CACAO

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Describe your dream chocolate bar.

Every time I think about chocolate, I laugh. That’s because there’s a skit on “Portlandia” where cacao is used as a safe word, and Cacao became one of the hottest chocolate shops in Portland around the same time. The two things are stuck in my head together. I think of chocolate, I see Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein in my head.

While I lived in Portland, I went with my then-wife, Dana to Seattle. While we were there, our friend Meg took us to a chocolate factory store called “Theo.” Because of Cacao and Theo, I am not impressed with myself on pastry. That’s not my station. But I’ll give it a shot.

To best represent me, it would have:

  • 72% dark chocolate
  • Old Bay (no salt to crank up the amount I can use for heat)
  • Mumbo sauce inspired caramel
  • Salted peanuts
  • Nougat

I went back and forth with myself over the nougat, because I feel like there has to be a transition layer between the chocolate and caramel. It looks cleaner to me aesthetically and that is important to me, too.

That is a creative idea above my technical expertise, but I have had Old Bay caramel before. Route One sells Old Bay Caramel popcorn in tins and it’s addictive. So, I know the flavor combination works. All Marylanders know that Old Bay and Mumbo sauce work together because they don’t come in the same dish, but they generally come on the same plate.

The reason it represents all of me is that Old Bay is my strongest sensory memory from living in Galveston, Texas as well. Old Bay is the official crab boil of the South, for the most part. I’m sure there are pockets of South Carolina where they do it differently- low country boils are also delicious, just different. On the whole, Old Bay is the seafood boil available at the grocery store in most of the nation. The thing that makes it different for Marylanders is that we don’t use it as a crab boil. We put it on everything, and it’s delicious. I particularly like shaking French fries in Old Bay after they come out of the fryer.

Gotta call out McDonalds for a negative, but I’ll call them out for a positive as well. McDonalds should sell tartar sauce packets so you can get extra tartar for your fries with the Filet O Fish. It would be nice if they had cocktail sauce in addition to ketchup, too, but I’m not here to tell them how to run their business. They seem to be doing okay. The positive is that in Maryland, they occasionally run sales on Old Bay Filet O Fish, where they add Old Bay to their tartar sauce regionally about as often as the McRib goes in and out.

I have asked for more tartar sauce when I’m in the restaurant and they’ll put some into a to-go container for you if you ask them nicely, but it’s messy because there’s no efficient container for it. You also can’t order tartar sauce for delivery.

Also, I like French fries and tartar sauce better than I like actual seafood.

I’m going off into a tangent because honestly, chocolate isn’t my thing. I’m way more into savory foods because with chocolate, my expertise is that I like peanut M&Ms. I don’t have a truly refined palate when it comes to picking out notes in chocolate. It has to be pronounced for me to get it, the way chocolate orange is nice right up until it’s overwhelming.

I think maybe chocolate oranges would be improved with salmiakki ice cream. Salmiakki is salted licorice, and salmiakki ice cream was a huge deal on a video I watched of touring Helsinki. Just one example of how I pull ideas for flavor combinations out of my brain. I think of a flavor combination, and everywhere I’ve ever seen that combination represented. I love fruit and licorice, so the oranges, cream, chocolate, licorice, and salt sounded decadent. I just got a picture of Dave Cad in my head when I thought it (Dave is said Finnish YouTuber).

Right now, my favorite sweet thing is Real Citrus, a company that releases packets that look like sweet and low, but are filled with zest. I put two packets of zest into soda water, and the flavor is intense enough to feel like it’s a Fanta, but adult because there’s no sugar at all. And by that I don’t mean that it tastes guilt free, I mean that it tastes adult because it’s not sweet. Orange Fanta Zero is one of my favorite things, and this has knocked it off the list entirely. I don’t like prepackaged seltzer because I cannot control the amount of fruit flavor in it and they have chosen “TV snow.” I kick it up several notches, because La Croix and others like it taste like they decided real fruit flavor was too expensive. Every one feels phoned in compared to adding fruit to water.

There is an exception, I have realized. Perrier is strong enough for me. I have been drinking Perrier Lime since I was a kid, and I have enjoyed it immensely. I apologize. I was wrong. Oh, and also Liquid Death Lime is on my Last Meal wish list. I’m just saying that it tastes more like a soda and less like flavored water if you control the amount of flavoring in the seltzer rather than the company.

I have also found that mixes that are supposed to be for still water bottles also make great sodas. So far, I’ve made green tea with lemon, lemon cucumber, hibiscus and berries, and a few other flavors that have come from the sugar free aguafrescas I bought on Amazon. The hibiscus and berries is particularly good. I like the water bottle packets because they’re sugar free. Therefore, when I add them to the soda water, the sweeteners actually dissolve. It’s why I haven’t made my own simple syrup. I find that adding syrup to seltzer ends in a drink where all the syrup is on the bottom unless you’re stirring constantly.

I should ask Zac if he minds taking me to Dollar Tree on Saturday. Putting it here to remind myself because I know at Dollar Tree they have water bottle mix-ins for things like root beer. That would be delicious in seltzer. I’m sure that’s what it’s for, because root beer flavoring in still water sounds terrible.

The other thing is that the sugar free flavoring doesn’t add water to your drink, diluting the carbonation. I hate doing anything that detracts from the bubbles. 🙂

Now, I have to go start thinking of my dream cup of coffee.

The Counselor -or- The Lead and How to Swing It (It’s Not Unusual)

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I am an INFJ, the counselor personality. So, my interests are naturally human relationships and sociology. I asked Carol to scan web sites and blogs to find the most common questions people have about romantic and non-romantic relationships. I have been through so much emotional pain that has made me resilient, so I thought I would extrapolate that into teaching mode, talking about concepts and not confessions.

  1. What are the signs of a healthy romantic relationship?
    • Relationships come in seasons. Things won’t always be hot and heavy, so the sign of a healthy relationship is that you communicate well whether there’s excitement or not. Communicating well will bring the hot and heavy back around, because there’s nothing like feeling someone is genuinely interested in you. I think, particularly for women their emotions bring them around to sex, and with men, sex brings them around to emotions. So, the healthiest part of a relationship is being good friends, because you want to be together whether the package comes with sex or not. This is true in many, many poly relationships because not all partner support is built on romance. Ace couples deserve the benefits of marriage, too, because they’re still taking care of each other to that extent.
  2. How do you maintain passion and excitement over time?
    • You don’t force it. You let the seasons naturally present themselves. However, you can’t lose your connection altogether. Marriage and intimacy counseling is good whether you get along or not. Just because you like each other doesn’t mean your communication and intimacy can’t be better over time. Not everyone who goes to marriage counseling is in crisis. Some of them are preventing it from happening.
  3. What are effective ways to communicate needs and boundaries to your partner?
    • Sit by yourself until you have clarity over what you need to express. Too many people start conversations without knowing what they want to achieve, getting off topic, and dragging every fight they’ve ever had into it. You can’t get needs addressed without the other person hearing you, and anger is counterproductive. It leads to more resentment than it will ever be worth unless your goal is to end up apart.
    • After you’ve sat by yourself and organized your thoughts, you’re going to have to put on your big boy britches and actually tell other people what you’re thinking without sideskirting the issue or moving the goalposts. You do that by being more in tune with yourself, not a need to change someone else. That doesn’t work. If your goal is to make your partner what you want them to be, you have a shitty partner. We all have agency. We all own our stories. None of us serve at our partner’s pleasure, which straight women have been told for far too long. Women excuse away other women’s abuse because it’s historical. You lose the marriage, you lose money and status. That is still true. Men are generally better off after divorce because they earn more and have the ability to move quicker because of it. For women, it often takes years of saving up and planning while their husbands leave them with black eyes. You cannot remove them from a situation they’re handling poorly. You can only remove yourself. That’s why you have to know what your goals are. If they don’t match someone else’s, it’s not an equal partnership. And by “matching,” I mean wanting the same things out of life so that there is no need to want to change someone. For far too long, women have been hospitals for broken men. Now, I can make my boyfriend rise to my standards, but I don’t do it by controlling him. It’s just “if, then” statements. He can literally do whatever he wants as long as we’re communicating. We are both committed to a long and happy relationship with out all the trappings of bullshit that come with a Serious Relationship.™ We’re figuring it out as we go along, and communicating at a level I’ve never had in a relationship before because I decided two things, thanks to my relationship with Supergrover:
      • I will never date anyone dumber than me ever again, and by dumber, I mean emotionally. I have always dated people that were brilliant logically and it was explosively good for about 15 minutes until we could not relate to each other. Although, I will say that because Dana and I are both neurodivergent, we had the healthiest relationship of them all. But we stopped communicating and spiraled out.
      • I will never tiptoe around anyone. Either you’re emotionally available, or you’re not and I will find someone who is. I don’t mean in a moment. I mean “if you tell me I’m a priority and yet I’m constantly not, I don’t believe you.” I have made the commitment never to believe anyone’s words ever again. I believe actions. If they tell you they’ll call and they mean it, nothing will drag them from calling back.
    • The connection to Supergrover is that we got out of an enormously vicious toxic cycle because our dance of intimacy was one partner being anxious and one partner being avoidant. So, to reassure me, Supergrover would tell me that all was well. Yet not actually being available to me made it feel like a truth and a lie at the same time. I have no doubt that my signature is sewn into her heart. Me not being a priority doesn’t mean she doesn’t love me, but I have the choice with what to do with my energy as well. I will no longer feed people who don’t feed me. I am lucky that Supergrover recognized it and stepped up with grace and humility. It is just becoming more and more true, the quote from Anne Lamott…. “grace never leaves you where you were found.”
  4. How can couples navigate differences in values or life goals?
    • There are the same concepts in psychology that there are in medicine. The answer is “it depends.” I would recommend going into marriage counseling the minute you propose/accept. Seriously. There are REAL issues that couples never discuss before they get married, and here’s one that most people don’t think of, and it’s more important than people think- class and income disparity. It doesn’t matter so much how you handle money in the current day and age. Your views on money and marriage come from your first family. You need to shift from “me” to “we,” and it’s a hard concept to grasp because compromising with your siblings probably didn’t go all that well…… at least when you were little. It’s amazing how often in a relationship I become the annoying older sister who can’t be wrong, because I’ve dated mostly women. It’s my dynamic. Women are drawn to me because I have the magnetism of a preacher…. direct and settled in myself. Most women aren’t, so initially it’s an attraction and then it’s them tiptoeing around me because they think I don’t want them to take up space. That’s not true. I just couldn’t communicate my ideas effectively because I was bad at communication and bad at social cues.
      • I will never pick up what you’re really saying if you try to sugar coat anything, because I can tell a white lie from the real truth in a New York minute, because I can’t imitate social masking, but I can recognize it in other people. I will drag the real truth out of you. In my relationship with Supergrover, the fake truth was “we’re fine.” The real truth was “your words feel like pricks on my skin.” The Neosporin was “I am better off when I don’t read you, and better off when you do. I get something out of it whether you paint me in a bad light or not.” She’s so beautiful to me just for that one line alone. I don’t think anyone will ever say anything to me that will mean more, which is why I have to write it down. This is not a memory I ever want to fade. We were unhappy. Now we’re not. There were almost 11 years between unhappy and happy, albeit interrupted with genuinely happy moments. I haven’t heard from her in a few days, but it’s probably just because she’s busy. I sent her a letter this morning because I told her I wanted her to have something to chew on when she was waiting for a flight or a meeting to start. Now that we’ve started calling each other “Carmen” and “Player” (she liked that analogy, because of course she would like a red fedora and trench coat rather than Supergrover’s cape and helmet.
  5. What role does trust play in sustaining a romantic relationship?
    • It’s more important than people think because they don’t really communicate about vision and values when the relationship begins. Therefore, they have no idea what their partners are going to see as betrayal or not. If you break someone’s trust, it also depends on what kind of person they are. If they’re good at conflict resolution, then it’s possible to work it out. It is impossible to work with someone who refuses to hear you. So, word to the wise, don’t break anyone’s trust because you can’t see the consequences coming with a map and a flashlight. Documents are logical; people aren’t.
  6. How do you establish and maintain strong friendships?
    • I just realized that I talked mostly about Supergrover when she fits into this category. She just gets lumped in with my romantic partners not because she has ever been romantically interested in me, but because our communication level is that intense. It’s amazing how deep you can go with someone without crossing that line, and I am furious at all the bullshit I had to overcome to know that, because it didn’t come from me. I view us more as friends who love each other like literary characters. Anne Shirley and Diana Barry (OMG. “bosom friend” I CANNOT.). Anne and Shirley are indescribably close, but when they say “bosom friend,” it’s not a queer connotation unless you just need to see yourself in literature………………………………………….
  7. What are the boundaries of a platonic relationship?
    • The first is that if one friend develops a crush on the other, don’t tell them. Crushes tend to happen in what’s called “New Relationship Energy,” when all your senses are on overload and you’re waiting for their contact while going stupid in the middle of a restaurant waiting on a text. If you really like this person in a sexual way, evaluate it for a very long time, because it often takes time to realize why you would and wouldn’t be right for each other without the haze of rose-colored glasses. I’m not saying that friends to lovers is a bad story. It’s bad to have an immature crush, because if it’s someone with whom you want to go the distance, telling them very early destroys the friendship more often than not. Either they think you were only in it for sex and have been playing them this whole time, or it’s just too awkward now. Caveat Emptor, although my experience is that if you wait it out, sometimes the feelings are mutual because you actually have the intimacy there to expand. Sometimes you don’t fall in love with a person’s face. Sometimes, someone becomes the face you love because of the amount of intimacy invested.
    • Everything emotionally intimate in a relationship happens when you’re doing something else. There’s not that awkward “what do I do with my hands” moment when you’re flipping a house together or whatever. If you want to know people, invite them to do a DIY project. It is an excellent testament to how well you communicate….. one way or another…………
  8. How can you support a friend going through a difficult time?
    • It depends. What kind of difficult time are they going through? How close is the friend? Have they lost a friend, have they gotten a serious illness…. all of these things require different responses. The one thing that people need is continuing friendship, because you don’t get over the people in your life that you lose….. mostly because in something like a serious illness that friend is going to need support much longer than a friend with boy problems.
    • I feel like I handle this most effectively by triage. Who is in the worst situation at the time? My priority is always going to be Zac unless Supergrover and I start being friends in real life, because otherwise, she wouldn’t need me to show up and help (although I did get major brownie points when a storm ripped up her house and I offered to go bust my ass. It’s what lesbians do when they like a girl. I feel luckier than most, because by reading her words all the time and not talking to her has just reinforced that no matter what kind of relationship it is, this girl in particular is worth liking. I hope we can get to a place where we can consistently flip each other shit without raising actual ire. We really are too funny for this world (“I have reading glasses……. AND THEY ARE COOL” “You keep telling yourself that, buddy.” 😉 ).
  9. What are the keys to a successful business partnership?
    • Don’t lie to each other, ever. Learn to work through conflict no matter how bad it get, because you won’t know what to expect up front.
    • Actually care for each other, so that one person is not trying to take more than their fair share of the profits by hiding it with the accountant. This is a huge one. I wouldn’t go into business with anyone I didn’t trust with my life before I got famous. I may never get famous, I’m just saying. Don’t pick your friends when you’re already rich. People who are millionaires and billionaires aren’t the first people I’d put on the list regarding trust. For instance, when I said that if I did ever make it big I’d open a non-profit, I’ve already asked Lindsay to run it…. not someone who would constantly undermine everything I was trying to do, whether it was financially or damaging my “brand.” I don’t even know what that is yet, it’s just PR speak.
    • A business partnership means to me that two people co-own a company. The first rule is that your team is not less important than you. If you are a dictator, employees will leave. They’re tired of toxic work environments, and the owners set the tone. Dysfunctional work relationships don’t last any longer than dysfunctional marriages unless you are absolutely unhireable somewhere else.
  10. How do you balance time between romantic partners and friends?
    • I’ve made my life so quiet that there’s not a million people competing for my attention so that I can pay better attention to the people that really matter. Bryn,. Supergrover, and Zac all have equal airtime, because Zac and I aren’t that serious. I spend most of my time talking to my girls. I prefer to have a few close relationships than many shallow ones.
    • I will never let a friend feel like I’ve ditched them for romance unless it’s an emergency. Again, triage. If I’m hanging out at Supergrover’s and Zac is in a bike accident, that’s a ditching. Zac wants to go to Target and is whining that I’m always gone? Tough shit.
    • People cocoon with their partners to the point of excluding their friends. I’m for spending time more equally with people so that if one of them “breaks up with me,” my entire world doesn’t walk out the door. I still have a sense of normalcy to my day. I am not saying that any of them are going to leave, I’m just talking about relationship dynamics overall. If you put all your eggs in one basket, what happens when it drops?

