Me Encanta Aprender -or- Rakastan Oppimista

August 3, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Daily writing prompt

Describe one habit that brings you joy.

My habit is to wake up in the morning and get on Duolingo immediately. I’m on a 99-day streak and doing well… although I’m really hard on myself when I miss a question. I hate when I see red in either Spanish or Finnish. But my love of learning them comes from two very different places.

I am originally from Texas, where I was surrounded by so many Latinx friends I struggled to understand. I chose Spanish as my second language in 10th grade to try and bridge the gap. The summer that school year ended, my father was transferred to a church in Sugar Land, Texas, which offered mission trips to Reynosa. It was then that I got my first taste of immersion, because even though I wasn’t an expert, I knew more Spanish than just about everyone else.

There was one other person who was relatively fluent, but he and I did not spend much time together. Therefore, I was the one that acted as translator for most of the other adults. It’s how I was chosen to preach the Sunday sermon for Vacation Bible School, though I didn’t know how to say much. That changed the more I visited, because I went to Reynosa during every break I was taking Spanish in class. The last trip was the most fun because my favorite phrase didn’t have to be “speak slower, please….” although I am now back to it because I’d forgotten just how fast Spanish speakers talk.

Luckily, Duolingo has a button to slow down playback or I would not have made it this far. I am also somewhat impressed with the AI, because I do not believe it should be used to create the lessons themselves, but it is helpful that by speaking into my microphone someone is listening to my pronunciation and will not pass me to the next level until it is correct.

Because being in Mexico was so much more beneficial than learning in class (and I assume, Duolingo), I hope to make it back sometime soon. Reynosa has changed drastically since the last time I was there, and though no one would remember me it feels somewhat like “going home for the weekend.” Ensenada would feel the same way, because I got to spend a week there in my younger years and still think about living there when I need to escape reality.

My journey with Finnish is a bit more roundabout.

I was emotionally abused as a kid by someone with a birthday complex. The house couldn’t be decorated for Christmas until her birthday was over, she claimed the entire month of December as her birthday, etc. So, when I realized that this friend couldn’t be in my life any longer, I wondered what I would do to celebrate that day instead- to make it feel like there was less of a hole in my heart. I got on the Google machine and looked up what other holidays were on that date, and Finnish Independence Day was available. I go nuts for it as a result, which is ridiculous because I didn’t have any Finnish family or friends at the time.

I still don’t, but that’s another story for another day.

Duolingo’s language capability is not as good in Finnish as it is in Spanish, but I stick with it even though there’s no AI for pronunciation. I find that being able to read in Finnish is impressive enough. I’m further ahead in my Spanish studies than Finnish, but I flip between the two often. They’re so different that you cannot mix them up. And in fact, the Finnish language is so hard to learn that even fluent speakers will commiserate with you.

One of the most exciting days I’ve had in recent memory was when I was having coffee with my friend Tiina. She put her mother on the phone for me and we spoke in Finnish for a few minutes. I’m sure I didn’t say anything earth shattering or clever, but it meant a lot to me to be understood in that language.

I don’t feel that type of excitement when speaking Spanish because it’s been a part of my life since I was a child, as native to me as English because Houston is full of Spanish-speakers. I have gotten to practice my Spanish hundreds of times with many different people.

I have spoken Finnish once.

I am sure that there are a lot of Finnish people that would say “once is enough” after they hear me.

But the title in both languages is “I Love to Learn.” That will never go away, so perhaps sticking with both is the answer. I am much more likely to run into a Spanish speaker in the US, but who knows where my travels will take me? I know I want to go to Helsinki because my heart bleeds “sinivalkoinen,” the blue of Finnish skies and the white of their snow.

I think that I would be just as at home there as I felt in Mexico because of this one joke:

How can you pick out the most extroverted Finn?
It’s the one who will look at your shoes when you talk to them.

So maybe I don’t have any Finnish blood, but I certainly have a Finnish personality at times. It’s a place to escape when the fiesta gets too loud.

A Hit from Helsinki

July 19, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been learning about Finland and the Finnish language for so long that it was a kick to see a hit from Helsinki in my stats today. I mean, obviously if one person from Helsinki has read me, this means I am well on my way to being a household name. 😛 So, to the Finn who is making me famous, hei and kiitos.

I don’t know what it is about Finland that draws me except for the fact that it looks very much like Oregon, Washington, and Alaska with the added bonus of not belonging to a fascist regime. I would very much like to attend vocational school and see if it fits me the way Oregon did. The culinary program to which I want to apply is in Vaasa, but every flight from America goes through HEL first. Therefore, my first sight in Finland will be its capital.

I know that even if I don’t get into culinary school or decide not to go, my dream is to vacation in Helsinki, particularly to see the December 6th Independence Day celebrations. I would like to make some videos for YouTube of my impressions because that day has been important to me for over a decade. Basically, I celebrated someone’s birthday on that day for many years. She’s not my friend anymore, so there’s a hole in my heart where that holiday used to be. I looked up a new holiday to replace it on the Google machine, and now my heart bleeds sinivalkoinen (blue and white).

It seems ridiculous as I have no Finnish family, and yet it works. Trauma is replaced by joy, and I don’t get into why the former holiday is traumatic in order to make room for more happiness. Going to Helsinki for this celebration is the only thing on my bucket list, things to do before I die. Meanwhile, going to Vaasa for culinary school is lower on the list, but still important to me. I just cannot prepare for that right this moment, because I am locked in a lease here in Baltimore until November 30th. Any school to which I apply that’s not in Baltimore will have to wait until next year.

The reason I chose Vamia (aforementioned culinary school) is that their instruction is in English and the tuition is free. It would open up a brand new career path for me, because I am interested in starting a nonprofit called “The Sinners’ Table,” outreach to the least among us that offers fine dining to people who certainly couldn’t afford it on their own. Our tagline is “dinner with dignity,” and it will take about the length of culinary school to decide where home base should be. The program is approximately three years. During those three years, it’s my hope to create a team of people for Lanagan Media Group to do instructional videos on cooking for YouTube.

My former chef, John-Michael Kinkaid, had already started making these videos when he was killed in a car accident. Therefore, they exist, but I will never get to see them. All I can do is create videos on my own that remind me of him. The first will have to be “pan skills,” because my friend Mercy said, “I’ve always wondered how cooks flip the food in the pans without getting shit everywhere.” Mercy, here’s a pro tip…. you get shit everywhere until you learn how to flip food in the pans. In order to start, the easiest way is to learn to flip a piece of bread first. Then you can try an egg.

You want enough butter in the pan that the egg stays loose, but not enough to splash in your face…. ask me how I know this….

After a while, spoons are boring and you’ll just flip everything unless you’re using a rondeau or saucepan. My kitchen is such a disaster in terms of design that I would need to get back in practice. So I’ll be starting with a piece of bread as well. But it will be a piece of Finnish bread, God willing and the creek don’t rise….

The creek is certainly rising right now. I have health issues that need to be addressed before I see myself taking off for a foreign country. I have almost a year, so we’ll see what happens between now and then. What I do know is that I will be getting a new living space when my lease is up, and I want to pay special attention when I’m shopping around as to how the kitchen is built. My current arrangement leaves no work space, so most days I end up reheating leftovers in a toaster oven.

I know I would be happier with a larger kitchen and a smaller bedroom. I don’t even sleep in the master bedroom now. I have a two bedroom apartment and leave the master for guests, because I put my computer in the guest room. I didn’t realize how much I liked having my bed and desk together, so next time I will put my desk in the master to begin with. Everything is too heavy for me to move and I live alone. Plus, there’s something nice about it being small and cozy in here.

Overall, my experience at this apartment complex has been a shitshow, but I’m managing around its issues knowing that I’ll be out of here as quickly as I can. I want to move back to the DMV, Rockville, MD specifically. I belong to a group called “Cognitive Behavioral Health” in Baltimore that also has offices in Rockville and I’d like to be close. At the very least, moving anywhere in the DMV is easy access to Rockville via the Metro.

I realize this entry goes all over the place, and I thank all of you for sticking with me. I think that all blog entries are designed to be thoughts off the top of my head, but I’m still grateful that they provide some entertainment.

I am not entertaining myself. I’m devastated that my Finnish baby will not be coming with me to Helsinki, even for a visit. She said that I betrayed her and that is true. But she has no idea why or even wants to understand me. So I’m glad that the relationship is over. When I think back to her treatment of me for the last 12 years, what I see is an overwhelming amount of love and adoration coming from me and very little going to me. That isn’t why I betrayed her, but it is why I’m glad she’s gone.

I betrayed her because everyone was starting to look at me like I had this imaginary friend I made up. Her name might as well have been “George Glass.” No one understood why I was so messed up over it and why it’s ultimately better that she’s gone. I kick myself every day for continuing the relationship even though I knew it would be the end of me eventually.

She didn’t give a fuck what it cost me to be her friend.

She didn’t give a fuck how many times it hospitalized me (three and counting).

She didn’t give a fuck about my needs, that I was starting to crack a long time ago.

The only way out was to reach out, and the only way I do that is by writing.

She bolted, just like I knew she would. I didn’t care. I was experiencing too many mental health issues that were above her pay grade, and she made it where I couldn’t talk to anyone about them, even keeping it in the family.

I am still angry, still grieving, still trying to move the fuck on and stop thinking about her because that’s what she wants. It’s not what I want. I know part of her was really excited to actually see me learning Finnish. But I won’t see her in Helsinki. That dream is dead just like many others. She chewed me up and spit me out because I had the audacity to spiral out in depression and anxiety due to sitting on everything she told me, then stonewall me into oblivion when I tried to go to her directly.

She doesn’t talk about her feelings, and she doesn’t want to talk about mine. It left me empty on some days and crying my eyes out on others. But those nights won’t mean anything to her.

Because I should have stayed shut down and miserable. I should have counted on her to open up after years and years of pleading.

I don’t know why I couldn’t let go on my own. I needed this push. Otherwise, I would still be buried in a pile of e-mail, no closer to a real relationship with a close friend than I was 12 years ago.

That part is all my fault. I never should have told her I had actual feelings for her, the kind that never go away and there’s jack shit I can do about it until my heart decides she’s just not that interesting. My heart will never decide that. I have to decide how I’m going to handle things going forward. I know within myself that if it took 12 years for her to implant herself, it’ll take half that to get her back out. Luckily, I can see a therapist to work out why I’m such a mess.

