Tag: friends

Light at the End of the Tunnel

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Last night I went over to Colin’s house to meet him in person for the first time, as well as his dog. I got along with both swimmingly, but it’s a huge house and a lot more than I want to pay. I don’t want to use half the house. I want to rent a bedroom. He’s fairly certain he only wants to share the house with one person, so if he gets what he’s asking from someone else, I’m cool with it. I made a friend regardless.

However, we like each other so much that he’s taking some time to see if he can make it work, like being open to renting to two people, or axing his dog walker because I’ll be able to do it. Again, this has been a godsend of a connection, because even if I don’t end up moving in with Colin, he’s a solid dude. I told him that he still has my number regardless of the move for things like taking care of his dog while he’s out of town. Boarding dogs around here is expensive, and being good with a potential roommate’s dog has never lost me any brownie points.

Colin’s dog is half Jack Russell terrier and half Chihuahua. Therefore, he’s very tall (for a terrier/chihuahua) with blonde, curly hair all over. Colin says that the Jack Russell terrier must have been wire-haired (he’s had his DNA tested, so he’s sure about the mix). I feel like you can trust a man so dedicated to his dog that be brought genealogical research into it.

I just feel better about the state of moving at all, because Hayat gave me a stunning recommendation letter, and she’s actually the one that introduced me to Colin, indirectly. She’s on NextDoor and I’m not, so she sent me a listing. The reason it was so much more than I wanted to pay is that the listing didn’t have a price. When I told him it was out of my price range, he wanted to talk to me, anyway, because I was the first person that had even responded.

Then, of course, we started texting each other because that’s how our people communicate (neurodivergent). So, we have become a little bit closer via iMessage, because I feel it’s important for us to feel comfortable if we’re going to be sharing a house.

When he told me that he needed to think about all the financial implications, because he really only wanted one housemate, I told him to take the time he needed, because I don’t have to be out of my current place until May 1st, I’m just looking to move earlier than that because I don’t want to live here while people are coming in and out for showings. I also told him that I didn’t want to move again in another few months, so let’s make sure it’s the right fit.

He agreed, so we’re just chatting about normal friend stuff because like I said, I want to get to know him regardless. He does have a girlfriend, but they’re about as involved as Zac and me. As in, they don’t live together, they don’t spend all their time together, etc. We’re both stunningly introverted, which I think will also work well.

If Colin agrees to take me on as a lodger, it will be very nice only living with one, possibly two people. I don’t think that neurotypical people get the need for sensory deprivation. I think that people who need to be alone a lot make extroverts uncomfortable.

So, now I have two solid leads, and I feel better about myself than I have in ages because I didn’t know how this would go. Now that I have a letter of recommendation from Hayat and not someone they can’t verify I lived with, it’s a different ball game. My landlord said that I was a warm and caring person, and that my rent had never been late in nine years.

That goes a long way with people, so hopefully if it doesn’t work out with Colin, it will work out somewhere in DC. I’m surprised at the amount of looking I’ve sone in Silver Spring, because I thought I’d want to take off for DC/Alexandria immediately.

I’ve found much better deals on this side of the river, and in DC, even if you get a refinished house, it will still have weird steps all over the place because there’s no way it’s level after 300 years. I have nearly killed myself in several DC row houses. I know it would be so much easier for Lindsay if I lived in the middle of the city, but I haven’t found any place that truly looks comfortable. Most of the DC houses I’ve seen are very, very cramped.

Colin works for the local government in DC, and has a band. But it’s interesting. They only rent a recording studio and play together like, once a year. The rest of the time, they record their parts separately and just e-mail them, then the mixer puts everything together.

If it seems like I’m putting all my eggs in one basket, I don’t feel that I am because I am continuing to interview with other people, I’m just the most excited about this probability because I won’t be going that far and it’s someone I already like.

Plus, it would be nice to be settled by the time Bryn and her boyfriend, Dave, get here in May. However, I did warn them that it may be they arrive and start picking up my boxes. 😉 I know them well enough to know they’d just do it, though. The way I move, it will take less than half a day.

Today it’s all about culling, because tomorrow they’re coming to take pictures for Zillow, Redfin, etc. This is not my forté. I am going to suffer through. I had a Five Hour Energy, and I might have a cup of coffee as well (out of Adderrall and don’t have time to go to the doctor before the photographers get here). I have nine years of crap to go through, because I don’t want to move it all.

Yesterday, I gave my housemate Magda two GIANT bags of bath salts, because I bought them without knowing that Hayat was planning on ripping up the bathtub and putting in a shower. So, I have had industrial size bags of bath salts sitting on top of my dresser for the last year and a half.

Not all of my clothes fit, or they’re not my style anymore, etc.

It’s Mari Kondo time, and I may put her on for inspiration.

But if I’m going to bring up Mari Kondo’s name, I should also tell you I have “The Life Changing Magic of Leaving Your Shit All Over the Place” on my Kindle.

Describing the Color Choice

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Part of the reason my entries about the woman I call “Supergrover” is because she won’t answer a lot of basic questions about herself, and yet I have access to her heart in a beautiful and unique way. I got in through the back door in the hacker sense of the word, because nothing would ever have happened between us if we hadn’t kept to staying out of each other’s real lives.

