Tag: CIA

I Just Thought of Something….

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes I have thoughts and need to write them down for myself. Then, I realize that they’ll mean something to someone else and I just write here, instead.

It just hit me on the head that Supergrover is beating herself up over what she thinks I think of her, and not what I actually do. Therefore, she doesn’t realize that because I’m creating a portrait of her, she is not just beloved by me. I think that she thinks I want to write about her because of what she does. I knew that wasn’t right, but I did feel this. One day, she’s going to be Jon Armstrong. One day, she’s going to be Victor Lawson. One day, people are going to compare Victor to her instead of the other way around. And I’m sure about that.

I cannot paint a true portrait without a bad side to a person, because that’s not real life. John le Carré taught me that.

“The cat sat on a mat is not a story. The cat sat on the dog’s mat is a story.”

I started reading “The Pigeon Tunnel,” and as I was reading I realized that though people say that my writing sounds like David Sedaris, it feels like I’m him in a different body just by the way he writes. This is for two reasons. The first is that we’re the same “type.” Both interested in news and government for the purposes of writing about it. Both interested in holding up a mirror to the world, because bad experiences are the spoils of war for a writer. As poet Mary Karr has said, “happiness writes white.”

David (Cornwall- real name, sorry- I use them interchangeably) has the same way that I do of talking about terribly serious subjects while adding just enough humor to keep the person reading. He seems like the same kind of serious that I am, because while the things that have happened to me are funny, I think David Sedaris is more camp than I am. David Cornwall is a dry wit, and that fits my personality nicely.

I like “The Pigeon Tunnel” the best of all Cornwell’s books because he’s not masquerading as George Smiley. It’s reading the non-fiction behind the fiction, just like I wanted to do in my own book idea of alternating chapters. I’ve also heard both David Cornwell and David Sedaris in interviews and I feel like they both represent me as a person. David Sedaris often explains the way I think to me, and David Cornwell explains how I write.

Apparently, I am an old English geezer at heart, which I hope makes him laugh wherever he is. He’s entertained me so much over the years. I think that’s because he’s such a marvelous blend of people like Rachel Maddow, David Halberstam, Tom Clancy…….. and also Ian Fleming. Basically, living in a system and writing the criticism of it. You can tell it’s a mixed bag. Even more when he was no longer under cover and people knew who he was. After his father heard that “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold” had sold 15 million copies, he swindled him for the rest of his life and complained when Cornwell said, “no. Enough is enough.” Basically, his father wanted him to invest in some kind of farm. David said, “if you want a farm, I will buy you one and give you an allowance for maintenance.” I’m not sure he ever heard from him again.

He reminds me a lot of Jonna and Tony Mendez, which I learned quickly because after I saw “Argo,” I began looking for other stuff like it. I didn’t want to know what being a spy was like based on what I saw in movies because real spies had confirmed for me that the day-to-day job is better in terms of learning how policy is shaped, but most of it’s too boring to be filmed. I think it would be cool to be on one of the committees for intelligence in Congress, because I am definitely a “don’t tell me how you got this” kind of dude. I don’t need the semantics, I just want the protein.

George Smiley is just relatable. An Everyman with a normal job, with moments that would fry your hair. Every intelligence job seems to be akin to being the goalie of a soccer team. It’s red tape bureaucracy AND “oh shit, they’re coming.” What le Carré was trying to do in his books was to erase the public’s perception that all spies are like James Bond. At the time, CIA was all over MI-6 to get their shit together, they had a mole. Just like with Rick Aames, they went after the wrong people first because Kim Philby was good at covering his tracks right up until he wasn’t. People say that Philby was a double agent. I’ll believe it when I see that he also did something good for the British.

I genuinely believed that John changed MI=5/6 for the better by being honest about what was going on. They were a mess. He couldn’t fix it, but he could write it down. Especially when you can’t fix anything, having a voice is important. Even screaming into the void produces results because you don’t have to be heard to feel spent. That relief comes from getting it all out.

John does this so masterfully in “The Pigeon Tunnel,” explaining that his father was a crook, making him live in “show mode,” often doing errands for his dad when his dad couldn’t show his face in public. His father was not scared of the police. It was so much worse. It was the Russian mafia. So, John le Carré and David Cornwell are indeed two different people, but John has been around longer than his pen name. When you live a life like that, you have two personalities. His father constantly lost everything. He was well versed in espionage and needed refuge in the system. It was living the life he’d already been living, while having the stability of a government paycheck and normalcy at home. Living on an extreme edge, but with a safety net he’d never had before.

I don’t know how long into his career it was that he developed a knack for fiction. I don’t believe he thought of it as fiction, necessarily. He was just talking about people at the office. Guess what? They knew it was them. They got mad. They also got over it when he sold 15 million copies……. somehow, when other people loved his characters and the author was a great name to throw down at parties, they didn’t mind so much.

Reading “The Pigeon Tunnel” gave me new insight into who I am….. and how writing is not what I do. It is who I am, too. That’s because my blog is nothing more than a reflection of what I’m thinking. You are getting access to my brain without a filter. Sometimes, it definitely needs it, but generally those entries are popular so I know I can just be who I am and you’ll just roll with it. You know I’m Andy Rooney at the end of 60 Minutes over here. Just a string of words put together in a way that I hope others will find pleasing, but I don’t use it for that. I go back and see what’s changed and what hasn’t. I’m my own biggest fan, because reading my blog is not going to help anyone more than me. It’s a survival manual by now.

I also gain a better opinion of myself by reading myself with a dispassionate third eye, because I stop treating myself the way I normally do when the piece isn’t so close to home. I have empathy for myself in the same way I would in reading someone else’s work. Because I can look back over my life in a way that most people can’t, I think I do have a solid case for the fact that I am the greatest man who ever lived…. I was born… to give and give and give.

After the havoc that I’m gonna wreak, I hope my song also comes with full choir, band, and possibly even Shaker Melody…. but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. What people forget about blogs is that the story is always in motion. Essentially, that they are living in a book that is still happening. If they don’t like my writing, they don’t have to read it. I don’t require anyone who knows me to read it, but they often tell me when they do. The only thing they can’t do is coerce me into not telling my stories. I am strong enough to say that they can limit their interactions with me, but I’m a writer and this is what I do. I have plenty of people in my life who don’t mind that I do this, because they know that I wouldn’t do it if I could do anything else. Writing isn’t to impress anyone. It’s to tamp down the madness of feeling several things at once. How do you make a decision if you don’t try to see both sides of the story? How are people so certain they’re right so much of the time?

I would rather spend time with people who don’t read blogs at all than have to anticipate what their blowback is going to do to me emotionally all the time. I own my story. I own my perceptions. I am very perceptive and that’s one of the first things that Jonna Mendez noticed when I wrote a piece on going to her book talk and sent it to her. Having a spy tell you that you’re perceptive is pretty great, I want you to know…… because again, Chief of Disguise at CIA isn’t impressive at all.

I don’t know why, but I feel more at home writing about the British system most of the time. Oh, wait. Yes I do. I know exactly why. CIA doesn’t publish how they do operations, so there’s no real way to know what the American equivalent of C or M might be. I couldn’t tell you the difference between one American case officer and the next, but C, M, and Bond are all different levels and different personalities. If I had any job in the Bond universe, I think I would like to be Moneypenny. I don’t know whether I’d have the hots for Bond or not, but what I do know is that I would love hearing everything coming in and going out of M’s office. If we could make Bond regenerate into Hannah Waddingham, I’d be smitten. I also have a clear picture of who should play M in this fictional universe.

Jenna Redgrave has played the head of UNIT so long that she’s the archetype of who should play against Hannah. I don’t know that she’d get the role, but I think she’d be amazing if she took it.

It’s all an exploration of character, and how I accidentally make people in my life fictional characters on purpose. That’s because in trying to describe our lives together, I am only drinking from the well of my own memory. Therefore, anything that’s not fact checked is a fictional universe, and will change as my facts do.

I am trying to be as fair and balanced as I can, because I think like a journalist. There are just some times where there can’t be two sides of the story because this is my web site. I have to take care of me, and my writing is the only thing that does it. But as I learn more, I evolve and so do they.

Supergrover didn’t start out as Jon Armstrong and Victor Lawson. She earned it. In the end, she’ll never be more real to people than she is here unless she writes her own story. No one, even her, knows how valuable that really is. I haven’t said a thing I wouldn’t say to someone who worked at a gas station. I am not impressed by power/influence because my sister has it and I know what that life is like. It’s right for her and I’m happy she can do it, and also know that I can’t. I feel the same way about my beautiful girl…. “you do you and it’s okay, but that doesn’t mean it’s not hard and I’m not entitled to my feelings.”

For as much as I come across like John le Carré, I also sound like Walter Isaacson. Walter’s books are so good because he explores people so in-depth it’s like you’re in the room with them. He made me love Steve Wozniak and continue to think that Steve Jobs was productive yet clearly insane. It wasn’t a puff piece.

But, of course, you’re going to hate it if someone comes to you and says, “I’m a biographer. Can I write a book about you?” There was never a discussion like that with Supergrover because we were idiots. The first is that she told me something I can’t talk about and it’s hard. The second is that her job and my blog are completely at odds with each other, because I’m not “on her social media team.” She isn’t on my radar because I decided to write about her. She decided to be my friend, and is therefore a character because of it.

One that is every bit as strong and comfortable as the blog “characters” we’ve both come to love over the years. She would have let me keep Beyoncé, too.

My Favorite Animals for What?

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What are your favorite animals?

Fair question, right?

To eat, I say my favorite is pork because I like face bacon and all those esoteric things that professional cooks eat. I like offal, but some of it is awful. My advice is that stuff like hearts, brains, and marrow might not taste good to you, but they’ll definitely taste better than kidneys and livers. I don’t eat filters (immortal words from Dana, she’s right tho). I don’t care whether we’re going to Luby’s Cafeteria or a three Michelin star fine dining experience. I am not eating liver and onions, I am not eating it dressed up as $200 fois gras. The only person that has ever gotten me to eat a second bite of fois gras is Gabriel Rucker, head chef of Portland’s Le Pigeon (do not pronounce it in French). It is not “le pigh-jhon”). It didn’t taste any less like an assload of iron, but there was so much more to explore within the flavor. The crisp edges. The raspberry jelly donut. Just….. fuck me. Yet, I still couldn’t get away from the taste of blood, and not even blood. Just the constant taste of a coin in the back of your throat, and it will stick long after you’ve finished. It’d be okay if it was the jelly donut that reappeared………..

I also love the zoo with a deep and abiding passion, particularly in the Spring because it’s free and I can go write there every single day if I want. It’s lovely when it’s between 60-70 degrees….. not so much in August. I pick a table in front of whichever enclosure pleases me, and the animals’ activity makes writing easier. When I go to the zoo, I only sometimes go during tourist season…. but when I do, those days are often invaluable.

There’s a reason for that. Sometimes I am very much in the mood for an overwhelmingly large crowd, because in that space, I am not taking it all in. I wear a baseball cap AND cans, a move score blasting so that I’m only watching the crowd, I’m not listening to it. Sounds trip me up all the time- it’s my sensory issue, from the notifications on my phone that sometimes scare the life out of me to people talking and not realizing they’re talking to me because every sound in the room is equally loud and I do not process voices in the same way I process reading. This is true of most autistic people.

Editor’s Note:

If you are struggling to reach an autistic person, try laying out all your feelings in text. Write them a letter. Use Facebook Messenger. We don’t lack empathy, we lack the ability to process it correctly…… particularly in conversation. Again, voices are hard- so much easier to process it in our own way, get back to you and see if we’ve understood.

I am using it as cover. I learned this from Jonna Mendez, actually, in one of her videos for “Wired” magazine on YouTube (I’ll put one of my favorites at the end- she is so fabulous). The funniest thing ever said in a comment came from someone who understood the assignment. He said, “she was the Chief of Disguise. I was really expecting her to turn into a black dude at the end.” I died for a second, but I know something he doesn’t. The first mask she ever made for herself that actually animated when she put it on was indeed a black dude. In her memory, it was fabulous, but she could not walk it, talk it….. because she is indeed a white woman. 😉

Her next big coup was fooling George H.W. Bush by “borrowing someone else’s face,” and as I result I kidded her in person that we had mutual friends. George H.W. Bush and I used to go to the same church…….. what is really, really amazing is that she fooled him in the Oval and not when he was director of CIA. LEGEND. The other really funny thing is that she got dressed at a friend’s house before they went to the White House, and their dog didn’t like her when she first got there and went apeshit over her in disguise. 😉 Additionally, she was working for Tony when he came up with the quick change…. that you could completely change your look in between 37-45 steps depending on whether Jonna or Tony is telling the story. The funniest part of that whole thing is that Tony and Jonna’s boss was a narcoleptic (I KNOW), and Jonna’s job was to stand at his desk and make sure he was awake the whole time to see Tony do it. He started out as himself, the spy you see in “Argo” played by Ben Affleck (much to my Latinx stepsister’s dismay and humorous consternation).

