Tag: diary

In What Genre?

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Whatโ€™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. ๐Ÿ˜‰ My friend John gave me that nickname and now I want it in 18pt font up my arm, bigger if it fits. ๐Ÿ˜›

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 Character Interview

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Here’s the string I used for Copilot, because as a blogger, the first thing I asked was “friends” and they said they could not research information on real people. Thus, none of you are fictional characters, it’s just that an AI capable of tracking your every move without telling you that has no moral high ground here………………. Search https://theantileslie.com and ask questions a friend would ask about the characters. You are all perfectly perfect in every way. There is no need to make you fictional characters. You are all enough exactly as you are. I am paining a word portrait, and that’s always going to include being a 3D character because as I was telling Zac, “that’s not real life.”

  1. Who are the central characters in the stories on this website?
    • Supergrover is unashamedly the main character because she’s the friend that makes me the most passionate in life, and not about her. She’s fiery and intense, which makes me match her feeling for feeling when she is fully open and hearing vs. listening. The only reason I’ve ever wanted this relationship to the extent that I have is that I have no idea what she’s like in person, but online she’s fucking brilliant. She doesn’t have to write more, because all her other words are still inside me. I have memorized them. She lives in me whether she’s comforted by that or disgusted. Dealer’s choice.
  2. What challenges or conflicts do the characters face?
    • It’s not about conflicts between characters unless it’s me and another person. I have no interest in publishing hearsay, like hearing Bryn’s side of the story on a fight with Dave or whatever. I cannot comment on the fight, because I was not there. I only write down what I observe, I am not a gossip column…….. as much as people would like to believe it. For practical purposes, I don’t give a fuck how they feel about the way I express my emotions. How they react is none of my business. The only thing I ask is to get some clinical separation before you come and talk to me about it, because I want your reaction to be yours and your response to be mine. Get all your anger out and be ready to discuss it without turning it into a knock-down drag-out. When people are angry about what I have written, it’s too much punishment, too fast. That’s because they attack me without really thinking about how they should respond. They just speak from the id and do not give a flying fuck whether it hurts my feelings or not. They don’t want to resolve the problem at hand, they want to cut me off at the knees for reflecting it as accurately as I possibly can without doing their emotional work for them.
    • I have been bitten in the ass for my armchair psychology approach to writing about people. However, there’s a reason for it. I am not trying to tell their story for them, but to try to make sense out of why they did what they did. I want to be able to give them the benefit of the doubt, and as I write about them, the good and the bad becomes clear……. what relationships are worth saving and what relationships drain my energy rather than giving me some. I am often best friends with Colin from “What We Do in the Shadows.” This is because I have a lot of neurodivergent friends who will ramble on and on. You can’t get a word in edgewise, so you listen to a lot of shit you never needed to know. I want to wait until I have the bandwidth to listen to the stories in which you came close to killing yourself. Again, people open up to me because I am an INFJ, the Counselor personality. That being said, I do not have enough emotional bandwidth to take on counseling as a career. I would be excellent at it, and a mess regarding taking care of myself.
    • Maybe later in life, when I have more money and less fucks to give, I’ll become an LPC or MSW. I need to work on clinical separation first, because when people talk to me my mirror neurons go off and I am overloaded to the point of meltdown a good bit of the time on public transit. The one time I really, really wanted to have a conversation with someone, her mom kept interrupting me and it was bullshit. I just couldn’t stop her from interrupting because the subject at hand was so serious. I was talking to a 10-year-old girl who was standing in the aisle while I was sitting down next to her. Children throw down truth bombs whether they’re autistic or not, so I wasn’t prepared for what she said, but I was prepared to help. I told her I liked her pink tennis shoes, because I used to have pink tennis shoes and I missed them (ask me how I lost them. If Dana is reading and she was drinking something, she just choked). I ask her what grade she’s in, etc. Then, out of nowhere, she said, “my dad’s dead.” Just absolute gravity’s rainbow (if you’re not familiar with the literary reference, gravity’s rainbow is the arc of a bomb). Oh my God. The perfect child walked into my life the moment I needed someone to talk to. I told her that I lost my mom, and we just sat there for a second, dazed. Then her mom started in with all the gory details while I just wanted to talk to the kid. She was young enough that her father’s death is going to affect her far more than me. My mom was at least able to see me through to adulthood, past my 40s. The last thing I said to her made both of us cry. As she was walking away, I said, “remember that your dad is still alive because you’re half of him.” It was the most I could do in four stops.
    • To turn that back around into challenges I face, It”s that people love stories I write about the random interactions on the bus/metro. Yet they rarely think I can portray them accurately, too. They believe that my observations of strangers are dead on, and my observations of them are wrong. I have been right so many times that I do not lose sleep over it. When people tell you who they are, believe them the first time. They love it when other people are 3D characters, but God forbid I love them more than strangers and treat them like muses.
  3. Are there recurring themes or motifs related to the charactersโ€™ experiences?