I realized a few days ago that I had burned down the entire house on mutual friends. However, I wasn’t being encouraged to do so in any way. It was my reaction to her words, always. I cannot describe what she or anyone else went through at that time in our lives, and so far I’ve been handed more confusion than answers.

The closest I’ve ever gotten to feeling secure is “someday, perhaps” and “also. Thank you.” She’s quiet when she’s sincere, and those words echo just as much as the ones that hurt me. There is no possible way that she does not come across as a 3D character, and I will not believe it. I cannot write both the entry she referenced and a letter to her husband telling him to be good to her because she wouldn’t let me be good to her as well. If I can think those thoughts, why can she only accept the dark ones as the truth? Why can she not see that I am woven into her like The Impossible Girl, the one whose DNA is spread within The Doctor’s. I got there by only being her inner monologue as well. Our similarities show in our writing. One thing touched me deeply, and she said that I portrayed her as flat as if it’s not a wheel with many spokes. I told her that if she took every entry from March until now, she’d see the many different spokes in the wheel. That I remembered every one and wrote them all down.

You cannot think someone is worth nothing and a villain if you’re willing to go toe to toe with her husband and have it out. Who does that? Someone who thinks there’s no such thing as “the friend zone.” It’s better when we’re in each other’s lives than it is to be apart. I’ve written about that pain in exquisite detail so that I don’t forget a moment of it. There was a passion and drive within me to have her in my life at whatever level she could accept me into hers, but then it became about the cost/benefit analysis of living in so much confusion. I told her it caused anger and issues that needed to be resolved. She didn’t want to resolve them. At no time did it mean that I became that person who wouldn’t safety net her through anything. I am still her red telephone, and what I know is that Bryn and Zac would not deprive me of her, because they’re always rooting for me to succeed. I just would have to balance Bryn’s needs as well, because I cannot abandon her after the ways in which she’s made me grow. We have the ability to have a very deep and meaningful relationship because we have lived in the same place. We were raised by the same “parents.” We both lived to tell the tale. She’s my partner in terms of the one I’d want you to go to if something was up with me where I couldn’t be contacted. That’s because she’s the only one I’ll talk to when I really need to reach out. She feels the same way about me.

Just because you haven’t gotten married to someone doesn’t mean that loyalty and confidentiality mean less. That my vows to my friends are less important than the ones I’d make to a partner. I look to Bryn’s face for love because I can. I would look at my beautiful girl the same way if I thought she thought it was a privilege to be let in. But that power imbalance kept both of us from really laying things on the table.

Oh, the stories we could have told. Stories that are both true and factual. I still have the picture in my head of a photo shoot I want with her, and I hope it makes her laugh if she remembers what I’m talking about. Let’s just say it involves gender role reversal and leave it at that. I’ve checked with me and her husband absolutely wants this picture, too.

To think that I want to paint her as the villain when I’ve poured out everything in terms of how I feel about her makes me lean on the memories that make me laugh.

Here’s the best one of all. In ten years, she has never sent me a voice mail of her saying her own name. I say it like it sounds. She says it the way she likes it, but I can’t correct it and I’ve been saying it wrong the whole time.

I call her all kinds of nicknames because I can’t say her fucking real one.

Now that’s describing all the colors. She’s not a villain. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met in my life, and I don’t understand why she thinks she isn’t.

She is my red and my violet. My whites, greys, and blacks.

I paint my feelings as fact, but never once have I used PhotoShop to make it prettier, or to crop something so that the framing looks better…. like I have that good an eye naturally.

It’s all a spectrum. It’s all an ADHD mess. The temperature of our relationship centers on hot with drive to reconnect, not hot with passion. It never will. But painting my feelings as fact shouldn’t go unnoticed here, either.

I love her, and I won’t apologize for it anymore. I don’t even care if she believes it. I know it to be true, and I cannot be held together by one entry alone. I hope, for once, she’ll focus on this one.

It’s one of my favorite colors.

The Wood Song

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment 
...but the wood is tired 
and the wood is old
And we'll make it fine
if the weather holds
But if the weather holds
we'll have missed the point.
That's where I need to go......

Here’s what you need to know about Zac.

The journey I wouldn’t have taken led me to where I actually needed to go.

If you have to date someone, make sure it’s the kind who reads a blog entry about them trading off holding their dog’s leash and when you get to their house, say, “we should get a picture of you going up the hill because you’re holding Oliver’s leash.” My heart melted on the spot and I will never recover. He’s listening, perhaps a little too well. I’m not used to it, and small kindnesses enter an echo chamber as well. It’s not because I’m distorting them. It’s that the small things *are* the large things. He’s not threatened that I’m a writer and we’ve actually sat down to discuss those boundaries before anything pops up. So you’re free to know that yes, I’m dating a man ten years younger than me because I had no idea how old Zac was when I asked him out and being a cougar is an added bonus. In every lesbian’s life, there is a point at which they stop chasing cougars because they realize they are them. I will let your mind wander as to when I decided that was a real thing.

