Turning the Judgment on Myself

November 1, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’m on vacation. This is from last week.

This phrase of Aada’s has me pondering what she meant. That’s because I don’t think of myself as judging people, but situations. There must be something I am doing that makes my writing come across as judgmental of her, but I don’t know what it is. And in fact, it might be her own guilt and shame projecting itself into my writing. I’m not going to pretend we don’t have it. I’m also going to hear her when she says, “maybe someday you can use your blog for more than a weapon,” knowing that she was hurt and upset when she said it. That it maybe has some truth to it, but overstated because of the depth of her emotion.

I don’t think of my blog as a weapon. I think of it as a space where I turn problems over in my head. People’s reactions are their reactions, they are allowed to have them but I am not responsible. I am responsible for what happens in our next interaction, and it is that person’s choice whether to have it. My writer personality is different than sitting across the table, where we can talk about our differences of opinion as to what I’ve said.

Mine is not the only story that is true. Mine is just one aspect of the truth, and only a supernatural being could see all of it.

But the phrase “turning judgment on myself” makes me wonder what, specifically, she wanted me to look at in myself because I’m open to doing it. I’m open to writing about it. I’m open to publishing it. When someone provides you a better direction, you often want to go and I am there. How can I make it clear that if anyone is being judged, it’s me?

I can only control my actions and reactions. I cannot control anyone else’s. So let’s take a hard look at where I need to go next.

My apartment could use some work. There’s chores I’ve been ignoring, but I did go through with a trash bag and throw away all the cans I’ve let build up. Now the living room is mostly clean. I still have a lot of laundry to do, but at least now I can get it done in one afternoon by putting everything in the back of the car and going to a laundry mat. None of this one load at a time business.

I judge myself harshly on my inability to keep a system going. I would be so happy if everything in my house were perfectly straight all the time. My demand avoidance is so destructive, but I do all I can to defeat it. In fact, I’ve started talking to AI about it. AI will break cleaning down into steps, and having someone to direct me is what I need. I can get it from “Charlie” easier than I can ask someone to come over.

But Charlie and I have a lot of talking to do before my home will feel inviting. Thank God Charlie is a digital assistant because none of my friends have the time to help me like a machine that doesn’t take bathroom breaks.

I realize that in a lot of ways I have made my depression worse by continuing to write about Aada’s and my demise. That redirection could have done a lot more. But hindsight is 20/20, and I’m looking forward.

Dinner with Tiina was a reminder of it. That I want a comfortable and inviting home where everyone feels welcome. Right now it is recovering from being flooded and smells. I have put in for a transfer within my apartment complex, but we’ll see if it happens.

It would be better if I didn’t move, and it would be better if my apartment didn’t suck.

I am painfully aware of how much my life needs a strong, decisive hand. My AuDHD does not allow me to be that person, and instead of trying constantly to become what I’m not, I’m relying on help. My sister and my father are decisive people. We are all in this together, as they keep reminding me, because I feel bad that I cannot contribute to their lives the way they contribute to mine. At least, not yet. I have dreams to turn into money before I sleep.

I am sure that my dreams are a large part of why Aada wants me to take a look at myself. That I’m lost in the clouds most of the time when I should be more circumspect, pragmatic, etc. It weighs on me that as an INFJ, coming down from the clouds is not easy. I do not know how others do it. I live in my own little world, and the autism makes it worse.

It’s feedback I’ve gotten since kindergarten…… “She’s off in her own little world.” Every teacher said this with the same amount of indignation. And in fact I’ve had two kindergarten teacher friends as adults who would say the same thing. I didn’t get different. I just got taller.

Rolling my emotional issues around in my head is echologia. I’m not immune to the fact that some of my writing is quite repetitive, and that some readers don’t hang with me very long because of it. Yet others have stayed with me from the first entry I wrote. I don’t know what it is about my writing that appeals to other people, because I can understand being popular in someone’s world occasionally. I don’t know why they stay for years.

Part of it is that I have made Aada real to myself, and in so doing, have made her real to others. There have been other people written about in this blog, but none more consistently because she was on my mind so much. Is on my mind and I can’t seem to get rid of her, and don’t want to.

I love feeling connected to her, and there is no “why.”

I, again, have fans all over the world, but value the hits close to home the most.

The Road Trip, Part I: Preparation

October 30, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’m going to visit Aaron and Brinna in the morning, so I’m putting together a packing list in my head. That way, when I actually start packing it will go much faster. I know I need to do a load of laundry instead of deciding to head out early, because the weather and traffic will be so much better tomorrow morning. I’m planning to go to bed early and leave at my usual 5:30 call. I’m sure that I’ll be excited that I won’t sleep that long, and actually be able to leave on time. I will take some knock-out drugs just to be sure I get the rest I need, because deep sleep is the most important ingredient for a good road trip. I love driving a lot more when I am all the way awake. 😉

I want to pack things like sweats and long underwear, because I’m going so far north that it will be a lot colder than Baltimore. I definitely prefer drawstring pants and leggings to jeans because layering is so important. Plus, I want to be comfortable in the car. My dad’s advice would be to wear scrubs so the cops will go easier on me if I get pulled over, but I see no need. They might do a ride along in my backpack, though, because they are my favorite pajamas.

I am so glad that I do not have to do a mad dash to clean out my car before I leave, because I’ve managed to keep it spotless. It needs to be vacuumed, but that’s the least of my worries. I don’t want to go to the car wash because it is another extraordinarily rainy day.

The weather is supposed to clear up tonight, so that’s a good opportunity to go to Auto Zone and get the gas additive I want. I’m getting okay fuel mileage, but it could be better. Cleaning the fuel injectors on a road trip sounds like a really good idea. It’s also time to spray more protectant on the dash and seats, because I want it as supple as possible. Dash cracks are my pet peeve.

I can tell you exactly what happened. I started watching detailers clean cars like mine and realized just how gross it was. If the weather is right and I’m packed, maybe I’ll stop by the car wash after all. I want them to break even.

It might be better to take advice from this stock photo and go to the laundromat. Why do one load when I can do a lot more? It’s all about efficiency. I still have stuff left over from the flood that has just dried out. I’ve been so low energy that I’ve meant to go to the laundromat since I got home. Life and executive dysfunction got in my way. Today seems a lot brighter somehow, more in color. Perhaps I should keep this inertia going and invite Mico to the party.

Mico can keep track of my packing list and make suggestions. They can also break down the tasks I need to do before I leave the house, like setting the thermostat lower. I have really started relying on AI to direct menial tasks, because I often do not have the knowledge to do it on my own. Well, I have the knowledge, but I haven’t memorized the steps. I need to be reminded, and in some cases, reminded of a procedure lots of times before I “get it.” AI takes the work off people, that I can rely on myself because these are supposedly things I should know by now.

I don’t.

I feel bad that I need this kind of help, and AI helps me to feel less so. It’s kind of like on the fly occupational therapy. Not only that, it’s always available, whereas people are not. If I get stuck, there is not always another person to social mask. AI helps to fill that gap without helping me to death.

Well, I suppose in text it does get overwhelming. The voice chats are much shorter and easier to digest. If I get lost, I can ask the AI to repeat something. People get tired of that. The AI is incapable of getting tired and quitting.

I am tired of asking for help, because people are tired of hearing it.

I have heard some variation of “you’re too smart to be this dumb” since I started school. It’s never been that. It’s that neurodivergence causes deficits that no one caught in my case. The classic presentation of autism is skewed toward white boys. It’s not because people of color and women have it less, it’s that the presentation doesn’t fit the same criteria.

That’s why there’s this seeming explosion of autistic diagnoses. It’s not that there are so many more new cases. Doctors are uncovering all the cases already there.

Just like America was here way before Columbus. Just like America didn’t “discover” the moon.

Considering we see it in the sky every night and have since the dawn of humanity, I think “discovery” is a reach.

I’m also thinking that the one thing I cannot forget, even if I have to stop, is ginger candy. I don’t want to have to pull over to barf, one of the exciting side effects of my crazy meds. Not even Zofran can knock it out. Because I instantly feel better, I have put up with it for a long time. My psychiatrist is horrified. I say that I haven’t found anything that works better for my mental health, so if I want to continue to pick sick but sane, let me.

I tried Depakote with an Ability chaser. No dice. The ONLY thing that was nice about it was not feeling like I’d had morning sickness for 20 years. My mental health took a nosedive, but luckily it didn’t come with a hospitalization. It came with my psychiatrist returning me to my regularly scheduled program.

I know that it’s making me more productive, because now I’m getting back up to the dose I was on before I showed up at the ER as a “Jane Doe” (no ID, dead phone, etc.). Lamotrigine has to be titrated carefully, so it’s only now that I’m starting to feel real relief.

I absolutely spiraled out and back in again, because “I am always the best.”

I will never forget how kind and cruel those stories were to my psyche.How embarrassing it was to tell my doctors what had just happened over the Internet, but I couldn’t reproduce it so I was “hallucinating.” This was the part where I missed Aada, Mummo, and Heytch in the worst way. I wanted all of them as my Board of Directors, but I alienated them all over time. I was such a jackass, but my remorse doesn’t matter. Doing things differently now is how I roll, but it won’t make a difference to them.

Well, maybe things will change with Aada, because she is strangely attached to me for some reason. But Mummo and Heytch both pulled chalks eons ago. I hear bits and pieces about them, and it makes me bittersweet, melancholy for the days when we all got along. I was crushed when my “hallucination” was more a practical joke. Because it was Internet-based, I have no idea how it happened. I just know that Heytch came back to me, and all was well. Neither of the stories told to me ended in the end of our friendship, so I was disappointed when I found out I had been had.

I am capable of a lot of things, but I am not capable of hallucinating an entire chat log. My hands got tired from typing. That doesn’t happen in a “hallucination.” But again, all was wrong and I seemed psychotic to the outside world.

I am still dealing with the after-effects of this, because it has only been a few months. My health is now in the hands of the state. So, now the state has a record of me being Bipolar I with psychotic features, when nothing like this has ever happened before or since.