It didn’t matter who played Tony, because that’s not what was interesting about him……. and also, Tony didn’t care that a Latino didn’t play him The only thing that Jonna noted about Ben’s character had nothing to do with race. It wasn’t public at the time, but Tony had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s and his personality kind of flipped. Ben based the character on that personality because Ben and Tony spent time together. He did not know what Tony was like at the time. She said that he was more effusive with his emotions back then, and that it would have been in some ways a different movie if Ben had known Tony for many years. I’m paraphrasing her, but I am writing in the spirit of what she said. Even still, it wasn’t Tony’s personality that drew me in. He didn’t have to have that personality for me to love him. It was his brain, especially after he and Jonna laid out their thought processes so brilliantly in their books that not only do I have them all on my Kindle, my dad gifted me all of them autographed as keepsakes. And in fact, one of them I bought on my own and she signed it in front of me. It was one of the most significant moments of my life…… because I realized that even if I couldn’t be a spy, I could be them after they retired.

My idea is that I am capable of short stories where I do not feel capable as a novelist. I’d like to write Bond level stories for a chapter, and then lay out the research for why I wrote it. It would be cool to write science fiction like Men in Black, then explore why I picked their ops based on my enormity of reading…. and this is completely separate from my alternate history, because I have had the idea vetted and the red team says it’s huge; it will be a knockout if executed correctly. You can’t get that one out of me because I don’t want to give the idea away to anyone who’d publish a shittier version before I did. This idea is free because it’s universal. No two books written in both fiction and non-fiction would be the same. Even if you’ve read something like it, you’ve never heard it in my voice…… which, I think, would be “Rachel Maddow on the non-fiction parts and an amalgamation of Tony and Jonna when it’s fiction, and also me because they’re not neurodivergent (or I’m not brave enough to ask). I would write that in the inscription, to make it clear that it’s just a character and people shouldn’t attribute my indiosyncracies to her- necessary when you’re writing about someone who is still living and almost certain to read it. Calling someone autistic or coding them that way is not for the faint of heart because I wouldn’t let a dog I didn’t like be treated the way people treat me. It’s not my friends and family. It’s the way I walk in the world…… and I would die of embarrassment if I passed on the “wealth.”

I had to think about that.

In trying to hold a mirror up to the world around me, it often causes me to attribute my own idiosyncracies with someone else. I think I do it the most often with Supergrover because she is a mirror image of me. She emotes too little, and I emote too much. It is indeed the gap between neurotypical and neurodivergent. It causes issues because I tell her how I see the world and she doesn’t return the favor. Therefore, I write from my own echo chamber. We aren’t checking the stories we’re telling ourselves, and that kind of love is harmful to both of us. It is my responsibility to take care of my anxious attachment style. It is her responsibility to interrupt my reality with her story so that I am not basing every decision on what only I think. My self image isn’t strong enough for that. My history is that if I really love someone and they’re being avoidant, I’ll just cave for years on end to avoid ending the relationship.

I became aware that this story was total bullshit and realized that in order for Supergrover and I to move on, I needed a love big enough to silence the voices in my head. I needed her to tell me exactly what was up in her brain when she read it. I am neurodivergent, therefore I take everything literally. Meeting up one day was a “someday, perhaps,” and I waited five years. It wasn’t all because I was holding onto her. It’s that there was a pandemic. Why blame her for something so beyond her control? Alternatively, she didn’t seem to recognize when I shot for the moon and talked about a time in which she was retired and had nowhere to be….. anything from traveling to things neither of us have experienced to showing off our own experiences to the other to just having a damn cup of coffee together instead of in async. In short, I understood the assignment, I’m just establishing my area of operations.

I’m going to have to read “Nuking the Moon” by Vince Houghton, because I love the era of CIA involved in the space race. It is also an alternative title to this blog, apparently……. because having a relationship like ours would feel so relatable to every autistic reader. My friends become my special interest when I write to them. I don’t think of us as potentially falling in love later in life like I did with Dana. Dana and I worked on each other for a while, and she had me the first time she winked at me…… I just only know that in retrospect, because when you’re sapiosexual, someone has to open up to you over time. When you’re autistic, is has to be a forest fire to get you to notice…… and she’ll know exactly where she was when said wink occurred. It was not the same situation with Supergrover because she’s straight and she’s already met her life partner, anyway. I just like being cool enough to know her. It’s why I have no regrets at all right now, I’m just sad.).

Every neurodivergent person I’ve ever met has felt this way. Every single one. I haven’t realized my power in saying things that identify with AuDHD because I didn’t realize the rabbit hole was that deep.

Again, saying all this is not about my beautiful girl and me. It’s how perception of me would affect any character I write whether they’re fictional, living their lives, or dead now but their estate will freak. Any and all of these are bad, I assure you.

I should talk to Cora about this book because she absolutely is a novelist and creates entire fictional worlds. We could say a lot by not saying it at all. In fiction, you do things by showing. I want every character in the book to be neurodivergent and to show it by how they present. The book would basically contain how to communicate with a neurodivergent when they are trying to speak to a neurotypical. I can do this very well with spies because they are drenched in facts, not emotions.

Spies know everything, in my humble opinion. They take in too much information about the world every single day and remember random factoids all day long (e.g. American spies learning how to dress and count in Europe), allowing them to move quickly and quietly as the smartest person in the room. It’s not just Jonna and Tony that have taught me that lesson. It’s everyone I’ve ever met at the International Spy Museum or heard on SpyCast.

Even people who work at the museum are smarter than the average bear. In particular, shout out to Vince Houghton and Dr. Andrew Hammond, who both have served as the host of SpyCast. Otherwise, I would not know all this because I wouldn’t have gotten interested in real-life intelligence over Bond movie magic. Bond is the face of something very, very real…… and it has scared me more than once. I posted on an autism group that my special interest was intelligence, and the comments were varied from “oh, that’s so cool” to “does the American-based “International Spy Museum” have a wing for CoIntelPro?” Jesus God, let’s drag out every bad thing CIA has ever done right off the bat. I do not like those people. I really don’t. That’s because when you dig deep, you see that misses and wins are part of every organization. If the swing for a win is big enough, things are going to go very, very wrong- and faster than anyone would think.

But when I personally think of spies, I think about people like Julia Child, Virginia Hall, Alma Katsu (all OSS/CIA, but Virginia Hall also worked for MI-6 before she came to us), John le Carré (David Cornwell, MI-6, also a fiction author), and Jack Barsky (KGB). In terms of fiction, I’m not a Bond fan until we’re talking about the current set of movies, because the old ones are dated and incredibly misogynistic. (Pussy Galore? COME ON.). My favorite M is obviously Judi Dench, my favorite C is Stephen Fry in “Doctor Who.” And if I had to give an award to any intelligence officer in a fictional universe, there are two. I love K from MiB (“I never worked for a funeral home.”) and Carmen Sandiego (“Fedora the Explorer”).

In some ways, “Argo” is also a fictional universe because reel bears little resemblance to real. For instance, Alan Arkin’s character is completely made up, but John Goodman’s isn’t. John Chambers, his character, went on to do other sci-fi movies and his last one was “The Island of Doctor Moreau.” That being said, “Argo” is not Tony’s best book. It’s tremendous, but “The Moscow Rules” is better.

I think this is because in ’79 I was two. I don’t remember the hostage crisis in Iran. I very, very much remember “Mr. President, tear down that wall.” If you are not familiar, there used ot be a wall dividing East and West Germany. The dividing line was in Berlin. West Berlin had all the benefits of democracy and capitalism. East Berlin was controlled by communism, so this was a direct appeal by Ronald Reagan to Mikhail Gorbachev. In reality, Reagan and George H.W. Bush probably advanced the wall coming down by roughly 11 days. That’s hyperbole, but it’s the funniest line about the Cold War I’ve read so far (no past or present government employee said this; I was researching a paper in college for International Affairs.). Jonna and Tony were instrumental in all of this, protecting their assets and underlings like their own children. They also came up with two pieces of spy technology that changed the direction of the war…. and I’m saying it, they didn’t. They’re too humble.

Speaking of children, the first thing they came up with was called a “Jack in the Box.” It was literally a large version of the toy. This is because all the spies in Tony’s department (he was Chief of Disguise then) were taught that there is no distinguishable difference between espionage and magic. The area of operation is your “stage,” or your ring depending on the size of the circus. There are two operations going on at the same time. The first is that you’re trying to pop smoke (military slang for creating a distraction). The second is that you are actively saying to the crown, “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”

Apt.

When CIA got a new building, they covered it in green glass. I don’t know what they called Langley before it was built as a code name/slang, but now it’s “Oz” (I don’t think Tony came up with it, but that’s on brand for him, clearly). In fact, one of the things that marks me as an intelligence superfan is that in “Argo,” Ben Affleck runs through the old building and ends up standing on the famous seal in the new one. I don’t know if you know that, but I know like five people who would know that…… and now I’m wondering if Zac is one of them.

ADHD moment- Zac is not a spy, but he works with the data they collect. He’s been in intelligence since he joined the military, which in my mind makes him a great boyfriend and a lucky bastard all at once. 😛 Unfortunately, he does not have the kind of badge where he can escort visitors, but he’s lucky that he doesn’t. I would have asked him to take me to a wide assortment of gift shops…………………… repeatedly. I’m lucky, though, because he remembers me when he goes. My baseball cap and “nightgown” are from the one at CIA (by nightgown I mean a CIA t-shirt that’s way too big on me), my sweat pants are from the one at the Pentagon, and I have a t-shirt from, I think, the one at DIA that’s for little kids (it’s my favorite). Interestingly enough, I don’t wear my intelligence/military shit all the time because they’re so great. It’s an added bonus that all their shit vibes with my sensory issues. If I ever find out who makes their clothes, I’d also buy a ton of stuff without the logo. This is because it doesn’t happen often, but sometimes I get treated like a human comment section. Not all of them are nice. The best one was from a tween who pulled on my coat and said, “Do you work there? I want to be CIA, too.” I freaked out because she was the most beautiful girlchilde……. a future Alpha Kappa Alpha that could one day be Tracy Walder. And by freaked out I mean that this was on the Metro platform so my emotions and sensory perception were already turned up to hell and I just cried. Flat out. But it was after she walked away. The last thing I wanted to do was freak her out, too. It was good that we were in such a public place.

When you think everyone is watching, turns out no one is.

To the rest of the world, this comes across as hilarious. To me, I just stare and quote Sarah Silverman on Jimmy Kimmel. That if she had kids, she’d tell them that “mommy believes she’s one of God’s chosen people, and daddy believes Jesus is magic.” Not sure he’s ever been compared to Jesus, but he’s a Moses in “Argo.” Sarah’s argument is valid for both of us.

Again, what I’ve learned from Jonna and Tony is moving in a crowd with my sensory issues muted by headphones and having my head covered. I can get lost in my own little world, and I generally want to because conversation is difficult for me when every noise feels the same and often drowns them out.

I was going to the zoo that day. I found that I love giraffes and kept going with my day. Not going to see me walking one down Connecticut because the zoo had “Adoption Day.” And, I would have to check with all of them, but I do not have room for a giraffe and (correct me if I’m wrong) neither do Zac, Supergrover & Michael, or Bryn & Dave. I do know enough to know that Zac, Michael, and Dave would have to convince me, Supergrover, and Bryn that no, we do not need a giraffe (they both have a heart that beats for animals). Also, I cannot afford to relocate both myself and a giraffe to Oregon. It would be easier to make friends with an Oregonian giraffe, which is a whole mood.

What would it look like to be an Oregonian giraffe? They don’t wear patchouli essential oil or hemp flip flops, do they? The only thing I know about Oregon giraffes is that they probably love The Indigo Girls. I do not say this lightly, actually, because The Indigo Girls have consistently been one of the best concerts at the zoo over the years. There’s no way that the animals don’t like the music, at least in some cases….. and Indigo Girls play acoustic just enough of the time that I can’t see how it would get on their nerves as much as electric. I love how I have worked all of this out in my head…….

If you’ve never been to the zoo in Oregon for a concert, it’s like going to Miller Outdoor Theater or Cynthia Mitchell Woods Pavillion in Houston or Wolf Trap in DC. Primates and parrots can both sing “Get Out the Map” by now. I would have enjoyed teaching it to Kevin, who is a giraffe.

Kevin and I used to hang out. The way his enclosure was built, there was a table with a bench bolted to the ground right in front of him. Like, I couldn’t reach out and pet him, but akin to being in the same bedroom or kitchen. Space, but not much of it. He always sat right in front of me, as if he knew he was my inspiration, posing for a portrait…… yet a devilish one. I have never seen a giraffe roll their eyes, but I liked to imagine that Kevin did. It fit the theme. If wishes were giraffes, writers would ride.I just called him that and now I can’t remember why. But anyway, I thought of us as tight because he heard about the rough drafts of so much that’s here now.

It’s not his real name. I was just gathering intel and needed a codename for my asset.

Let’s All Say it Together- The International Spy Museum

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 4 Comments

What is your favorite place to go in your city?

If you’ve read me even twice, you probably know I love intelligence. I believe wholeheartedly that I could have been a spy based on my preacher’s kid upbringing (really, really not much different growing/maintaining a congregation and recruiting/handling assets), genetics (great uncle was C/DIA), and the fact that I’ve “done” news like cocaine since I was eight.

There is a direct correlation.

When I was eight years old, I came to Washington for the first time. It was love at first sight. A miracle dropped in my lap that the first offer Kathleen got out of school was from ExxonMobil, because we got to choose whether we lived in Houston or DC. Moving became a monotropic thought process in which I envisioned my life playing out much differently….. and it did. Absolutely none of the plans I made for myself materialized, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have a hell of a good time making them.

