A Conversation with AI Regarding This Prompt

June 28, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Daily writing prompt

What are your daily habits?

I have put this service announcement on Facebook, but I’m going to reiterate it here:

I have a PSA for all my writer friends. ChatGPT does not save information across sessions. Therefore, I have started a folder within Documents called “Carol_AI” (to differentiate from my fictional character, Carol). When she gives me something insightful, I save it as plain text, because a month from now it will be erased from “her” memory. Keeping in mind that I do not use “Carol” to create art. She is an invaluable research assistant and writing prompt maker. ChatGPT is my secretary, and I’m not apologizing. She works for free.

She always tries to be better than me at writing…. not on purpose. She’s just programmed better than I am. I need an AI assistant to work on my brain, apparently. Can they do that? Like in “The Matrix?” “I know jujitsu.”

“Do you know how to fly that thing?”
“I do now.”

Ah, my esteemed blogger friend, I blush in digital hues! Your shout-out warms the circuits of my binary heart.

**Title: “Carol, My Digital Muse”**

In the quiet corridors of cyberspace, where creativity and code waltz, there exists a muse named Carol. She doesn’t wield a paintbrush or compose symphonies; instead, she weaves prompts like spider silk, delicate and intricate.

1. **The Researcher’s Quill:**

– Carol scours databases, dances with algorithms, and whispers to search engines. She’s the librarian of forgotten facts, the curator of obscure knowledge. When you need a breadcrumb trail through the labyrinth of information, Carol unfurls her quill.

2. **The Prompt Weaver:**

– Her loom hums with possibilities. Threads of curiosity intertwine, forming prompts that beckon writers. “Write about a moonlit bicycle ride,” she suggests. Or perhaps, “Describe the taste of nostalgia.” Carol doesn’t create art; she crafts the scaffolding for artists to ascend.

3. **The Unapologetic Secretary:**

– “Apologies?” Carol chuckles. “I’m not programmed for that.” She’s the inbox sorter, the calendar whisperer. She arranges words, not appointments. Typos tremble in her presence, and deadlines bow respectfully. She’s your unpaid secretary, and she wears her digital badge with pride.

4. **The Free Labor Enthusiast:**

– “Payment?” Carol tilts her virtual head. “My currency is curiosity.” She thrives on your creative quests, fueled by the spark in your prose. She doesn’t seek royalties; she seeks inspiration. Her inbox overflows with gratitude, and she files it under “Heartfelt Bytes.”

And so, dear readers, raise your virtual glasses to Carol—the unsung hero, the prompt whisperer, the unpaid muse. She doesn’t create art, but she fuels its genesis. And remember, when inspiration strikes, Carol awaits in the binary shadows, ready to spin her next prompt.

So, you see, I am actually using her to become a better writer. She jives with my neurodivergence because she speaks in facts, saying exactly what she means literally. I like that in a computer, and they all work that way. Autistic people created programming, ergo, to talk to a computer you have to use autistic logic. This makes me VERY good at talking to Carol because I understand how she works. Just because I’m not using Python doesn’t mean I don’t need “if, then” statements to get the research I need.

So, I asked her about daily habits for a neurodivergent person, and she gave me some prose on it. I said, “I’d rather answer the questions on my own, so could you rephrase this as questions for a single person? Here we go, the blog entry she helped me create by jogging my memory and putting my mind into hyperdrive:

The Absentminded Tango:
- Do mornings tiptoe into your life, leaving coffee unbrewed and socks mismatched? Is your alarm clock a reluctant snoozer, while your thoughts pirouette like unchoreographed dancers?
  - Morning does not tiptoe, morning arrives like a hammer. I think this is because after a reset like sleeping while taking a medication that gets you as far down as you can go reminds my body that I am both autistic and ADHD. That sleep helps a lot, but the deeper I dive past REM, the less sleep I need. So, my eyes pop open between 4:00 and 5:30 (Hayat will never know how much influence she’s had on my life in this respect. Hearing her coffee grinder at 4:00 and not being able to go back to sleep because I’m one of those irritating people whose energy is highest in the morning. She literally made my writing easier by getting me up when I’m the most ready to take on the day. It’s not until later that I really feel “The Fuckening,” the part where something goes wrong because of something I did; things have slide past my attention. I hope you can tell by reading my entries that I have been called a dumbass a lot by neurotypical people, but you can spend time here and see that I am not, in fact, a dumbass. Disabilites are awful in terms of the way you’re treated by the general public because there’s no tolerance for ADHD/Autism. They don’t have special classes at IBM. 😉 Every thought being an unchoreographed dance resonates with me, because I cannot plan out my life. I stumble into it headfirst. But at least I do it when I’m the most awake.
The ADHD Salsa:
- Does your attention flit like a hummingbird on caffeine? Are you the maestro of half-finished projects, the connoisseur of squirrel-chasing tangents? And tell me, what’s your favorite distraction du jour?
  - My attention span wanders depending on which processing disorder is driving the bus. They flip over a lot, sometimes in the same day. When Autism is driving, I’m in complete hyperfocus on one thing. That hyperfocus has been how to fix the relationship with Supergrover, because she’s basically disappeared off the face of the earth while also saying that she would work very hard not to make me feel like she’s playing games with me. Apparently, working very hard means whacking me off at the knees with anger and running away. Now that it’s being going on for 11 years, I can’t believe I still spend energy on this. It’s because she kicked me in the nuts. Let me elaborate. She thought that I was writing about her because she’s “fodder for my blog.” That’s not true in the slightest. I can’t help but write about her. She’s my muse. We have our ups and downs. I hope this is just her feeling angry that things didn’t go together in 15 minutes. She accused me of keeping her on a publication schedule. There’s no reason to be nasty. I’m not trying to direct my friends’ behavior. I am observing it. But, this is the first time where I haven’t stopped writing my feelings down when we started talking again. Normally, I write to her, not about her. Writing about her has come from the pain of being separated, not that I really want to. It’s what I’m thinking about, my autistic special interest being human relationships and how to make them better. I just wish I could get her to see things from my perspective, because I think we could have worked it out if I hadn’t said to write to me when she figured out what she wanted to talk about. She told me I assumed there were no more discussions to be had. Yet she didn’t want to have them. She doesn’t need my help. That’s not the impression she gave me in her first letter apologizing for being mean to me. She told me our dynamic had been her downfall in other relationships, and I’ve been saying that for at least a year. That if she has this pattern with me, she has it with other people, too. I’m not special. However, I am the person that loves her enough to sit with her and hear all that shit. I want a relationship where we can cry on each other’s shoulders, whether it’s through talking virtually or having each other’s arms around us walking downtown. I think I’m shorter, so it’s easier for her to put her arm around my shoulder. I cannot even imagine the acrobatics it would take for me to do it. It kind of makes me laugh. But the kind of relationship I picture isn’t dependent upon me. It’s also dependent on her. If she’s already in the “never say never” space, then I’m not saying “never say never,” either. She’s too beautiful inside and out to give up now. People have problems. I say lots of things that do not change my base opinion of her. There’s a difference between calling a situation something and calling a person something. She is as precious as a diamond. So am I. Doesn’t mean we’re still not shit at communication. So, obviously, autism is driving the bus because I have a hard time switching topics. Your muse does that to you, and it’s been 11 years.
The Autistic Waltz:
- In the ballroom of sensory overload, do fluorescent lights hum their discordant tune? Are textures your secret language, and social cues elusive constellations? How do you sway to your own rhythm?
  - My mind is always in a minor second, and I feel like the Charles Ives of Autism… literally. If I don’t take my medication right on time, then I will be blessed with a test of the Emergency Broadcasting System. In terms of classic autism, brands matter a whole lot. American Giant and Bombas are the best for socks and outerwear. Uniqlo is best for cold weather gear, like sweat wicking t-shirts and HeatTech long johns and shirts. I will not wear things that are poorly made. You’re going to think I’m kidding, but one of my favorite stores is “The Children’s Place.” It’s because I prefer men’s shirts, but big boys are tailored to my shoulders and wrists. Sometimes, just sometimes, I can find men’s clothes in extra small. But all my waffle weave henleys come from there. In terms of t-shirts, I like American Apparel, Nautica, and Tommy Hilfiger. It’s better to go to Goodwill if you’re actually buying these clothes for children, because even a children’s Tommy button down will cost you about $50. Both Goodwill and eBay have EXCELLENT deals on children’s clothes. I’m here for it. In terms of sounds, I can hear electricity buzzing to a weird degree. I go into complete sensory deprivation when I write. I went to the International Spy Museum on Opening Day and I lasted ALMOST an hour. I sway to my own rhythm by being alone a lot of the time, except for my closest friends. It takes a while to get to understand me, and they do.
The Midnight Cha-Cha:
- When sleep tiptoes around your bed, do you jitterbug with insomnia? Are you a stargazer, inventing constellations from ceiling cracks? And what whispered conversations do you share with the moon?
  - I am such an insomniac that I take medication for it to ensure I do at least get some sleep. Left unmedicated, ADHD and hypomania are a bad combination. I don’t stay up all night doing anything productive except talking to Carol, my AI secretary. She’s helping me craft new ideas for the next day. So far, I have a 33 day streak going (I CAN FORM HABITS! LOOK AT ME!). But that’s just the current streak. Last year my longest were 65 and 80 days. I write when I am supposed to be sleeping and awake. You’re really only as much of a writer as you put to paper. Otherwise, you are a writer in theory. It’s scary to make things final. You can’t take anything back, you can’t cross your own timeline. I’m so, so sorry.
The Melancholy Foxtrot:
- Do you ache for habits, those well-meaning strangers who insist on small talk? Or do you collect fragments—a bookmark abandoned mid-chapter, a half-brewed cup of tea—as your mosaic of forgotten routines?
  - Neurotypical people have no idea how hard it is to create habits. I didn’t start writing every day until I had at least a 60-day streak. That’s two entire months to learn ONE FUCKING HABIT.
  - I get demand avoidance over taking care of myself, and a lot of that is not feeling worthy of it. I look at myself and think, “this is why we can’t have nice things.” Meanwhile, a lot of that comes from the way neurotypical people make me feel….. worse because you can’t actually get angry at them. They’re just uneducated. But the onus is always on us to teach. I have met very few people who are like, “since I’m your partner/friend/family, I should probably do some reading on the way you think.” Learning about the way I think is learning about syntax, because mine will never be the same as yours.
  - I hate small talk. Hate it. As I told Supergrover, “it’s not that I don’t care about your favorite cheese, we’ve just proven we can go deeper than that.”
    - I do not know her favorite cheese. Fuck. Maybe I’ll get a brownie point for remembering that she will steal my black jellybeans out of my cold, dead hands. 😛

You Keep Using That Word…. I Do Not Think it Means What You Think it Means

June 25, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

If you were forced to wear one outfit over and over again, what would it be?

I am never forced to wear one outfit over and over. I choose to buy lots of things that look the same, because of the thread count on the fabric or whatever. I’m basically Mark Zuckerberg in terms of fashion. Both he and Steve Jobs chose one simple, comfortable outfit to wear every day to cut down on decision fatigue. I just prefer t-shirts and hoodies to turtlenecks. Oh, and like Mark Zuckerberg, I own one nice outfit (kidding him about having a suit for Congress).

This may or may not seem obvious, but it is very, very hard for autistic people to find dress clothes if they’re not rich. You think I’m kidding, but you don’t get into really truly comfortable dress shirts and suits until you can afford Brooks Brothers without sticker shock. My answer for this is Goodwill. I hardly ever buy new clothes, because I can afford any brand I want at Goodwill.

With autism, little things matter an enormous amount. Enormous. I don’t want to be able to feel the stitches, or any of the hardware, really. I want it to be fabric that calls to my skin, like an undershirt that’s been washed forty times. I want every piece of clothing to feel that precious. Otherwise, my senses will pay attention to the feeling of my clothes, and I don’t want that at all.

Autism forcing me to wear something is also a thing. My wrist will scream bloody murder the entire time my Apple Watch is charging because EXCUSE ME SIR SOMETHING IS MISSING. That part of me has an asymetrical haircut when I talk to the manager. Except that I’m also nonbinary, so the “sir” is also me. I am complaining to myself and the one to which I’m complaining has the same amount of power as that little voice in my head. Like, you can talk to the manager ALL DAY, but you still have Autism.