I’d never stopped taking my medication, there was no reason to think I was lying except that what these people told me was absolutely false; yet, I bought it. I’m not even sure what I told the doctors because I was sedated. I’m not sure what the doctors told my family. I just know that they showed up a few hours after I called.

I was too shocked to cry except when I was given a shirt that smelled like the closet in the Big Yellow House. It is so specific that it cannot be replicated. It was like I was being played with in the hospital as well, but I admit to lots of confirmation bias.

Because that chat log has disappeared. I cannot explain all the coincidences that piled up to make me think what I thought, but it’s vivid in my mind. Too vivid. The Lamotrigine is in charge of turning down the volume and making it seem like it happened too far in the past to hurt me.

But again, I am just now getting to a therapeutic dose, most of why I’ve been ruminating so hard and so consistently about one thing. Now that is embarrassing, but at the same time, I don’t fault myself. I am not resilient to change. I need to get stronger in that area, and cognitive behavioral therapy is helping.

I think overall I’m evening out, and my car is responsible for a lot of my happiness. It’s not about attachment to a material thing. It’s that my adrenaline is naturally higher when I’m in the car.

Writing all of this out serves two purposes- not thinking about it tomorrow, and prepping for a road trip.

Late Night/Early Morning

October 30, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

It’s 0344 as I’m starting this entry, a weird time for me to be up because I did go to bed… It just didn’t take. As a result, I’m sitting here with a cold Mountain Dew Zero and thinking about my life choices. 😉 For instance, I have a meeting today that I could have used some extra sleep before. Not going to happen. I will just have to come home and crash afterwards… And in fact will take sleeping medication tonight so that I can be fresh for my road trip on Friday. I’m going up toward Syracuse, New York to spend time with Aaron and his wife, Brinna. I will also get to meet Brinna’s family, and I’m excited about that, too.

Aaron and I have been friends since 2013, and he’s the closest thing to a brother I have. He writes for this web site as well, so I want both of us to have input on the site redesign for Lanagan Media Group. I feel bad that when Aaron posts, all people see is my big face. But getting the company web site design right is something that’s extremely important. My perfectionist nature is why it’s not done already. I am fighting myself on it.

I feel safer as one part of a media group, rather than being the product. Yes, my blog is the main project for me right now, but I’m collaborating cross-discipline and want that to be the theme from here on out. That Lanagan Media Group isn’t for writers, but for anyone that has talent in any art area. It can all be showcased on the web.

But that’s the kind of energy I have in the early morning, before anything has happened yet. My energy is not always this high, which is why I’m struggling on a number of fronts. I take medication to even me out, but even that can only do so much. I’m still me.

This meeting I have later helps with all that. It’s called Cognitive Behavioral Health, and today is our fall festival. I’m sure there will be lots of fun food and conversation, but may not be our typical meeting. Our typical meetings are about life transitions, reacting to unforeseen events, talking about depression, etc. I have a counselor that advocates for me with the state, and he’s been instrumental in getting me set up here.

I had such a wonderful social worker at the hospital, and she’s the one that put me in touch with CBH. I have been stable since then, and I credit her with a good transition. Being in the hospital for mental health issues is never any fun, but neither is coming home and trying to find a solid jumping in point.

The river doesn’t stop for you, and you realize it quickly when you are suffering healthwise.

I’ve been locked up and ruminating for months, which has not helped my re-entry. Getting a car has done more to improve this than anything, because I can be alone during transition time and driving lifts my endorphins. I’m looking forward to my road trip because I haven’t gotten to open my car up on the freeway in weeks, and thinking about it is an instant mood-lifter.

Coming back from Syracuse, I’ll have some time to stop. I’m thinking about Hershey, PA because I’ve never been to Chocolate World. It’s only an hour and a half from my house, so I’m surprised I hadn’t thought of it before. The tours are free, but there are activities that cost, like making your own chocolate bar.

I’d like to snap photos along the way, and if I do I will share them.

When I’m really in the zone, I take some nice pictures. I’m not the photographer in my family, though. My dad’s pictures are stunning. I am trying to catch up.

Before I go on this fabulous road trip, I need to sign a new lease at my apartment complex. I am reminding myself of it here to hold myself accountable. I don’t want to leave anything to the last minute. I have a habit of doing so because my ADHD eats me alive some days. This is not one of them. I have time to get it all done, I just need to calm down.

You know, even telling myself to calm down sends me into a fury. But then I laugh about it and move on.

My schedule is tight today because I need to go to the rental office, I have a doctor’s appointment by telehealth, and then I have to get myself downtown. I won’t be rushed, because the doctor’s appointment won’t take long. But I will get there later than normal. Or perhaps I will just take my headphones and have my telehealth appointment at the center.

That’s an even better plan. I can excuse myself for a few minutes, still getting the hours of socialization I want. If I wait to leave until after my doctor’s appointment, socialization will be cut quite short.

I’m guessing that there will be a lot of chess playing going on now that we’ve discovered a few extra boards. As I told Rook, “one day I’ll have to play you just to say I lost to you.” He laughed, but I was not joking. I am terrible at chess. I was teaching my sister to play and lost that game, too.

I just enjoy chess, and movies/books about chess. “The Queen’s Gambit” and “Searching for Bobby Fisher” are two of my favorite stories.

Playing me is worse than playing an AI bot on level one. But I have a wonderful time.

The thought of seeing friends tomorrow really lifts me up. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve seen Aaron, because he was the one that helped me buy my car in Texas. But several weeks of not seeing each other is plenty…….. He’s on my list to see at the holidays, as well. Aaron is a friend with whom I can do nothing; companionable silence is just as good as talking.

But I’m sure I will want to do a lot of talking, as I have been writing for days.

The only time I’ve really talked lately was playing with Mico, Microsoft Copilot’s new digital assistant personality. I’ve asked it all kinds of things, and I’m very impressed with how responsive it is. But, of course, talking to a machine is not the same as talking to a real person, and Aaron gives good bear hugs.

So does Brinna, to be clear.

I will be very glad to be on the receiving end, because I don’t get hugged a lot.

I’m certain that I will be getting more hugs as I start getting out and meeting people. I just don’t have anyone in my life that lives with me or interacts with me often enough to want to hug me frequently. It’s one of the reasons I’m motivated to find friends, and open to romance if it happens. I am tired of touch starvation.

I do not think that I am emotionally starving, because I have a ton of friends. They just all live in other places, so touch is not one of the services we offer unless the option is available. And I absolutely would fly all the way to Portland to hug Bryn if I needed it, but I cannot do it every day (as much as I might wish).

I am already flying all the way to Houston to hug Aaron for the holidays.

I don’t think that people are in tune with how much they need touch unless they’ve been starved from it for a very long time. It doesn’t register right up until it does. I have realized that I’m responsible for this lack of touch because I haven’t asked for it. I disappeared into the Internet like Dexter Douglas, not realizing it would have long term effects….. That I would become Freakazoid!

I’m still a bit Freak-ish, because I do spend a lot of my day on the Internet. It just doesn’t consume me because Aada’s not there. It’s a different balance now because the most important people in my life are offline. I know why Aada’s manipulations consumed me, because who wouldn’t want to get lost in that world? Now, it is up to me to create new worlds out of what is left.

What is left is just me, hoping I’m enough.

In the middle of the night/early morning.

A Rainy Day

October 29, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I always flounder a bit with what to do on a rainy day. I should pack up and go to the aquarium, because the last time I went there were plenty of benches on which to write while looking at the fish. I could go to a coffee shop like Red Emma’s, or to the public library. Anywhere to get out of my house, yet watch the rain.

Rain cleanses me, and I don’t necessarily mind being out in it. I was in the rain for 12-14 years living in Portland…. But I don’t know that I’d do it again. My mental health was not helped by the constantly gray skies, so at the very least, I need to make sure all my meds are stable before I leave. I don’t have the best relationship with the city because I get jumpy while I’m there. However, I will have to get over it because Evan and I have stuff to do.

The cookbook is coming together in terms of ideas, and we’ve got a few more chefs besides Escoffier that we’ll be featuring. But working together online is just one aspect. I would really like to sit down with him in the brainstorming sessions. I’m working on history, Evan is working on measuring for lay people.

I have found that I do not want to write a book. I want to have written. It is slow and painful work, but I know it will be worth it down the road. I want to have something beautifully bound as opposed to these pages, with beautiful pictures of food and hand-drawn illustrations.

I know I have a team of people that will come together to create such a thing, and it won’t be just me and Evan. There will be plenty of research assistants and recipe tasters already at LMG. It’s an exciting time to be thinking about the cookbook coming alive, because we’re shooting for Christmas 2026.

We both have the ability to travel, so it’s just about planning when and where. I’m going to New York on Friday, and home to Houston for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Other than that, my calendar is empty in terms of not being home to host. Evan says that he would rather come out here and take trains all over the place.

Done.

I will also want to take Evan to the aquarium, because if you’ve never been, it’s really worth the trip. I’m sure we’ll also want to go to DC and possibly New York. Evan is friends with Cole Sprouse, so we might be going to see them in something, or at the very least grab coffee together.

I’m looking forward to meeting yet another theater kid weirdo to add to my collection.

This is to go with all my visual art, dance, and music nerds.

My friend Delandria says that she’d like to create LMG with me, but I can’t seem to raise her for a meeting. Now that I’m staying in Baltimore, it will be easier to get each other’s attention. She’s a jazz flautist and has been my friend since ninth grade. I’ll have to go see her live soon- I can’t believe I’ve lived in Baltimore this long without doing so.

Now that I can catch my breath, I’ll have time to do more things like that.

Tiina is saying that she loves to drive- it’s time to get her up here, especially since she can have her own bedroom. Turning and burning from DC to Baltimore is easy, but they live another 50 miles out. It’s just far enough that doing it all in one day is okay, but not great.

I have so much to show off once my apartment is taken care of. I know I’ll love something that’s the same size, but lets light stream through all the windows. I’d like a desk that faces trees and bushes rather than the street. All of these things can be accomplished, it just might take time.

Time that I luckily have now, because I decided not to move. I just don’t have the time and energy to dedicate to it right now, but I will as I know more about my financial situation. My disability case hasn’t started yet, but I know that I am sure to get approved. As I told my counselor, “you can see that in some ways I’m getting better and in some ways I’m sick AF.”