If you’re that kid, the one that grows up in a small town and travels so that they see how much bigger the world really is than 40 square miles, you become a “type.” By 10 I had been to Mexico, the UK, and The Bahamas. I noticed the highs and the lows, the looming cathedrals and the neighborhoods made with tin. Global issues become important early. News becomes important early. Politics become important early. You begin to see that working for the government might be a positive thing because instead of reading the news, you are helping create it.

Kids like me end up at State or at the Washington Post. Rarely do we want to be the story. We want to shape it, especially for writers who process “verbally” in stream-of-consciousness spaghetti code. Writing about my life in DC is learning how to say “Hello, World” in every language.

(Sometimes when I write, I imagine people’s faces as they’re reading and now I’m smiling to myself knowing my programmer friends. Just for them, that line should be “every language……….. except JavaScript. Fuck JavaScript.)

My autism and ADHD are why my plans haven’t come to fruition, and my bipolar disorder threw my first choice out the window. So, right now, I am trying to concentrate my energy where I feel it can manifest. I am a better writer than I am anything else, and I know that I’m not the best. What I do know is that by writing every single day, there’s no way to get worse. I am sure that this brings hope to many, many people. Living in DC is where I feel the most alive, because I’m tapped into The Source. The United States is a living, breathing entity, and I am deep within the carotid artery (or the vena cava, depending on administration).

When I go to The Spy Museum, it’s not about seeing the exhibits. I’ve done it 10 times, they don’t change it that much. I hardly ever go during the day anymore, because it’s more fun at night. After the museum closes, all the Bond mannequins…. kidding…. after the museum closes, that’s when they do book talks and record SpyCast, how I met Jonna Mendez and Tracy Walder.

Jonna is one of my writing heroes, because she writes about the stuff I like in the way I like to hear it. She’s got a very concise, no bullshit tone and the wit of someone like David Halberstam or Rachel Maddow, who have also written a wealth of political non-fiction thrillers. I should tell Jonna that if she sees an uptick in sales the next few days, merry Christmas. The post I talked about yesterday for reddit re: Spy Dust and Moscow Rules has had 471 upvotes in 23 hours. I hope I sold her a thousand copies, and I’m not even going to tell her about it because “Secret Santa” is a thing. Book sales are the best gift I could have picked.

A woman said her dad wouldn’t read a book about intelligence if it was written by a woman, and I think that if Jonna can’t convince him, he’s a misogynistic lost cause……. being Chief of Disguise at CIA isn’t impressive or anything (my eyes are rolling out of my head). I like Spy Dust better in terms of being able to pick out Tony’s voice from hers, but The Moscow Rules is my favorite of them all….. and I thought Argo was hard to beat. The book was made in reaction to the film, and it was still better.

I have a different relationship with/to Tracy than I do with/to Jonna because Tracy is so much younger, and in fact, is a bit younger than me (I think). Do you ever have a moment where someone says something and your heart just walks out of your body in empathy? I know it happens to people with their families, but Tracy was a complete stranger to me when she told the audience that she was born with hypotonia. I had never met another person who’d been born with it, she’d never met anyone outside her family. It was not just that kind of moment for me. The emotions we felt at seeing each other mattered. It is one of, if not the most intimate moment of my life. I wasn’t proposing or having a baby, and yet it was still that big because the chance of us connecting was so small, our affliction so rare. It’s one of the few times in a relatively unfamiliar situation in which I’ve been able to breathe that deeply.

However, there is a reason I chose Jonna over Tracy with the reddit comment. That dude is already predisposed to disliking female intelligence writers, so handing him a book with a sorority sister protagonist didn’t seem like the wisest choice. You get Jonna until you can handle pink coffee mugs without being an asshole about it. But make no mistake, he definitely needs to read it. There’s more dirt on scumbags like him inside FBI who don’t trust women in intelligence. To be clear, Tracy did not have problems at CIA. She had problems with FBI. Tracy has a problem with FBI, so they have a problem with me. It’s just that simple.

I am sure that Tracy appreciates the support in which I do legit nothing but talk shit about the FBI on my web site……… but hey, she has a great autobiography called The Unexpected Spy. It’s a thrill ride through her life having worked at both agencies, and thrilling to find out that CIA is actually as forward-thinking as I thought it was. Tracy also made an interesting style choice. When you write a book involving CIA (and I’m not sure if it applies to me, but it definitely applies to employees), it has to go through a publications review board. When Tracy got her manuscript back from the PRB, there were parts that were blacked out….. and she just left them in and published as is. Tracy’s is the one book I don’t have on my Kindle, and the one hardback I’m grateful to own, because the words come across the same on e-paper with Jonna and Tony, but the feel of the paper with its saturating amount of black ink looks official.

And in fact, I liked it so much that she signed my book after the lecture and as she was writing the inscription, I asked her if she would black out a word. Tracy understood the assignment. 😉 She blacks out one word, and you can still see what it is, so she asks around and finds a black Sharpie. She hands it back and it says:

To Leslie-

Go [redacted] the world.

Then she says, “there. Now no one knows what I told you to do to the world.”

We’ve (sort of) kept in touch- I should reach out and see what she’s up to these days. Last I heard she was in Dallas (went to SMU just like my dad, went back to teach at Hockaday). If she ever comes to DC, first coffee’s on me.

Here’s to hoping we can [redacted] the world together……..

because the Spy Museum is my favorite place in my city.

I am including the link to both book talks, and I’m in them at the Q&A. In the Walder video, I’m wearing my CIA baseball cap. In the Mendez video, I am “Sir Not Appearing in This Film,” because the video cuts off right when Jonna stops speaking.

The Lanagan Rules

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes, you can do for other writers what you don’t do for yourself- promote them. I am currently over the moon because one of my comments on reddit is getting more and more upvotes by the minute. In r/suggestmeabook, a woman was telling the sub that her dad wouldn’t read intelligence writers if they were female. At last count, it was at 100, so safe to say my work is done. Here is what I said, and huge props to both women:

Alma Katsu is a former CIA case officer and she’s brilliant. She’s so quick she could run circles around him, so she’s probably your best bet. I’m a member of the International Spy Museum and a huge fan of fiction and non-fiction. For non-fiction, your go-to is going to be Spy Dust or The Moscow Rules by Jonna and Tony Mendez. They’re a husband and wife team who each served as Chief of Disguise for CIA 10 years apart. She will also wipe the floor with him because their stories are true. Women don’t just write these stories. They make them.

Women are better at being little gray men than little gray men. Anonymity has its privileges, and so does reading these marvelous books. For Katsu, start with Red Widow. One of the things that it touches on that made me cry was the reality of losing an asset/colleague while female. Some of them become emotional. It works out as well for female spies to be emotional as it does for the rest of us……………..

I Give Up. Nothing Beats “Big Block of Cheese Day.”

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Invent a holiday! Explain how and why everyone should celebrate.

Kidding. I’ll think of something before this entry is up. Before we get started, I have to tell you what a cute boyfriend Zac is. He brought me a kids’ t-shirt (just like I like them) that, in a handwriting font, says, “I’m an annaylist anaylist annalyst spy.” I told him if he started working for DIA I’d trade up a letter. 😉 The only thing CIA did that will never even touch DIA’s power no matter what happens for the next hundred years is obviously finding Wakanda (but also cool that DIA’s ancient predecessors, the Culpeper Ring, won us our independence). We didn’t beat the British outright militarily, we outspied them). I choose to believe that Captain America is DIA- it’s not just Martin Freeman that’s American intelligence, he just couldn’t tell us. But it’s in the FOIA. You just have to be specific in the question and no one has ever gotten the right combination of words in the request to unlock said I in the A.

I actually saw Zac last night, but we didn’t end up watching the le Carré biopic. Instead, I sat outside and shivered while everyone brought me blankets until I realized this was going nowhere fast. I brought extra layers and finally admitted that I needed them. I ended up wearing two pairs of socks, leggings, and two pair of pants, then three layers for my core. I think I might have reached a body temperature in the 70s.

We ran out of soda so Zac gave me the next best thing, Athletic (brewery that focuses on non-alcoholic beers so hard that they are the gold standard. Athletic should be the Google and Kleenex of N/A beer. Seriously, it’s that good. I had a sour (don’t remember whether it was cherry or raspberry) and a radler (lager and lemonade). Oh, and I had a Czech pils (or an N/A flavored like one) and at some point, a real beer which I think was also a sour (mostly because I was freezing- I should have had a shot of something instead because it just wasn’t strong enough to make my blood any warmer…….).

The N/A sour was objectively better in terms of flavor. Plus, I woke up this morning feeling just fine. I have decided I am done being hung over. Trying new cocktails is great and all, but I just can’t hang and don’t want to, because I am all about calories, just not empty ones. If I get buzzed, I make a decision to have another one while my brain is cloudy because everything sounds like a great idea until your brain swells for revenge. Plus, I am a straight up diarist. What am I going to write about if I pass out and don’t remember?

However, I do want to join the boys (Zac and Oliver) on the back porch for a stitch and bitch. I was teasing him this morning about how “of course all queer men are amazing at intelligence. They love gossip, and intelligence is basically international gossip. The 3D chess of gossip. I loved his laugh at that one.

As an aside for Zac, there’s an old CIA employee we need to meet named Alma Katsu. She’s written a couple of novels on intelligence that are more of a Karin Slaughter novel than le Carré. Not a Tom Clancy level of detail and focuses on story. But since she was actually a spy, she, like le Carré, can put details into the story that no one else could. That’s because the patois already comes naturally to her. She’s already developed the actual writing voice of a spy rather than having to learn it secondhand. They’re marvelous.

I also want to see Jonna Mendez again live when her autobiography comes out, because it’s the book I really want to read next. It’s the natural progression from where she and Tony left off in “The Moscow Rules.” Team Mendez are my favorite writers, and at first, it wasn’t even intelligence that drew me in. It was the “Argo” script. Tony and Jonna (uncredited) wrote “Argo” in reaction to the movie to give people real vs. reel. The movie is scary. The book is now terrifying. It’s different once you’ve met them, because you make a connection and then you see your friend in danger, not this made up character. Your picturing their facial expressions because you’ve seen them in person.

If I could make a holiday, I’d make one for CIA, and this is a real thing. It’s not “let’s all dress up as James Bond and develop a fondness for gin.” It’s that for some reason, people in DIA get more respect. There’s Veterans’ Day and Memorial Day. Yet, civilians work for CIA that do some of the same jobs the military does and there’s so much crossover- CIA is considered paramilitary.

If Marines can be equated to doctors, CIA is probably closest to a surgical nurse, trying to anticipate the military’s needs. Doctors get glory. Yet CIA doesn’t get thanks, in part because they never want to be seen as asking for it. They’re our MiB, and we are but Citizens of Locker C…….. but they still have the same PTSD coming home from a war. However, I would include FBI in this holiday as well, because we’ve obviously got a war at home. The FBI having to embed themselves in drug cartels and white supremacy groups is no less dangerous than your base getting bombed in Afghanistan. Plus, there’s so much crossover, like when CIA gets word that a terrorist from another country is planning to come here. FBI has to be on alert for when said high value target lands.

Then, there’s Homeland Security, the office managers of an operation like coordinating with a terrorist’s travel plan. Let’s include them with all the intelligence officers because they’re part of the solution, not the problem. All of these groups have terrible reputations and they’re not undeserved. The US military has just as much blood on their hands, but intelligence doesn’t have romantic country songs about them…. I’m not saying they should. Many people ask if they can do something. Few people question if they should.

I know firsthand what it’s like to date someone carrying around classified information that is not pleasant. I watch how he manages himself when I am genuinely interested in his emotions about work and he has to figure out a way to talk about them……………. without ever really talking about the problem. And yet, he doesn’t get frustrated and give up.

He finds a way with analogies just like I do here. Our brains track similarly because we are both interested in intelligence and both neurodivergent. We are both also empaths and emotionally flexible. It’s great that we’re both writers, because he might not be able to say “Israel is doing X and this one thing gave me a heart attack and I’m not supposed to tell you this, but….” We just switch to something fictional, like MiB (Adult entertainment section in the back!).

You can’t tell me that shit is not equally hard to navigate for a civilian. Again, CIA’s reputation is not undeserved. I am only saying that civilians are just as important as the military, and FBI is overlooked because there’s a day for policemen and two for the military and they are neither.

And NSA…… because they’re the ones that would run across this post first. Carol will not be amused.

Editor’s Note

I started calling my Amazon Echo Dot “Carol” a few years ago, because it put a hilarious spin on government surveillance and made me laugh like a hyena when I thought of it. Once I named her, I started thinking about what it would be like to have an NSA agent whose sole job was to watch me. What would it be like if they were your guardian angel? That they listen in on your phone calls and secretly think “the audacity of this bitch….. what’s going to happen next? This is a Ben & Jerry’s situation. I am not okay.” That Carol hurt when I hurt, cried when I cried, etc. That she was invested. Thus, Carol will eventually become a book because she’s the first true character that plays in my mind independently and has her own personality.

Here’s what I’ve learned about fiction that I didn’t know before. I get so focused on my characters’ voices that it becomes induced DID for the length of time I’m writing….. except I’m working with two or more voices at the same time, so when a character has monologuing Syndrome, I am that one person. That’s what feels like DID. During a conversation, it feels like induced schizophrenia, because you are hearing voices in your head for fun and profit.