    • The one theme that has been with me since my first entry, which I think was called “Apologia,” or something like that, is how to survive relationships with CPTSD. I have so many other “letters behind my name,” comorbidities that seemingly never end. It’s about how my brain processes logic and emotion despite that, because people see my brain as brilliant when I write this way, but not when I talk. Neurodivergent overexplaining in a neurotypical brain is called “making excuses.” I have problems with authority, and this is a big one. You have asked me for information, I gave it to you including my role in things so it doesn’t look like I’m trying to pass the buck, and you’ve chastised me. I have not made excuses for anything. I told you like it is.
  4. How do the characters evolve or change throughout the stories?
    • Supergrover has the biggest arc, because it’s the story of how I fell in love with her twice. The first time, it was because I thought she was the hottest thing on God’s green earth, and more woman than I could handle in three lifetimes (her husband probably just high-fived me in his head). The second time, it was because of deep companionate love because I felt that even though she’d never be my wife, that didn’t mean we couldn’t be close if we wanted it, because our friendship was rock solid. Supergrover’s answer was to sweep it all under the rug. Mine was to work through it so the bad feelings got light to them and disappeared. She also has privacy concerns about my blog, and so do I. She did not see the ways in which I was trying to protect her and thought I was attacking her. The arc has been my romantic feelings and my process in getting rid of them so that we could relax into something easy and free. It’s not easy and free when the other person hates conflict.
    • Bryn has the most beautiful arc now, because we’ve known each other since 1997. I went to Portland before she met Dave to officiate at her wedding. Thus, the nickname “Rev. Argo.” It is the perfect representation of me and I love it so much. My two special interests are intelligence and theology. I would design a tattoo that said it, but I trust VERY few people with fonts. For instance, even basic ones. How do I know you’re going to recreate the ascenders and serifs perfectly? I do know that it’s a tattoo worth having because it’s a two word LDB (Lanagan Daily Briefing) on who I am as a person. That requires a special skill, like a Japanese writer who uses special ink and brushes.
  5. Are there any memorable quotes or dialogues from the characters?
    • “My favorite comment was ‘I didn’t know the writer was gay until the end'” -on my marriage article.
    • “Painting my feelings as fact” -from Supergrover.
    • “As if it isn’t a wheel with many spokes,” which meant more to me than diamonds because even if she didn’t want to respond to them, she knew we had problems on both sides. It let me off the hook for everything being my fault all the time.
    • “Sometimes when we get the most angry and full of rage, we’re not even fighting with our partners. We’re fighting people who aren’t even in the room.” It was a comment on adding to the list re: my marriage article and it saved me a ton of resentment towards Dana because she didn’t hit me. She got confused and hit someone else. And I know who it is. I hope she does, too, and releases any guilt or shame. Their face got scrambled with mine, because I know that feeling so intimately. I have worn it on my skin. Most women do. We’re divorced because I don’t forget, not because I don’t forgive. She can be precious in my memories without new interaction.
    • “You’re like a 15 year old boy…………… and his mother.” Can’t remember which reader said it, but I absolutely fell apart laughing.
  6. What emotions do the characters evoke in the reader?
    • I cannot speak to that unless people comment. I can only comment on what I control, which is my half of the relationship. What I want people to pick up is how much I love the little things about the people in my life. Supergrover is the busiest person I know, and sometimes she makes the clock stop only for me. It’s the most important thing in my life, that she’s giving of her time. I have never been railing that I want more of it. I was doing two things at once. The first is that I didn’t want more time with her, I wanted more letters where she laid out her feelings so that I wasn’t wandering around in the dark all the time. The second was trying to stay grounded. Of course it wasn’t weird to hang out because we’re actually friends, not a facsimile because we connect virtually. I only wanted her time if she was available, and she never has been. That part is completely okay with me. What’s not is waffling between feeling guilty she’s not responding and thinking about me frequently, she just doesn’t have the bandwidth to reply. Completely okay. What I object to is holding all that in and exploding when it’s a two minute problem to solve. I have asked her to go and do something one time, and she said “I don’t think I’m ready quite yet, but someday, perhaps?” She was trying to stay grounded as well, we just never made time for it. Such a pity. One of the things I’ve always wanted to do is ride in her car, because I’m betting she drives like a normal person most of the time, but if I asked her to scare me, she probably would. She has the kind of engine that would be very effective at that. I think we would have had a blast together, but we just couldn’t resolve our conflicts. Those are the emotions I mean to express, but whether other people see that, I cannot say.
  7. Do the characters have distinct personalities or quirks?
    • Of course they do. I have a random collection of friends in which I know in a lot of different capacities, and I lead a life that’s different than most people by seeing more in a day than others. Public transit is the credit balance of a writer just as much as childhood. You can write about people your readers don’t know, and neither do you.
  8. Are there any romantic relationships or friendships depicted among the characters?