I just want her to go away, because it’s not reality to put love into this relationship anymore. They’re just intrusive thoughts on a trauma bond that flips out when I think of her. Trauma bonds aren’t healthy, but that’s what we created. Then, we spent 12 years unleashing our most toxic versions of ourselves on each other. Every single time I wrote her long e-mails trying to explore these things, she’d spit venom in my direction.

She didn’t want me to get close to her, and over time, it worked. I realized that I didn’t want someone who always fought against me instead of working with me. I found out she lied and hit the ceiling, thinking that because she’d lied about one thing, she’d lied about everything.

I realize now that I don’t know and I don’t care what’s true and what’s not. She’s already taken as much of me as she deserves, and I’m finally angry enough to see it. She can rant all day long about my behavior over the last few months, but I’m ranting about the last 12 years. Just avoidant and tight-lipped while I was screaming for empathy and nothing. She helped ruin a marriage over it, and not her own. Because the thing is, my marriage never would have worked after I met her even if I hadn’t felt those teenage, blushing feelings. I don’t wall off my emotions and pretend they don’t exist. I don’t keep secrets from my partners and expect that they know not to ask about my friends.

I want new friends with secure connections and I have them. Unfortunately, they don’t live in the area. So, I’m trying to get out and make them.

I hope that Aada reads this and sees that we’ve always been toxic, that she participated in the toxicity, and likes to pretend that everything is all my fault. It’s easier that way, I’m sure. But I’m done talking to a brick wall and even more done trying to knock it down.

It will be a cold day in HEL before I welcome her home, a double entendre because perhaps one day she’ll realize that she was in the wrong, too, and I’ll get the healthy relationship I wanted all along. I just severely doubt it because she doesn’t like emotions or messiness. She doesn’t like mental illness. She doesn’t like anything that disturbs her peace while she disturbs everyone else’s. She’s been the most selfish friend I’ve ever had in my life, because when she needed me, I was there. When I needed her, she was nowhere to be found. She said a lot of things that made me think she would be there for me someday.

Someday never came, which is why I’m happy with just getting a hit from Helsinki and leaving my Finnish baby where I found her.

Spanish and Sundry

July 8, 2025July 8, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Daily writing prompt

What are you most excited about for the future?

View all responses

I have finally reached a section of Duolingo that has vocabulary I haven’t studied and I’m on my own. It makes me excited for the future because I can’t skate by on 30 year old lessons in school. I am actually using the software to prepare me for trips to Mexico in the future- none of which are planned, by the way, but I have a better shot of going to Mexico than anywhere else. Granted, when I get there I will mostly be asking them why they don’t wear the green t-shirts and where the bank might be, but it’s a start. 😉

Kidding, but not by much. I remember the first time I went to Mexico on a mission trip. My Spanish was equal to that of a Mexican toddler, but the people were so kind and corrected me with such love that it lit a fire in me to learn more. I learned that Sylvia and Hector were getting married, that Marta was building a new house, and that little kids don’t listen to me no matter what language I speak (I was on a trip to teach vacation Bible school). It was my turn to listen because I picked up more just soaking up conversation than I would have trying to talk. For instance, those are the real names of the people I met, stuck in my brain even though it is now over 30 years since the last time I went to Reynosa. There is just no substitution for immersion, so it’s time to start finding telenovelas on Pluto TV, or watching the news on Telemundo/Univision.

I had friend recommend “La Reina del Sur,” but I have already watched “Queen of the South” on Netflix. It would be a good brush-up to have a show with which I’m already familiar, but there are others I haven’t seen that might be better after I finish it. For instance, I have not seen the original “Yo Soy Betty, la Fea.” That’s “Ugly Betty” for you American viewers. I have found it on Peacock and Apple TV+ according to reddit, so I will be searching it out after I finish this blog entry.

Because I have an auditory processing disorder (comes free with neurodivergence), I like to have the subtitles on as I listen. People don’t have subtitles, but I need the extra help while I am learning.

There is a point to all of this. Many of the homeless people I have encountered, as well as the workers in my neighborhood, speak Spanish and their English is poor. Instead of making them learn English, I want to turn the view of Americans on its head. I’m perfectly willing to put myself out there, mostly because if I get a job in the future, I want to work at Home Depot.

That’s another thing I’m looking forward to in the future- discussing jobs I could do with my care team so that I am not reliant on SSI/SSDI unless I really want to be. I am eligible for both because I was diagnosed with cerebral palsy when I was 18 mos old. I don’t regret the choices I’ve made in my life with my career, but it would have been nice to know that I could have gotten disability from the jump. The reason I didn’t know is that my mother hid all the paperwork I needed to file and my sister found them among her personal effects after she died, well into my late 30s.

My mental health is not helping the situation, so I am looking forward to working all of this out. I either have a journey into the workforce or a journey into the court system in which I’ll have to fight for my right not to party.

But there are things I can do on my own to further my education, and a second language has filled the hole in my heart at not being able to work in the immediate future. Right now, my job is to attend classes at Cognitive Behavioral Health and learn all I can when I’m not there.

I actually started with Finnish, but after a 43 day streak, I was hospitalized for my mental health. After I got out of the hospital, it had been just long enough since I’d studied that I don’t remember much. It seems like I forgot Finnish in “kaksitoista sekuntia,” or 12 seconds.

Duolingo is also not the best learning tool for Finnish, because it does not have the AI features that Swedish and Spanish do. Everything is done with the keyboard and reading, so you don’t get to practice by speaking out loud. The reason Swedish is important is that the cooking school I would like to attend next year is in a Swedish-speaking region of Finland, Vaasa. The school is called Vamia, and it was recommended to me by a YouTuber named Cyril:

At this point, I do not know if this school is right for me because the tuition is free, but living in Europe is not. I am saving my pennies and riding out the lease I have in the United States until November, and then I’ll decide what to do. I know I would like to go to Vaasa before I decide to move there, but even that is a stretch on my budget. I just have to hope that I will get more subscribers to both my Medium and WordPress blog, because every subscriber here adds to my ad revenue, and every reader on Medium adds to the income I get the longer you scroll through my drivel. 😉

Culinary school would accomplish two things. The first is that I would like to work with Finnish YouTubers like Cyril to create a channel with Finnish content. I think I would be hilariously cranky like Anthony Bourdain, because that is my kitchen personality. The second is that I want to start a ministry for unhoused people that revolves around the kitchen, and I would be better equipped to do that having been trained as a chef and not merely the line cook I am now.

Traditional advice is to work in a kitchen before you go to culinary school to make sure you like it. I have 10 years under my belt, from dish to pantry to sauté. I have worked every station and though I cannot say I am excellent at any of them, I know I will get better by hanging in at school. Plus, there are plenty of jobs I could do without learning Finnish until I’m ready, because most Finns speak English, especially in the hospitality industry. Vamia also instructs in English, with (I’m guessing) the requisite amount of French required.

In the meantime, I am looking forward to all the nonprofit ideas I have coming to fruition. I have to have a Plan B in case going to school in Europe is not feasible… and it’s probably not, to be perfectly honest. I want to go more than anything, but again, it’s going to take a lot of money I don’t have yet. But that’s the thing about dreams. When other people know you want something, they are willing to help. For instance, my readers showing up every day. Each little bit helps.

If I stay in the Baltimore area, my idea is to create a nonprofit called “The Sinners’ Table.” It centers around accepting all the people that society rejects, giving them a fine dining experience they could never afford on their own. I am doing the hard work of identifying stakeholders and writing a business plan, because that is something I can do in my spare time while I am waiting to see what is going to happen with my job and school aspirations. If other people have to run it because I am not eligible for a job, I will be able to volunteer.

But why Finland in the meantime?

I would only have to worry about my living expenses and not the fabulously high cost of tuition. Any Le Cordon Bleu institution in the United States would bankrupt me quickly, while I can find housing for the rough cost of living in DC or Baltimore. Some things would be more expensive, like clothing (I’m not skimping out on cold weather gear), but an apartment is roughly the same. The biggest cost to my family would be me being so far away that it’s hard to visit. However, culinary school does not last that long. If I like Finland so much that I want to stay and get permanent residency or citizenship, that’s a bridge I’ll cross when I come to it. I don’t get to see my family that much as it stands now, because they’re all in Texas…. far away from the current flooding, I might add.

My biggest problem is that I am an idealist who doesn’t necessarily know how to break down large ideas into small steps for execution. I generally work best in a team for that, and I’m lucky to have one under me now. I have gathered the best and the brightest at Lanagan Media Group, most of whom went to high school with me at High School for Performing and Visual Arts. Instead of using AI, I get immediate feedback from an arts brain trust.

Because make no mistake, cooking is art in any language.

And in the United States, the language in the kitchen is overwhelmingly Spanish. I want to be able to speak to my employees in whatever language they feel the most comfortable. Therefore, Finnish can wait.

But not for long.

Clinical Observations of Myself

March 7, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Everyone says that I’m out to get them. I’ve been out to get me the whole time. Here’s how I moved myself out of the way so you can, too.

I social mask. Full stop. I do not know anything. I remember it. Everything from the largest picture to the smallest tree. The difference is that being INFJ, I am prone to melancholy and rumination when I am injured. I am injured to the point that I cannot reach out. It has been two or three days since I have talked to anyone at all, including an Uber driver that turned out to be hot so I agreed to have dinner with him and then ghosted (I will get back to him. I’m just injured).

During the change in paragraphs I reached out and said:

I’m really sorry and need to apologize. I got emotionally overwhelmed and couldn’t reach out. Would you be interested in going to dinner tonight or tomorrow so I can relax with a friend?

Unless he becomes a fan after dinner, he won’t know the problems I was facing with my fake girlfriend.

The reason you get so many messages is that I think I’m being abandoned when you go silent and just try everything to get you to come back. It’s like an SOS level call every goddamn time and my body is physically worn out. Yet when we’re not together I feel you moving in the universe and you feel me. We protect each other constantly without saying so. I would bet that you’ve kept it hidden from the bombshells that you’re so close to me that you don’t have a problem with talking about sex and intimacy because that’s not personal. Emotions are.

You can talk about anything and everything with detachment but the party girl act has to stop. You need to admit to everyone that you’re a trainwreck right now and you need Moomin dolls and blankets because you’re sick and need time to heal. We’ve both left 3rd degree burns on each other. I bet not drinking has made you sleep deeper, at least.