It was just too wholesome, and the whole weekend was allowing each other room to be us, without diminishing either. Most of our weekend was spent outside. There was this hike, but he also has an Olympic-sized neighborhood pool that looks a lot like the one where I took a picture of Human Oliver. We had access to grills and a griddle, and we took sausages both days. One had a central American vibe, like jack cheese and peppers. The other one was loaded baked potato, and I have never had anything like it. The texture was incredible. I cannot see myself as being so interested in sausage that I actually bought the stuff to make it, but there wouldn’t be another sausage I did make that didn’t have mashed potatoes in the recipe somewhere.

I had my new favorite drink this weekend, a non-alcoholic beer called “Chelada Nada” by Athletic. The black pepper and lime go as hard as alcohol, so you’re not missing the bite. Chelada is basically Bloody Mary Mix and beer, so if you didn’t “grow up” on it, kind of an acquired taste. Very, very popular in northern Mexico/southern Texas.

That was the other funny part. I ate a HUGE meal before I got on the train because last time my downfall was being handed alcohol on an empty stomach. Then, I had several beers and the NA Chelada beat the pants off all of them. It appeals to my little cook heart, because how in the fuck did Athletic do it? Seriously? I am ACTUALLY looking forward to your letters on this one as opposed to using a line Craig Ferguson said on The Late Late Show almost every night during its entire run.

We also spent time on the back deck just talking, sometimes sitting in the hot tub, sometimes sitting at the table with all our vices sat between us.

Life happened while we were doing something else.

Life taught me how to stop with all that lesbian shit, and I don’t mean that nearly as horribly as it sounds. Not everything has to have a conversation or processing about something. Part of it is that our relationship is not heavy. Part of it is that women are generally much more into talking about feelings. With Zac, I’m not all up in my head unless we’re doing our own thing.

It’s funny that we’ve had the same trauma dump you start in the beginning of every relationship because we’re getting to know each other……………… we’re just not handling it the way two women would do. When I am listening to Zac, I am not hearing a monologue of “how does this affect me?” My opinion of myself is not going up and down when he talks. I am not holding back information because I’m not sure of his reaction, or going to the other extreme and saying too much. We both have moments of expounding, and both allow for it.

I don’t want to marry Zac, but he let me know that marrying a man is possible. It’s not that I wasn’t bisexual, it’s just been the wrong situation. It has also been a journey. I’m not the same person I was when I was 25. Bisexuality does not always refer to having two partners, although some people construe it to be that. No, it’s that when you look over your entire life, you are probably bisexual. There is no such thing as an ex-gay. There are only bisexuals with people they trusted. Bisexuality is not my Sam Axe/Chuck Finley. It’s why I will never date another straight man, even if they were a person of color. It’s not the same.

Even if my husband and I were completely monogamous and had heterosexual privilege, the memories of bullying remain. We have the same reflexes. I still look around to see who’s watching before I kiss him. WHY WOULD I DO THAT?

Realizing that little tidbit was a fucking treat. It’s a trauma reflex. Zac understands that when he’s really affectionate in public, it is pushing the needle too far at times. I want to be moved in the right direction, but at my own pace. That’s because he’s had to look around to see who was watching to protect his physical safety as well. A straight man would not empathize to the level a queer one could, possibly treating me as if I were stupid or frigid.

The novelty of me dating a man as an idea has not gone away. It truly makes me laugh because I’m not their type and I don’t even know them. The reverse is also true. They’re not my type right up until they are. It just took a long time to find bisexuality as an identity because thoughts of men were so passing. They didn’t register because they didn’t have to, and I’ve missed a lot of messages in the middle of the mess.

I grew to accept more, and when I did, Zac rose to meet me………

If the weather had held, I would not be here in this moment. I am taking a moment to say a silent prayer to the storm.

Body Issues

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I have so many issues with food, and they’ve changed over decades. When I was young, I agreed with the people who said I was fat at 130 and used my mother’s Phen-Phen. It didn’t really work, but the placebo effect was massive. I was doing something. I was taking a pill to control my weight… but I was not my sister, who became a champion at running around the block instead of my lazy ass.

I was trying to be funny and I even offended myself. I am the furthest emotion from lazy there is. I’m laden. That’s different. There’s too much in my head that bounces around like sub-atomic particles. If I am lucky, one of them will turn into a picture, and I can branch out on WordPress from there.

In addition to having several creative projects I want to develop, as an INFJ I have the tendency to take on everyone else’s emotions as well. This is why I talk about being a hermit and only pubilshing. I can’t focus on both of us. You have to take a back seat to me at some point…. the one problem with binging is that people will watch several years worth of work in one night and demand more. Think about what you’re putting on all those creatives to do. While stars are certainly paid what they’re worth for the work, it’s still an enormous red flag to work under those kinds of demands. “You suck because I watched this on the toilet for four weeks and the next season isn’t coming out for two years.” How long do you think an episode of The Simpsons or whatever takes to finish? How much pressure there is to even do their jobs, much less take on an academic “publish or perish” quality to keep people from splitting apart over not knowing who slept with whom.

Screw money at that point. When do you spend it?