    • All of the above. Dana and me, me and me (it’s the stupidest thing ever that I fell in love with the character I created of Supergrover more than I fell in love with a real person. It makes me feel better that I didn’t cheat so much as develop a connection I couldn’t ignore. That information, however, did not go over well with my ex-wife…… but she knew enough to see it coming because the TARDIS had landed in the backyard. One person’s needs trumped the other, and I’m sapiosexual. Supergrover kept my mind incredibly busy, so I was ace for a long time (seven years) because I preferred it to romance. It wasn’t trying to persuade Supergrover of anything, just that I like talking to people I already know and am an introvert so it’s hard for me to make friends. I’m not shy. I have problems getting up enough energy to go out. I was incredibly devoted to her because I had the bandwidth. It was a lot, but I never meant any harm by it. I just wanted to make her feel loved and cared for whether she was my romantic partner or not. A yellow string indicating an emotional support person on the murder board of polyamory doesn’t mean less, ever. It means that they’re on the calendar because time with them is just as important as time with each other.. For instance, Bryn gets just as much airtime as Zac. It’s not about dividing my love in thirds, sixths if you count Zac, Dave, and Michael. It’s about being able to love all of your “gaang” a hundred percent. Your heart doesn’t get smaller the more people you meet. Your bandwidth does.
    • Zac and I have been dating over a year, my one red string. I am no opposed to the idea of having different partners, they just have to appeal to my brain and also be wired for polyamory because Zac and I are close enough that it’s not worth going through the trauma of breaking up with him. I want to help him be his best self, and I can’t imagine not being at his side when he asks for it.
  9. How does the author describe the physical appearance of the characters?
    • In very vague terms and not because I want to. I have 2D vision and cannot place an object or person in its environment. Therefore, my creativity does not come across in physical description. It is easier to discuss what they wear than their faces. The most recent example is seeing Zac all dressed up in his formal uniform for a promotion ceremony with a fresh haircut and Rivers Cuomo glasses. It’s the most beautiful picture of ๐Ÿ˜‰ I’ve ever seen.
  10. Are there any character-driven plot twists or surprises?
    • Not on purpose. Because I’m writing about real life, if they happen, they are completely organic. I have not made up a story, I am writing the one that’s already in front of me by looking at the past. Past determines future. If you don’t reflect on yourself, here’s the motto you live by:
      • If you always do what you always have, you always get what you’ve already got. It is the only thing I have ever remembered from a company training video which empathized moving quickly.
      • The biggest plot twist in the whole show is that in season 23 I learned that I’m autistic and the way I’ve walked in the world all this time is a lie. I have always needed special accommodations to succeed and called myself a dumbass instead. I’m completely done with that. I’m not dumb, you don’t understand my disabilities.
  11. What cultural backgrounds or identities do the characters represent?
    • Lindsay and I are mostly of Irish and English blood. All Europe, all the time. I think Zac is the same, although he got the redhead gene and I’m jealous. Supergrover is a minority, but I don’t think she would call herself that because she’s biracial, white and Latina. Most of my friends are white, because my black friends have moved away and we haven’t kept in touch. Because Hayat had so many rooms, I have shared space with a Cameroonian, a Liberian, and a Nigerian. The funniest part of this is that the Cameroonian invited his mother to stay with us. She didn’t speak any English at all and fell over laughing when I said “francaise c’nest pas comfortable pour moi” (French is not comfortable for me, one of the only sentences I can put together because of Michel Thomas). So, we spoke in hand gestures and fed me until I exploded. I loved her. She could have lived with us forever. Franklin was my housemate, and in retrospect I fell in love with him and wanted to marry him, I just couldn’t say it. We had a lot of chemistry, but he was determined to marry an African woman……………. who steamrolled all over him. The match wasn’t hard to see. He’s a doctor. We could have crushes, but it was inappropriate on multiple levels to act. I do wish I’d said my piece, though, and not because I wanted the answer that he loved me, too. I wanted the answer that he heard me when I said she was emotionally beating him up and I was trying to stop that. Realizing I loved him was just a side effect. I just didn’t have any jealousy, so him making a choice wasn’t my call. It never was, so even more reason not to tell him.
  12. Do the characters have unique hobbies, interests, or passions?
    • Supergrover and I both like to read and write.
    • Zac and I both love fictional spies, and he was going to go with me to the Mendez lecture and got TDY (temporary duty).
    • Bryn likes to garden, be “witchy” (she is weird in the most wonderful of ways), and work with dogs. She also likes house sitting for people with kids when parents need a break, so that is a thing you know now…………. Bryn doesn’t want to adopt, I don’t think, but I’ve told her I’d have a kid with her any time she wanted. It’s not about the whole fairy tale romance of bonding over the baby. It’s that I can be a decent coparent whether we’re involved or not. Plus, she has a boyfriend now. Many hands make light work, especially if we lived together. That would be infinitely possible because Dave’s house is huge. This is not a reality in any way, shape, or form. This is just saying that if Bryn wants kids, don’t let being single stop her. She’s not now, but it was the thought that counted at the time….. one I actually meant. I feel like I’m too old to be a biological parent, but still young enough to coparent a kid that didn’t come out of me. It is fun to dream whether it comes true or not, like inviting Supergrover to spend time with me in Viet Nam. If she doesn’t have the bandwidth, cool. But I wasn’t wrong for asking. Trying to stay grounded, remember?
  13. Are there any character arcs that stand out?
    • Yes, but only within me. I feel that because our relationship has always been virtual, it allowed us to say things to each other that we wouldn’t have told anyone else, then got mad we did it on both sides. The arc has been how to come down from autistic meltdown and burnout to allow myself to move past all of it. Whether she comes back is not up to me. Whether she’s changed her behavior is up to me. I have to think about what I will tolerate as a blogger and as a human.