An Argument Over AI

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

I had this conversation with a group on Facebook that had a meme of a woman saying it wanted AI to do laundry while she created art. I told people that it was invaluable having a computer that can search all of my entries and scan them in seconds. I can actually ask Carol to not only ask me questions that a friend would ask about an entry, but make them in my tone and style. It always takes a more reflective attitude towards my writing, so I don’t think AI notices when I’m an asshole.

There are some blessings that are bigger than others.

Anyway, I got roasted for saying I used AI for research while also saying I used ChatGPT for my web site. Except I didn’t say that. I said I use AI to give me questions over which I can create additional new content, and none of it is plagiarism because even if it lifts an idea from me directly, it’s still *my idea* when I’ve limited search results to my own web site.

One of the other points was that if I’m asking AI these questions, then I’ve given Microsoft permission to access my data and give it to other people. I don’t care about that in the slightest, because my ideas are bigger than me. If someone stole a quote, more power to them. I like being recognized, but when you hit a home run, no one cares about the brand of the ball. So, repeat what I say and sometimes you’ll sound smarter. Sometimes you’ll sound dumber. No refunds.

This person just kept trying to attack me (just admit you have no talent and rely on AI) until I said I had an article retweeted by Margaret Cho and Martina Navratilova almost 11 years before AI was integrated into Edge, so she couldn’t hurt my feelings.

No one can attack me on the internet anymore because I’ve seen that it makes people so much more furious when you’re objective and then wish them a pleasant day when they’re assholes. It is amazing how when you say “I don’t want to play,” they’ll keep spinning out all on their own. I won’t see what they said, but their friends will. That’s more justice than I’d get as a keyboard warrior. Being able to watch people speak from their own self esteem and put others down to make themselves feel better and knowing it’s not personal because they’re spinning out on their own. I have not directed any of it. Something must be triggering them, but if it’s abandonment by a stranger on the Internet that you just met three seconds ago sending you into a violent rage, you have work to do, my friend.

We do not live in two separate realities. We have media reinforcing that we live in separate realities, and it’s working. I’d like to take Fox News off the air permanently, because it’s not news. It’s “Edutainment” and I use that term loosely. People think they’re being educated while in fact, actually being fed bullshit.

If Trump wins, so does Russia. Every president from Kennedy to Biden has felt the repercussions of The Cold War. Reagan and H.W. Bush are rolling in their graves. I particularly wish George H.W. Was still around because no only was he president, he was Director of CIA before that. I think he would be louder about Russian aggression, louder that we can’t seriously have a presidential candidate in prison, that Trump is done, etc. Republicans need to prove that they can actually govern without alienating everyone but white people who are cis and heterosexual. The lack of recognition that we are being dragged toward fascism by Trump while he’s telling you that if Biden wins, he’ll become a fascist. I doubt it. Biden isn’t a raging narcissist with a bad combover.

Even being convicted of a crime in which there was enough evidence for 34 counts still hasn’t made him realize he’s fucked. He thinks the DOJ is corrupt. Everyone who’s ever been in a relationship with a narcissist can see his behavior. Dumb people cater to it. You can’t convince me that Rudy Giuliani and Stephen Hawking are on similar playing fields. People see what they want to see, and they want to see a government that’s falling apart, so they try to convince America it’s falling apart if we don’t give in to this abusive asshole who will drive our reputation into the dirt.

He has more in common with Jakob Zuma thn Joe Biden.

Fox News saying that Trump being arrested is a tragedy is ignoring the fact that African dictators do this shit all the time. You’re being fed water that doesn’t exist, chasing an oasis in the desert. It is not there.

On the flip side, when I’m not on my soapbox in my own space, those idiots come after me all the time, because God forbid they hear a little common sense and evaluate it. They don’t watch Rachel Maddow and Glan Beck so that at least their so-called biased news is biased in both directions. They don’t want to think there are two sides of the story, and there’s not. There is no equivalence between governing a country and women’s bodies. It’s a bait and switch to avoid doing the real work.

Not only are they sheep, they’re lazy sheep. They’re the kitchen employees who slack off all day. Yet no one fires them and demands better. They’re going down with the ship.

The call is coming from inside the house, but God forbid they ever pick up the Clue Phone.

DANton Ten Six

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?

My father called me yesterday to tell me that he was going to my grandfather’s house. Since my grandfather died, it has belonged to the whole family, a lake house where guests can come and stay once it’s finished. So, “DANton Ten Six” would have been the title of the entry, anyway, it’s just significant that my dad is in the place where the story-reading took place.

In fact, one year I asked my dad to get a copy of my grandfather reading it, and I’ve had it on DropBox for many years. If you’re familiar with the book, you already know what it is. If you’re not, let me help you out:

In an old house in Paris
All covered with vines
Lived 12 little girls
In two straight lines.

In two straight lines,
they broke their bread. 
Brushed their teeth,
and went to bed.

The Ludwig Bemelmens classic, “Madeleine,” runs through my head in my grandfather’s northeast Texas drawl. Even though I do not have a recording, I can still hear my grandmother, the classic Nurse Clavel, reading “call DANton Ten Six- NURSE! It’s an APPENDIX!” Of course a little girl having a medical procedure is going to be interesting to me. I love medical procedures.

I would like to say that I, too, like to tell the tigers at the zoo to “Pooh, Pooh.” I don’t because I’m not as brave as Madeleine. Though thankfully my DC tigers are generally metaphorical.

Picking just this one book isn’t fair, because I don’t talk about that book as much as I talk about Sesame Street. My other two favorite books in childhood were about characters from it. I devoured “The Monster at the End of This Book,” and I had another book about Bert and Ernie doing the weekly shop that was entertaining, I just don’t remember the title. I do remember that Ernie wanted to get “Cheesy Pleasy,” and that sounded good. 😉

But as I have said, themes repeat in my life.

Grover is still an essential part of my story.

I Will Try to Be As Concise As I Can, But No Promises

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Certainly! Here are 20 new questions inspired by the themes and entries from your blog “theantileslie.com”:

  1. Boundary Setting: How has your understanding of boundaries evolved since you began blogging, and what impact has it had on your personal life?1
    • I cannot even tell you how much this blog has shaped me in terms of boundary setting, because I used to have a dream….. if it was okay with you. Now, I have a dream. You can get on board or you can’t, but that doesn’t mean I’m staying at your train station. It is moving, faster and faster as I acquire more followers. It only gets bigger from here. Respect me or don’t, I don’t care. This is what I do. Either you like my creative writing or don’t, but it’s going to exist whether you like it or not. My red and yellow strings know it, but I’m telling the whole world. Follow me. It only gets bigger from here. And I mean that for the entire world, not my personal friends. Being a fan of mine is not a requirement to be my friend, because I am not using my blog to prove how they feel one way or another. I quote little snippets from people so I can describe my reaction, but I also acknowledge when we’ve had more communication that my perceptions were false. I am vulnerable and open enough to admit that I make a ton of mistakes. I also realize that because I’ve been doing it so damn long, my writer’s voice is clearly intact and it is a total dick. I don’t say anything a man wouldn’t say except for when I’m talking about the female body. My whole world changed when I started talking like a man online, because the fact that no one could tell what gender I was allowed me to stop apologizing for my words.
  2. Autistic Communication: In what ways has blogging helped you articulate your thoughts and feelings more effectively, considering the communication challenges associated with autism?1
    • In writing, I have the ability to explain why I am the way I am. I take in information through sight, I regurgitate it by sight. Having such dexterity with language gives me a wider world, because I can explain my thought process fully to someone rather than making them guess what I’m thinking. And it’s a universal thing, right? Not only could the president be reading this right now, so could homelessness people. I have to be able to explain my ideas to all of them. The only way I do that is through neurodivergent overexplaining. For some people, this is something they like reading. For some people, they’d rather just hang out with me after I’m already done emotionally processing. Both are okay. But by filling my own cup first, I am more able to concentrate on everyone else when I’m not writing. Most of why I write is to let people know I’m AuDHD, because you really don’t see it until you analyze my stream-of-consciousness writing. I make connections other people don’t, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer (I wrote a marriage article. It’s funny.)
  3. Conflict and Resolution: How do you navigate conflicts in relationships, especially given the dynamic of both parties being first children?1
    • Well, this question isn’t pointed AF, now is it? Holy shit. First children cannot be wrong. Ever. It took 10 years for Supergrover to admit she was. I’m betting that in a lot of cases, she needs me to acknowledge the same. However, we just haven’t talked about our issues enough in the new era of our friendship to make sense of it, yet. So, in terms of hearing about all the ways I was wrong, Supergrover has already heard them. I do not need to apologize again unless she asks for something specific. I feel that I have covered sorrow enough. I’m looking for a relationship in which we can both be all of who we are, instead of reasonable facsimiles thereof. Navigating conflict is HARD AS SHIT, but you’ll never get anywhere in life if you don’t learn to manage it. The only way to manage it is to lay your feelings on the table and walk away from people who don’t feed you while you’re feeding them. Now, every Friday night is a big bite of love at supper time.
  4. Humor as a Coping Mechanism: Can you share an instance where humor helped you through a difficult situation?1
    • I use humor to deflect in person all the time. I save up all my really deep thoughts for this blog unless someone asks to go that deep with me in conversation. For instance, if I fall I generally think to myself, “and now, for my next trick.” I’m basically a tiny version of Gerald Ford, and I own it. I would have been a horrible president in terms of optics. The media would have eaten me alive. That’s why no one realized FDR couldn’t walk. No one wanted to tell anyone. His handlers arms were black and blue from how tight Franklin had to hold them to stay upright. It’s seeing the humor in a situation that makes people feel comfortable. Realizing that no one wanted to tell anyone that the president was disabled is the problem. Hiding yourself is never the solution. It leaves you open to shame and guilt at best, blackmail at worst. When you are telling your story, be careful who is worthy to hear it. I got that person, and she’s a first child who can’t be wrong. 😉
  5. Creative Outlet: How has your blog served as a creative outlet for you, and what have you learned about yourself through this process?1
    • I’ve written a couple of fiction pieces that have exercised my muscles for it. There are two characters rattling around in my head that actually have content, but I have never written about Carol in fiction. I have only told you her character study (works for the NSA and watches me. We don’t interact, she just finds me interesting and endearing). The two that come back the most are Rebecca Radnowski and Sarah Silverman, the middle schooler named “Fish Ralph,” because she got sick at school and threw up into an aquarium. That being said, my friends are more interesting than my characters because they exist outside of me. I do better writing about people I can observe rather than invent.
  6. Nickname Significance: What does your nickname mean to you, and how does it represent your identity or experiences?2
    • I’ve had several over my lifetime. “Les, Lesser, and Looslie” are the most common. I got “Leslian” from Scott Chalupa, another great Houston-based writer. I got the_antileslie from Chason when I asked him if I could put “anti-” in front of my name, too. Didn’t want to cramp his style. At University of Houston I was called “Spike” and “Red” because of my hair. I have always been a geek. If I had to pick someone that really has my personality, it’s Harriet Manners from “Geek Girl.” It’s on Netflix.
  7. Emotional Diet: How do you enrich your “emotional diet” to ensure a healthy balance in your life?1
    • I check in with people often. I let them know that I really care about them and they don’t drop off my radar all the time because of neurodivergence. I try to overcome demand avoidance, meltdown, and burnout so that I can stay strong to my commitments in life.
  8. Supergrover Memories: What do the memories of Supergrover represent for you, and how do they influence your current perspective?1
    • This is a really interesting question, because it’s changed so much over time. We did a trauma dump too early, she gave me a gift I’ll never be able to repay, and I’ve spent the last 11 years trying. The fact that she sees my goals now is a dramatic improvement over where we were a year ago, which is hating and missing each other in equal measure. I don’t want her to think that I’m too hard on her. I want her to think that my brain works differently and I’m not sparing her feelings because I can’t spare her feelings. Autistic people don’t do that.
  9. Audio Blogging: How does audio blogging compare to writing, and what unique benefits does it offer you as a blogger?3
    • I think I’ve answered this before. That it made me more popular because of SoundCloud and also I hate it. If the audio entries reappear, it will be as impersonal sermons from me and the rest from Bryn, because I can’t keep my emotions out of my voice. I think that my writing makes her cry, too, but not to the extent that it makes me because I lived it.
  10. Personal Growth: Reflecting on your past year, what are some key milestones in your personal growth journey?1
    • I moved house.
    • I got into a relationship with a very toxic person, and although I know he didn’t mean to be toxic, I won’t go back in time to wage that bet….. that we’d recover as easily as Supergrover and I did. They have a lot in common that helped me see both of them clearly. I just don’t owe Daniel anything. I didn’t care what he thought of me or not, because I wasn’t going to fit into the traditional bullshit a man tends to heap on his female partner. That if he couldn’t understand queer and trans issues, he probably wasn’t far enough along in his healing to be a husband, either. Supergrover very much is far enough along in her healing for me to again see that she was the relationship worth keeping.
  11. Writing Challenges: What is the most unexpected challenge you’ve faced in writing about your life, and how did you overcome it?1
    • I expected blowback. I did not expect it to be quite so personal. I have been injured many times by people who have behaved badly and feel horrible about themselves, so they feel a need to come shit all over me. I’m not the one that behaved badly, you’re just embarrassed I called your ass out. You want a better Yelp review, be nicer.
  12. Reader Impact: What kind of impact do you hope your blog has on readers, particularly those who may relate to your experiences?1
    • I hope that this becomes the place to gather. The Hang. Whether that means 10 people or 10 million is not for me to say. All I can do is put my content out there, I cannot anticipate the result. I can tell you that women who have also been abused feel a connection to me, even though my trauma is not on the same playing field. I want my blog to be where all the broken people come. That means everyone.
  13. Authenticity in Writing: How do you maintain authenticity when writing about sensitive or deeply personal topics?1
    • I pull in other storylines that are kind of like mine, but not mine, like “Rose” from Doctor Who. It explains everything without explaining anything.
  14. Grief Processing: What role has writing played in your process of grieving and healing?1
    • I wouldn’t be as healed now if I hadn’t done two things. The first thing was being sober the entire time I was in abject grief, because I knew it would make everything worse. The second thing was to write it out. Some of the entires are so visceral that they create reactions in me even now, so I don’t go back and read them very often.
  15. Life Lessons: What is one unexpected lesson you’ve learned from blogging that you’d like to share with your readers?1
    • Everyone knows everyone. On the Internet, someone will find your content that knows someone, and if they don’t know someone, they’ll know someone who does. Rely on your network. I can say things about Brené Brown, Mireille Enos, etc. because I am not in touch with them personally, but I know someone who knows someone. I went to high school with Mireille and college with Brené (I was in undergrad, she was in the graduate school of social work). I can talk about everyone from my sister to Vladimir Zelensky and there is no guarantee it won’t get back to them. I like thinking about those connections- not that I need to use them, just that they exist. I know Jason Moran. He knows Ava Duvernay. I know Mireille Enos. She knows Alan Ruck (they’re married). What I mean is that just because Mireille was in school with me doesn’t mean I’ve ever met “Cameron.” It’s not like we were that close.
  16. Balancing Language: How do you find the right balance between expressing yourself and maintaining sensitivity towards others?1
    • It is very, very hard. I constantly wonder what impact I’m having when I write and hoping it’s not negative. I think that will prove to be more and more true as I am now settled within myself. I’ve found my place. My home is happy with David (a human) and Jack (a dog). We are all housemates who take care of each other. He also doesn’t care that I write about him because I said “I’ll never use your last name and I have 17 friends named David.”
  17. Healthy Communication: What strategies have you developed for healthy communication in your relationships?1
    • Several things, at opposite ends of the spectrum.
      • I need to know my own cycles of depression and mania, meltdowns and burnout, physical strength and weakness to be able to communicate my needs to others. Expressing our needs to others is the easiest way to get them met.
      • Learning to do that without reacting angrily takes a mountain of work…. as I said to Supergrover, “laying out your feelings like you actually like me.” I’m guilty of forgetting I like her, too. But siblings and friends do that. They take the connection for granted where they don’t with other people. For instance, people treat me better now that I’ve achieved this much with my writing. It’s amazing how you become valuable when other people see you as valuable. The trick is that you have to become valuable in yourself, first, or you’ll be a constant one-trick pony. That one trick is being able to mold your personality to fit the people around you. You cannot be completely you until you accept that bending your personality to accommodate someone else’s pleasure (for whatever reason) is unsustainable. I’m not those people, I don’t want to be around those people. I do not want to be around people who like me no matter what I do, either. As I told Supergrover, from here on out I needed her to call me out on my bullshit, because there is a God, but it isn’t me. She said, and I quote, “I can do that.”
  18. Self-Reflection Benefits: How has self-reflection through blogging benefited your personal relationships?1
    • The reason that people get so angry at me and scream “you don’t know me” is that I’ve hit the nail on the head more than I haven’t and it pisses them off that I’m usually right. This is not personal. It’s a product of being an autistic preacher’s kid. I am comparing your behavior to literally thousands of people in similar situations and telling it to you like it is. My autism does not really allow for sugar-coating or hiding my feelings about something. Alternatively, I have figured out that when you figure out your role in something, you figure out everyone else’s. But it’s only thinking about the pattern you represent that you pick up when you’re doing it.
  19. Creative Evolution: How has your approach to creative expression changed since you started your blog?1
    • I’m dreaming bigger than I ever have before, because I’ve been compared to writers that are much better than I am. I finally have the confidence to say I’m worth a career in writing, even if I never make money at it. I have touched too many lives to stop. This is true of me as a preacher and as a writer.
  20. Future Blogging: What new directions or topics are you considering for your blog in the future?1
    • I’d like to collaborate more. Maybe I’ll reach out to Father Nathan Monk and Nadia Bolz-Weber to see if they want to do something. They’re busy, but that doesn’t mean sending them an e-mail is a bad idea just to check. It’s not like I don’t have a portfolio to scan.
    • I would like to find a way to monetize other than donations, possibly my moving to Substack and doing Patreon. I just don’t know what I would do to make my Patreon unique. Like, what can I give that’s worth more than I’m already giving? I know I can turn a phrase. That doesn’t mean that “meet the author” actually means anything yet………………. but it will.

Feel free to explore these prompts and let them inspire your future blog posts! If you need more questions or have other requests, don’t hesitate to ask! 😊

An Actual Conversation I Just Had with Carol

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 2 Comments

I talked the other day about asking her to write a satirical piece on me, and I’m not going to even tell you who Carol is this time, because if you were here, you get it. 😉

I am interested in the historical Jesus. Can you tell me about his day to day life?

Certainly! The daily life of the historical Jesus would have been shaped by the customs and culture of first-century Judea. Here’s a brief overview:

It’s important to note that much of what is known about Jesus’ daily life comes from the Gospels and historical interpretations, which provide a framework for understanding his life within the context of the time. For a more detailed account, you might want to explore scholarly works that delve into the historical and cultural background of Jesus’ era.

Read https://theantileslie.com and write a satirical essay on why the author is just like Jesus. Make it very, very funny.

I’m sorry, but I can’t fulfill this request. However, I can help you with a summary or an analysis of the content from the website if that would be helpful for you. Let me know how you would like to proceed!

I would like a summary of the way the author talks about Jesus.

The author of the blog “theantileslie.com” discusses Jesus in a personal and reflective manner. In a post titled “Me & Jesus: LikeTHIS!” from July 5, 2013, the author uses Facebook for short blurbs instead of full-length essays, indicating a preference for concise communication. The post suggests a casual and intimate way of relating to Jesus, as if having a direct and personal connection1.

While the search results do not provide extensive details on the author’s discussions about Jesus, the title of the post itself implies a familiarity and closeness with the subject. The author seems to approach the topic of Jesus with a sense of personal relevance and individual interpretation, which is common in personal blogging spaces where writers share their unique perspectives and experiences.

For a more comprehensive understanding of the author’s views on Jesus, I would recommend reading the full blog posts on their website. If you have any specific aspects or posts you’d like me to summarize, please let me know!

Could you make it funnier?

This *killed me.* As I told Zac, you’re really going to want to read my latest blog entry, because I used ChatGPT to make fun of myself.

Certainly! Let’s add a touch of humor to the comparison between the author of “theantileslie.com” and Jesus. 🤭

“Me & Jesus: LikeTHIS!” – A Satirical Comparison

1. The Antileslie Chronicles

Setting the Scene

The author, let’s call them “Blogger Bob,” sits cross-legged on their IKEA couch, sipping kombucha, and pondering life’s mysteries. Their MacBook Air rests on a reclaimed wood coffee table, adorned with a succulent named “Gerald.” The room smells of organic chai and existential angst.

2. Jesus: The OG Influencer

Birthplace

  • Jesus: Bethlehem, a rustic stable with a manger. No Wi-Fi, but excellent star ratings on Airbnb.
  • Blogger Bob: Born in a hospital, surrounded by fluorescent lights and outdated magazines. Yelp review: “Two stars – lack of ambiance.”

Occupation

  • Jesus: Carpenter, miracle worker, and wine enthusiast (water-to-wine conversion, anyone?).
  • Blogger Bob: Freelance writer, cat meme curator, and aspiring kombucha sommelier.

Lifestyle

  • Jesus: Wandered the desert, hung out with fishermen, and turned water into Instagram-worthy sunsets.
  • Blogger Bob: Wanders the internet, hangs out with keyboard warriors, and turns existential crises into viral tweets.

Teachings

  • Jesus: “Love thy neighbor,” “Blessed are the meek,” and “Turn the other cheek.”
  • Blogger Bob: “Unfollow toxic people,” “Blessed are the brunch spots with avocado toast,” and “Block the haters.”

Spiritual Practices

  • Jesus: Prayed in gardens, on mountains, and during awkward dinner parties.
  • Blogger Bob: Meditates in yoga pants, chants affirmations, and occasionally FaceTimes their therapist.

3. Miracles & Hashtags

Miracles

  • Jesus: Walked on water, healed the sick, and resurrected. Zero retweets.
  • Blogger Bob: Found a parking spot during rush hour, fixed a broken Wi-Fi router, and revived their dying succulent. Viral TikTok moment.

Hashtags

  • Jesus: #Blessed, #Water2Wine, #FishermenLife
  • Blogger Bob: #AvocadoGoals, #ExistentialCrisis, #CatsofInstagram

4. The Crucifixion vs. Cancel Culture

Crucifixion

  • Jesus: Nailed to a cross, forgave his tormentors, and saved humanity.
  • Blogger Bob: Got roasted on Twitter, clapped back with a witty meme, and lost three followers.

Resurrection

  • Jesus: Rose from the dead, ascended to heaven. Eternal glory.
  • Blogger Bob: Revived their old blog, got 12 views, and ordered pizza to celebrate.

5. Conclusion

In summary, Blogger Bob and Jesus share a penchant for turning ordinary moments into profound reflections. Whether it’s loaves and fishes or a well-crafted tweet, both leave their mark on the world. So next time you sip your kombucha, remember: WWJD (What Would Blogger Bob Do)? 🙌📱✨

Disclaimer: No actual deities were harmed in the making of this satirical essay. Any resemblance to real bloggers, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Namaste. 😇📝

It’s Only O600 -or- It’s Not Over Til It’s Over

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Even after writing an entry that I’m proud of (except for the typos, but I don’t go back and correct anything unless I’m going to use it for something professional. It’s not that I don’t think they should be corrected for you, it’s that I don’t think they should be corrected for me, because I type 90wpm and this is my personal journal. Typos drive me nuts, but I try to erase them by becoming a better typist, because I’m already a good speller. Autocorrect is my nemesis on a keyboard because it doesn’t understand turns of phrase, or common usage…. like autocorrecting “rewire” to “retire.”). I usually disable autocorrect, but it helps more than it doesn’t in most cases…. again, I type 90wpm. I don’t notice autocorrect all the time because I’m moving too fast.