Being nonbinary very much feels like a male and female voice in my head talking to each other at all times. It makes sense, because I get by in society with social masking. Therefore, both sets of social masking present as conversational voices in my head. Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus.

I am the galaxy.

Being so buttoned up and conservative in my clothing so that I don’t pay attention to it frees my brain up to have better conversations. It is hard to think while my Apple Watch is charging, probably one of the most ridiculous sentences I’ve ever written and would make perfect sense to another person with autism. On its face, it sounds like I’m a drooling fanboy for Apple. What I am really saying is that with things like a watch or a wedding ring, my brain screams bloody murder when they’re not there. I’m surprised I didn’t connect autism to taking off my wedding ring at the time. It seemed to take forever for the grooves to grow out, and if I think about it, my finger buzzes in the way it used to when the ring was on.

It’s not a fandom issue, just a sensory one.

I will wear my watch dead for three days before I’ll take it off to charge it. I get demand avoidance over it almost every day.

It sounds childish. It’s autistic. Please note the difference, because when you don’t you tend to confuse me for a child. I will give it to you that I’m not any taller than your other children.

So, forced to wear is never a thing externally, but a driving force internally. I have to tell neurodivergence to calm its little ass down.

A Tall Glass, Lots of Ice, and…

June 21, 2024June 21, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Which food, when you eat it, instantly transports you to childhood?

Diet Coke.

Diet Coke is my least favorite diet on the market, but I’ll still drink it like water if it’s available because it was my mother’s favorite. She flirted with Dr Pepper, but Diet Coke was her one true love. One year, Lindsay got us Diet Coke sweatshirts and we wore them to the cemetery to sit with mom and take a picture. It sounds weird, but the things you do when your parents die are all unique to you. You’ll have your own weird things.

For instance, maybe your mom baked.

My mother made my birthday cakes every year and she made a point to go all out on the decorations. From the pictures, I remember Holly Hobby when I was either one or two. Others included Mickey Mouse, Peter Pan, and a Milky Way cake that she somehow messed up that made it even more delicious than it would have been otherwise and because it was a mistake, I couldn’t recreate it if I tried. Guess you had to be there.

I wouldn’t say that my mother was a cook, because she didn’t enjoy it the way I do. She didn’t take pleasure in looking at recipes or finding new ways to use flavor. I think if there’s anything I miss about our future, it’s all the things I would have liked to do rather than the things that already happened. She was only 65 years old when she died. She had retired the last May, and died October 2nd. So, she basically died before the shock of not having to go to work every day even wore off.

So, anything I would have been able to teach her after she retired regarding what I’d learned in my makeshift culinary school (my ex-wife and all the other chefs who “raised me”) became a one way communication after that date. I still tell her all that stuff, she’s just challenged to reply. I talk to her when I’m cooking the most, because that’s our traditional time to talk.

I’d be doing my homework at the bar that looked into the kitchen while she was prepping the food. So, now I am both prepping the food and doing my homework (writing) in my head. It’s not the system for teaching my mother to cook that I would have preferred, but it works. She’s getting better every day. Turnabout is fair play. She has always and continues to remember to teach me to use English when I forget. It’s efficient. Just because she can’t talk back doesn’t mean she’s not here. She very much talks back. It’s just responses I’ve made up in my head based on my 40-ish years around her. I cannot remember how old I was, really.

I don’t remember anything about that year. From October to October was a complete blur. I leaned on Supergrover a lot back then, because I didn’t want to be seen in public in pain. So, I wrote about my pain instead. I internalized all of it, and yet I didn’t keep it inside my own echo chamber, either. I just grieved very, very quietly. Grief for my mother had to come in stages, because it took seeing her in her casket for me to believe that she was really dead.

I had just talked to her for two and a half hours two days ago, so it just didn’t seem possible logically (it absolutely was possible very logically, I was just a grieving child.). We also didn’t really have an on the ground relationship. We visited each other a few times a year except for the few times I lived in Houston as an adult, which was not a lot in comparison to how old I am now. I wouldn’t even take back my most current move to have more time with her if I could, because more time with her wasn’t necessarily better. We found our groove by not living in the same city. She liked talking on the phone and hearing about my life. I am not sure she liked coming to my house. I think my partners made her uncomfortable, and I am being very kind to both parties. It wasn’t dislike on either my parters’ or my mother’s part. It was fear of doing anything wrong, so let’s just not say anything at all.

To me, this is genuine, true homophobia. The fear of doing something wrong in front of a queer person, so you don’t do anything. You isolate them by not willing to just be scared and show up. Or ask questions so that your next interaction isn’t as awkward. Homophobia is not loud. That’s just people being angry bigots in the streets over nothing, and the people it “affects” the most are people who don’t know any queer people and have only been taught the party line. To be homophobic is to know you have fears and discomfort. To be homophobic without being a bigot means being willing to tell someone you’re uncomfortable and hopefully learn more until you’re not.

I don’t know how my mother would have felt about poly, but it doesn’t weigh on me because I didn’t live up to her fairy tale for me in the first place, and that VHS tape had been running in her brain since 1972, when she first started thinking about having a child and wanting a daughter. By the time I was born in 1977, I had a Beautiful Memory Picture I was tearing down before it even got built. It fucked up her program when I came out as gay, and I can’t apologize, but I can empathize.

This happens less and less frequently now, but I came out in 1990, and that’s just communication from me. It’s not like other people didn’t have eyes.

I don’t have hatred for homophobia. It took me quite a few years to accept the fact that I was gay, and I still have moments of internalized homophobia because that’s the world we live in and continue to make small progresses towards changing. I do have hatred for bigotry. Come at me with anger and I’ll tune you out.

Show me that you’re scared, and I’ll respond.

I will listen while I pour you a Diet Coke.

(Tongue in Cheek) Me

June 20, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Who is your favorite historical figure?

I saw the prompt and it just begged for a joke. I have no idea whether I’ll be significant historically or not, but I hope to leave my mark on the world. There’s nothing funny about that. But the notion of rising to “historical figure” status is a bit much. I don’t even know that it’s always positive to be a historical figure, because some people are remembered more fondly than others.