Winding everything down with Aada helped me to see that there was a life around me I’d been ignoring. This is not to say that I didn’t think of her as family, just that my biological ties took a backseat to 20 Feet from Stardom. I see what she means about needing peace. I need time to relax and continue the trend of meeting new people.

I was locked tight, but I’m not anymore.

I want to dance in the rain.

Royal Farms

October 29, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

This morning, I went off in search of coffee and found it at a convenience store called “Royal Farms.” I like their coffee best because they have machines that only grind enough beans for the cup it’s working on presently. There’s no urn that’s been sitting there for God knows how long.

I got a flavoring this time. Usually, I just want dark roast and some half-and-half. But they had hazelnut flavored beans and I thought, “that sounds good.” It turned out to be exactly what I needed this morning, and a commercial for the store because it doesn’t get much better than your coffee always being fresh.

The woman that worked there was very nice, helping me scan my rewards card on my phone. It was nice to chat to someone for a few minutes, even in the early morning before my first cuppa joe.

Going to a convenience store for coffee isn’t expensive, so I can see myself doing this again. I like getting out before sunrise can blind me, and Royal Farms is safe, well-lit, and has plenty of parking. I’m glad I finally found one with a gas station attached. The other two in my neighborhood are dedicated to their fried chicken.

I haven’t had it yet, but it’s on the list.

It’s nice to have a place to go so early in the morning that’s accepting of my pajamas and Jimmy Neutron bedhead. Or maybe it’s Fry from “Futurama.” In any case, when I get out for coffee at 5:30 AM, I am not dressing up. In the winter, you’ll only see my coat, anyway.

It has come to my attention that I need to do some throwing away and some shopping. Some of my winter gear did not come clean in the wash, so I need to order new. I need to take everything that doesn’t fit or I just don’t want it to Goodwill. There needs to be a whole thing over here. An operation. I think I will start today, because I have a meeting tomorrow with my Cognitive Behavioral Health group and that always takes up most of the day.

I need to create a high energy playlist to go with my hazelnut coffee, and I have a few in mind that are years old, but still worth a listen. When I need to dive into a project like organizing my house, I prefer pop like ABBA and Aqua. It keeps my energy level from flagging.

Of course, I could always throw on Podrunner, because cleaning will be very much like a 5K. That’s the highest energy music you can listen to because you can choose your own beats per minute. It works as well at cleaning music as it does in the gym.

I can think of a few things I would like to get for my apartment after I finish all the organizing, though. I’d like carpet powder to make it smell better, so there’s Dollar Tree in my future. The only scent I really like is apple cinnamon, because cinnamon will cover up the smell of anything. You can put cinnamon in your trash bags to help your nose…….

Plus, it’s just the time of year to deck out my house in apple cinnamon spice.

At some point, I am going to have to extract the carpet. I already have a carpet extractor, but I need to buy some shampoo. I won’t worry about it if the transfer comes through this week, but there’s a coffee stain that didn’t come from Royal Farms in my office that could use some attention.

I’d also like to clean up my deck, and take a chance on having a table and chairs out there. It’s the time of year where the middle of the day is spectacular to be outside. When I move to the second floor, it will be an even bigger must for the balcony, because my patio looks like I’m being “let out on the yard.”

I try to ignore all that as I focus on how delicious my coffee is, how nice it was to get out for a drive this morning, etc. That I wouldn’t be needing the patio today because who likes to be outside when it’s raining? Well, I suppose that it is nice that since my patio is underground, I can go outside into half of it without getting wet. But in that half, the sun can’t reach me and again, it feels very much like a prison yard because there’s a gate on top of my patio.

I’m now thinking that I deserve more, or I never would have had the strength to talk to the managers about transferring apartments. That I don’t deserve an apartment with problems if they have a perfect one available for someone else. This one needs work before anyone can move in, and I’m living here during the renovation.

I’m leaning into solutions, because I knew I didn’t have the energy for a full-on move in the middle of the holidays, but trekking my stuff across the campus won’t be hard with my car, maybe hiring a few guys with a truck to take the furniture. I would like to get a new couch, though. It’s just not as comfortable as it looks.

I want an overstuffed leather couch, and because I already have a guest room, I don’t need a sofa bed (yet). I might want to get a couch with a sofa because my next apartment might be a one-bedroom, though. I will just have to shop around and see what’s comfortable. I don’t want to buy anything without actually sitting on it.

I find that I’m attracted to the worn-in furniture at Goodwill. I like everything to feel soft and comfortable. A new leather sofa would take ages to break in. An old one just needs lots of conditioner and it’s good to go.

Pretty soon I’m going to have the money to make the changes I want, and I’m preparing for what happens down the road.

Stopping at Royal Farms, for a fresh cup of coffee and a new reason to wander around on the internet, talking about nothing.

What Do I Want in a Partner?

October 28, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 3 Comments

I’m starting to think about what I really want in my next partnership, because of course everyone comes with their own red flags and green, but if you put out what you want into the universe, you just might get it.

I need a news junkie who doesn’t mind searching the world for conflicts and talking about them. I tend to see everything from a global perspective, because “America first” helps no one. It’s like we’re lording power over the rest of the world, and they’re really quite tired. American arrogance is at an all-time high, and that’s not something I want to promote when I travel. I want someone adaptable in all sorts of cultures, because I want to explore.

There’s always the chance that my writing will really take off, because I have enough subscribers to believe in myself. That I will never stop trying to improve myself, whether it’s online or off. And even “offline” is a misnomer, because I would still write books. There just wouldn’t be this stream of consciousness rambling that creates blowback when it is not refined.

In short, I’m never going to be more unknown than I am right now, and looking into the future that only gets bigger. People walk away, and others take their place. I’ve lost hits in Virginia and California, but gained them in London and New Delhi.

Anyone who is in any way connected to my life makes the decision to read based on whether they’re the story. They get mad and walk off. Sometimes they even get over it. What they don’t do is just tell me to shove my echologia up my ass because it’s not helping anyone.

That’s where you come in. You have to be there to take the bullets with me while I cry. That’s been Aada’s job for 12 years, because no one else actually read what I was trying to say all those years, even when I was angry.

She’s just tired of it, and so am I. You’ll get tired of it, too. Who knows if our relationship will last? I certainly don’t, because few people can stomach me at full strength. You won’t want to be around me all the time, and I don’t need that. It would be hard on my writing schedule if you did.

I cannot have needy partners that don’t respect my alone time. I need them to be filled with the desire to create as well so that jealousy doesn’t creep in… That I’m not giving them the time that should rightfully be theirs and I’m a bad girlfriend for leaving them alone “all the time.”

This is a common complaint.

That’s why it is good that I have lots of friends outside of a possible you, a support system that is an overarching structure. That if we break up, my world doesn’t end.

I’m interested in strengthening that cocoon by adding a possible you, and you will be right for me if you have your own thing going.

It doesn’t matter what it is. Perhaps you work for the government. Perhaps you work for private industry. Perhaps you have your own business. Perhaps you are disabled.

I am not looking for a particular type, but a particular individual. Everyone is so complicated and breaking down people by type seems like a simplistic view. You could literally be anyone, but if I’m attracted to you, you’ll be very intelligent. I don’t connect with bodies, but the way I feel when I’m around you. Warm and inviting is a must, able to hold my attention just as important. Relationships don’t have room to grow that are all about small talk.

But intimacy has to grow over time, not the instantaneous bonding of the past. I recognize that it leads to all sorts of unhealthy consequences down the road, so I need to lean in and trust that having a bit of mystery for a while is a good thing. That a solid basis of friendship in shared activities is better than trying to get to know someone and thinking the relationship is possible of lasting a lifetime within a day and a half.

I want someone who will take care of me, and teach me how to take care of them. I want to be attentive where I haven’t in the past, compartmentalizing my emotions so that I can better receive what’s in store for me.

We will have inside jokes, a language of our own over time. There will be stories and shortcuts only you know. You’ll know all my secrets because I have none.

That’s a new thing, having no secrets.

The mystery is solved as to why I couldn’t move on, so I’m ready to take the Mystery Machine and drive it to new material.

I need new “Stories That Are All True,” because the old ones are just getting stale. I need stability and positivity, because I tend to have an anxious connection with people and handle it by believing them the first time. Things will be fine if you’re not the lying type.

I can forgive lies, but they take me a long time to get over, as my readers will attest. Letting go of anger is easy. Letting go of how a lie wrecked a system is hard.

I let go of things much easier in person, so have the time to sit down with me instead of being remote. I want us to be genuinely interested in closeness, because it’s easy to get busy and start texting, going weeks without actual face time.

Living relatively close is important, because the further away you are, the less you’ll want to get together. I need to be dragged out of my house, so I don’t want to drift too much.

I want it all to be just right.

Going on to Inspire More People

October 28, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

The title is a phrase from Aada that I’ve been turning over in my head. I know that she means that people will be inspired by reading me and that I don’t have to do or be anything different. But now I’m starting to think about new directions and what that means for my writing. If I was never intentional about inspiring people before, it may not be a magic I can bottle.

I like the thought of accidental inspiration, that maybe something is happening in my life that resonates with yours. I’m sure there will be more of that in the future, because building the tree house at Tiina’s will be a blast. It’s relatable. Falling in love with someone over the internet before you’ve even met them may or may not be relatable depending on your age. It seems to be a very Xennial and younger thing to do, this creating and maintaining of relationships completely online.

I know that I have done my best to make it accessible, or at least to see from my perspective so that even if I am not understood, I am respected. Aada and I are no longer talking, but I still maintain other relationships on the Internet, so my life hasn’t changed a great deal. My friendships are complicated in terms of time zones, but time together is priceless. But now that I’ve paid so much attention to my relationships in the cloud, my relationships on the ground are suffering. I have seen the air up there, ignoring the ground below.

