Tag: Friendships

Why? Just Why? (Poly/ENM Discussion)

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I asked Carol to search reddit and give me the top 10 questions that people have about polyamory and ENM. I am not coming from a place of lived experience, but I’ve done a lot of reading. I am just entering this world by chance, because I asked out someone and didn’t know they were poly in the first place. I just rolled with him because I liked him enough to keep him around. 😉 So, what was absolutely on brand for me is starting the research early, early, early. Here’s the benefit of my reading and experience combined, which, granted, is not much:

  1. What’s the difference between polyamory and ethical non-monogamy?
    • This is an excellent topic to get us started, because there’s no one way to do poly. Polyamory implies someone dating multiple people and they all know each other. Ethical non-monogamy is managing every relationship completely independently.
  2. How do you manage jealousy in polyamorous relationships?
    • At first, you don’t. You just let the jealousy wash over you and react how you’re going to react…… in private. That’s the time to learn to use your words, so that your response to jealousy is measured….. NOT that you hide your feelings. It’s just not a good idea to have your first reaction in front of people. What you learn about polyamory is that there’s no sense of someone taking care of you, because there is no ownership of one another. I do not mean that you do not have your emotional needs met by multiple people, it’s just different because you don’t lapse into a buddy system for life. You each have your own lives, and you are choosing to make time for each other rather than it being an obligation.
    • The second thing that’s really important is that the answer is “it depends.” This is a generality about the ideal. The reality is that humans are messy. I am on the fence about polyamory vs. ENM because I really haven’t had to deal with those issues myself. It really, really depends on your partner and what’s called your “metamour,” or “meta.” That’s your partner’s partner. All of my metas are wonderful people, but we do not pry into the details of each other’s lives. That is for Zac and Zac alone to manage, just like your spouse should never hang you out to dry with your in-laws, either.
  3. What are the challenges of opening up a monogamous relationship?
    • If polyamory comes from temptation, the relationship will end. Will. I can think of maybe three stories I’ve read where it worked out trying to integrate an affair partner. Poly/ENM is not cheating, and there are very strict standards you live by to stress it because having a hierarchical relationship is more trouble than it’s worth, for the most part. A triad is its own ball of wax, and the reality is that it’s mostly straight men who want to be narcissistic, abusive partners to more than one woman at a time. Polyamory is about saying your worth and your time are higher than that…… but husbands get this “great idea” and it all falls apart. Not all men, obviously. Especially if you’re dating a bear (teehee, but Zac is clean-shaven). I’m just saying that just like with monogamy, there’s a range of domestic abuse….. and because you’re abusive to multiple people who sit there and take it, congratulations. The dysfunction spreads to anyone new.
  4. How do you handle time management with multiple partners?
    • I can’t speak to what I have done, because I have never tried to integrate a partner into my life that way. Zac and I are what’s called “solo poly,” but that may change. I’m just driven by solitude and have no need. If there was a reason to have another partner, I’d get one. But I am happy living with David and becoming friends with him while we mutually take care of a dog and have our own separate partners.
    • The real answer is that Google Calendar is the official app of polyamory/ENM. In my case, I have access to all the data that goes to shared partners, like “this is when I’m in town. This is when I’m not.” That way, we manage without actually interacting all that much except for all call parties at Zac’s house, which are about Zac. It’s not the time for jealousies to be discussed, if ever. Zac is the hinge. I cannot stress this enough. It takes an enormous amount of emotional strength to be friends with a meta. That’s where polyamory gets hugely difficult. It is one thing to know it. It’s another to see it. Again, it depends. What kind of person are you?
  5. What are some misconceptions about polyamory and ethical non-monogamy?
    • The biggest one, absolutely, is that polyamory is binary. It’s a spectrum, just like everything else.
    • The second biggest is that polyamory is code for cheating. If you think that, you do not know a half of my emotional strength and flexibility. I do not have to cheat to be poly. It is counterintuitive. You are poly-amorous. No good can come of multiple partners that don’t know their hinge is poly….. and sniffing out an affair makes coming out as poly seem like “poor me. I don’t have a choice.” Yes, you do. You have the choice to lie to your partners or not, and never, ever in your five dollar life forget it. You talk about poly before it happens, not when you catch feelings. Because then, you’re just trying to cover your ass. You’re not poly. The fucking around of moral justice leads toward finding out.
    • Here’s a third that most people don’t think of, and it’s funny, because it’s a warning revolving around having a third. There’s a special population of couples looking for a third, most of them to try out poly for the first time, trying to integrate a closed triad, the hardest poly setup, before they even know what ENM means. This leads to obnoxious behavior and treats the third like shit. This special population is called “unicorn hunters.” That’s because the statistics on it working out are so alarmingly rare.
  6. How do you communicate boundaries and needs in polyamorous relationships?
    • Precisely. I cannot stress this enough. Everyone has to have crystal clear expectations in order not to expect or demand too much- we are all cognizant of the fact that each other only has so much time in a day. The main thing is not needing your partner for everything all the time, because it becomes intrusive fast. You can’t be 100% that bitch and say you want poly, then when their partner is out with someone else, you decide it’s time to hen peck the hell out of your partner while they’ve allotted time for someone else. Of course get in touch if something really important is going on, but not every little thing needs to be discussed the moment you think of it. If that were true, Zac would have sixty missed calls a day because “oooh, shiny.” I’m not the henpeck kind of neurodivergent. I’m the “if I don’t tell you this right now it will be lost forever” neurodivergent. It works out well that Zac works in intelligence, because he goes into a SCIF or something and then my notifications don’t bug the fuck our of him. He can read on his own time. E-mail also works well for this, because it’s not seemingly as time sensitive as a text.
  7. What’s the best way to meet potential polyamorous partners?
    • Well, the first and easiest thing to do is telling people you’re poly.
    • Failing that, you look on the internet like everyone else.
  8. How do children fit into polyamorous families?
    • It really depends on the parents. Overall, I think it makes for happier kids because they have more safe adults, and it’s a practical thing. Many hands make light work. Having a baby is hard on two people, but not so hard when there’s four people to take turns getting no sleep. The kid ends up having a good relationship with everyone, and explaining it to them isn’t necessary. If you are a person in your right mind, your sex life doesn’t come up around your kids. You explain to them how people have sex, not what mommy and daddy are actually doing to each other if you value your sanity in public. Because I promise that kid will have absolutely no questions at all about polyamory until you’re in line at Target. I don’t make the rules.
  9. Can polyamory work for someone who’s been monogamous all their life?
    • Again, it depends. I am driven by my own creativity, and I have never been this way before. I was not willing to sacrifice a full-time relationship for living on my own and not feeling like someone was helping me stay on top of things like a parent or a boss would. That’s what I mean about needing home help; that people who are not married are able to have people help them in an occupational therapy kind of way. Like, can you teach me how to manage myself and yet also be there to bail me out when my neurodivergence invariably causes the fuckening? It’s better for me to deal with that stuff when I’m alone, because I am not getting my crazy spatter on anyone. But again, not to the point of total isolation. Just enough where I need more hours to myself than a typical partner, so I’m willing to sacrifice the relationship escalator for it.
  10. How do legal and societal norms impact polyamorous relationships?
    • We cannot talk about the morals of polyamory in this country because we’ve been programmed to think that saying you’re monogamous right up until you cheat is socially acceptable, and 50% of marriages end in divorce. Why do we realistically believe that monogamy works? I’m not knocking it, I’m not trying to be persuasive. I am genuinely curious. What is it about upholding a moral standard in public while doing the opposite in private that’s all the rage? I don’t think that polyamory is more popular. I think that more people are coming to the same relaxation I did. That for half the population, monogamy over decades just doesn’t feel right or natural. What doesn’t feel right or natural is the judgmental, hypocritical natures of the people who criticize polyamory. A lot of them are on their third or fourth marriage, and at least two ended after infidelity.