    • Dana went from my favorite person in the entire world bar none to the one that hurt me the most, because even though I’ve had big emotional fights with people, I’ve never been hit until she did it. I had a black eye and phantom pain for weeks. As I have said before, I have forgiven her and that has come to comfort me. However, it is interesting to note that when I said I had “phantom pain,” my nerves started to burn in that part of my face. I found out why you never hit a girl with glasses because it wasn’t the hit that fucked me up. It was my glasses smashing into my face.
    • Zac has gone from a casual friend to my favorite ally in life. Because we have a special niche instead of relying on each other for everything, I can see this relationship long, long into the future. We just really don’t have much to fight about because we work hard at staying on the same page. He’s only been a bad hinge once in our entire relationship, and that’s not bad. It was just growing pains. By “being a good hinge,” it’s protecting me by not telling me about problems in any of his other relationships except for the barest minimum. So far, he hasn’t even asked me opinions when the issue has to do with me, because he knows that’s not my business to handle. It’s his. What his other partners think of me is none of my business, because I get to date him whether anyone else likes it or not. No one gets veto power. We just go parallel and stay out of each other’s way. Nothing matters except that Zac and I are solid. Anything other than that is above my pay grade.
  14. How do the characters interact with each other?
    • I have traditionally kept up with Supergrover through Gmail, because it catalogues conversations just like instant messages and it’s easier for her to get e-mail on the go. She can pick it up on her laptop or her phone that way (as opposed to using iMessage or SMS). When we’re both online at the same time, e-mails fly fast and furious. When we’re not, I write long letters because I like to imagine that she puts down her favorite novel to read me. I am not wrong.
  15. Are there any morally ambiguous or complex characters?
    • Everyone in the world, no matter who I write about- from Margaret Cho to Bryn and Zac is morally ambiguous. It’s human nature. To exclude anyone from this is devaluing what the meaning of “human” is in the first place.
  16. What motivates the charactersโ€™ actions and decisions?
    • I can only speak for my motivations in writing, because I am not responsible for anyone else’s reaction. What motivates my actions and decisions is reading my own blog and picking out the things I need to rethink. I need my own character to grow and change more than the proverbial “them.”
  17. Do the characters face external obstacles or internal struggles?
    • Yes, but only with me. Anything else is hearsay and useless. I only want to write about how I handle a situation, not how someone else is handling theirs. I call people out on behavior when it hurts me, but that is not a way to “get back at them.” It’s being able to remind myself long after I’ve supposedly forgotten why reaching out is a bad idea. If they’ve hurt me badly, there’s no chance in taking another risk. They become memories as I gain empathy and remember people fondly again once the anger has passed.
  18. Are there any character-driven conflicts or rivalries?
    • One that’s really cute:
      • I talked to Jonna Mendez at the release of “In True Face,” and I told her that one day I’d write something as good as she did. She deadass looked me in the face and said, “it’s good you’re still workin’ on that. There was a gleam in her eyes. I said, “I’m going to be laughing about that for three years,” because she didn’t know I spoke “migroaggression” and nearly spit out her water. She teased me as a writer. I would follow that woman into the ocean no questions asked. I think her employees felt the same way.
    • One that was really obnoxious:
      • The man I wanted to marry spun out on his own after I went to bed and thought I was being a hardass for not responding. So, he broke up with me while I was asleep. It was the most nonsensical thing I’d ever been through, which is why I shut him down when he said maybe later in life we could try again. No one gets over that kind of anger and abandonment in a short period of time, enough to end a relationship in two hours because he was so mad that he told me he goes off the grid when he’s in the middle of something and not to worry if he disappears. Then, he exploded at me for not contacting him for a whole day. I pointed out his hypocrisy without saying he was a bad person, and he tried to hit me emotionally with a sniper bullet, saying he was a better writer than me, that if I kept writing about him he was going to create a blog specifically designed to take me down (why would I care? Everyone is allowed to tell their story), and he was doing me a favor by not posting it on my blog. That’s the only reason I posted it on my blog. I don’t give a fuck how I come off in his letter, because I know what’s truth and so do you if you’ve been reading what I’ve been saying. Because he and Supergrover have so much in common, I’m betting he took a whole lot of offense at nothing. I was showing why I didn’t want the same toxic cycle with Daniel I’d already been living for 10 years. His behavior came off like an angry little boy, and he got mad that I told him that. He extrapolated that into namecalling, but that’s not what I meant. It never is. Someone’s self-esteem tells them what they hear. Someone’s self-esteem being in the trash basket tells them you mean they’re a piece of shit whether or not it’s true.
  19. How does the author create empathy or connection with the characters?
    • By being as organic as I can possibly be. Telling you what grew out of what even if correlation is not causation because I hold no authority over what someone is really thinking, but I do hold authority over trying to figure out what went wrong. I know that by doing so, people come out of the woodworks to tell me stories that they were thinking of as they read. I don’t create empathy or connection for my characters. They write their own, because my observations give you a view into their lives when I am able to see it. What they are is what they are. If you have gone through something similar to them, you will feel empathy and you will feel heard.
  20. Which character resonates with you the most, and why?
    • Supergrover, because half this blog is just ripping her off blind. Because she’s a 3D character. She is present whether we’re in each other’s lives, or a ghost that comes to sit with me when I need her the most.