My guess is that a huge part of it goes into looking like a celebrity. I don’t have a problem with this. I love gowns and tuxes, as well as pictures of actors and models in magazines. Looking like a star takes actual work, as important to actresses as it was to Jackie Kennedy. In my opinion, Jackie Kennedy was American royalty and Oprah has taken her place. It’s the same personality, though. Shy and quiet covered up by HUGE bravado as to not really let anyone in. I also agree with this. It’s what would happen to me if I became more popular than I am now. I would not let people except those close to me have an opinion. I would rather project confidence and not let ANYONE rattle me. Getting upset and miserable over something I’m working through by writing about it gives me comfort. I’m not here to impress anyone, obviously. I’ve said it in a hundred different ways.

Therefore, other people (strangers) cannot matter to me. If I take it in, I am finished. My ego will get too big, and the confidence I project will become braggadocio. If it seems like bragging already, it’s generally the most obnoxious when I’m borderline suicidal. It’s a coping mechanism, you see? Suicidal ideation is not a problem. Most depressed people have it. The alarm bells for my hospitalization was not the simple thought of “I don’t want to be here anymore.” I was halfway to SpongeBob HeadStone before I realized that I needed to get help (quickly). If it gets that bad, I also don’t want to die and I won’t do it because I have been given enough coping mechanisms (like giving myself permission to go to the ER, that mental health matters). Moreover, when I feel the worst about myself, it’s because I’ve hurt someone and I can’t recover from it, because I’m so empathic that it destroys me to feel pain I’ve caused, even unintentionally.

When I was 14, killing myself was about protecting my abuser.

When I was 36, it was about learning that I couldn’t separate the wheat from the chaff, and I would always be Just. Like. Her. I can’t get away from my own voice, my own signature, my own stories that include her.

It broke me, and I deserve a medal for getting back up afterwards. I was truly down for the count, because I realized there was literally nothing I could do but learn to live with it. It’s an out of body sensation when something comes out of my mouth in her voice, even worse when it’s her actual words coming out of my mouth because I sound like my mother, only the totally fucked up one.

When I realized at 14 that my life was going to be different from others, that not only was I gay but I was in love with someone 11 years older than me, I panicked. I knew that whatever information my abuser had slipped me had aged me in a way I would not have chosen. My body issues intensified because I wanted her to think I was pretty….. to the point that I freaked my actual mother out. My abuser was coming to our church for a concert after she’d already moved away, and I was beside myself…. the first day with anger, the second day with tears and frustration. But the tears were not over her. They were over me.

The first day was her rehearsal. It was just a lazy afternoon, and it was one week before my 16th birthday. She’d asked me to meet her up at the church so we could hug and exclaim over each other in private (not romantic…. for her). My mom said, “I should let you drive so you can impress Diane.” I think that is the first time I’ve ever blushed so hard I turned purple…. until she said, “don’t you want to change? You usually dress up for her.”

That is when I knew my mother had the potential to murder me by accident.

Just slaughter me with words.

You mean I don’t look good enough?

Editor’s Note: I reread this, and I laughed so hard there were tears and snot rolling down my face. I wondered what in the hell got into my mother that she was so uptight about me being gay and yet vocal that I WASN’T DOING IT RIGHT, LESLIE. Tough room.

The next morning was church. I woke up nervous. I spent like an hour in the shower. I dried my hair, and plugged in my curling iron (that was all Texas girls back then, shut it). I don’t remember exactly what happened because I went into a blind rage, but my hair didn’t turn out right.

That was the moment I had my first panic attack. Blind rage leads to hyperventilating on the floor, and I just put it together that the only times I’ve hyperventilated were getting ready for that concert and after Dana hit me. But the thing with my abuser was supposed to be sweet……………

Why couldn’t I breathe? Why couldn’t I get air in my chest? Why did I feel fat, ugly, and unwanted?

Because I realized that the relationship was not on the up and up, and I loved that shit. Yes, let’s go into this deep, dark hole where we tell each other all our secrets, which at 14 and 25, were totally the same. It checks out. F me running. In retrospect it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, SECONDED by my mother dying. This is because my mother’s death affected her way more than it affected me…. and in any case, I have 45 years of pure, white mother love memories of the woman that birthed me.

There were times in which I didn’t feel abused. What drove me away was inconsistency. I never knew which woman was going to show up. Sometimes, she was the warmest ever. Sometimes, it seemed as if we had no history at all. And all of this was while we lived three minutes from each other. Come on. If you can’t solve a problem with someone who lives three minutes away, who can you? We could have looked at everything from every angle without a commute. But she didn’t want that. She wanted to turn away and go on to fuck up older people. Teenagers were just shooting fish in a barrel. And yes, for people who know her, I do feel that strongly about her pathology. Don’t test me on it. I will never speak to you again. Ever.

There’s a reason why I am so protective of not saying who it was again. I would scream it from the rooftops if I thought it would do more good for the world without killing me. Saying her full name gives it power, not when it’s published. When it’s in my head. It has fucked me up that I don’t want to change the name my mother gave me and I hate it so much. She already has a Google tattoo from years and years ago. There’s no way she will ever get away from this story, and I am appreciative of her always for one thing and one thing only. She let me tell my story.

Exactly the way I wanted to tell it.

It’s nine years later, after the end of a 23 year relationship in which we did very little but talk about growing up gay and what it would look like from here on out. It sounds completely innocent until I tell you that her college journal that was my 14th birthday present was love poems to another woman that didn’t leave ANYTHING out. Had I been even 17, this wouldn’t have been an issue. But I wasn’t ready. Full stop.