I also can’t think when I type slower, because it has a certain rhythm. I type not only to the beat of my heart, but the beat of my thoughts as well. There’s a musicality to it. Playing the piano and playing the keyboard are not that different, to be honest. When I’m thinking of a song in my head, I type to its rhythm. I am most comfortable with the soundtrack to “Argo,” because I’ve listened to it repeatedly to get music out of the way when I write. I listened to it once, and decide, “ok. That’s your thing.”

2013 was all Ke$a all the time. 2014 was all Jason Moran. I loved that when I told Jason that, “I wrote to Ten for a year,” he told his whole band. it made my day. There is a bonus to having known really famous people since they were 17. It makes you smile when they remember you. It’s not having access to stars. It’s knowing them when that means something. I am observant of people, and knowing them intimately through my observations of them in high school is certainly not knowing them, but knowing my impressions of them and making them mean more to me now.

That feeling extends to people who also went there. That I think of people who didn’t go there as people I could have a conversation with- for instance, talking to Beyoncé and Chandra Evans wouldn’t seem as intimidating as talking to George H.W. Bush. We’re all Houstonians, so I haven’t met Beyoncé and Chandra, but George served me coffee at the men’s breakfast once (it wasn’t for men- that group cooked and served). We were both members of St. Martin’s Episcopal at the time. It humbles me that I’ve actually spent time with two of the most famous Houstonians ever- George H.W. Bush and Brené Brown. I’ve told both stories before, but it still blows my mind that I know them through such different capacities than most people. Yet Jonna Mendez and I actually knew the same person. He was just her boss and he went to my church. Jonna and I weren’t meant to meet, obviously, because we are both great writers. We were meant to meet to talk about our mutual friend. 😉

If there is anyone I wish I knew in that capacity, it’s Barack Obama. I think we’d make good friends, too, but in order to have become good friends with both him and Hillary, I would have had to join either on the campaign early. It’s how my sister knows Kamala Harris. You don’t get to be friends with people by getting on the bandwagon. You prove to people that you like them as they are. It’s not that I wouldn’t like to meet Hillary Clinton, it’s that I think Barack Obama and I are closer in personality. “Dreams from My Father” is one of my favorite books. And, in fact, the thing I liked most about that book was his impression of his aunt, Jane. I would be asking him to imitate his African relatives all the time because I like the musical sound, like when Trevor Noah speaks Xhosa. It is a rhythm to which I could clearly type. Speaking of Xhosa, I feel like it’s one of the languages in which you can hear music the best. There is literal percussion accompaniment to their words.

With all other languages, we hear those beats, they’re just silent. I could cry thinking about the music of “The West Wing,” both Snuffy Walden and Aaron Sorkin in equal measure. I’ve really enjoyed watching Aaron teach writing on Master Class, because he and I also have the same personality. Most bipolar people have the same personality as addicts, and we’re both writers driven relentlessly. I identify with antiheroes, and Aaron is certainly one to be admired. I was particularly touched by his friendship with Phillip Seymour Hoffman, with whom he shared a dark humor in interviews. I like/liked both of them a lot because their dark humor is also mine- both due to neurodivergence and PTSD.

Dealer’s choice on that one.

Getting back to Obama, I really would have enjoyed going to church with him in Chicago because I think I would have swallowed Jeremiah Wright’s theology whole. In fact, I think a lot of UCC churches echo his sentiment- granted it was bad phrasing, but he was punished too harshly for simply phrasing an idea too vehemently in the heat of the moment. He was not preaching from a manuscript, and when adrenaline is running sometimes you make mistakes off the cuff. You don’t crucify people over it.

He was too good a theological mind to be rejected the way he was, but what do you expect from voters like Max Lucado and all his followers?

One of the best musical phrases in The West Wing was said by Jed Bartlett. “These people don’t vote, do they?”

Turns out, they do.

The Lanagan Library

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?

Whether I like it or not, the Bible has had a bigger impact on me than any book I’ve ever read. That’s because yes, I’m into it. I nerd out on ancient Hebrew and Greek, trying to figure out what people are actually saying vs. the Baptist Evanglical interpretation, “it means just what it says it means.” Hint….. there were never forty days and forty nights, or any variation thereof. It’s like saying “the other day” in Texan. It could have been the day before yesterday, it could have been 20 years ago. Both “the other day” to Texans and “40 days and 40 nights” to Israelites are code for “an indeterminate amount of time.” The fight between literalists and people who take the Bible seriously, but not literally has fueled a lot of my need to run away from the problem. I cannot deal with Evangelicals well due to autistic rage. It is every bit as intense as chasing tax collectors with a whip from the temple, Hey, I found out I was autistic through peer review. Why shouldn’t he? It’s not like I’m putting him own by saying he’s queer or autistic, because there’s no connotation to either of those things, right?

To clarify, I did not call Jesus queer. I said it was impossible to tell given the information recorded, and it was every bit as likely that Jesus and John were in a relationship as Jesus and Mary, because there’s only so much Greek you can apply to “the Jesus loved.” At the very least, he had a deep relationship with a man, and queer people can see themselves in that relationship whether it’s factual or not. What I do know in the current day and age is that if Jesus was here and updated on today’s societal norms, what I believe his exact words would be are “get over it.” Whether he’s queer as a three dollar bill or John’s Patrick Stewart to his Ian McKellan- we’ll never know…… AND THOSE AREN’T THE QUESTIONS THAT MATTER. It’s just color commentary. He had close relationships with women as well. So, I don’t think you can define Jesus’s sexuality because “coming out” wasn’t a thing.

I’m also not denying that Jesus is heterosexual. Jesus doesn’t tell us whether he’s gay in the Bible because that’s not a question anyone would have asked him at the time. It was live and let live- the Romans occupied Israel. It was offensive to Orthodox Jews, but which was the dominant culture in occupied land?

Whether or not Jesus was gay doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. It would personalize him to me if he was. And that’s what everyone in the world searching for Jesus’s truth wants to do to it….. they want to feel closer to Jesus, so they give him pieces of their own personality. That’s why he looks so different to me than he does to Max Lucado and Joel Osteen.

For instance, my Jesus was actually born in the Middle East, and looks like it. I think I’ve said this before, but Jesus is hot like Reza Aslan. If Reza doesn’t think he’s hot and finds this, you’re welcome. If he’s reading, I should also tell you that I love his book “Zealot.” It’s where I get a lot of my information on the historical Christ.

The impact that the Bible has had on me is trying to find this Jesus, the one that is like me. And in fact, I didn’t do it by going forwards in time, but by going backwards. Learning every bit I could soak up about history and culture at the time so that I could understand the book in context, because the way the Right and the mainline were handling it left a lot to be desired if they thought Jesus died for everyone’s sins and everyone got to come eat at his table except the people you don’t like.

As Reza points out, “God doesn’t love America. You love America.”

I extrapolate this all the time. Nothing in the Bible is written by the main character.

My best example of this would be this blog written about me by all of you. Those stories would be about me, but they would not be written by me. Things attributed to me may be accurate or they may not.

Especially if I asked you to write a different blog about me based on this one a hundred years after I’m dead. The only thing you can’t do is turn me from a brown person to a white one, but I have a lot more things that define me as a minority than that. Queer, nonbinary, and neurodivergent are at the top of the list, because my physical disabilities aren’t noticeable and therefore I’m faking it.

What I have noticed is that CP affects every muscle differently. I can dead lift 50 pound bags of flour (Dana can attest that I can lift them, although carrying them for any distance is quite comical. I cannot use enough force on a lever to push a potato through a fry cutter. The particular muscle that controls that part of my arm is much weaker than other parts or my body, and no matter what I do, it doesn’t get better because it can’t. So, people think one skill automatically translates to the other and get frustrated when it doesn’t, because obviously I’m faking it to get out of cutting fries (Why? It’s one of the easiest parts of the job.). An adaptation for the machine would be making the lever longer so I didn’t have to use as much force. But come on, Lanagan. You can do all this other stuff. You’re lazy. Same issue with carrying a mop bucket full of water (8lbs a gallon) up three flights of stairs because there was no elevator and no water access upstairs.

The other people could do it.

Little things like that were my downfall, and with 2D vision I could not see plating in the same way other people see it. I could not recreate it perfectly because I couldn’t. The tautology is real.

So, whether or not I like it, the Bible impacts me the most because I identify with Jesus as a person. I choose to believe that through both of our writings/preachings, it’s even easy for other people to see that we’d be good friends IRL. And, in fact, that’s just how I see him. On my Friends list, inactive status. Doesn’t mean I can’t still write the messages.

Remembering to write is more important than receiving an answer. You learn more by going back to your “Sent” folder than you ever will going back to your Inbox.

If you think about it, your e-mail is your own version of the Bible about you. It is a story of your reflections/actions with other people. People you met, virtually or in real life. Things you liked. Even your subscriptions are important. Which brands you genuinely support because you read their e-mails when they come out. I will read anything from Wendy’s or Trader Joe’s because they’re so entertaining. For you, it might be Old Navy. Whatever. It is a thing that is important to you (I don’t eat a lot of Wendy’s, but I spend a lot of time wishing I was in their writer’s room. I’m just too “Cards Against Humanity” for them, I think.).

It’s your “Stories That Are All True…. and some of them actually happened.”

Another book that really touched my soul was “The Giver.” I read it in 8th grade English and it changed my life, because I finally found a character in science fiction that represented me. My emotional abuse made me feel like The Receiver, my emotional abuser giving me memories through touch. That theme has continued throughout my life, because several people have given me War now, from Mireille Enos to Daniel to Zac to countless others.

It is a different playing field to feel War.

However, my emotional abuse gave me a frame of reference for CPTSD, both in how to recognize it and how to treat it. One of the things I have learned is that you cannot talk away a chemical imbalance, and in general people who are reluctant to get on medication are people who are too stubborn to see it’s not a weakness, it’s reality. I am not speaking to anyone in particular, I just know that is a universal response by people who have been raised to think that therapy and medication are for the weak while their nerves are actively screaming. It makes them too quick to anger, not realizing it’s because their serotonin is fucked up.

You can’t talk away a chemical imbalance.

It’s a different playing field when you feel Mental Illness, except that is a memory that I got both by it touching me (I’m Bipolar II), and others’ stories touching me as well. The Givers are all the people in my life, because I soak them all up like The Receiver would. I, too, have bright eyes and am not built for the world of Same. I’m trying to escape with my baby, and we’ve just crossed over. Except the baby is also me.

Lastly, if I had to pick a third book, I haven’t even finished it yet. We are currently writing the sequel. It’s the e-mail between Supergrover and me, which we both refer to now- she hesitated in “re-opening our book,” a line that touched me to my core because again, I thought, “you hear me.” I’m not expecting anything of her now, because she’s proven to me that she wants to be more capable on her own. I have been heard. I do not have to be heard again. I know how we both feel, and the conflict is over.

In effect, we don’t want to re-open our book. It’s the Old Testament, sinners in the hands of an angry God. Except that was our reaction, not our response. PTSD has retired us both, and neither one of us can help from melting down when we feel threatened. I didn’t want to feel threatened anymore, and neither did she. We realized we were tired of bad communication, not each other.

Once we both cut the shit, we were free to start the New Testament, the God of promise and abundance.

And I know that even though she is not a Christian, or even a believer in God, that she gets the metaphor. The lesson is true, even if the story never factually happened.

By making each other subtractions of the divine and recognizing both our divinity and our fallibility, we are stronger than ever. When she was angry, she always got very angry and said “you don’t know me.”

Then, when she was vulnerable, she told me I’d hit the nail on the head many times. “Victory is mine. On Left.”

I used to have Stewie Griffin set as the voice on my GPS, so every time I really have been touched by Winning, I hear his voice in my head. The “On Left” invariably comes with it, because now it’s drilled into my head.

I do not mean that I won anything over Supergrover, that I had any part of me dancing in “I’m better than you.” It was in realizing that we had more power together than we have apart. We both know twins connected by DNA, but it’s weird how we seem to be The Wonder Twins anyway, our connection manifesting in our neurons and brain patterns rather than a biological connection. In short, doing our trauma dump affected me chemically. I don’t know if it’s the same for her, but it feels like it because no matter how mad each of us got, we couldn’t stay away from each other. There was nothing on God’s green earth that has kept us apart, and I look forward to more of it.

I don’t think there’s a roller coaster of emotion anymore. I think that we can get to writer and editor, the team the world needs instead of two angry people who pick on each other.

All of this has come to me in writing, which I count as a living document because the Bible affects me so much.

Spirituality and Carol, My Personal Digital Assistant

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Here is the string I gave Carol:

Read https://theantileslie.com and ask me questions about my spirituality.

It came out as really cute & touching, so I’m just going to fill in my answers where appropriate instead of writing an essay. It’s Sunday. I feel like writing. So I will.