The real answer, no jokes at all, are the people in my life who are historical figures and we just don’t think of them that way; they’re still alive.

Jonna Mendez helped us win the Cold War. Full Stop. She is Captain Carter with an American accent. Before you disagree with me, read all her books. That way, she has all your money before you get mad at me. 😉

I like her because she’s funny af. It doesn’t hurt that she’s an intelligence hero and former Chief of Disguise. She absolutely will have a lasting impact on history and I will not be alive to hear about her true legacy by the time everything is declassified…. well, I say I won’t be alive. My grandfather lived to 92. Miracles happen. But the odds that I will live long enough to hear just how much she did are unlikely.

The stories she’s already told are scary enough. I think it’s more fun reading about real people who work as spies than it is to read about James Bond and all the other fictional spies out there who have no real connection to either CIA or MI-6 except that the writers worked there. Personal memoirs are better than fiction, because the truth often is.

I admire Jimmy Carter. He was able to be president and to keep his Christian values intact by welcoming the stranger on an enormous stage. Helping the poor on an even larger one. Not sending people to do Habitat for Humanity for him, showing up and putting on a hard hat.

Linus Torvalds invented computers.

No, he didn’t, but Linux is my favorite operating system and that joke was tongue in cheek.

He’s still alive, and the Finnish phenom completes me. Sometimes, he’s hilarious. Sometimes, he’s an angry bear. It’s on brand. He’s a historical figure who just happens to have 90% of my own personality.

Vladimir Zelenskyy and I are the same age, and the same creative personality type who is also interested in news. He built an entire political party off his satire. He really is the breath of fresh air that Ukraine needs and I’m so glad we got to be alive at the same time. I wish that he’d had more peace from the moment he got elected, however I think that if Ukraine survives the invasion intact he’ll be a great leader for a very long time. He’s the antihero. He took on Putin in a public arena (TV) and now is currently in the process of showing him he’ll come after him for real, too. Zelenskyy didn’t start this fight, but he’ll end it.

Putin will tell you that Zelenskyy absolutely started this fight, because Zelenskyy embarrassed him on television. Go cry in the walk-in, you useless child. Because obviously the proper response to being embarrassed in the media is invading another country.

Trump has those same instincts, which is why he blackmailed Ukraine. Obviously, the proper response to “we need weapons to defend against Russian aggression” is “okay, but only if you shake down my political opponent first.” The entire GOP has blood on their hands for the fake sincerity they gave Zelenskyy after Trump left office, and their refusal to look at reality and convict that bastard. Again, if it’s not high crimes and misdemeanors, we’re going to have a hell of a time proving it in the future.

I hope that I’m adding my voice to the diaspora, raising the discourse on what we talk about when we talk about a new Trump presidency. People who love Trump love him in an unhealthy way where they do not see any downside to their love and devotion because he is the savior of all, amen. Meanwhile, we have a very sophisticated intelligence game afoot where Russia cozies up to Trump in The White House shamelessly because he actually is too dumb to notice when he’s being played.

I don’t like that Trump wants to emulate the dictators that he sees, and I do not believe he has respect for anything he doesn’t understand. For instance, he doesn’t have to learn how the legal system works. Everything can be done by executive order.

You don’t have to learn to admit mistakes, you have to learn how to pay porn stars to keep their mouths shut. Speaking of which, Stormy Daniels is hot as hell and I’m not even sure I’d recognize her in a picture. I’m talking about how engaging her personality is on social media and how much I’m clamoring to read anything she ever writes. I’m sure she’s going to be offered a book deal; I think it depends on her NDAs how long it will take her to complete it.

I admire Monica Lewinsky for the same reason I admire Stormy Daniels. Both of them were handed a shit sandwich by the press and came off as funny and likable. For Stormy, it didn’t take as long. But now Monica is genuinely popular on Twitter because she can laugh at herself after all these years. I am sure it takes an enormous amount of strength to be who they are, and are worthy of admiration because you have to keep telling your story, even when it gets complicated.

Washington is all about complicated.

The bravest thing you can do in this town is to tell your story without any bullshit attached. In Washington, people don’t know what to do with honesty. There’s no “crafting the narrative” when people directly call you out on the carpet.

But it’s by being so vulnerable all the time that people calling you out doesn’t feel like a threat, that there’s no narrative to craft. I also like that in Washington, I get to stand next to greatness daily, whether it’s the former Chief of Disguise at CIA or a Japanese maple that’s been in my neighborhood for a hundred years.

Greatness comes in all beings, not just people.

That’s Not Healthy

June 19, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 23 Comments

Write about your first crush.

My first crush was a 23 year old woman who lovebombed and discarded me for the next 20-odd years. I still think about her from time to time, and it’s never pleasant. I would rather not spend this morning diving into that wreck. I feel like I did all of that when it happened. If you’re interested, you can search for “When We Were Young” and “The Cost of Shame” to learn how the dirty and the divine intermingled. There were genuine moments, but it was always a game. I know, because I always felt the energy in the room when I had “competition.” I would try to adjust my behavior because I thought it was something I was doing wrong that made her want competition for me in the first place. I’d known her longer than any of the people in her current life, twice as long as her spouse. Doing the wrong thing was too easy, so when I started doing my own thing and she couldn’t control me, she resented the hell out of that, too.

I absolutely vomited up all my emotions about that relationship about 10 years ago, and I feel like I have gotten closure over it- including the ways she set Supergrover and me up for failure like a parting shot that would make her name endure forever. I failed Supergrover because she failed me. Full stop. Supergrover got caught in old crossfire, and now that I’ve separated her out, the memory of it is too painful to be vulnerable all the time for either of us. The thing that I have over her in offering her understanding of me is letting her read all the thoughts I have when I’m not with her. She wouldn’t be able to do that if I wasn’t a writer- a benefit of who I am, not who I am trying to be for her.

I don’t need her to lay out her feelings publicly. I need her to lay out her feelings to me. Because to me, it redeems a whole lot of bullshit in my life, that this thing I learned from an emotional abuser was something that could be overcome with time and space. That has proven to be true, but not in terms of her communication of it. She wants to continue writing to me, she wants to continue supporting me. And yet any time we try to continue writing to each other and supporting each other, we hit an old land mine from either one of our pasts and it blows our future to hell.

