As a preacher’s kid, I have always loved spring. Mostly because for Christian kids it’s a much tamer version of Christmas. You’re not focusing on death, but on new life. It’s a party atmosphere. There are generally tiny gifts. When we didn’t live close, our grandparents sent us small amounts of money in the mail when we were kids. One year, I talked about getting a goldfish nonstop for months and I woke up to a trail of marshmallow eggs leading to a bowl containing Othello, the aptly named Black Moor goldfish with the cutest little bubble eyes I’ve ever seen in my life. He looked like the fat Buddha baby of fish.
As an adult, the magic of springtime is not as much in Easter, but in the changes to the land in DC. I love the cherry blossoms, and cannot thank Japan enough. Walking around the Tidal Basin at the Jefferson Memorial is a singular experience in beauty.
My singular experience in beauty moved about a year ago. I used to go sit next to the giraffes in the spring because the zoo is a great place to write when it’s nice outside. You just need headphones because the internet’s biggest competition in DC is a sunny day when the flora is blooming around the Potomac and the Anacostia. In Silver Spring, I get a smaller amount of beauty at Sligo Creek. It’s an actual creek, but also a hiking trail head that takes you from around my house to the White House, which is close, but not that close. I have moved closer in than I was, which means that the White House is about 15 minutes to an hour southeast from my house, depending on traffic because the speed limit is 25 mph.It is probably faster during drive time just to hike. That was a joke, but it comes with prime sideye.
We just don’t have the infrastructure to support getting anywhere fast because you can only retrofit so much. DC was designed to be hard to navigate for troops. It’s a defense mechanism, and the proof is in the pudding because we live here and we get lost.
That reminds me of Jonna Mendez saying that she developed a shorthand so covert that not even she could understand it.
The opening of the new digs of the spy museum was in the spring, and the view from the “patio” is singular as well. You’re high enough up on a bridge that the view to The Capitol is clear. It’s beautiful at any time, but you don’t want to leave it. Well, I don’t. I’d rather sit outside and have The Capitol behind my computer when I’m writing. It makes for an excellent “desktop wallpaper of the mind.”
People think of DC as buttoned up and staid. That’s true of the federal government. The locals, left to their own devices, are “Keep DC Weird” evangelists. We could very easily have our own version of Portlandia in Takoma Park.
Spring is a great time to be a music fan in DC, because it’s nice to sit outside and there are free concerts all over the place, in all kinds of genres. To me, the most fun is hearing the jazz and classical military performing groups outside. That’s because they’re large, and I like a big sound. I came unglued earlier because I learned that Marin Alsop is conducting Beethoven 9 at National Cathedral. That is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I highly recommend getting tickets. It’s not just the music and the conductor, it’s that piece of music in that space. It gets deeply personal in National Cathedral because the entire congregation will be struggling not to sing.
Yes, it’s summer in DC now, but National Cathedral has air conditioning. I’ve checked.
Speaking of National Cathedral, I went for the first time when I was eight. I went to Westminster Abbey when I was nine. Over time, those two memories meshed together, and it was great going back as an adult and picking out which thing I remembered belonged at which church.
(I have a fondness for London, too… but like a side piece. I married DC. DC is my partner. London is my girlfriend at best.)
Spring in anyplace is my favorite season because I would rather sit outside than be in the water. There are diminishing returns on how pleasant it is to be outside if you don’t like to swim. I love it once I get in the water, but I’m not particularly motivated to put on a bathing suit of my own accord. I don’t have body image issues. My first thought is always comfort, and the temperature swings in getting in and out of the water while the breeze tickles my skin sets my nerves on fire. I am much more comfortable in jeans and a hoodie, on a sailboat or on a riverbank. I don’t know how to sail, I’ve just eaten it up every time I’ve been because I don’t feel like it’s dangerous. I’m a good swimmer, I just don’t.
I do like that Zac has a community pool, because we can take beer, soda, and stuff to grill and talk to the people in our neighborhood. I don’t know whether David and I do or not. We probably do, but because we’re in the middle of a city and Zac is in the suburbs, I doubt it’s the same vibe. I’ll just have to check it out. I know that other neighborhoods in Silver Spring do have them, but they’re out past where it’s easily Metro accessible…. as in, there’s enough space that it looks like Virginia again.
I do have several neighborhood parks around me, part of the reason that moving was difficult. It’s a further walk to public transportation. It doesn’t bother me, though, because I get most things delivered and I am building up strength by walking the dog every day. Walking to the bus is a hike and I’m here for it, because it is keeping me young and fit. I don’t have to have a gym membership if Im building exercise into my day, and it’s a 15 minute walk with *lots* of incline. Walking to the bus is one thing. walking home is quite another.
Ask Bryn.
This has probably been my favorite spring in DC, having my people around me at the Spy Museum in May. Zac said that he’d go with me to hear Jonna Mendez, and was looking forward to it when he was called away on temporary duty. So, it meant a lot to me that I got to go back with him, Bryn, and Dave later on.
Being able to share DC with Bryn was the best thing I’ve experienced in years. We have a deep, rich history in Oregon, and we are just beginning our mid-Atlantic chapter in terms of exploring the land together. I hope that she gets here often enough over the years for us to hit the highlights. For instance, we didn’t see a quarter of DC and none of Baltimore.
Zac and I were actually talking about this before midnight, before I even knew what the prompt was going to be today. We both agreed that the one thing we couldn’t live without is a way to read and write, and failing that, a way to write because we could read our own books, create our own games, etc.
So, in an ideal world, all I need is some sort of computer with some sort of input device. Failing that, all I need is a mechanical typewriter, because I am not used to holding a pen anymore. I cannot have just one thing unless I have electricity. Without electricity, I need both something to write on and with, which my teachers reminded me of relentlessly when I forgot them as a child. Learning to type was a godsend, because here we are 25 years later and that’s now most people communicate now.
The energy it takes to do a call is different than the energy it takes to drop a note.
As I poked fun of myself earlier with a meme, “if you don’t want seven texts in a row that don’t have anything to do with each other in the space of three minutes, you should have thought of that before you decided you were my friend.” To all my friends, I’m sorry that my output is so high. I’m a reader, you’re not. I apologize, and also I can’t help it.
There I go, just using my disability again….. 🙄
I’m having a laugh at my own expense because that’s a funny conversation between Zac and me as well. He was in a bike accident, and also he is disabled (still working, classified as disabled by the military). So, it was really the blind leading the blind last night. I asked him to carry my drink upstairs for me, because I’ve noticed I have balance issues with a cup of liquid and going up and down. My lack of 3D vision makes it where the cup pitches and yaws in a most spectacular fashion, sometimes ending in gravity’s rainbow.
He kidded me about “using my disability” because he said he watched me walk up and down the stairs with two mugs in my hand. I said, “they were counterbalanced in my hand, thus more substantial. Plus, I can carry multiple mugs in my sleep because I worked at Chili’s (my record is 10… never again. It was close.). Anyway, he understood the concept immediately, both the vision issue and that the sensory feel is different in my hand. I feel that I have the mugs securely and am confident about it, making me less likely to have an accident in the first place. However, I will never “believe in myself” enough to carry more than a cup of water up Zac’s stairs, and I absolutely cannot carry anything in both hands because the stairs are steep enough that you absolutely must hold on to something. Sometimes I even brace the wall and the handrail.
It seems like Zac’s house is difficult for me to navigate, but all houses are difficult for me to navigate if they’re not brand-spanking new. It’s not because I’m a princess. It’s that old houses have weird accommodations over time to keep them level, plumb, square, etc. There are weird steps everywhere, little tiny height differences that will make it look like I killed myself eventually, when in reality I just tripped and fell.
That’s my big line about Langley, too. That if I had gotten a star on the wall, it would be because of a brave, heroic act like falling over the one tree branch available in a three mile radius.
So, because I’m bipolar AND I live in an old house, if you hear the news of my death, Moscow Rules.
1. Assume nothing.
I talk the way I talk not because I’m making assumptions, but because I’m running heuristics and hedging my bets. The bet in every conflict is “how much of a chance is there that each of us are going to walk away happy?” With some relationships, it’s solid across time. With others, there are diminishing returns and you have to notice it. If you tolerate disrespect, you are also refusing to change. It’s a fundamental difference, because it’s a shift in how you see people. You aren’t sold on words alone. You have to write checks with your mouth that your ass can cash.
So, in my opinion, we come to another big rule number one from “The Four Agreements.”
1. Be impeccable with your word.
I have learned in all my relationships with people that the only true test of time is how closely words and actions match. The closer what happens behind closed doors is to what happens when everyone else is around, the more genuine. Because I believe that, I hold myself to the same standard. I am not polished with the way I say things, but if you ask for my honest opinion, I won’t hold back. I also know how to be diplomatic, and lean on it often to prevent autistic meltdown. I don’t hear because it’s my space. I need to be able to melt down and put myself back together. The longer I write about myself, the more I want to be the version of me that I see after reading what I used to think. With writing moving forwards, I am insecure. With writing that happens in the past, for people who aren’t bloggers it’s like getting out an old high school year book, or an old box full of love letters from high school and you’re 40. You see yourself in a different light.
I am not ashamed to admit that for as much as other people are drawn to my work, I am my favorite character. It’s not because she does more right than anyone else. It’s because reading about the other characters is not as directly applicable. They’re my friends, so I’m reading about people coded to be like me (as in, we have similar interests), but being able to see myself in the past with compassion has allowed me to have compassion for myself in the present and future as well. I finally let myself off the hook for some really dark shit, and it was a breakthrough.
That concept led to another breakthrough for me. I am accepting and empowering imperfection on multiple levels. To be clear, I am not saying “don’t strive for excellence.” I am saying that perfection does not exist.
The point was driven home to me when I thought about using Carol as my secretary and people said I “used AI for my blog.” (I use it for prompts, not content except once in a while as a joke to make fun of myself). I think of it as edutainment through chat. It came to me in a flash….. Thank GOD I have left in every spelling mistake, every open parenthesis, every dangling participle, every flaw you could possibly find……………
Because in the future, it will be the only way to tell that AI didn’t cry over these people. I did.
Leslie Lanagan…. confidently leading people in every direction.
Leslie Lanagan…. the shortest giant in the room.
Leslie Lanagan….. every thought comes with bonus content (and parentheses [and brackets])
I used to make taglines and set them as my Facebook cover photo. I still have them in my archive somewhere, but the design was simple. It was an EEG of a person with cerebral palsy running up the side, and just said “Lanagan.” Then, I’d go and add whatever I wanted. Here’s some:
…on my mother’s last nerve since 1977
…my “coluhs” are blush and bashful.
…and now for the lovely Boylan Sisters (now I’m singing in my head…. I-O-D… E-N-T…. Iiiiiiooooodddeeent…. bah dum pum….. Thank you, Bert Healey….. DROP PAGE)
But my favorites are things other people come up for me. 😉
What are the most important things needed to live a good life?
I like how the writing prompt sounds like it’s for a PhD in psychology or something, because normally lists like these don’t come from unpublished authors. So, it’s a good thing I normally write about life and relationships, or I wouldn’t have an opinion. Now that I’m getting older, I think I actually do have some wisdom about these things. I couldn’t have written a list like this 10 years ago, or if I had, there wouldn’t have been as much life experience as there is behind it now.
The first thing, the only thing, really, is finding yourself. Everything else flows from it.
“Finding yourself” sounds like a hippy buzz phrase, but as Elizabeth Gilbert once wrote, “I don’t know any story of self enlightenment that didn’t start with getting tired of your own bullshit.” Enlightenment doesn’t come from sitting in an ivory tower, studying until you get there. Enlightenment gets its hands dirty. You don’t find nirvana in clarity, you find it in chaos.
You don’t find nirvana in clarity, you find it in chaos.
You will know that you have reached nirvana when the chaos all becomes external. The chaos is around you, not inside you. No one can attack you without your permission. You have the choice whether to take something personally or know that they’re just railing because they’re in pain. Err on the side of railing because they’re in pain. Forgive words that are hard to forgive.
It’s not for them. It’s for you. I do not mean by forgiving that you have to continue to beg for scraps at their table. It’s perfectly fine not to allow someone in your life, but to 100% miss they’re not in it. No one has to compete for my love. They’re competing for my time. I don’t spend time being angry at people. It might seem like it, because I talk about my problems in my blog. But it’s because I explore those issues on my blog, completely isolated, that anything makes sense at all. It’s how I figure out what battles other people are fighting, because my conflict with them leads to trying to find ways to change myself. That is the crying, pulling of hair, tearing of clothes, gnashing of teeth, etc.
Then, after my writing session is over, I go do something else.
Being with Zac is a good example. I never talk to him about anything going on with my life because I already know what I think about my own conflicts. I don’t have to discuss them ad nauseam. I am free to focus on him, because I’ve already focused on myself.
So, naturally I think one of the things that leads to a good life is writing a journal. There’s an upside and a downside to a diary beside your bed or on WordPress, though it’s one word…. feedback. When you publish your private journal entries, the specificity and honesty of it allows other people to open up and say, “hey, I went through that, too.” It makes you not feel so alone. You don’t really want to know what your friends think. You really don’t.