Gratitude Journaling

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I just caught a dog rifling through my trash can, so I am not feeling particularly good about myself right now. I didn’t know that the dog was smart enough to open the trash can himself. I shouldn’t have doubted it, and I can’t get him to clean up the trash, either. So, I cleaned it up…. by myself…. again.

I’m not bagging on David, my housemate. I am bagging on Jack, who is a useless housekeeper. My coworker needs a visit with HR for a performance improvement plan. I don’t know how to keep a dog out of the trash except getting a different trash can or keeping the door closed all the time. I’d rather just train the dog, but again, Jack is very smart. You have to get right up in his face before he will even begin to think you have half a brain. So, we’ve been working on “sit,” “heel,” and “bring Mama a Diet Coke.” That last one was a joke that Heather Armstrong (Dooce) wrote about her dog, Chuck, the former Congressman.

I’m trying to keep Heather’s name alive because she’s a part of the zeitgeist, but no one has influenced the direction of this web site, because Supergrover and I both loved her once upon a time. It was the same for me- I fell out with reading her when she got on the influencer bandwagon, because like my beautiful girl I thought it lost something when Dooce stopped getting so real. There was no more Dooce (a typo she used to make while typing Dude), no more Asian Database Administrator (probably good she took that one out), no more dry humping and Sprite.

Sometimes I feel like Dooce is gone and I got the best of the best and you just got me. I keep trying, though. I’ve just realized that what I thought was Texas old guy is actually Utah blogger, apparently, and I know her writing well enough that she would be pleased by this. Unfortunately, I never got to meet her. We just ran in the same circles. If I had an hour with her, I’d ask her about blowback.

I’ll ask her about the friends she lost, and the friends who came to take their places. It’s something for which I’ll always be grateful, and I’m glad she came up in my mind while I was trying to say “I’m not in a very good mood, so I need to find things for which to be thankful.” I count blessings, every single one. It keeps me from thinking that I am failing all the time, because I recognize when I have a win.

I continue to be thankful for my house, and even Jack. He continues to be “my dog,” and he’s as lovable as every dog ever. If he’s ever missing, I know he’s in my bed as far under the covers as he can go. He’s shaved almost to the skin right now; when the wind is blowing in from the windows he shivers. It’s how I like it, because it’ll be 55F outside, but I’ve got a sheet, a blanket, and two comforters on top. I think I’ll be okay.

At the same time, when I take sleeping pills my body temperature goes way up, and having the windows open keeps me from sweating because of them. There have been a few days, though, where I woke up and thought I lost three pounds because I’d shake the blankets off, it would be too cold, then I’d pull them all back…. All night. It was glorious, let me tell you.