Editor’s Note:

She’s not an addict, just decided alcohol was tired like I did.

But say to the psychiatrist, “Leslie thinks I have some kind of mood disorder and the same drugs work for all of them, so put me on Lamictal, Lexapro, and Klonopin and I’ll tell you how I feel in two months.

I am trying to lift your depression for good. Stop mistrusting drugs and doctors and get on board. You are sick, and we need time to figure out what’s wrong with you because the root of the problem is rape. Not you.

Because you remind me of someone else who needed to be loved, and he’s not doing well.

I chose Aaron because he’s Supergrover’s mirror image. The Supergrover I can love with fire.

I loved her so much I asked for another one from the universe, and she needed to be someone else to be cool.

The clinical observation is how attracted to that I am and why. That’s going to be another six months of entries.

Joy.

I’m so bitter, but glad that my pain can be someone else’s success.

Because I’m too broken to not need time to get well, too.

It starts with dinner.

Suomalainen äiti keinuttaa amerikkalaista vauvaansa ja laulaa hiljaa

March 5, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

A scene is playing in my mind, because new learning has come from an ancient place for me… my own beating heart. The reason I learn so much there is that I’m not the only one in it.

I will say it in English, but I know right now that hearing the AI read the title back to me will make me cry (this was first published on Medium and I have only listened to it 86 times and I need another hundred because the baby said, “lovely post, btw.”:

The Finnish mother rocks her American baby and sings quietly.

The room is quiet. Esteban is gone… there is war. Only Aino remains. Aada drinks deeply, struggling to stay awake. Aino is not sure who she is singing for, but it is a blanket for both of them. I’m a silent observer of a mother and a baby I love, their connection filling me. Aada is not a baby anymore, as that war is long forgotten. It is questioning what those melodies might have been that pique my interest. How do you sing to your baby when your husband is at war?

Whenever anyone said something smartass about Daniel not being an MD, my standard reply was “my stepmother has done brain surgery in an operating theater. My boyfriend has done brain surgery while his team was being fired upon. OF COURSE he wasn’t qualified to do brain surgery. In the Navy, you GET qualified. It’s a very short course.

Singing to your baby is different in peacetime.

This is not peacetime, either.

I can’t remember who said, “y’all can go to hell, but I will go to Texas,” yet I am reminded of it by my motto being “y’all can go to Texas, but I will go to HEL.” Little airport humor for you there, Carlos. Aada says she’s not sure she’d live there, but my heart hopes my guest room has some of her stuff on the walls. I have, in fact, pre-ordered.

I have felt that strong a connection to that baby’s picture for many, many years. She’s older than I am and I was concerned about the microclimate of her pram. Like, WTF? I THINK SHE’S OKAY (well, that’s debatable but we are both “works in progmess.” Our roles are now somewhat opposed. The most hilarious thing happened. Just about the time she got over her girl crush on Brené Brown was when I realized that I was….. just a different version of Dr. Brown. Her, to me: “I just realized that vulnerability does not solve everything. I AM TIRED.” Me, to me, internally: “lord help me Jesus I’m fallin’ down the stairs.”)

I don’t say, “like, WTF?” I have been under the influence of a cis woman and it should wear off in 24–48 hours. However, I will not call my doctor if it doesn’t, it just means that she’s brought a few of my female social masks back. As I was telling her, my female social masks have failed and I’ve forgotten how, in a sense, to be a woman. She reminds me a little too much…. but I’ll keep her.

This is because she finally came clean with me. The reason she’s been so avoidant is that she’s a superfan. She wanted to impress me, and it backfired. We had a huge blowout, but that’s the thing about blowouts. Everything is clean and new again.

Aada is Supergrover, but of course I used a Finnish name generator. I feel I have to neurodivergently explain this because it is yet again another situation where I thought I was going to look like a stalker for moving to a country in which I didn’t even know she’d actually lived. That’s because I moved to DC to meet someone else, and Aada stayed far away from me to cover up what she’d done, making me feel like absolute shit because I thought she loved me- not like that. I thought she loved me like “hell no I will not pick you up at the airport, but here is $50. Dinner is at SIX.”

It’s so much more profound than that. I was right. We need each other now, and we’re bound by the brain. She joked about two old women in Home Depot or some shit and I thought, “I hope we do nothing together someday.” She’s different. Softer.

More vulnerable…………. and it solved everything.

Peace does not happen in a day or a week. I have a general sense that things are calm because my rejection sensitivity dysphoria said, “she thinks you’re a stalker” and her rejection sensitivity dysphoria said, “if this brilliant writer finds out I’m a nobody, I’m done.” This push/pull lasted until I put a stop to it and our friendship. Just went scorched earth because I had her dead to rights.

There is no more reason for her to be evasive. She can show up as her whole self, knowing that I love her truly in her perfection. Divinity is humanity. It is loving each other through these things that make me wonder how her äiti raised such a beautiful girl. We’ve been pen pals for over 11.5 years. She has turned me into her from the inside out.

I have also raised a very, very fine Lanagan in return.

Oh, The Places I’ll Go

February 24, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Daily writing prompt

What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?

View all responses

أنا موومين ضائع في عالم سيوس.

I cannot figure out why the filter over the image is so dark, but I asked AI to draw me Moomin lost in the world of “Oh, the Places You’ll Go.” The caption reads “I am the Moomin lost in a Seussical” in Arabic, because I lived with a Lebanese family for so many years. If Beirut was calm, I would retire by the marina. I am nowhere near retirement, so I have a wait and see attitude. I want to go to Finland right now. Why would I not want to live in the desert later?

Alas, Beirut is not calm. However, it only needs to calm down enough for me to make a quick and dirty documentary about the food. Even if I do not move there, I really want to spend time there. I have no idea how much it would be for an Airbnb, but that is my new obsession (though I will go with an alternative now that I know there’s a link back to American Jacob Zuma). Trevor Noah, I don’t know if we have any mutual friends. Readers, if you know him, will you please send him a link? I am not fucking around, and I want results. Here is the plan:

If you’re willing, I’d like you to impersonate Jacob Zuma at every single show you perform from now on in the US… and explain the thing over and over at every show about how Trump is displaying South African dictator tendencies. I saw it on TDS and it is the new Democratic slogan. We are not unified, and this is an issue that Independents will take up whereas universal healthcare and UBI are divisive. It is also punching them when we used to capitulate by being smarter, not elitist. There’s a big difference and you’re the common denominator.
- Oh, isn’t it weird that he has a South African no one elected as his advisor when he spent fucking absolute YEARS trying to prove that an African couldn’t run the US? Why do they never call Elon Musk an African American in the news? Apparently, there are only black South Africans. According to the camera in the United States, everyone is black in Africa. There are no white people, no interracial people, no white expats, nothing. Who knew?
Please do everything you can to add jokes for an ADHD and autistic audience. We’re hurting because of that South African jackass because all of his evil is being written off as neurodivergence by Evangelicals who are designed to think different is “evil,” anyway. See oculus sinister for details. Left-handed stigma and left eye dominant come from the same “disability,” then expressed by evil spirits. I am not punching down. You’ve said in interviews that you’re ADHD. I’m AuDHD. We have more in common than we don’t and we’re more powerful together than apart. You know as well as I do that if we do not hang together, then surely, we will hang separately. And it’s a republic, if you can keep it.
- Real talk. If you go back to S. Africa, I want to know about it. That is ALSO my cue to bug out. I am in the unenviable position of choosing between inexpensive and fast, while also knowing that I have to go the asylum or education route if my business does not succeed. It would be amazing to approach a foreign government with a business plan when I expatriate. That way, I’m eligible for government grants whether I’m an American company or a foreign one.
  - My humor in the face of trauma is, “I’m not going to be Martin and Malcolm. I’m going to bippity boppity Baldwin back the fuck up.” If I end up in Britain, look forward to an unknown trans author absolutely cutting Rowling to ribbons by suing her for everything she’s worth. I don’t need money. I need people to know that she’s bullied kids to death. That they are the new Alan Turing and the British people should be ashamed of themselves for listening to her TERF, aristocratic horseshit. I’m one of the people she hurt, so I will take enough money to live on. Everything else goes to the Trevor project because trans people in Texas/the rest of the Deep South need a lot of help. You’ll read that I’m the proud non-biological mom of a trans woman. What it doesn’t say is that she’s trans in gun country. If I need to get out today, she needed to get out in 2016. Please bring attention to the issue of just how much this is like the Holocaust. Elon is autistic, but he’s not a target. I am.
Don’t stop being funny, but stop being funny. Hit harder and faster. They deserve it now. They elected a felon. Get louder.
- You’re the only one who can get loud enough to drown out fear and intimidation long enough to say that Elon is a crook bent on taking government money for his businesses, not improving a goddamn thing. That he is apartheid years old and no one is paying attention because in the last election, it was so fucked up. VP Harris losing was just a hail Mary pass with an interception because the fumble was thinking that all states were on board with the narrative that Trump would usher in devastation mostly out of ignorance and apathy. Realistically, how much of the day do you think he is interested in running the country? He’s not, but Don Regan and Nancy Reagan and Michael Deaver would make out like bandits. Michael Deaver is known as “The Wizard of Oz” because he fed ready-made content to the media every morning, enforcing the narrative that the president was okay, it’s not Alzheimers until they’d been hiding it for four and a half years. With Trump, they don’t even need to prove dementia because it’s on display. This isn’t even being unkind. I was a medical assistant for a few years and my clinical pattern recognition tells me that it started at “covfefe.” That is the clinical definition of word salad and people glossed right over it. It can’t even be considered a mispronunciation from speaking fast because at least it’s conceivable that was the case with “hamberder.” With Trump, you can never count on the word salad being nonsensical, made-up words. But word order is the definition of nonsensical when he’s off-script. This is not stupidity anymore. This is fucking dangerous whether or not he’s just a useful idiot or a full-on Russian asset. The former is probable, the latter is possible. The American people have no idea what Trump’s relationship was like with Eastern Europe before he became president and he might not be in trouble, but something happened. Hillary Clinton might have mentioned this, but she’s a woman so you cannot take anything she says seriously. America isn’t ready for a brilliantly intelligent female president. We just need more white cis male idiots.

According to popular opinion.