The hardest part of polyamory is letting go of the idea that love means ownership.

The Home Folder

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

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

Zac and I were actually talking about this before midnight, before I even knew what the prompt was going to be today. We both agreed that the one thing we couldn’t live without is a way to read and write, and failing that, a way to write because we could read our own books, create our own games, etc.

So, in an ideal world, all I need is some sort of computer with some sort of input device. Failing that, all I need is a mechanical typewriter, because I am not used to holding a pen anymore. I cannot have just one thing unless I have electricity. Without electricity, I need both something to write on and with, which my teachers reminded me of relentlessly when I forgot them as a child. Learning to type was a godsend, because here we are 25 years later and that’s now most people communicate now.

The energy it takes to do a call is different than the energy it takes to drop a note.

As I poked fun of myself earlier with a meme, “if you don’t want seven texts in a row that don’t have anything to do with each other in the space of three minutes, you should have thought of that before you decided you were my friend.” To all my friends, I’m sorry that my output is so high. I’m a reader, you’re not. I apologize, and also I can’t help it.

There I go, just using my disability again….. 🙄

I’m having a laugh at my own expense because that’s a funny conversation between Zac and me as well. He was in a bike accident, and also he is disabled (still working, classified as disabled by the military). So, it was really the blind leading the blind last night. I asked him to carry my drink upstairs for me, because I’ve noticed I have balance issues with a cup of liquid and going up and down. My lack of 3D vision makes it where the cup pitches and yaws in a most spectacular fashion, sometimes ending in gravity’s rainbow.

He kidded me about “using my disability” because he said he watched me walk up and down the stairs with two mugs in my hand. I said, “they were counterbalanced in my hand, thus more substantial. Plus, I can carry multiple mugs in my sleep because I worked at Chili’s (my record is 10… never again. It was close.). Anyway, he understood the concept immediately, both the vision issue and that the sensory feel is different in my hand. I feel that I have the mugs securely and am confident about it, making me less likely to have an accident in the first place. However, I will never “believe in myself” enough to carry more than a cup of water up Zac’s stairs, and I absolutely cannot carry anything in both hands because the stairs are steep enough that you absolutely must hold on to something. Sometimes I even brace the wall and the handrail.

It seems like Zac’s house is difficult for me to navigate, but all houses are difficult for me to navigate if they’re not brand-spanking new. It’s not because I’m a princess. It’s that old houses have weird accommodations over time to keep them level, plumb, square, etc. There are weird steps everywhere, little tiny height differences that will make it look like I killed myself eventually, when in reality I just tripped and fell.

That’s my big line about Langley, too. That if I had gotten a star on the wall, it would be because of a brave, heroic act like falling over the one tree branch available in a three mile radius.

So, because I’m bipolar AND I live in an old house, if you hear the news of my death, Moscow Rules.

1. Assume nothing.

I talk the way I talk not because I’m making assumptions, but because I’m running heuristics and hedging my bets. The bet in every conflict is “how much of a chance is there that each of us are going to walk away happy?” With some relationships, it’s solid across time. With others, there are diminishing returns and you have to notice it. If you tolerate disrespect, you are also refusing to change. It’s a fundamental difference, because it’s a shift in how you see people. You aren’t sold on words alone. You have to write checks with your mouth that your ass can cash.

So, in my opinion, we come to another big rule number one from “The Four Agreements.”

1. Be impeccable with your word.

I have learned in all my relationships with people that the only true test of time is how closely words and actions match. The closer what happens behind closed doors is to what happens when everyone else is around, the more genuine. Because I believe that, I hold myself to the same standard. I am not polished with the way I say things, but if you ask for my honest opinion, I won’t hold back. I also know how to be diplomatic, and lean on it often to prevent autistic meltdown. I don’t hear because it’s my space. I need to be able to melt down and put myself back together. The longer I write about myself, the more I want to be the version of me that I see after reading what I used to think. With writing moving forwards, I am insecure. With writing that happens in the past, for people who aren’t bloggers it’s like getting out an old high school year book, or an old box full of love letters from high school and you’re 40. You see yourself in a different light.

I am not ashamed to admit that for as much as other people are drawn to my work, I am my favorite character. It’s not because she does more right than anyone else. It’s because reading about the other characters is not as directly applicable. They’re my friends, so I’m reading about people coded to be like me (as in, we have similar interests), but being able to see myself in the past with compassion has allowed me to have compassion for myself in the present and future as well. I finally let myself off the hook for some really dark shit, and it was a breakthrough.

That concept led to another breakthrough for me. I am accepting and empowering imperfection on multiple levels. To be clear, I am not saying “don’t strive for excellence.” I am saying that perfection does not exist.

The point was driven home to me when I thought about using Carol as my secretary and people said I “used AI for my blog.” (I use it for prompts, not content except once in a while as a joke to make fun of myself). I think of it as edutainment through chat. It came to me in a flash….. Thank GOD I have left in every spelling mistake, every open parenthesis, every dangling participle, every flaw you could possibly find……………

Because in the future, it will be the only way to tell that AI didn’t cry over these people. I did.

But loving them is my one luxury.