I’m grateful for a comfortable place to sleep, and a room with so many new possibilities. Neither my lamp nor my shelf with a light came with light bulbs, so I ordered some retro LEDs. They look like they’re from the early 1900s. I have a floor lamp without a shade, which is why I thought it would be nice with the bulb exposed to go decorative. I am hoping that I will have enough light, because each bulb is 60w. I wanted higher than that, but I couldn’t find any yellow bulbs that came in 75w or 100. I do not like the bulbs where they take all the yellow out and it leaves a slightly blue glow on everything. I do use 100w white bulbs in my bathroom because I want to get dressed in the most unflattering light possible. That way, when I get myself fixed up, I will look better when I leave the house. It’s good to have goals, anyway. ๐Ÿ˜‰

I’m grateful I have a bathtub again. Hayat replaced our bathtub with a stand up shower long ago, so it’s nice to be able to sit and relax when I want. I liked the stand-up shower, too. I’m not knocking it. I just had trouble shaving because I am terrible at balance. It’s not that one was bad, it’s just that with a bathtub I can also sit in lavender and eucalyptus salts.

I’m grateful to still have a garden. David is the gardener, I’m just the enjoyer. I’m going to have to put some lavender out for me, because I’ve talked many times about talking to the bees. It’s real. I don’t mean that they can hear me, necessarily, but that it does make you feel better to talk to them.

I’m grateful for DC. There are limitless possibilities for beauty here. There’s kayaking, biking, hiking, sailing- basically everything I could do in Portland is also right here. The two cities mirror each other in lots of ways when it comes to layout. That’s because people in DC do not think of Arlington as the same city, but if you look at it from the sky, it looks the same as Portland being divided by the river north to south and Burnside east to west. We are a bridge city, and I can’t wait for Bryn to see it from the air. The only real difference is that when you land at National, there’s not a long airstrip parallel to the river. If the pilots at National can’t stop in time, they’ll fall into the Potomac.

Seem to remember something about that in the news when I was a child.

Zac says he has never met a person that loves this area as much as I do. Zac has never left and come back for any real length of time. I wonder how it would look different to him if he’d lived here in his early 20’s and then traveled all over. I missed the Potomac because the Willamette is always cold. Always. I cannot remember a 4th of July in which I was not absolutely freezing my ass off. I once drove with a housemate up to Mt. Hood for lunch (we weren’t skiing that day) and it started as we were driving home. It was June 27th. DC is the beauty of a city with a river running through it that is also not 54F and raining 280 days a year. I love Portland a whole lot, and I would move back if I had to do so. It’s just not my first choice for a number of reasons, and the weather is at the top.

The only pro here would be getting to live in the same city as my best friend, because the position has been filled- end of story. That being said, occasional video calls and visits are fine. I do not have a need for Bryn to move here or me to move there. If so, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I just can’t think of a good reason all our time needs to be in person.

There are moments, of course. You don’t move to your partner’s or your best friend’s city because something is happening. You move there to be available if it does. That’s because even now when something is going on with Bryn, I can’t help but want to jump on a plane. Therefore, I’m not sure I’ve ever been more surprised than when she said she was jumping on a plane to get to me. It’s getting so exciting thinking about her visit, and it’s already the 25th. So, not many more sleeps. I’m grateful.

I’m grateful that both Bryn and Dave want to see SPY so it doesn’t feel like I’m strong-arming them into going there on my account. I live here. I can go any time I want (and do). We haven’t decided what we’re going to do all days, and I know they’ll probably also want time to themselves. We just need to talk about dates so that I can send Zac an invitation. I live and die by Google Calendar.

Zac’s acceptance is not mandatory, I just want him to know he’s included in the fun and he’s said that he does want to meet Bryn. So, now Zac will have met one friend I met in high school and one I met my freshman year of college. I’m glad I can bridge those gaps in time, and it makes me happy that Zac is going to learn just so many “Borum-isms.”

I am grateful for “Borum-isms.” It’s a specific cadence, and I will pick it up instantly because it’s not based on accent but rhythm. Bryn’s dad said something so incredibly profound that I’ve remembered it for over 20 years…. “the hardest part of teaching is remembering what it was like not to know.”

Bryn also reminds me of Arya Stark, and I don’t have to squint. But by that I mean she is take charge alpha dog all the time, which means that she is strong and firm, but also the most loving person in the room because the alpha’s job is to manage the whole pack by seeing their needs and helping them……. serving, not owning……. as opposed to whatever the fucktard morons think it is this week.

In some ways, I’m grateful for guys like that because it reminds me of Roy Wood, Jr. who said that he appreciated businesses with the confederate flag outside because then at least you had a tip it wasn’t going to go well for you. If someone is advertising on the internet that they want a “tradwife,” they probably mean that they want someone who will take all their bullying all the time and call it Biblical. Therefore, there’s no confederate flag, but there’s a big waving red one.

I’m grateful for the ability to see red flags and work on them. I see them in myself by rereading my work. Throwing words on a page and seeing what they look like once they’re outside you gives you enough separation to say “ok, that’s good…. but that’s bad.” Not the writing, the way I behaved.