Being angry is not new for me. I have a series of articles called “your blog makes you sound like a dick.” That comes from real feedback, and I ditched them as a friend because that was the point and they didn’t drop it. I don’t want to give them a chance to apologize and not because I’m still angry. It’s funny now. There’s just a difference between thinking someone is wonderful and wanting to allow them another cheap shot.

My favorite line about this comes from a conversation I had with Supergrover and mused about with Aaron N, not Riker (to neurodivergently overclarify). It’s the concept that all of my exes are people I love desperately and completely, but you couldn’t pay me to like them all the time.

And speaking of Riker, I generally use real names because if you met me on the street, I would want you to know my crew in advance. Riker is not his real name, but it is his real nickname and he’s a writer on this web site….. and cops caused his worst trip. Bryn is here, too, but I haven’t convinced Aaron N he’s a writer. He absolutely is, and at times better than me. He just doesn’t believe it. And in fact, thinking he’s only better than me at times is not an indication of my thinking highly of myself in an arrogant way. It’s that after 25 years I should be allowed a modicum of self-respect. Even if you’re not a fan, you have to admire the output. 😉

Strangers do…. people I know?

Unclear.

I am sure that I put people through hell with what I say because other people are gossips uninterested in finding out what makes themselves tick. Every problem happened to them; they didn’t cause anything. It’s a miserable way to be because it doesn’t lead to trust at all if you cannot admit you made a mistake. Because my voice has turned from mild geek into authoritative chef, I have plans.

I have decided that no one is really going after Anthony Bourdain’s career hardcore, because no one has his “voice.” Gordon Ramsey’s travel shows are good, but he’s not a writer and he shouldn’t be expected to be. What made “No Reservations” was not Anthony’s talent at being on camera. It was the scripts he wrote for the voiceovers. Yes, he was very talented, but the intros were what made the show more compelling than “A Cook’s Tour.” By “going after Anthony Bourdain’s career,” I mean that I do not want to be on camera, but to continue busting up people in plain text because I don’t take bullshit on my line. That translates to being a writer, and it translates to having Tony’s voice naturally rather than having to acquire it. How do I even have the audacity to compare myself to a brilliant writer like Bourdain?

I’m not.

Today there will be no premium content because I get the chance to do the daily prompt so rarely that it’s worth using these articles as a stunning display of………………. something. The thing about talent is that the art cannot be judged by me. It is not my job to have emotions when I read after I publish. It is your job as the audience to have a reaction. My part is over, and I have finished the performance. While you are reading, I am writing the next thing. I am not rehashing what I have written. This serves multiple purposes:

All of my reactions are organic because I lose the ability to hold onto pain once it is on the page.
Stream of consciousness allows for more audience engagement. People do not have to go back days/months to understand me, they just need to step into the flow; by the nature of the “conversation” with the audience, I will repeat myself because themes recur. I am not going to suddenly have different problems one day than I did the last. Solving them is a journey, not a destination.
I show people it’s okay to come unglued in public because the more oddly specific I make my entries, the more they become universal. Your thoughts aren’t for someone, but for everyone. We are divided in many ways. Food and love are the common denominators, and Bourdain told me that…. something like “to be vegetarian overseas is the height of rudeness because when you reject someone’s food, you reject their hospitality.”

The American version of hospitality leaves so much to be desired, because when you move to the US, you’ll find degrees that range from polite to kind. Say what you will about New York, but everyone stabs you in the front.

The Revolution Will Be Printed

February 21, 2025February 21, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I am on the Rainbow Railroad, and I am taking a stand against fascism. Jesus’s first lesson was to walk away from people who do not support you. Jesus’s second lesson was not to take any shit. My boundary is that I don’t want to live in the United States, because other countries have state appointed religions that are less conservative than this. I am finished fighting and have started thinking in Finnish.

Duolingo is so petty.

I like the idea of moving to Finland because supporting myself as a culinary student is possible. It is achievable by next May or September, thus skirting the “I’ve only been taking Suomi for 30 days” conundrum. Finnish is like chess. You learn the skeleton in a few months, but as to when you’re fluent? Some Finns will just give you a dumb look and say, “never.” The coffee helps. Listen to Finnish and you’ll know why. It takes half a pot before you sit at the keyboard, and I assure you a problem exists between keyboard and chair (PEBKAC if you haven’t been on the Internet since Jesus was born….. “ID10T” is also useful.).

I am more interesting the longer I go on. I’m not kidding. This is what I think when I read… that the author doesn’t hit their stride until they’ve started the faucet. Sometimes my friends are frustrated I can’t stop up the drain, so you get my brain droppings instead.

You’re welcome. I think?

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If you’re going to start a revolution, you have to make room.

Pro Tips from a Small Writer at Large… Who, Lightbulb, Writes for Medium

February 16, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Dedicated to a house and a refrigerator magnet no longer there.

Dear @one4paws (and Bryn B on Medium, if you’re looking for the actual talent in the family),

To the “just being helpful” brigade, I will no longer give you purchase. When people ask me why and how I’m queer or trans, I don’t always sit there and explain. I do when the person is kind and wants to be educated; when they do not, I walk away. I am not going to go 20 rounds with a homophobe, nor will I tolerate this:

Me to them:

I don’t want to fix it. I couldn’t even get married until 2001, and even then, it was a domestic partnership. Let them fix their own problems.

Them to me:

I’m sure the Nazis said the same thing.

Civil Unions did no good except on state taxes. No queer person is asking for special rights. They just call it that in the GOP to fear monger and make you think that queer people are so different. That straight people are not fully capable of evil, but gay people are… because we work in the shadows. That is not my present situation with being gay, that was my situation with being gay.

Lack of being able to file jointly with my wife on federal taxes for so many years and breaking up before we married federally never saved us anything. We didn’t pay much in tax, so a state return was maybe $30. I would have been able to build up more wealth in both Texas and Oregon if my federal taxes had been filed jointly as well. The United States has cost me too much emotionally and financially. I have no choice but to slink off to Europe where my being isn’t offensive and my need for help in my disability doesn’t translate to “you’re a dumbass” all the time.

Hate doesn’t get erased. The goalposts just move.

Before I recognized that I was autistic, it was reinforced that I was a failure. I wasn’t autistic and therefore special needs. I was bipolar and had a personality disorder. It is an absolute shot in the dark as to whether which diagnosis is correct, because a lot of people have both and the same drugs work. The reason I changed my mind and diagnosed myself is that no doctor will diagnose you until you have enough concerns to speak with them.

And then you’re an adult and they don’t want to label you because it creates a stigma; 🎶 stuck in a moment you can’t get out of. 🎸

If I had a slogan for autism, it would be “stuck in a moment and can’t get out of it.” If I had a slogan for ADHD, it would be “not stuck in a moment and can’t get into it.” Perkele and saatana would walk into my brain and say, “I’m so sorry.” That’s because the two disabilities fight, and if my psychologist in Houston was right then, it does not render him wrong now. It means that I cycle too rapidly for Bipolar II and I do not know if there’s a bigger arc overall that comes in months, not half hours. It’s not a personality disorder, it’s how my brain processes logic and emotion. I do not know what you are actually saying without a tremendous amount of clarification. Only my friend @aaronbrown8cc63b4e5d4 and you, my darling friend, have been there through it all with me. The laughter and love as I loved hard and let go, refusing to give up long after I should have. I am not in that lane anymore, and have sped ahead. I do not think I have a future with anyone except the people in my life right now. I have little faith that when people are mad they have enough emotional strength to sit and work things out. Autistic pattern recognition says I’m going to be viewed as a problem, so I handle everything alone.

Props to my friends for becoming great pals and advisors on many things, particularly my clothing because all of them been to Finland, but all of them know what cold feels like and how to beat it. I have people from all over the world in the chat group regarding the future of LMG and I don’t accomplish anything alone. I am constantly looking for ways to monetize queer voices because especially women are not financially validated and suffer even more financially in a female/female couple. And if anyone is offended by polyamory, you can look on a calendar at the exact date and time as to which we even had the option of being monogamous. Pro tip: NOT THAT LONG AGO.

Children, women couldn’t have bank accounts in America until 1974, and their grandchildren think women should be over it. I am so tired of the gold digger narrative that quickly turns into “I thought you were going to wipe my ass and clean up after me” and women think, “I thought you were going to financially support me so I didn’t have three jobs, like working outside the home, maintaining the house, and raising the children.” If they say it out loud, that’s when you get nervous if there’s guns in the house.

Men expect service, and they’re not shy about asking for it, because they are entitled to these things according to their fathers and grandfathers………. while also not doing the work their fathers and grandfathers did to provide. They want a maid who supports them financially so they can do nothing while the children play. This is, of course, not all men… but it’s where our country is going. Make no mistake, women were included in Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.” Before the blue, there was a stark red and white image that said, “OfKendrick.”

I’m not saying it like that idea is offensive or anything…. I don’t care that he’s a famous rapper, but I definitely care that he’s won a Pulitzer.

I am also still peeved that Matt Damon married someone else, but that’s neither here nor there. I’ve never met him, so my take on it is that he loves his wife more than me, which is appropriate because he met her first. 😉 This does not mean that I am any less capable of being one of his crew. I see the entire cast of Ocean’s Eleven as colleagues, and I’m not kidding because George Clooney bought “Argo” and then Ben Affleck directed it. Therefore, I’ve never met them, but I feel a kinship to all of them. It’s like the Coen Brothers. John Goodman is also my homeboy.

I’m scared of Clooney, but I have picked up some tricks from Kendrick Lamar and 50 Cent……

Did you guys know that Ja Rule planned a return concert and was bugging out because the tickets were selling so fast….. only to find out that 50 had bought most of the tickets? Josh Johson told that joke in his standup and I nearly fell on the floor. He’s my favorite comic, so I joined his YouTube channel to see how he workshops his material. He posts his deep cuts to YouTube and you can see them all for a small fee. Josh is a master class in storytelling, and the point is to learn style and structure. I am not a comedian.

I am sometimes clever.

People perceive me as having a lot of false humility and virtue signaling; that I manipulate people. That is not true. I am autistic and do not pick up the proper social cues. I am also not afraid to fail. Me speaking my mind is different from me anticipating your reaction, and it took me until about 12:00 this afternoon to realize that was the case (I realize it all the time; I backslide and this is just another mountaintop day). People do not take in that their actions hurt me just as much as my actions hurt them. Such is the nature of life. I am not trying to oppress you by being me.