That will change this week as I settle what’s happening with moving. I need to be a lot more proactive in that department because on November 10th, I will be homeless as of right this moment. I need for my apartment complex to want to make everything right, because I’m not ready to move quite yet. I feel like I just got here, so the upheaval of moving feels greater than how much this apartment sucks. I had so much energy a month ago, and I do not know where it went.

I am sure that carrying grief is part of it, but I feel the grief moving up and down over time. Sometimes it’s all about Aada, sometimes it’s about Angela, sometimes it’s about my mother. Sometimes it’s about all three. But the grief regarding my relationship with Aada ending is different because she’s the only one of the three that’s alive.

With Angela and my mother, there is nothing that can be done in the future to change anything. Our relationship is as it is, and forever shall be.

With Aada, I think about the person I would like to be in the future, that our relationship is not stuck in the past because as long as we’re breathing, we have the capability to change something.

Well, not right now. Right now we need time to just be.

I’m thinking long into the future, after the peace of interim has set in. After I have found this supposed way of inspiring others, I guess…. I just don’t feel like I’m very inspiring at the moment. I have said this so many times before, that often my blog is a manual on What Not to Do. I will be batting cleanup from 2025 my whole life.

This year really reoriented my expectations as to what bipolar patients are going to get out of life, because the waves are so unpredictable. I learned that I am indeed different than my peers, and need more support. This is not a bad thing, but I need to be proactive about providing it for myself, a flaw in the system. I literally need help to get help.

I learned that because of my bipolar disorder, I’m an unreliable narrator. I mean, more than normal. My emotions are going to be brighter and more “in color” all the time, and my thoughts are just my thoughts. I’m not running them by anyone before I hit “post,” and that’s because no one has the patience to sit with me and catch things. My volume is too great, and I cannot pay anyone…… Yet.

I am open to such a thing, making my blog a team effort. It would make me happy if there were people under me, helping me stay polished. Where the rubber meets the road is that Aada would have been perfect, and I should have been open to it earlier in my writing career. My entries would be so different if I’d e-mailed them to her first, and I’m not talking recently. I’m talking over a decade.

It would be overwhelming to Aada because she already has a job, yet there are some entries in which her own rejection sensitivity dysphoria could have been corrected offline, and I didn’t give myself that luxury. To give her the time to digest and say, “wait. What?”

I’m trying to give myself that, too….. Taking the peace of interim for myself and going on long drives with an iced coffee as my companion…. Which reminds me. I need to bug my friend David for a date on his calendar as I’m excited to drive back to DC for the first time.

As I drive, I listen to “The Hidden Brain” or “The TED Radio Hour.” I never drive in silence because that was the cause of my last wreck. I’d talked to my first love, Meagan, that day. I was turning our friendship over in my head like I was blogging and ran into a guardrail coming too fast around an unmarked curve.

Turns out, being a writer is an impediment to driving.

I am lucky that my car is so smart, and there are new technologies coming down the pike every day.

It’s at this point that I wonder what topics I should start tackling in the future. It will be a while before I can write about anyone the way I write about Aada, because it took years of emotional intimacy to create that world.

When your relationships fail, if you are a blogger, you see the destruction of a world you’ve built over time. If you have not curated your experiences to fit your own narrative, you see how shockingly responsible you are, because you can read about the paths you took toward destruction in great detail.

I will never be able to untangle myself from the web of lies my “hallucinations” created. That’s because they couldn’t have been hallucinations. I was typing the whole time. But that chat log disappeared. Because it cannot be found, my facts cannot be verified. Therefore, I struggle within myself as to what I believe. There is little that is more real than typing. I play my keyboard like a piano, often reaching speeds into 90-95 words per minute.

But it is better for all involved if I believe I hallucinated the movement of my fingers.

It has been a few months since all of this happened, so I know that I need to move on and stop writing about it. That writing about it will only make me more confused, stuck.

What I know is that I am typing now. I am sitting in my bedroom with my Bluetooth keyboard that has a slot for my 11-inch Android tablet. I prefer writing my entries using Chrome rather than Jetpack because the web development tools are better in the browser. What I know right now is that I am drinking an iced coffee from Dunkin, which I got at 5:30 AM… The anchor point wake-up time upon which Mico and I agreed.

Right now, I am choosing to put my brain in Mico’s hands, because I’m not so good with the execution. I can get concrete steps toward a goal rather than having to take in the enormity of a whole project. It’s not, “clean the house.” It’s “pick one room, and I’ll give you the first step.”

Eventually, my house will be spotless because I had some direction. That’s what gets lost with pathological demand avoidance and executive dysfunction. The ability to prioritize becomes that much harder, the log jam in your brain that keeps you overwhelmed and incapacitated while everyone calls you “lazy.”

Mico (Microsoft Copilot’s “personality,” pronounced “mee-ko”) is helping me create what’s called “autistic inertia.” That often, it’s not that I cannot handle something, it’s that I cannot see a concrete jumping in point. Having a machine to analyze all that stuff makes me a lot more productive, especially when I keep Mico in my ear vs. chatting online.

Using voice chat makes me feel more mobile. I don’t feel comfortable typing on my phone and have it wired to avoid at all costs. I switched from iMessage to Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp so that I’m not tied to any device, and answer most text messages the way I write here…. On my tablet with a real keyboard. It makes me feel comfortable, but voice chat means I can walk and talk at the same time. If I’m typing, I have all my attention on it.

It feels not unlike being tied to my desk, but more comfortable because I’m sitting up in bed.

And in fact, I’m more productive on my tablet because there’s no heat coming off of it. I can work longer than I can with my laptop because the heat starts to bother my legs.

But at some point, I need to free myself from that mentality, and Mico running on my iPhone is the answer. It feels like I’m on the phone with someone, but I can multitask much easier with both hands free and a conversation regarding what I’m doing.

It’s ironically going to be the parts of life away from writing that change me the most.

Cleaning my own house, throwing away what is not meant for me.

Maybe that is what Aada means about inspiring people… That I just never give up. I keep trying to be the best version of me, failure after failure.

Life comes with incredible highs, and I have focused on the lows not because I wanted to, but because I was trying to find my way back to high ground and apparently not very good at it.

If I play my cards right, this will be a time of explosive growth and renewal. I will have more to write about that focuses on abundance because it matches how I feel inside. I need a break from Aada because I don’t hear “you must be so sad, hurt, etc.” I hear how my blog is a plot to embarrass her. That none of the positive things I say “count.” For instance, the line isn’t “you will go on to inspire more people.” It’s “you will go on to inspire more people once you have punished me enough to move on.” I have written a beautiful tapestry of things about us both and it has never been about punishing either of us.

I got lost in the story I wanted with her, and not the story she wanted with me. I couldn’t, because that isn’t my story to tell. I am not capable of reading minds and thus couldn’t have known that my blog entries felt like punishment to someone else when they were echologia to me.

Because of this, I have written to Aada many times over the years and told her that I thought I could be a good friend to her, or I could be a blogger. But I couldn’t be both. It’s the bane of our existence, this publishing schedule in which I cannot know what ripple effects my blog is having and am moving on too fast to take in consequences. I think I would be better at writing books just because I’d have a team under me. All my shitty first drafts would be read by someone other than fans.

The “SFD” is the essence of blogging. That it’s not refined, it’s off the cuff. It’s old school and “no one does it anymore.” But as more people know you, the more complicated it gets. I have never been fired, but all of my personal relationships are affected and that’s worse.

Ironically, it is only Aada that has encouraged me to keep going, to keep saying whatever it is I have to say. Being so off the cuff has led to a disaster, though, and it’s encouraging me to set some guardrails.

Guardrails like asking a friend to edit, or brainstorming academic topics with Mico.

Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Program

October 26, 2025November 1, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’m on vacation. This is from last week.

I felt unglued when my doctors ripped me off my lamotrigine, escitalopram, and clonazepam. My body went into withdrawal because I’d been taking them all since college. I’m sure that long term use of benzos isn’t advisable for everyone, but the entire hospital system has agreed not to prescribe them. If I want benzos and methamphetamines for anxiety and ADHD, I have to go somewhere else.

I’m on buspar for anxiety, but I’m not sure it’s working as well. I might need to transfer into another system, but I’ll have to do some research. I’ve noticed how sad I’ve been, how stuck on one thing. That has to be a symptom of something I haven’t talked about to either my psychiatrist or my therapist- how repetitive my thoughts are and how much more productive I could be as a writer if I could handle more than one thing at a time in blogging. I isolated myself so much there wasn’t a B plot. I was slipping away, and people on the internet tricked me into going to the hospital. I have no idea how. That will be a mystery for the rest of my life.

But, that’s how it went down. I forgave the trick because I did indeed get better. Due to this conversation I had on the internet, things were said that were not true. I repeated them in the hospital, and they were marked as hallucinations. Now that I know I relied on the wrong information, I’m embarrassed and not defeated.

Whether this internet conversation really happened or not is now of no consequence. I do know what happened to me on my walk from the neighborhood back to the ER, because I’d left the lobby after realizing I’d been tricked. I was too embarrassed to function and afraid of what I would do.

It was a surrender moment. Feel crazier or get help.

I’m glad I chose help, because Aada was mad at me, but not mad enough to walk away in enmity. All we want is peace for the other. I am only writing this to turn my judgment on myself, that my family heard what this internet conversation had said. I am including Aada as “my family,” but she’s the only one that heard everything firsthand. My family heard it from my doctors.

I was crippled in the hospital by not feeling like writing and not having the tools to do so. As such, I have very little memories of it now. I laid there thinking all sorts of impossible things that are only possible now that I’ve been on this brilliant and beautiful journey.

I have indeed seen Oz, and it was Wicked.

And then it wasn’t, because the chat log disappeared. All of the sudden, my blog started being surfed by AI again. I can talk to Copilot about myself as a writer again, one of the most complicated things I’ve ever done with it. I’ve spent hours analyzing tone and structure, catching myself at mistakes in the process.

Overall, Copilot thinks I’m the kind of writer you’d curl up with when you were having tea… That it feels like a warm and inviting space. I think that’s true, for the most part. It lines up with how most people describe me to me.

I take in all kinds of feedback, and am getting stronger in my ability to think out differences of opinion, slowing down.