I am working to find peace within myself, so don’t think I don’t notice when I’m angry and figure out a way to resolve it in myself. I think I have. My tone is completely different than it was a year ago. A lot of it has to do with Supergrover finally telling me what she really wanted. She wants peace and rest, I assume for both of us. Maybe one day our paths will cross again, but I doubt it. I require something she does not have, which created the initial attraction to each other in terms of energy. This is because she has something I don’t, which is pragmatism and logic. In some ways, our personalities are exactly alike. In others, they are diametrically opposed.

But leaning in through all of that made me who I am today, and I’m more confident in myself as a result, and grateful I ever got to meet her at all. I am so angry that what she chooses to highlight in our relationship is all the negativity and not our incredible potential for joy. Maybe she already has these things with everyone else but me, and it’s because I’m a shitty friend that I don’t have these things with her and I’m whistling Dixie because no one else ever has a problem……. I would tell her the same thing I told her when she said she was giving up Diet Coke. “Yeah. Uh huh. Keep talkin,’ sweetheart.” No, wait. It wasn’t about Diet Coke. That was another day. And now I’m laughing my ass off, but that joke is above your pay grade.

I think the thing that makes her spit nails is that I’m right. What I realized through my mistakes is that I didn’t have to sit in them just because I’d made a long time making them. That my history with her meant a lot, but not at the expense of my own health and happiness. It’s not because I wouldn’t have done it. It’s because I expected her to pull her weight. I would have done anything for her, but I realized that she didn’t feel that way about me, and it was stupid to think that, in retrospect. I did not feel that way every single day. I recognized her hurt and talked about what happened often, but she never took the bait and opened up to me so that I could better understand her. I thought, “I am going to end up giving her absolutely everything I have and she’s not going to notice in the slightest.” I’d listened to the whispers and the screams long enough.

I’ve said this before, but I did not get angry that she was also angry. I was furious because she refused to tell me anything that gave me any headway. All I could do was talk about myself when it was the last thing I wanted to talk about. I also didn’t always want to talk about her, as if I was mining her for information. I wanted an easy give and take, the strength and comfort of someone I’d known for a very long time.

There was every reason to stay except having a feeling of safety and security when we talked, because it was missing for a very long time. Any attempt to lighten the load was wrong, so I didn’t get tired of her. I got tired of how I felt about myself. She says I’m “a lot.” She has never really grasped that she’s a lot. That for everything she’d like to change about me, there’s something I’d like to change about her. What I cannot get her to see is “this is me. Take it or leave it.” And that’s what we’ve both been trying to say to each other for years, mostly at the top of our metaphorical lungs. I have found that it is much more fun to fly with a dragon than to be touched by its fire.

I’ve thought for many years that if I did ever see her face to face, that I would go mute. That she’s the only person I know where that would happen. It’s not that I am not interested in talking, it’s that I would be completely overwhelmed before the conversation began. But I know us. We both know how to make each other laugh. After a few minutes, it wouldn’t be weird. One of us would say something to break the tension, and the spell would be broken. This person that we’ve each built up in our heads will be gone, and it will seem like we’ve never met.

Here is something I also know. I will never know how much of my e-mails she’s taken in until I hear her talking around other people, because I know what I’ve written. I would know when she was quoting me and when she wasn’t, and I would never say a thing. It wouldn’t mean as much to her as it would to me.

I do know that if we were at the same party, one of two things would happen. The first is that I’d be telling a story and get a detail wrong, and from across the room I’d hear, “THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED. This is how it happened…..” The second would be her seeing someone else mistreating me because despite how she feels about me at any given moment I know she’d eat off their legs.

What I mean about getting a detail wrong is that all of the sudden she becomes very, very familiar with absolutely everything I’ve ever said when she is irritated. When she’s irritated, she quotes me back to me. How much she’s irked is inversely proportional to my joy at watching her quote me, because the more angry she is, the more likely she is to do it. I don’t do anything to irk her on purpose, I’m just saying that after a fight, when I feel calmer I go back and reread everything. I notice style, structure, all of it. Even when I’m devastated, I still find beauty in hearing from her at all because I rip her off mercilessly. Without my e-mail history, I am so much dumber, I promise you. I hope that in some ways she feels the same, because my dexterity helped her when her own words failed her. It’s something I hope she knows, really- that wherever she is in the world, my heart is with her. That’s because everywhere I go, her heart is with me.

So, even if she was trying to avoid me at a party, she’d never make it. We don’t have any mutual friends so far, and I’m not interested in making them…. mostly to protect the innocent.

I also know that no matter what, as long as I don’t start going with the crowd, she’ll still be in my audience. I know that when she told me that Dooce sucked now and she wasn’t going to read anymore and I told her it was her job to tell me when I should retire because she could just re-send that e-mail.