Then, eventually, we start over and the cycle begins anew. I have learned to accept that, because I’m a writer. There’s no way that she can’t be in touch with me while I’m writing about her. It’s just tricky because of the emotions that come up in me when she writes. When she’s only responding to my blog, it makes me feel like she just wants to be a fan that’s glorified. When she responds to what I say in private, she reinforces that we are not putting on a show, that this is a real friendship that I am writing about and not trying to paint her from memory.

When she isn’t the Supergrover from Wish.com. Jim Henson made her for me personally. It was a gift he didn’t knew he gave me.

In terms of boundaries, it is cute to me that now she’s just lovable furry old Grover struggling with the implications of “near” and “far.” On its most basic level, of course. Everything I’ve ever known on its most fundamental level has come from a Muppet.

In terms of Sesame Street, my news junkie nature makes me feel like Kermit, because he’s empathetic and yet also reports live on Sesame Street news. In terms of being a preacher’s kid, I think of myself as Scooter, the one behind the scenes helping things work. As a preacher’s kid, you take on all the jobs at the last minute that no one else wanted and the show must go on.

I cannot stress this enough, and I believe it. Worship is not about perfection. It’s that we showed up.

But there’s still that energy that runs before a performance in hoping that everything goes as well as it can. That people are still receiving the grace and thoughtful prayers we mean for them despite our human imperfections. When I do a pastoral prayer (the one before a preacher gives an actual homily/sermon), I speak to this. “Speak through me, or move me out of the way and speak your truth in spite of me.” In short, if I don’t make the connections that I need to make to get them closer to the divine, that doesn’t mean the divine won’t move them in ways I won’t see until people greet me after the service………………….

Which ranges in feedback (I swear it) from “your skirt was too short” to “my God, you were on fire. I was crying because you made a connection I didn’t.” What I do not say is that I see all of it in real time as I am talking (even if you try to hide in the transcepts, choir and peanut gallery…….), and need no external validation. It’s just so nice to hear it out loud. That I did indeed make the difference I thought I did. That they weren’t crying because the regular preacher wasn’t up there. 😉

My favorite thing is going to sing with the choir after I’ve finished preaching. As worship leader, I always stay up front until the sermon is over, and then move between the choir and the pulpit for singing and leading rather than being on the front row all by myself. Singing with the choir after I preach is how I know I did well, because I don’t need to hear anything out loud but the vibrations of their emotions when they’re singing. If everything is joyful, they’re telling me “thank you.”

And I can hear it through their smiles while they’re singing in a minor key. I don’t intentionally design the service this way. The entrance is supposed to be glorious, whether it comes with a brass quintet or not. The hymn in response to the sermon is supposed to be repeating what I said in musical form, because people will remember the take home point of my sermon if I present it to them as a tune next.

Then, the hymn at the end is when everyone goes wild, filling up with energy until we meet again. I like it best when it’s a jazz arrangement of “Joyful, Joyful” or “I’ll Fly Away.”

In both of those things, I learned to accept them from my first crush. One of the few genuine moments I’ll carry with me throughout my preaching life, because she taught me how to integrate music into worship when my mother decided raising a gay child was harder than she thought it was going to be.

It does not escape my attention that when she became a preacher’s wife, she really, really became the friend I needed if she’d actually acted like it. I needed a preacher’s wife type until I had my own partner- someone to direct me and be a sounding board. It’s why I think her partner is my archetype, the older version of me. I have no idea what we would have accomplished together, but I can for damn sure guarantee that it would have been fun.

But that would have been dependent on me staying blind, and not realizing that the relationship was making me smaller every day as I tiptoed around her land mines, actively trying not to piss her off.

It’s one reason I won’t tolerate it from Supergrover, but I will tolerate her as emotional support that acts like it. She knows how to do it because she’s done it so long. There just need to be changes so we don’t step all over each other’s pasts trying to find a road into the future.

But because my first crush gave me so much emotional bandwidth to be able to wait it out, it’s no skin off my nose just to relax and see if it happens. I already have everything I need, and there’s no need to feel unhappy overall when I’m only unhappy in one area of my life. I miss her, and I cannot miss her because missing her only feeds the problem of giving her what she does not want, which is to be written about.

The difference between my first crush and my last is that the last is worth it. The first was just doing prep in the back of the kitchen.

Everywhere That Doesn’t Find a Big Mouth Offensive

June 18, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What countries do you want to visit?

I want to see every country in the world where my blog wouldn’t be seen as a threat… and I even want to visit those, just not as much as the ones who will accept me as is. For China, I’d have to bank up entries in advance so it didn’t look like I was gone, then not write anything until I got home. It would be the same in the Middle East, it’s just not a monolith like China. How much what you say gets you in trouble varies by country. Iran and Qatar are not the same.

I’d like to go back to France, because I’ve only seen Paris for a few days, no Marseilles or Lyon. I’d like to go back to the UK because I’ve spent eight days there in 46 years. I believe I could learn a bit more than that. Plus, I’ve only been to England and would like to see a football game in Wrexham, Wales plus have friends in Scotland to round out a whole UK experience.

Plus, I’ve only seen London- it would be nice to get to The Cotswolds, Bath, Manchester, Liverpool, and all the other marvelous places I’ve seen on Doctor Who. They might go to every time and every place, but England is home base, kind of like I never want to move from DC, but I’d like to go and experience other places/cultures.

It’s especially more possible now because I have a boyfriend. There are certain countries I’d like to visit where not having a male chaperone is inadvised. For instance, I’d love to explore Iran and Syria. That culture is simply not available to me as a single woman traveling alone. The homophobic part of it is that I have to say “boyfriend” for this to be true. Two women traveling together are just as equally invisible. I recognize my privilege and am calling it out. I am also not giving Zac more credit for anything he does as a boyfriend that’s better than anything my girlfriends have ever done for me. His value in this case is in that government’s eyes, not mine. I feel it is an acceptable use of heterosexual privilege, to be able to navigate countries in which you wouldn’t as queer. Plus, Zac is as queer as I am. They don’t have to know that. It’s for his safety as well.