There is no queer agenda and there never has been. Quit spreading lies until you flip the script and get it through your (proved by science) smaller capacity to be open-minded. Realize that the queer agenda is the same rights you have. No more, no less. If we get really busy we might add laundry.

But no promises.

Don’t you agree?

I love you, Bryn. Thanks for always being there for me, and I’m excited that you’re getting to know Aaron, too. Someone needs to make him behave. Might as well be you.

😉

Schengen -or- Finnish Grammar for Dummies, and by That, I Mean Me

February 16, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes life tells you where you want to go, but not before you can silence yourself enough to hear the answers.

The Schengen Area has become my next goal in terms of a passport. I have redirected in terms of options, not final decisions. I have until the end of November to make a final decision, and I have many before me. The Netherlands has a refugee program for trans people, and it is cheap to start a business. Finland is the cheapest option in terms of going to culinary school for free. I believe that Schengen will be more useful later in life if the British apologize.

I am not stuck on any one thing. I am trying to map everything out. I work backwards. The goal is a Finnish passport because it’s so much like Oregon. Any job becomes available to me once I speak Finnish fluently, and I’m on my way for it being day 23. I am finally understanding how verbs work and a few of the ways singular becomes plural. Finnish is so difficult that it takes up my entire brain, and that’s what I like about it. I cannot function on the constant barrage with what’s going on in my country. Laws are changing too fast and if I leave the country, I may not be able to get back in. Trans people are being harassed at the airport and their passports taken. At that point, I shut down:

a dog is a koira, dogs are koirat. Form follows function. A cat is a kissa, cats are kissat.
Romance language grammar sometimes applies. Minä olet is “I am.” Sinä olet is “you are.” Me olemme is “we are.” Ne ovat is “they are.” You can leave out the pronoun if it’s conjugated in the verb.
There is no pronoun…. and I’m crying when I say this…. to indicate the gender of the person speaking.

Hän on is both “he and she is.” The Finnish language is nonbinary.

You cannot legislate hearts and minds on trans issues, so there’s discrimination everywhere. But what Finns will die to protect is human rights. Having a Schengen visa opens me up to being able to live more places, essentially being able to live in Finland whether I have actual Finnish citizenship or not. I do not hate America for what it has done. I am a political science student. I will never not be a political science student interested in both State and CIA, because they do the same job. One is just public, one is just private. I am not as interested in DIA and the military, but not because I don’t like them. I just prefer information to violence because that’s where I’m the most capable.

One of the things that I talked to with Bryn was being secure that I was not offering to be approachable to foreign intelligence agencies because I have any information they’d like to have, unless what kind of cookies my boyfriend used to eat at meetings is burning inside them. He shared nothing, and we’re not together anymore (sadly- we just weren’t going in the right direction together- no harm, no foul).

I said I was approachable on both web sites as a message in a bottle to intelligence agencies that need me because they’re dying to recruit people and trans talent isn’t needed here.

Fuck you, Mr. President.

I’m more of a man than you’ll ever be and more of a woman than you’ll ever get. Choke on it, motherfucker.

But I’m not bitter.

If you’re wondering why I’d curse out the president, it’s because he said he’d grab me by the pussy on a hot mic that was intentional. It wasn’t even locker room talk…. not that it’s excusable. It’s just comprehendable. None of this makes any sense and I am struggling to understand why I should go on in this country. I do not mean in terms of struggling with suicidal ideation. I mean begging for a way out.

Applying to countries that have jobs in the Schengen region is my first choice. Somewhere like Starbucks would have no problem training me in the US and possibly paying for my flight to work in The Netherlands or wherever they operate in the region where the store works in English.

A restaurant would be better in Finland because it’s an easier transition. Terms are all in French. I could work in Viet Nam, I could work in Afghanistan, I could work in Tanzania, I could work in The Phillipines. Doesn’t matter. Cooking is French. Escoffier brought it to Europe and the rest of the West, Ho Chi Minh brought it to Asia and the East.

The problem is that I am really not capable of working in a restaurant, but the lighter load of culinary school fits. It’s an easy A compared to Finnish uni. I’m interested in getting my sword, but uni is cheap and I need a way to work through it. Culinary school is free and I might not. It depends on what happens between now and the end of my lease. I can’t default on it because even though it wouldn’t follow me, it would follow my dad. That’s what happens when you have money and not income.

My mother died. I have some time to rebuild now. I’m using it. I’m being up front because people ask me all the time how I’m living. I have to live rough so my expenses are covered for a number of years, but I’m okay.

I have a possibility of collaborating with others, and we’ll discuss that if and when it happens. Just know that I’m riding the Rainbow Railroad for all it’s worth because trans talent and money is not needed here.

There is a great big correlation between leaving the country and leaving the church. The United Methodists told me for years I was a sinner while taking my money and I didn’t have a choice.

Instead of staying and participating in a system that I have to fight against until I’m black and blue, I want to use it to move into a different system where there is no homelessness and consistent medical care. Prevention is worth an ounce of cure. If you can go to the doctor every time you sneeze wrong, there probably won’t be million dollar surgeries in your future. But you can’t do that in some states when you’re poor. Luckily, mine is not one of them. But my home state is, so that’s not an option unless I just think, “I’ve lost my fucking mind, why not lose it completely?”

As I was telling Phillipa, one of my new writers, “I could buy a house in NE Texas and settle down permanently, but then I’d have to live there.” Of course there would be perks, like immediate access to my family. However, I would lose everything in terms of the social network. The Deep South is not my place anymore, as if it ever was. Maryland’s politics are more in line with Albany than Richmond. Virginia continues to struggle deeply with St. Bob- what a Northern Virginian told me a Southern Virginian calls Robert E. Lee, thus the disconnect in Virginia culture. Maryland is objectively safer for minorities, and home of the greatest intelligence officer who ever lived.

I am not being specific here, because Harriet Tubman, Jonna and Tony Mendez all lived here. Jonna lives in Virginia now, where she’s on the board at the Spy Musem. I’ve met her several times and she’s delightful. We’re not close, but I admire her greatly.

“In True Face” is essential reading if you want to know what happened to Tony after “Argo,” and “The Moscow Rules” is the last book they wrote together. The reason I pick “In True Face” and “Argo” as your introduction to real life intelligence is that you have to be able to pick out Jonna and Tony’s voices separately and you cannot honestly do that until after Tony dies in Jonna’s timeline. I told her that.

Congratulations on owning yourself.

Her lip trembled because she knew what I meant. It was the second time I’d made her cry, and I’ve written about the first time so much that I don’t need to tell it again. I have felt those emotions and they don’t dissipate with each writing. It’s an experience I’ll remember forever because it changed the direction in which I wanted to go.

Jonna decided to go to a wedding in Europe, and that was all it took. She was a citizen of the world who had the fortunate and unfortunate experience of loving two intelligence officers. The only reason I say it is unfortunate is that she had to learn how to hang quickly, and as you read it’s a different kind of love. It’s harder to watch someone else going through a thing than it is to go through a thing. It’s easier when you’re both going through a thing at once.

It’s not a trope that spies date each other. It’s reality because they never leave the office because they can’t.

They’re as trapped as line cooks during a shift, and the reality is that cooks are often messengers for intelligence and waitresses are the silent witnesses that listen to everything. No one cares if a female waitress is listening, so waitresses are often spies in a uniform and people don’t notice.

Social masking is everything. Intelligence is nothing more than a small stage, which you will learn by rote as I did if you get into the rabbit hole of Jonna and Tony’s voices. I don’t enjoy the idea of doing these things. I enjoy the idea of hearing these things. All I do is talk to people on the Internet. It doesn’t matter where they’re from. If they’re not extremists with an agenda, I’m all in.

I just realized that I should rephrase in terms of being willing to work for allies. Fuck Mossad and IDF. They’re more powerful than Palestine and have held it over their heads. Palestine gets the jump on them one time and it’s excuse for resettlement and make no mistake it could turn into genocide quickly if Netanyahu all of the sudden decides he wants their resettlement land, too. There’s no guarantee the Americans would not support him in this now.

American Jews and Evangelicals are responsible for a lot of this and I am not being antisemitic. I am being political. The Christians and the Jews have decided that the Muslims don’t have a book that’s valid, only they do. Therefore, money is being piped into Israel at a rate that is unsustainable to ever make, much less keep, Palestine sovereign.

But Mormonism and Scientology check out? Please.

The reason Americans are so racist is that you don’t hear about modern Muslims in the news. You hear about terrorists. My answer is a big fat “I Will Walk With You,” the Twitter campaign that took off and made me proud to be an ally…. and “Muslims Report Stuff” completes me.

But the thing is, I’ve been ecumenical since I was born, hungry for information about all religions and not just mine. I have even watched documentaries on Mormonism and not just from escapees. I wanted to understand doctrine because if you’re going to ridicule something, you have to know it cold. I would believe that the Mormon episode of South Park took an enormous amount of research or an all call to the jack Mormons everyone knew in the writer’s room.

I do not ridicule religions that make you better. I ridicule cults because they do not focus on self improvement. They focus on glorification. Religion is not responsible nor helpful unless it begins from the perspective of “every problem begins with me.” I have no qualms about accepting the consequences of my actions as long as I’m allowed to have them. I do not want to be forced into reading minds again, because that is the essence of learning to manage high functioning autism. It is balancing the expectations in other people’s minds versus a very real dysfunction in managing energy.

It is never “dumber” vs. “smarter” with high functioning autism. It is how well you can fit into society. It is how well you can manage your own energy in the face of needing and wanting more space. When Aaron and I move in together, I want a house with a lot of space that neither one of us have to manage. It is not bougie, it is reality. We need help and hiring it out is the one problem that money solves with autism.

In other countries, this neurological difference is recognized (even here, in some states) and you have a social worker to manage these things for you- like a nurse to administer medication and home help.

I’m not old. I’m 47.

This doesn’t make autism less difficult, and I need people to recognize that I am not bitching about problems, but working on solutions. I am tired of having to fight for things like:

a service dog to counterbalance my weight
an assistant or social worker to manage my bills and house
the right people to live with me and help take care of me as I take care of them.

I am tired of fighting for a life of interdependence when Europeans already do things that way. In Finland, you have no choice. In that climate, you bond through those hard activities. You help your neighbor first, because Finns have to recognize that you’re willing to put in the work to maintain a friendship before they give it. That doesn’t mean buying them a present. That means getting in the snow and helping them dig. Philippa, Aaron, Bryn, and I are all interested in spending time there, as is my friend Aaron B. As in, Bryn and AB might not want to move, but they’re not frightened by snow and would love a Finnish vacation once in a while.