Anyone who looks at me with wide-eyed wonder and tells me she didn’t know exactly what she was doing in that moment can fuck all the way off, and yes, I will be that angry, and yes, I do in fact know that there is a very well respected reader of this web site who will stand up and cheer when she reads this. She will look at my incredible strength in body and mind and tell me she is so proud of me and that this entry will help a lot of people to look at their own childhoods. So, whenever you think this web site is all about me, it’s not. It’s for her and all the other little girls that come to me and say they were hurt by something I said because it triggered a bad memory.

For the women who didn’t write me and tell me they were abused and looking at each other, it wasn’t any of you…. that I know of.

I’m not the only one who can see through mud in this situation, and that’s what saved my life when I was 36. You all gathered around me and safety netted me until I could breathe again.

I would do it for any one if you if I knew you were in trouble. It’s just that no one tells me anything. There’s a reason for that, mostly that I’m a writer. But at the same time, you (plural) can’t jump all over my ass for not responding to something I didn’t know . If you needed help and you didn’t tell me, how am I supposed to know I don’t need to be at my house, I need to be at yours?

So, when I know there’s a problem somewhere in the world…. Let’s pick a random country like India, because I have quite a few fans there (thanks, India. You rock.). If an Indian person contacts me and says they’ve been abused, I only have one answer at that point. They’re across the world. I can listen over the Internet.

It’s not the same as sharing space with someone. I can’t touch them, I can’t reassure them with a hand squeeze or an arm around their shoulder while they cry.

After a while, it all just becomes body issues.

Country Grammar

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Down, down baby…. yo street in a rain coat……

Yes, that is literally what I thought was said. I also thought when I was three, being raised by classical musicians, that the opening line to “The Little Drummer Boy” was “come….. Beethoven…..”

I am picturing Sam’s face as I’m looking out the window, not in an “awww, I’m so disappointed and hurt” sort of way, but knowing within myself how much it will make her smile to read what I thought when I was three and how much it will speak to her own musician’s heart. That’s the thing about moms. They love all children, even when it was you 42 years ago.

Or maybe she’s not reading at all. I can’t care about that, it was just a pie in the sky thought. I don’t know if any of the people I love read my web site unless they tell me. However, people do sit with me when I’m writing. Sometimes it’s a real person, sometimes it’s a fictional character that I’m trying to birth.

Edited to add that this person is normally Jonna Mendez, and not because she was a badass spy back in the day. It’s that I want to be her in ten years, just with fiction. She matters to me, but not as a spy. As a writer. I have collected many of her books with Tony, all of them autographed. She’s just the person/picture I see in my head as to how much fame I can handle. That’s because she’s not famous. She’s well-respected. There’s a difference. There’s a chance she’ll be in my work in progress, because she’s the spy I know the most about. My main character accidentally walks into a Situation. It’s possible that they’ll have some of Tony and Jonna’s mannerisms, but not in a way that says I literally know them. I’ve just picked up some of their wordplay, literary mannerisms.

Learning more about grammar, structure, setting, plot, and characters has turned me into someone even worse than I thought I was previously. I’m not just a writer. I’m a novelist. The Dorothy Parker outrage in that statement should be obvious. It’s the most outwardly pretentious profession that there is, because it comes with a lot of preconceived notions (stereotypes) that are true in terms of behavior and miles apart in understanding for their existence.

In my opinion and experience, which is vast at this point because I review books, novelists are grouchy and standoffish not to project as such, but because years and years of people telling us our writing isn’t real, that we’ll end up alone, that even if it is real, it’s not good enough to actually do anything with it, we’ll always be destitute, etc. has made us use our personas as a coping mechanism. We don’t want to be around any idea that will distract us, or make us feel bad about our creations.

We’re competing for the same pot of money, and I’ve still never had another writer tell me my writing sucks and I’d be better off in accounting. No one will tell you that, though. They think they’re being nice by couching it in other things and thinking we don’t see “write through it.” Please. We’ve been writing metaphors about people like you for eons.

We’re not defensive, we’re protective. If we aren’t, we will lose the thing that makes us, well…… us. It’s a shame that no one else sees our brilliance until we’re at the top of the New York Times Bestsellers list and if you haven’t made it, it means you’re a terrible writer and don’t quit your day job.

Someone hashing it out gets ridiculed while creatives in Hollywood are lauded as geniuses. Where would Hollywood be without showrunners like Matthew Weiner and Vince Gilligan? Don’t you think they were once struggling writers with a dream that everyone called crazy and shit all over their ideas? I know Neil Gaiman was. He recently told a story about it. A writer was feeling bad about herself because only two people showed up to her book signing. He told her that two more people showed up to her book signing than showed up and his and Terry Pratchett’s first.

If you don’t think everyone shit all over Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett before they were household names, you’re blind.We all go through it.

Writers aren’t the way they are because they want to be. It’s years of being hardened. Of having to believe in yourself because no one else does. Having to be strong in a way that other people don’t, because no one is attacking what they do for a living on a daily basis. Writers have to automatically assume that when they enter a room, no one likes them. Why? So few people have ever proven them otherwise, because it’s totally okay to shit on writers. They don’t make any money.