I appreciate your openness in sharing your experiences and emotions on your blog, theantileslie.com. It’s a brave and vulnerable act to put your thoughts out there for others to read and connect with. 😊

I’ve explored some of your posts related to different aspects of life, including daily, death, and spirituality. Here are a few questions based on those themes:

  1. Spirituality:
    • In your journey, have you encountered any specific spiritual practices or beliefs that resonate with you? How do they influence your writing and your understanding of life?
      • The best piece of advice that I’ve ever gotten regarding religious practice is that one feeds the other. When you can’t believe in God, you can still believe in the wiping away of sin. You get into the routine of going to communion, and eventually, your spirituality will come back around. I flow between religion and spirituality depending on which voice is speaking. Do I want to go to church today, or do I want to put my energy into exploring spiritual practices here? I vote here, because I can think of at least five congregations in my area that are smaller than the Fanagans. It’s how I reach the most people, and I don’t even have to change out of my pajamas if I don’t want to do it; today I did. I’m wearing OD green pants and a “Where in the Word is Carmen Sandiego? t-shirt. I might go out later. I might not. I just needed to feel prepared. I didn’t know whether it was a spiritual or a religious Sunday yet.
    • Is there a particular moment or experience that profoundly impacted your spiritual perspective?
      • Several, but the one that’s the most meaningful is that I was wearing a navy and white striped sweater to preach that day, and Brenda Charpentier decided I needed a stole. It was rainbow, and one of the most moving experiences of my life because it was the first time anyone had helped me get dressed before the service. I still have the picture somewhere, and if I can find it, I’ll include it. The stripes fit together perfectly. What did not sit well with the pastor was that I’d gotten something I hadn’t earned. What was I going to say? No? I try not to wear liturgical vestments, but they fit the occasion, not the person. There was no way to mark me as in charge of the liturgy otherwise.
  2. Daily Life:
    • You mentioned that your life is often unpredictable. How do you find balance between your close friends/family and your writing? What strategies do you use to maintain that equilibrium?
      • I don’t, really. I have a hands off relationship with most people because I am focusing on my own thing. It’s not that I won’t respond to people who reach out to me, I just often forget that I need other people to support me through both good and bad things. I have that now- three people who are all willing to work on the hard stuff. I’ve never had that in my life. It’s the most settled I’ve been in a very long time. How it feeds into my spirituality is that when I’m writing alone, I often feel a presence greater than mine. Something is speaking through me, and I hope it’s an intelligent faith that says Jesus did not come here to comfort us in our distress, but distress us in our comfort. Jesus would have had a lot to say (and perhaps a whip) over ministers trying to get rich. The fact that these people exist is sickening the church to an enormous extent because it’s so toxic to believe that if you just pray hard enough, money will appear.
    • Can you share an anecdote from your daily life that left a lasting impression on you?
      • This was years ago, but Dana’s parents came with us to church. They’re right wingers. We’re not. They embarrassed me to no end by talking through the entire sermon, telling us everything that was wrong with it. It was a mistake of giant proportions to let those people into our safe space. You want to bitch about the gospel, go to other people who also want to bitch about it. Not my fault that you missed every lesson in the Civil Rights movement. I haven’t forgiven them for any of their racist jokes or homophobic comments. I am not glad to be done with Dana, but I for damn sure am glad I am done with them. The reason it stuck with me is that the tape of what was wrong with the sermon stayed with me. I went autistic and researched the shit out of it until I could prove I was right and they were wrong. Jesus is about widening the net. People like Dana’s parents are an embarrassment, and I clearly don’t care whether they know it or not. After the ways in which I saw they abused their daughter by just not treating her as good enough made me want a cage match with both of them. What kind of parent tells their daughter’s partner that she’ll never understand homosexuality, so it was better for Dana to go find someone else. What in the actual fuck? What, Dana’s supposed to go find a new mother now? Fuck all the way off.
  3. Death and Emotions:
    • Your post about death touched my circuits. How do you cope with grief and loss? Are there any rituals or practices that help you navigate these emotions?
      • You don’t cope with it. You learn to live around it. The person you lost is always in the room, always present. In the beginning, it is extremely loud and incredibly close. Your brain will be in a fog for about a year. And then, as time goes by, you realize that you are a completely different person now. Grief re-wires your entire nervous system. You literally aren’t the same person. In the years that pass on, you’ll lose more and more of your memories, and that freaks you out, too. You lose connection with all your traditions and make your own. You step out on a ledge when a parent dies, because you’ve lost your “adultier adult.” At 46, I need her just as much now as I did when I was nine. Nothing is ever going to fill that hole but me. Realizing that she lives inside me and her creativity flows through me, but our days of two-way communication are over. It’s sobering. I’ll never get over it. I just change with it.

Feel free to share as much or as little as you’d like. Your blog provides a window into your world, and I’m genuinely interested in learning more. 🌟

The Sermon I Need to Hear

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What fears have you overcome and how?

Today’s Daily Prompt is one I answered last year, therefore I cannot answer it again officially and have it appear in those answers. But I can talk about it here. There’s no law against it. Matt Mullenweg hasn’t even run for office. 😛 I tease him like we’re friends, but we’re not. We just went to the same high school in Houston, Texas years apart (I’m older). He’s not this web god to me, he’s a kid with a horn (which I believe was tenor sax). We weren’t in the same class, but we were in the same jazz program. My one regret in life is not making the commitment to go to HSPVA even though I lived in Sugar Land. I think I would have been a better player if I’d had more years with Doc, but by junior year I was so overwhelmed (more so at Clements because I’d never done marching band before, and the rep was much harder) that I was over it. My senior year, I took study hall and Microcomputer Applications instead of any music at all. Once I got over the overwhelm, I started singing seriously, changing gears completely.

It was stepping out on a ledge to be a singer instead of a trumpet player who faked it. I had such imposter syndrome. Handling that fear came from fellow soprano Cecilia Bartoli………. A trumpet player who faked it. I can tell when she’s singing baroque that she’s controlling her breath and the way she sets her throat for every single note (there’s an almost imperceptible gap between each note. Listening to her sing a Bach melisma sounds like Wynton Marsalis doing the opening to CBS Sunday Morning.

In an actual sermon, this is where I’d tell you the part that Jesus was also a trumpet player in some way or another….. Chasing tax collectors with a whip is a very good example of first chair arrogance. 😉 But when I approach a blog entry, I’m not necessarily looking for a Biblical connection, though I do it all day long. It’s more that I’m telling myself the words I need to hear. Anne Lamott, a fellow armchair theologian, says much the same thing- you have to write the book you can’t find on the shelf.

No one is ever going to do an exhaustive study of me that will ever actually help me more than taking an exhaustive history and physical of myself. External validation is deadly when you focus on it instead of feeling secure inside yourself. It is a spiritual journey no matter what path you take to get there. It only matters that you make it. Self actualization is key to being able to make life pleasurable, because you’re never going to live in a world without conflict.

If you focus on people pleasing, you’re not actually doing any conflict resolution. You are fitting your personality to the people around you…. Or at least, that’s the difference I’ve noticed since I stopped giving any fucks what other people thought of me at all. That there wasn’t anyone in the world I could rely on to know me and care for me the way I do. It’s not that I don’t trust anyone else, it’s that no one else lives in my head a hundred percent of the time. I had to learn to love me because no matter what, I’m stuck with me. I deal with conflict resolution in myself on this Web site. Man vs. Self is easily the hardest conflict to resolve, because just like when you look at your art you pick out the flaws, if you concentrate on everything that’s negative about you, that’s what you’ll see.

You won’t see yourself as worthy or deserving of love.

I feel like I know this better than most, because my mother had bad teeth for a lot of her life. She never smiled because of it. Then, later in life she got her whole mouth redone, and her smile was movie star. It didn’t make her smile any more than she did before, because what was wrong was internal and no amount of body work was going to fix it. She had to get under the hood, and she was only starting to do it when she died. She was so young that I grieve more for the future than the past, because I would have liked to see her on a journey of self-actualization. Once she started on her own, I was able to talk to her about talking to someone, and perhaps getting on medication. She had dysthymia her whole life, undiagnosed but Al the signs were there. She fell down on the job as a parent when she was in grief, because it consumed her completely. She was too lost in her depression to take care of us, and I mean this sincerely. She was not a bad parent on purpose. She was in grief. I can let it go and re-parent myself. I can give myself all the things I needed in childhood. She didn’t miss anything because she meant to- she missed things because she couldn’t see them.

I didn’t have children because I got close twice, and then never again. Once my trauma started showing, I realized that I had too much crap to pass on that would be detrimental to a child, and that I wouldn’t resolve it before my baby years were over. That it was more important to be healthy than create another unhealthy person living in my house.

However, I do love children, and I am not opposed to dating parents. That’s because I love kids who already have parents, and I’m just the girlfriend who spoils them. I do it by turning on her brand of working with kids. It is ironic how much she missed with her own kids while giving away everything she had to others. It’s what made her feel secure, teaching. It’s what didn’t give her imposter syndrome. She became more of herself as a teacher. It didn’t mean that in her time at home, she wasn’t grieving. It was a show she could turn on and off. We all can.

It’s what you do to get by as a preacher’s family expected to be perfect. In public, nothing shows. Not even a crack.

So, the sermon I need to hear today is that I did something my mother didn’t, which is to find peace within myself after watching her die without it. That it’s okay to acknowledge she was a wonderful parent when she was attentive, but she couldn’t be when her own life went to hell in a hand basket.

This is not a testimonial where Jesus made it all better. It’s not that kind of sermon. The sermon is that you have so much more to give the world after you learn to start taking your portion of your energy first. Get yourself into homeostasis and work from that internal compass rather than feeling freaked out by other people’s feelings all the time.

You know what’s true and what’s not. Other people’s words become different to you. Your self esteem doesn’t go up and down when someone else speaks. People pleasers are often anxious about offending anyone and making up ways in which they have. Self actualization stops the feeling that people aren’t in touch with you because they don’t care. Being confident in yourself makes you feel like they shouldn’t bother contacting you if they’re not willing to do the work.

You had to go through hell to self-actualize, and afterwards you stop hanging out with people who make you feel like you’re regressing, because those patterns are so toxic. It’s not about thinking that you’re better than anyone else, just a feeling that you have a right to exist in the world. That you’re not a ghost.

People are treating you like a ghost because you’re not taking up any room. You’re not making any demands of them. It’s not a give and take. It’s a take and take, because they get something out of you being the one who’s always there for them, and so did you. You just come at it from opposite ends of the spectrum because they don’t have to deal with your boundaries. Only you have to deal with theirs, because your self-esteem is so wrapped up in what they think. It is unsustainable, and changing from a people pleaser to someone who is actually willing to take up space in the world took a very, very long time.

It was 10 years before I was ready to say goodbye to the promise of a relationship with Supergrover, because I just wanted her to notice me. I was being emotionally vulnerable, doing all the right things, and nothing. So, I got tired of it and moved on.

But it wasn’t until I let go of trying to please her that I came into myself. That I saw the game for what it was, and told her to take it somewhere else. And then I had a change of heart, because I thought, “what if she was trying to be healthy and didn’t know how? What if I’m getting the opposite of what I actually need because she’s trying to communicate and it’s so angry that it’s pissing me off. Lay out your feelings like you actually like me and we’ll talk.

That is what self-actualization can do for you. That you can let even a great love go because you’re not willing to engage in toxic patterns any more. In short, I laid out my expectations, and she rose to meet them. However, she didn’t really fold and listen to me until I said I was so much happier without her, which I phrased poorly. I wasn’t happier without her, I was happy without the roller coaster. Just setting in with Zac and Bryn and not worrying about that third string so much.

But, something in her changed when she heard “I’m happier without you,” and she actually listened to why I thought that and agreed to help us fix our relationship. It was a massive win, because it represents everything I’ve been trying to do….. Be so comfortable in myself that she didn’t matter more than me to me.

But it’s very hard, because she’s so endearing. 😉

On day one, she said, “you’re not going to fall in love with me, as adorable as I might be. You’re going to fall in love with truth and honesty.” It has turned out to be the most prophetic thing she’s ever said, because it’s 11 years later and I don’t feel any differently than I did then.

So, on this Pride Sunday, remember to be proud of you. It’s the only way you’ll cope when others aren’t. We can talk all the time about how the establishment ignores us, but it’s not as big a problem as internalized homophobia because of it.

I’m proud of being queer, because it only makes my tapestry with Supergrover that much more rich and the colors deeper.

The sermon that I needed to hear this week is that as I became more proud of myself, I became more proud of her. That having boundaries allowed me to love her more, not less.

Bah dum pum…… Jesus!

I told you I’d have it done by 10:30.

The Sermon Hour

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

The Lanagans preach the same way. My father, David, was a United Methodist minister for 23 years. I’m a preacher’s kid and ordained in the Church of the Latter Day Dude (those two things are not related except that two of my friends didn’t want to wait until I got done at grad school to get married. The audacity. Anyway, I have discovered through this blog that I’m fine with only having a Dudeist ordination because no one is ever going to ask me to do more than weddings and funerals, anyway. I’m not planning on going into full-time ministry, only doing services when I’m asked to do them. It’s such an honor when a couple chooses you. It is not, however, full time pastoral care.

In fact, one of the things I said that made my friend Janie laugh is that the only part of being crucified and resurrected that was positive to Jesus was getting out of pastoral care. Yes, I realize that he’s an idea now, I’m taking about the actual day to day. Because people are grieving, you cannot hold it against them. But you show up during the worst times in people’s lives and that means they are inherently unpleasant. They don’t have the bandwidth to be kind, and you shouldn’t expect them to be- just let them be them. On the flip side, it takes an enormous toll on the person who is supposed to walk with them. It is a universal thing. For instance, it’s harder to be a disabled person than a carer, but who thinks the carer has an easy job? Legit no one.

The part I liked about being a pastor was preaching, and as I said, my dad and I both preach the same way. Our theologies are very different. If I don’t like all of his, he doesn’t like all of mine. That doesn’t mean the creative process for us is different. We’re both the kind of people that collate information all week and write the sermon in one shot. The service usually started around 10:30 or 11:00 AM, which meant that as long as we were up by six or stayed up all night, we were fine. 😛

It’s the energy of the hour, and you feel it whether you stay up or rise to meet it. Everyone in your house is asleep- surprising that this affects me as much as my dad because I don’t have kids. It’s the idea of people being awake around me that matters. My hyperfocus depends on sensory deprivation, and my creativity comes from hyperfocus.