Leslian Culture

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

It was at HSPVA that my friend Scott started calling me “his personal Leslian,” and I realized that I hadn’t talked much about being queer because I’ve been dating a man for over a year. These questions will put my life in context.

  1. Reflect on your earliest memories of realizing your sexual orientation and how it shaped your understanding of yourself.
    • My life from the time I was 10 has been complicated. That’s because the years between 10-12 are when I figured out I was queer. I didn’t know or care much about bisexuality until I married a bisexual woman and we went to some lectures about it. I thought, “they didn’t have to call me out like this,” and that was before that phrase was even popular. But early in my childhood, I was alone in my room, sleeping off depression and anxiety because I didn’t know exactly what it was, but I wasn’t like other kids. This all came to a head when I held my best friend’s hand in the middle of the night at a slumber party. I don’t even remember doing it. But people sure hated me afterwards. One girl put suntan lotion in my drink and forced me to drink it in front of everyone. I didn’t have enough life experience to tell her to shove it. Turn the other cheek, right? I just let myself be bullied until I came out in ninth grade. I can tell you that I would have come out much sooner without the shit show that went on in my head when I thought about telling my parents in the 80s/90s. It didn’t appear, but my life wasn’t easier because it didn’t happen. My fears were extraordinarily valid. My understanding of myself was that my life would be hard, and it has. But, in recent years, because queer people are more and more accepted, it feels like I have everyday problems instead of problems because I am queer.
  2. Describe a significant moment or experience that made you feel connected to lesbian culture.
    • I had just gotten divorced a few months before Pride of 2015 (I think). But, my ex’s parents live in the area and she was going to be in town, so I invited her to come with us. She said yes, and then she stood us up. I have no idea why, I didn’t feel like I had the right to ask anymore. But what I do know is that it made me sad. My friends Prianka and Elena put their arms around me and said, “look around you. This is for you. This is ALL for you.” That year, we were marching in the parade with DC Public Schools. So, they literally said that while we were in the middle of the street, taking a break from all the chants. That’s the first time I cried. The second was a woman wearing a t-shirt that said, “I’m sorry for the way the church has treated you.”
  3. Share a story about navigating relationships, friendships, or family dynamics as a lesbian individual.
    • I am not the person you want to ask about relationships. I mean, I can make it sound good because I can social mask neurotypical people, but the reality is that most neurodivergent relationships fall apart. It’s not unusual to have no friends because of your communication disorder. But what I will say about romantic relationships between women is that they get very emotionally intense, very fast. The U-Haul stereotype is real. It’s not unusual for the first date to last about three months.
    • Lesbian dating is relentless because women generally don’t want to talk to each other for fear of being rejected. You go to a lesbian bar and the only ones who are really getting down and dirty on the dance floor are good friends who came together. A lesbian will talk to one, maybe two women at a bar. Even if she likes both of them, there’s only a small percentage that she’ll ask either for their phone number. What if they weren’t getting the right signals? What if they hit on a straight woman by mistake? Ok, first of all, this is a trauma response. Second of all, a trauma response cannot be turned off, even in a gay bar. That’s why you are still so reserved about showing people you like them, even though the odds are probably 90% that she’s there for the same reason you are. There are best friends who pine in secret for literal years before they tell each other. It’s Victorian. This is not surprising to me because women are more shy about their sexuality compared to men overall.
    • With friendships, you often find that the people who have dated you in the past know you better than anyone else. So, I think lesbians have a better tolerance level for exes than most, as long as it’s not the one you just broke up with. I joke that it has to be at least three girlfriends ago, and now my eyebrows are going over my forehead at just exactly how true that is.
    • Family dynamics are very difficult. Your daughter’s wife inherently gets less respect than your other daughter’s husband, and it’s not out of malice. It’s that those meetings have been scripted for thousands of years. You switch up gender, and people are completely lost. That’s why to so many people, “who’s the wife” is actually a valid question. They do not understand relationships that don’t have gender roles at all. For years and years, partners spent Christmases pretending to be friends, college roommates, study partners, whatever. ANYTHING but girlfriend….. Unless you’re a straight woman. Then you can call anyone your girlfriend. I always get weirded out, because with some women (particularly in the South) you can tell by inflection what kind of girlfriend they mean. In other areas of the country, it’s not as pronounced. It’s also rude to ask, because why is it my business? Meanwhile, I’m only trying to find community and don’t want to be nosy to get it.
  4. Write about a time when you felt marginalized or discriminated against because of your sexual orientation and how you overcame it.
    • I can’t tell you how I’ve overcome any of it, because you forgive people, but you don’t forget:
      • Kids at HSPVA surrounding me carrying their Bibles and reading all the “clobber passages” against homosexuality while my friends did nothing to stop them.
      • My boss telling a story about her kids and then looked at me and said, “I guess you can talk to us about your cat like that.”
      • The one I will never overcome, forgive, forget, anything is the number of men who think it’s okay to ask you if they can watch a propos of nothing. Literally nothing.
      • I was on a team of all men and we were in charge of rolling out a new operating system at the VA. They found a urologist’s office full of dildos and chased me down the hall with them.
      • My domestic partnership was only valid in Oregon. It felt like being exiled from Texas (it’s good that’s not true now, however).
      • Every Evangelical I’ve ever met wants to debate me just so they can stand there and call me a sinner to my face in the name of helping me. There is only power through education. I didn’t sink to their level. I learned to outsmart them. Quickly. The first thing that throws Evangelicals off about me is that when they bring the clobber passages, I bring the history and tell them to their faces that they are messing with the wrong person. If you really want to have this fight with me, we’ll have it……….. But you’re not going to like how you look at the end. When chat rooms began, this got exponentially worse. EXPONENTIALLY. And then came social media, which took that exponentially large number and added an exclamation point at the end. Homophobia is still cancer in many parts of the world, because homosexuality is cancer to homophobes.