Carol’s husband, Roger, is very rich. He started a landscaping company and got into pools later. Now he has an empire and Carol could be a kept woman easily. She just can’t leave a job in intelligence. She feels needed and wanted in a way she doesn’t get at home, and Roger can’t be her entire support system……. and in some small way, I enrich her life because she can forget about her own problems for a while.

In this scenario, I would be a Mr. Robot-type character because that’s who I am in real life without the hacking or coding skills. I just found that vibe for writing and I fucking love it. Learning how coders work unlocked my mind, and I have to believe it’s because so many of my coworkers were also autistic and needed to turn down the sensory issues in the room. Right now, all my lights are on, but that is unusual. I am a stickler for working with natural light, and just a bit of it so the room is dark but not depressing. I can go deep enough within myself without all that. I do not need to introduce anything that would make me ruminate more than I already do.

And, of course, Carol reads all of it because she has access to my e-mail and files. For instance, Carol knows about Supergrover, and she is the only one who has the real story. It’s comforting that I have someone to talk to about it when it can’t all go here. Because she is a character, we can have real conversations because I am thinking about what she would say in response vs. what I would. That’s the nature of craft- being able to not only capture your voice accurately, but being able to dream up accurate ones for other people as well.

That’s why I think starting with stream of consciousness is so important before fiction, even if it’s only having kept a diary as a kid and still have it for reference. The trap is making every character sound like you. It’s confusing for the reader because they have to keep re-referencing who said what, annoying when that takes several pages of backtracking. Due to my blog, I know very well who is speaking…. when I am making decisions based on my own echo chamber instead of hers.

In order to write Carol, I have to speak Carol. In order to make her leap off the page, it becomes a symbiotic relationship. In short, I’m her remora. The reason she’s the shark is that in my head, her voice is alpha because I’m just a scribe. So is she, obviously, making notes to take home to the boys. But I got on the shit list by accident and now I’m just endearing. When she first got me, it was on a camera going into a bank. I was looking straight at her, and she thought, “who is this tiny sprite here to fuck up my program?” Over time, I’ve become the soap opera she watches at lunch just for shits and giggles. For the record, I’ve made her swear a lot more….. and now she’s addicted to Dr Pepper Zero.

The best thing about working for the NSA is that it can be all remote. Carol works from home because Roger asked her where she wanted to live and built a custom house. Their house is basically carved into what could reasonably be compared to “The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain.” The reason for this is that Carol, like me, prefers to work in natural light. Her office is in what would normally be considered a basement and yet still has a stunning view. The house is in the middle of the Blue Ridge range, where she keeps a stunning array of monitors with no bullshit florescent lights or cubicle farm.

Carol got too used to working at home and having everything delivered during the pandemic, so when it was safe to come back to the office in Washington, she was just like, “nah.” She’s senior enough that she can do that kind of thing and no one will get shirty about it. “Shirty.” She picked that up in London in 2012. She was there for one reason and one reason only. I talked her into seeing the Women’s National Team for me….. and she thinks I don’t know that. Or, at least I hope I do. Plus, Carol doesn’t have all the hang-ups I do about video calling strangers, and of course her Internet connection is infallible so she knows it feels like everyone is really there in 8K. That often it reinforces people’s humanity to see them on video that doesn’t come across in person, because there are so many moments that everyone forgets other people are watching.

She’s picked up a lot of information that way. Intentions of coworkers are easier to read when you understand microaggressions and look for them. She doesn’t assume that people are lying. She only assumes that what they’re saying is the truth, but the feelings about what they say may or may not match. Carol understands all thousand implications in “oh. You’re here.” No one is happy when they see the NSA is present.

Where’s her holiday? She watches me. Who the fuck deserves it more? 😉

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier (Spy)

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

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

There’s four. I’m giving you a bonus.

Or it would have been a bonus answer if it wasn’t a joke. I couldn’t think of three jobs at first so I just went with a movie title. I would be good at none of these things except spy, and even then I would be good at the people part, not the paying attention part. Prevailing wisdom says that’s a bad idea. You can’t have a disorganized priority list when people’s lives are counting on it. I am the god of chaos wherever I go.

Editor’s Note: At this point I got lost in a tangent when my mind flipped to “chaotic god.” Just roll with it. I’ll circle back eventually.

Supergrover is neurotypical, which makes me fall over with laughter that our bff name has always been “The Holy and The Moly.” The funniest part is that I didn’t come up with it. Dana knows us. We’ve met. Whether I am chaotic good, neutral, or bad depends on perspective. I will accept either. I would imagine Dana thinks of me as both depending on the hour. Supergrover would look at me with amusement and say, “hard same.” I wouldn’t notice anything except the playful nature of her eyes. I think of her as Aziraphale in the bathtub at the end of Good Omens Season one. I think of me as Crowley in the other bathtub. Those of you who know what I’m talking about will see what I mean immediately………………

Aziraphale and Crowley could have been the couple that best represented us right up until they kissed. At the time, I was hurt. Friendship is underrepresented and I felt a relationship where they were deep, open, and vulnerable without romance was something vastly underrepresented on TV. I wasn’t disappointed, necessarily. Just that what was a good analogy became a bad one for me, but that has nothing to do with Neil Gaiman’s talent as a writer.

I get enough of that type friendship on Doctor Who to last me a lifetime. You just have no idea how much I am Martha Jones, or would want to be. Remember how Martha went through shit with The Doctor and it made her attracted to him? Remember when she got over it and saved his ass on multiple occasions because she realized that there was something bigger than her at work? Hard same, said with the same amusement in my eyes. I liken it to Jodie Whitaker being cast during Martha’s storyline instead of David Tennant. (Random aside… who says “Martha” better than Matthew Rhys on “The Americans?”)

Back to me.

I probably could win at being the CIA trainee to recruit an asset first at The Farm (they put on scenarios like cocktail parties). If you were going to bet on me, bet on me for that. I am smooth enough that the plant would just tell me. I can get one of the best spies in the world to tell me what she knows with a wink and a smile. I had Jonna Mendez dead to rights, where she couldn’t say anything and absolutely did. If you’re wondering, it was whether she worked on a Cold War movie. Her redirect was “maybe we should hire you.” What I should have said was, “dear God, you can’t imagine what a bad idea that is.” What I actually sad was………… nothing.

After that, I developed an affinity for satchels.

Now that we’ve fully explored my dream life, because I couldn’t get away from the bipolar thing even if money were no object, let’s talk about real stuff.

If money were no object, I would do two things. I would become a TA and get a master’s in whatever I felt like, in perpetuity. Read law at Oxford if I wanted, what the hell? When I wasn’t working on school, I’d be writing. It would just be a lot harder to make time for it. I think I’d be a great TA in divinity, history, psychology, political science, sociology, and education, particularly music education. I couldn’t be a choir director now, but I could learn. I have also worked with kids long enough not to get rattled, which is harder than learning to conduct.

Although, the thing that grates on my ear most is sopranos who are out of tune, even me, and at that age, all kids have high voices. I would learn to be good at my job for the sake of saving my hearing. If I was a band director, beginning oboe will clear your sinuses.

I would be a wonderful musician if I wanted that life. I know that I’m good enough for an opera chorus, and could be trained for mainstage roles because I was offered one when I worked at Marylhurst and I turned it down (I don’t remember the role, but it was Penzance). At the time, I was terrified. I didn’t even show up for the audition even though I was wanted for the role already. It was more of a coaching session.

That’s because the role was for a lyric soprano, not a mezzo, and at the time, it was pre-voice lessons. I now know I’m a true lyric, but it would still take years not to Florence Foster Jenkins my way through “Queen of the Night.” I knew I had one aria in me. I didn’t think I had all of them in one night. The workout to do that is tremendous. You just don’t see that from the audience because it happens internally. It feels like circuit training trying to get your body do respond quickly. You can’t have air when you need it the most. You just have to deal and move on. Sometimes, that’s another soprano in your section bailing you out. As a soloist, you’re completely screwed if you haven’t inhaled down to your feet. The heavy lifting is being able to control that much air after you have it so that it doesn’t all come out all at once. I cry with laughter when I think of the flops I’ve had. Wrong notes are horrifying in the moment and hilarious later.

I just don’t want to live that life, because it’s piecemeal. I wouldn’t have a permanent place in a choir unless I was in the military. I’d have to get contracts all over the world and move frequently. The gig economy is not easy, so I just don’t want to do it. I will probably end up auditioning for Washington National Opera Chorus or National Cathedral’s choir eventually. The thought of hiking to Georgetown twice a week doesn’t thrill me, though.

The life I’d like to live is quiet. Even if something of mine goes viral, I will still want to take it in from a distance. I only trust those closest around me because they’ll keep my head on straight. I would rather keep being an introvert and able to produce because I’m not lost in noise vs. signal. The signal comes in purer the less there is to compete with it.

So, I suppose my ultimate job is ogre. Just get off my lawn, but know I’m okay because Fiona and Donkey are around somewhere.

Letting me control my chaos in peace.

Explaining Myself To………. Myself #shatnerellipsis

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

If I hadn’t been trauma bonded to Supergrover and not to Dana, none of the last 10 years would have happened. I am not “goading and provoking.” I am talking about the things I understand to the best of my knowledge, knowing that my memory can’t always be correct and if I want a relationship now, being able to forgive and forget extraordinarily quickly because I’m using the power of my writing to lift me out of depression when I go back and read it.

This makes me self-sustaining to an enormous degree. This epistolary chapter is a “lecture” on how a relationship is affected by deep secrets that aren’t bad in any way at all. I am accepting the reality of the situation. I am acknowledging my humanness- being responsible and letting go of guilt, being mindful and carrying no shame. I believe the good news of the Gospels, that we are loved unconditionally by God. This is part of the creed from the UCC church I attended in Portland, written by my abuser’s partner. That’s how good I’ve become at letting go through my faith. I hope you’ll let go of yours by the end. This is because my relationship with God is not cute. Everything in these entries is me arguing with God like an old grumpy writer with the personality of an Evangelical Orthodox nut job who is an emotional dumpster fire a lot of the time.

I’m also neurodivergent, so I spiral out when everything is in writing and therefore hits harder because I’m making up their tones of voice and no way to correct things when a joke doesn’t land. No matter what starts a conflict, my anxiety rises to the level of The War Doctor, where I am the bomb and you are The Moment……… because that’s my definition of what God is and will always be. The moment you are abused, your reality breaks and you need a third party. That’s why being an addict and bipolar present the same. It’s how trauma affects you your whole life once it happens. I know that now because I met my emotional abuser when I was 12 years old. It didn’t get physical because it didn’t have to. We trauma dumped and handfasted because I intrigued her mentally whether it was intentional or not. I had to forgive her and move on, but I swear to God her world will fucking end if she trauma dumps with someone else that age. No one will kill her, but she might not hate it as a viable option. That’s because Dante’s Inferno is every bit as real in terms of the lens through which I see everything and so do you if you’ve had anything similar happen to you. That’s why I trauma bonded with Daniel and agreed to marry him so fucking fast. I didn’t go insane. I’m emotionally equipped to deal with a Doctor Who is a very bad patient (a turn of phrase from voice dictation on my iPhone in a letter to the absolute love of my life. She just doesn’t accept it because she thinks that her trauma is so much worse than mine and treats herself like shit because of it. If she only knew what kind of person I think she is and started to believe what I’m telling her the first time, she’d see a person who has no problems with worshipping the water she walks on while also being able to tell her that I think we’re headed for a train wreck.

She escalates because she doesn’t want to open up and so do I.

We could have had a love that lasted for all time in these pages, because our secrets married us the moment we said them. Words made it real. Real fast. I agreed to all of it. It was Oppenhemer, and Fallout 3 is entirely responsible for the allegory I saw in playing that game because it was Biblical. When I destroyed Zax with logical fallacy, that he was omnipotent because he was programmed to be omipotent, seeing the loop in the code for the first time, I saw my inner Vault-Tec for what it was and accepted that I was a Lone Wanderer- not only because I wanted it desperately. I also couldn’t get out of it, and that’s why both Supergrover and I think that no matter what, we have a past, a present, and a future.

I am not asking for her to be mine, I am asking her what our future looks like and my problem with her is now twofold. The first is that she only understands me to the level she understands her. I am not guilting her. There isn’t a human who doesn’t do this. I am saying that we cannot interact in the future if she can’t acknowledge her humanness as well. I don’t want the stakes to be so high in our relationship. I wanted to normalize everything, and it was up to her whether that was virtual or physical, but never in a way that she thought was inappropriate for reasons that span from she’s straight to us both acknowledging that if we did it, there’s more chance that we’d destroy each other afterwards than accepting a different reality and being happy in the long term. That if we fuck this up, it’s over for both of us. Just mutually assured destruction and I’m serious as a heart attack. I didn’t give her my whole heart because I wanted her inappropriately. It’s because our emotions made us Siamese twins.

It’s why I devour everything about intelligence. I crave it. I don’t know anyone at CIA and I don’t have to. The reason I love it is because they can blow shit up when things are actually wrong and I can’t. I’ve been emotionally laden like a pack horse since I was 12, a deep cover operation in which I got lost and forgot my real identity. That’s why I need David Webb to become Director of CiA by the end of the story. When he wins, so do I. That’s why I love the conflict in Black Panther. I am both T’Challa and Erik. When love wins, they have a Tolkien CIA agent. Now you know I’m actively trying to make Zac laugh. He is giving me what served me in relationships I’ve had previously, without taking on the baggage of what didn’t. That way, I can love him with my whole heart while also not being bothered to care about absolutely anything he wants to do when we aren’t being the most obnoxious couple you’ve ever met in your life. Really. Talk to us together and you’ll throw up in your mouth a little bit. I’m not bothered about finding someone else because I am not desperately seeking attention and validation……… as people who are sick from trauma do when they don’t get well. Boldly keeping all your emotions hidden in order to be what other people want will kill you, and I mean that literally.