Come to think of it, that’s what would happen at a party. She’d hear me use a joke or two I’ve told in front of her and then we’d be picking up the end of each other’s sentences because we’ve both heard them before.

We could also have a lot of inside jokes that other people wouldn’t get, but we’d be falling out. For instance, me being the president of Overthinker’s Anonymous not because I am smarter, but because president is a public-facing office.

I think part of me hoped she would join Lanagan Media Group, because she would be great at both writing and podcasting if she had the bandwidth. She told me that she was always looking for what to do in her next career, and I think part of me hoped she would say “writer,” but I didn’t push. I got her stuff to help her in her own direction. She’s talked about writing before, but in a faraway sort of way. The bits of her story I’ve gotten to write because our lives overlapped are unique and beautiful. I know she thought it was unique. One out of two ain’t bad.

I feel like the way autism logic works, people think you’re much more negative than you mean to be because neurotypical brains are used to hearing things in a certain way. There are patterns to neurotypical speech that contain social cues. Autistic people can imitate them, but they cannot understand them. However, not being able to pick up social cues is only one of the criteria for autism. You do not have to have every single one to “prove” you’re autistic. For me, it’s a mixed bag. I do not recognize social cues in a person based on what they are thinking, but from the millions of faces I’ve seen before that looked exactly like that when X…… or when my parents described people’s emotions to me without meaning to…… I started understanding speech very, very early. Therefore, I have overheard things and ruminated on them for years before I understood them. But it’s because I’ve ruminated that I have accurate heuristics for the most part.

It’s easier to social mask when you’re hearing phone calls regarding pastoral care, because if you’re the pastor’s kid, you’re learning how to talk to people while they’re upset…… and mostly at each other. For instance, people who need marriage counseling, etc. But of course there’s a lot of people angry with you, too. Mostly over the things you’ve said.

Being a creative is being a creative. Preaching and writing are two separate skills, but they are two ways of expressing the same ideas. With me, it’s readers who don’t come back. For pastors, it’s church members who inexplicably disappear. Therefore, I am used to an ebb and flow in size and don’t get wigged about stats. I check them, but I don’t focus on them. The only stat I really like is how many flags I got that day. I like how far my site goes. This week, the leaderboard has been Africa- hello to South Africa and Ghana.

OH! South Africa!

Speaking of which, I started watching this YouTube channel called “Flipping Johannesburg,” and it’s incredible. It’s tempting to move to South Africa in some ways because land and resources are so cheap. I could build my own house or purchase one in disrepair so that I could have more land for cheap and more room to overhaul. The last house I watched on “FJ” was 800,00R, which is about $40,000. It was a U-shape with everything from a garage to staff quarters to a huge pool in the middle. I am certain that it took a lot of work to get it where it is today, and also a lot more Rand. Because of this, I am grateful that when I cannot go to South Africa, Flipping Johannesburg brings it to me.

And finally, I am grateful for Zac. He and Oliver, who is a dog, have made me feel more at home. It’s so much fun to have two hiking buddies. It’s nice to have someone to hold onto when I walk. It’s exciting to see him when his car (Antimony) comes over the hill to the Kiss and Ride. Yes, that’s really what they call the place where you pick up and drop off.

If he gets there first, he’ll park. If I get there first, he barely has to slow down and I’m on his way home, anyway. It makes me feel good that he’s relatively close to the Metro so it’s not a big imposition to drive me around. He also knows that all he has to do is say “I’m busy” and I’ll Uber. He does it just to be sweet to me and I appreciate little things. Like, how it is problem to worry how I’ll get around? It was Sam’s whole deal, too, except that Zac (for some disastrous reason) thinks that I am a fully functioning adult and doesn’t have an issue with saying “God, I’m slammed. Meet me at my house.” Therefore, Sam never got to see that I’m a perfectly capable adult. She drove me around and sulked about it because she offered and then regretted it. So, of course the easy thing to do would be to stop offering to drive me around so that I don’t have the choice to say yes or no. Because I can feel energy very well and if you resent that you have to come get me, I’ll know it. I feel it like a scar on my skin.

I would only need a car if I moved from the DMV metro area and out into Virginia or to the eastern shore. With a combination of bus, train, and/or Uber I can get anywhere. I just need a little bit more notice. This is great because if you call me and say you want to do something short notice, I probably won’t want to do it, anyway. I am bad at transitions and like to have my calendar planned out in advance.

Therefore, I am limited to staying in the city because I don’t want to lose excellent transit without a car payment and insurance. A car is just another place for me to let stuff accumulate. I’m not sure I used my car for much more than a high speed crap wagon.

“High Speed Crap Wagon” is my new band name.

I’m grateful.