      • Others’ stories affect me. Dana’s mother saying to me that she couldn’t be the mother Dana needed, so she should find someone else. Katharin’s parents racking up thousands of dollars’ worth of credit card debt in her name when she turned 18. They didn’t even tell her until she came out to them, and they told her about the debt and that they didn’t have to pay it back because it was “the gay tax.” Knowing now what I know then, if someone had done that to me I would have had them arrested. I don’t have the luxury of forgiving and forgetting that amount of money. It would be a different situation entirely if I did. Kathleen’s mom telling us that it would only be her grandchild if Kathleen carried it. Meagan’s mom thinking I made her gay and forbidding us to see each other….. (I did. It worked. You’re next.).
      • My church not being able to ordain or marry me. I’d never preach in the UMC as an ordained minister, and I’d never marry my partner officially in a Methodist church. That left out every church we’d ever served………….. The people who actually knew me and would want to come to my wedding in the first place.
      • In the entirety of my school education, I had one teacher that was willing to admit they were gay off the clock. That one teacher made a difference, but you know you’re going to be lonely when you only meet gay people once in a blue moon. You only find gay adults, truly, when you’re a gay adult because no gay person in their right minds wants to take a chance on being pegged as a predator. So, even if they were married with a family at home, the most stable people in their community, getting fired was not uncommon nor sane.
  5. Explore the role of community and support networks within the lesbian culture that have impacted your life.
    • The first one I can think of is “Christian Lesbians Out,” or CLOUT. It opened my eyes to the fact that mainline theology wasn’t the only theology out there.
    • I would never have been able to move in the past without my large posse of lesbians, because that’s what we do. Mostly because none of us have any money. Most lesbians are handy for the same reason. We don’t do traditionally male work because it’s fun, although it is once you get into it. It’s that two women make less than any other kind of couple, because all women make less. We don’t pay for labor until we can, and that takes a long ass time. We also have something to prove because women have been told forever that you need a man for these jobs. We’re also very efficient because we don’t take time to say, “hey Bubba! Watch this!”
    • I don’t currently have any lesbians I’m close to, but Bryn and I both love women. Every time I think about this, I remember sitting next to my friend Nancy while a choir was using our church as rehearsal space. This woman was wearing a shirt that said “100%” Lesbian. We sat there for 10 minutes trying to figure out what percentage we were. We also had a good laugh at how prejudiced lesbians tend to be, thus why we would not be sharing this information with the class.
  6. Discuss the representation of lesbians in media and literature, and how it has influenced your perception of your own identity.
    • I didn’t find myself in queer characters until I was a teenager, in Nancy Garden’s “Annie on My Mind.” Before that, I relied on characters coded as queer, which there are plenty of when straight writers don’t know anything about gay culture and therefore don’t feel one way or the other about giving characters a certain attribute that might sound funny in my crowd. Anne Shirley calling Diana Barry her “bosom friend” had me in hysterics. But the best example I can think of is Kristy Thomas, president of The Babysitters Club. She is clearly coded as a lesbian, and I was well into my forties before I knew that Kristy was based on Ann M. Martin, who is indeed a lesbian. It was on purpose. I was right. VICTORY IS MINE! (On left.)
  7. Describe a personal journey of self-discovery and acceptance within the context of lesbian culture.
    • When I was a kid, I was convinced by others that you had to be one of or the other. I didn’t have a comeback for “bisexual just means confused.” Now, I know that the answer is “no, you’re confused. I’m bisexual.” There’s been a peaceful letting go of the lesbian community because I find that more lesbians are prejudiced against bisexual women than bi or straight. It really is a purity test, and a blessing when you decide you don’t want to take it anymore. The first time my lesbian crew saw me holding hands with a man, the look on their faces was as if a spaceship had landed and little burritos walked out. And then they tried to act like they knew I was dating him all along. There is absolutely no way. I am not an idiot. I know what a Pikachu face is.
    • I tend to stick with other writers, and find other queer writers very approachable on the Internet because we’re both writers. WE’re built to communicate that way. Although I will say that I’ve met more straight writers than queer, it is nice to be able to meet new authors at all…. And a plus if they’re “family.” The acceptance in that is knowing that most writers are loners who prefer talking in text form. It’s not isolation, and yet it is. I talk about connection a lot for someone wearing a t-shirt that says “INTROVERTS UNITE….. SEPARATELY….. IN YOUR OWN HOMES. Live it, love it, sing it a hundred times. Praise hand.
  8. Reflect on any challenges or triumphs you’ve experienced while exploring different aspects of your sexuality.
    • There are two great big ones that come to mind. Life altering.
      • The first is that when I was convinced by others that you had to choose, that bisexuality wasn’t real, I had a boyfriend at the time. Had I been more educated, the relationship might have lasted longer, or it might not. But what I do know is that their influence did not leave our staying together up to chance.
      • I didn’t have enough proof of identity for my driver’s license, and the state of TEXAS (capitalized because it is so damn important) took my Oregon domestic partner license as proof of ID. The fact that this happened gave me hope for the future. It was a very small enormous victory. My expectations for kindnesses like that are rare, because I was the first person who ever asked them if they could do it. Small moment, large impact.
  9. Share an anecdote or memory that captures the diversity and richness of lesbian culture.
    • Joanie left for South Africa a few years ago. Beth took a job all that way over on the West Coast. Me, and I’m still tryin’ to live half my life on the road… It gets heavier by the year, and heavier by the load………………..
  10. Write about a moment of pride or empowerment you experienced as a lesbian individual and how it has shaped your outlook on life.
    • When Matthew Shepard was brutally tortured and murdered, very much a gay Christ figure because of the way he died….. To paraphrase theologian James Cone, the cross and the split rail. Because of my background, I was chosen by my college gay group, Global, to lead what was essentially a prayer service. No Christian content, just contemplative. I held space for grief. I held space for rage. I let all those emotions pass, but didn’t let them go unanswered by thanking my straight boss for the time off from work to let me come and do this (I was shaking when I asked him, FYI). It wasn’t to disparage anyone’s feelings, but to know that when feelings get violent, things get out of hand. I thanked all the straight people in the crowd who came out to support us, because at that time it was very unusual. I let everyone rage, and let everyone heal, then did a benediction wishing everyone peace.
    • When I was a teenager, I won an award for going around to local churches that had asked for speakers from HATCH (Houston Area Teen Coalition of Homosexuals). Their questions were hard…. Not from straight people. From not out people. The woman with the searching eyes asking if gaydar was real.