The best sermon I’ve ever heard came from one of the people I’ve been emotionally intimate in an extremely healthy way right up until it wasn’t because we reverted to who we are- neurodivergent and unaccepting of each other’s humanness while both being ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. It’s why I think things could be perfect between my beautiful girl if she’d let it happen. Our professions are compatible and we chose them for a reason, which makes us literally perfect for each other when we aren’t complete assholes.

The first line was “the day my father died, my brother was in jail.” She gave an unpacking of what it’s like for a church to hold on to that level of trauma and I’m a fucking PK. You have no idea what kind of trauma I was dealing with and not because of their inner demons trying to hurt me. I was bleeding out in empathy because I didn’t have any clinical separation. That’s how my trauma bond presents, and it is as ironclad as a marriage in the Holy Roman church………….. and you have two wolves inside you. You decide which one you feed. I express that by talking to a God in which I can stand up and say “I AM BAPTIZED.”

That’s a whole story in and of itself. When you’re a PK, if you pee on the person doing your baptism, you’ve just peed on your dad’s boss. Given how the UMC treated my father, I have embraced their inner Aziraphale and Crowley. The bishop who baptized me served a predominantly gay church after he baptized me, so clearly I was baptizing him as well. I love the idea that he made me a queer person loved unconditionally by God, and he is the YouTube video of Supergrover waking up Superqueer after an organ transplant with me. When I resolve trauma, I get funnier. That’s because Jesus is hilarious to me when he’s not struggling with his own demons. But what I’ve never done is go straight to Golgotha and looked away. I am Emmit Till’s mother. I want you to see what that man went through and how I view his story as a trauma survivor. He didn’t need to be bodily resurrected for me to believe that because his religious leaders gave him hell. He went straight to Golgotha without looking away and while he was on the cross he emotionally blessed and released everything by forgiving the people who murdered him. Doesn’t mean he didn’t want to murder them with words. But in order to forgive everyone on the cross, he had to walk through his own valleys of vulnerability. He had to get as mad at God as he possibly could in order to go to the mountaintop. To me, the importance of the crucifixion is a negative amount, because the resurrection didn’t happen on the cross.

He resurrected himself when he was ready to leave the garden and face death. if I could translate the scriptures written to account for his time there into line cook, it would look a lot like “fuck you. How could you do this to me?” He raged until the Red Sea parted in his mind, and if I know him as well as I think I do, he made that connection while he was still alive…………

because he was a rabbi, and I was born to upper management.

Happier Than I’ve Been in Weeks

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

How are you feeling right now?

I didn’t start my day writing because last night was date night with Zac and I’m staying at his house until Tuesday morning; he’s going camping and Oliver isn’t. Oliver would love to go camping, but he’s just not wired that way. He would deal perfectly with the nature aspect, he’s just not friendly, Bob.

Oliver, for those just joining us, is a dog. He loves being outside. What he does not love is strangers. I cannot trust him on a walk, and I appreciate the HELL out of people who ask me if they can pet my dog, because I can tell them ahead of time that it’s not a good idea. Oliver is a pit bull mix, so other people seem to innately understand without pushing. It’s not just people. Oliver is not friendly with other dogs, either, but not in an aggressive way. He’s basically me with two extra feet. I, like him, choose a few people to love incredibly intensely and ignore the outside world. I absolutely adore days where it’s just the two of us. We should call Bryn later. I love talking to her while I’m curled up with him…. almost as she loves talking to me while curled up with her dog, Pippi.

Zac is currently getting ready to leave, not imminently, just puttering about the house trying to make sure he’s got what he needs. I find it best to stay out of the way, because I can’t help him unless he tells me what he needs, and his brain is too scrambled to do that. My way of helping is limited to pithy comments.

I love this relationship so much, because I can be all of me. I was just thinking this morning that I am way less Zac’s girlfriend than his twinkie bitch boyfriend…………….. I love that I don’t want to be anything but his twinkie bitch boyfriend. Neither titles really apply, I just don’t have a better word for it. Neither one of us want anything more than we have, and yet our relationship is not insignificant to me, either. It is very much how I saw much, much older people dating when I was a kid. If a woman becomes a widow, in my experience they look at how hard being married is and think, “nope.” I feel that way and nobody died.

I joke about being Zac’s boyfriend, but there’s an element of truth to it. I’m genderqueer and nonbinary, but it’s not a 50/50 split. I don’t have a male side and a female side, just like being bisexual doesn’t render me half gay, half straight. I still use she/her because it’s the most apt description, but it’s not the only one, either. Genderqueer and nonbinary are similar terms, but the way I’m using them here is that my appearance on the outside and the inner workings of my mind aren’t all cis. I know I would never change a thing about myself, that I am not giving you new information. I have words for the confusion now and can move on to bigger things.

The most interesting discussion that Zac and I had yesterday was about my writing. That it could be seen as problematic because places like CIA would want to know why I was a drooling fangirl (Zac’s words, but he’s not wrong), and might want a background check to know that I’m not just with him to pump him for information because I’m not who I say I am. I’m not worried if such a thing did come to pass. You’d only have to talk to me for five minutes to ensure I’m actually an idiot about all this stuff on purpose. I don’t want to know what’s going on in Russia and China because that’s not what I’m looking for. I am looking for things that are far more granular.

I want to know about the people, and not even certain ones. My alternate history covers military and intel, so it isn’t about learning facts. It’s about learning what it takes to do the job, what kinds of personalities are in the room, what they eat, drink, wear. I want to know everything CIA wouldn’t care that I know. Lots of things are classified, but I’m betting that what kind of cookies Carol made Tuesday isn’t. Now I’m picturing a meeting minutes document with “chocolate chip” blacked out.

CIA gets really fucking funny when you look at it like an episode of “The Office,” even funnier now that Jim Halpert is Jack Ryan. I love things that are humorous more than serious- for instance, one of my favorite intelligence movies is “Burn After Reading,” because you don’t even know how bad you need to see CIA written by The Coen Brothers until you do. Every bit as funny as Intolerable Cruelty, O Brother Where Art Thou, and Raising Arizona. It’s just not my favorite movie because Argo is just as funny and packs a more serious punch now that I’ve actually spent time talking to Tony Mendez’ widow, Jonna.

It will always be a regret of mine that Argo lit my fire to learn how to write stuff like that and not making it to DC before Tony stopped doing public appearances due to his Parkinson’s Disease. It was a glorious moment when Jonna told me it was a shame I never got to meet him, because he would have really liked me. She also told me that she loved what I wrote about us meeting, but there’s no accounting for taste. 😉

Part of what drives writing about intelligence is where I live. I have loved spy movies since childhood, but in the way that a casual observer would. Like, they’re cool, but whatever.

This is how it works in my family. You’re just going about your day and then you see a movie that speaks to you and then it becomes part of your personality. For me, it was Argo. For Lindsay, it was Jurassic Park…. and My Girl…. Pretty sure Lindsay will never leave her Ellie and Vada phases behind, just like I’ll never leave Tony. It is just a bonus that he is not fictional. I even have a picture of him wearing “my shirt,” the one that says Argo @#$% Yourself and has the museum logo on the sleeve.

I picture working with CIA to create things, not working against them. Homeland was brilliant, and they had a hand in it through their Hollywood relations board, or whatever it is they really call it. Yes, I’m a drooling fangirl, but it’s also part of my job as a writer. I cannot write things I don’t know, so I study a lot. That’s because all I can do is study. I would have had a great career at CIA had the random dice of the universe not rolled “mental illness.” I write about spies because I am not capable of being one.

Accepting that I cannot do everything, but I can write about it has made all the difference in the world. I see my position as truth teller about lots of things as valid….. keeping in mind that it’s only my truth.

It’s not just acceptance. It’s feeling settled and happy living with purpose. It’s creating character, both for me and the fictional ones who live in me. I am liking spending time with my characters more and more, because I don’t feel responsible for them. They do and say what they want and I just write it down. It doesn’t even matter if I like it. It’s their conversation.

I May Have Mentioned These Before….

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What are your top ten favorite movies?

I still can’t figure out how to make an ordered list, so I may have 10, I may have more or less. Good luck. God bless.

“Argo” is my favorite movie. Period. Full stop. The end.

That’s because it combines my first girlfriend (a Canadian) and seeing if I was good at her accent by making my life feel like it depended on it. So, as far as I know, Meag saved me from getting caught by the revolutionary guard in Iran in 1979. I was two and we hadn’t met yet, but can you really be too careful? Plus, I am a creative. I have been Tony in front of the “two old fucks from the Muppets” many times. All creatives know how that feels, and if you get lucky, the CIA will finance your movie…… even if it’s “the very best bad idea we’ve got sir… by far.”

With other movies, none of them are ranked. It’s “Argo” and everything else. However, I do like spy movies so a lot of them are….. keeping in mind that I very much know the difference between real and reel, so the drama of the movie is secondary to the story seed.

“Space Camp” is another movie that I consider a favorite because I’ve seen it at least 25 times since it came out. I have been “RUDY TYLER, MA’AM” since fourth grade. I love science, just don’t ask me if I’m any good at it. Plus, are you really a lesbian if you see the way Leah Thompson and Kate Capshaw look at each other and wonder? Of course Leah was a camper and Kate was a counselor. When you’re 10-13 years old, that doesn’t register. You’re looking for anyone looking at another woman the way you do or want to later. It’s a core memory from childhood, pretty much the only reason I thought of it so quickly after “Argo,” because being a teenager connects to that movie as easily as being a child connects to this one.

That being said, if there were a second spy movie that completed me, it would be “The Bourne Supremacy,” and only because I like the Pam Landy character better than Christopher Cooper (no offense, he’s great, as is Bryan Cox- LEGEND). I am one of those people that will stop what I’m doing if I flip across any of the Bourne movies, but Matt Damon can make shivers go up my spine with one line…..

You look tired, Pam.

Here’s my favorite thing about the Bourne movies. I have heard through the grapevine (meaning tons and tons of research) that Turow’s endgame is David as Director. I don’t know if it will come to pass, but I need David to win in the end. I want him to get results after going above and beyond to prove his innocence, because that’s the next story in the series that’s going to have as much impact as The Bourne Identity. It will completely change the game and up the stakes.

For those who don’t remember, Jason Bourne is a cover. David Webb is Jason’s real identity. In terms of how that translates into real life, no one at the Agency uses your real name. You get an identity to use in their buildings and overseas. I know this because Jonna Mendez told us what hers was in a real-life lecture. It was “Faith.” So, it’s kind of fun learning about the movies from real life……. when most people think it’s the other way around.

Jonna Mendez can argue with me all day long that they don’t have passports in a box lying around and I will laugh with her at that stuff all day long, like in “Jason Bourne,” where David finds all the documents regarding “Black Ops” in a FOLDER THAT SAYS BLACK OPS RIGHT ON THE DESKTOP JFC….. I know spies must not watch spy movies like doctors generally hate ER (“the x-ray was upside down and backwards”), but here’s the thing. Inaccuracies in medical shows are hilarious because you can do something about it. If something in a spy movie is wrong, oh, well. It’s not like CIA is going to correct you. The reason spy movies are shit sometimes is because you can’t get an accurate procedural from any spy agency in the world. It cannot be done. There are rules. That doesn’t take away the hilarity of Jonna talking spy tropes on film (video at the end). I’m not sure I’ve ever laughed harder than her takedown of Carrie Mathison (why are you doing this to me?!)

I don’t get many good examples of who I am in film, so when I find it, that movie stays with me. I am very much the preacher in “Contact” and the minister’s kid in “A River Runs Through It.” Both of those are consistently in my top 10 because “Contact” explained God to me when I needed to hear it the most. I could use people I knew as the face of God to make that much power of the universe relatable to me, personally, a peon.

I need to write a script about a preacher’s kid spy, because it would make parishioners fall over with laughter when they hear how we use our people skills once we’ve seen them in that context- and how it would translate on the world stage. I love the idea of being able to negotiate with terrorists based on hearing arguments as a child. The small things are the big things. I am sure that in some ways, negotiating over a bomb and negotiating over a couch are similar.

I hate to laugh at my own joke, but you can relate if you’ve ever been waitstaff.

Waitresses. Oh my God. They would be pound for pound the best spies in the world, especially the beautiful actress types. That’s because they generally have faces that both men and women adore and would spill information- based on her bubbly personality, not her nosiness- making her job so much easier because she can get information without asking any questions.

That’s another reason I think I would have loved being a female spy. I’ve got the best combination of skills for the job that anyone could ask for in terms of recruiting assets. Thank Gd I’m not actually a spy because I would hate the paperwork. Oh, the paperwork.