I told everyone in my Finnish discussion group (we’re all learners, so it’s mostly English… I am not this advanced) that I was learning Finnish because of the culture surrounding language, not because I cannot get by in English just fine. I’m also a writer, so understanding the rules of grammar is essential. One day I’d like to be able to publish in that language, and I’m on a bit of a deadline.

I’m not going to make it, and that’s okay.

My route to the YKI is long and winding, but it’s definitely what gets me up in the morning. I have a ton of Finnish friends, but none of them have anything to do with this.

It’s that over time, I realized that living in Skyrim was indeed possible.

Suomessa siitä on helppo päästää irti, koska se on jo jäätynyt

February 13, 2025 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Daily writing prompt

What were your parents doing at your age?

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I have monetized WordPress for all my writers, and we’re discussing how to profit-share. My two ideas are to pay out their money as it comes in, or if they’ll let me have their money while we’re still making pennies, then I will pay them in technology. A lot of my writers are as poor as me, so Aaron, Bryn, and I all need Macs. I now worship at the church of Steve for two reasons:

I speak Finnish now. Finnish is cool.
- I’m on about Day 22, and I have busted my ass to the tune of being at the top of the sapphire league and the February challenge is already done. I am also not ready to live out my life in the United States at this point and deserve a Finnish passport. I came out as nonbinary and then found out it falls under the trans umbrella. I cannot change my gender on my passport from F to X and that is not acceptable to me. I am freaking out with PTSD because of it, thus learning the hardest language in the world. Macs are the only desktops that have long press on keys so that tama becomes tuo. It’s not this, it’s that. “This” is tamä, “that” is tuo. The title is “Letting Go in Finland is Easy, Because It’s Already Frozen.” I used Google translate because I don’t want to have to type all those special characters and it’s day 22.
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Here’s the FAQ:

How are you going to deal with all that snow and ice?

Like everyone else. You plan. I have synthetic Reebok long johns and UltraTech from Uniqlo as well. If I need it, I will upgrade to Merino wool. I just want to get to Finland first before I bite the bullet. Clothes for that climate aren’t cheap, and you pay it. If necessary, I will get animal furs for my shell, but I have a great midweight from Uniqlo as well. My shell depends on how cold it is. In Finland, I might be able to find a good synthetic, but if not, I have no qualms about buying animal skins for that climate. There’s a time and place for it. I don’t take any crap. I am doing synthetics first, therefore I am giving my best effort to be kind to animals. Please do not think I am cruel to animals when it is 30 below.

I am sure that Aleksi, Dave, Cat, Carola, Phillipa, and Cyril will have lots of tips. I just bought a subscription to Aleksi because if you pay money you can talk to him. I want to do the same for Dave, because I don’t think Cyril has enough fans yet to be monetized. He deserves it, though. That’s because his videos are sometimes informational about Vami (it’s a vocational school, which is where I’m interested in hotel and restaurant management. It’s in Vaasa, which is why I’m also on day one of Swedish. I haven’t stuck with it as of yet, because when you choose a language, you stick with it. If I had started Swedish first, I would have stuck with it because the language support is better on Duolingo (it has an AI that can judge your pronunciation. Finnish don’t.). That being said, Swedish is useless for anything but the YKI-testi. Something like 93% speak Finnish, and Swedish being an official language is a throwback because Finland used to belong to the Kingdom of Sweden. Also, it’s cold. But I work on the Internet. Realistically, how much time am I going to spend in the snow vs. watching it?

How are you going to deal with the dark?

I don’t know, but Portland prepared me pretty well. The climate is not all that different from Portland in terms of the sky. It’s dark in the middle of the day in Portland, too. Rain, etc. Katya (my closest Finnish friend) says that I will not understand how dramatically dark it gets until I get there. I’m planning a trip soon to scout out schools in Tampere, Helsinki, and Vaasa. Since culinary school will be a lot of walking, again, I don’t care. You are fabulously warm when you create the proper microclimate, and when it gets REALLY cold, they have the same American hand warmers that we do. I put one in my jacket pocket to absorb into my coat, and I’d be fine in very cold weather. The Finns don’t have to teach you how to get used to the cold. They have to teach you how to layer so that inside your clothes, it’s in the 70s.

They can make you warm enough to faint, as I often do if I’m wearing my winter gear inside.

Why do you want to move across the world? Why Finland and not Mexico since you already speak a little Spanish and it’s a romance language, which is like a hundred times easier?

You have to learn Finnish in a lake so no one can see you cry. I stole that line, but I feel attacked. Yet there is something about Finland that drives me crazy, and that’s the wanderlust to be outside in the summer again without having to revisit the trauma of Portland. I also don’t like it when it’s 110 degrees in the summer. The thing I liked about Portland was that it was tolerable inside the house most days. In Portland, only new construction has air conditioning and you live in one room in the summer- because generally you can only afford one window box if you insist on being a cook. You don’t become a cook if you can do anything else. The neurotypical workflow of an office drives me batshit insane, so I want to learn Finnish cuisine as I’m building LMG. Hopefully, by the time I graduate I’ll be able to support myself on American money…. which I need a lot of in order to qualify for a visa.

Paolo the Accountant says I don’t have enough money to go to Europe and even that doesn’t daunt me. This is because America never gave me a choice. I am begging for money from the whole world and it makes me ashamed because I hate asking for help when it’s a gift I cannot possibly pay back.

But what I need you to know is that I’m The Doctor, and I’m at my last regeneration. I need you to let me have them infinitely.

What were my parents doing at my age?

Living the American dream that I’ll never have due to the United States’ dedication to the idea that I’m not a person. I’m even approachable by foreign intelligence agencies because even though I’ve dated an American intelligence officer, I don’t know anything. I just mean that it would be fun to work for the Finns in intelligence, like a translator or in the mailroom. Being fluent in Finnish doesn’t come all at once, but I’m working as hard as I can. It will take about four years to be fluent, and all of my Facebook groups in Finland will back me up on that. One of the huge problems with Finnish is that I cannot really practice until I get there. The way people speak Finnish and the way they write it is often very different.

I said “kippis” to Katya one day, meaning “have a good day, cheers.” She said that’s for shots. Of course it is.

Katya reached out to me a propos of nothing. My love of Finland is encapsulated in her because we are not romantic partners. She’s kind of my grandma, kind of my mom, kind of Supergrover, kind of Bryn. It would make me happy for us to be neighbors, because older people are lonely…. in Baltimore and in Finland.

I actually am involved with someone casually, but we are planning a future together. He is not opposed to living anywhere in Finland because he’s in Minneapolis currently. We need a vacation in Helsinki for him to warm up this time of year…. He’s also given me fantastic advice on caring for my outer shell (wool sweater and waterproof pants). That the fibers in wool can be tightened and softened with… wait for it… hair conditioner. Of course it can. It’s always something simple and hair tracks.

Aaron is quite a bit younger than me, but it’s not a case of that kind of attraction. He’s adorable, but that’s not what drew me to him. He’s a Lutheran (Missouri Synod) preacher’s kid and an atheist who believes in the same kind of social justice that I do. I’m the Rowan Williams to his Christopher Hitchens. I know Hitch is dead, but Aaron’s smarter. He doesn’t have to work very hard to impress me. He’s been to seminary (didn’t graduate) and I haven’t. Therefore, he was able to tell me what books to read to learn about Jesus, because he was indeed a real person.

At that point, if the virgin birth and the resurrection never happened, does that negate what he taught?

It does to Evangelicals, because they don’t study what he taught, anyway.

Luckily, my dad is not one of them, but at my age he transitioned from being a United Methodist minister to a medical assistant to my stepmother; so did I, in a sense. I am ordained now in the Church of the Latter Day Dude. I was just the go-to for everything as a kid, my dad’s Girl Friday.

As his American dream came together, mine fell apart. I folded at Matthew Shepard’s death, September 11th, January 6th, and now we’ve been taken over by a South African dictator.

If you’re not on board by now….

Bye Felicia.

Bye.

Oh, The Places I Would Go…

December 15, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 4 Comments

What cities do you want to visit?

I don’t have one top favorite, so I’ll give a few of them. I’m not a huge traveler, so I would rather get an AirBnB for several weeks than try to flip body clocks twice in three or four days. Just not my style anymore. “I’m older and I have more insurance.” But if money were no object, I would love to see:

Paris
- I have been to Paris once, but only for a few days. I definitely hit all the highlights with my dad, but I don’t know what it is to sit at a cafe and people watch. I don’t know what it’s like to go to Paris and do nothing, and that’s why it’s valuable. You don’t go there to find things to do. You go there to walk around in its culture and see what sticks. Then, you either commit yourself to finding out what coffee shop David Sedaris frequents- or perhaps going to Pere Lachaisse for inspiration. Oscar Wilde and I had a marvelous time. Just because I am living and he is not doesn’t mean we weren’t both entertained. I told him that Stephen Fry played him in a movie once. He said it was perfect casting.
New York
- I have never spent more than 24 hours in New York, so it’s the same idea there as in Paris. I’d like to go there for a little bit and then get back out. There’s a rhythm, and it’s intimidating to me. It’s sort of like Las Vegas in that the culture is different but the level of sensory input you receive when you get there is just as heightened. In 2003, I wanted to retire in New York, and I have absolutely no idea what I meant by that. I do remember past trips there to be fun, but not in a way I’d like to live there- except maybe someone I liked wanted to live there, so I did, too. Now, I just want to find hidden treasures on out of the way side streets.
Ho Chi Minh City
- I have to do a lot of research on the Vietnam War, rightfully called “The American War” there. I’m writing a novel about it, and I don’t think I could do setting justice if I just made it up. I mean, I can and I will,if I have to, but there’s a lot to be said about putting effort into understanding something fully. I have studied political science since I got to college- the news junkie in me drove me to poli sci and it hasn’t given up. With political science comes lots and lots on international relations as well. So, I know the story from the American side fairly well, but I don’t like to write from the perspective of only trumpeting American interests. The military and C/DIA had many faults and failures during this time, and since most things more recent than Vietnam are still classified, I don’t know that either organization has really wrestled with our actions in that theater in a way that processes out institutional pain. Vietnam was the first war in which it was clear that we might not lose, but we don’t have enough money or resources to outright win, either. The Vietnamese have the right to call us out on that, because American soldiers were responsible for a lot of atrocities. We have the reputation of being feared, and not in a healthy way. It’s why we’ll never win a land war in Asia……. and death is on the line.
Seoul
- Before I started watching both Josh & Olly, I’d never wanted to visit Korea before. They’re responsible for making a lot of people feel that way on their YouTube channel, Jolly. Josh met Olly in college (I think- British system), then went to university in Seoul. I think. I haven’t done all the math. Anyway, when Josh and Olly were both done with uni, they decided to start making videos about what Koreans think of English people. Hilarity ensues. I’m not sure how often Josh and Olly get back to Korea, but one of the fun things they do is “red carpet” style interviews while they entice celebrities to talk using Korean food. It worked very well on Ryan Reynolds. 🙂
Enseñada, Mexico
- I have been to Enseñada once. It’s a small enough city that I could picture myself living there. I don’t speak much Spanish, but I took two years in school and have spent time in both Texas and Mexico speaking Spanish. My language skills aren’t as good now as they were in high school, because I was going to Mexico regularly (Reynosa and Progreso, both on mission trips). I could not land in San Diego and drive across the border without incident, but within a month or so I’d be all right. Within three or four years, I’d be fluent. It’s amazing what you can do when you have no choice. The water is gorgeous. La Buffadora (Buffalo Snort) is magnificent, a geyser that makes me feel the power of nature unlike anything else. I’m sure Papas & Beer is still there, it’s an institution. I don’t know about Habana Banana, which used to be my favorite Mexican clothing brand. I bought a ton while I was there, and at the time, they didn’t offer online ordering or international shipping. So, part of it is to find another clothing brand I like just as much…….. the rest of it is to sit outside with a Coke (we’re in Mexico, after all) and see what nature is saying around me. I live my life like the sound track is 4’33. I think it would kick things up a notch to perform it outside. My past performances have all gone very well. No one even knew I was “conducting it all while I sleep…. to light up my yard.”
Vancouver
- I didn’t live in DC very long before I went to visit Meagan in Ottawa. However, I lived in Portland for 12 years and never made it to British Columbia. I have heard I would love it, now I need to go see it for myself. I will admit, though, that there is some truth to only the Canadian provinces with her in them being interesting. It wasn’t a draw while I lived there, but now I’m just curious. I sort of know what life is like on the East Coast of Canada because Meag has lived in Alberta, Ontario, and New Brunswick….. maybe more, but I’ve slept since then. But West Coast Canada is completely different, it seems. They don’t have bagged milk there. 🙄 Now that I’ve had time to reflect, I regret not going when it was only a five hour car ride. It would be a much bigger deal now.
Washington, DC
- I live in Silver Spring, Maryland. It’s a suburb that has everything I could possibly want within walking distance. As a result, I can go as long as a year without needing anything from downtown…… and most of it is that the bands I like don’t play in Silver Spring- some of them do, though. If I want to see something relatively big, it’s at The Kennedy Center, not The Fillmore. I also haven’t been to Wolf Trap in 20-odd years, mostly because it’s such a hassle that I think about going to Wolf Trap and back out. I feel about Wolf Trap the same way people feel about Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. It’s going to be a long concert, there’s no easy way in or out, and there’s a thousand people all screaming at once. I much prefer smaller venues, and wish Indigo Girls would play The Fillmore once in a while. 😛
Helsinki
- My love of Finnish Independence Day led me to believe that one day I’d make it to watch the celebrations live- I watch them every year on YouTube from here. It’s not just that, though. I’ve said before and I’ll say it again that the palate for that part of the world is completely different- they don’t even have the same flora. Learning to cook there would be a whole new experience, and Anthony Bourdain introduced them to me through the magic of television. Why yes, I do want a large reindeer pizza. I also want to fly into HEL and drive up to Kilpisjaarvi so I can sleep under the aurora borealis in a clear-top tent. I also want to dress up really warm and sleep outside, just to see if I could do it. 😛

Well, There’s Kevin

December 6, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

You remember Kevin, right? 😉

Kevin, who is a giraffe, used to live at the DC zoo. I do not know when he moved, but I do know that he has. The last time I went to the National Zoo, the keepers told me they’d gotten rid of all their giraffes…. like the entire enclosure is now something else. I was heartbroken, because I went to the zoo that day to get a picture of Kevin for you guys, actually. I believe I brought back pictures of a tiny bear instead.

Here’s a shot I took last night I love- it’s of the kitchen at Zaytinya.

I got to the restaurant a little early, so I grabbed this shot while I was sitting at the edge of the bar and I thought no one was looking. The caption on Facebook is “you have no idea how much I feel this picture in my muscles.”

There were no wild animals except Lindsay and me involved, and we are not actually that wild anymore….. not that we ever really were to begin with. Lindsay was in a couple of rock bands before she went into politics, but that’s about the extent of it. I’ve been 46 since I was nine. We had some drinks and caught up, and didn’t actually talk about why I wanted to talk to her in the first place because we had a thousand topics to cover and there’s always the phone.

In some ways, I wish Lindsay’s dinner hadn’t gotten moved to last night, because it would have been fun to spend Finnish Independence Day with her. It’s only 0730, and I’m trying to make the best of it. Finnish Independence Day is joyous….. for the Finns, and I feel like I’m stealing it for myself through the cunning use of YouTube. It’s a thing I came up with when I didn’t want a date to be a thing anymore, so I don’t acknowledge it out loud.

But I can say to Bryn later, “now that Finnish Independence Day is over, we can start decorating for Christmas” and she will get the most evil smirk on her face. God, I love that woman. Mostly because she’d be the only one in my life to know exactly how far back that paraphrase goes. Because, you see, she does not have to paraphrase. The reason I love Bryn is that I never need to paraphrase anything, because if I’d bother, she would say the thing I was trying to say the whole way through. It’s good to have a friend who’s as no-bullshit as I am, from the same viewpoint. It’s one thing to listen and shut someone down. It’s quite another to open up to someone and having them say “speak more to that.”

Wait a minute. Speak more? No one ever tells me that. 😉

With Bryn it’s always “how dare you make me feel my feelings.” And it feels so much better than keeping everything in. We lost a mutual friend recently (that I knew peripherally, but she and the rest of her family knew very, very well) and I hope that I am being respectful of her space, and also holding space for her. I will check in later, but I don’t hover when people are in grief because I tended to retreat. Not everyone is like that, but I do what I know. What I know is that the most powerful thing I can do is listen. I also know that people need support in grief longer than society usually allows. So, I’ll keep checking back in on her, but I also recognize not to smother mother, either. 😉

Maybe later today, I’ll catch her curled up with Pippi, who is a dog.

This Could Go Either Way

August 25, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 2 Comments

How would you design the city of the future?

My city would be completely sustainable and small, perhaps even easy to break down and move because global warming is slowly killing us whether we like it or not. Eventually, you may not have a choice whether you live in Houston or Helsinki. I’m not trying to be all doomsday here, I’m just trying to troubleshoot what issues we’re dealing with. We should have researched more about what carbon emissions could do before we built cars. We just didn’t know we needed to do it. We needed time to discover that CFCs were destroying the ozone layer and I had to give up my Aquanet habit until they could figure it out.

(I’m glad they did, but I use a water-based wax & gel called “Gorilla Ear Wax” now. I also have the gel alone and it’s called “Gorilla Snot.” It’s a Mexican product originally, so when I bought it the first time it was because the label made me laugh- it wasn’t in English and I thought it was clever, so why not?)

I thought Al Gore did a great job with “An Inconvenient Truth” and I wish the government had truly listened. I feel that car companies have not embraced new technology easily and therefore have no idea how much they’re going to become completely irrelevant if they don’t change. It will speed up the relentlessness of Mother Nature, because we won’t be able to predict what’s going to be hit next with accuracy in the future because the temperature swings are going to be too violent.

That leads to putting together buildings that have enough strength to withstand extreme temperatures and weather. I feel the that Finns are the best in the world at this because they have to be. They have to have a lot more in place for “oopsie babies” and poor people because the temperature is too cold to leave anyone outside and feel good about it. The construction of their houses usually has the finest insulation available and windows with three panes of glass with argon instead of two. We could learn a lot from Scandinavia about living with extreme cold as much as they could learn about living in heat from me. I’m from the South and I’ve lived in the Pacific Northwest. Ask me anything. 😛

I think it would be smart to learn from the military on how to build down into the ground in the desert and make it comfortable. I’m sure part of it is full-spectrum bulbs in the overhead lights or permission to bring a lamp if you need it. It stands to reason that places like southwest Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona can’t withstand heat if it gets any hotter. They’re going to have to get creative, and I believe that letting the heat pass over you is a viable option. It would also be good for places that experience wildfires. I believe that a lot more houses would survive if the only thing you could see on the ground level is a concrete slab. What else can we do without building an entirely new infrastructure to regulate temperature and acts of God (in the insurance sense of the phrase)?

I’ve found houses built in the US, New Zealand, and Australia on this very concept. The ground provides natural insulation if you can keep your house dry, because it won’t take as much in power to cool your house. The walls will stay cool longer with that much padding. Even in the desert, groundwater is colder than the air above, thus the need for dehumidifiers built into the HVAC system. It is not easily or cheaply done, but it’s amazing how much you adapt when you have to, not because you want to spend that money or DIY that much.

If we’re dreaming entirely new ways of building, the earth will survive whether we do or not, so it makes sense that we adapt to it. It will never adapt to us. Because we already have more technology in living underground than living in, say, space, I think it would be wise to invest as much money as possible in getting it even further along. We could create buildings in the middle of lakes and oceans to naturally cool them. My favorite cinematic wonder in film is the underwater kingdom on Jar-Jar Binks’ home planet. Seeing the fish swim in the windows was just magnificent on the big screen.

I would love it because I am a fish person, anyway. Just not goldfish. They’re pretty to look at but require too much maintenance. I’d probably go with tilapia because they are so plentiful and freely available if I catch my own. Because of course, by now in my head there’s a beautiful underwater house in a lake I’ve filled with tilapia myself. I watch so much of this stuff on YouTube that I’m very Elle Woods about it. “What? Like it’s hard?” I may not be the best at DIY, but I can certainly tell when a contractor is bullshitting me or not. I know what things cost and what’s worth the hype. Insulation with as high an R value you can find is priceless because you’ll hardly have to do anything to keep yourself comfortable. Energy will just keep getting more expensive, and I don’t think it’s a bad move to start making your own. You can run an entire homestead off solar panels and batteries. You can even tap into the grid and make your utility bills negative, but won’t experience a loss of power if your batteries are dead.