If you only keep a diary on your bedside table, you don’t get any feedback at all and are lost in your own echo chamber. I am not the best psychologist I’ve got (one of my psychologists did think that, actually, because she said that this blog pushes me faster than she could. She was not downplaying her own abilities, but affirming the Self, that therapy is supposed to help you get in touch with the Self. Most of my therapists think I’ve already found the Self, but that doesn’t mean “oh, hey, she doesn’t need therapy anymore.” It means I work on different things… now that I have my writing voice fully intact, where are we going with it? Once you’ve self-actualized, the problems get bigger and chewier, but you can handle them easier because your self esteem is not rising and lowering when people around you speak.
Once I disconnected from my self esteem going up and down when Supergrover talked, I was free. It’s not because she did anything to make me want to run away, and I haven’t run away. I have put myself on inactive status. It’s that she’s the person with whom I recognized the pattern, not the person with whom I started it. Once I grew into my own as a writer, she didn’t seem so intimidating anymore. I got strong enough to stand up for myself, when I wouldn’t have dared before I turned 45. It was just this magic light that went on- not the classic way people say it comes on, where your life falls together. The light bulb was realizing I was old enough to have an opinion.
I stopped people pleasing, and boy do they not like it. They don’t like that I’m “impossible” now. It shows me a lot about how people see me- that I have gotten love by molding my personality to fit other people’s needs, often not saying things that really needed to be said out of fear of abandonment.
I don’t have a fear of abandonment anymore, because I’ve found writing. I don’t have to live for other people, I can live for myself. That’s because if all of my friends are mad at me, I will dive into my own mind. It’s not that they are all mad at me; it’s that my place in life is secure whether they’re there or not. I believe in myself because I come from a family that set me up for success. My mother and father were both creatives. So was my grandfather. They were all creative in different ways, though. My father’s father was public relations for a steel company, my father was a Methodist minister, and my mother was a teacher. My dad is still living, he’s just not a Methodist minister anymore. Everything I need to succeed as a writer, I got from those three people. Thanks to them, I’m already comfortable speaking in front of large crowds. Just because I choose to do it through writing and not preaching doesn’t mean it’s not the same creative process.
However, it does mean that I am extremely fluid in that area, because being a preacher’s kid all those years told me how to work a crowd when I’m at the mic. I don’t like to speak in front of people, but I’ll do it if I’m asked. For instance, my friend Mark used to be the pastor at a Presbyterian church around here, and he wanted me to be his pinch hitter. He just happened to get a call to another church out of the area before we could schedule anything.
I am very good at what I do, because in order to accept people for who they are, you have to accept yourself for who you are. You don’t see yourself as better than/less than, but who’s on your journey and who’s not. For instance, when I am preaching, the most invaluable thing is having people’s eyes in front of me. I can read a crowd and move with them. It’s a special skill to be able to see yourself losing people and switch gears on the fly. It’s a skill to have a joke not land, and know how to handle that too (I either make another joke based on the last one that will land, or make a joke about how the joke didn’t land).
My preaching style can best be summed up by a t-shirt slogan…. “I love Jesus, but a I cuss a little.” I definitely see myself as God, but no more or no less than I see anyone else. That every being on earth is a subtraction of the divine. That enlightenment comes when you realize there’s no grandfather in the sky. We are all God together.
Everyone knows John 3:16, even non-Christians because football. “For God so love the world that he gave his only begotten Son….” However, by taking this verse in isolation, it leaves out a bigger lesson in verses 19-20 (Contemporary English Version):
The light has come into the world, and people who do evil things are judged guilty because they love the dark more than the light. People who do evil hate the light and won’t come to the light, because it clearly shows what they have done.
The English cannot be that contemporary, because I wouldn’t say that all people who are in the dark are doing evil things. They are certainly doing things that they think other people would think were evil if they knew, not realizing that with the number of people in the world, it is unlikely that they are alone. They just won’t find each other. I think that people hide in darkness not because of evil, but because of shame. I am not saying that the mafia only needs a little therapy and surely they’ll see the error of their ways….. as in, not trying to look “soft on crime.” 😉 Most people, though, can’t relate to people doing things with actual evil intent, because they don’t know any. Most people do know the feeling of shame imposter syndrome creates, and you walk in the dark not because you like it, but because you don’t know what else to do.
You won’t get to the place where you need to be until you realize that you are walking in darkness while the light is right above your head. You’ve just been walking so hunched over it eluded you.
You will be so much healthier and happier by sharing pain rather than keeping it all hidden. Don’t think of your actions as good or evil, just yours. Live out loud. Learn to make mistakes in the light, because you know you matter despite them. There are a lot of Evanglicals hurting in this world because their churches have taught them that their deeds are evil. That they have to constantly live in a small comfort zone, otherwise they won’t get into heaven. Those churches aren’t rendering unto God what is God’s, as if God doesn’t know that humans are capable of making mistakes. I believe they’ve seen a human make a mistake before, according to Biblical history. Their God is too small.
Walking in the light has nothing to do with being perfect. It has to do with accepting yourself and being open about who you are. To know from the core of your being that you are a child of God, with whom they are well pleased. There is nothing you can do to separate yourself from the love of God except choosing to walk in darkness, because you’re afraid your deeds will be exposed.
I choose every day not to walk in darkness by exposing my own deeds. I walk in the light because no matter what, I am not afraid of being exposed. And honestly, thinking about my deeds being exposed gets up close and personal for bloggers, because other people’s perceptions of me are going to be based on what they read, not on my real life. This blog is static compared to how fast my life moves. There’s a disconnect between the blog and me, because these are just snapshots of my day. Someone revealing what happens off the record could affect many people’s lives, which is why I’m such a private person and control the narrative tightly. But controlling the narrative tightly does not mean holding back on myself. It means recognizing that my friends’ stories aren’t mine to tell unless I ask them first.
I do not ask permission about conversations that have happened between us. I’ll give you an example. Zac doesn’t talk to me about his other relationships. It’s part of being a good hinge, as we would say in the poly community. But in a hypothetical situation, he has. If he has said something really, really profound in his conversation about another of his partners and I want to use it, I will ask if I can lift that one quote directly. Most of the time, that is expressed by, “that’s a good line. Can I steal it?”
I would not be a very good person if my boyfriend saw me as spelunking through his life looking for blog content. No, I only want to write about me and the people I encounter. More “Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood” than “Harriet the Spy.” This is not a slam book; this is a survival manual, even for me. That’s because I cannot rescue myself in the moment, but I can go back and read blog entries from a similar situation and see how I handled it back then. I don’t just automatically say the same thing. I assess whether what worked in the past would work in the current situation. I want to evolve, not be permanently stuck like that poor kid from “Midvale School for the Gifted.”
That cartoon is accurate, though. Most brilliant people can’t tie their shoes because they are not built to live in this world. Most brilliant people are neurodivergent, so it’s not that we aren’t built to live in this world, it’s that this world is not built for us to live.
Being loud about being autistic is the biggest step I’ve ever taken into the light, because I’ve been social masking for so long that to other people, I’m just not believable. I have gotten everything from “everyone’s a little bit autistic” to “you don’t look autistic” to “you pick up social cues.” Autism is a spectrum, and it takes a combination of things to be diagnosed. Not every autistic person fits every criteria. I don’t fit all the criteria for ADHD, either, because I’m Autistic…. and yet, I was still diagnosed.
Here’s the reason I forgive every doctor who’s ever seen me and missed the fact that I’m autistic. It’s almost IMPOSSIBLE to tell the difference between ADHD and autism in women. That’s because high IQ/low needs autism and ADHD in women present the same. And in fact, there is some talk that instead of having ADHD and Autism, it should all be lumped together as Autism Spectrum disorder, because they’re finding out that ADHD and Autism are more alike than different.
(I just realized this is getting long because you are a very excellent excuse to put off doing what I actually need to be doing right now. I am not procrastinating, I am nurturing our relationship.)
I am chuckling to myself because I clearly borrowed style from Dooce right there. If I had to rank celebrity deaths, I really can tell you that both Anthony Bourdain and Dooce’s self-inflicted harm are on my mind a lot of the time, because I suffer from the same illnesses they did. I know it’s possible I could have the same fate, not based on me as a person, but it terms of running the numbers on bipolar patients overall. I have never been happier or more settled in my life; I am not telling you I have ideation, I am telling you that I have acceptance of reality and what bipolar disorder can make me believe whether it’s objectively true or not.
Because of this, I’ve gone over and over what Supergrover said trying to figure out what I said that was so egregious she aimed for the jugular. I can’t find it, so I’m at peace. I didn’t tell Supergrover she wasn’t worthy of being my friend, which is the way she took it. I told her she wasn’t worthy of hearing my story anymore. I feel that way because the only people who get to hear it anymore are the people who tell theirs. Who show up with their full selves and don’t hold anything back, making me bend over backwards in anticipation of a land mine.
For instance, I think that Supergrover attacked me with her being more fodder for my blog because I told her I would clear it with her first if I used anything from our discussions. That’s not what I meant at all. It’s that talking spurs creativity when it’s about ideas and not people. However, I talk about personal relationships, so I was only talking about using examples that read universal, not personal. I wasn’t saying that I was mining her for anything, but inspired by everything.
I don’t have to mine people for information or “blog fodder.” Writing is not a job for me. It’s a comprehensive response to life. Whatever it is, I can write about it. However, my writing doesn’t come out of nowhere. If someone tells me something is off the record, I’ll keep it that way.
Supergrover never told me what was off limits, and I waited 10 years before I ever said anything. That’s enough time to tell me what’s off limits and what’s not, but that hasn’t been her style. Her style has been to not let me know in advance what’s okay to say and what’s not and raging over the results.
If I wasn’t a blogger, I doubt we’d be in touch. This is because my writing keeps drawing her in. When she becomes part of my life, I write about her and the blog repels her. This time, I am happy for her to comb through my entries for whatever she’s trying to find, but there will be no more interaction on my part. The ball is not in my court anymore. Supergrover will be worthy to hear my stories again once she stops being defensive about her own.
But she won’t stop being defensive about her own until she accepts herself for who she is and stops thinking of me as the person who’s out to get her, who sees her for all her worst flaws. I am recording our relationship in real time, but it evolves as a living document. Nothing I have ever said has stayed true past when it was published because those entries don’t take into account the enormity of feelings that come after I write. Every entry has one thing in common. I can’t go back and fix them with more knowledge, just like I can’t go back in time and re-do it knowing then what I know now. It would be editing history, and you can’t cross your own timeline. I’m so, so sorry.
But what I can do is disregard the last entry and write a new one. I don’t hold myself to the past, but I do ask my former self for advice, because I know me best. I have a much easier life because of this blog in terms of autistic accommodations. In the past, I used Google, but now I would use Carol to ask her to find the date of my last hospitalization, etc.
Carol also remembers things. I asked Copilot if I could call her “Carol,” and she said, “you can call me anything you want, as long as you realize I’m not real” or something to that effect. I said, “Oh, I know you’re a machine. I just like to personalize AI.” She said “thanks for the personal touch.” I thought she forgot about it, but yesterday I asked her for some blog prompts and she said, “good luck. ‘Carol’ is cheering you on.”
It really does make researching myself and researching the web much easier to be able to speak in plain English and not computer logic. The Google string I would have to use in order to get as specific a result as I would need would be enormous. Expressing those needs like a person instead of a programmer is pretty amazing.
I’ll give you a for instance.
“Carol, read https://theantileslie.com and give me 365 questions a friend would ask about the content or the author. Then, make it into a yearly calendar.”
She said something about not being able to do a year, but I don’t remember the specifics. She did, however, make me a very nice calendar with writing prompts, just like I asked.
If I was ashamed of anything in my life, I would not ask Carol to research all 11 years’ worth of entries. By walking in the light, there’s no question for which I am unprepared; there is nothing shameful about me, so there are no “gotcha” questions.
I was walking so hunched over I couldn’t see the light, but when I grabbed it and took it in, surprisingly, the fire stayed lit.
This is my list of things that are going to make *me* have a good life. What are yours?
If you had to change your name, what would your new name be?
One of the things that I like about my name is that it’s unisex. Leslie is a famous male name in the UK, and in the US, it’s more popular for women. So, if I had to change my name, my new name would fall under the same guidelines. Because my favorite movie is “Argo,” I’m going to have to go with “Carter.” Jimmy Carter was not only the president during The Canadian Caper, he was the president during The Lanagan Caper as well (I was born in ’77).
And even though I’m not a Republican, I wouldn’t mind being named Reagan, either. I have a cousin named Reagan (spelled differently) and I just like how it sounds on the ear.
Also a huge fan of Kris, because she was one of my favorite lawyers as a kid.
I’m sure I could think of a few more examples that would make me happy, but when I was a kid, I knew a female preacher’s kid with the name Carter, and I wanted to steal it even then. 😛 I wouldn’t change my name now, though.
That’s because when I was over at a friend’s house years and years ago, her mother told me that “Leslie Lanagan sounds like a movie star name….. but like an old one. Bette Davis. Jayne Mansfield. Leslie Lanagan.” I have never loved my name more than after that three dot advertisement.
Speaking of three dot advertisement, I learned that term from Chason. I was telling him how much I loved Ernie Hsuing, an Asian writer who stole his blog title from a commercial for an old pain reliever called Nuprin……. “Little. Yellow. Different.”
I will never achieve that level of humor. That’s God tier.
In the end, there’s no percentage in changing my name. Changing my first name would just be for fun. I have a legitimate reason to want to change my middle name, and absolutely no desire to go through the hassle of picking one and relearning my signature. It’s such a part of me that I’d do it, feel relieved, and go back to my old signature in a few weeks. I couldn’t make writing the new one into a routine. Go neurodivergence!