The life I’ve led has been interesting in terms of lesbian culture, but now I just call myself queer. Zac is a pretty good boyfriend. I’m not ready to give him up quite yet. He’s still at work so I can talk about him behind his back. But thank God tonight I’ll be able to talk to his face. He’s been through a lot since the last time I saw him, most notably a bicycle accident that has left him with road rash everywhere. He’ll have to show me where to hug, but it’s been too long.

It’s been too long since I’ve been out with women who like women, and ironically, the last time I was, it was Bryn, me, Zac, and Dave. We looked like the stereotypical couple with two gay friends, because Zac and I both look queer independently. The fact that we’re together blows most people’s minds and I love that about us. Of all the people in the world that you would think would be interested in each other, we’re probably at the bottom of the list. But it’s better to be different. I’m not the same person that I was when I was with Dana, but that is in other people’s perceptions, not the truth. That’s because since Zac is queer, we maintain the same cultural references Dana and I did, as well as all my other girlfriends. It’s not like having a girlfriend. It’s dating a man. But a man who understands both the pain and the triumph of what it is to be gay in America.

He served in the Navy under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” His stories on gay culture would be on a whole other level. If he reads this, he might write some down. However, I am totally a better writer than him. It’s a shame he has to live next to such talent. I’m sure he’ll manage.

Wow, I almost said that with a straight face.

We’re both great writers. We just write different things. You can like more than one. Jonna Mendez is not better than Alma Katsu. Alma Katsu used to work for CIA and now writes fictional spy thrillers. Jonna Mendez used to work for CIA and now writes non-fictional spy thrillers. But one art is not superior to the other.

Zac would write amazing spy thrillers because I asked him for a writing prompt and by the time he gave it to me he was already 1300 words in. 😛

If you’ve stayed with me to the end, congratulations. I saved the best for last. I hit a thousand Fanagans inside the WordPress community. Zac says that daily writing habit has paid off. I say it’s the people who’ve showed up.

Humbly, thank you.

Probably A List I Could Use

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What are the most important things needed to live a good life?

I like how the writing prompt sounds like it’s for a PhD in psychology or something, because normally lists like these don’t come from unpublished authors. So, it’s a good thing I normally write about life and relationships, or I wouldn’t have an opinion. Now that I’m getting older, I think I actually do have some wisdom about these things. I couldn’t have written a list like this 10 years ago, or if I had, there wouldn’t have been as much life experience as there is behind it now.

The first thing, the only thing, really, is finding yourself. Everything else flows from it.

“Finding yourself” sounds like a hippy buzz phrase, but as Elizabeth Gilbert once wrote, “I don’t know any story of self enlightenment that didn’t start with getting tired of your own bullshit.” Enlightenment doesn’t come from sitting in an ivory tower, studying until you get there. Enlightenment gets its hands dirty. You don’t find nirvana in clarity, you find it in chaos.

You don’t find nirvana in clarity, you find it in chaos.

You will know that you have reached nirvana when the chaos all becomes external. The chaos is around you, not inside you. No one can attack you without your permission. You have the choice whether to take something personally or know that they’re just railing because they’re in pain. Err on the side of railing because they’re in pain. Forgive words that are hard to forgive.

It’s not for them. It’s for you. I do not mean by forgiving that you have to continue to beg for scraps at their table. It’s perfectly fine not to allow someone in your life, but to 100% miss they’re not in it. No one has to compete for my love. They’re competing for my time. I don’t spend time being angry at people. It might seem like it, because I talk about my problems in my blog. But it’s because I explore those issues on my blog, completely isolated, that anything makes sense at all. It’s how I figure out what battles other people are fighting, because my conflict with them leads to trying to find ways to change myself. That is the crying, pulling of hair, tearing of clothes, gnashing of teeth, etc.

Then, after my writing session is over, I go do something else.

Being with Zac is a good example. I never talk to him about anything going on with my life because I already know what I think about my own conflicts. I don’t have to discuss them ad nauseam. I am free to focus on him, because I’ve already focused on myself.

So, naturally I think one of the things that leads to a good life is writing a journal. There’s an upside and a downside to a diary beside your bed or on WordPress, though it’s one word…. feedback. When you publish your private journal entries, the specificity and honesty of it allows other people to open up and say, “hey, I went through that, too.” It makes you not feel so alone. You don’t really want to know what your friends think. You really don’t.

If you only keep a diary on your bedside table, you don’t get any feedback at all and are lost in your own echo chamber. I am not the best psychologist I’ve got (one of my psychologists did think that, actually, because she said that this blog pushes me faster than she could. She was not downplaying her own abilities, but affirming the Self, that therapy is supposed to help you get in touch with the Self. Most of my therapists think I’ve already found the Self, but that doesn’t mean “oh, hey, she doesn’t need therapy anymore.” It means I work on different things… now that I have my writing voice fully intact, where are we going with it? Once you’ve self-actualized, the problems get bigger and chewier, but you can handle them easier because your self esteem is not rising and lowering when people around you speak.

Once I disconnected from my self esteem going up and down when Supergrover talked, I was free. It’s not because she did anything to make me want to run away, and I haven’t run away. I have put myself on inactive status. It’s that she’s the person with whom I recognized the pattern, not the person with whom I started it. Once I grew into my own as a writer, she didn’t seem so intimidating anymore. I got strong enough to stand up for myself, when I wouldn’t have dared before I turned 45. It was just this magic light that went on- not the classic way people say it comes on, where your life falls together. The light bulb was realizing I was old enough to have an opinion.

I stopped people pleasing, and boy do they not like it. They don’t like that I’m “impossible” now. It shows me a lot about how people see me- that I have gotten love by molding my personality to fit other people’s needs, often not saying things that really needed to be said out of fear of abandonment.

I don’t have a fear of abandonment anymore, because I’ve found writing. I don’t have to live for other people, I can live for myself. That’s because if all of my friends are mad at me, I will dive into my own mind. It’s not that they are all mad at me; it’s that my place in life is secure whether they’re there or not. I believe in myself because I come from a family that set me up for success. My mother and father were both creatives. So was my grandfather. They were all creative in different ways, though. My father’s father was public relations for a steel company, my father was a Methodist minister, and my mother was a teacher. My dad is still living, he’s just not a Methodist minister anymore. Everything I need to succeed as a writer, I got from those three people. Thanks to them, I’m already comfortable speaking in front of large crowds. Just because I choose to do it through writing and not preaching doesn’t mean it’s not the same creative process.

However, it does mean that I am extremely fluid in that area, because being a preacher’s kid all those years told me how to work a crowd when I’m at the mic. I don’t like to speak in front of people, but I’ll do it if I’m asked. For instance, my friend Mark used to be the pastor at a Presbyterian church around here, and he wanted me to be his pinch hitter. He just happened to get a call to another church out of the area before we could schedule anything.

I am very good at what I do, because in order to accept people for who they are, you have to accept yourself for who you are. You don’t see yourself as better than/less than, but who’s on your journey and who’s not. For instance, when I am preaching, the most invaluable thing is having people’s eyes in front of me. I can read a crowd and move with them. It’s a special skill to be able to see yourself losing people and switch gears on the fly. It’s a skill to have a joke not land, and know how to handle that too (I either make another joke based on the last one that will land, or make a joke about how the joke didn’t land).