The thing about construction and insulation is that you cannot miss a trick. Any leak and the whole concept is ruined. The quality of every material matters, but not as much as the skill of the people doing it. If no one tells you that you need a French drain for your basement in order to convert it into livable space, your basement is going to flood every time it rains. You just won’t notice it until your beams are rotted.

It is very, very hard to retrofit a house, especially where converting basements to living rooms is concerned. If you want a three-story house, you have to know that up front. Retrofitting a house for the proper drainage only sort of works. The only way to do it properly is not worth the money because you’d have to rip everything out. Even more expensive when the ceiling isn’t tall enough and you have to lower the floor to live comfortably.

In other words, basements build to hold Christmas stuff and basements built to hold a gang of teenagers like it’s “That 70s Show” are not the same.

That’s all about building the cities of the future. Using materials that work with the earth to make us more comfortable, instead of insisting that this fight is one we can win if we do nothing long enough.

But in every seed of desperation, there’s a strand of inspiration. We don’t need to let global warming paralyze us. We need to learn to roll with it. I, personally, will deal with it a lot better if I can see fresh or saltwater fish. But that’s just me. Maybe you’re the spaceship type. I wish you peace, luck, and any other color shirt but red on a trek not to be lost in space.

Mother Earth is trying to tell us something, and we are falling down on the job. We have to fix it one way or another. Mine would address it before it even leapt off the blueprints, in my city I build in the future.

With Whom?

July 8, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Describe your most memorable vacation.

Describing my most memorable vacation is hard because I’d have to pick between my childhood and taking vacations with partners. To say that there isn’t a story that takes the cake is incorrect. Here is the story of the first time I got married. I hope I made it sound as funny and terrible as it really was……… we just needed health insurance….. famous last words of all couples who have been together for a while and say “what the hell?” The only reason you get a link to this entry is that you *really* couldn’t find it unless you were dedicated to swallowing Stories whole. I posted it for the first time on Clever Title in 2005.

With others, there are snippets, like having fried dill pickles at BB King’s in Memphis with my family. It’s something that is commonplace today, but they blew my little kid mind. I also remember having bright yellow lemon ice cream on Beale Street, as cool and refreshing in my mind today as it was 30 odd years ago.

I remember coffee at Cafe du Monde, like everyone does, but I’m not sure all people think it should be a religion. All things being equal, I think Bryn and I could live in New Orleans quite easily. I should ask her. Moving isn’t a thing with me anymore because I’ve realized I’m using the Internet wrong. I can totally get a house in New Orleans for two weeks or a month via Air BnB.

I’m never talking about moving permanently, because I have friends that have worked at oil companies for longer than I’ve been alive who’ve lived all over the world for a few months at a time. For instance, I wouldn’t want to get a hotel and rent a car in Helsinki. I’d want to put down roots and make home base, even i it was only ten days……. keeping in mind that I have absolutely no idea how to make friends in Finland because everyone is like me. None of them want to be here, either.

It’s only a shell, though. I’ve watched so many videos of people moving to Helsinki (it’s *fascinating* when they’re POC). Finns are the nicest, kindest, sweetest people and also gaurded af if they don’t know you. Same. Hilarity ensues.

Helsinki is a vacation I want to take, though, and not a memorable one from the past.

Again, I’m not sure my “wedding” could beat anything I’d write today. It’s Saturday morning, and I’m trying to figure out how to use Threads effectively (and by that I mean I’m doomscrolling and need to eat).

Gurl Please

June 29, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What’s the most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten?

I am a cook. I don’t have a way to rank anything because in my world, when I say “apples to oranges,” I mean actual fruit. What I will say is that I have a very advanced palate, so it takes a lot to impress me. It doesn’t need to be fancy. I can tell a good cook from a bad one in one egg.

I was taught by the best, so I’m the best through transitive properties. But I’m the best at home. “No Fish on Mondays” is written from the first person perspective because I was living in a memory, not recalling it. However, I decided that the kitchen was too much for me physically- that I could have cerebral palsy or get my stripes in the kitchen, but I couldn’t do both and I figured that not being a chef was easier than curing CP.

That reminds me of a beautiful memory with my Supergrover, which I only bring up because I need it so bad. I figured out some more stuff that went into our demise that I could have told her, but I didn’t because I was trying to spare her feelings. As a result, I’m working through all of it on my own so that I don’t turn into a bitter queen. I don’t read “angry dyke.” I read “bitchy queen” all day. Anyway, the story is that another line cook sexually harassed me and she offered to kill him. I know enough to know it would have been with her bare hands. Honey badger don’t care. God, I feel the same way. I go apeshit inside when anyone crosses her. Believe me when I say she is a monster in the best sense of the word. It’s a good feeling when you’re the one holding the leash, and the ones closest to her often do. She’s not mean to us. She’s mean for us.

If you don’t have that friend, you don’t have a friend. Choose wisely.

And now back to our regularly scheduled program. It just feels better to write about all the things I love about her rather than sending negativity out into the world. I don’t even know if she’s reading and I don’t care. It’s not about her. It’s about healing me.

So, no way to rank but lots of standouts. I love everything, from cheap to expensive.

My favorite cheap thing is grocery store pizza, particularly the fancy kind with rising crust that actually smells like yeast. If you get your pizza delivered, you can’t enjoy the smell of it baking and it takes the same amount of time now that Domino’s drivers aren’t constantly tasked with delivery or death.

My favorite middle tier thing is pesto sauce. This is because you can buy pasta for a dollar a box and $15 pesto and all of the sudden you have a dish you could sell at a restaurant for more than that.

My favorite expensive thing is sushi, because even at the grocery store, sushi grade ahi is pricey. So is good wasabi. However, being able to “roll my own” has meant a lot to me in terms of education. I can make pretty good sushi-su (sp?), the rice with Kewpie and rice vinegar. I never roll it tight enough, but I don’t care. I could eat ahi and rice out of literally anything. I should learn the difference between Japanese and Hawaiian cooking because I could probably do a poke bowl with one hand tied behind my back…. but again, sushi grade ahi is just ridiculous in price most of the time, and even more expensive at a restaurant, where I’m always tempted to upgrade to yellowtail, soft shell crab, or salmon (seriously, there is no logic to the Philadelphia roll. WHY IS IT ADDICTIVE.)

The funniest conversation I’ve had in a sushi restaurant is that I told Dana that I wanted a Mexican roll (I don’t remember what was in it, probably fried jalapenos). She asked me if I could eat a whole Mexican, didn’t realize what she’d said, and then we both ended up nearly on the floor…… just shaking with laughter. The whites are so pretty next to the coloreds (that was the lights on the Christmas tree). Lord Jesus, help me I’m falling down the stairs I’m laughing so hard…. as if I was listening to the Eddie Murphy routine from whence the line appears.

When I talk about food, I talk about my ex-wife. It’s inevitable, because most of my adventure with food started at “Hi, I’m Dana.” We worked together for three years (I think?) and two restaurants. In the first, we basically ran our own kitchen because we were the only ones on shift. The second was at the Portland airport, and those restaurants don’t come to play. It wasn’t irritating locking up the knives at night, but it was hell trying to find parking at the airport and it took a long time to get from the parking into the building.

The coolest part of my cooking career was having the badge that let you walk directly up to the planes if you wanted. I could literally stand out on the tarmac and no one gave a shit. You cannot imagine how many times I imagined stowing away, but the issue with being on the tarmac is that you have NO idea where the planes are going. To some, that might be exciting. X means airports with international flights, so at PDX I could have ended up in Houston or Helsinki. Those are two very inconvenient cities to arrive with no luggage…. not that any city is, but not to know whether you need ski pants or sundresses isn’t that great.

Speaking of ski pants, I watch this YouTuber named Dave Cad that has ads for the most amazing Finnish clothing company. It’s kind of like REI and Uniqlo, and I’ll look it up if you’re interested in the comments. Anyway, Dave lives in Helsinki, but he was road tripping up to Kilpisjaarvi (sp?), which is so far up it was only three degrees Celsius in late June. It makes sense. Lapland is supposedly where Santa Claus lives, as well as the thrill of seeing Dave’s glass igloo. The glass igloo is so that you can ile in bed and watch the aurora borealis. OMG Bryn. That’s on our bucket list now, too. Note to self…. rent a car. Kilpisjaarvi is the most beautiful tiny little town I’ve ever seen. If I lived in Finland, that’s where I’d settle. I want hygge for the rest of my life (from Norwegian… the cosy feeling you get in the winter…. SO similar to Portland except not constantly raining. Snow is easier to me to deal with than rain, because it doesn’t hurt as much when it’s being pelted at you.

Plus, I’d like to start a garden. I’ve watched a couple videos on Finnish chefs because the palate is so much different than ours. I mean, just straight up BIZARRE. In every piece of footage, I am reminded of Anthony Bourdain in Iceland. It’s my favorite episode of No Reservations because he is the crankiest little bitch I’ve ever seen all the way through it. Comparable to Namibia, where he griped he hadn’t had anything without sand, fur, or shit in it for three days.

That part of the world has completely different plants. Vegan food would be off the chain when fruits and veg are in season. If I did have the strength to open a restaurant, Kilpisjaarvi would be excellent because it’s a tiny, tiny town and I could start out small. (I’m just gaming this out. I’m not crazy enough to do this by tomorrow). I think I’d close in the winter, at least part of the time, because I don’t think there would be enough business to survive on bread, cheese and meat until Spring. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe that’s what they eat. Just don’t drink with a Finn. Ever. You just don’t have it in you, and I don’t even know you.

I would be an excellent Finn, for the same reason that I’d rather spend time alone as much as they would. I may not have Finnish blood, but my personality is limited to one country. 😛 No DNA test needed.

Actually, I think Lindsay said we do have some Finnish blood, but it’s only like 3%, which is obviously enough to practically knight me there. Obviously.

Stating the obvious to an obscene amount, what would it be like to live in a country where they don’t hate women and lesbians?

That means I’d go check it out even if the food was terrible.