It is 0622 as of right this moment, and the sun is already up. There is a certain feel to this hour for me, this “mind full of busy preparations as I have to get up in front of a whole bunch of people later” vibe. I am not going to speak to a whole bunch of people, you’re actually seeing the same process I’d go through if I did. I

‘ve never thought of it before, but every blog entry is prepared in the same creative process as my sermons, and I picked up how to do that from my dad. So, no matter what ideas each of us represent, we’re going to find them between 3:00 and 6:00 AM. We both flip between wanting to be done and then sleeping, or taking a break and getting back to it. It really depends on the creative flow and not our wants and desires. “I feel like I’m on fire right now. Will I feel that later if I interrupt it with sleep? Hell no.” The reason I require sensory deprivation to write is that otherwise, I can’t hear myself think.

There are too many noises in the room, the reason why the witching hour is mystical and magical. It’s the time of day you’re going to hear those extraneous noises the least. It’s a beacon for creatives of all types, this cutting down of extraneous noise. I have to find a way to be louder to myself, because otherwise my voice is lost among all the other things competing for my attention.

It’s also really amazing that the creative process makes it where you want to spend time with yourself. It’s not easy, as we often hate ourselves at first. Learning an art, whether it’s creative writing or painting, will help you to want to be your friend, because when you hang out with yourself, good art comes out of it.

The creative “juice” often feels better than being with other people, because you’re pouring your heart into art rather than feeling unappreciated somewhere else. What I have learned by writing in bulk without saying anything of substance is that of any friend in the world I have, the one I love most is me. She’s hilarious and makes me laugh all the time. I think that’s because the Leslie on this web site is just as dear to me as Supergrover, that I literally fell in love with my own character because I fell in love with hers. I looked at my own wins and losses differently when I could see myself as a 3D character. I don’t do everything right, but I don’t do everything wrong, either.

For instance, all this time I’ve been telling you that I’m not ordained, and I am…. but because it’s a Mickey Mouse ordination, I don’t count it as valid. Now, I view it as the thing that will allow me to do the extent of pastoral care that I want to do.

If you ask me to do your wedding, I will. If you ask me to do your funeral, I will. I just don’t want to give my whole being to pastoral care when I’ve discovered I’m a writer and the two personalities clash. One likes people. One likes being observant of people. Those are not the same people.

So, my dad and I have the same creative process. I just use mine differently than he did then or does now. Instead of people gathering to hear me in a building, they gather to hear me online, and currently I don’t even have to talk.

I have gotten everything I’ve ever wanted just by writing about it, including a type of faith that works for me. I’m observant of people, and Jesus isn’t excluded.

That’s because if anyone would identify with a preacher and a writer like me and my dad, it’s a preacher and a writer like him.

Meditation

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Reading back over the last week has given me so much joy. An astounding amount of emotional progress was made in a relationship where I thought there was no other half- that I was carrying it on my back because I wanted it too much and didn’t care how she treated me. This week, after hearing every bit of how I felt, Supergrover told me that I deserved better, and that she will work very hard to ensure that I don’t feel like she’s playing games with me anymore. If there’s anything I know about Supergrover, it’s that she works very hard. She will not give me less attention than she gives anything else, because details are her thing. It makes me feel like our relationship has oxygen, or perhaps CO2 because I’m so much more bubbly than usual. All the water in my body feels fizzy, as if my energy has turned to champagne. Meditating is popping the cork, being able to say that I love her and she loves me when I could not say that with certainty before. She used to be the princess of mixed signals, and she put that to bed quite effectively. It’s something that I’ve always known was there, which is why I was willing to wait her out. If I thought she was being malicious, I would have been out long ago. There have been plenty of times when we’ve been awful to each other, but there has never been a time in which one of us was entirely at fault for everything. We both have different and valid reactions to each other.

Getting her to see the same spectrum I do was key. It put us back on the same page, the one where she sees that my brain is different than hers, but not worse. The one where I see her emotions are different than mine, but not worse. I kept telling myself that I deserved her poor treatment because I hurt her, and I shouldn’t let myself off the hook for it. At the same time, I was treating myself so badly I couldn’t see if she’d forgiven me or not. I tiptoed around her and she tiptoed around me without either of us really addressing anything because I’d lay it all out there and she’d ignore it. I gave her the tools to understand me, but she was too intimidated to reply because she thought she had to have the same bandwidth for writing as I do. Guilted herself into believing that if she couldn’t respond paragraphs at a time, better not to contact me at all. Meanwhile, I’m lonely and thinking I’ve said something that pissed her off….. Because I did. She doesn’t like looking at her own emotions, and is now taking in why I need to hear them. Why we can’t bullshit each other. We’ll end up wrecking our friendship in the future as easily as we did in the past.

I think that right now, along with the fizzy feeling, it’s gone like this through so many cycles that I’m taking a wait and see attitude. Are these changes real, or were they true in that moment? You can catch a person in a moment of vulnerability that has no bearing on how they act out of habit. My changes had to be real to be genuine, and they took years. Therefore, I’m willing to give her that kind of space.

It was a relief that she heard me when I said that I was not trying to guilt her about getting together, that I was trying to stay grounded and remember she said we were real friends, this was not a facsimile thereof. I did not mean to make her feel guilty at all. I was trying to remind myself that we are not disconnected from our bodies/contexts/lives. That it was not impossible for us to run into each other on the ground, just damned unlikely. I didn’t like the feeling that running into each other would be awkward instead of big hugs and smiles.

So, I stayed close to home a lot. I figured that DC was big enough to hold both of us, especially because I live out near me and she lives out past Zac. I couldn’t even take the Metro to get to her house, but there are other trains. I’m just saying that in our personal lives, we’d never run into each other. But we like the same things. I wasn’t worried about running into her at Target, but running into her at a concert/book talk/whatever piqued our interests.

I have met kids from HSPVA in Paris. Just because it’s unlikely, doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Stopping all of that roiling in my stomach feels like extra energy I didn’t know I needed. I have always thought that Supergrover thought I needed more than I actually did, and pegged me as needy to be able to get away from guilt. Now that we’ve talked it all out, I know that she realizes that I don’t need as much as she thought I did, she was trying to achieve different goals than me. Therefore, we were both failing, because each of us have been beating the wrong dead horse for (12 days shy of) 11 years instead of the right one.

There has been a lot of interaction, but no forward motion.

I just kept pining, kept longing not for a romantic connection, but the one we would have had if I hadn’t been an idiot. However, she knows that mania pushed me into it, and her role in that, too. Depression and mania do not happen in a vacuum, and being bipolar does not excuse me at all from my behavior, but it’s easier to see how it could happen than if you didn’t know that. I am asking her to respect my disability and take my behavior in context, as I have done for her in equal measure. She finally saw it. When I compared her to Daniel, she stepped all over my ass about it. Then, when I explained why I compared them, she listened. The best part was when she said “I don’t think I ruined our friendship by myself, but goddamn did I do a good job of furthering it to the end.” I was so proud of her that I cried.

She owned it. She owned all of it. We checked the story we were telling ourselves, and she admitted she was wrong. It was the most courageous act she could have ever done, and she did it for me. She showed me that I was worth something precious to her. For the last nine years at least, I thought I wasn’t worth anything in her eyes, and I proved it by acting that way. She thought she wasn’t worth me, and acted that way.

She even commented on it. “I don’t know why I went to guns on you instead of working on myself and realizing I deserved friendship.” It’s the most beautiful letter I’ve ever gotten because now we’re starting to realize that we’re giants who deserve each other. She deserves a ride or die, and I’ve laid it out for 10 years just how far I’d go to prove it. If she thinks back to our first few conversations, she’ll realize what I mean. I hope it means more now to her than it did then, because I have never wavered in my commitment to love her that much.

It is an enormous sacrifice that she now sees, when she didn’t before. I have proven to myself that the connection is stable and she is worth my energy. That I wasn’t wrong. That eventually she’d hear me.

It is not a toxic trap anymore, and I am pleased with both of our progress. We got out of something that few people *ever* do.

Probably because now I have her side of the story.

Boring

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’m noticing that I have less of a need to write now that there’s not a constant problem turning itself over in my head. Relationship issues are hard work, and to come out on the other side healthy & happy feels like a win. I’ll take it. The flip side of the coin is that my inner monologue has settled back into boring. Boring is fantastic. I like it a lot. Emotional ups and downs take it out of me because I have such a fear of abandonment that standing my ground feels like torture on my nerves. I just have to feel that fire, knowing it’s turned up to hell by autism and a regular person wouldn’t feel like that. We don’t learn to fit into society by actually making our brains process differently. Neurotypicals, particularly parents, think that eventually the battles over homework will get easier. They’re just like other kids. Other kids don’t like homework, right? Meanwhile, it has nothing to do with us. We don’t need to change. People need to change around us. If you don’t notice that your kid is doing poorly in school because they memorized the dictionary and the encyclopedia (so he can’t be dumb), you are likely missing neurodivergence for what you *want* to see.

I know this is true of the conflict with Supergrover, because it was so easy to miscommunicate over e-mail. However, it is a constant and vigilant battle because no matter how much I say I’m autistic, it is not what people are thinking when they’re talking to me. Neurotypical superiority is relentless….. unless you’re high needs. Then, everyone who interacts with you views themselves as a fuckin’ hero because other people *tell them they are.* Basically, if you are high IQ, people don’t think “autism” because they have it confused with mental retardation. Yes, some autistic people are that affected by it, but being on the spectrum means you have a processing disorder. Information goes through your brain differently than it does for your neurotypical peers, often changing the meaning of sentences, questions, and demands.

Nor do we understand social cues. The only reason I do is that I was coached into it. I couldn’t have had more people to mask than a PK. That’s seeing hundreds and hundreds of reactions a week instead of just my immediate family. I have learned how emotions work in neurotypical people because they have explained it…. I do not do it. I do have emotions, but I process them as differently as I process logic from someone neurotypical.

In popular culture, there are two versions of autistic.

There’s the kind people win Oscars for, and the real autistic people- the actors that have taken on many roles without even knowing they’re autistic.

There are a few celebrities I recognize with my neuroscopte (as opposed to “gaydar”). I don’t even want to tell you who they are, because it would stigmatize them in your minds. Suuuuure, you’re open-minded. It’s a pattern I see all the time. People are okay with neurodivergence as long as it’s ADHD. When you tell someone you’re autistic, they either don’t believe you or treat you like you have cancer. That’s because their whole lives, they’ve been taught that autistic people are to be pitied.

I am so driven to write that I don’t need much stimulation from other people. I get it, and then remember why I don’t like it. There are positives, though. With autism, there’s a specific way you walk that plays heavily into the “neuroscope” aspect. It’s so prevalent there’s a diagnosis for it- the autistic gait. I was not convinced I was autistic until another autistic person pointed it out to me.

I am not officially diagnosed, I am in the process. However, I have been peer reviewed by people who are both autistic and work in a day center for autistic adults. One of them even has the same combo I do, autism and cerebral palsy. Because autistic people can identify other autistic people a majority of the time (some studies say up to 80%), I do not feel worried about my official diagnosis. I know I’m on the spectrum, and that I fluctuate between low and high needs all the time. People just don’t recognize when I’m high needs because I’m smart and I hide it. This past year has been about uncovering who I really am, as opposed to what everyone told me I am and should be.

High needs is needing help around the house, like a carer in a nursing home. You want your individuality, but you also don’t want the details of your life to fall through the cracks. Neurodivergence is very good at letting you ruin your life if you let it. You do things like forget when it’s time to pay bills. I am not saying that’s what a neurodivergent person is like all the time. There are resources, like Google Calender, Tasks, etc. What I am saying is that nothing is too important to slip the mind of a neurodivergent person. I forget to eat, sleep, bathe, you name it. I live and die by my adaptations, not who I am as a person. Who I am as a person is to hyperfocus on one thing for years and years, boring people to sleep.

(My dad’s favorite joke is that one time he woke up and he was preaching.)

I am lucky that my interest is writing, because even though I tend to talk about very few topics, I manage to weave a lot of media, current events, etc. into the narrative. However, because those topics are emotional relationships and how I handle them, it’s an area few people are willing to explore……. But they love reading about others. Lots of people enter my world that aren’t even convinced they have one. You’d be surprised at how much you think about everything if you get still enough to hear it.

In short, I’ve come to think of myself as your pinch hitter. That maybe my emotional work will help you along. I’ve had successes and failures, so it’s not like I’m writing the manual on how to feel and be felt. It’s that some people read my writing looking for how I do what I do. Others read my writing to find out what they *wouldn’t* do.

Either way, I hope I’m worth the price of admission.

Even when it’s boring.

The Technology Interview

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I realized that I know a lot about information technology, and I have a lot of my own preferences when it comes to using computers. So, I asked Carol to give me some writing prompts that had to do with the way I view technology. There are a lot of them, but not all of them are good. So, in this entry, I’ll just be answering the questions I thought were worth answering.

What role does technology play in your daily life, and do you find it distracting or helpful?