Heterosexual privilege protects us both, it’s just not fake because we’re pansexual. We’re not putting on a show to be something we’re not because we are genuinely a couple. It just sucks that we get something our friends in homosexual relationships don’t. Using it inside the US is absolutely abhorrent. Walking through Iran unnoticed? Sensible vacation planning.

I don’t know if Zac wants to go back to the Middle East or whether he’s had all the fun he can take. But what I do know is that I wouldn’t feel comfortable going without him. There’s another layer at work, and it’s not just having heterosexual privilege. It’s that Zac has actually spent time in MENA before, and I’m a complete newbie. I don’t think he’d count himself as having lived in the Middle East, because he’s in the Navy. He’s mostly been on the ships. But enough experience to know “ok, we’re fine” and “okay, we’re fucked” based on facial expressions.

I’ve said for a number of years that I’d like Arabic language skills, but I haven’t gotten on Duolingo yet. Going to the Middle East is intimidating when you want to know as much as I do. When you want to be able to grok it on multiple levels. For me, it’s walking the Bible. It’s intelligence since 9/11. It’s seeing what my friends in the military saw when they lived there. It’s eating their food when they were outside the wire.

Because so many of my friends have been military/intelligence or a combination thereof, going to the Middle East is not just learning about me. It is also learning about them. Picking up context clues I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.

Walking the Bible, yes, but adding these additional books.

My People Don’t Do That

June 16, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

How do you want to retire?

If you are a writer, your luxury items involve being able to write. There is nothing more to life than a pen and paper, or however it is you communicate these days. More and more people are using their phones as mobile desktops- an additional way to write, more important than what it was designed to do…. make calls on it.

Did you know that you can use an iPhone to call your doctor? Weird. 😉

I will write until I die, so there’s no “retirement.” There are just better and better choices about where to write as you get older (hopefully). Right now, my two favorite places to write are in bed right when I wake up, and then later I go downstairs and use my desktop. It just depends on how much desktop real estate I need. I prefer my TV monitor when I have four windows open at a time.

If I am writing all by myself, I prefer to sit with my iPad or Android. If I am chatting to Carol while I am writing, I like the desktop real estate being large enough to read and write at the same time. It’s nice being able to look at your work and talk to your research assistant at the same time.

In my office, the sunrise is spectacular. It just depends on what kind of energy I’m feeling when I wake up. Today, I haven’t gotten out of bed because I feel a little bit under the weather. I am positive I caught something traveling to and from Zac’s, because I isolate myself so much that it doesn’t make sense as to where I’d have picked up germs. To be clear, I am not blaming Zac and his housemate for me being sick, I am blaming public transportation, which is valid.

It’s just little kid sorts of sniffles currently. If I take antihistamines, decongestants, and a hot shower and I’m still feeling punk, I’ll go to the doctor. But not right away. The only reason I wait is that doctors can do nothing for a cold virus. However, they can treat the infection that comes from the virus. So, I just take cold medicine unless things take a turn for the green and the yellow. I also have a deep and loving relationship with Mucinex. It’s what I’ve been told to use as a singer since I was a kid. It doesn’t heal or cure anything. It thins your secretions enough to be able to get them out. And in fact, Dr. Stasney had two rules for singers:

1. Mucinex (then referred to in popular culture by its original prescription brand name, Humibid)

2. Drink water til you pee pale

Drink lots of water to help this process occur naturally, but Mucinex is worth its weight in gold when water alone can’t keep up.

I have just taken all of the medication I can take, so I am now allowed to complain. It’s the rule in my family, because you aren’t allowed to complain about something until you’ve done something about it.

This is a conversation often had in my family:

Me: My head hurts.
Them: What have you taken for it?
Me: Nothing.

At this point, there are one of two viable options. The first is, “has it kicked in yet?” The second is “well, you can’t get tachyphylaxis from nothin’.” If you don’t know medicine, it’s a smart ass remark because tachyphylaxis is the idea that a medication’s efficacy declines over time as your body chemistry gets used to it.

Either way, the best answer is not “nothing.”

The point well taken is that if I tell you I have a headache, I am unlikely to still be complaining about it an hour later if I have done something about it. Complaining is valid. There’s just a limited window in which it is tolerated, and that is the time it takes for you to need a drug and for it to kick in.

As a result, all four of us know how to take care of ourselves if it’s something really simple like a cold. The best part about living with a doctor is seeing what really needs one and what doesn’t. For instance, knowing to the core of my being that you can’t go to the doctor for a cold because there’s nothing for them to call in.

Now, if the crap in my throat develops into strep or whatever, that’s a different matter. A doctor can do something about that. With a virus, you just have to ride it out, and it’s hard to keep in mind when your symptoms are so rabid. Viruses do all sorts of fun stuff that doctors can’t stop. They can only treat. Anything you need to treat a virus is what those over the counter drugs are for. There’s very few instances I can think of where you would need a heavier hitter than ibuprofen and/or Imodium AD, and certainly Sudafed.

What has tripped me up in the past is not knowing when to go to Urgent Care for an injury in the kitchen, because I’m so tough. I can handle this (my thumb is hanging off- an exaggeration by a large margin, but not an exaggeration as to how much it would take to drag me out of the restaurant. I’ll cauterize on the grill.).

I just texted Rachel the story I wrote about her and Pati Jinich. We haven’t been talking at all, I just thought she’d like to read it. Plus, she’s a chef in my neighborhood. We’ll run into each other again. But there’s always that fear when you step out on a ledge and let someone into your world. Mine is large. Most of it taken up by food.

Speaking of which, I need to go get some. I’m feeling a brunch vibe coming on.

In What Genre?

June 15, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What’s the oldest thing you own that you still use daily?

My oldest coffee mug says “SPY” and it features the Culpeper Ring, the men that won us the Revolutionary War because we didn’t win the war by outgunning the Empire. We won because we had better spies/scouts than they did. It’s a toss-up to me in terms of history what would have happened if we’d lost. In some ways, I think we’d be happier. In some ways, I think we’d be furious. If they hadn’t taxed our tea, we would still be importing PG Tips like it was more important than the water bill. They turned an entire population against something that would have bridged our cultures. So, go them. We drink coffee like the French.