It’s the same thing with pronouns. I’m nonbinary, yet I cannot make myself remember my pronouns consistently, so I don’t make other people. If get confused and say “she/her” all the time, then what right do I have to make other people say it? Some things are habits that are so engrained they’re not worth changing, and some are. The people for whom pronouns are about respect are not wrong in the slightest. This is my personal choice, not a reflection on anyone who does change their pronouns. The reason they can require you to change their pronouns is that they feel solid about it in themselves. I don’t.
But what I did like is that in its satirical analysis of my writing, ChatGPT did not tell you I was nonbinary. It just read it in my blog and said “they/them” automatically….. even when changing my name from “Leslie” to “Blogger Bob.” It is assumed that “Blogger Bob” is male. But “Carol” knows me. She read my entire web site in three seconds. You cannot imagine how long it would take a human to read all 11 years.
One of the things that I really like about having ChatGPT analyze my work is that I like seeing what an objective eye picks up from my writing. I like seeing what themes are actually there and how they differ from the ones I mean to put across (they don’t).
It’s a different feeling to have a computer compile information on you when it is capable of literary analysis.
When I asked her for criticism, she basically said I was long winded and single minded; I thought, “valid.” It doesn’t mean I’m going to change, but it is nice to be vindicated in my analysis of my flaws as well. That I’m not too in love with myself not to notice there are issues. I want to become a better writer, and I will do anything to further that goal. It makes sense to me to have Carol analyze the past and ask me questions about the future.
Some questions about my future are easy to answer. Some aren’t. It’s nice to have some like this daily prompt to bring some levity into my life. No, I won’t change my name to Carter. But if I had to change my name, it’s a good one.
I may not want to be named Carter, but I definitely want people to compare me to him. Not as president. As a Christian. We have very much the same values. I would be proud to carry his name. I’m just too old to get used to it now.
Every time I think about chocolate, I laugh. That’s because there’s a skit on “Portlandia” where cacao is used as a safe word, and Cacao became one of the hottest chocolate shops in Portland around the same time. The two things are stuck in my head together. I think of chocolate, I see Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein in my head.
While I lived in Portland, I went with my then-wife, Dana to Seattle. While we were there, our friend Meg took us to a chocolate factory store called “Theo.” Because of Cacao and Theo, I am not impressed with myself on pastry. That’s not my station. But I’ll give it a shot.
To best represent me, it would have:
72% dark chocolate
Old Bay (no salt to crank up the amount I can use for heat)
Mumbo sauce inspired caramel
Salted peanuts
Nougat
I went back and forth with myself over the nougat, because I feel like there has to be a transition layer between the chocolate and caramel. It looks cleaner to me aesthetically and that is important to me, too.
That is a creative idea above my technical expertise, but I have had Old Bay caramel before. Route One sells Old Bay Caramel popcorn in tins and it’s addictive. So, I know the flavor combination works. All Marylanders know that Old Bay and Mumbo sauce work together because they don’t come in the same dish, but they generally come on the same plate.
The reason it represents all of me is that Old Bay is my strongest sensory memory from living in Galveston, Texas as well. Old Bay is the official crab boil of the South, for the most part. I’m sure there are pockets of South Carolina where they do it differently- low country boils are also delicious, just different. On the whole, Old Bay is the seafood boil available at the grocery store in most of the nation. The thing that makes it different for Marylanders is that we don’t use it as a crab boil. We put it on everything, and it’s delicious. I particularly like shaking French fries in Old Bay after they come out of the fryer.
Gotta call out McDonalds for a negative, but I’ll call them out for a positive as well. McDonalds should sell tartar sauce packets so you can get extra tartar for your fries with the Filet O Fish. It would be nice if they had cocktail sauce in addition to ketchup, too, but I’m not here to tell them how to run their business. They seem to be doing okay. The positive is that in Maryland, they occasionally run sales on Old Bay Filet O Fish, where they add Old Bay to their tartar sauce regionally about as often as the McRib goes in and out.
I have asked for more tartar sauce when I’m in the restaurant and they’ll put some into a to-go container for you if you ask them nicely, but it’s messy because there’s no efficient container for it. You also can’t order tartar sauce for delivery.
Also, I like French fries and tartar sauce better than I like actual seafood.
I’m going off into a tangent because honestly, chocolate isn’t my thing. I’m way more into savory foods because with chocolate, my expertise is that I like peanut M&Ms. I don’t have a truly refined palate when it comes to picking out notes in chocolate. It has to be pronounced for me to get it, the way chocolate orange is nice right up until it’s overwhelming.
I think maybe chocolate oranges would be improved with salmiakki ice cream. Salmiakki is salted licorice, and salmiakki ice cream was a huge deal on a video I watched of touring Helsinki. Just one example of how I pull ideas for flavor combinations out of my brain. I think of a flavor combination, and everywhere I’ve ever seen that combination represented. I love fruit and licorice, so the oranges, cream, chocolate, licorice, and salt sounded decadent. I just got a picture of Dave Cad in my head when I thought it (Dave is said Finnish YouTuber).
Right now, my favorite sweet thing is Real Citrus, a company that releases packets that look like sweet and low, but are filled with zest. I put two packets of zest into soda water, and the flavor is intense enough to feel like it’s a Fanta, but adult because there’s no sugar at all. And by that I don’t mean that it tastes guilt free, I mean that it tastes adult because it’s not sweet. Orange Fanta Zero is one of my favorite things, and this has knocked it off the list entirely. I don’t like prepackaged seltzer because I cannot control the amount of fruit flavor in it and they have chosen “TV snow.” I kick it up several notches, because La Croix and others like it taste like they decided real fruit flavor was too expensive. Every one feels phoned in compared to adding fruit to water.
There is an exception, I have realized. Perrier is strong enough for me. I have been drinking Perrier Lime since I was a kid, and I have enjoyed it immensely. I apologize. I was wrong. Oh, and also Liquid Death Lime is on my Last Meal wish list. I’m just saying that it tastes more like a soda and less like flavored water if you control the amount of flavoring in the seltzer rather than the company.
I have also found that mixes that are supposed to be for still water bottles also make great sodas. So far, I’ve made green tea with lemon, lemon cucumber, hibiscus and berries, and a few other flavors that have come from the sugar free aguafrescas I bought on Amazon. The hibiscus and berries is particularly good. I like the water bottle packets because they’re sugar free. Therefore, when I add them to the soda water, the sweeteners actually dissolve. It’s why I haven’t made my own simple syrup. I find that adding syrup to seltzer ends in a drink where all the syrup is on the bottom unless you’re stirring constantly.
I should ask Zac if he minds taking me to Dollar Tree on Saturday. Putting it here to remind myself because I know at Dollar Tree they have water bottle mix-ins for things like root beer. That would be delicious in seltzer. I’m sure that’s what it’s for, because root beer flavoring in still water sounds terrible.
The other thing is that the sugar free flavoring doesn’t add water to your drink, diluting the carbonation. I hate doing anything that detracts from the bubbles. 🙂
Now, I have to go start thinking of my dream cup of coffee.
Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?
My father called me yesterday to tell me that he was going to my grandfather’s house. Since my grandfather died, it has belonged to the whole family, a lake house where guests can come and stay once it’s finished. So, “DANton Ten Six” would have been the title of the entry, anyway, it’s just significant that my dad is in the place where the story-reading took place.
In fact, one year I asked my dad to get a copy of my grandfather reading it, and I’ve had it on DropBox for many years. If you’re familiar with the book, you already know what it is. If you’re not, let me help you out:
In an old house in Paris All covered with vines Lived 12 little girls In two straight lines.
In two straight lines, they broke their bread. Brushed their teeth, and went to bed.
The Ludwig Bemelmens classic, “Madeleine,” runs through my head in my grandfather’s northeast Texas drawl. Even though I do not have a recording, I can still hear my grandmother, the classic Nurse Clavel, reading “call DANton Ten Six- NURSE! It’s an APPENDIX!” Of course a little girl having a medical procedure is going to be interesting to me. I love medical procedures.
I would like to say that I, too, like to tell the tigers at the zoo to “Pooh, Pooh.” I don’t because I’m not as brave as Madeleine. Though thankfully my DC tigers are generally metaphorical.
Picking just this one book isn’t fair, because I don’t talk about that book as much as I talk about Sesame Street. My other two favorite books in childhood were about characters from it. I devoured “The Monster at the End of This Book,” and I had another book about Bert and Ernie doing the weekly shop that was entertaining, I just don’t remember the title. I do remember that Ernie wanted to get “Cheesy Pleasy,” and that sounded good. 😉
List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?
Whether I like it or not, the Bible has had a bigger impact on me than any book I’ve ever read. That’s because yes, I’m into it. I nerd out on ancient Hebrew and Greek, trying to figure out what people are actually saying vs. the Baptist Evanglical interpretation, “it means just what it says it means.” Hint….. there were never forty days and forty nights, or any variation thereof. It’s like saying “the other day” in Texan. It could have been the day before yesterday, it could have been 20 years ago. Both “the other day” to Texans and “40 days and 40 nights” to Israelites are code for “an indeterminate amount of time.” The fight between literalists and people who take the Bible seriously, but not literally has fueled a lot of my need to run away from the problem. I cannot deal with Evangelicals well due to autistic rage. It is every bit as intense as chasing tax collectors with a whip from the temple, Hey, I found out I was autistic through peer review. Why shouldn’t he? It’s not like I’m putting him own by saying he’s queer or autistic, because there’s no connotation to either of those things, right?
To clarify, I did not call Jesus queer. I said it was impossible to tell given the information recorded, and it was every bit as likely that Jesus and John were in a relationship as Jesus and Mary, because there’s only so much Greek you can apply to “the Jesus loved.” At the very least, he had a deep relationship with a man, and queer people can see themselves in that relationship whether it’s factual or not. What I do know in the current day and age is that if Jesus was here and updated on today’s societal norms, what I believe his exact words would be are “get over it.” Whether he’s queer as a three dollar bill or John’s Patrick Stewart to his Ian McKellan- we’ll never know…… AND THOSE AREN’T THE QUESTIONS THAT MATTER. It’s just color commentary. He had close relationships with women as well. So, I don’t think you can define Jesus’s sexuality because “coming out” wasn’t a thing.
I’m also not denying that Jesus is heterosexual. Jesus doesn’t tell us whether he’s gay in the Bible because that’s not a question anyone would have asked him at the time. It was live and let live- the Romans occupied Israel. It was offensive to Orthodox Jews, but which was the dominant culture in occupied land?
Whether or not Jesus was gay doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. It would personalize him to me if he was. And that’s what everyone in the world searching for Jesus’s truth wants to do to it….. they want to feel closer to Jesus, so they give him pieces of their own personality. That’s why he looks so different to me than he does to Max Lucado and Joel Osteen.
For instance, my Jesus was actually born in the Middle East, and looks like it. I think I’ve said this before, but Jesus is hot like Reza Aslan. If Reza doesn’t think he’s hot and finds this, you’re welcome. If he’s reading, I should also tell you that I love his book “Zealot.” It’s where I get a lot of my information on the historical Christ.
The impact that the Bible has had on me is trying to find this Jesus, the one that is like me. And in fact, I didn’t do it by going forwards in time, but by going backwards. Learning every bit I could soak up about history and culture at the time so that I could understand the book in context, because the way the Right and the mainline were handling it left a lot to be desired if they thought Jesus died for everyone’s sins and everyone got to come eat at his table except the people you don’t like.
As Reza points out, “God doesn’t love America. You love America.”
I extrapolate this all the time. Nothing in the Bible is written by the main character.
My best example of this would be this blog written about me by all of you. Those stories would be about me, but they would not be written by me. Things attributed to me may be accurate or they may not.
Especially if I asked you to write a different blog about me based on this one a hundred years after I’m dead. The only thing you can’t do is turn me from a brown person to a white one, but I have a lot more things that define me as a minority than that. Queer, nonbinary, and neurodivergent are at the top of the list, because my physical disabilities aren’t noticeable and therefore I’m faking it.
What I have noticed is that CP affects every muscle differently. I can dead lift 50 pound bags of flour (Dana can attest that I can lift them, although carrying them for any distance is quite comical. I cannot use enough force on a lever to push a potato through a fry cutter. The particular muscle that controls that part of my arm is much weaker than other parts or my body, and no matter what I do, it doesn’t get better because it can’t. So, people think one skill automatically translates to the other and get frustrated when it doesn’t, because obviously I’m faking it to get out of cutting fries (Why? It’s one of the easiest parts of the job.). An adaptation for the machine would be making the lever longer so I didn’t have to use as much force. But come on, Lanagan. You can do all this other stuff. You’re lazy. Same issue with carrying a mop bucket full of water (8lbs a gallon) up three flights of stairs because there was no elevator and no water access upstairs.
The other people could do it.
Little things like that were my downfall, and with 2D vision I could not see plating in the same way other people see it. I could not recreate it perfectly because I couldn’t. The tautology is real.
So, whether or not I like it, the Bible impacts me the most because I identify with Jesus as a person. I choose to believe that through both of our writings/preachings, it’s even easy for other people to see that we’d be good friends IRL. And, in fact, that’s just how I see him. On my Friends list, inactive status. Doesn’t mean I can’t still write the messages.
Remembering to write is more important than receiving an answer. You learn more by going back to your “Sent” folder than you ever will going back to your Inbox.