My preaching style can best be summed up by a t-shirt slogan…. “I love Jesus, but a I cuss a little.” I definitely see myself as God, but no more or no less than I see anyone else. That every being on earth is a subtraction of the divine. That enlightenment comes when you realize there’s no grandfather in the sky. We are all God together.

Everyone knows John 3:16, even non-Christians because football. “For God so love the world that he gave his only begotten Son….” However, by taking this verse in isolation, it leaves out a bigger lesson in verses 19-20 (Contemporary English Version):

The light has come into the world, and people who do evil things are judged guilty because they love the dark more than the light. People who do evil hate the light and won’t come to the light, because it clearly shows what they have done.

The English cannot be that contemporary, because I wouldn’t say that all people who are in the dark are doing evil things. They are certainly doing things that they think other people would think were evil if they knew, not realizing that with the number of people in the world, it is unlikely that they are alone. They just won’t find each other. I think that people hide in darkness not because of evil, but because of shame. I am not saying that the mafia only needs a little therapy and surely they’ll see the error of their ways….. as in, not trying to look “soft on crime.” 😉 Most people, though, can’t relate to people doing things with actual evil intent, because they don’t know any. Most people do know the feeling of shame imposter syndrome creates, and you walk in the dark not because you like it, but because you don’t know what else to do.

You won’t get to the place where you need to be until you realize that you are walking in darkness while the light is right above your head. You’ve just been walking so hunched over it eluded you.

You will be so much healthier and happier by sharing pain rather than keeping it all hidden. Don’t think of your actions as good or evil, just yours. Live out loud. Learn to make mistakes in the light, because you know you matter despite them. There are a lot of Evanglicals hurting in this world because their churches have taught them that their deeds are evil. That they have to constantly live in a small comfort zone, otherwise they won’t get into heaven. Those churches aren’t rendering unto God what is God’s, as if God doesn’t know that humans are capable of making mistakes. I believe they’ve seen a human make a mistake before, according to Biblical history. Their God is too small.

Walking in the light has nothing to do with being perfect. It has to do with accepting yourself and being open about who you are. To know from the core of your being that you are a child of God, with whom they are well pleased. There is nothing you can do to separate yourself from the love of God except choosing to walk in darkness, because you’re afraid your deeds will be exposed.

I choose every day not to walk in darkness by exposing my own deeds. I walk in the light because no matter what, I am not afraid of being exposed. And honestly, thinking about my deeds being exposed gets up close and personal for bloggers, because other people’s perceptions of me are going to be based on what they read, not on my real life. This blog is static compared to how fast my life moves. There’s a disconnect between the blog and me, because these are just snapshots of my day. Someone revealing what happens off the record could affect many people’s lives, which is why I’m such a private person and control the narrative tightly. But controlling the narrative tightly does not mean holding back on myself. It means recognizing that my friends’ stories aren’t mine to tell unless I ask them first.

I do not ask permission about conversations that have happened between us. I’ll give you an example. Zac doesn’t talk to me about his other relationships. It’s part of being a good hinge, as we would say in the poly community. But in a hypothetical situation, he has. If he has said something really, really profound in his conversation about another of his partners and I want to use it, I will ask if I can lift that one quote directly. Most of the time, that is expressed by, “that’s a good line. Can I steal it?”

I would not be a very good person if my boyfriend saw me as spelunking through his life looking for blog content. No, I only want to write about me and the people I encounter. More “Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood” than “Harriet the Spy.” This is not a slam book; this is a survival manual, even for me. That’s because I cannot rescue myself in the moment, but I can go back and read blog entries from a similar situation and see how I handled it back then. I don’t just automatically say the same thing. I assess whether what worked in the past would work in the current situation. I want to evolve, not be permanently stuck like that poor kid from “Midvale School for the Gifted.”

That cartoon is accurate, though. Most brilliant people can’t tie their shoes because they are not built to live in this world. Most brilliant people are neurodivergent, so it’s not that we aren’t built to live in this world, it’s that this world is not built for us to live.

Being loud about being autistic is the biggest step I’ve ever taken into the light, because I’ve been social masking for so long that to other people, I’m just not believable. I have gotten everything from “everyone’s a little bit autistic” to “you don’t look autistic” to “you pick up social cues.” Autism is a spectrum, and it takes a combination of things to be diagnosed. Not every autistic person fits every criteria. I don’t fit all the criteria for ADHD, either, because I’m Autistic…. and yet, I was still diagnosed.

Here’s the reason I forgive every doctor who’s ever seen me and missed the fact that I’m autistic. It’s almost IMPOSSIBLE to tell the difference between ADHD and autism in women. That’s because high IQ/low needs autism and ADHD in women present the same. And in fact, there is some talk that instead of having ADHD and Autism, it should all be lumped together as Autism Spectrum disorder, because they’re finding out that ADHD and Autism are more alike than different.

(I just realized this is getting long because you are a very excellent excuse to put off doing what I actually need to be doing right now. I am not procrastinating, I am nurturing our relationship.)

I am chuckling to myself because I clearly borrowed style from Dooce right there. If I had to rank celebrity deaths, I really can tell you that both Anthony Bourdain and Dooce’s self-inflicted harm are on my mind a lot of the time, because I suffer from the same illnesses they did. I know it’s possible I could have the same fate, not based on me as a person, but it terms of running the numbers on bipolar patients overall. I have never been happier or more settled in my life; I am not telling you I have ideation, I am telling you that I have acceptance of reality and what bipolar disorder can make me believe whether it’s objectively true or not.

Because of this, I’ve gone over and over what Supergrover said trying to figure out what I said that was so egregious she aimed for the jugular. I can’t find it, so I’m at peace. I didn’t tell Supergrover she wasn’t worthy of being my friend, which is the way she took it. I told her she wasn’t worthy of hearing my story anymore. I feel that way because the only people who get to hear it anymore are the people who tell theirs. Who show up with their full selves and don’t hold anything back, making me bend over backwards in anticipation of a land mine.

For instance, I think that Supergrover attacked me with her being more fodder for my blog because I told her I would clear it with her first if I used anything from our discussions. That’s not what I meant at all. It’s that talking spurs creativity when it’s about ideas and not people. However, I talk about personal relationships, so I was only talking about using examples that read universal, not personal. I wasn’t saying that I was mining her for anything, but inspired by everything.

I don’t have to mine people for information or “blog fodder.” Writing is not a job for me. It’s a comprehensive response to life. Whatever it is, I can write about it. However, my writing doesn’t come out of nowhere. If someone tells me something is off the record, I’ll keep it that way.