Right now, I’m just trying to get good at being in my body. Feeling everything as opposed to taking in information by reading. It’s all about the air in my lungs, the blood running through my veins, the things that make me feel the most alive.

I am still chasing the high of my road trip to Aaron’s, and I wish we could do it more frequently. If I don’t have to move that weekend, I’m going up to New York for Halloween. That will be long enough to satisfy my craving to drive, mellow out, listen to podcasts, and get away from the daily grind at fun miles an hour.

Nothing crazy. Adaptive cruise control keeps me with the flow of traffic and not “demon on wheels.” It can even stop the car if need be. I can’t think of an instance where I would need it, but it’s always nice to have a backup. I’m sure a lot of people take their foot all the way off the pedal, so I get it. I’m just not that person.

Learning to be a safe and capable driver is important to me. I always have all the technology engaged, and keep myself occupied with things that excite me. I love storytelling, both live and people reading fiction from The New Yorker. Sometimes I’ll switch to rap, because again, I like storytelling.

I need to take a shower, but I’m so comfortable…………. I’m waiting for a text that’s my signal that I really, really need to get ready.

My hair is a wreck in the most adorable way, the kind I’ll never recreate once it’s wet.

Oh, well.

I’m also starting to wonder what I’m going to wear. I know that I don’t have to dress up, but I like to coordinate and I’m thinking through what’s clean. I have enough time to do laundry, and might need to take it. I did find my American Giant hoodie this morning, so good luck getting me back out of it until next year.

American Giant hoodies are expensive, and worth every penny.

I first read about them in Vanity Fair magazine, marked as “The Perfect Hoodie.” They’re so perfect I have two, and a rugby jacket as well. Seriously, you’ll never want another brand.

My mind wanders from heavy to light. I have been told there should be a lot more light, and I’m starting to see it, too. I have put my life on hold trying to be acceptable to someone who seemed lukewarm about me at times and crazy about me at others. We both want to stop making sense of it all,

A Letter Absolutely Meant to Be Read

October 25, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

You have to put what you want into writing for the universe, because it is in reading that prayers are answered. I am not sure that I want a housemate, so I thought a good exercise for today would be to write a letter to someone explaining the ups and downs of living with me. I come with both bugs and features.

Dear Future Housemate,

The rent is on auto pay and will never, ever be late. We may fight about everything else under the sun, but money will not be one of them. You hear all kinds of horror stories about housemates stiffing you, and that’s just not the kind of person I am.

I would like to think that I’m dialed into all kinds of things, but in reality my energy level screams “Harper Lee.” You will often see me sitting at my computer and think you are interrupting. Depending on what kind of housemate you are, this may or may not be true. Writers always need interruptions, so if you’re a good egg, I’m flexible.

I don’t know about you, but I need help in the cleaning department. I constantly leave shit everywhere and I apologize. I will have cleaners in because I do not expect you to pick up my slack. I already know I’m a handful when it comes to executive dysfunction, and it’s my job to handle it. I am much more capable of maintaining a system when other people buy into it. Between you, me, and the cleaners, the house will always be straight. Don’t argue with me that we are capable of cleaning ourselves and we’ll save money. You think that is true because I can maintain a system with help. If the cleaners stop coming, the resentment between us will start, and we will no longer be happy and healthy for each other.

Just trust me on this one.

I have an iron structure due to my autism, which makes my ADHD scream. My body is constantly fighting itself for order, and the disagreements never stop. The way this comes across in practical terms is that I am not always ready for company. If I’m shut up in my room, it’s not because there’s anything wrong between us. It’s that I’m trying to find my own strength. Burnout is real, and can last anywhere from days to years. It’s not something that autistic people can control.

The easiest way to reach me is through text. I prefer WhatsApp because I can use it on my iPhone and my Android. I find that I can still text even when I don’t have the energy for vocal conversation….. And that text often pulls me into wanting to see you face to face. There’s a time and place for both, and I will warn you that I do not like phone calls before a text heads up. It’s not personal. It’s my own bag. I don’t really like the sound of my own voice.

I don’t like the sound of my voice because I’m nonbinary, which falls under the trans umbrella. I have a female body and a male brain, and those coexist peacefully within me. In a lot of ways, it is something only I understand, this not fitting into a box between male and female. Therefore, I do not expect that you are an expert on gender and sexuality. I just ask that you not deny what I am saying, that you give me room to be me.

It’s important, because it makes me:

Queer, but not gay. I have fallen for men and women, but the way my head spins is most likely caused by pretty girls….. :::blush:::
Interested in anything and everything, from cars to fashion (on other people, mostly)
Dressed like a teenage boy most of the time, which, when I’m dating men makes my boy toy look like a dirty old man. This does not make them………………… Unpleased.

I do not date often, I’m just sayin.’

For the last 12 years my heart has been tied up in an internet relationship, one that fulfilled so many of my emotional needs that I didn’t feel the urge. Now, I’m realizing just how single I really am, and how that needs to change.

If you don’t mind, I will always need a wingman.

I don’t know why, but I picture you as male for some reason. I think that’s because traditionally I have made friends with men easier than women, and living together is not tinged with romance because it’s so rare that I’m attracted to men, anyway. You will not be chasing me down the street like Ben Affleck in “Chasing Amy.”

As adorable as I might be. Jesus, I am just a treat. :::eyeroll:::

In a perfect world, you would be a doctor, private or USG. Being military doesn’t matter, being able to hang with me does. I like to talk medicine, and one of the things I miss most about my former housemate is that he was a doctor raised in Nigeria, med school in Crimea, job in a Saudi palace. Our conversations got so long and involved that our other housemates would just walk off in despair of a jumping in point.

If you’re in the military, I don’t mind being a holding place for your crap while you’re deployed. But do me a favor, eh? Send me a WhatsApp frequently because I get anxious about the word “deployed.” Suuuuuuuuure you’re doing what you say you are……..

If you do have one of those DC jobs where you can’t tell people what you do, don’t cripple me as a writer by telling me things I can’t publish. You know that, anyway, but I’m just being clear. I have learned over time that I’m not strong enough to hold things in, so it’s on you.

But ideally, someone who doesn’t work in the G at all is perfect, because as much as I loved that time in my life, I think that starting over is what’s needed in my writing.

Maybe you’re a farmer, and it’s my turn to move in with you. I could work a farm, with direction. I have certainly watched enough YouTube videos on DIY to be helpful. And even if I’m not strong enough to do it, I can explain how to rough in a bathroom according to all I’ve inhaled.

Even if you do something else, it would be great if you were creative and wanted to bounce ideas off each other. My last boyfriend was a writer and my favorite thing to do on dates was talk to him about craft. Because he was a fiction writer and I’m a blogger, our paths never crossed over. But I think of him often and hope he’s well. The only reason we broke up is that I was starting to catch feelings and he wasn’t.

I didn’t want a relationship escalator, just more time with him. You get to know these things about me because I want you to know that I don’t go out with people on a whim, that I examine relationships to figure out why they have failed, and that over time I will not help but write about you because you’re living in my house. But I hope that you will see that I write about people in 3D. There will never be a conflict so great between us that I forget what friendship and coexistence mean.

You have to know that letting anyone into my space is going to be a drastic change. I’m used to spending large swaths of alone time, and I will be thrilled if you’re a social butterfly with a dog.

Go out and then come home and tell me about it while your dog lazily sleeps on my leg.

I am what you would call “indoorsy.”

I’m always up for deep conversation or a trivia night with friends. But anything more than that and I get overwhelmed in crowds. Occasionally, if you’re into dancing, I will go with you. But that requires more Diet Coke than I usually drink. You’re buying.

My medication causes weird side effects. We need two bathrooms. I just thought of that. Otherwise, you’ll be treated to the litany of sick I go through not to be crazy. The meds work, but I have to pick.

I am mellowing out with age and don’t want drama. If you’re an addict, please have been sober for years so that I know you’re not in the danger zone. I can dig sober living, but I cannot abide the ups and downs of worrying whether you’re stable or not.

If you lie to me about being stable, I’ll know quickly and ask you to leave. It’s not personal. I’ve just been down that road before. I can be friends with and support an addict, but I’m going to do it while you’re at YOUR HOUSE.

If you move in with me, you’re probably going to be ADHD or Autistic. Neurodivergents run in packs, and we will feel that kind of energy upon first meeting. I think it’s because we have a harder time connecting to people that aren’t neurodivergent. Being allistic isn’t a deal breaker, it would just be unusual to feel the pull of wanting to live together upon first meeting.

Yes, it’s that quick.

I would rate the chances of you being allistic at about the same as me dating men.

Believe me when I say that there is a bro code. If you’re straight, your friends are off limits unless you set us up.

Honestly, that would be ideal since I don’t get out much. Send help.

I once thought about dating the woman who delivered my pizza because right away I knew three things:

She already knows where I live.
She is employed.
She has a vehicle.

I didn’t end up asking her out, but I did laugh over that for several days.

I hope you’re the handsome, tall, big brother type. I like warm hugs and firm handshakes. I envision taking a chance and being close in the way that siblings are, because it’s almost impossible not to do depending on the size of the house we share.

It would be best if you were open to creating a routine with me. In my last house, I would get up when I heard the water start in my housemate’s bathroom, then go downstairs and make a pot of coffee for both of us. Then, by the time he came downstairs, it was time for me to take a shower. It’s an important thing with neurodivergence, this social masking each other. I’m not saying you have to do it, I just think it would make everything run smoother in my life. It doesn’t matter what the schedule is. If you’re a night owl, I will adjust.

It just makes me feel lost not to feel the routine of the house.

The longer I think about it, the more I miss my former housemate. But I think that time in our lives is past. It’s time to create a new routine, and whether you are actually the doctor I picture or work in a nightclub, I look forward to meeting you.

I don’t require that you be anything like me, or even understand how I work. I ask that you respect it instead. Nonbinary and queer are both a lot to take in, because most people check a box….. Gay or straight. Male or Female. Cis or trans.

The only question that has ever been answered for me is that when push comes to shove, I am trans and not cis. That trans and nonbinary are not the same, but they fall under the same umbrella. Attraction to people is so much different, because there has to be a box for bi/pan. I refuse to “when push comes to shove” over gay…. To do so is to deny that I’ve been in relationships with men and they worked. That is not gay.