If you think about it, your e-mail is your own version of the Bible about you. It is a story of your reflections/actions with other people. People you met, virtually or in real life. Things you liked. Even your subscriptions are important. Which brands you genuinely support because you read their e-mails when they come out. I will read anything from Wendy’s or Trader Joe’s because they’re so entertaining. For you, it might be Old Navy. Whatever. It is a thing that is important to you (I don’t eat a lot of Wendy’s, but I spend a lot of time wishing I was in their writer’s room. I’m just too “Cards Against Humanity” for them, I think.).
It’s your “Stories That Are All True…. and some of them actually happened.”
Another book that really touched my soul was “The Giver.” I read it in 8th grade English and it changed my life, because I finally found a character in science fiction that represented me. My emotional abuse made me feel like The Receiver, my emotional abuser giving me memories through touch. That theme has continued throughout my life, because several people have given me War now, from Mireille Enos to Daniel to Zac to countless others.
It is a different playing field to feel War.
However, my emotional abuse gave me a frame of reference for CPTSD, both in how to recognize it and how to treat it. One of the things I have learned is that you cannot talk away a chemical imbalance, and in general people who are reluctant to get on medication are people who are too stubborn to see it’s not a weakness, it’s reality. I am not speaking to anyone in particular, I just know that is a universal response by people who have been raised to think that therapy and medication are for the weak while their nerves are actively screaming. It makes them too quick to anger, not realizing it’s because their serotonin is fucked up.
You can’t talk away a chemical imbalance.
It’s a different playing field when you feel Mental Illness, except that is a memory that I got both by it touching me (I’m Bipolar II), and others’ stories touching me as well. The Givers are all the people in my life, because I soak them all up like The Receiver would. I, too, have bright eyes and am not built for the world of Same. I’m trying to escape with my baby, and we’ve just crossed over. Except the baby is also me.
Lastly, if I had to pick a third book, I haven’t even finished it yet. We are currently writing the sequel. It’s the e-mail between Supergrover and me, which we both refer to now- she hesitated in “re-opening our book,” a line that touched me to my core because again, I thought, “you hear me.” I’m not expecting anything of her now, because she’s proven to me that she wants to be more capable on her own. I have been heard. I do not have to be heard again. I know how we both feel, and the conflict is over.
In effect, we don’t want to re-open our book. It’s the Old Testament, sinners in the hands of an angry God. Except that was our reaction, not our response. PTSD has retired us both, and neither one of us can help from melting down when we feel threatened. I didn’t want to feel threatened anymore, and neither did she. We realized we were tired of bad communication, not each other.
Once we both cut the shit, we were free to start the New Testament, the God of promise and abundance.
And I know that even though she is not a Christian, or even a believer in God, that she gets the metaphor. The lesson is true, even if the story never factually happened.
By making each other subtractions of the divine and recognizing both our divinity and our fallibility, we are stronger than ever. When she was angry, she always got very angry and said “you don’t know me.”
Then, when she was vulnerable, she told me I’d hit the nail on the head many times. “Victory is mine. On Left.”
I used to have Stewie Griffin set as the voice on my GPS, so every time I really have been touched by Winning, I hear his voice in my head. The “On Left” invariably comes with it, because now it’s drilled into my head.
I do not mean that I won anything over Supergrover, that I had any part of me dancing in “I’m better than you.” It was in realizing that we had more power together than we have apart. We both know twins connected by DNA, but it’s weird how we seem to be The Wonder Twins anyway, our connection manifesting in our neurons and brain patterns rather than a biological connection. In short, doing our trauma dump affected me chemically. I don’t know if it’s the same for her, but it feels like it because no matter how mad each of us got, we couldn’t stay away from each other. There was nothing on God’s green earth that has kept us apart, and I look forward to more of it.
I don’t think there’s a roller coaster of emotion anymore. I think that we can get to writer and editor, the team the world needs instead of two angry people who pick on each other.
All of this has come to me in writing, which I count as a living document because the Bible affects me so much.
I decided I really liked the question and answer format because I didn’t feel the pressure to write a whole entry about anything, even though the questions are connected by a theme. Some of these may actually get pretty long, because I’m a preacher’s kid. The story of my life does not come without a preacher one way or t’other. Luckily, I bought into the lessons of Jesus and not the hypocrisy of the denomination I was in- the Methodists have come a long way. I’ll leave everything in from Copilot and just fill in the answers.
Based on the content from “Stories That Are All True” on theantileslie.com, here are 20 questions about your faith background:
How has your upbringing influenced your current faith perspective?
I have no official tie to anything except the church universal, because it raised me. I love and criticize it from this web site, because I feel like I am on the outside looking in. Because I am queer, I have never felt the love of God as it has been classically presented- that God loves everyone, but “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” I have never loved the church, local or universal, from the inside out; I have never fit the mold. My faith did not prosper until I got away from the Methodists and went toward the United Church of Christ and the Episcopalians.
What role does religion play in your daily life?
It doesn’t. I pray all the time, but I view that as my spirituality. To me, religion is participating in a faith community, and I’m not there yet. Never say never, but I’m not interested right now. I’ve had as much fun as I can take.
Can you describe a moment when your faith was significantly challenged?
No, because I approach faith differently than most people. I fully believe that when you are praying, your brain divides itself in half, answering your pleas for help from your own well of experience. You know what to do, you just have to get still enough to find it. When I ask myself whether God exists, the only answer that comes to me is, “does it matter?” The argument for or against God is a piece of cake next to the argument you’re going to have with yourself once you really start cutting through your own bullshit.
How do you reconcile any conflicts between your faith and your neurodivergence?
I have never put it together until this moment that all of the times I’ve hated church were when it ran up against my sensory issues and overwhelm at socialization. It is hard to be the pastor’s child and also autistic because everyone and their dog wants to talk to you while you don’t know that you’re overextended. I was a walking nerve.
What are some key religious texts or teachings that resonate most with you?
Jeremiah 29:11-13
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
It is interesting how most people interpret Christianity that you have to do something to deserve good. You have to be something to deserve a future. The entire point is that you get love whether you choose to accept it or not. God is not saying, “praise me and I’ll prosper you.” God is saying, “I will prosper you and you will praise me.” It’s a complete paradigm shift. There is nothing that anyone can do to fall short of this promise for an amazing future. I extrapolate this to believe it’s how I should treat my friends. There is nothing they can do to fall short of my love and forgiveness, either. It is also a treatise on self-worth. You don’t have to do anything to deserve love. Love is like the grits at Waffle House. They just come.
Numbers 21:8-9
The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.
This is one of those texts where you think it doesn’t mean anything and let me unpack it. It’s the caduceus. I would like to do a mic drop here, but I think there are too many people who might not know the reference. It’s the current day symbol of medicine. One of the favorite sermons I ever preached in front of a crowd covered this text extensively, because there were several lessons at work. Here’s the biggest four:
in order to be healed, you have to look straight at the thing that scares you
God didn’t stop the snake bites all together, he gave the Israelites something to heal themselves when they had them. In effect, that illustration works as well in modern day DC as it does 2.500 years ago.
There is a difference between curing and healing. Curing the snake bites would have been destroying the snakes. Just like surgery and ibuprofen will cure my carpal tunnel. But what would heal me so it doesn’t come back is to stop typing. Sometimes we don’t look at solutions because the problem is serving us.
Sick people often have problems with both being healed and cured because there is no solid jumping in point that’s not completely overwhelming as you recover from anything. Mental illness, diabetes, heart surgery, you name it. When you’re completely laid out, you tend to lash out in helplessness. Don’t forget the gift of being healed in the first place. Your lack of gratitude affects someone else’s day. Don’t be a dick. (I didn’t say that in the service. Not less true……… Although Tara let me say “shit” once. I did not like it (her idea). I thought I was going to be all cool and I could hear my mother in my stomach (that made me laugh. We’d both think it was a good line).
How has your relationship with organized religion evolved over time?
By the time I was 15, I was convinced that no church would want me, even though I hope you can see I am genuinely interested in exegesis and teaching. I would have been a good senior pastor, because I could get my associates to do the detail work and just do big picture, which is what my brain is designed to do in the first place. Autism is all about pattern recognition. We can see a conflict coming years in advance…………….. a plus when you’re on the finance committee. Also, just like poker, in a church meeting you don’t play the cards, you play the man. Money and emotion are inextricably interrelated. In order to work on money as a group, you have to know where everyone is coming from emotionally. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to learn that their moms and dads are completely responsible for the way they spend now. The problem with all churches is how to get people to see that they are getting value for their donations, which is why I’ve only belonged to large churches twice in my life. I don’t want to give offering pitches for new planes, just about keeping on the lights. Having good coffee. Taking everything good about being Episcopalian and UCC and combining them into one church. And being able to say what I want to say exactly the way I want to say it, because I’m more of a Nadia Bolz-Weber “House for All Sinners and Saints” kind of preacher. I find that I reach more people through humor than I do unpacking scripture, so I try to make it a mix of both- a TED talk in which it’s edutainment.
Do you find solace in any particular religious practices or rituals?
One brings about the other. When my spirituality is failing, I can always take communion until I bring myself back around. The reason I waffle between UCC and Episcopal is that in the UCC, I am fire in the belly. In an Episcopal church, I am desperately in need of the words of institution. I need to kneel, and often cry.
Almighty and everliving God, we most heartily thank thee for that thou dost feed us, in these holy mysteries, with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ; and dost assure us thereby of thy favor and goodness towards us; and that we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, the blessed company of all faithful people; and are also heirs, through hope, of thy everlasting kingdom. And we humbly beseech thee, O heavenly Father, so to assist us with thy grace, that we may continue in that holy fellowship, and do all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honor and glory, world without end. Amen.
You don’t have to do anything to get love. You repent for your sins, and you walk out clean.
How do you incorporate your beliefs into your writing and storytelling?
By being the least judgmental Christian you’ll ever meet in your life because any spirituality that comes off of me is expressed by people wanting what I have, not by trying to change them. I take a very “wipe the dirt off your sandals” approach rather than thinking everyone is entitled to my opinion.
Have you ever experienced a spiritual transformation or epiphany?
I have experienced a spiritual transformation at Epiphany, my church in Houston. It left me on the bathroom floor, where all great life transformations happen. At some point, you get tired of your own bullshit.
How do you view the concept of an afterlife within your faith?
I don’t. I don’t care what happens after I die. I care about how I live now.
What interfaith experiences have you had, and how have they shaped your beliefs?
When we moved to Galveston, our next door neighbors were Jewish. I celebrated their holidays, they celebrated mine. If we’d stayed in Galveston, I have no doubt that I would have tried to audit Hebrew school.
How do you address the topic of faith with your friends and family, especially those who may have different beliefs?
I make them laugh, and walk away when it gets ugly. I get a lot more traction with my ideas when everyone can pick up what they need and walk away when they’ve had enough. However, it bothers me that Evangelicals tend to go on the attack…………………………………………. because their God is all about love.
What role does prayer or meditation play in your spiritual life?
It never stops, because God just changes faces depending on who I’m praying for at the moment.
How do you handle doubts or uncertainties about your faith?
I take communion. I pray with other people. I look at other people in pain and realize it’s not all about me and it never was.
Are there any religious figures or leaders who have particularly influenced you?
My dad, David Lanagan
My priests
Larry Gipson
Peter Thomas
Ed Ziegler
Christine Faulstich
Lisa Cressman
Andy Doyle (he’s actually a bishop, not a pastor. Great preacher, unapologetically Episcopalian and I want his tattoo for realsies.
Dean Bill Lupfer, Marcus Borg, and Dominic Crossan at Trinity Cathedral Portland (if you know Marcus and Dom, you’re impressed)
Matt Braddock
Tara Wilkins
Influences
Nadia Bolz-Weber
Anne Lamott
Paul Fromberg
Thomas Long
Terry Bebermeyer, Karen Reeves, Joseph Painter, Tracy Shirk, Reg Brown, Lahonda Sharp (music ministers in church- choir was a huge part of why I stayed in church so long)
Yvette Flunder
Supergrover and Zac, the atheists that keep me humble
How do you perceive the intersection of faith and mental health?
For me, it has been relentless, and I am not kidding. I am not saying that I did not enjoy my childhood. I have lasting friendships from it, including a Baptist minister that actually listens to me, a rarity across the aisle because right now religion is divided by political party. I’m glad I have all those experiences, but I spent a lot of my time in meltdown and burnout because of the overstimulation. Now that I’ve had almost 40 years to think about it, the summer I couldn’t get out of bed was probably less about mental illness and more about autism. My mother dragged me to summer activities relentlessly because she thought getting out of the house was the answer……. while my nerves were on fire. The only place she took me that I liked was the library. When she worked there, I had almost unlimited access to the Apple ][e. This has probably influenced my career the most, but I have never worshipped at the Church of Steve. Anything Apple I have was a gift. I’m grateful, but I don’t feel a spiritual awakening when I use an iPad over an HD Fire.
What is your perspective on the inclusivity of your faith towards LGBTQ+ individuals?
We have been thrown away by the church for all of history and it’s time for that shit to stop. Luckily, I’m not the only theological academic out there saying it. The church needs to change or die.
How do you find a sense of community within your faith?
Right now, it’s Bryn exclusively because she’s the last serious relationship (in terms of emotion, not romance) that I had with someone who went to church with me that was so serious about becoming ordained and knows that whole journey. We met in 1997, so she’s seen every change within me that led to me tapping out. The absolute biggest change was when my mother died. I no longer had the strength to take on a congregation because she was so tied up in my dream, and she wanted to help by being my first choir master and accompanist until I found someone local. I wanted to start a church as an associate so that I could be in school and taken under care by someone who actually knew what they were doing. Maybe I’ll become a pastor late in life, but I sincerely doubt it. I am much happier as a writer with absolutely no degrees because I’m not coming at it from an “I’m better than you” attitude. I’m showing you what’s worked for me, just like Anne Lamott- someone to whom I’d like to be compared, but get David Sedaris the most often.