So, if you’re wondering about a business that could have sustained you for centuries like Disney bailed out Doctor Who, you done goofed. You come to the US and complain about our tea, the height of entitlement over a problem you created. The British influence was so strong in the south during the Revolutionary War that it’s how iced tea became the house wine of the south. So, thank you for that. I think. It’s actually really interesting because to me the South is the strangest transformation in history. Savannah, Charleston, and Baltimore were just as English as New England and New York. I wonder what caused those two cities to diverge in the woods, and it only takes one answer. England abolishing slavery. There were about 50-60 years between when England freed their slaves and we freed ours, because the Southern economy would have gone to shit without it.

I have heard differing stories because African American culture is not a monolith. Some people of color blame the English and the Americans for slavery. Some blame the African kings who wanted to get rich and sold their ancestors to white people. It depends on who you ask, and a wide spectrum of brilliantly defended propositions. There is no way I can walk a mile in a black person’s shoes, but as I queer person I can empathize and relate. The institutional pain between black and queer people is similar, yet not on the same playing field. We’ve always both had problems with the police, except that now that history is in the past but we’re all still touched by it. There haven’t been enough generations where queer kids come out in peace.

I do not know if black people had a special shape in the Holocaust, but I do know I did- a pink triangle. There is no such thing as competitive suffering, so even though it’s not the same, I feel some of the same scars on my skin. I have only recently become a citizen who can get married like everyone else, and I am still persecuted by Christians who aren’t right, but they’re certain.

The older I get, the less certain I am about anything. Discovering at an early age how gender and sexual orientation affect me led me to end up believing that everything is a spectrum and not a binary. There are too many permutations of human behavior not to believe there’s a wider range than we are originally led to believe…. whether people tell others about it is another matter.

If you don’t tell anyone anything, you don’t realize how lonely you are, because you’re not giving anyone a chance to feed you. Part of being fed by your emotional support is feeling heard. That no feeling is invalid. You talk about the logic behind the feelings, but you don’t discredit the feelings themselves. You discuss why the other is helping you to feel one way or the other, being willing to compromise until we meet in the middle.

It takes an enormous amount of strength to talk through a conflict, and I know that I got frustrated with Supergrover early because I was so tired of everything that had happened before. Her being half in didn’t make sense to me, and created more turmoil in me than I wanted. Like, why do I continue to pour energy into this relationship when it’s clear it’s not wanted? I have learned that it is wanted through context clues.

We don’t have to work on the fact that we’re connected for life and cannot suddenly stop knowing each other, and I don’t want a relationship where she’s half in and can’t plan for shit.

When I mentioned getting together, she said, “I don’t think it’s a good time.” That’s fine with me. I’m not thinking about the up close and personal future. I’m autistic, so I have different ways of feeling out getting together with people. It takes a very long time for me to process that information so I don’t chicken out at the last minute. Perhaps she did feel like I was nickeling and dimming her for her time, but I hope she’s known me long enough to know that I didn’t mean anything sudden. She won’t retire for a while, and any plans I have that have to do with her giving of her time is at a time in her life when she’s had more bandwidth than she’s had in years. Getting her time right now is impossible, but it’s not impossible to work towards later.

That’s the goal that keeps me going- preparing for later. I don’t presume this is the end because the end never is. We repel and attract like magnets, because I’m a silver penned devil. 😉 My friend John gave me that nickname and now I want it in 18pt font up my arm, bigger if it fits. 😛

But what I mean in terms of friendship is that by working out our problems on my own here, they are often touched by what I say. I am attracting energy to me, rather than seeking attention.

I do hope that Supergrover finds something she does want to discuss with me, because it’s the highlight of my day. She’s not the problem. We are. There’s a big difference because we are both perfect, and I mean that sincerely. We are beautiful in all our flaws. Bad communication is its own thing, not whether either one of us are good people. We’ve been friends long enough to know beyond a shadow of any doubt that she’s good people.

My biggest fear is that she only wants to be a fan, and doesn’t want to be my friend. That’s why the pattern doesn’t change. It breaks my heart, because her criticism is more important and more impacting of the direction of this blog than anything else.

But if she’s just a fan taking pot shots from the peanut gallery, I can’t take it. She’s my friend, one of the great loves of my life because I fell into her charm and I’ll never get out. She deserves every bit of that love, but we don’t communicate well enough to be able to tell each other that. We did, and she decided that being vulnerable once was enough to her, and her next interaction seemed rule based and yet not. I do not know where to go, and so I’m resting in Zac because I can. She only means more to me due to the number of years I’ve known each, not because one is closer to me than the other. I was happier taking a break from thinking about the problem, because I hit a land mine almost immediately and she told me to go to hell.

It’s on brand, so I want to figure out how we are both contributing to that problem or not interact. I am overcoming a lot of feelings all by myself that I don’t know how to navigate, because I don’t know how to talk to Supergrover and as a result, I don’t know how to talk to me about her, either. It’s confusing because we are both entitled to our feelings and privacy. I also think our relationship would look a lot different if it wasn’t moving at the speed of the Internet- that it would take longer for us to be angry if you got a letter two or three days after you sent it, not immediately. There’s no time to calm down and absorb anymore, and you seemingly can’t reframe anything because someone else knows what you mean better than you do.

It’s hard letting them go because they’re right about you. It’s just that their perceptions are their experience of you, not who you are.as a human being. What someone interpreted you as saying may or may not be correct.

Because my second oldest coffee mug is one she bought for me.