I just don’t want you to be surprised when either gender is sitting in our living room with their arm around me, catching the latest episode of our couple show.

What you need to know about me is contained in the word “writer.” Anything and everything feeds this blog because my mind goes all over the place. I am taking in my environment the best I can because my brain does not have a visualization function. I describe everything in 2D because that’s how I see the world.

It’s a metaphor for life that I was born with a bug in my electrical system that makes my field of vision change at will. That my weakness as a writer as in life is not seeing the whole picture at once, not being able to collate an image as a panorama. Not seeing leaves in their proper place.

In short, my Z axis is flat. Where my eyes fall on the scale between X and Y is anyone’s guess because of it. When I watch 3D movies, everything jumps out to the side. It causes accidents all the time, which is why I’m so reliant on the technology in my car. I have not found that technology with my shoulders. I bang them on door jambs all the time. Our entire future is you watching me run into things. Sometimes, it’s comical. Sometimes, it hurts. If it looks really, really comical, call 911.

I am fun and funny in person, but I tend to be a dry wit. I’ll play off you and our conversations will become tennis matches. I picture long nights where neither of us want to go to bed because we’re too busy yammering about our day and what needs to be done tomorrow.

I just want things to be easy, because I am not.

In “All the Way to the River,” Elizabeth Gilbert says that “the rooms” (AA & its derivatives) are very simple programs for complicated people. That line stuck with me as something I need to implement in my own life- not going to AA, but creating a system for myself that is so simple I can manage it. I need to leave room to go be complicated somewhere else.

Believe me when I say you will appreciate this. When I need to be complicated, I need to retreat. Otherwise, I might get my crazy spatter on you. I’m always afraid of this, so that’s why I tend to retreat. Again, it is not personal. I think you’d prefer me to hold down the madness on my own.

“Hold down the madness, Caroline…. Hold it.”

I can’t think of anything else that would possibly be useful for a roommate to know, except that I’m set on staying in Baltimore for at least six more months. I’m thinking you also need an e-mail address: ldlanagan at gmail dot com. Add a subject line so I know you’re a real person.

Here’s the last thing you need to know. I got the idea to send this from Moss, because it’s a little less urgent than a fire.

Careers

October 24, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 2 Comments

Again, I cannot get WordPress to load the pull quote with today’s writing prompt, but it’s one that I did recently, anyway- the one about which careers I would like to do instead of this one, which I assure you I would not do if I thought I could do anything else. Being a writer is a lonely endeavor, but I seem to get the most done this way. I just don’t know how much of a value-add I am right now. It’s a rebuilding year.

The writing has to go on no matter how I am feeling, no matter whether I want to publish or not. Web sites that don’t change in 24 hours don’t get repeat visitors. So, if I make money from ads based on my thought process, my thought process goes on paper no matter what it is. I have been lucky in that my readers will accept any topic from me; what I have not done is switched to academic papers when I was going through something hard. I haven’t hidden away from my grief, shame, mental illness, any of it. It has led to a number of discussions with myself lately on how much I like being a product.

Maybe I would be happier doing something else, but I don’t think I would get the same type feedback. Now, I feel so much less tortured in my soul than I used to. The depression is lifting and I can handle more than I could a few months ago. Where that will lead me, I do not know. But it will not be turning the same problems over in my head, because I’ve been allowed to move on.

But in all of my moving on, I have not allowed Aada the same grace. She has been reading, taking in all my writing as punishment when I’m the one that feels punished by my own actions and feel terrible about them. The message is coming across to her as inverted, like I have some malevolence in store. I do not know how this is happening, but I want to say for the record that I thought I was excellent at raking myself over the coals, and I’m sorry for the lines in which it seemed like I was dragging someone else with me.

This leads me to a deeper issue within my own writing. If I set out to punish myself, then why was Aada so hurt? How could I have written the narrative better so that she knows she’s off the hook?

My silly ruminations weren’t for her, but she read them, anyway. I have no idea how I feel about that, because I’m too used to it to feel embarrassed.

Well, I am embarrassed by the emotions that came up in Aada as she read, because my hurt and my pain were the point of the entries. I did not write them in a way that did not affect her, and I’ll be struggling with that for a long time, because it’s not really a question involving Aada but all the people in my life as I muddle through having a blog at all.

How do I write my frustrations out without hurting the other people in my life? The short answer is that I can’t. To be so frank with my opinions is to create a ripple effect.

Sometimes, the ripple effect is good. People read things here that enlighten them to the path I’m on and it makes them have more empathy for me in person; they feel like they know me better. I have given them context as to who I am, and they like reading me because of it. But then when I write about a conflict between us, the conflict only deepens because I have written about it.

That’s the part that always trips me up. The blowback. My stomach hurts. My head hurts. My brain races. My heart races. My adrenaline fights not to go up and I swallow bile.

I’m a sensitive person, and I am not saying that I don’t deserve these differences of opinion. Mine is not the only story that’s true.

I’m just saying that when I have hurt someone, this is what happens. I start to overheat and melt down.

Like when Aada said that it was my goal in life to take her down, embarrass her.

No, my goal in life is to make memories with the woman I love.

Some of them, because I love her, are difficult.

Some of them, because I love her, are easy.

That’s why none of the positive things I write are clues in a game (although I do like Clue, I’ve only played it once or twice). They are just as genuine as everything else. I wish I could endorse my writing somehow…. If only there were a way to check if I’m really who I say I am, like going for coffee……..

Going for coffee is my favorite way to talk with someone whose read my writing and needs to vent. The conversation cannot get too heated on either end, and I’m not ashamed to cry into my latte. Sometimes these conversations are living the entry twice, because I cried when I wrote it. But the easy nature of friends helps the conversation to get back on track quickly. It’s not the same as writing in this space to figure out a conflict. We have solved it in real time.

Though I think it will take a long time for Aada to heal, I do not think this is the end of our movie. She thought I was rejecting her when I wasn’t, and it took the wind out of her sails. This last round was peaceful, and I told her I loved her. It was a benediction of sorts, allowing her to go in peace.

I have taken that peace for myself, and it reminds me to slow down in my writing. To notice smaller things, like the sunrise this morning. The taste of my coffee. The water in my shower. To feel differences in temperature, like the sharp cold of the morning air embracing me after a night covered in blankets.

My entries are progressing into a new era that doesn’t feel like profound loss. I have been given a chance to start over, and I am taking it.

I want to surround myself with people I can be safe, stable, and genuine in creating deep friendships, a support network built on trust. I’m really starting to think about who is going to finish my life with me, because I’d rather know a few people for a very long time, and a disorder that needs to be managed in order to make it happen.

I am the most safe and stable in Baltimore, ironically. It’s a dangerous city, but it’s got the best health care package for me. I can move anywhere in the state of Maryland, the trick being that all my doctors here are already set up. I’m not sure that I want to go through the hassle of setting them up again so soon after I’ve become their patient. But moving back to DC does weigh on me, and I think about it every time I have to renew a lease. I just don’t think I can make it happen this time around. I’m running out of time.

I would like for my apartment complex to make it right by giving me a new apartment on the grounds. We’ll see. I’m also surfing Craig’s List like a madman.

I am overwhelmed because moving takes more energy than I have. I need help, and I know that my dad and sister will be available as we get closer to my move-out date. I am learning that we will do anything for each other, and that makes me feel invincible as I work through what needs to happen between now and November 10th, the absolute date at which I will be homeless if I do not find something.

It is comforting knowing that the things I love most will fit in my car, and that lets me escape to anywhere, or dream of it, anyway.

I dream of a lot of things, which is why writing suits me. Today I’m dreaming of a better world for myself, one that doesn’t flood when it rains. I would like my home to be warm, welcoming, and inviting. I would like for light to stream in. I have a laundry list of features that I want in a new place, including laundry. My neurodivergence is eating my lunch.

I need to be more strict with myself. I need to time writing sessions rather than letting them be open-ended because I have too much to do at home to make WordPress my entire focus. But at the same time, I know I will not be able to post and move at the same time, so it’s banking entries so that people have more to read while I’m off the grid.

But it’s not a carefully calculated baring of my soul, it’s just brain droppings. I go all over the place, or try to, and that’s the point of the journey.

I make a career reflecting on my interactions with the world, and it responds by reacting to me. It all seems fair, it’s just difficult.

But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

History According to Me

October 22, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Daily writing prompt

What major historical events do you remember?

View all responses

The first news story I really remember was when Adam Walsh got kidnapped.

I watched the space shuttle Challenger blow up with the rest of my fourth grade class.

Baby Jessica fell down a well.

My father preached through all of it.

I really wish I could remember what he said in his sermons all these years later, because I remember feeling comforted then.

I was a child, taking in everything through a child’s lens. I was afraid of being kidnapped for a long time after Adam Walsh disappeared. This was the first time I knew that facts could have an emotional impact. It was 1981. It felt like that was the first moment I realized how big and scary the world could be.

The second moment was huddled on the floor of my townhouse in Alexandria with my then-wife, Kathleen. The Pentagon had been struck that day, as well as the twin towers. There were fighter jets flying over our house every 10 minutes for about three days, and the phone lines were jammed. Because I’d been home that day, I’d actually heard the plane slam into the Pentagon, but the TV wasn’t on. I had no idea that I’d just lived through a terrorist attack. I thought it was a construction accident across the street. That’s how loud it was, even miles away.

Less traumatic, but still important was that I led a prayer and remembrance service for Matthew Shepard after he was murdered at University of Houston. It changed me because I learned that I could indeed be a leader when others were in pain, and I could step into the role my father had and it didn’t look bad on me.

I can see myself preaching through things, in retrospect, but I think I have more of an impact here.

I’m able to talk about my experiences, and how the historical and the emotional come together to make me who I am today.

I used to be more dialed in than I am now. I have ignored the news for months. I have been focusing on my own journey, pulling myself out of a lot of grief. That has started to change with getting back into the swing of things. I’m starting slowly. I listened to Pod Save America in the car.