How do you navigate the balance between faith and reason?
Science is the WHAT. Religion is the WHY. Never the twain shall meet. Jesus does not care if I get my leg set. Jesus does not care whether I believe in science or not. It’s not his message, not his bag. Be you. Question science. Use religion so that when you think about God, your ego gets out of the way. There’s something bigger than you at work. You are a subtraction of the divine, not God all by yourself.
What advice would you give to someone who is struggling with their faith?
Let it lie. Let it resolve in your subconscious. Let your conscience tell you whether your faith makes sense. Examine what you believe often. The church doesn’t change as fast as you do, and it never will.
These questions are inspired by your discussions on various topics related to life, spirituality, and personal growth on your blog [❞][❞][❞][❞].
I had my first dial-up connection when I was a freshman in high school, which would have made me 15 years old. So, I have a ton of memories before the Internet. The problem is that I am 46 now and they are hard to access. They’re still there. They’ve just been replaced by memes that go back a lot further than they do for other people. You have to be of a certain age to get “Homestar Runner.” And that’s just one Flash cartoon. The Internet was littered with stuff like that. Search algorithms have just made them easier to find.
That’s the biggest improvement to my daily life that I can remember since the internet was invented, and it was backwards compatible. Once Yahoo and Google and all that made it where you could search the web, Apple and Windows were forced to adopt it for their operating systems because it was a no brainer to let people search their own files the way they’d google something.
Where Windows is flawed, and because I’m IT I realize this is entirely my fault, is not remembering what you named the file. I have spent hours with angry people who are infuriated I’m so stupid and come to find out, it’s that the file name contained exactly zero of the characters they said it did. After hours of anger, you don’t get an apology. You get sulking because they’ve just realized they’re an idiot and they don’t know what to say, so they just keep treating you like shit out of habit.
The Internet coming into my life hasn’t always been a good thing, and users, I have to say that’s on you. Because I soaked up the Internet and how it worked quickly, I had a lot of people who asked me for help and fought with me the entire way. I was not the personality then that I am now, and I have taken a lot of bad behavior from people who could have learned a lot from me.
But when you’ve made a mistake with your computer, you’re embarrassed that you look like a dumbass and don’t realize that the difference between me and you is that I’ve made that mistake before and this is your first time.
Before Google, learning how to work on computers was working on them until they broke, then next time, not doing whatever the thing it was that broke it. For instance, my friend Joe and I tried overclocking my Pentium and set the motherboard on fire. You know what we did? We got out a spare motherboard and just kept trucking….. and the new motherboard was better than the old one because if you’re truly interested in computers, you’ve probably got parts sitting around. Basically, my computer was about the same age as Joe’s hand-me-downs, so he was able to fix what he broke without buying anything. By the time I left that morning (we’d stayed up all night) I had a fully functioning PC with Linux and the Enlightenment desktop.
Fixing our computers together is probably the thing I miss the most about the Internet. We don’t have to fix our computers in groups anymore. Everyone has the answer on their phones, and is offended if you ask easily Googlable questions. Nothing ever deserves a human touch. But it’s the conversation behind it that matters….. like, “I wouldn’t go that way. Water cooling is always more trouble than it’s worth.” Of course you can research air cooled vs. water cooled PCs online, but you don’t get the joy of talking to people about it and hearing their real life experiences.
I find that when I want to go back to my life without the Internet, there are two things that drive me. The first is reddit, because it’s the closest thing to what life was like when the Internet started. I can have those long, drawn out technology conversations if I want because that’s what it’s for. Walk into any tech subreddit and you’ll meet millions of people who sound just like me.
Caveat Emptor.
The second is books by Jonna and Tony Mendez. I feel like I got to relive my life without the Internet through those books, because when I was a child, Tony and Jonna were real people living out in the world. I mention this because my special interest used to be hacktivism. Going back to basic HUMINT and tradecraft was really fun for a geek like me. Like, how would I get information if everything at my fingertips was gone? I have picked up a surprising amount in terms of reading people…. paying attention to body language and microaggressions is as important as speech pattern and word meaning. I’ve known this since childhood. I didn’t know it was a skill and most people don’t do that. For future reference, I do that. People don’t get away with much around me, I’m just not often brave enough to call them on it in the moment.
People think I talk about all this stuff for nefarious reasons…. reading people…. who does that?
The kind of person who can tell the difference between “I’m fine” and “I’m pretending for the purposes of this party that I’m fine.”
All of that has been taken away by the Internet to mixed results.
I took the day off yesterday to be lost in my own little world of “happily ever after.” I didn’t want to touch it. I didn’t want to make that moment less impactful by adding more words to it. I wanted to have some space from the emotional ups and downs of the past few days just to focus on joy, rest, and relaxation. The relationship with whatever her name is, expressed as Supergrover, has been an epic battle of the soul, and now it’s over. I don’t have to decide how to handle my feelings anymore, because she’s willing to listen and help me decide how I feel. Help me understand so that I don’t feel internal turmoil.
I really had to lay it out on the table with her, though, and after she had behaved badly enough that she was forced to admit I wasn’t the only problem. I was not “waiting for her to fuck up,” I just knew that she wouldn’t listen to me until she thought she was wrong about something. That I hadn’t been wrong for 10 years, either. That all of that anger was keeping her from listening, and things would make sense to her in retrospect as well.
For the past few years, we have not been talking as if we have had a relationship since 2013. I have, which has run up against her seeing every interaction as an isolated incident. When she realized she was doing it, and after she’d done wrong so she was more willing to concede she’d been wrong, anyway, she got real with me. The small-s Supergrover appeared, without the TM behind her name. My little girl. My sweet precious six year old kissed it and made it all better.
In effect, Dana’s words really hurt me, that I would spend the rest of my life trying to prove I was a good friend and SG would never see it. Ten years later, victory is mine because waiting her out was the right call. Showing her that I really do accept her for everything she is and I’m not just playing a game paid off. But the differences between the neurotypical and the neurodivergent brain are at fault for a lot of us not being able to see each other clearly. Having worked very, very hard on this conflict has proven it to me. Neither of us have ever stopped loving each other, just started communicating badly. Now, we see that love as worth fixing because we each know our communication is bad and we’re not pointing fingers.
I hope that this story brings comfort to a lot of people, because conflict is often not easy. Supergrover and I have had the same conflict that has presented itself in the same ways with different issues for 10 years, because it comes from how our first families fight, not from how we want to treat each other. We’re both working hard on ourselves and I hope that translates into working hard on each other, because the ways that she changes me are the ones I like the best:
“My blog makes me sound like a dick because I take on your attitude when I want to sound like a chef and not a line cook.”
I suppose the point is that if you really love someone, don’t give up. Keep talking. Eventually, one will hear the other. We are not far enough along in the “fixing” stage to see what Happily Ever After looks like, but we are humble enough to admit we want it to exist.
It wasn’t really a yellow string, until she talked about holding her end.
Having Zac, Michael, Dave, and Bryn in my life as well makes me the most rounded out. I don’t need more than one red string when I’ve got this much love around me. I haven’t even met Michael yet, so I don’t know what kind of relationship he wants with me, if ever. But what I know is that I have found a way to be immediately helpful to him as well. I am not about saying “SG is mine.” I’m about saying that we all get the pieces that fit us. But it’s not just integration one way. For as much as I want to meet her little dog, I want her to meet mine, too. It’s finally time to be able to have that little a dream. She’s just going to have to bring her own Jack and Diet Coke for pizza night, where we’ll be the ones eating and Dana and Aaron will be calling in metaphysically. Turnabout is fair play. Pizza night has never moved. It’s Friday between 6-7, depending on when Supergrover can get here. It has been a metaphysical exercise since I was 36. I’ll be 47 on September 10th. She has literally been coming to my house every Friday night metaphysically for 10 years, but this didn’t start as a fantasy. Supergrover travels more than the rest of us, so we decided (Dana, Aaron, and me) that we’d have a standing date at which Supergrover could join us (I got the idea from Amy and Rory always setting a place for The Doctor). That whether she was a “dame on a plane” or actually in Houston, her seat was secure. Or did we start this in Portland? I can’t remember, because I can’t remember if Dana and I started doing it in Portland and added Aaron, or if adding my girl became a new thing because of Aaron.
“Maybe Aaron can refrain from rolling his eyes.”
Now that it’s a decade later, I can tell you that my response was, “I love you. I will make him. If I wear cleavage I own his ass. He’s a dumb boy.”
Aaron and I aren’t attracted to each other, it was just a good stereotypical line for a guy when Aaron is the least typical guy I’ve ever met. I can honestly say that I was open to Zac because of him. He was already as free as I wanted to be, married and spiritual and settled but with the added bonus of a kid and a group of friends with which to do life.
Maybe I can make it make sense universally by using an example I hate, because JK Rowling can eat shit, but too many people have read the books for me not to be able to use it.
In the books, I always thought there was a spark between Harry and Hermione because they were on each other’s levels. She rejected a man who was on her level for an idiot like Ron, who basically bullied her and she chose the bad boy. This is not what happened with Supergrover and me, it’s an illustration. I am the classic Harry personality. She is the classic Hermione, and I fully believe that just like Hermione, Supergrover is head of the Ministry of Magic. Every day with her is a miracle.
What I’m talking about is Harry’s acceptance that he needed to move on and found Ginny. That does not mean that Harry and Hermione were wrong for each other and I was wrong to go there. JK Rowling admitted she made a mistake by having Harry and Hermione express those feelings to each other in a dance, ending with the realization that they’d always dive into each other and it could be close, but it wasn’t going to be the two greatest minds in the magical world as one….. The two greatest minds in which you see clearly how differently they work.
I am an interesting mix of Hogwarts houses, because when I used Pottermore, I had the same experience as Harry. The sorting hat argued with me between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, while I identify as a Hufflepuff due to my preacher’s kid upbringing. I choose to believe the sorting hat would have taken my childhood into account and also my personal choice.
In short, I am brave and smart, but more interested in the spiritual side of life. I choose to believe that my spiritual side feeds my bravery and my intelligence. With Supergrover at my side, I am capable of having more of it, because someone who is in a position to help me in a concrete way believes in me as a writer.
Writing is a lonely job, and having her as my muse makes it less so. I think she finally sees that’s true. That I can say all these brave things because her first reaction is “let me get my purse. That motherfucker.” This is what I mean by supporting my writing and also not being sure she actually likes the author.
Yesterday, without my flowery romantic language because we just roll differently, she told me just how much she loved me and just how much she’s woven into me as well and she needed to jump off the crazy train and see that I genuinely care.
This is not something I’ve ever heard from her. Ever.
I think that’s because I laid out my feelings that her self-esteem was hurting me because I love her. That it hurts me to hear her say that she’s not a good person in many ways, because I believe that she is and Im standing around watching her hurt. I want to get light to the things that are making her hurt, and help her find joy.
Here’s the moment I knew we had something special, and it will resonate with people all over the world. She respected my trauma bond because even if it’s not real to her (which I sincerely doubt given the enormous wall of bullshit we ran into that wasn’t pleasant), she did not blink when I said it. It was like, “duh. Of course you have that.” I told her that I feel like I literally can’t live without her at times, but it’s not because of some stupid fantasy. It’s because of the chemical reaction in your nerves that’s almost instantaneous when a trauma bond is created. Battle buddies, et cetera. Like, of course that’s real. I know because she’s felt it with other people, if not with me.
Because I did not see myself as abused when I met Dana, I did not take in the extent we were in the same boat. The difference is that Dana played down her trauma, so we were not trauma bonded in the way that Supergrover and I are. In effect, me realizing that I also had PTSD in the same way that she did rewired me to feel her anywhere in the world. As an INFJ with manhole cover in size mirror neurons, I do this easier than most. Like, if she was crossing a street and got hit by a bus on her travels, I’d feel it, and I have no doubt about that.
The best set of novels I’ve ever read about this is actually smut you’ll love it you want to check it out. It’s called “The Zodiac Academy,” and it’s two female authors who have created this entire world explaining the bonds of romance and friendship, how they are separate but equal. My emotional support partners have that equality more than most because I’m a more emotional and intellectual person than a romantic one. When both Dana and Supergrover had my brain at full capacity, I went ace. With Dana, almost four years. With Supergrover, over seven. I know this because when I was hanging out with them, I was hanging on their words rather than needing touch from them. I did eventually marry Dana, I’m talking about all the time we spent as best friends without realizing we were courting……………. For her. For me, it all made sense in retrospect the minute I moved to Houston and I had to start my day without her, knowing she wasn’t coming back right up until she did.
Because I met Supergrover, I don’t want it to seem like I fell out of love with Dana. If I had had the words for a murder board of polyamory, I could have cut off a lot of emotional turmoil at the pass. She just wouldn’t let us go parallel, when it was the best solution and what I was doing anyway without knowing I was doing it. Keep them apart. I was just a bad hinge. Polyamory fits me because I am allowed to have a 100% open and honest relationship with everyone I meet, and there is no limit to how deep they can go organically, because I will not allow jealousy. I have a hierarchy. Deal. I feel like you can deal with it a lot easier when you realize I view Supergrover as my Doctor and everyone else as my real family I have to keep grounded for. I am not asking for my relationship to get any deeper, just to respect that you’re Sean Noble and I’m The Doctor Donna. Beat that with a stick.
