself enough to hear the answers.
The Schengen Area has become my next goal in terms of a passport. I have redirected in terms of options, not final decisions. I have until the end of November to make a final decision, and I have many before me. The Netherlands has a refugee program for trans people, and it is cheap to start a business. Finland is the cheapest option in terms of going to culinary school for free. I believe that Schengen will be more useful later in life if the British apologize.
I am not stuck on any one thing. I am trying to map everything out. I work backwards. The goal is a Finnish passport because it’s so much like Oregon. Any job becomes available to me once I speak Finnish fluently, and I’m on my way for it being day 23. I am finally understanding how verbs work and a few of the ways singular becomes plural. Finnish is so difficult that it takes up my entire brain, and that’s what I like about it. I cannot function on the constant barrage with what’s going on in my country. Laws are changing too fast and if I leave the country, I may not be able to get back in. Trans people are being harassed at the airport and their passports taken. At that point, I shut down:
a dog is a koira, dogs are koirat. Form follows function. A cat is a kissa, cats are kissat.
Romance language grammar sometimes applies. Minä olet is “I am.” Sinä olet is “you are.” Me olemme is “we are.” Ne ovat is “they are.” You can leave out the pronoun if it’s conjugated in the verb.
There is no pronoun…. and I’m crying when I say this…. to indicate the gender of the person speaking.
Hän on is both “he and she is.” The Finnish language is nonbinary.
You cannot legislate hearts and minds on trans issues, so there’s discrimination everywhere. But what Finns will die to protect is human rights. Having a Schengen visa opens me up to being able to live more places, essentially being able to live in Finland whether I have actual Finnish citizenship or not. I do not hate America for what it has done. I am a political science student. I will never not be a political science student interested in both State and CIA, because they do the same job. One is just public, one is just private. I am not as interested in DIA and the military, but not because I don’t like them. I just prefer information to violence because that’s where I’m the most capable.
One of the things that I talked to with Bryn was being secure that I was not offering to be approachable to foreign intelligence agencies because I have any information they’d like to have, unless what kind of cookies my boyfriend used to eat at meetings is burning inside them. He shared nothing, and we’re not together anymore (sadly- we just weren’t going in the right direction together- no harm, no foul).
I said I was approachable on both web sites as a message in a bottle to intelligence agencies that need me because they’re dying to recruit people and trans talent isn’t needed here.
Fuck you, Mr. President.
I’m more of a man than you’ll ever be and more of a woman than you’ll ever get. Choke on it, motherfucker.
But I’m not bitter.
If you’re wondering why I’d curse out the president, it’s because he said he’d grab me by the pussy on a hot mic that was intentional. It wasn’t even locker room talk…. not that it’s excusable. It’s just comprehendable. None of this makes any sense and I am struggling to understand why I should go on in this country. I do not mean in terms of struggling with suicidal ideation. I mean begging for a way out.
Applying to countries that have jobs in the Schengen region is my first choice. Somewhere like Starbucks would have no problem training me in the US and possibly paying for my flight to work in The Netherlands or wherever they operate in the region where the store works in English.
A restaurant would be better in Finland because it’s an easier transition. Terms are all in French. I could work in Viet Nam, I could work in Afghanistan, I could work in Tanzania, I could work in The Phillipines. Doesn’t matter. Cooking is French. Escoffier brought it to Europe and the rest of the West, Ho Chi Minh brought it to Asia and the East.
The problem is that I am really not capable of working in a restaurant, but the lighter load of culinary school fits. It’s an easy A compared to Finnish uni. I’m interested in getting my sword, but uni is cheap and I need a way to work through it. Culinary school is free and I might not. It depends on what happens between now and the end of my lease. I can’t default on it because even though it wouldn’t follow me, it would follow my dad. That’s what happens when you have money and not income.
My mother died. I have some time to rebuild now. I’m using it. I’m being up front because people ask me all the time how I’m living. I have to live rough so my expenses are covered for a number of years, but I’m okay.