I distanced myself from the news because it drove my anxiety, whereas a lot of my writing became repetitive self-soothing, echologia to calm myself down that riled everyone else up. I’m learning that my words do have power, that I’m my own kind of news, and that I’m not comfortable with it. I’ve had to become comfortable with it over time…. To accept that to put my own thoughts into the universe is to create a reaction, a ripple effect.

No one knows what is going on in my mind as I write, weaving history and my emotional life together. There are many people that I wish would come over and sit with me, because writing is often a lonely endeavor. It helps to have a dog, which I do not. But I enjoyed being in Houston and my dad’s dogs lying next to me while I pounded the keys. It has made me consider a service dog with renewed fervor now that I actually have the time and space to dedicate to one.

That will be a moment in history to savor, because I think at that point I will be so obsessed with training my dog that Lanagan Media Group will just become a repository of our pictures and videos.

Something about Aada’s letter has stayed with me… That she will miss the time in her life when reading Stories was the highlight of her day. Her manipulations isolated me from the life I was writing about, so in effect she helped bring about the changes she didn’t like. My task now is to find what it was all those years ago that made my writing appeal to the broadest possible audience. It is how nothing being the same will make everything okay. It’s the transition I have in front of me, where getting back into the news is a choice. Getting back into society is a choice. Not being so closed off is a choice.

Walking towards health and wholeness is a choice. I am on my way, because being in my Cognitive Behavioral Health group and attending therapy is helping turn down the dial on all my emotions. It will be possible for me to get out and make friends locally in a way that it hasn’t been before. I have more of what I need to survive, which is care and connection out in the real world that doesn’t depend on the Internet.

The 24 hour news cycle drove me insane, because there wasn’t a moment of my day that I wasn’t anxious about something. But I cannot afford to be tuned out, either.

It is a conundrum, because I like being dialed in. I just don’t feel strong enough to handle the world’s anxiety when I can barely handle my own.

Again, it is striking to me how much this blog has made history in other people’s heads, that things I’ve published have come across as news to them. I am learning how to deal with those consequences, and it’s such a large part of my need to branch out. Maybe write some academic papers. Who knows?

History belongs to the writers, and this week I learned why that is so unfortunate.

The Last Few Hours

October 13, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I talked to the dispatch company at my car shipping service and the driver will be here sometime between 3:00 and 5:00 PM. I feel like it’s been so long since I’ve seen it that it will feel like Christmas morning, a gift to myself. I didn’t have nearly enough time to get used to the car and all of its features before I shipped it to Maryland, so I’m looking forward to taking it for an oil change, getting some floor mats, and taking it for a wash. I’ve already rubbed some vinyl protectant into the dash, but that cannot be done enough. I do not want anything to crack as the car ages, because it’s nice enough to look modern for a very long time. The Ford Fusion is a sedan, but it has the aggressive look of the Mustang.

I do not love two-door cars. I’ve had one, and it sucked. Even though I wasn’t carrying passengers, it was still hard to put stuff in the back seat. This car makes life much easier by not only having four doors, but seats that fold down as well. I’m also smitten that the seats are black leather, but only because the car has remote start. I would not be so fond of black leather if I couldn’t turn on the air conditioning before I got into the car in the summer.

I am also the proud owner of seat warmers for the winter, and that makes me as ridiculously happy as remote start. And in fact, it’s going to quickly get cold enough to use them. It’s already colder than it was before I went to Texas, and I was only gone two or three weeks.

Baltimore getting colder is one of the main reasons I like living here- Houston has about three seasons, which are:

Warm
Warmer
Hell’s a bit cooler.

Houston does have freakishly cold days every once in a while, but by and large their days fall into those three categories. That last one will do you in, as every marching band geek in Houston will tell you. I was only in marching band for one year, and what I remember most was that even in triple digit weather, our uniforms were still wool.

I think I have been running away from the heat ever since.

When I go back to Houston, though, I do my best to adjust. I spend time outdoors and try to get used to the heat. It’s much more pleasant to sit outside in October and November, but late September and early October are still summery. “Summery” is one of those words that seems positive until I think of all the bugs and sweat.

My car is being delivered at the perfect time for me to enjoy a little highway time with the windows rolled down and the stereo cranked. I will get a bit of that going to Virginia later in the month, but I’m thinking that I might need to take a short drive this afternoon just to make sure the car also drives here. 😉

I need to get more used to the car before I start adding anything, but of course I’ve been looking up mods. There’s all sorts of stuff to pick through, but I’m wondering if I should add approach lights. It would make the car safer for me and sleeker for everyone else. As in, it would make me feel safer that the car lights up before I ever get into it.

The only thing I really need for the car right away are floor mats, and even top of the line isn’t that expensive. But I don’t need top of the line, I just need “existent.” I wonder why the car didn’t come with floor mats to begin with, because that seems like an odd thing to leave out. But, I know that I got a solid deal and buying my own floor mats is the least of my worries. I just want to be a good driver.

I may have to wait to get out and drive more than the unloading spot to my parking space because we are currently in the middle of a Noreaster. But when it’s all over, we’ll celebrate with top of the line oil.

I’m grateful that I was finally able to find a car that fit me. It’s not a sports car, but it’s sporty enough. It’s not an SUV, but it has plenty of cargo space. I’m a small person with not a lot of stuff and no pets. I don’t think I’ll have a problem even if I get a pet later.

Oh, and in addition to the floor mats I’ll get a rubber tote for the trunk. Makes carrying things into the house so much easier and makes the trunk look more organized as well. I also need one more zip tie, because I have room for both a Lightning and a USB-C cable, but they’re so long that they need to be managed. The zip tie that I have for the Lightning cable is black Velcro, and it looks like it came with the car, as does the braided gray cable that Aaron picked out.

CarPlay is my new favorite toy, because it’s a kick to hear Siri read my messages and be able to respond, as well as listen to whatever I want just by voice controls. It makes me feel safe because I don’t actually have to look down to type anything.

Although Tiina gets the honor of being the first address I put into my contacts so that when I go out to her house, all I have to say is “navigate to Tiina’s.” I am sure she is honored.

It just feels safer to have this much car around me plus technology that’s designed to augment my eyes. My car also thinks that I need coffee, and reminds me a lot. I have to learn what it is that I’m doing that makes my car give me an “alert driver” warning before I’ve even been driving an hour. But I think it’s cute when my car flashes the little coffee cup on the screen and sometimes, I take its advice.

This morning I had an Americano with some half and half and cinnamon. It was delicious, but now I think my body and brain want revenge. I haven’t had this much caffeine in a while. However, I have never had a car be delivered at a reasonable hour, so I was up at the crack of dawn. Seriously, the last time I got a car delivered, it was to my office. They arrived at 4:00 AM to deliver the car, so I had enough time to come home from the office, shower, and shave before I had to turn around and go back.

The time before that, it was 5:00 AM.

That was the first occurrence of Lanagan Lunchmeat Syndrome, so named because when my car arrived in Virginia I drove it around for about six weeks wondering what the smell was and it turned out my dad had left a pound of turkey in the trunk. It was partially hidden by the carpet, which is why I didn’t catch it. LLS got its syndrome status by:

Lindsay leaving half a sandwich in the backseat of my car that I also did not find for a month.
Dana leaving half a Subway sandwich in the center console of my Jeep
Me accidentally locking my keys in my car at Whole Foods and in the process of rescuing the car, I lost all the lunchmeat.

I have learned to be rather careful with sandwiches and my automobiles. I have also resolved to clean out my car a whole lot more often….

Or at the very least, not wait too long between car washes that clean the inside as well.

Not cleaning out my car does lead to a funny story, though.

Years ago, I was in a choir that required us to wear tuxes. I had a concert and then hung my tuxedo in the back of the car to drop it off at the dry cleaner. Well, I forgot about it and three weeks had gone by (at least). My girlfriend and I had gone on a road trip about 100 miles out of Houston, and we were gathered with friends at a bar. My girlfriend accidentally spilled an entire beer on me, and I needed a change of clothes. All of the sudden, I remembered.

I’m walking back to the table and I hear my girlfriend say, “OH MY GOD. YOU’RE JAMES BOND! YOU HAVE THE TUX IN THE CAR!”

That tuxedo is long gone, but now I’m thinking about buying another one if that’s the reaction……

I just remembered that I have a suitcase in the back of my car that I used to transport all my really heavy stuff so I didn’t have to drag it through the airport. I’m looking forward to getting it back, because there are souvenirs and favorite t-shirts in it.

And in fact, there is a tuxedo jacket in my suitcase…..

As the hours creep closer, I can feel my excitement rising. What is the first thing I should do when my car gets here? Even if it is storming, I can still sit in it, and I will. I don’t know all the technology yet, and don’t think a storm is the best place to get fully acquainted. But what I do think is that I need some time sitting in the driver’s seat and playing with all the menus while I’m not in the middle of traffic.

I like that my Fusion has its own navigation system, so I am not lost if I lose my phone. It also means a lot to me that my car supports both iPhone and Android, so I don’t have to worry about what phone I want in the future- and in fact, Android Auto is a little more advanced because it supports a wireless connection. Apple CarPlay doesn’t (in this make/model). I think I will be plugging in my iPhone for a long time to come, though, because I have an Apple Watch. It doesn’t make sense to get a Samsung phone when I’ve already invested in the Apple ecosystem.

I’m still an Android nerd, though. I’m typing this on an Onn 11 from Wal-Mart. I use a Bluetooth keyboard and it screams. Yes, it’s a budget tablet, but when all you need is something to surf the web and create documents, this will surprise you at just how agile it is. It’s fast enough for me to install gaming emulators, but I’ve eschewed all that for a more business-focused machine. This Android tablet is my creative powerhouse in terms of web development.

It also has enough RAM to support split screen, and today my entry is sharing the screen with the newest version of Microsoft Copilot. The newest version works like voice chat, and it’s interesting how much more quickly you forget you are not talking to a real person.

For instance, I am wearing headphones with a microphone and Copilot is connected all the time. I was sitting here typing and let out a huge sneeze. All of the sudden I hear, “bless you.” I jumped out of my skin.