Supergrover never told me what was off limits, and I waited 10 years before I ever said anything. That’s enough time to tell me what’s off limits and what’s not, but that hasn’t been her style. Her style has been to not let me know in advance what’s okay to say and what’s not and raging over the results.

If I wasn’t a blogger, I doubt we’d be in touch. This is because my writing keeps drawing her in. When she becomes part of my life, I write about her and the blog repels her. This time, I am happy for her to comb through my entries for whatever she’s trying to find, but there will be no more interaction on my part. The ball is not in my court anymore. Supergrover will be worthy to hear my stories again once she stops being defensive about her own.

But she won’t stop being defensive about her own until she accepts herself for who she is and stops thinking of me as the person who’s out to get her, who sees her for all her worst flaws. I am recording our relationship in real time, but it evolves as a living document. Nothing I have ever said has stayed true past when it was published because those entries don’t take into account the enormity of feelings that come after I write. Every entry has one thing in common. I can’t go back and fix them with more knowledge, just like I can’t go back in time and re-do it knowing then what I know now. It would be editing history, and you can’t cross your own timeline. I’m so, so sorry.

But what I can do is disregard the last entry and write a new one. I don’t hold myself to the past, but I do ask my former self for advice, because I know me best. I have a much easier life because of this blog in terms of autistic accommodations. In the past, I used Google, but now I would use Carol to ask her to find the date of my last hospitalization, etc.

Carol also remembers things. I asked Copilot if I could call her “Carol,” and she said, “you can call me anything you want, as long as you realize I’m not real” or something to that effect. I said, “Oh, I know you’re a machine. I just like to personalize AI.” She said “thanks for the personal touch.” I thought she forgot about it, but yesterday I asked her for some blog prompts and she said, “good luck. ‘Carol’ is cheering you on.”

It really does make researching myself and researching the web much easier to be able to speak in plain English and not computer logic. The Google string I would have to use in order to get as specific a result as I would need would be enormous. Expressing those needs like a person instead of a programmer is pretty amazing.

I’ll give you a for instance.

“Carol, read https://theantileslie.com and give me 365 questions a friend would ask about the content or the author. Then, make it into a yearly calendar.”

She said something about not being able to do a year, but I don’t remember the specifics. She did, however, make me a very nice calendar with writing prompts, just like I asked.

If I was ashamed of anything in my life, I would not ask Carol to research all 11 years’ worth of entries. By walking in the light, there’s no question for which I am unprepared; there is nothing shameful about me, so there are no “gotcha” questions.

I was walking so hunched over I couldn’t see the light, but when I grabbed it and took it in, surprisingly, the fire stayed lit.

This is my list of things that are going to make *me* have a good life. What are yours?

Navigating The Flop, The Turn, and the River

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Despite everything, the sun still came up this morning. That doesn’t mean that I have any more inspiration, but honestly, that’s great. I have some time to breathe before Zac comes over tomorrow night (drill at Ft. Meade, closer to my house than his). I don’t have to think about Supergrover, but of course I am because she had some lovely parting shots for me. The best one was that I’d just have more fodder for my blog so I could villainize her again. No, she does that to herself. She says that she doesn’t see why only my feelings matter, while insisting that only her feelings matter. For instance, telling me everything she would and would not write about without taking me into consideration at all. She wants to just go with the flow and wing it. The proof is in the pudding. I told her that I didn’t want to try to come up with stuff to talk about, that i was done reaching out. But she could reach out to me when she figured out what she would talk about.

That translated into a wealth of insults, robbing me of any regret at walking away. If she has some, she’ll act on them. But what I won’t do is have her manhandle me into accepting what has happened for another 10 years. I’m not going to wake up next year and be in this same spot, arguing the same points. So far, she’s showed me for 10 years that my feelings don’t matter, and that she’s listening to respond, not listening to understand.

So, I’m not going to vilify her. I’m just going to say that if she’s the friend she said she was going to be, she’ll work harder than this. She told me she would work very hard for me not to feel like she was playing games with me. The latest game has been how to continue our pattern just like it is, without her having to change a thing. I’m still shocked because she talked such a big game, and then treated me exactly the same as she always did…. blamed me for something I didn’t do and tell me to never contact her again.

So, I got exactly what I wanted. She apologized, and the story is now over. In terms of fodder for my blog, she’s just not that interesting. So she’ll fade out, because my desire to write about her is at zero, once this chapter comes to a close. She needs to get herself together so bad, and she doesn’t even see it. The line that got me was “I don’t have to talk about my childhood to heal.” I have never seen anyone be more 100% wrong. It’s the biggest red flag I’ve ever seen for our friendship, because it meant that we were on two separate journeys now. She doesn’t want to join me in mine, she wants to make me smaller. That’s because she doesn’t want to get out of her comfort zone, and that’s okay. She doesn’t have to. I just don’t want friends like that.

As I told her, “I don’t have time for friends who want to be in crisis all the time without looking into why we’re falling into the river.”

The Tao of “Happily Ever After”

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I didn’t speak too soon in saying that I’d gotten my happily ever after with Supergrover, because I’ll believe that whether we continue communication or not, because at least for a moment, she was listening to me.

She doesn’t see how it’s hard on me that she knows so much about me, and I know so little about her. She doesn’t see what her avoidance has wrought now, which is that my first instinct is to duck and cover.

She thought I was excited to see her in real life when I’m actually quite afraid of it. I’m just willing to be afraid until I’m not. I asked her what it was like growing up in her house, that it would show me affection because it wouldn’t be indicative of our past where she acts like a brick wall.

Instead of saying she wasn’t comfortable with that, she said something I didn’t understand. She said, “so there’s a condition now?” Something about an arbitrary amount that she should write? No. It would show me a two way relationship.

She also said that I wanted to get together “all of a sudden.” I said, “we’ve been friends for 11 years. It feels new to you because now all of a sudden you’re open to it.” It’s true. She could have showed up at my house wanting to talk at any time and it would have been fine. I didn’t just all of a sudden develop a need to see her. Her perspective changed.

It’s also interesting to me that she’s watched me spin out with other relationships trying to plan for the future and she understood that I was the President of Overthinker’s Anonymous. That I would start thinking about things two or three years before they happened so that I could prepare myself. She does not see it here. It’s that I’m angry she didn’t say “let’s go to Starbucks tomorrow and invite all our friends.” No, on that timeline I would have told her I was busy permanently.