I have a possibility of collaborating with others, and we’ll discuss that if and when it happens. Just know that I’m riding the Rainbow Railroad for all it’s worth because trans talent and money is not needed here.
There is a great big correlation between leaving the country and leaving the church. The United Methodists told me for years I was a sinner while taking my money and I didn’t have a choice.
Instead of staying and participating in a system that I have to fight against until I’m black and blue, I want to use it to move into a different system where there is no homelessness and consistent medical care. Prevention is worth an ounce of cure. If you can go to the doctor every time you sneeze wrong, there probably won’t be million dollar surgeries in your future. But you can’t do that in some states when you’re poor. Luckily, mine is not one of them. But my home state is, so that’s not an option unless I just think, “I’ve lost my fucking mind, why not lose it completely?”
As I was telling Phillipa, one of my new writers, “I could buy a house in NE Texas and settle down permanently, but then I’d have to live there.” Of course there would be perks, like immediate access to my family. However, I would lose everything in terms of the social network. The Deep South is not my place anymore, as if it ever was. Maryland’s politics are more in line with Albany than Richmond. Virginia continues to struggle deeply with St. Bob- what a Northern Virginian told me a Southern Virginian calls Robert E. Lee, thus the disconnect in Virginia culture. Maryland is objectively safer for minorities, and home of the greatest intelligence officer who ever lived.
I am not being specific here, because Harriet Tubman, Jonna and Tony Mendez all lived here. Jonna lives in Virginia now, where she’s on the board at the Spy Musem. I’ve met her several times and she’s delightful. We’re not close, but I admire her greatly.
“In True Face” is essential reading if you want to know what happened to Tony after “Argo,” and “The Moscow Rules” is the last book they wrote together. The reason I pick “In True Face” and “Argo” as your introduction to real life intelligence is that you have to be able to pick out Jonna and Tony’s voices separately and you cannot honestly do that until after Tony dies in Jonna’s timeline. I told her that.
Congratulations on owning yourself.
Her lip trembled because she knew what I meant. It was the second time I’d made her cry, and I’ve written about the first time so much that I don’t need to tell it again. I have felt those emotions and they don’t dissipate with each writing. It’s an experience I’ll remember forever because it changed the direction in which I wanted to go.
Jonna decided to go to a wedding in Europe, and that was all it took. She was a citizen of the world who had the fortunate and unfortunate experience of loving two intelligence officers. The only reason I say it is unfortunate is that she had to learn how to hang quickly, and as you read it’s a different kind of love. It’s harder to watch someone else going through a thing than it is to go through a thing. It’s easier when you’re both going through a thing at once.
It’s not a trope that spies date each other. It’s reality because they never leave the office because they can’t.
They’re as trapped as line cooks during a shift, and the reality is that cooks are often messengers for intelligence and waitresses are the silent witnesses that listen to everything. No one cares if a female waitress is listening, so waitresses are often spies in a uniform and people don’t notice.
Social masking is everything. Intelligence is nothing more than a small stage, which you will learn by rote as I did if you get into the rabbit hole of Jonna and Tony’s voices. I don’t enjoy the idea of doing these things. I enjoy the idea of hearing these things. All I do is talk to people on the Internet. It doesn’t matter where they’re from. If they’re not extremists with an agenda, I’m all in.
I just realized that I should rephrase in terms of being willing to work for allies. Fuck Mossad and IDF. They’re more powerful than Palestine and have held it over their heads. Palestine gets the jump on them one time and it’s excuse for resettlement and make no mistake it could turn into genocide quickly if Netanyahu all of the sudden decides he wants their resettlement land, too. There’s no guarantee the Americans would not support him in this now.
American Jews and Evangelicals are responsible for a lot of this and I am not being antisemitic. I am being political. The Christians and the Jews have decided that the Muslims don’t have a book that’s valid, only they do. Therefore, money is being piped into Israel at a rate that is unsustainable to ever make, much less keep, Palestine sovereign.
But Mormonism and Scientology check out? Please.