Except for the heroes who got lucky and make everyone think that if you’re not a bestselling author, you’re not even worth reading.

As if that’s not the very thing that’s keeping us from making decent money.

The thing that bothers writers the most is anyone coming into their space and telling them how to create, or finding out that your friends have been talking behind your back about the same thing. No one needs to step in and rescue a writer from themselves. We’ll come unglued.

The injustice will eat us alive, because we don’t come into your place of business and tell you you’re doing it all wrong and you have a million ideas as to how to make it better.

Let me tell you why that is so extraordinarily problematic and hateful. The most important thing that a writer has…. perhaps the only thing…. is being able to tell their story the way they want to tell it. Impinge on that, and you risk everything if you actually want to support us, because we will never, and I mean NEVER, appreciate that kind of ire, because even when it’s not angry, it comes across that way.

It says “I don’t value you for the person that you are. I value you for the person I want to create.” Whenever I get into the space of ideas upon ideas, I know I’m spitballing and throwing out ideas in support of telling someone’s story the way they want to tell it. I will never, ever, ever tell anyone that what they are currently doing needs to change.

I will tell you everything you need to know to make your own decisions, and whatever story you write, I am supportive of it.

I am not supportive in the way that says “I agree with you.” I am supportive in that when you tell me what your decisions are, I respect them. I will tell your story the way you want to tell it, but only if you tell me what it is.

Part of the disappointment over losing Sam was losing the part of myself that writes about her. Knowing that it will go away over time and preparing for it, because in this space, I can adore her to bits all I want without taking the risk that she can or will hurt me repeatedly. When she told me that her story didn’t include me anymore, I respected it and have only processed through writing, not direct contact. I’m sure it’s painful and surreal for her, though, because I didn’t know the real Sam long enough to be able to capture her accurately. She’s not seeing herself, or isn’t supposed to. What she’s seeing is the fictional version of herself that I created to deal with my pain.

Nothing about plot is wrong. It’s character. I would have been able to capture Sam and her kids in word pictures that would resonate with her. Believe me when I say that I mean “resonate” in every fullest sense of the word. We’re musicians.

They would also mean something to other people across the world, but that would never be my focus. My focus would be on reaching her, as if it isn’t already. I don’t want to interact. I want to have it out in the way I want to tell it to myself. To be able to take everything I know about myself and everything I know about her and weigh those things to see if there’s anything I could have done to save the relationship, and not even because that matters. It’s what I could have done differently that I’ll take with me.

But going down her street in a raincoat?

Nah. I’m good.

Lanagan

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 1 Comment

My chef asked me if he could call me “Lanagan” a few weeks ago, and I smiled to myself. Most of the friends who have called me that aren’t in my daily life, and I didn’t know how much I missed it. So, of course, every time I walk into the kitchen now, from the back I hear my last name echoing through the whole place. It completes me- giving a piece of myself back to me that I didn’t know was missing.

It also reminds me of a great memory- the first time someone called out “Lanagan” in a kitchen, and both Dana and I turned around. Initially, we had the conversation about last names because we were thinking of conceiving, and though we never did, “Lanagan” stuck for her, too. Somehow, it was even better hearing her respond to “Lanagan” than it was to respond myself.

I love how these little moments come to me and I smile. The old axiom is true- don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened. Having a relationship last over seven years is a win, and I never mistake the part for the whole. I can’t- without Dana, I wouldn’t have a job right now (she’s the cook that taught me to cook- one of several, but the most consistent).

And speaking of jobs, it’s actually “my Saturday,” provided that no one gets sick or otherwise calls out at the pub. On my to-do list for today is getting TSA pre-check at the airport. There are places to do the interview that are closer, but National is on the Yellow Line, and I already know where it is. That is always a huge factor, because I would rather travel longer than get lost. Besides, I’m in the middle of several great books, and trains are invaluable time for reading.

I also need a haircut and some groceries, but I think that will have to wait until I get back from the airport. I am feeling lazy this morning, even though I slept very well last night. It’s less of a go-back-to-bed feeling and more of an I-wish-there-were-cartoons feeling. That being said, I can’t actually watch cartoons this morning because I am out of cereal, which is basically a prerequisite for animation in the AM. My being out of cereal is probably the only reason you’re hearing from me right now.

I’m writing today because I got an e-mail yesterday about how Dooce has turned into a shitty writer because her site is now all ad copy and being funny…. something about “she wasn’t always a shitty writer, but she is now.” My response was that it was now her job to tell me when to retire- she could just re-send that e-mail. It will probably be my epitaph- “she wasn’t always a shitty writer, but she is now.”

I am trying my best to write when I actually have something to say. The best preaching advice I’ve ever gotten, which I’ve extrapolated to blogging as well, is, “when you run out of things to say, stop talking.” There is no reason to try and fill 15 minutes when you only have nine of material.