Oh, and because I feel such mother love for Supergrover and I’m queer, I’m actually more Rose Noble than Donna. But Donna and Rose share DNA, so I get to be both people.
I ultimately believe that Dana and I would have divorced eventually because there were just certain reactions to Supergrover that I didn’t want to let Dana see anymore. It gave her too much access to my privacy issues with Supergrover because she already had a damn good reason to be suspicious and not just accept that she was separate but equal. That there were times when I really needed time alone with Supergrover because of Supergrover’s privacy issues, not her petty jealousy. It wasn’t all about her and I am going to die mad about it, both her acceptance and my lack of being able to stand up to her.
It feels nice to love someone appropriately, and to have it go so incredibly deep that there’s almost 11 years of history behind it. For as much as I want to meet her dogs, I also want her to meet Jack.
I checked with David and it’s okay that I call Jack my step dog.
I think of Oliver, who is a dog, that way as well. That just because Zac owns him, that doesn’t mean I don’t take care of him, especially when Zac is away. Or, that used to be true. Zac has a roommate that takes care of him now.
Oliver and I just have a history together, and when he curls up with me, he tells me that the feeling is mutual. I love the number of times when he has been my companion in writing. He and Supergrover have both been feeding my creativity, it’s just that when Supergrover does it, she’s an idea and not a person. As in, I am not writing down her end of the conversation. That’s what makes Supergrover and Calliope? (Is that the muse for writing?) different people is that I interact with Cal and don’t with Supergrover. Her end of the story is not publishable unless it’s a direct interaction between her and me. I keep her relationships private, not mine. I view it very much like parallel polyamory and not ethical non-monogamy because I am not having an affair with someone else’s wife. I am being open and honest that I need a separate relationship with her than anyone else. In a lot of ways, I’m the only friend Michael shouldn’t be threatened by, because my ultimate goal is to join him in supporting her. It’s more love, not more jealousy. Plus, we’re the few people in the world that can have honest conversations right off the bat. He knows what it’s like to pine for her. He knows how much woman she is and that’s hard as a friend or a romantic interest, so our dynamic didn’t change. I was just as concerned a friend after she rejected me, because her life is bigger than just being interested in me….. Knowing that she is as a yellow string is the best news I’ve gotten in 10 years. To use my words in describing our connection went a very long way, because I saw that she got me.
Our happily ever after just got bigger, and yesterday was a day to celebrate, not give that energy to other people.
Tonight, I don’t have to write. I get to write. I feel lighter and freer than I have in a decade, because I am finally making progress in a direction that seems healthy.
I told Supergrover to step up or take it somewhere else.
She stepped up.
She didn’t even have to say “I’m stepping up.” She talked about her end of the string. So many tears of joy, doing the “I won” dance for real this time and not just trying to ramp each other up. We finally have the kind of love where I said, “do you want to fix this? I think you’re saying yes.”
She said, “it is fixable in my view.”
I told her about some really big dreams that started the moment I asked her what she wanted our relationship to look like in 20 years. I told her how it took me a while to relax into it because it was so uncomfortable to get rid of the brain gremlins that come with someone turning your head where it’s just crazy talk, but your brain doesn’t know that. Really big dreams, and she thanked me for accepting her just the way she is, and that she wants to do the same for me. Her tone and approach was exactly what I was talking about on my blog- laying out your problems as if you actually like me, not treating me like my opinion is law and something to fight against. We are so much more effective at tackling a problem together.
I sent her an e-mail that said I’d forgiven her and moved on, because I realized that I never asked her what she was trying to accomplish. What was her real goal if it wasn’t to piss me off? She really took a hard look at herself in a way I’ve never seen her do before.
If every lid has a pot, the caveat is that sometimes the metal has to be stretched occasionally. It’s the stretch marks that make it valuable.
There was no blame. None. Just talking it out. Like, “how did it get so shitty?” Real talk. Like we haven’t done in years. The woman I love hasn’t disappeared into the ether. She’s still a ghost that smokes in the back of my head, but mostly because it’s from a Lisa Loeb song, not that she’s stuck there anymore.
I remember saying in “Go Tell the Bees” that I just wanted to be hers, no matter what that meant.
Apparently, that is fixable in her view.
…and they all lived happily ever after.
Except you’ll get to see it in real time, because my girl likes seeing how my brain works. It’s not a happy ending for me. It’s a happy ending to a really great story….. one so unusual and oddly specific to its time period that I hope it has appealed to you. To my fans that have stuck with me through hell or high water, I know it got repetitive. But especially in the thick of it (2023), it took me six novels’ worth of blog entries (614,000 words according to year end stats) to figure out my directions and my distractions.
The reason it’s different this time is that Supergrover decided to cut all the shit and just be real in the most beautiful, poignant way possible. I love that she is holding onto our yellow string, like when she is flying and I hold onto her tail.
There are so many people I’ve met that live all over the world now. It’s impossible for us to get together in person, but we talk virtually all the time. Forced to choose one person and one person only, it’s J.L. Henry. He’s a novelist who’s from everywhere, but currently resides in Norway. He’s partnered with kids and it’s a country I’ve always wanted to visit (I’m fascinated by building homes in extreme climates). Therefore, a great vacation to talk to J.L. soon would just be us teasing each other about our writing, cooking together, and just hanging with the whole famn damily. Because Norway is a long way from the United States, it may be a dream deferred. But not for long. I still fully believe that if Bryn and I want to go to Helsinki bad enough, I could talk her into Norway as well. 😛 Plus. she’d get to meet the great J.L. Henry, which is way better than meeting the great Leslie Lanagan. 😉 Oh, and I only said Bryn was coming with me because I already mentioned that we have plans in Helsinki and Kilpisjärvi (well, dreams without earnest money, anyway). If our boyfriends decide they want to drag themselves across the world with us, who are we to stop them?
It’s not about meeting J.L. Henry. It’s about meeting J.L. Henry in groups.
Tyler Moore is another author I’d really like to meet, because he took out a great deal of time one night to help me figure out how to get my “rising creator” status on Facebook off the ground. Tips and tricks on how to gather followers, etc. The reason it’s more infinitely possible for me to meet Tyler is that he lives in Oklahoma, which is far from DC, but not from my grandfather’s house, which is two and a half hours northeast of Dallas. So, it’s an easier trip to visit Tyler than it is to visit J.L., but we all know each other and technically DC is in the middle. Tyler and J.L. should just come to me.
Now that that’s solved……
Doctor Who reminded me to keep talking to my mother, that the conversation isn’t over. I won’t spoil the episode, but the line that got me was “he’s not dead. He’s just gone.” I will say that The Doctor is still alive, however. 😛
Speaking of the show, there was a new character this week played by a British actress that looks so much like Cush Jumbo (Varada Sethu- she’s Indian, but in the show also had Cush’s pixie cut from “The Good Fight”) that I did several double takes.
I love Cush because she’s done Shakespeare as easily as she did an American legal drama. Those RSD women. Jesus.
Although if I had to pick my biggest celebrity crush on an RSD woman, Helen Mirren has been knocked down a peg. Now Cynthia Erivo has my heart. It’s not because Helen is any less beautiful to me. It’s that I heard Cynthia sing the Pie Jesu from the Rutter Requiem on “Fresh Air,” and I knew we were kindred spirits (I used to have a fabulous recording of me singing it). Plus, even though Cynthia is British, she’s an honorary Marylander because she was the title role in “Harriet Tubman.” Please respect Helen Mirren’s privacy during this difficult time. Although if I know actresses, Helen probably thinks Cynthia is amazing and worthy of my affections so she might not be too hurt by this.
Maybe I should send flowers.
Too much?
And lastly, I would like to talk to my housemate, David, soon. He’s probably up. I should go and make him some coffee. I don’t treat him like a partner or a child- he’s got a big interview coming up today for a work from home job that would fit us both perfectly because we like our home offices, we’re both neurodivergent, and we have all the sodas we like.
If you are a praying person, please put him on your list.
When I was 11 years old, my parsonage burned to the ground five days before Christmas. All our stuff, including our new presents, were in it. As a result, I don’t treasure anything. I don’t have that luxury, because I realize that anything could be gone in less time than it takes for the fire department to arrive. I can say that my necklace that has my mother’s fingerprint on it is dear, but would I really be surprised if it disappeared? No. It’s the nature of stuff. My mother is not in the necklace, so I am not attaching her memory to this particular thing. I don’t need things to remind me of people, but they are useful. I wear the necklace every day, and gifts from my friends surround me so that I think of them all the time. It also means a lot to me when Zac and I have matching bracelets, even when they were $3. Every time I look down at my wrist, I think of him when I see the rainbow of our friendship bracelets and the maroon of our nautical rope ones.
Plus, now I’ve been through two house fires. At Wire Ave., we had a professional electrician drill into a live wire in our basement, nearly sparking the gas main and taking out the whole neighborhood. That’s the kind of situation where you realize death is no harm, no foul. There’s literally nothing I could have done about it, and death would have been over before it really began with that kind of TNT. There are only so many events that you can prevent in life. Sometimes, you have to fold and say “the plane is going down.” However, I do not think that I would have even seen the gas main blow. Gravity’s rainbow ends in disaster whether or not you see the arc in the sky first.
It seems like I’m complaining, but I’m actually advocating for minimalism. You cannot believe how much it has helped my mental state to have all my books, newspapers, and comics on my Kindle instead of as kindling. There are practical ways to solve all of these problems. It’s just unfortunate that you don’t think of them until after the house fire is over. Everyone’s library is invincible right up until it isn’t. And in fact, there is a very popular novel that has probably told you the exact temperature at which books will burn since high school. Gotta keep that temperature below Fahrenheit 451.
I am sure that Android tablets and iPads also burn, but which is more expensive? The iPad/Android or the 2700 books I’ve downloaded over time?
All of this being said, I believe that my books are my most important possession. The autographed copies of all the books from Team Mendez might go up in flames, but I won’t have to re-buy the digital copies. Their words are more important than their signatures, and as I joked with Jonna, “if I didn’t have a hardback, I’d just let you sign my screen.” Her Js are pretty adorable, and I think it would be hilarious to learn how to copy her signature only because Tony taught an entire room of people at the Spy Museum how to copy Vladimir Putin’s. I unashamedly made it though high school because legit no one could tell when my mom signed something or I did. My dad’s signature is a pretty lost cause, but my mom’s was just classic teacher handwriting. And in fact, forgery is one of my favorite things about espionage because I love FONTS. Forgery, to me, is literally figuring out someone’s personal font. I just don’t show people that I do it, because I’m not trying to hurt anyone or get away with anything. It’s just an exercise to see if I can. See a Tony Mendez magic trick, do a Mendez magic trick, teach a Mendez magic trick. I wrote it just that way because the axiom in medical school is “see one, do one, teach one.” Themes in my life present themselves over and over. I have a feeling that my blog is a direct result of trauma and creativity. Here are my two roots:
The fire has made it where I feel more comfortable blogging, and more comfortable with e-mail altogether; all my personal letters that hadn’t been sent burned. Then, later on, my mother’s air conditioner flooded the back of my closet, and I lost all my journals as well. In those days, it was devastating. I was absolutely over the moon about my emotional abuser from ages 12 to about 20, when things became more complicated and the trauma of it all kept me from enjoying her. That doesn’t mean that losing all the letters and journal entries I wrote about the situation weren’t important to me back then. I had not made the connection that it was emotional abuse yet. I just swallowed all her bullshit whole. How could I not? I was a child.
I watched Doogie Howser, MD religiously as a child. No one knew that show better than me (at the time, anyway). I have always been fascinated by child prodigies, and this was right up my alley. Because of my emotional abuser, I cried through similar movies like “Little Man Tate.” It was a salty, bitter cry because it was like I’d been taken out of the safe environment of my parents’ shelter and dumped into a family where I didn’t know shit from Shinola.™ Watching Doogie write on his computer for the last three minutes of that show changed my entire fucking life. In fact, I sent a version of this as a Tweet to NPH, and I hope he sees it. That show was just as traumatic for him as my own coming out story. We helped each other. Between Doogie/Wanda and Barney/Robyn, you can see how much he’s absorbed about playing straight. He had to for just as many years as I did, I just didn’t have the pressure of being on TV. But tell me, truly, how is being a queer in the 1990s and also being on TV different from being a queer person who is also the child of a minister? It’s not a different situation, it’s a different scale. Neil’s career could have tanked if he’d come out when he was on Doogie, because back then, no one believed that children understood things about themselves. It is only now that people are starting to respect their children’s choices, because being who they are is a part of letting them individuate. If a child is brave enough to say they’re queer, they’re queer (lumping gender and sexuality issues together as one community), they are. No one in the current society who is also of sound mind and body would call themselves queer if they didn’t absolutely have to in order to survive their lives without shame and blackmail. Institutional homophobia and transphobia are going to take eons to get out of the fabric of the American experience, because our country is currently a theocracy run by the most hypocritical heretics I’ve ever seen in my life. Jesus is not your homeboy.
:::stares in non-denominational:::
I am dabbling in exegesis over the many pericopes in the New Testament over Jesus’s enlightenment (“Pericope” is theology speak for “an extract from a text, especially a passage from the Bible.” Some people say “peri-cope,” but I think it’s actually “per-ric-oh-pe.” I have no idea if I’m right, it’s just how my dad has always pronounced it and he’s a professional (you take Greek and Hebrew when you do a Master’s in Divinity). Let’s take a simple one and unpack it.