The reason Americans are so racist is that you don’t hear about modern Muslims in the news. You hear about terrorists. My answer is a big fat “I Will Walk With You,” the Twitter campaign that took off and made me proud to be an ally…. and “Muslims Report Stuff” completes me.
But the thing is, I’ve been ecumenical since I was born, hungry for information about all religions and not just mine. I have even watched documentaries on Mormonism and not just from escapees. I wanted to understand doctrine because if you’re going to ridicule something, you have to know it cold. I would believe that the Mormon episode of South Park took an enormous amount of research or an all call to the jack Mormons everyone knew in the writer’s room.
I do not ridicule religions that make you better. I ridicule cults because they do not focus on self improvement. They focus on glorification. Religion is not responsible nor helpful unless it begins from the perspective of “every problem begins with me.” I have no qualms about accepting the consequences of my actions as long as I’m allowed to have them. I do not want to be forced into reading minds again, because that is the essence of learning to manage high functioning autism. It is balancing the expectations in other people’s minds versus a very real dysfunction in managing energy.
It is never “dumber” vs. “smarter” with high functioning autism. It is how well you can fit into society. It is how well you can manage your own energy in the face of needing and wanting more space. When Aaron and I move in together, I want a house with a lot of space that neither one of us have to manage. It is not bougie, it is reality. We need help and hiring it out is the one problem that money solves with autism.
In other countries, this neurological difference is recognized (even here, in some states) and you have a social worker to manage these things for you- like a nurse to administer medication and home help.
I’m not old. I’m 47.
This doesn’t make autism less difficult, and I need people to recognize that I am not bitching about problems, but working on solutions. I am tired of having to fight for things like:
a service dog to counterbalance my weight
an assistant or social worker to manage my bills and house
the right people to live with me and help take care of me as I take care of them.
I am tired of fighting for a life of interdependence when Europeans already do things that way. In Finland, you have no choice. In that climate, you bond through those hard activities. You help your neighbor first, because Finns have to recognize that you’re willing to put in the work to maintain a friendship before they give it. That doesn’t mean buying them a present. That means getting in the snow and helping them dig. Philippa, Aaron, Bryn, and I are all interested in spending time there, as is my friend Aaron B. As in, Bryn and AB might not want to move, but they’re not frightened by snow and would love a Finnish vacation once in a while.
I told everyone in my Finnish discussion group (we’re all learners, so it’s mostly English… I am not this advanced) that I was learning Finnish because of the culture surrounding language, not because I cannot get by in English just fine. I’m also a writer, so understanding the rules of grammar is essential. One day I’d like to be able to publish in that language, and I’m on a bit of a deadline.
I’m not going to make it, and that’s okay.
My route to the YKI is long and winding, but it’s definitely what gets me up in the morning. I have a ton of Finnish friends, but none of them have anything to do with this.
It’s that over time, I realized that living in Skyrim was indeed possible.
I have monetized WordPress for all my writers, and we’re discussing how to profit-share. My two ideas are to pay out their money as it comes in, or if they’ll let me have their money while we’re still making pennies, then I will pay them in technology. A lot of my writers are as poor as me, so Aaron, Bryn, and I all need Macs. I now worship at the church of Steve for two reasons:
I speak Finnish now. Finnish is cool.
I’m on about Day 22, and I have busted my ass to the tune of being at the top of the sapphire league and the February challenge is already done. I am also not ready to live out my life in the United States at this point and deserve a Finnish passport. I came out as nonbinary and then found out it falls under the trans umbrella. I cannot change my gender on my passport from F to X and that is not acceptable to me. I am freaking out with PTSD because of it, thus learning the hardest language in the world. Macs are the only desktops that have long press on keys so that tama becomes tuo. It’s not this, it’s that. “This” is tamä, “that” is tuo. The title is “Letting Go in Finland is Easy, Because It’s Already Frozen.” I used Google translate because I don’t want to have to type all those special characters and it’s day 22.
Helvetica
Here’s the FAQ:
How are you going to deal with all that snow and ice?