As 41 Approaches…

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

My birthday has gotten started a bit early. My dad asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and I said, “a new phone.” So I picked one out on Amazon, and I am ridiculously happy with it. It’s a Samsung Galaxy, my go-to in terms of new phone purchases (I’ve had three in various versions). This is because I download a LOT, and iPhones fill up fast with no way to add extra space. My current phone is, I think, 32 GB, but I added a 128 GB expansion card. I haven’t added my music to it, but my library of podcasts is extensive. I download them all because most Metro stations are underground and reception is spotty at best. Pro Tip: buy a refurbished phone and pay outright so that you are not on the hook with your cell phone company in terms of paying it off. There are also different variations of the same phone… for instance, you cannot root into mine (nerd alert- no need to carry the nerdiness further by explaining why), but I didn’t want to, anyway. Not my bag, baby.

Back to the cool stuff about extra space. Both Netflix and Amazon Prime will let you download movies and TV shows, which can take up plenty of room, especially if you are downloading a whole season at once. Prime has a limit on the number of downloads in terms of things that are temporarily licensed to them, but you can download anything and everything they produce themselves… For instance, on my last phone I had every episode of One Mississippi and The Man in the High Castle. Invaluable waiting in the ER, the DMV, the Metro during outages, etc.

The only thing is that it is such a powerful computer that you must have a battery saving app to go with it. My former go-to was Juice Defender, but for some reason, the link to the professional version is still live, but it says you need the free version to get it to work, and when I clicked on the link to grab it, I got a 404 error. I got Google to refund my money and bought a subscription to Kaspersky Battery Life: Saver & Booster instead. So far, it’s been magnificent. I highly recommend buying the professional version, because even though the free one works, it is inundated with annoying ads, and it’s not that expensive.

I have only bought two apps in the entirety of my smart phone-owning life. The second is Alarm Clock for Me. It looks like an old school digital clock radio, but it has some amazing features when you unlock the professional version, like waking up to your own music, a gentle lead-in feature where the alarm starts out soft and gets louder over time, weather report in the top corner, and something new- perfect bedtime, which tells you what time to go to sleep in order to wake up refreshed for said alarm. If you hate waking up, might I suggest a military grade phone cover for when you feel like throwing it against the wall? 😛

You would think the birthday surprises would end there, but wait! There’s more!

I think I genuinely frightened Dan with all my burns. They do look pretty gross, to be honest. So, she pulls out a package from Amazon and says, “open it.” Inside are Kevlar cuffs that prevent burns and cuts. I was told specifically to take a picture in the kitchen with me wearing them.

Yes, ma’am.

I didn’t have time tonight, but I will before the week is out. They were actually Autumn’s idea, because she’s worked in a kitchen before. Apparently, they also come in gloves, but I definitely wouldn’t wear those. I would be mortified if my grip on pots and pans was even more loose than it is right now…………… I’m sure they’re helpful for both chopping and taking things out of the oven, but they picked well. They’re yellow, so I look like Wonder Woman.

I was half hoping that I would make a mistake cleaning the griddle tonight and accidentally slam my wrist down like I’ve done a thousand times before (the griddle brick has a mind of its own) just to see my cuffs in action. Alas, tonight went perfectly, so no dice. I am sure I will have other dumbass attacks in the future where they will save my bacon, though.

On Sunday, we had our end-of-summer company party, where the flyer said that significant others and children were welcome. I decided to ask Dan if she wanted to come, because we’re good friends, and therefore, she’s significant to me. No one gave me any grief about it, but if they had I was fully prepared to say that I’d just adopted her.

She got to meet my whole crew, who said some extraordinarily nice things about me, and not just because Dan was there. My lead line cook says every shift that he’s not going to turn me into the chef he wants me to be, but the chef I want me to be…. that inside of a month, I’d be ready to run this kitchen, and inside of two, I’d be ready to run my own. I am growing to accept this praise at my ability, because there were so many awkward and embarrassing moments in my past cooking jobs that I still see myself as a n00b, hanging desperately onto Dana’s coattails. Now it’s time to get on board with the fact that I don’t need to fill her shoes. I brought my own.

In fact, one of my managers brought his girlfriend to the party, and he introduced me as their most dependable employee, and that it was embarrassing how many times I’d bailed them out of a jam. Let me assure you that you don’t even have to be that great a cook for a compliment like that to carry you very, very far in this industry. You can be the best line cook in the entire world, but showing up is even more important. This is not an industry known for emotionally stable, responsible workers. Egos clash. Brown bottle flu happens, as does “I didn’t know I was working today.” But the team I’ve got now has none of those problems. We love working together, and it shows. I am being rewarded beyond my wildest imagination. People have started to call my lead line cook, me, and our most experienced expo “The A-Team.”

It really is amazing how even though I’ve been working on internal validation for years, I’ve grown exponentially with some external praise. It’s not required, but it is definitely changing the way I see myself. I am not sure that I ever want to be a chef, but that’s not the point. The point is that someone believes in me enough to say that I’m capable of it.

Quick aside for people not in the know….. I get called a chef all the time, because people who don’t work in kitchens tend to call all cooks “chef.” But chef literally means “boss,” and there can be only one. For most of us, it feels disrespectful to be called a chef when we haven’t earned it, but we also don’t expect everyone on earth to understand the inner workings of the culinary world. So, we might be a little internally irritated, but we won’t say anything. However, if I do earn the title, you’ll be able to hear me scream from coast to coast. Fair warning.