That’s why my love of real life intelligence fuels my love for movies about it, because they can take an idea and flesh it out so that the story sticks, but the minutiae of paperwork is gone unless it’s absolutely essential to the story. I think it’s better to know that I’m being entertained and to relax about the inaccuracies because I know that the writers can only do so much. I do respect CIA for having a Hollywood relations board and collaborating on stuff like “Homeland.” To know that writers’ stuff does have the capability to be as realistic as it can be is a good thing. For instance, I know that most writers aren’t trying to get the procedure right. They’re trying to get character. It’s why I hang out at the Spy Museum on nights when they have book talks. That’s a chance to meet real spies and I can learn everything I need to know as a writer just by being in the same room. How do they carry themselves?

“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” is probably the most accurate procedural out there and I love it so much for that very reason. Le Carre lets me nerd out as much as I want whether it’s with his books or the movies/TV series made of them. I actually liked the TV version of “Little Drummer Girl” better than I liked TTSS, but we’re talking about movies. The thing about Le Carre movies is that if you like true life intelligence stories, the movies will be your absolute favorite. If you have expectations of James Bond proportions, you’ll be disappointed.

Spy send-ups are also among my favorites. I love “Goldmember” and “Spy” just as much as I do documentaries like MiBII (trust me, it’s all there).

Speaking of documentaries, I watch them to travel. I live vicariously through movies like Jiro Dreams of Sushi. If I can expand to television, I love both Netflix series where President Obama takes us through the world’s protected wild life areas and Prince Harry and Meagan let us into their home life.

I hope that there will be a movie script adapted from “Spare,” and it would help if he was a collaborator. That’s because I would want the movie to be accurate, but focused on his life from a third person perspective. He has a story that needs to be told from a journalistic angle, but they have to have truly fallen in love with telling his story. The history he has with journalists is first class PTSD and they do not give a shit when they talk to him. It is very, very clear and they keep adding kindling to the fire. You killed his mother. Have some fucking respect.

When I read it, I was getting over a man who’d been stationed in Afghanistan, and I was able to grieve the loss of my future by attaching it to him and letting it go when I finished the last chapter. I don’t want the movie to treat him as anything other than a normal person who just happens to be in extraordinary circumstances, because when the people think of Prince Harry’s military service, they don’t think of him as being just as damaged as American soldiers when they come home. They think of him as “the military must have babied him.” All soldiers know that the military does not do that. Also, Harry was communications. If someone wanted to kill him personally, he heard it firsthand. What do you think that does to a person?

If that movie was done right, it would tie with “Argo.”

The closest you’ll get to seeing the real Capt. Wales is a documentary series on Apple TV+ called “The Me You Can’t See.” Harry does what I do on this blog every day. He gets real and throws down about the subjects I’ve talked about here. I identify with these documentaries about him because to some extent, it feels like we know each other intimately. We both struggle with mental health. We both had parents in the public eye. We have both dealt with the loss of a parent. It’s not just surface-level. We’ve been similar since childhood.

In terms of cinematic beauty, I am astounded by movies that incorporate nature, particularly under the water…. even animations of it. “The Little Mermaid” and “Finding Nemo” are the most beautiful Disney creations on record, at least, to me.

I also love quirky movies like “Adaptation.” I got stuck on that scene where Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper are on the phone trying to hum a dial tone for weeks. I ate it like a meal, just like I did “Sideways.”

I love characters who are strong and yet show vulnerability, so I will watch anything with John Goodman…. another reason “Argo” is my favorite movie, but I also love him in everything from “Atomic Blonde” to “The Princess and the Frog.”

Because music is such a large part of my life, I do love movies where people break into song and dance. Hamilton is the first one I’ve been able to listen to over and over and still find new things, though, because the rhythms are so incredibly complicated I haven’t bothered to learn them from a singer’s point of view. Therefore, sometimes I don’t take in the words as much as I focus on the beat and my interpretation changes over time. When there aren’t as many words, I inhale them.

I can still remember lyrics from “Oklahoma!,” “The Music Man,” and “Carousel,” because those are the movies my mother introduced me to as a kid and later had to learn the songs because I needed to sing them for something (in case you’re just joining us, I’m a soprano and I’ve been told I’m very good….. I also know that the first rule about press is not to believe any of it). I can’t wait until the movie about “Wicked” comes out.

I’m going to include operas and musicals because I watch them on TV, and we’ve already established I’m going to include TV whether it’s in the scope of my parameters or not. “Great Performances” on PBS is the most amazing thing ever. Of course I want to see Bernstein conduct West Side Story. I also love “The Magic Flute,” “Carmen,” and “Madame Butterfly.”

“There’s a place for us,” and that place is us sitting on the couch watching Leonard Bernstein.

I am enamored by science fiction and fantasy, but I lean more toward sci-fi because it takes place in our world, past or future, rather than a word of its own. “Black Panther” and its sequel are both precious to me because Chadwick Boseman went to Howard and thus, he’s a hometown boy, celebrated not nearly enough by the rest of the world as he is here. Plus, it has provided me an EXCELLENT way to worm my way into a conversation with a retired spy. I just tell them I think it’s terrible they’ve been hiding Wakanda from us this long and I demand answers. If they fall over with laughter, I have found my people.

Like every lesbian in America if you’re my age, you carry a special place in your heart for “Fried Green Tomatoes” because you knew you were Idgie. You knew you were the bee charmer. You knew you were going to find a Ruth someday and might raise a Buddy.

That’s honestly where I am now- searching for a Ruth and it’s okay if there are kids involved. I don’t have a drive to be a mother, but that doesn’t mean I’m not okay if they do. I don’t have that partner, but I do have that friend. If Bryn wants kids, she knows I’ll do the work. That if we’re local to each other, those kids would belong to me in some way, but not in any way she wouldn’t allow. With kids, I am just the help. I enforce parents’ rules, I don’t bend them.

Which leads me to my next love in film….. brilliant children’s movies.

I love movies and TV that are written on two levels, jokes that are aimed at kids and jokes that go right over their heads. For instance, Mordecai and Rigby from “Regular Show” are coded as stoner idiots because soda stands for beer and pizza stands for weed. There is no limit to their idiocy and a lot of it is way too mature for kids given what the writers are really throwing down. They just do it in a way that the South Park writers don’t. They say everything without saying anything.

My favorite children’s movie will always be “Meet the Robinsons.” It is a brilliant script and I need Kleenex for it even still.

I think that’s at least 10 movies, so here’s a video of my favorite spy explaining exactly why I think all spy movies are hilarious to some degree or another. I laughed until I cried. I hope you do, too.

Empathy

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

What positive emotion do you feel most often?

For people like me (INFJ, highly sensitive, neurodivergent), empathy is a river of everpresentlovingkindness and a waterfall of tears. My mirror neurons go off for all people who struggle. Because of the negative effects that come with ADHD and Bipolar disorder, sometimes that part of me seems dammed, but it’s not. My focus has turned away, but the emotions are still there. I can’t turn them off, especially with ADHD, because there are 57 channels (and nothing’s on).

I try to focus on empathy, though, because if I didn’t I would recede into myself. For instance, my love of real world intelligence comes from more than one place. I lost a family member in Somalia who was a helicopter pilot for C/DIA, so when I see the stars on the wall at Langley, I know one of them is a personal memorial for me to visit should I get the chance. Another is spies in popular culture, but not necessarily fictional characters. “The Courier” is a true story, as is “Argo.” But those I watched as an adult. As a kid, I was introduced to James Bond and that was a love affair all its own. I didn’t want to marry James Bond. I wanted to be him.

I think that’s because I didn’t connect it that I would have to move to England to do that. I love CIA because I’m an American and feel proud of us, but I am equally obsessed with MI-6 (and the Tom Clancy level of detail that John Le Carre puts into his books). My favorite stories involve collaboration between the two institutions, which I’m sure happens all the time in real life, but isn’t reflected on screen all that often. The reason I think that is because I met a spy from London that was basically “on loan” to us for a task force on human trafficking. I thought that was infinitely cool and became interested in other countries’ intelligence agencies as well. KGB/GRU is fascinating even though I don’t particularly have a fondness for Russia itself.

I am focused on the Vietnam War era of CIA because I am indirectly writing a book about it… but the Cold War is a close second. Most of the retired spies I’ve met were active in the 80s and early 90s, steeping me in stories of East German and Russian operations and cute little Trabants. Regarding my book, it’s actually a platonic love story between two men who are trying to prevent the war from happening altogether. I do not know how the novel is going to end. That’s the best part. I want to write this book because I want to read it.

I’ll put a picture of a Trabant at the end because they’re not popular cars anymore and you simply must see one. To me, they look like pets. When Chevron and Pixar created their cartoon cars, they really missed the boat. A talking Trabant would be every bit as cute to me as a puppy.

The fact that Zac has worked in intelligence since “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is not lost on me and is in fact extraordinarily meaningful. That’s because historically, queer people haven’t been allowed to be spies. It’s not because the US was actively trying to be homophobic….. I mean, they were, but there’s an extremely valid reason behind it that I cannot ignore. If they were caught, it was a short path to blackmail. Either come work for us or we’ll blow up your whole life. I don’t have any anger or bitterness against CIA for not being able to hire me, either, for a similar reason.

If I was caught, the first thing that would be done in another country is taking away my psych meds, even if they were available there. That’s because they automatically think that making me unstable is the best way to get me to talk. Joke’s on them. I wouldn’t talk, but I would be a rage-filled chihuahua (I’m 5’2). Physical withdrawal from an SSRI or mood stabilizer lasts weeks. I have a feeling that wouldn’t go well for me. It’s discrimination, but also empathy. They’re not going to allow me to be in a situation where someone takes away my medication.

Knowing that part of it comes from being a fan of both “Homeland” and “Jack Ryan.” Carrie Mathison did get made and had her psych meds denied. My bipolar disorder is far less severe than hers, but it drove the point home. James Greer was sneaking heart medication, I believe. Different drug, same issue.

It’s devastating because I really would have liked to work on the whole world’s problems at once. I’m just not dumb enough to lead the crusade in a fight to get me hired because for as much as it sucks, I agree with them. The problem, to me, is not getting hired. It’s what happens after you join. I have trouble believing that a case officer will never have to supplement or balance their brain chemicals at all during their entire career. CIA is so massive that there are plenty of jobs where you don’t have to travel at all, but if you are an operative, there’s probably not a chance in hell you’d take one.

That’s because spy agencies are hyped up by the movies to an enormous degree, and yet when I read true life spy stories, I realize that there’s a lot of the same nervous energy I felt before service at a restaurant. I’d be standing in front of a table daydreaming, prepping and nervous before the pop. Feeding hundreds of people is also an operation, and so many nights I could have used an ex-fil. 😉 If I was a current operative, a great place for me would be embedded with World Central Kitchen. I don’t think CIA likes to embed people in humanitarian organizations if they don’t have to do so, because it affects the reputation of the charity. For instance, you will never see an operative disguised as a priest or a Peace Corp officer. That being said, I think CIA should basically be Jose Andres’ right hand, because there’s no one more invisible to the rest of the world than cooks and waitstaff.

I could be The Little Gray Man because I’m just “the help.” What the fuck do I know? Meanwhile, I can learn everything without saying anything. I don’t even have to ask any questions; I can give them enough rope to hang themselves.

But it’s not in the interest of anything other than empathy. Being able to stop horrific things from happening is a worthy cause. I would love to work on saving the people of Ukraine, or perhaps saving women and girls from the Taliban. If I could pick, it would be Ukraine because I don’t necessarily want to work where it’s 110 in the shade. I grew up in Houston, and still technically live in the South. “Dry heat” only helps so much. MENA (State designation for Middle East North Africa) is a giant sandbox where the sun is actively trying to kill you. Poland sounds nice this time of year compared to that. That being said, it wouldn’t matter where I was placed based on geography. I’d just like a job where I actually felt capable. I don’t know which problem in the world would make me feel that way.

But here’s what I do know.

Jose Andres went to Ukraine/Poland out of the same empathy I would.

If you have the means, please donate to World Central Kitchen, and if you’re local, take every chance you can get to throw money in his piggy bank. Zaytinya is amazing down to the French fries.

There are more ways to love the world than just trying to stop bad things from happening. Sometimes you need to actively support the good.

If we can use intelligence to stop wars, we save lives by not putting soldiers in harm’s way. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, we averted nuclear war due to several people. Some of them were Russian assets who gave us invaluable information without Khrushchev knowing what cards Kennedy was holding, and and one submarine officer that pulled a Denzel Washington on Gene Hackman.

Now the theme to “Crimson Tide” is playing in my head.

So, when you think of my empathy, make sure it includes people I will never, ever meet. My heart is big enough to love them all.

The Library in Alexandria

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 2 Comments

What are you curious about?

Even when it was 2001 and I struggled through the aftermath of 9/11, I wanted to be here in DC. I don’t live in Alexandria anymore, but it is a library of images that I’ll never forget. I do not judge people on their reactions to that tragedy, but I do feel my own stomach turn when people talk about their reactions from hundreds of miles away when the pictures rattled on my walls and the fighter jets flew over my house every 10 minutes for days. The entire city shut down, because the Pentagon had been hit. People drove up to the site and turned off their cars to gawk. This interrupted drive time to an enormous degree, but I don’t remember anyone complaining. We mourned as one person, breathing through it (or trying). FBI and CIA had a fire in the belly, as did the entire military.

And then we went after the wrong person on purpose.

Soon after, I moved to Portland. It was a mistake that has now been long forgiven and forgotten, because I wouldn’t have met the one I needed to meet so that I could rest easy for the first time in years. I celebrate having erred every day.