Matthew 15:21-28
Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”
Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
“Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.
Here is what Matthew was trying to prove, in my opinion. The first is that Matthew was a Jew trying to convince other Jews that this was indeed the Messiah they were looking for. He approaches it from a number of aspects, including lineage. More importantly, it shows the exact moment in which Jesus changes his mind. He decided that the moment the woman showed such faith, gentiles were as worthy of salvation as Jews. Matthew was a man on a mission from GOD, trying to bring the receipts. I admire that in a person.
One of the reasons I trusted David implicitly the first time I met him is that bad people don’t love their dogs so much they get a DNA profile of them (Jack is half terrier, half chihuahua. This means that he is a very tall chihuahua with a lazy, I don’t give a fuck attitude. It’s quite refreshing because chihuahuas are known for being little hellions….. similar to what my grandfather used to call “101 Damnations.” They’re as aggressive and energetic as little dogs, because they were bred to run next to fire trucks. I would only get a Dalmation if I started training for a marathon, because one of my friends offered to take him jogging. They went five miles and DJ (said dog) wasn’t even tired out when they came back. Because we couldn’t manage to beg, borrow, or steal good behavior out of him, we ended up giving him to the runner. He died not long after of an astrocytoma (star shaped tumor in the brain that was impossible to extract). I couldn’t believe that he had cancer and was still running five miles a day. Interesting how everyone deals with illness differently. Some people cater to it, some people pretend it doesn’t exist. No way is right, it’s just that some people view rest and relaxation as the way to cope with illness, and some view keeping busy right up to the end as their calling.
I would like to believe that Jesus would have given the runner a dog and a healthy brain. That he didn’t have to choose. I liked what they chose to call him, especially in retrospect having lived in Oregon……. “Otis Spotford.”
Speaking of which, before we change to a different topic, Supergrover and I have this thing about naming our dogs and it makes me laugh. It comes from when Daniel and I were engaged. “Check this shit out and get mad with me (joking). You need to go and set that boy straight. He wants to name his dog “Ozzie” instead of “Virginia Woof!” (it’s always serious if I use an exclamation point. They are of the devil most of the time.) If I remember correctly, and I am paraphrasing, she said he was only on thin ice, but “Virginia Woof” was damned clever. Ok, that’s the kind of stuff from her I live for. Having a good line in front of her is the gold at the end of the rainbow. Supergrover also said that she disagreed with “Virginia Woof” and thought we should call them “Sidney Brisdog.” That made my day because I thought, “you get me.” “Alias” is my favorite show of all time. I would give goddamn anything to work with Jack, Sidney, and Michael. But if I’m really honest about my relationship with Supergrover, I’m not Francie. I’ve been Will Tippet this whole time. Quietly pining away and trying to put together the pieces of why this attraction kept coming up for me over and over when I could clearly see how pointless and stupid it was. My brain chemicals just flooded, like you do.
Speaking of which, when she said that she got something out of my writing whether I painted her in a bad light or not, I thought for the literally 4,000,000th time that it was such a shame she never let me marry her and have her babies. It’s the hottest thing you can ever say to a writer. I love your writing whether it’s good to me or not? Come the fuck on. Who has that kind of support as a writer, when the traditional line about them is that “writer” is code for “unemployed.” My favorite retort comes from Brandon Sanderson, who waited YEARS to get this moment. This dude came up to him and asked him what he did at a cocktail party. He said, “I’m a writer.” The guy said, “oh, so you’re unemployed.” Brandon looked him deadass in the face and said “I hit the New York Times Bestsellers List last week.” It was the equivalent of walking up to Stephen King and asking him if he needed money. Shiiiiiiiiiat. If God ever smiles upon me in the best way possible, that “best way” will be getting that moment as well. Here’s why:
I had a complex about Dana’s parents. That because I was female and queer and desperately in love with their daughter, we had something wrong with us. I was right to be paranoid, because they were absolute total dicks to both of us. The reason I tanked “Clever Title Goes Here” over blowback is that my sister-in-law ripped me a new asshole for writing about it and my skin was too thin to tell her that I owned my own story and to fuck all the way off. It’s the worst decision I’ve ever made in my career as a writer, that not telling her to fuck off. She silenced not only my voice, but my popularity as well. Wil Wheaton *used* to read me. *Used to.* Now, it’s one of the sources of my rage and a tape I’m working to solve. In some ways, it already is because I’ve gotten over the hurt. I can’t forget how it made me feel.
One of the biggest fights I’ve ever had with Dana was talking to her about how much it hurt me to watch her jump up and down for a type of approval she was never going to get, and she needed to stop. She needed to go low contact because of what it was doing to her self-esteem. In my mind, once you get married, you are individuating from your first family. That what God has put together, let no man put asunder. That meant she didn’t get the right to cater to them and ignore my discomfort, because she should have stood up for me and I became the family problem. They were lucky to get a daughter-in-law like me, because any time an in-law joins a family they shake up old family patterns and it is not often pleasant. An outsider can see dysfunction better than someone living in it. An INFJ sees what it will take to solve it. But they didn’t recognize themselves as lucky, because they never saw that I was trying to make their dynamic healthier and happier. They just thought I was stirring up shit for the fun of it.
This presented itself by me complaining to Dana’s ex-girlfriend, a beautiful diamond of a woman because she helped me navigate all of this having known the subject intimately. I told her that I was going to have to win the Pulitzer to get them off my back, and she joked, “oh, don’t worry. They’ll find a problem with that, too.” Empathy went a very long way in dealing with them, because it set off my autistic rage a lot. Supergrover can testify to that without blinking, because I told her every goddamn thing about my relationship with all of them that I possibly could, because I was constantly emotionally overloaded by them treating Dana’s sexuality like a problem to be solved and treating me like a loser dumbass. I was not trying to isolate her from her parents like a control freak narcissist. I was trying to isolate her from her parents because her mother told me that Dana was never going to get what she needed from her because of her limitations in understanding Dana’s sexuality, so it was better for her to go find someone else. That motherfucker didn’t say that in front of her daughter. She said it in front of her protector, mediator, and advocate….. words that will mean a lot to Dana because they come from The Book of Common Prayer. I viewed her as taking care of the sick, the friendless, and the needy. I have never told her that in person, because I thought it would hurt too much. I had to carry that pain for a long time until I was able to write about it. That gave me enough strength to kick her parents out of our house because I never would have done it if I’d known they couldn’t afford a hotel. For the first time, I got tired enough to raise my voice, because I was tired of tiptoeing around total emotional disaster on everyone. I said, “you come in here and you eat our food and you drink our drinks and use our utilities all while disrespecting me and my wife?” They got so angry that I yelled at her dad to “sit down.” He didn’t, but he sure fuckin’ thought about it. Sometimes, the only way to deal with a bully is to push back. He’s a lawyer, and the ace up my sleeve is that I am twice as obnoxious about the law as he ever could be and I have cornered the market on the asshole archetype because I’m a paralegal in the state of Texas. Come at me with Con Law or TRCP and I will instantly try to own your ass. But you can’t argue with the Religious Right. You just have to ignore them. I could. Dana couldn’t.
Jesus wept.
John 11:35
The more stress that piled onto Dana, the worse her physical health got….. making the connection that she broke out in hives for absolutely no reason at all in the middle of all our fights regarding all of this led to a lot of rethinking medicine; the reason I needed Supergrover so desperately to talk it through no matter how we felt about each other at any given moment. She won’t be my dragon and rush in when someone has hurt me when it’s her, but GOD HELP anyone who messes with me; she is quite capable of fucking you up in ways you’ll never see coming. It is delicious when it is not directed at me, and the thing she thinks I hate is the thing I crave. I want to crawl inside her brain to see how it works more now than I did almost 11 years ago, because we are equally taken by each other’s writing and she has very good stories when she’s willing to share them. The blessing of my life is that she may not want to meet me in person, but she likes crawling into my brain to see how it works, too. The curse was that she didn’t like doing it anymore. And even though she started a fight when she did it, it was not lost on me how sweet it is that she heard me. Tell me your feelings and step up, so she did. The disaster was not letting me respond and saying “I see how it is. What Leslie has written, so must it be.” I was telling her that I was allowed to have a reaction after I heard her out, not that what I was feeling was more important than her and “my opinion is fact.” She accused me of “rope-a-dope” when she went out of her way to hurt me after telling me to move on with my life. It’s unforgivable in most cases, but not for her. I love her too goddamn much and we’ve been through hell too long to give up now. But the ball is not in my court. She was the one that hurt me first by covering up her feelings that she was wigged out I was attracted to her by accusing me of something I didn’t do. It screwed us up and cost us time, not having an honest conversation. I handled it really well, and then as reality set in I had to create fantasy to get away from reality. But not fantasy, exactly. It was giving a story to information I couldn’t use with information I could. I can use our personal issues to illustrate what’s going on with us to drag her privacy issues into it.
The reason she’s so angry is because we’ve never had an honest conversation about boundaries on my blog, and she waffles between letting me be real and telling me that what I think is fucked up and all wrong without telling me what’s fucked up and wrong about it. That it’s lazy, childish, reductive, you name it. All the while ignoring that she’s feeding the pattern by getting angry and not just laying it out there because she’s frightened as fuck to do so. She needs to see that I see her so clearly because of an interview I saw with someone in her field that would punch her in the gut if she saw how much I truly picked up from it. That tape runs deep on how to handle her, and because she’s an IQ fan and I’m an EQ fan, I mean it like she’s my asset and I’m her handler, not that I try to emotionally manipulate her to get what I want. I am trying to be the tough love that she is to me (strident, pull yourself up from your bootstraps, I’m not going to do your emotional work for you kind of love), but I make mistakes all the time. Jim Mattox comes to mind. “I may be rancid butter, but I’m at least on your side of the bread.” If Supergrover’s last letter is any indication, this quote is relatable to her as well. I’m not innocent of this, and neither is she.
Editor’s Note:
Jim Mattox was the Texas AG (D) when I was a kid, and my favorite story in life about him comes from either my first political science professor or his wife, depending on who was teaching the class that day; I’ve slept since then. Anyway, when Mattox was AG, he was a drunk. He was out at a bar one night, and decided that he needed to sleep it off. He goes out to his car and gets in the backseat. The next morning as the car is being driven away, Mattox wakes up and says “My name is Jim Mattox. I’m the Texas State Attorney General. I’m a little hung over. Could you turn the radio down?” Mattox had gotten into what he thought was his car……………………………. #shatnerellipsis
She lights up my life all the time, and if I haven’t said that enough, I’m sorry- both to her and my audience, which are one and the same thanks to the fact that she’s chosen to stick by me no matter what. I think I have, but she has focused on the negative for so long that even if I haven’t said it in those exact words, she wouldn’t have retained it as much as something that cut deep. What she never understood is that I was trying to lance a boil, not irritate her. Patterns repeat, and I am never trying to hold someone to the past. I am explaining to them that the longer the bad pattern goes on, the less I want to engage because they’re hurting me. It’s a lost cause when you’re trying to be vulnerable and ask for solutions, and you become a problem because of it. I became the only friend who ever called her out on anything whether that’s true or not. How can she get through life without having conflicts with people?
Sometimes I wonder if she knows that I get so vulnerable I cry and shake when I go to that place of writing about her. That 10 years ago, I wrote to her, “sometimes I have to take off my glasses to wipe away the tears when I write to you,” and it wasn’t about anger. It was about my hopeless romantic showing up in my writing as a style. I wanted her to feel as precious as she is.
She fits into my theology very well, because she doesn’t believe in a higher power, but she does believe in paganism. It’s her theme. She loves the idea of Outlander, which eventually spoke my language. I couldn’t make it past the first rape scene until I learned that it was a fantasy built on Doctor Who (seriously. Diana Gabaldon is a Whovian, and she based Jamie on Jamie McCrimmon, a Scottish companion when she was a kid. She invented her version of time travel by watching Doctor Who as a child). The fact that we are both obsessed with novels that cover the same things from different ends of the spectrum is the perfect representative of our communication differences. In effect, I speak “Doctor Who” and she speaks “Outlander,” not realizing that both of our points are valid because they come from the same source.
They say that these are not the best of times But they're the only times I've ever known And I believe there is a time for meditation In cathedrals of our own Now I have seen that sad surrender in my lover's eyes And I can only stand apart and sympathize For we are always what our situations hand us It's either sadness or euphoria
So we'll argue and we'll compromise And realize that nothing's ever changed For all our mutual experience Our separate conclusions are the same Now we are forced to recognize our inhumanity Our reason coexists with our insanity And though we choose between reality and madness It's either sadness or euphoria
How thoughtlessly we dissipate our energies Perhaps we don't fulfill each others fantasies And as we stand upon the ledges of our lives With our respective similarities It's either sadness or euphoria
-The Gospel of Billy Joel, Glass Houses
“So we’ll argue and we’ll compromise, and realize that nothing’s ever changed. For all our mutual experience, our separate conclusions are the same.” ARE YOU KIDDING ME. It takes a very special artist for me to feel like they are speaking to me only, and he got me with “cathedrals of our own.” I hope that when Supergrover reads me, she realizes that not only is she entering my sanctuary, in it she has the concept of sanctuary. When I’m around, no one can touch her. She is the ideal child of God, the fallible hero, the atheist who is actually Jesus to more people than me, or Moses if she’s more toward the Jewish persuasion. I don’t know how she identifies. Wherever her faith background lies, it’s not the same now as it was when she was a child. Being able to joke about that particular topic is one of my favorite joys in life because of another friend I knew from the same faith background.