Like everyone else. You plan. I have synthetic Reebok long johns and UltraTech from Uniqlo as well. If I need it, I will upgrade to Merino wool. I just want to get to Finland first before I bite the bullet. Clothes for that climate aren’t cheap, and you pay it. If necessary, I will get animal furs for my shell, but I have a great midweight from Uniqlo as well. My shell depends on how cold it is. In Finland, I might be able to find a good synthetic, but if not, I have no qualms about buying animal skins for that climate. There’s a time and place for it. I don’t take any crap. I am doing synthetics first, therefore I am giving my best effort to be kind to animals. Please do not think I am cruel to animals when it is 30 below.
I am sure that Aleksi, Dave, Cat, Carola, Phillipa, and Cyril will have lots of tips. I just bought a subscription to Aleksi because if you pay money you can talk to him. I want to do the same for Dave, because I don’t think Cyril has enough fans yet to be monetized. He deserves it, though. That’s because his videos are sometimes informational about Vami (it’s a vocational school, which is where I’m interested in hotel and restaurant management. It’s in Vaasa, which is why I’m also on day one of Swedish. I haven’t stuck with it as of yet, because when you choose a language, you stick with it. If I had started Swedish first, I would have stuck with it because the language support is better on Duolingo (it has an AI that can judge your pronunciation. Finnish don’t.). That being said, Swedish is useless for anything but the YKI-testi. Something like 93% speak Finnish, and Swedish being an official language is a throwback because Finland used to belong to the Kingdom of Sweden. Also, it’s cold. But I work on the Internet. Realistically, how much time am I going to spend in the snow vs. watching it?
How are you going to deal with the dark?
I don’t know, but Portland prepared me pretty well. The climate is not all that different from Portland in terms of the sky. It’s dark in the middle of the day in Portland, too. Rain, etc. Katya (my closest Finnish friend) says that I will not understand how dramatically dark it gets until I get there. I’m planning a trip soon to scout out schools in Tampere, Helsinki, and Vaasa. Since culinary school will be a lot of walking, again, I don’t care. You are fabulously warm when you create the proper microclimate, and when it gets REALLY cold, they have the same American hand warmers that we do. I put one in my jacket pocket to absorb into my coat, and I’d be fine in very cold weather. The Finns don’t have to teach you how to get used to the cold. They have to teach you how to layer so that inside your clothes, it’s in the 70s.
They can make you warm enough to faint, as I often do if I’m wearing my winter gear inside.
Why do you want to move across the world? Why Finland and not Mexico since you already speak a little Spanish and it’s a romance language, which is like a hundred times easier?
You have to learn Finnish in a lake so no one can see you cry. I stole that line, but I feel attacked. Yet there is something about Finland that drives me crazy, and that’s the wanderlust to be outside in the summer again without having to revisit the trauma of Portland. I also don’t like it when it’s 110 degrees in the summer. The thing I liked about Portland was that it was tolerable inside the house most days. In Portland, only new construction has air conditioning and you live in one room in the summer- because generally you can only afford one window box if you insist on being a cook. You don’t become a cook if you can do anything else. The neurotypical workflow of an office drives me batshit insane, so I want to learn Finnish cuisine as I’m building LMG. Hopefully, by the time I graduate I’ll be able to support myself on American money…. which I need a lot of in order to qualify for a visa.
Paolo the Accountant says I don’t have enough money to go to Europe and even that doesn’t daunt me. This is because America never gave me a choice. I am begging for money from the whole world and it makes me ashamed because I hate asking for help when it’s a gift I cannot possibly pay back.
But what I need you to know is that I’m The Doctor, and I’m at my last regeneration. I need you to let me have them infinitely.
What were my parents doing at my age?
Living the American dream that I’ll never have due to the United States’ dedication to the idea that I’m not a person. I’m even approachable by foreign intelligence agencies because even though I’ve dated an American intelligence officer, I don’t know anything. I just mean that it would be fun to work for the Finns in intelligence, like a translator or in the mailroom. Being fluent in Finnish doesn’t come all at once, but I’m working as hard as I can. It will take about four years to be fluent, and all of my Facebook groups in Finland will back me up on that. One of the huge problems with Finnish is that I cannot really practice until I get there. The way people speak Finnish and the way they write it is often very different.