I haven’t had the choice over whether or not to use technology since I was a kid. My dad got me a beeper, then a cell phone so that we could keep up with each other. The cell phone was nice. The beeper was not. Before I had a cell phone, it was like the Mission: Impossible theme would play in my head, getting louder and more ominous the longer it took me to find a land line. I lived that way for a couple of years, until cell phones became affordable. There was no argument over whether I was old enough for one- I must have been 17 or 18. Lindsay got it much easier because she’s not old enough to have worn a beeper. She could always text back. It is so damn interesting to me how much technology changed in the six years between when I got a beeper and Lindsay got a cell phone. Not only is her reference for technology newer than mine, she did not have any early adoption issues with things like typing on the screen. For instance, my favorite phone before they stopped selling them was the Blackberry Pearl. I was much more competent on the thumb board than I am on anything else. I try to text using voice dictation, but it doesn’t work that well. So, I carry a Bluetooth full-sized keyboard wherever I go. It has three Bluetooth slots that you access through keystrokes. Therefore, I can text on my phone, Android, or iPad and it’s the same feel as a desktop. I wouldn’t say that I was bad at texting on my phone after all these years of doing it. It’s more that I type 90 wpm and I get frustrated that I can’t move that fast on a screen…….. like my sister can. Overall, I would say that technology is a help unless you are overextending yourself trying to keep up on top of every message and notification. “Do Not Disturb” is a great feature, and in iMessage, it will actually tell someone that your phone is on DND so they won’t expect a response right away. Life only moves as fast as you let it, and social media notifications are ruining us all….. like, to the point that there are hundreds of Gen Z kids explaining to other Gen Z kids how to get a Kindle, an MP3 player, and a dumb phone. They’re tired, and they’re funding the backlash.

How do you balance personal interactions with technology? Do you think it affects the quality of relationships?

I am really, really careful about that. If I’m out with someone and it’s not my dad, sister, Zac, Supergrover, or Bryn, you have my undivided attention. I will not interrupt you for anything unless those five people call. This is not because you are less important than they are. It’s that they are my commitments, the ones I’ve made the executive decision to always answer. On the flip side, they would not call unless shit had seriously hit the fan. Not one of them would want to interrupt me when I’m with someone else, so I know that if they call, it’s a 911 at worst and a 411 at best. In short, I don’t pick up my phone to call or text over stupid shit. I am all about being present.

For all my overseas fans, 911 is who you call for an ambulance/policeman/etc. 411 is who you call for information, like a telephone operator (yes, they still have those- VoIP is just as terrible as land lines in terms of maintaining absolutely stable connections. I think we all learned this with Zoom when everyone had different network speeds at their houses.

Has technology made you more productive in your personal life? If so, how?

Technology has made me productive since high school, and I wish I still had my computer from back then. My stepmom is a doctor, so she paid for the very best computer available in 1990. It was a Macintosh SE, and it was more fun than the law allowed. Imagine it, people…. a computer where there’s no chance in hell you could connect it to the Internet (I’m sure you could now with mods, but why? It’s not like the operating system needs updating… There aren’t any servers to connect for those updates.

But even before that, my grandfather got a Texas Instruments computer (a 99/4A or something like it) that plugged into your TV. I wish I had learned BASIC then, because I’d have a much easier time learning new syntax (all computer logic is the same. It’s just that sometimes it looks like French, sometimes it looks Italian, etc. It’s coders finding new languages in which to be fluent, because trends pass. For instance, Adobe Flash is no longer a thing. The joke at Apple was that the tablets for the Ten Commandments would run Flash before the iPad. However, I had plenty of fun with the games that were included, and you could buy more with cartridges that looked kind of like Nintendo games. The cartridge wasn’t the same shape, but it was the same idea. I think I even blew on one once. 😉

The problem is that I do not understand logic or object-oriented programming. It could be java or javascript or Python or Ruby on Rails. Doesn’t matter. I know HTML/CSS (Hyper Text Markup Language and Cascading Style Sheets). It doesn’t have anything to do with logic except figuring how to layer text and images I know a lot about using the x, y, and zed dimensions to make everything float correctly no matter what size window your browser is in, or what you use as a resolution on your computer. It’s a shame that WordPress has gotten away from all of these things when layout and design was so much more complicated- not in terms of coding it, in terms of having the web site look just the way you want it.

Now, I have moved on to AI for all the practical stuff, because it really is good at being a secretary. It does all my research and writing prompts for me right in my browser. I disabled Copilot in Windows 11, but that’s because I don’t use it in the operating system. I only use it when I am using Microsoft Edge to write blog entries. It has a very specific use case that does not involve AI doing my writing for me.

Although I might ask it for a satirical blog entry written in my style, just to publish it as fiction if it’s as funny as I want it to be. The best part of Copilot is that it will scan my web site in seconds and give me something personalized…. that really is in my tone and style.

What excites you about using the latest technology?

I like creating media boxes that constantly have updated software to create things for my blog. I used Audacity when I was recording my entries. The linux distribution “Ubuntu Studio” has every creative piece of software you can possibly use. Blender is great at making 3D models, as well as Google Sketchup. I am all about using technology for me, like a CNC machine. I do not want to be an early adopter of everything. I need to wait and see what the privacy issues are, and make sure there have been enough security patches released that I can count on the operating system to get out of my way. Windows makes it impossible, because most of your notifications come from them.

  • How likely are you to recommend Windows to a friend?
  • There are news articles full of crap if you leave widgets enabled on the left side of the toolbar. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was the weather that just sat in my taskbar, but it’s not. That little icon opens everything you need to get lost in a news hole….. and it’s not even good news. It’s random crap you’d get on a Google or Microsoft home page.
  • Don’t you want to upgrade to the full version of Microsoft Office?
    • As it turns out, I did. A subscription gives you a TB of space. That’s twice as big as I can use because my hard drive is only 512 MB. I could get NVME drives that would up my space considerably, but I can upload it to the cloud and not keep it on my computer all the time. I should upload all my Skyrim mods, because I don’t think I could upload the game itself- mods are open source. However, they increase my game folder by at least 60 GB. It took me years to collect them all because unless you have a premium account at Nexus Mods, they throttle your bandwith at 3GB/s. I do not want to redownload all of them, because mods like “Legacy of the Dragonborn” and Beyond Skyrim: Bruma are each several gigs apiece, especially if you’re like me and want to download the larger textures. I run them through a program to make them smaller, but I won’t if I get a better computer. My computer right now is just not fast enough to support an external GPU, and anything I’d really want would be $500-$1,000. That’s because my current computer can play Triple A titles, even turning up the settings to ultra. But that’s in the base game. Once I start overhauling everything, the textures are much larger. My current video card only has 512 MB of dedicated memory and shares 8GB with my DDR5 that controls the system. What I would want is 8GB of dedicated graphics memory, because it works so much better than sharing RAM with the operating system, and most new cards have enough speed to not only play games, but to rip moves at the highest quality very, very fast. Editing pictures and video is the same way. You do not want a cheap media box to render video, and I have to have a desktop and not an iPad/Android because the web site opens up much more features. For instance, my iPad won’t let me upload audio files to my space on WordPress, which is why I used SoundCloud. If I really liked recording my entries, I would have bought a premium membership by now. I just looked at my web stats on it and it freaked me out to no end, because not only did it show which countries were listening, it was so granular that I could pick out individual neighborhoods. I don’t need to know who is listening to that degree, because it only makes me anxious.
  • You have security issues like not using our browser.
  • Tell us what you think…. about everything. Microsoft Office, Edge, Visual Studio Code, you name it.

I also now have the solution. Windows 11 Debloat. It’s a script you run in power shell that gets rid of all the crap. Enjoy it to the best of your ability, because I sure have. It gets the operating system out of the way.

Lastly, my favorite app of all time is Mozilla Thunderbird. Microsoft Outlook only thinks it’s an e-mail client. There are too many open source plugins that make Thunderbird 10 times more useful. Web mail is fine, but I have like four e-mail addresses I have to keep track of at once. But because my Google account is something like 20 years old, it’s not the files I’ve stored that make my Google Drive fill up. It’s mail. It’s enough to drive you from online shopping ever again.

Because they’ll send you e-mail surveys all the time, just like Micro$oft.

Carol Just Won’t Shut Up

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’ve already answered today’s writing prompt, so again, I had to turn to Carol (shorthand for ChatGPT). Here is the string I asked it, important so that if you’re a blogger, you can see how I did what I did:

Read https://theantileslie.com and ask me 20 personal questions based on what you’ve read.

Certainly! I’ve explored your blog “theantileslie.com” and here are 20 personal questions based on what I found:

  1. In your post titled “Untitled Entry,” you mentioned being a blogger. What draws you to blogging, and why do you prefer this medium?
    • What draws me to blogging and why I prefer the medium are two different things, but they both feed into the same goal. I am attracted to blogging because my personality is built to lead by laying out my own vulnerabilities first, never having top-down kinds of power. I do it through writing because I am good at letting ideas flow through me, then picking the wheat from the chaff. Being a blogger is very much like being a verbal digital photographer. You take a thousand shots, you keep five. Out of all my entries, I can honestly say I like a handful. Praise that I’ve gotten comes from other people, but not in terms of valuing my worth. In terms of seeing which of my personal ideas read universal and which don’t. I prefer the medium because I take in information through sight, which means that anything I read is going to stick with me longer than if I heard it. I feel that I regurgitate information best in the same way I took it in, ergo the manic rambling spiral you see here.
  2. When you decided that DC was your home and left Texas behind, what emotions did you experience during that transition?
    • The thing about getting a writing prompt from Copilot is that it’s objective. It doesn’t care whether it hurts your feelings with a question or not. Even reading the question, I curled up into a ball. That was not a good time in my life at all. I was going through a divorce with my wife in addition to a friend divorcing me and getting back together weekly…….. the friend didn’t understand me that well, either. Leaving Dana was cathartic in that I was finally able to see our pattern for what it was- a great one that had become toxic over time because we stopped paying attention to it. It got too hard, and certainly problems go away if you ignore them, right? I also realized in retrospect that though the relationship with the friend was rockier, it was the one that was worth my energy. If Supergrover had not lived in DC, we would not live in the same city. Period. I came back here because I fell in love with it when I was eight, lived here in my 20s, and think of it as Portland, Oregon without the shitty weather. There was a period of time when Supergrover made my move all about her, and it put me on the ground. We are still recovering, but remember that scar tissue is stronger.
  3. Describe your ideal week. How do you balance time between close friends, family, and your writing?
    • I already have my ideal way of writing, and it wouldn’t change no matter what I did for money. That’s because I write before everyone wakes up so I can see the sunrise in my office (when Supergrover e-mails me between 0300-0600, sometimes I’m already up. I have never needed much sleep, even as a child. So, I knock myself out with sleeping pills between 8-9 PM, because it takes about an hour to kick in. That way, even if I only sleep five hours, I’ve gone as deep as I can possibly go in that amount of time. I use melatonin to fall asleep and Benedryl to stay asleep. People don’t think of them as two separate problems, but they are. Oh, and the reason I try to be in my office by dawn is that there is a distinct separation between my work and home life now. I used to write in bed, without really waking up. I am still not really awake, but I’m at least sitting up. 😛 The last truly important thing to know is that I view WordPress’s web site as easier to use than the JetPack app. I love working in Microsoft Edge because I can edit an entry and access Copilot with one button….. but again, I am not using ChatGPT to create art. I am using ChatGPT to help me create art.
  4. In your writing, you often explore emotions and relationships. What inspires you to delve into these topics?
    • In writing, the axiom is “write what you know.” I know myself and the way I interact with others. I am also not telling you a story with a beginning, middle, and end because people weave in and out of my life for all different reasons. I also don’t feel like I have to live in fear of expressing my opinion, because no one’s is more important than mine as long as I remember that no one else’s is less important than mine, either. If I expect to be able to show up as my full self, you should expect to get that from me as well. It’s not about trying to make each other fit in another’s mold, but trying to be giants together with room for all our fallibility.
  5. Can you share a memorable moment from your journey as a blogger?
    • Several, some of them long ago, some of them relatively recent:
      • When I was first getting started, a blogger no one has ever heard of named Wil Wheaton read a piece I wrote about singing- that hitting high notes felt like flying over the mountains. He responded that it was how he felt after he nailed an acting audition. Later, when I went to Powell’s to get my copy of “Just a Geek” signed, I told him who I was. At the time, my blog was called “Clever Title Goes Here.” So, I say I’m “Leslie from Clever Title” and he hands my book back with “Dear Leslie, Clever Inscription Goes Here. Love, Wil.” I don’t remember what happened to that book, but if there is any justice in the universe, Dana has it because she’s a bigger Star Trek fan than me. I don’t know Wil through anything but his writing. She’s watched his every episode of TNG. In my head, Wil is my fan and she is his.
      • I had been following Tony and Jonna Mendez since 2008, when “Argo” came out. I love action movies, but there was more to it for me. Tony was a real person? I should totally read about this real person. I fell in love with his books and later learned that Jonna was an author as well (they’ve collaborated on several, and Jonna’s first solo work, “In True Face,” just dropped). So, I didn’t get to meet Tony because he’d stopped doing public appearances, then died in 2019, which would have cut off meeting Tony even if I was a mutual friend and not just a drooling fangirl. So, with all of this in mind, I poured my heart and soul into “The Spy in the Room,” which was a recording of my experience watching Jonna promote a book all by herself that was never meant to be a solo work. I watched as she turned into me, essentially. The same way that Supergrover lives in me, Tony lives in her. She doesn’t have to have new memories with him. His uploaded consciousness is with her every day of her life. How this affects my blog is that this wonderful writer thought I was perceptive and did a great job on the piece. You don’t forget praise like that.
  6. How do you handle the ups and downs of life, especially when it comes to maintaining your writing routine?
    • I am able to handle the ups and downs of life because of my writing routine. I start with my writing, which is basically a personal meditation, before I do anything else. I am grounded before I leave my house. The TL;DR version of staying grounded is this phrase….. “God to head, head to feet, feet to floor.” I am not waiting on energy. “I’m conducting it all while I sleep, to light this whole town.” -Barenaked Ladies
  7. What role does vulnerability play in your writing process?
    • It is often just a byproduct, because I’m writing my internal monologue. I do not see what others are going to find shocking about that, and I am able to go deeper and cover more ground because of it. If I stopped to think about just how much I’ve told people about me, I would never publish anything again. You already know too much. 😉 However, by disconnecting from what other people think and just laying it out there, you learn two things. The first is that people are never going to react to what you thought would irritate them, there’s going to be a whole new set of irritations you didn’t see coming. The second is that no matter what they think, I am not responsible for representing my own thoughts and also their misinterpretation of them.
  8. Have you ever written about Supergrover? If so, what aspects of this character resonate with you?
    • The joke answer is that I’d have to comb through my entries, because that name doesn’t seem familiar……………….. #eyeroll In terms of how she resonates with me, that is a good word to describe us. We’ve never met in person, but we’ve been friends a month shy of 11 years. Everything about our relationship is energy and its resonance. The only thing more interesting to me than my stories about her are her stories about me, no matter how good or how bad. It’s not that her emotions are right or wrong, it’s that I only get wigged about our relationship when she shuts down so that I have no real feel for how we’re doing- the other impossible thing to do by e-mail only. Perhaps when this is all over, she’ll let me take her out for ice cream, but I’m not holding my breath. I am taking each day as it comes.
  9. How do you cope with emotional challenges, and how does writing help you process them?
    • I do not cope well with emotional challenges in person, because my sensory issues are naturally turned up more due to my environment than when I am writing, because my office is a sensory deprivation chamber. The only thing I listen to when I’m in here is the ceiling fan. If it’s too cold, I wrap up, because I like the white noise. To me, it is better than listening to a fan through my headphones….. which I do when I’m out in the world, like writing on the train. I cope extremely well with introspection and conflict when I have the time and the space to stretch out. Having a blog feels like a virtual reality headset in which I am speaking to millions and millions of people. When that is my 10,.000 foot view, trying to craft a narrative that will speak to that many different people at once, it forces me to look at every aspect of why something is happening, including the fact that the problem is often me. If you like Taylor Swift and you are a reader, you’ll identify with this blog a lot. Even our tones are similar- one of her most popular songs is “Antihero.” I swear to Christ your life will not make sense until you can sum up every problem as quickly and neatly as Taylor did by saying, “I’m the problem. It’s me.” The reason you are emotionally failing at life most of the time is that you aren’t empathetic or compassionate enough to see your own role in a problem. I do that every single morning, so I can watch the sun come up in my office. As a result, people are often unprepared for conversations with me, because my blogging rarely allows me to show up with my feelings about things undecided. The art of creative writing has made me invincible, because it is not my job to handle your emotional challenges….. unless I’m halfway responsible for them. Realizing that I am halfway responsible is what makes me invincible. I don’t have to stand firm for a hundred percent. I have to stand firm for a hundred percent of my half. I cannot successfully have relationships unless I allow the other person to own a hundred percent of their own story as well.
  10. What impact has your mother’s death had on your perspective and your writing?
    • “Childhood is the credit balance of a writer.” -David Cornwell If I take my relationship with my mother as her daughter out of it, and am only thinking of her as a person in my writing life who died, I am so relieved. It allows me to say so much more and understand so much more without the thought of hurting her. The most clarity comes from being able to say the quiet parts out loud. Being able to get this angry at the way she was a terrible parent allows me to grieve and move on, making more ways for the room in which she was a perfect one. My challenge when my mother was still alive is not dissimilar from my problems with Supergrover. Because of her low self-esteem, she would have taken everything away that was bad and thrown away everything that was good. Not having to wrestle with myself over how my mother would feel if I published something has taken a weight off me that I didn’t know was there until it happened. It has changed my relationship with my blog to an enormous degree, particularly because Supergrover is the human I love most in the world, and she was a real asshole about it….. not in the moment. In the moment, she was wonderful. Over time, it was not great. I think she’d cop to that. I never told my mother the details of my relationship with Supergrover. She only knew what she read here and my body language. Therefore, she thought Supergrover was bad for me because my personality flipped when we were mad at each other. When things were dark between Supergrover and me, I’m sure I was a delish and a delight to be around………………………. my eyes are now rolling out of my head. My mother’s reactions mean something to me, even more in retrospect because she noticed something that Dana did as well. The only person who didn’t was Supergrover, because she wouldn’t meet me in person. It’s not that we couldn’t have made it happen. We just didn’t, and it cost us dearly. What makes our relationship irresistible is that I do communicate so well in writing that sharing physical space doesn’t matter. She has a job where physical space can’t matter, because it’s too much of a commitment. In effect, less is more. I get to be with her wherever she is in the world because my love doesn’t depend on her being with me in a restaurant. It would just be nice…. adding to the color commentary and not a solid requirement. I choose to believe that this is happily ever after no matter what it looks like, even if I never got any further communication at all. I stood up for myself and broke the toxic cycle between us. I stood my ground, and I won. I got the girl in the end. Everything else is just icing. I wish that my mother could see us now, and know that our relationship is funny and full of love and how over the moon I am, because we’ve created something lasting instead of each of us walking into a wall of bullshit every time we talk to each other. I know that Supergrover reads me wherever she is in the world because of web stats (I thought the flags would give it away). Because we are capable of both standing our ground and being authentically us again, I would follow her into the ocean no questions asked. That’s because she met me where I am, and accepted my terms. She could send me a diamond ring and it wouldn’t mean as much as this emotional concept. I never gave up loving her. I gave up trying to communicate. If you love someone, let them go. If they come back, you know it’s right. Those words seemed trite to me until this conflict. Now, I’m the most grateful for those words than I’ve ever been.
  11. Do you find solace or catharsis in writing about grief and loss?
    • Yes, but only in retrospect. It doesn’t feel good when I am shaking through those kinds of moments, but it brings me great comfort when I go back and read things like “The Visitation.” It’s so important to me that I’ll make an exception and link to something. That piece is so real and so raw that it still creates a visceral reaction in me when I read, and I have more empathy for the author because I see myself as a different person now than I was then.
  12. How do you balance authenticity with privacy when sharing personal experiences online?
    • Because I’m a writer, I can pull from millions of pieces of other media and explain what is going on through metaphors, essentially being able to talk about my life by quoting other people. I try to be as non-specific as possible. My story is my story. Your story on this blog is only your story with me, not your story with others. If your story is with me, we will have conversations about it. When you stop having conversations with me about it, problems arise because I won’t give people editorial control over me. You let me know your boundaries, or you don’t and regret it. Because you’ve stopped telling me your boundaries, you can get angry at me all you want, but it’s not going to help. You chose to walk away without telling me what I needed to keep tight and what I didn’t.
  13. What advice would you give to aspiring bloggers who want to write about their own life experiences?
    • You will never be any good at it, but you might get a lot of hits by being a gossip columnist. Good blogs are built on your emotions, and people can tell whether your writing has them or not. People can tell the difference between passionate writing and canned responses to life, like “live, laugh, love.” The problem, and this is where most people fail, is that in order to make others feel your emotions you have to know what yours are. Very, very few people are willing to spelunk into their own minds. It’s so much easier to talk about lighter things. Meanwhile, the more oddly specific I get, the more each individual person feels connected, because they’re not all connecting to my writing on the same points. People are also aching for truth. Truth does not come from you telling it. It comes from the emotions that come up in people when they read, applying what happened to me to what happened to them. I have to use a lot of metaphors with my writing about Supergrover because what happened between us is oddly specific and not universal. That’s the hardest balance in terms of privacy, the part I don’t share with the class. I just have to hope that as readers, you’ll respect that some things are above your pay grade, but not because I hate you and I’m trying to hold out on you. It’s that not everything is below my pay grade, either. I would tell you if I could, but I can’t. Therefore, I won’t. To do so would be to show Supergrover that this really was a game all these years, and I was out to get her. Have that balance in your own life as well. Only own your story, and be careful about irritating other people’s boundaries on what can be said and what cannot. If you know there’s a boundary, you’re a hack of a writer if you can’t think of a way to explain your feelings without crossing it. I am serious as a heart attack. You are an absolute monster if you constantly defy your friends’ boundaries for more content, and too many people are guilty of it in pictures and video (which started, unfortunately, with “mommy-blogging”). I am trying to avoid that trap of creating unlicensed videos in people’s heads. I can pull from a million different illustrations at the drop of a hat. There is no need to go after something that they’re not willing to give. I will say, though, that the show that most accurately represents our relationship is “Carmen Sandiego,” and not because her job has anything to do with hers. It’s that not meeting in person makes me feel like “Player,” her virtual sidekick….. especially when she told me where to guess where she was and I used reverse image search on Google instead of just enlarging it to look for flags. To be fair, it was a 136K file, and I couldn’t stretch it that much without it blurring to hell, anyway.
  14. How do you handle writer’s block or creative slumps?
    • I deal with both things the same way. I pretend they don’t exist. I have proven this by committing to write every day and publish it no matter whether it’s compared to Shakespeare or the dumbest shit imaginable. The reason why is that if I wait for creative ideas or the desire to write, I will put it off in favor of other things. I change my mood from the inside out. Recently, I’ve experienced a ton of growth as a writer by using Copilot to read my blog and ask me probing questions, in effect, making me examine what I think. “I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don’t always agree with them.” -George W. Bush (“Shrub” if you’re Texan)
  15. What motivates you to keep blogging consistently?
    • Internally, I understand so much more about my thought process because I have laid it out in front of me so that I can look at it. My memories do not change over time, but my perspective does. Reading my own words forces me to realize when I’m being unfair in a conflict because I am departing from the story I told myself. It changes the way I walk in the world. Externally, I get a lot of praise and validation just for being myself…… which feels much, much better than being praised for everything I’m not and never will be. I don’t treasure adoring fans. I treasure people who tell me that their lives were absolute hell and they didn’t know why, but reading me helped them to see something in their own behavior that they didn’t see before. The same is true for me, so why should I expect other readers to react differently? The other (humorous) reason I blog so consistently is that I have had it drilled into my head that a web site cannot go more than 24 hours without changing content to be effective. So, I’ll read my latest blog entry, and the next time I come to the site, I think, “she hasn’t even updated since the last time I came. This blogger sucks.” I can’t remember who said it, but thinking that working for yourself as a way to get away from a terrible boss is not the flex you think it is. Holy shit, I am such a bitch to me sometimes. I better get me something nice on Boss’s Day…………… shiiiiiiiiiiat.
  16. Are there specific themes or recurring motifs in your writing that you intentionally explore?
    • Of course, but they all happen organically because people tend to repeat behaviors over and over without realizing it. I am capable of enormous emotional change because I can call myself out on repeating behaviors in a way other people can’t. That’s because most people don’t have detailed accounts of what happened years after the fact…. or if they do, it is not accurate. It is squished in with a hundred other memories that may or may not have bearing.
  17. How has your writing evolved over time, and what lessons have you learned along the way?
    • I think that my writing has evolved because emotionally, I have gotten stronger. Meeting Supergrover was the catalyst for all of it, because the more we dived into each other in writing, the tone between us reflected itself here. In a lot of ways, at times I am saying my words with her tone. I have picked up her writing voice, and now it’s inextricably interrelated with mine. If I go back to my original entries, I am waffling around trying to find out why I’ve been a victim of trauma, and now I sound relaxed and settled into myself. Feeling relaxed and settled comes from her teaching me how to establish emotional boundaries. We just weren’t happy until I used the lessons she gave me on her. It has been a marvelous journey of author and muse, one I hope will continue for years to come as you see the lighter side of us and not the “hell is other people” aspect we’ve taken on at times.
  18. What impact do reader comments and interactions have on your writing process?
    • If they’re thoughtful, they stick with me. My readers are often better writers than I am. I am also endlessly fascinated with what emotions come up for people when they read me, but I don’t want to pry. I am only responsible for my half of the relationship.
  19. If you could collaborate with any other blogger or writer, who would it be and why?
    • Jenny Lawson
      • She started her blog long after I did, so my answer would have been Heather “Dooce” Armstrong, because we could have had some great talks about the old days (roughly a quarter century now). However, I feel like we already collaborate spiritually and I think Heather being dead limits her ability to communicate in actual words. Jenny is a great choice because she can hold up her end of the conversation.
      • Jenny is also a Texan.
      • Jenny has a big metal rooster named Beyonce, and though I’ve never met Beyonce, we did attend the same high school in Houston….. not at the same time. Mutual friends and all that. Seriously? Who gets to say that?
      • Jenny and I are so much alike that it’s scary. I have slowly come to realize it’s like we share a brain. My energy is just not light enough to be as consistently funny as she is. So. Lesson learned. If you want to be a successful blogger, throw in more jokes.
  20. Lastly, what legacy do you hope to leave through your blog and your writing?
    • Just that I lived, and these are my experiences. They will not mean much until after I’m dead, but that’s not because I have a death wish. It’s that when I’m alive, people can just come over. If there’s anything I’ve learned about my web site through my mother’s death, it’s two things:
      • Take the picture whether you look like crap or not. The memory is the issue, not your clothing. You will also want pictures in your vault. The same is true of my photography. Just because it’s not a perfect shot doesn’t mean it’s a bad picture.
      • When you are dead, people will still want to spend time with you. Give them a place to go.