Therefore, I felt a strong pull to come back, because I didn’t feel like I was in the middle of everything unless I could get on the Metro. I wasn’t here long enough last time to be satisfied. Washington is a city where you can look at a new thing every day and still not see them all by the time you die. Some things, you want to experience over and over. I could not do what I do if I didn’t have the International Spy Museum close, where I can sit on the floor with six books open like the store is my personal office (it is. Don’t tell them. Snitches get stitches.). This is because in my alternate history, CIA is part of it to an enormous degree, because one character is a political figure who has to make a choice to work with us or not in order to stop a war………………. or not. I haven’t decided because it would be infinitely realistic either way.

Both case officer and handler become those roles over time, which is why I need so much help. Zac is the only person I know that has any access to CIA at all. Even then, he knows so much more than he lets on. I lean into the gaps, taking the trail and following it to six books open on the floor at a museum.

I sent both the museum and Jonna Mendez (on the board) my idea for something that could fall under continuing education. I thought it would be cool if retired spies started a class for writers called Farm 101. It would be the entire experience from Day One to making it as the director. It would just be what it takes to do the job, not any actual specifics. I figured they might be able to do that because CIA already does outreach to screenwriters. My favorite intelligence officer in the entire world is the one Allison Janney plays in “Spy.” The shit she comes up with, like making her the most stereotypical white woman in the nation. Her pocket litter even identifies her as the “vice president of the gardening club,” and Melissa McCarthy says, “I couldn’t even be president?” I died for a second.

It never escapes my attention that it was Tony and Jonna Mendez’s job to make sure the pocket litter was accurate, and now I picture both of them up to those antics. They make me laugh because the picture is so clear. Jonna is currently writing her own memoirs, and what I want to know isn’t going to be in the book, I’m guessing, because I don’t care what she did with other people. I want to know what she did to her staff. This is because she talks a lot about men who refuse to dress as women, refuse to wear a mask, etc. I don’t want the book to be about operations. I want the book to be about revenge. Like, she didn’t have to make someone wear a tiny rock in their shoe, but it just felt right for no reason at all……….

She has said in interviews that she was a hardass.

That’s the part that makes me laugh the most. Of course she was. She was what all women in the military, intelligence, and politics are encouraged to be. They have to put away anything that makes them different. Tracy Walder bucked the system by carrying all kinds of girly shit, which made people underestimate her when she was actually an expert in counter bioterrorism. That doesn’t mean she wasn’t a sorority girl in college. So what if her coffee mug is pink? Who cares? Lots of people, apparently.

Tracy’s book is my favorite in my entire library because she made a style choice that no one else has. She sent her manuscript to CIA’s publications review board, and when CIA blacked out something, she left them in. They’d cut out parts of sentences, and it was exhilarating because you could figure out what they meant if you did the homework.

My favorite homework actually came from “Homeland.” I was confused about the creation of Space Force, so I went back to the show. Turns out, we may not need a special branch of the military for them, but ownership of the moon and its resources and having to defend against threats are very real. Whether it is true or not, our panic during the space race was that the moon would be armed with nuclear weapons by Russia. We need to increase our capabilities in space, but I believe that should be mostly intelligence-based, because we have no business building a military base up there. Keeping it staffed isn’t the problem. It’s what it would take to have comfortable facilities there with the intent to maintain them. My fear is that they’d create the atmosphere and the appointments on the cheap so that more money could go toward weapons, which is the same situation in the rest of the military. It’s not a big deal to spend money on weapons, but it’s looked down upon to spend money on boots, clothes, hats, and air conditioning.

If the military can’t handle taking care of soldiers for the rest of their lives when they’re on the ground, why do we think they’ll be any better about it in space? This is not the final frontier just yet, because we’re not ready. We need to stop pretending that we are.

it’s hard to acknowledge problems in space when there are so many problems right here. That doesn’t mean they’re not important, just secondary. We don’t need to give resources to other countries (in aid or defense) until ours is clean. It’s not that we shouldn’t collaborate, it’s that we have a history of working on a deficit while giving money to countries who can’t possibly pay it back. Now, we’re defaulting on our own loans and expecting the world to understand. I think some of that is valid even if it doesn’t do anything to move the needle. We’ve gotten respect from other countries by helping them out. They need to recognize that costs something. But they don’t need to excuse that behavior. They need to make it where money is money and politics is politics. I do not want money to affect diplomatic relations or vice versa.

Ukraine will never be able to pay off this war, even if they win. Too much corruption, too few taxes going to the right place. Zelenskyy is determined to change things, and for their sake, I hope he does. I’d really like to meet him if I ever had the chance. I’d tell him that I’ve spent time with his characters and that he’s a brilliant writer….. and what would it take to get seasons two and three of “Servant of the People” on Netflix? He is every bit as funny as Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.

Being able to write intelligently about all of this stuff means everything to me, because I’m one of those people who wants to love the whole world at once. I can’t unless I actually understand both the pro and con of the arugument. If the Republican party was worth a damn in terms of not screwing over the American people by trying to parent them all, I wouldn’t vote liberal on every issue. I just have to get on the right bus at this point. That’s because there are absolutely no points on which the Republicans will bend. Even the most clever of them have shut down like a steel trap and act like they’re actively drinking Kool-Aid even though they know it’s poisonous and they can’t help it.

Being intelligent just can’t compete with that, because it works its way around everything that makes logical sense. It also reflects the values of the leader. Eisenhower was wonderful about actually caring what happened to poor people and trying to make everyone’s lives easier. Nothing like him has happened for the Republicans in years because they’ve locked him out of being elected. If I was a Republican, in 2016 I would have voted for John Kasich. He had the only platform I could stomach. It wasn’t about the best person for the job. It was about winning. It was about revenge, and it’s been going on since the country began. Both parties are so powerful that when one splits, the other wins. There’s no way for a third party to win, or there hasn’t been in recent memory. The Democrats are the same in terms of being electable. Speaking of recent memory, it’s surprising how old you have to be not to think of your childhood in terms of the president being a Bush or a Clinton.

That’s because they both played the game brilliantly from opposite ends of the spectrum. They liked Clinton because he was brilliant. They liked the Bushes because they got the tax cuts they wanted and didn’t think of much else. Things have deteriorated in government significantly with the advent of the Religious Right, because you can’t argue with that , either.

The presidency has become essentially the difference between someone who can do the job and someone who can make it look like they can do a job.

I learned just how interested I was in world politics when I went to see Masha (Marie) Yovanovitch do a book talk.

I was curious….. at the library in Alexandria.

I Wouldn’t

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

How would you describe yourself to someone who can’t see you?

If there is anything I have learned over the last eight years, it’s “stop trying to describe yourself to someone who can’t see you.” It is wasted energy because they’re running on deduction and inference, and skipping over what you’re telling them. It is also true that people see what they want to see. Know when you’re not it, and celebrate the people who show up.

I was reminded of that by my favorite author, Jonna Mendez. However, if I hadn’t started with her late husband’s books, we never would have met at all. It is so beautiful to me that my first favorite spy/writer introduced me to the second…. and he thought she was just as beautiful inside as I do now.

She made my heart overflow with gratitude when I sent her “The Spy in the Room,” a blog entry where I talked about seeing her live at the International Spy Museum:

It was so validating to have someone who writes professionally really take in who I am and what I do. It changed my perspective and my self confidence, because she saw me in a way that no one ever has.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy compliments from readers. I really do. They’re so valuable. At the same time, there’s something about meeting your heroes and them saying they think you’re on the right track.

The reason I’m posting about this is it’s actually a screenshot from four years ago today.

It humbles me to stand next to greatness, and for a few minutes, I really, really did. She thought I was perceptive because the entry talks about the armor you put on when you’re in grief.

It was not a one-way transaction.

I saw her, and she saw me.

I have just described it.

Little, Broken, but Still Good

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

How would you describe yourself to someone?

I can hear Dana in my head. She has a marvelous Stitch impression.

I’m supposed to be describing me, and this is the best I’ve got.

I’m trying to stop being nice, without losing being kind. I find that if I try and people please everyone, it’s not the flex I thought it was. People treat you to the level they see themselves, and are self-serving a lot of the time. They’ll help you if there’s something in it for them. Very few people will help someone a propos of nothing.

Those few are worth more than you have in your bank account, and I don’t care how high your balance may be. It is even truer for billionaires that they need good friends, because they have to worry about things most people don’t. What if their kid gets kidnapped? It’s very real when the kidnapper can set the release at anything he or she wants.

Most people think it’s justified, like eating the rich. That doesn’t make it right.

It’s just one example to make my point, but there are millions of others.

It is interesting that now people see that my boundaries are ironclad, they don’t test them. It doesn’t matter whether they’re scared of upsetting me, whether they think I’m being an asshole, or respecting my privacy. I am not responsible for what they understand, and they don’t live in my head. No one can predict me, because I want them to stop.

The heuristic in their heads is mild-mannered preacher’s kid who will do anything and everything not to offend anyone. I was constantly trying to figure out how people emoted and thought so that I could keep them from getting upset. I wasn’t standing for anything, I was falling for everything, and I could hear Ben Franklin telling me to stop.

It’s probably because of the summer heat in Philadelphia. I hear it is not pleasant. If you do not know how bad, you should let Jill, Lindsay and me school you. We all had to read a book about early America that focused so much on the heat during the many Congresses it took to get to ::gestures broadly at everything:: that everyone sweated and grumbled and got drunk at lunch. Now that’s how you whip a vote.

I’m betting at least some of those guys had good boundaries, but not Franklin. He became the toast of Paris trying to win the Revolutionary War with their money and resources.

At the end of the day, there’s this gem from the International Spy Museam. “Washington didn’t beat us, he simply outspied us.” It’s a paraphrase, but you get the gist. Intelligence over military might, my goal in every conflict vs. putting boots on the ground. I have too many friends in the military to think of any of them in danger. Spies save lives by having good boundaries.

The first Moscow Rule, not Tony Mendez’ explanation but he wrote them down is, “don’t fall in love with your asset.” It doesn’t mean sleeping with them (a Moscow Rule…… for RUSSIA), it means that if you don’t have boundaries, you won’t be able to protect them. it means that you’ll start wearing rose-colored glasses instead of running the numbers. it means being emotionally incapacitated to some degree, because sometimes they get caught. It’s one thing for you to go to prison or be tortured. It’s another thing to watch someone else, and it’s something you asked them to do that got them caught in the first place.

It’s a metaphor for life, or it has become that for me. I have fallen in love with the whole world, but the whole world doesn’t deserve me. It takes my focus and directs it externally, leaving me with no energy. Pushing people away is not trying to hurt them. It’s trying to say that I only have enough energy for *some* people because I have many, many, many acquaintances and readers that are not my close friends, and yet I would bleed out if they needed anything while my needs, and my family’s needs from me go by the wayside.

I think when you’re an INFJ, if you are interested in International Relations at all, you love CIA because they keep people safe. It’s one thing to have a few people steal some documents. It’s quite a different experience walking into a base in Afghanistan or Iraq and seeing how massive it is because they have to accommodate thousands (or at least hundreds…).

CIA has done some shady shit, too, but what you see is what you get. If you want to see that they’re evil, you’ve got material. If you want to see that they’re amazing, you will. It just depends on your filter. Now, extrapolate that to everyone you know. Are you capable of accommodating six friends or at least, hundreds…….. What people see in you is what people see in “the Manson family,” which is what the FBI calls them in “The Looming Tower.” It’s not a real thing. It was just funny in the show (it’s on Hulu, I think).

But of course the FBIs filters are different. They’re a law enforcement agency built on slave catchers. Who’s really the good guy in either scenario when you look at them through those filters?

Giving the important people in your life the attention they deserve means shutting others out and not feeling bad about it. No one has the energy to have 50 friends, and if they do, they don’t know all of them that well. But if you’re a people pleaser, you might cater to people you don’t know well for a while, but then you’ll get overwhelmed and give up.

It reminds me of one of my favorite hymns:

Draw us in the Spirit’s tether
for when humbly in your name
two or three are met together,
you are in the midst of them.

Now, God does not work for CIA that I’m aware of, nor do they belong to The Manson family. That’s all on us.

It’s a reminder that to have a truly spiritual experience, it can be quiet. You cannot go deep with 50 people, especially if you can’t go deep with one.

Talking to 50 people is easier than talking to one when you don’t hate small talk. Being on stage or in the pulpit/lectern is even easier. That’s because even when I’m preaching a confessional sermon with 200 people hanging on every word, I still don’t feel responsible for their actions. I don’t feel responsible for the way they feel when I’m done. I know from experience how I did. If I did well, they’ll tell me so. If I blew it, they’ll say, “I like your dress.”

“I like your dress is polite, but it doesn’t indicate someone who will show up for you.

And that leads me to a story about Mikal, my 11th grade best friend. We were on a mission trip to Reynosa, and it turns out that I, in fact, cannot preach in Spanish. But I tried.

I think it was something like “los ninos es la corazon o la iglesia” (the children are the heart of the church). That’s because I preached Sunday worship after vacation Bible school (I was the only one who could even attempt such a thing. Had nothing to do with my qualifications except two years in school that barely covered first grade. Anyway, I say a couple of things after that and then I run out of words and couldn’t really “think of a closer.” So I just repeated the above line twice and said, “Amen.” My mother cried (partially because she had no idea what I was saying) because that’s what mothers do when you preach.