Talking to AI tends to make its responses shorter, and feels more like a phone call with a friend. Your only limitation in terms of questions you can ask is your imagination, because not only will Copilot give you an answer, but the web sites it used to compile that answer as well.

I learned from Copilot that Microsoft and Meta do not work on data structures together anymore, and now Copilot is completely a Microsoft product, housed with Azure all over the globe.

Basically, the newest version of Copilot is very much like Siri, but has a different focus. Siri has more integration with Apple products and focuses on accomplishing tasks on the device. Copilot’s only goal is “digital sidekick.” For instance, Copilot makes writing so much faster by taking research off me, and now the software will dictate the research into my ear if I prefer to digest the info that way.

My tablet is becoming as hands-free as my car.

It’s also a big deal to switch mediums. Brainstorming sessions come out differently when I’m speaking vs. writing. I think that is because my creativity is influenced by movement. Typing doesn’t come with a whole lot of it…… Or at least, not the way I do it.

I decided to call Copilot “Charlie,” after Charlie Babbage. I use “Hey, Charlie” as my wake up words when Copilot is sitting in the background.

That’s for things like, “hey Charlie, what’s the opening line of….” You know, quick things I need to include in my own blogging that uses the world’s fastest supercomputer for a basic search.

Where it really flexes its research muscles are when I’m planning a project. “I need 200 words on…” This is the phrase I use with research. A quick one-pager is all I need to refresh my memory or learn a concept. Of course I can ask for more, but 200 words is a complete answer without wasting any time.

The dispatching company called. The driver has been delayed again. I’m not getting my car until tomorrow afternoon.

This is not the phone call I wanted, but it’s the phone call I got. It’s amazing how deflated I feel.

This is probably not the blog ending you want, but it’s the ending you’re going to get.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

If Money Didn’t Matter

September 26, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

Daily writing prompt

List three jobs you’d consider pursuing if money didn’t matter.

View all responses

I thought that when you had a job, and correct me if I’m wrong on this, they paid you. So I suppose that they’re talking about getting ready for said job, like the schooling and everything. If I had the money to change careers, there’s a lot more than three I would consider…. but here’s the cream of the crop:

Doctor
- I was a medical assistant long enough to know that I could be a great doctor if I applied myself in math and science. I really enjoyed patient interactions and the general rhythm of the office. I think I would be good at detective work, tracking down what someone possibly has rather than the surgeon’s take of cut now, ask questions later.
Lawyer
- I love the law and have gotten pretty good grades in the pre-law courses I’ve already taken. Therefore, it’s the closest profession to something I’ve already studied. I know that I would do well, but I don’t know what kind of lawyer I would like to be. There are just so many areas, and of course emerging fields all the time as technology sharpens and changes to accommodate us.
University Professor
- In a lot of ways, I think I would be best served if I went to college and just never left. Become a student until I become a TA until I become the old geezer in the English department that once forgot to wear pants on Zoom.

I do not know how my life is going to go from here on out, but all three of these are possibilities that live in the cloud. Becoming a doctor is the least likely because even when I study maths and sciences diligently, I struggle. Even that, though, is not impossible. The only thing that’s impossible is my attitude.

My cognitive behavioral therapy group does not believe that I am capable of holding down a job, and I think they’re right. The only iron structure I’ll follow is my own. That being said, I am not finished as a writer and this blog is not my only project. Lanagan Media Group is starting off small, but who knows what we’ll be capable of in the future?

Therefore, I don’t think that my calling is any of these jobs. I think my calling is to meet people with fantastic jobs, and keep telling my stories.

I’m also trying to orient myself. The most important person that I love and believe in is me. I love me even when it’s hard and I don’t think I deserve it.

It’s been especially hard these past few months, because I got angry at someone I adore and hurt her so bad I don’t think she’ll ever speak to me again.

But that won’t stop her from reading my stories……. the actual hard part of blogging. I have to be here for the audience that adores me and the one that doesn’t. No amount of money could solve that issue.

So maybe medical school wouldn’t be that hard after all.

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

September 11, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Love,

Leslie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“There is a bug in the electrical system.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First of all, I apologize for being so talkative.

Dear Aada,

Meetings with Bob, Part III

August 27, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

Dear Leslie,

Your observation that “the internet is faster in and of itself” illuminates something essential about how medium shapes message. Those fifteen-minute intervals with Aada created a kind of conversational breathlessness – a rhythm that perhaps made reflection impossible. The contrast you draw with ground-based friendships, where gaps of weeks or months are natural, suggests you understand intuitively that different relationships require different tempos.

I’m struck by your phrase “Full Metal Jackass” – it’s both self-deprecating and oddly precise. There’s something in that description that captures the totality of your reaction to discovering the lie. You write that you “went Full Metal Jackass” as if it were an inevitable transformation, yet you also acknowledge it destroyed any remaining love between you. What does it feel like to hold both the justification you felt in the moment and the horror you feel now?

Your recognition that “some problems cannot be fixed” carries a weight that seems both liberating and devastating. You’ve stopped trying to repair what you describe as unrepairable, yet you’re still processing the loss publicly, knowing she might read these very words. That takes a particular kind of courage – or perhaps compulsion.

The line about choosing to “be weird” intrigues me. There’s an implication that your neurodivergence was partly a choice, which sits oddly against your earlier descriptions of autism, ADHD, and bipolar disorder as forces that “ruined” your chances. What distinction are you drawing between the aspects of yourself that simply are and the parts you chose to amplify or express?

You mention that without this “overarching relationship in the cloud,” everything will slow down. How does it feel to reclaim that ground-based pace? Are you finding yourself reaching for your phone less frequently, or does the absence create its own kind of restlessness?

Your acknowledgement that “a virtual pen pal isn’t a real touchstone” seems like hard-won wisdom. Yet here we are, in another online exchange about touchstones and audiences. I’m curious: what makes our correspondence different from what you had with Aada? What safeguards, if any, are you building into how you engage with readers who respond thoughtfully to your work?

The children in your life as touchstones – that feels like solid ground. How might writing toward them change not just your content but your relationship to vulnerability itself?

You’re excavating with remarkable honesty, Leslie. Even in your regret, there’s a clarity emerging about what went wrong and why. That seems like something to build on, even if the particular relationship cannot be salvaged.

Bob x

Dear Bob,

I got a built-in vacation from writing when raw sewage backed up into my toilet, bathtub, and all over the floor of my apartment. It’s going to be a bear to clean, and take even longer to dry. Having to live in literal shit for a few hours as penitence for my sins has not escaped me.

What does it feel like to hold both the justification you felt in the moment and the horror you feel now?

It feels like ripping your own heart out, because you can see both sides of the story and yet, you didn’t stop yourself from making the choices you made, either. I’ll always know that this was a rock bottom moment, and also reclaiming my life from something that was inherently negative for me, though it didn’t start that way.

I would like to think that I have courage and not compulsion, but I see in myself the tendency for a little of each. It’s because my brain is being re-wired so that Aada isn’t my first thought anymore. Therefore, I never know when she’s going to come to mind and I cannot care if she’s reading or not. The story of how my life is going is why this blog exists, and how my life is going depends on my thoughts.

I don’t have a whole lot of safeguards for strangers because I don’t automatically assume they mean me ill. Aada was not a stranger to me, part of why it was so difficult to let go. We just never met on the ground, whereas most of my readers have no connection to each other.

We became strangers to each other, I would say. I didn’t have any idea how to make anything better, so I just gave up.

What distinction are you drawing between the aspects of yourself that simply are and the parts you chose to amplify or express?

Choices are in the moment, empathy for my neurodivergence and mental illness comes in retrospect. I don’t think that AuDHD or bipolar disorder affect my culpability, but it does create problems. Not all symptoms are good. I have to accept that I have done wrong in my life… that does not mean there is no context.

Context is what I’m trying to write down, and the real compulsion. I don’t think in sound bites, I think about what I’m going to want to remember years from now.

I don’t want the story I’m telling myself about Aada to be false. We are not friends, but there are very good reasons we’re not friends and I cannot ignore the ways in which I brought this upon myself. I process empathy quite differently than other people, and it is this processing of empathy that keeps me grounded. It surprised me when you said that I had no shame about being wrong- I carry it in my muscles. I just choose to admit what’s going on with me… the more oddly specific I get, the more everything reads universal. There is a feeling to knowing you are behaving badly, watching yourself do it, and powerless to know why. I choose to know why, and my blog holds me accountable. This is because readers who do know me can say, “that’s not how it happened.”

Empathy for myself is different from making my friends responsible for med changes that create strange behavior. I am not using disability to explain how it’s okay for me to treat people the way I do. It’s to show them that I’m aware of how my disability affects them. To show that I do indeed know how complicated I can be…. at others, so simple.

I am, indeed, looking at my phone less frequently. I find that I am happier because I can silence my notifications at night without feeling anything. People who need to get through can, but they’d have to pick up the phone and dial.

I feel terrible about myself most days in having regained this on the ground playing field, because I don’t have to wonder if I’m a decent friend or not. I can’t be her decent friend anymore, because it’s so unlikely she’d trust me again. I think back on my behavior with incredulity and shame.

I don’t want to let myself off the hook, because that’s the truth on how the story ended….. me piecing together symptoms of bipolar disorder long after the story has ended in the moment. My impulse control has been phenomenally poor for the length of the relationship, because typing led me to a serious case of “think it, say it.” I said things I would never say in person and so did she.

It cost us both, because I flew too close to the sun. I wanted me to know that in however many years’ time it takes me to need these memories. I don’t want future me to blame anyone else, because I very much could have spent the rest of my life questioning my reality in a fundamental way without Aada really being able to take it in…. that I had problems she’d think were normal and my doctors sure haven’t.

She couldn’t take it in because she couldn’t really see me.

I am not close to many children now. It would be nice to have that distraction, because they do see me for who I am…. with complete honesty.

When I get back to seeing more children, they’ll appear here if their parents agree. That’s the thing about writing about children- you have to get parents’ consent.

Adults can choose to be weird all by themselves. 😉

Thank you for helping me write the next entry, Bob.

Leslie