I said “kippis” to Katya one day, meaning “have a good day, cheers.” She said that’s for shots. Of course it is.
Katya reached out to me a propos of nothing. My love of Finland is encapsulated in her because we are not romantic partners. She’s kind of my grandma, kind of my mom, kind of Supergrover, kind of Bryn. It would make me happy for us to be neighbors, because older people are lonely…. in Baltimore and in Finland.
I actually am involved with someone casually, but we are planning a future together. He is not opposed to living anywhere in Finland because he’s in Minneapolis currently. We need a vacation in Helsinki for him to warm up this time of year…. He’s also given me fantastic advice on caring for my outer shell (wool sweater and waterproof pants). That the fibers in wool can be tightened and softened with… wait for it… hair conditioner. Of course it can. It’s always something simple and hair tracks.
Aaron is quite a bit younger than me, but it’s not a case of that kind of attraction. He’s adorable, but that’s not what drew me to him. He’s a Lutheran (Missouri Synod) preacher’s kid and an atheist who believes in the same kind of social justice that I do. I’m the Rowan Williams to his Christopher Hitchens. I know Hitch is dead, but Aaron’s smarter. He doesn’t have to work very hard to impress me. He’s been to seminary (didn’t graduate) and I haven’t. Therefore, he was able to tell me what books to read to learn about Jesus, because he was indeed a real person.
At that point, if the virgin birth and the resurrection never happened, does that negate what he taught?
It does to Evangelicals, because they don’t study what he taught, anyway.
Luckily, my dad is not one of them, but at my age he transitioned from being a United Methodist minister to a medical assistant to my stepmother; so did I, in a sense. I am ordained now in the Church of the Latter Day Dude. I was just the go-to for everything as a kid, my dad’s Girl Friday.
As his American dream came together, mine fell apart. I folded at Matthew Shepard’s death, September 11th, January 6th, and now we’ve been taken over by a South African dictator.
30 years ago today, the Police and School District did more damage to me by kicking me out of school for having LSD than all of LSD I’ve taken since then ever has. It socially isolated me preventing me from forming meaningful peer connections in my first year of high school, and despite night classes and correspondence courses I was not allowed to take enough credits to start my second year as a full sophomore putting me behind academically. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I was “previously a good kid” (read I was white and daddy got a lawyer) I would have also been denied the credits for the semester I was a week from completing at the time because “Zero Tollerance”.
Since then, the use of hallucinogens has given me insights into myself and the world that I don’t know I’d have found otherwise, and even helped me overcome past emotional trauma. They’re not for everyone, but they’ve helped me.
I’m not saying there shouldn’t have been consequences for not paying attention to set and setting, but they were certainly disproportionate
This article is getting a lot of attention on Medium (10 claps when I’ve been on Medium two months is not nothing. If it resonates with 10, it will resonate with more). I’m opening it up from the paywall because it’s popular in the autistic category. I hope you’ll consider buying Medium, because as I joked on Facebook earlier, “I’m on Medium and I’ve gotten more followers because what I haven’t known for 25 years is that my readers prefer audio.” No one has to record my entries for me, I just have to be careful with punctuation so that it sounds the way I wrote it. Also pretty hilarious to hear an AI swear as much as I do. 😉
Riker Brown is new to the writing world, and is just now getting their feet wet. Their odd outlook on the world gives them insights that may not be evident to others. They hope to share those outlooks and idiosyncracies in a way that brings just the right balance of wonder and weird.
I posit that neurodivergence isn’t a thing in the natural world, and it only exists because society is built for a narrow, homogenous subset of the population. Anyone who can’t survive in such a society has to be pathologized so they can be the problem instead of our neo-feudal capitalist hellscape.
It’s not neurodivergence. It’s neurodifference because there is no neurotypical.
Stories That Are All True 