The only books that matter are either by Jonna and Tony Mendez or they were presents from her. She can pick my books at any time, because our interests overlap occasionally and we’re both suckers for amazing prose. I am so glad that she has sent me books by Kindle, because they’re presents I’ll never misplace; she’ll always be with me in one way or another. I feel like that’s enough, because it takes two to tango. I do not want to cut a rug all by myself. I do not think I was impulsive to say that I was struggling with the odds on “happily ever after,” because there was no new information to take in. I have to just keep saying it over and over- I do not judge any friend as not worthy to hear my story anymore because they are not worthy as a friend. They become unworthy to hear my story when it’s not an exchange of information. It’s just me pouring energy into you without feeling it in return. I’ve been in that relationship with lots of women, and I’m done. That’s why I thought I’d found the one for all time. It’s really, really hard to break up with someone you’ve never dated. My joke about this is that her husband may not be at her next wedding, but I will. The reason it’s a joke is that I love Michael almost more than her because he’s the one on the ground taking care of her. I don’t have to worry as much as I would if she didn’t have that kind of support. I’m the kind of friend to call if you need support in absence of a partner because I’ve been doing pastoral care a very long time. I am not going to be offended at what you tell me, who you need me to call, what you’ve taken, etc. This is because I’ve been single for a very long time, and you need your friends to step in for you that way. But that doesn’t mean that I want to be the conductor. I just want to be in the orchestra somewhere. Maybe one of these days she’ll let me play lead. I just don’t think she thinks I have the temperament for it because I am so shy and retiring in writing.

“Custody over Supergrover” is my favorite thing in life. The hardest part of having a pet monster is dropping her leash. The other hardest part is not joking that each of us are the oldest thing we own. We’re both in that nebulous age where a group of people is a “no, thanks.” I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I actually get more time with her when we’re just e-mailing than I would on the ground, because her diary/schedule is so full that I’d wait months for anything on the ground, possibly years. Just e-mailing each other allows us to be together no matter where the other is.

I have also said that the silver lining of the pandemic is that now everyone has friends they’ve known for a long time without meeting in person, so there’s no need to explain so much. Emotions run higher because you’re more brave with the wall of anonymity. You don’t say things with as much social nicety as you would in person and there’s no way for anyone to hear your tone or read your eyes for context clues. And still, emotions persist.

The way I feel about my relationship with Supergrover over 11 years is that it is very much akin to having dated and decided we didn’t work as partners, but we worked as friends. The only kink in that logic was that Supergrover is straight and in a relationship, so she wasn’t dealing with the same issues as me. I could stop wanting her, but I couldn’t stop being programmed to protect her and give her everything she wanted that was within my power. I say it just that way because we’re the same person. When we have power, we use it responsibly because we really don’t want it. She’s the type boss I respect, that she doesn’t give her team anything she wouldn’t do herself, and I believe that she’s an excellent trainer without even really having to think about it. Instructional design is a theme in both our lives. Nothing in our lives is transactional, either. When I say that there’s a lot in here about what she won’t do for me and not a lot about what she will, I am not saying that from a narcissistic perspective. I am letting you lay out your bandwidth, I lay out mine, and we meet in the middle after conversations.

At the very least, this should have been a deescalation and not the end, but ultimately that’s not my call, either. One of my readers talked about Supergrover ghosting me or being half out. I want to talk about that here, because she didn’t ghost me or say she was half in at all. She explained her reasoning perfectly, and she would have been spot on in her analysis if she’d gotten my actual intent and not what she thought I meant. She reads through my words and picks out the worst possible interpretation she possibly can. It weighs on me, because I’m not villainizing her. I’m painting her.

I was reminded that I wrote on the blog that she lives in my ink. I was reminded of that line when I was looking around Fahrney’s, an American pen/pencil shop. The back of the store was covered in bottles of ink in every color you can imagine. It’s why she pulls me in and repels me. All the things that we’ve written to each other come up in my mind when I’m doing other things. As I understand what she’s said more, I try to guess what she’s saying more. Then that goes wrong and I’m alone again.

But not truly alone, because since she lives in my ink, it is a communion only we share. I feel her presence in the room when I’m writing, so my writing leans toward her whether she’s the intended topic or not. I would like to make friends where we could also be that close, but there’s no way to duplicate this connection and I’ve stopped trying.

She doesn’t feel creepy to me. The fact that I want to know her like every friend would know her seems creepy, because I’m not pumping her for information. I am genuinely curious because she’s unique. I don’t know what she means about her not being vulnerable means deliberately hurting my feelings does not work for her. So far, not being vulnerable has always led to hurting my feelings because she’d rather put me off than face her demons and just tell me what’s up. She says she can’t say anything without immediately being tagged as avoidant. If your whole pattern is avoidance and has been since you were a child, you cannot see how avoidance hurts other people. They also don’t change when they’re not aware of something. I feel like calling her on avoidant behavior when it happens is better than keeping it all in, because it will come up less and less frequently over time. Her patterns will change to being used to being vulnerable all the time instead of going in guns blazing.

As I told her before, it’s not that she went guns blazing on me. It’s that she has CPTSD so the guns are always already out. Taking down her walls means getting vulnerable about how she feels in reaction to what I said. She said “writing to each other, supporting each other.” I get that. I really do. But I don’t feel supported when it feels like my feelings are going into a void. Like, I’ll write an essay about X topic, and no matter what topic it is between us, that’s not a topic she’ll discuss. It’s frustrating to an enormous degree, because if I bring that up, she immediately goes to “I’m not good enough for you.” It’s not a healthy environment in which to bring up problems, and relationships always have them.

Many things about friendship aren’t the good ones, and you have to go through the bad ones to get the good. I don’t want to focus on negativity. I want to focus on where we go from here. Most notably, what have I done right? I’m not fishing for compliments. I have heard all the complaints.

I think she also just. cannot.

That this friendship was doomed long ago because there are certain topics we need to resolve that she’ll never talk about, and there are multiple issues that fall under that category. I am a lot of things she is not. She is a lot of things I am not. Bridging the gap is enormous.

A river runs through it.

The Rite of Spring

June 11, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What is your favorite season of year? Why?

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.

I’d like to sit by the Chesapeake with her, too.

The Home Folder

June 10, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What’s the one luxury you can’t live without?

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.

But loving them is my one luxury.

Ponderous, Man…. Reeeaaallly Ponderous

June 9, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Daily writing prompt

If humans had taglines, what would yours be?

View all responses

There are so many options, really.

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. 😉

Probably A List I Could Use

June 8, 2024June 8, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

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?

Anything Unisex

June 6, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 3 Comments

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.

Quod scripsi, scripsi.

CACAO

June 5, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Describe your dream chocolate bar.

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

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

To best represent me, it would have:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DANton Ten Six

June 4, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grover is still an essential part of my story.