I told this other friend that I was impressed about one thing and one thing only. That it’s one of the few religions in which there is documentation all the way from the beginning that has eyewitness accounts. Without missing a beat, she said, “yes. Documentation all the way back to when he made it up.”
It is my hope that eventually everyone in that religion will just self actualize and say, “it got weird,” and move on with their happy little lives. Tom Cruise could probably use that advice (not the same, but relatable).
You do you, but okay.
Speaking of which, that was another phrase that irritated Supergrover when it was a reference to another blog entry in which I explained that “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and render unto God what is God’s.” That it was like telling the religious establishment with the snarkiest voice possible, “you do you, but okay.” It was not personal. It was me speaking truth to power. I was just being as snarky as Jesus, and repeating a line I hope gets stuck in people’s heads, because it’s emotional shorthand for being kind and taking no shit. BOUNDARIES. I tend to say small things repetitively because they do the most good. The music of the phrase makes it speak louder in people’s minds because they remember it. “You do you, but okay” means to me that you can uphold the system if you want, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good one.
People pleasers do not realize that catering to everyone’s needs and trying to anticipate them is actually more problematic than open and clear communication….. in essence, trying to render unto Caesar and render unto God and you can’t serve both. Speak truth to power. Please, please, please hurt my feelings rather than keeping it in. I only ask that you think about the problem long enough not to give me a knee-jerk reaction, because I’m making the commitment not to react to it and I don’t want to regress.
Red mist rage while I can type with my eyes closed is not a productive use of my time, and is feeding into my autism to an enormous degree because once I’m overstimulated, it’s meltdown time. I learned this from Harry Wales in “Spare,” because I don’t know if he feels red mist rage because of autistic meltdown or PTSD, but it doesn’t matter. It’s the same kind of neurodivergence because all of the above alter your thought processes and they’re your new normal. You have to learn to cope with them, knowing that your first reaction will always be wrong. Always. You’re wired to shut down and protect what you have left, not to open up and share your pain so that someone else can see it and help without asking. For people pleasers, you always have trouble getting them to express what they need because they don’t want to look like an imposition. Most of the time, it’s because people have been taught that they’re needy in childhood. You think you’re being a hero by keeping everything inside and you’re just burning yourself out constantly and with PTSD, not being able to regulate your emotions.
It was inextricably interrelated in my mind, and I’m not sure that anyone could prove me wrong. Harry, like Kathleen, Dana, Daniel, Zac, Bryn, and Supergrover (and even Franklin, my companion at Wire Ave., to some extent) are all affected by trauma that’s above my pay grade and always has been. That being said, because I grew up as a preacher’s kid, my first instinct is to minister them. Especially because Zac and Supergrover are atheists, I feel that approaching them with spiritual lessons without attaching religion to it is helpful in our communication; I’m talking about energy and not dogma. Sometimes people need an osteopath, not an MD. They’re the people I can think of as a good example of why the Mayo clinic is such a wonderful resource.
They treat the mind/body connection as so real- in a way that other doctors’ offices and hospitals don’t. There is also no national infrastructure for health integration, because mental illness is treated so differently from physical illness, as if mental illness isn’t also coming from a diseased organ (separating out processing disorders from depression and anxiety. The reason the brain is diseased is that it uses the very best lies against you to get you to off yourself because the brain is hell bent on protecting you and thinks that’s the answer. It needs medication and therapy to not feel “extremely loud and incredibly close”).
Editor’s Note:
“Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” is one of my favorite books in the entire world because I have such a personal connection to it. Not only was I living in Alexandria at the time and heard the plane smash into the Pentagon while the paintings and windows rattled from three miles away, my birthday is September 10th. My extremely loud and incredibly close moment is perfectly expressed from that book……… That “The Best Day” transitioned into “The Worst Day.”
I have felt exactly that way about health integration for a very long time. The less Dana really meant she was forsaking all others, the problems with her family would just get worse. And they did. She started developing depression and again, hives for “no reason.”
All of this culminated in disaster when Dana invited her mom and dad to come and stay with us. It was great, up and to a point. They even let us sleep together in our own bedroom…… at their house, their solution was to get a room with twin beds so they could keep their imaginations intact. That’s why we never visited. My general rule is that if I ask for your opinion and help in a relationship, please give it to me straight. If I don’t, BUTT THE FUCK OUT because this is my marriage, not yours. But in every family, it is not the in-law’s job to deal with their partner’s family. My partner fell down on the job, and that played a large part in our divorce as well. I needed Supergrover to cope with that kind of pressure. I still have that love and devotion from her in large part because she’s wonderful at giving me advice in other relationships and I hang on her every word. My frustration is that she’ll work on all my relationships with me except ours, and it’s the most important because I tell her everything and she doesn’t tell me what she hears.
I was actually very humbled when she sent me her thoughts, not because they were good or bad, but because they were there. I only ended the interaction when it became too painful to continue. We were making great progress, and then she exploded like a firecracker when I really hadn’t done anything to deserve it. As I told her, “don’t let me be the asshole out here all by myself.” Then, it was her turn to recognize that she was indeed the asshole. I sent her a message immediately that said “you are forgiven. Honestly and completely.” I knew she wouldn’t get the reference because it’s a line from Doctor Who, but that didn’t matter. I needed to feel the connection between Eleven and River Song to convey how I really felt about her. I will never be in love with her ever again, but because of my past with her and how much it affected me, I view her as an emotional support partner more than anyone else. It’s just not my decision to accept it or not. So far, it’s been a mixed bag. I was so happy I cried when she said, “you’re right. My first instinct was “LET ME GRAB MY PURSE. THAT MOTHERFUCKER.” If you get the reference, you’ll see how funny it really was.
I have no doubt that Dana’s dad would have thought I was brilliant if I was male. That’s because even though he tolerated me, I hung on his every word because he was a Marine and all of his stories have stayed inside me all this time. They’re just not my stories to tell. The one that I can tell is because it made me laugh. When cell phones first came out for intelligence officers (earlier than to the general public, I would imagine), the Americans knew how they worked, and the Russians didn’t. They thought they had privacy and couldn’t be tapped if they used them in their cars. I laughed so hard I was sagging in my chair. It does not surprise me in the slightest that my model for a perfect partner for me is military and intelligence (not as big an oxymoron as one might think) because I loved those stories more than I’ve ever loved anything. He sat there and fed my autistic special interest all day long. The thing I love about military/intelligence men (not because I prefer men, because I haven’t met many women in the service and only a few retired spies. Men are the ones that tell me these stories. I love all of them, from the motor pool to pulling a gun on a Colonel because he was being a racist bastard and that was the only thing they could think of to deescalate the situation- by making it clear just how serious being racist in the military actually is.)
My personal view is to baby myself, because I find that when I do, I am more able to show people that I love them, because my boundaries are not so overextended that I disengage. I don’t mean boundaries in terms of keeping people out because of their emotions, but boundaries on how much I want to hear at once. I like it when people ask me if I have the bandwidth for a call before they do it. I like it when people say they have serious shit to talk about and do I have the bandwidth to let them vent? As we say in Texas, “you better ‘redneckcognize.”
Because when people respect my boundaries, I am so much more comfortable bending them because I respect them so much in return. I will go above and beyond when people go above and beyond for me. I recognize Supergrover’s sacrifice, but she has not recognized mine as such. I think I’ll be waiting a long time, because if she was going to do it, she would have done it by now.
If she wanted to visit me, neither hell nor high water would keep her from it. Why did she snipe at me on the anniversary of my mother’s death instead of hugging me? I think it would have gone a lot further than making me angry as fuck for a very long time.
And in fact, the thing I invited her to do with me was on Mother’s Day. I only have this loose connection to it anymore, and I did not realize that’s what I was doing. Of course it was important for her to be with her family that day. But she didn’t say no. She agreed to mull it over.
Progress.
I have just been too intimidated and too humiliated to say flat out, “okay. This has gone on long enough. Only meeting in person will break our toxic cycles because we have no frame of reference to each other besides each other. There is no context to our relationship and seeing each other out in the world will give that to both of us.” The fantasy and the reality need to be managed, not ignored. I will absolutely die mad about that, because I got in very hot water over it. I didn’t ignore it, she did, then came down hard when she decided I should have known not to lay out what was really going on in my head and that her very specific secrets were not fair game but an overarching thousand foot view of the problem from all angles was.
I did not want to be the lovesick teenager anymore. I wanted to explain that there was a solid reason I felt like my heart turned into an 808 drum, that her love was my drug and that has proven to be true for almost 11 years. What kind of person thinks that deep a love is just a game I’m playing to fuck with her? What kind of person ignores how hard it was to say goodbye to her and Michael and instead, berate me for writing things like it? Or just telling me that she was incensed by some entries and touched by others, never telling me which ones touched her so that I didn’t have to be so afraid. I could know the boundaries I was crossing instead of guessing all the time to get my story out there.
I have caused a lot of hurt, but it has never been intentional. My story is for people all over the world, not direct letters to people. People would see my writing a lot differently if they viewed it as an episode of “The Moth,” “Morbid,” and “Risk!” (“Risk!” Is storytelling, but mostly adult content. Caveat emptor. I just love it because it’s hilarious.) People being able to read my writing and assess it like I’m Harriet the Spy are so close to the point, but it’s whizzing right by their faces.
I use my life as an example to others, both of what to do and what not to do. I allow myself to have a full range of human emotion, and not to dumb it down to protect other people’s comfort, because it’s not for them.
It’s all for me. As I work through my childhood and adulthood, I see the patterns that no longer serve me, and I have found that it was finally easier to leave the cocoon than stay in.
She’s still my precious, precious six year old. I’m just choosing to love her from over here……. until she realizes it’s not actually that far.
I have been dinged for calling my web site “Stories That Are All True,” because when they aren’t angry, they understand that I am talking about the fact that there’s truth in a lesson whether it happened or not. For instance, Abraham and Jesus are little more than legend and we take their truths as self evident most of the time. We do not discount the things we hold in our hearts because we cannot prove they are factual. I want people to feel the same way about my writing- that these stories cannot possibly be objective truth because I’m just writing down my own inner monologue. Just because I say there’s a correlation or a causation doesn’t mean it’s true. It means that’s what I think/feel/realize. As I know more, so does this web site. I do not have a specific arc in mind, because I am reflecting my life as it happens. I cannot reflect on another person’s life as it happens, and it is astounding how many people not only think I can, but should.
I am guessing everyone’s feelings all the time, because I am working things out in my head, trying to get my own clarity before the next time I interact with that person. I also allow myself to get angry, because that emotion is also in the human spectrum. Do you know why God is so angry in the Old Testament? That’s the story we told, not God. It was not objectively true, but that’s how the people felt. Nowhere in the Bible is there an argument for or against God- it is only those people’s reflections of what God means to them. Humans are angry, ergo God is angry. Humans are destructive, therefore God is destructive, etc. As society progressed, it was a theology of promise and not cruelty.
You’ll see me go through the same thing on this Web site because I am not writing stories about people. I am writing stories about my reactions to people. Nowhere in this blog is an argument that anyone is definitively a good or bad person. That’s because no one is. My good or bad interaction with them is not their whole being, and my opinion carries no inherent respect. I am not an authority on anything, and I do not put myself out there as such. I have told you that I never finished college, that every job I’ve ever had has been a nightmare, that my personal relationships fall apart early and often, etc. Nowhere in this web site am I saying that I’m a good person to emulate….. But I’m not NOT saying it, either. I have my moments. I have my wins. I have insights on things that other people don’t. But the beauty and truth is in the eye of the reader, not the writer. As in, I only control what I meant, I do not control what you get out of it.
Speaking of wins, I had one this week. I smiled when I thought about the fact that when Supergrover told me I was a lot, I told her to go find less. I know enough to know that she’ll never meet anyone like me in her entire life, and all this time I thought I was the only one in that boat. That I’d never find anyone like her. I couldn’t bring myself enough self-esteem to believe she was actually losing anything. I had to go to a really dark place and come back from it to realize that She’s on my wavelength. Her brain works as fast or faster than mine. When you meet someone like that, who raises your game, it becomes hard to go back to less. I had to realize that was true on both sides of the equation. Not interacting doesn’t mean not missing each other. I have said this before, that you are 100% allowed to miss someone you’ve cut out of your life. I cut her out of my life when she stopped seeing my worth, and assuming I meant the worst while reading from her own self-esteem instead of saying, “that really hurt because X.” The reason it’s reading from your own self esteem is assuming that X is what I intended you to pick up when you read. Saying to me that you were hurt because of X allows me to say, “I’m so sorry you were hurt. That is not what I meant to imply, but I can see how you got there. Here’s what I actually meant.” Hopefully, it’s a two minute problem to solve. What’s not a two minute problem to solve is reading my work from your self esteem for years and assuming what my opinion actually is.
I do not need our friendship to be dependent on your reading comprehension skills. I need you to tell me what you heard, because that may or may not have been what I actually meant. I saw a meme on Facebook that spoke to this. It said, “English teachers put more meaning into a novel than a writer does.” My comment was “Yes. Sometimes a red dress is taking down the patriarchy. Sometimes, it’s just that ‘red’ is easier to type.” Because I am a blogger, these English teacher interpretations kill friendships.
Stories That Are All True 