Because of jumping back into the kitchen, my 40th trip around the sun has been an incredible year of self-discovery, reaching heights I never thought possible. It has allowed me to become less self-deprecating, which you do when you believe in yourself. I mean, I still tell jokes at my own expense, but they aren’t deep jabs. They’re actually funny.

Which has been another hallmark of my 40th year…. giving myself permission to be funny again, after years of grief and loss. Though losing my mother has reworked my version of normal, I am glad to see that with the passage of time normal hasn’t been stolen from me altogether. The only time that I really feel punched in the stomach is when I can’t do things like call her up and say, “you won’t believe how amazing I’m doing at work. I’m even having trouble.” Through our long relationship, though, I know exactly what she would say…. “I certainly can believe it. You can do anything. Just remember to wear your Kevlar cuffs, because those burns look like they hurt.”

Yes, ma’am.

Maxwell House Max

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

This morning I am sitting in the sun room with a large cup of Maxwell Houseâ„¢ Max, a new product that has 1.75x the amount of caffeine as a regular cup of coffee. I have some errands to run and chores to do, so I don’t feel bad about front loading a lot of chemical fortitude. If I had to take a wild guess, brewed coffee is getting its ass kicked by energy drinks, and this is basically “shots fired.” I like it black with a good amount of Splenda,â„¢ because there are a lot of chocolate undertones you miss if you add creamer.

Plus, it’s not very expensive. Coffee can just be a beverage again instead of a lifestyle choice. Even I can’t pinpoint the percentage of my income that has gone to outrageously expensive beans, but I guarantee that it’s astronomical. That being said, I do save a lot of money even with buying expensive beans, because it’s still cheaper than going to a coffee shop and paying for one cup at a time.

Sometimes I marvel at how we got here- that the market will bear $3 for a plain cup of coffee. I save a little bit at Starbucks, because people give me gift cards all the time, and because I’m a Gold Member, I get free refills on coffee & tea. Because of this, I have learned that Venti is Italian for “too lazy to get up.” Also, pro tip- SBUX coffee is so much better if you buy the beans and brew them in your own coffee pot… two reasons. You can make it to your own taste, and you know exactly how long it’s been sitting there.

I’d like to support my local indie coffee shops, but since I get gift cards to Starbucks, free coffee is too good to pass up. One $15 gift card will keep me in coffee for two weeks.

However, I am guessing that you don’t come to this web site to hear me extol the virtues of coffee… well, at least, not all of you. You want to know what’s been going on in my life, and I haven’t updated you in a while.

Samantha has signed up for cosmetology school at the Aveda Institute, which is 223 feet from the Gallery Place/Chinatown Metro stop. She’d never taken public transit before, so she wanted me to go with her on a “dry run” to make sure she knew where she was going on the first day. It was absolutely adorable, really. I don’t know anyone who is better at “winning friends and influencing people,” so not only did we get where we were going fairly fast, on the way back we made friends with the bus driver… well, she did, anyway. I just sat back and interjected into the conversation, as I am wont to do. He told us that he was from Haiti, and he was about my age, so I asked him, you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but did you come here to escape Baby Doc? He said, and this is a direct quote, how the fuck did you know that? Get off this bus. He made a big show of opening the door. It was a Slumdog Millionaire moment as I remembered that my dad was a missionary in Haiti in the ’80s.

Then, a couple of days later, we had a wind storm that sounded like a freight train, blowing the side door open at our house and blowing debris and branches all over the ciy. So far, I only know of one person that died, a six-year-old who was hit by a branch in just the right spot to cause his mortality. In terms of history, one of the trees that President Washington planted at Mount Vernon was knocked over, as well.

Everyone in our household stayed safe, and we didn’t lose electricity… even though the wind at National Airport reached 70mph. As Ron White so eloquently put it, it’s not that the wind is blowing, it’s what the wind is blowing. He was talking about a tornado, but the point is the same. You might be able to outrun the wind itself, but not the car bumper it’s carrying.

I am now reading my second book for review, an advance copy that’s not even on Amazon yet… I suppose you would say that I’m a beta reader, because this is far past first draft work. I’m not far enough along in the book to tell you if the story is better than The Reel Sisters, but I can tell you that the writing style is much more advanced and closer to the fiction I’ve enjoyed before I started reviewing professionally.

I’m hoping my editor sticks with me, because even though I can’t send her a copy of the book (I’m sworn to secrecy), she can at least tell me if the review is good enough for publication or to go back to the drawing board.

As I told her, no one in formal writing makes it on their own…. or they lie. When my first review got published, my e-mail to her said, we did it.

This web site is absolutely not formal writing. It’s just whatever I’m thinking that day… and the very next day, I might say the exact opposite. Sometimes I’ve changed my mind. Sometimes it’s just cognitive dissonance in which each idea is true to me and I carry them both.

I don’t have a problem with thinking two opposite things at once. It’s like love. You never forget that your partner is an amazing part of your world, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t occasionally fantasize about smothering them in their sleep and collecting the insurance money when they haven’t taken out the garbage like you asked them to do two days ago.

Because I’m single, I get the pleasure of being annoyed at myself for those things. I can’t decide if that’s better or worse. Probably better, because I haven’t broken up with me yet…. even on the days I wish I could, like when I’m really mean to me before I’ve had my coffee.