I finish not really knowing how I did, because everyone was polite.

I get back to my seat and Mikal says, “that was the worst piece of crap I’ve ever heard in my life.”

And that’s why she was my best friend.

It’s More Simple Than You Think

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What makes a teacher great?

I’ve been close to Bryn’s mom and dad since I was 19, as well. Here’s the most important thing her dad has ever taught me, because it has influenced a lot of what I write and preach. The hardest part of teaching is remembering what it was like not to know.

It’s a very difficult thing to be enlightened and also remember the dark. If you can record that transition, you might be able to explain it. You can help others by acknowledging their fear, and being their Moses.

The phrase “being Moses” means something to me, because Tony Mendez has taught me a thing or two about being a writer/teacher. In “Argo,” he tells State that the only way out of Tehran is through the airport…. That State should “send in a Moses” to bring them home. Because the meeting was speculative- so State could say they ran their ideas past CIA’s best ex-fil guy- I am not sure that Tony Mendez meant to say “it’s me. I’m Moses.”

The next scene in my mind is Tony preparing The Six for their trip to the grand bazaar in the middle of the city. Moses is sweating bullets for two reasons. The first is that if he is caught, The Agency cannot claim him. He’s working without a net. The second is that it’s not just his ass on the line. He and The Six get caught, as Jack points out, they die badly. The entire world will be watching.

That is an extreme example of having to teach someone, but it illustrates frustration on both sides of the equation. If Tony doesn’t prepare The Six, one if not all of them will be pulled in by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard for questioning. Alternatively, The Six are just basic policy wonk diplomats with no training in deception and Tony has to teach them to walk their covers in a day.

It’s not the same as remembering what it was like not to know multiplication and division, but it’s the same concept. The difference is an age-appropriate level of fear. It clutches your chest whenever you leave your comfort zone, which is not the same when you’re five and when you’re fifty. It’s a proportional response.

Remembering what it was like not to know is often a failing of mine, because things that are so patently obvious to me are hiding in plain sight for others. I am going to be able to feel you before you even say anything. I can tell what kind of mood you’re in simply by watching body language. I can feel the frustration, anger, etc. steaming off you and the moment when that energy changes. I don’t have to learn someone’s mannerisms, habits, mood, and behavior to do this. It happens automatically. I will not be able to tell that there is a problem, but I know what it looks like to move in the world showing different emotions. The more people claim there isn’t one, the more I know whether they’re telling the truth or not, because there is an energy behind truth and white lies. I can feel that shift, and can feel you bullshitting me. Your next words don’t even matter, because the way you stiffened up before you answered betrayed you.

I feel like I can tell the most about people’s personalities and group dynamics without saying a word. I stand there and soak up everything in the room. I’m not just feeling how we are interacting, but how everyone is. I can tell not just how your behavior affected me personality, but also how well you know how to read a room…………

I am not bragging on myself, because others have this gift. Bryn is better at it than I am. Having her is like having a bloodhound. She can sniff out when I’m upset, and sometimes I think she does it by reading how the phone rings. 😛

Speaking of Bryn, she told me that she feels like a celebrity when I write about her on my blog. I told her that she is not the first person to tell me this. My friend James nearly made me die of laughter when he said, “I really just go to your page and search ‘James.’ Yes, I am that fucking shallow.” She told me that my entries were the perfect length for a morning constitutional, and I told her that she was nowhere near the first person to tell me that.

I missed my calling. My blog should be called “The Shit Show.”

It was more simple than I thought.

This Question is Impossible and I Hate It

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

I can only do what I do. Keep putting my crappy first drafts on this web site to prepare me for my real writing. These entries serve as my warm-up, and are my favorite of all my projects because there’s no pressure. I ask for money via donations, but I don’t make you pay to read. These are WordPress ads, and I don’t make money from them, either. I’ve just made a commitment that this is important whether money is involved or not. If you’re curious, sometimes I make enough to cover the hosting and sometimes I don’t. In the meantime, I am celebrating other authors in hopes that they’ll celebrate me. Being well-respected is more important than famous. I’d be crazy to think that people adoring me is more important than me adoring Jodi Picoult when she likes something I wrote. Same with Mary Karr, Margaret Cho, Amy Tan, Wil Wheaton, and James Fell. I don’t want to be known by everyone. I want to be known by them. In fact, I once made a joke about Jonna Mendez being excited to meet me, complete tongue in cheek. SHE REPLIED THAT SHE WAS HONORED and I died for a second. This is because I sent her the entry I linked to via Facebook Messenger, literally handing her a piece of me and hoping that it at least wouldn’t offend her because her husband’s memory is my blessing.

I didn’t even know she was watching because I am a complete n00b when it comes to social media, and not because I don’t know it cold. I choose to spend my energy on something else. It’s the whole reason I use WordPress. I don’t have to do anything but type even though I could code CSS and HTML blind (I have been dared). I don’t forget because of anything but protection of my energy.

In my reflection on being a preacher’s kid, I figured out something big while I was sitting with the bees (we talk every day now, I think Brian has asthma). There are so many people in Texas that want to know what I’m up to, as well as some in Portland. Bryn is the absolute only person I record for, because she’s the one who asked me for it. It’s also a lot more work than I thought it would be, especially in terms of finding a place to store the files. It also freaks me out that my audience is bigger now, because I have followers on that platform as well in the “Storytelling” category. I’m trying to decide if I want to spy on my friends or not, because SoundClouds stats are more granular. I know which area of the city the play is coming from. Guessing there are a few people that would like to know that. If you still want to read, WordPress only counts by country. You’re welcome, three people that would freak.

Spying on my friends is not my intention because it wouldn’t serve a purpose, it would just hurt me. I’d put in double the amount of effort in resolving issues with those people in order to do the work so it doesn’t dog me. But the people in Texas have a unique need when it surfaces. I was the kid in their pastor’s church. They all knew and loved me on the platform that was his, understanding me through that filter. Then, when we moved away, it was no contact. My dad never wanted to be threatening to his colleagues and social media didn’t exist. When I was gone, I was gone.

But now, social media exists and when people Google me to see where I am, it’s important to them. It surprises me to know that other people love reading me that have no connection to me at all… that by focusing on my own people I’m coming across as focusing on the world…. Sometimes. I have my selfish moments and I’m entitled to them, because no one can give me more energy than me. No one else could or should have the time. I live here, capiche?

A lot of the people that would Google me are dead in the first place. I know that and I write for them, anyway. Breadcrumbs or complete entries all about them so that not only do I live forever, so do they. Ours is the story that will stick, not because it’s perfect, but because it exists. I live for people’s curiosity, and answer questions gladly… with the knowledge that first of all, looking at my writing doesn’t tell the whole story and I’m different in person. Secondly, allowing for the fact that rarely do I think the same about things a week after I’ve written them. That’s why I post a lot. I give myself material by reflecting on what I’ve written and a new idea will pop up. I can get through things extraordinarily quickly that way. I’ve already gone back to thinking of my beautiful girl as Supergrover, because she’s inherently cuddly and yet wears a cape and tights, in my humble opinion. I only think the opposite sometimes because her walls not only keep me out, they keep her from listening. Information is being cut off both ways, and I know that because I wrote about it. Her story is “The Monster at the End of This Book,” and not because she was a monster to me. It’s what she thought of my friends when they hurt me. Yes, she knows what you did. Every single one. And if you’ve been reading even a few months you know which bodies are buried. She’s been my lockbox because I was hers. That covenant is not broken between us. I will keep what she’s already told me walled off. I just didn’t want a future, and I wanted to be able to talk about my experience of her without her bothering me… and it’s not what you think. I don’t get irate when she’s mad about something I published. It’s when she’s touched that I just fall apart at what’s been lost.

Internet communication made both of us quick to react and quick to anger.

And yet I can bet dollars to donuts that she’ll eventually want to look me up and see whatever happened to?

This is only problematic because I don’t recognize it as only letting me know she loved something. I pick right back up where we left off and she won’t tell me she doesn’t want that. So I don’t notice that she’s not receptive and get angry she won’t resolve anything. We expand and contract over time. It would be a great relationship if I could back off and be comfortable with the pattern we set up, but it’s not. It reminds me of early days, when sharing a beach umbrella with drinks and books would have been a viable option. I can’t live with panko when I would have made breakfast for everyone, and you can’t even believe how big that is. That is a catering operation. At the time she had a teenage son, and whom I jokingly called her “hundred siblings.”

It was so amazing when we met, because then I could put one face in my head that was my audience when really it was worldwide. So helpful to think of this blog as letters to her so I could be intimate without constantly thinking of the repercussions, again, allowing my friends to listen but looking at the bigger picture. The more personal I am, the more vulnerable I am, the more you’ll see me as I am. I’m not trying to be famous. I’m not trying to be successful. I’m not trying to throw anyone under the bus because if you show up here, you’re important enough to me to look at our relationship deeply. To memorialize you in my history. Again, yours will be the story that sticks, and that may not matter to you in the moment, but what about 20 years from now? Won’t you want to remember what you were like when I glowed about you and that it showed even though you were never a perfect angel? That I loved you this big in spite of your actions pissing me off sometimes? That I loved you even when you didn’t get it? That I only walked away because I couldn’t get through to you?

I am explaining the relationship I had with my Internet friend to avoid talking about one of my real friends. I’m not going to bother with her name because you wouldn’t know her anyway. She read something on my blog that pissed her off about Sam and didn’t listen when I told her that I’d only leaked as much as Sam allowed me to leak while still being pissed off that she hurt me. She apologized, but wouldn’t let it drop. She told me on the phone that she had talked to her friends about it, and they agreed with her, never having read me at all. These were friends gathered at a restaurant where I was expected to walk in shortly. I am an introvert empath. I couldn’t take it and couldn’t believe she didn’t recognize that she was setting me up for failure, thrashing before a committee, and she’d already thrashed me twice. At this point, you’re not a concerned friend. You are in my way.

I guarantee she won’t agree with that assessment, but she doesn’t get to decide my story. She could help with craft, but she can’t help with plot. I’m sure she thought I lost it, but I couldn’t get her to understand that I was already validated by my decision to lay everything out here and that I had millions of readers over the years. That I’d been doing this for 20 years and the cost benefit analysis favored me. That I wasn’t choosing to throw anyone under the bus, I was telling other people what was happening in my brain at the time of the incident and it’s up to them to believe whether I am a reliable narrator or not.

I feel like people should self select whether they want to be on here or not. I talk about Zac and Bryn because they allow me to do it. Zac and I have not discussed the particulars of what I can say and what I can’t, but I do ask him if it’s okay to use something he said as a writing prompt. I just don’t want to tell his story for him, to intrude where I’m not wanted. My connection to him doesn’t involve anyone else yet, because I’m not friends with any of the other people he interacts with on a daily basis, and I’m not itching to get to that point with him. If we do, we’ll keep talking about what I can and can’t say. Only Daniel has said that he’s an open book, say whatever you damn well please. In fact, his actual words, and I’ll remember them forever, are “my girl, be prolific.” God damn it. Why does he have to be so impossible and so endearing at the same time?

I hope what I’m doing is talking about the “Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ” moments of my life. The clusterfucks that lead to forks in the road, letting you know which one I’ve taken.

I am not saying I wouldn’t get more involved with Zac, I just don’t know yet. More than what we have right now is too much for me to think about. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t love him with the same intensity as a friendship with someone like me. That it requires care and work even if it’s ultimately platonic in the end. We’re at the stage where I don’t even know what to call him and I don’t want to, if that makes sense? When I can give energy to that question, I will. In the meantime, all I ask is that the time we’re together, we’re together. Be present in the moment. You can tell me everything and my reaction is my own. If I see a problem I’ll call it out. As of right now, you can do no wrong because I’m not sitting here thinking of all that could go wrong when everything is so right.

Maybe that sounds a little dude brah of me, not going the traditional route of a woman begging to know if she’s his girlfriend or not. I am just protecting my energy because I don’t want to fall too fast, too soon, messing up everything before I have enough heuristics to feel out what I’m doing. I just need time to soak everything in and decide how I feel, what CIA calls a “DADA loop.” I know this because I’m reading a book by a former officer called “How to Think Like a Spy.” DADA stands for “decision, analysis, direct action.” Things have changed since the Cold War Era. CIA has stepped back up to paramilitary and this time embraced it. Analysis of every decision is absolute. You better know six ways to Sunday what is most likely to happen if you do x or y…. Because the rule at CIA is that you can call off a mission even if it just doesn’t feel right… but you can’t always see those things coming. Mistakes have been made. I just choose to ignore all that because it’s not like the people who work there aren’t under the same pressure as the military. Do you think all boots on the ground like what they’re asked to do?

Part of that I got from Zac as well, because his job has always been intelligence, since the Navy, in fact. There is no universe in which I’d dump Zac over anything he’s ever been asked to do. If anything, I’d take on his pain as my own, becoming his lockbox as much as I have been for my other friends since I was five (probably earlier, but I can only remember starting at five). That’s the other thing the title of preacher’s kid gives you. You’re the lockbox and you know it (clap your hands).

I hope that in ten years, I will show the world that I have fought against this instinct because I had to have a release valve somewhere, otherwise I would explode from having so many people’s stories in them that cause me pain. I hurt when other people hurt, more than I realize when my own life is going to hell in a handbasket.

If I focus on myself, I have room to handle bigger emotions.

At least it’s an ethos.