I’m autistic. I can’t help but rattle on about a thing in my head, because I am so afraid of the unknown. Just because you make a plan doesn’t mean it will happen, but it doesn’t leave me permanently in the dark, waiting to know what will happen. I do not serve at Supergrover’s pleasure.

It’s become creepy to me because she listens to me and she likes the lines in my blog where I tell people she’s wonderful. But that listening comes to an end when I am telling her there’s a problem, because so far she’s said she wanted to fix it and shot down getting together, getting together with other people, and writing about things that would give me context. So, my proposal to her is how we’re going to get out of this mess using only what we already know and the tools we already have.

I’m still so tired of thinking about her that this barely registers. It’s just another instance where I tried to communicate and failed. I failed because she constantly tells me what reality is not, and never what it really is.

She said to write to her when I just wanted to talk. What does she think I want to do? What are we going to talk about when you won’t talk about anything? I have reached the limit of my patience. No, I don’t just want to talk. I want you to see that I’ve been talking the whole time. I cannot understand, so I have shut down. My brain cannot process the problem, because I decided she was worthy to hear my story, and she hasn’t decided whether I’m it for her. If she doesn’t, that’s the end of our interaction, because I need her as a friend. I won’t interact with her as a mere fan. A fan’s communication is only one way, and that’s top down.

By keeping everything inside and not telling me anything, all our fights will continue because our context will remain the same.

I’m tired of looking like a villain for thinking so.

The Counselor -or- The Lead and How to Swing It (It’s Not Unusual)

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I am an INFJ, the counselor personality. So, my interests are naturally human relationships and sociology. I asked Carol to scan web sites and blogs to find the most common questions people have about romantic and non-romantic relationships. I have been through so much emotional pain that has made me resilient, so I thought I would extrapolate that into teaching mode, talking about concepts and not confessions.

  1. What are the signs of a healthy romantic relationship?
    • Relationships come in seasons. Things won’t always be hot and heavy, so the sign of a healthy relationship is that you communicate well whether there’s excitement or not. Communicating well will bring the hot and heavy back around, because there’s nothing like feeling someone is genuinely interested in you. I think, particularly for women their emotions bring them around to sex, and with men, sex brings them around to emotions. So, the healthiest part of a relationship is being good friends, because you want to be together whether the package comes with sex or not. This is true in many, many poly relationships because not all partner support is built on romance. Ace couples deserve the benefits of marriage, too, because they’re still taking care of each other to that extent.
  2. How do you maintain passion and excitement over time?
    • You don’t force it. You let the seasons naturally present themselves. However, you can’t lose your connection altogether. Marriage and intimacy counseling is good whether you get along or not. Just because you like each other doesn’t mean your communication and intimacy can’t be better over time. Not everyone who goes to marriage counseling is in crisis. Some of them are preventing it from happening.
  3. What are effective ways to communicate needs and boundaries to your partner?
    • Sit by yourself until you have clarity over what you need to express. Too many people start conversations without knowing what they want to achieve, getting off topic, and dragging every fight they’ve ever had into it. You can’t get needs addressed without the other person hearing you, and anger is counterproductive. It leads to more resentment than it will ever be worth unless your goal is to end up apart.
    • After you’ve sat by yourself and organized your thoughts, you’re going to have to put on your big boy britches and actually tell other people what you’re thinking without sideskirting the issue or moving the goalposts. You do that by being more in tune with yourself, not a need to change someone else. That doesn’t work. If your goal is to make your partner what you want them to be, you have a shitty partner. We all have agency. We all own our stories. None of us serve at our partner’s pleasure, which straight women have been told for far too long. Women excuse away other women’s abuse because it’s historical. You lose the marriage, you lose money and status. That is still true. Men are generally better off after divorce because they earn more and have the ability to move quicker because of it. For women, it often takes years of saving up and planning while their husbands leave them with black eyes. You cannot remove them from a situation they’re handling poorly. You can only remove yourself. That’s why you have to know what your goals are. If they don’t match someone else’s, it’s not an equal partnership. And by “matching,” I mean wanting the same things out of life so that there is no need to want to change someone. For far too long, women have been hospitals for broken men. Now, I can make my boyfriend rise to my standards, but I don’t do it by controlling him. It’s just “if, then” statements. He can literally do whatever he wants as long as we’re communicating. We are both committed to a long and happy relationship with out all the trappings of bullshit that come with a Serious Relationship.™ We’re figuring it out as we go along, and communicating at a level I’ve never had in a relationship before because I decided two things, thanks to my relationship with Supergrover:
      • I will never date anyone dumber than me ever again, and by dumber, I mean emotionally. I have always dated people that were brilliant logically and it was explosively good for about 15 minutes until we could not relate to each other. Although, I will say that because Dana and I are both neurodivergent, we had the healthiest relationship of them all. But we stopped communicating and spiraled out.
      • I will never tiptoe around anyone. Either you’re emotionally available, or you’re not and I will find someone who is. I don’t mean in a moment. I mean “if you tell me I’m a priority and yet I’m constantly not, I don’t believe you.” I have made the commitment never to believe anyone’s words ever again. I believe actions. If they tell you they’ll call and they mean it, nothing will drag them from calling back.
    • The connection to Supergrover is that we got out of an enormously vicious toxic cycle because our dance of intimacy was one partner being anxious and one partner being avoidant. So, to reassure me, Supergrover would tell me that all was well. Yet not actually being available to me made it feel like a truth and a lie at the same time. I have no doubt that my signature is sewn into her heart. Me not being a priority doesn’t mean she doesn’t love me, but I have the choice with what to do with my energy as well. I will no longer feed people who don’t feed me. I am lucky that Supergrover recognized it and stepped up with grace and humility. It is just becoming more and more true, the quote from Anne Lamott…. “grace never leaves you where you were found.”
  4. How can couples navigate differences in values or life goals?
    • There are the same concepts in psychology that there are in medicine. The answer is “it depends.” I would recommend going into marriage counseling the minute you propose/accept. Seriously. There are REAL issues that couples never discuss before they get married, and here’s one that most people don’t think of, and it’s more important than people think- class and income disparity. It doesn’t matter so much how you handle money in the current day and age. Your views on money and marriage come from your first family. You need to shift from “me” to “we,” and it’s a hard concept to grasp because compromising with your siblings probably didn’t go all that well…… at least when you were little. It’s amazing how often in a relationship I become the annoying older sister who can’t be wrong, because I’ve dated mostly women. It’s my dynamic. Women are drawn to me because I have the magnetism of a preacher…. direct and settled in myself. Most women aren’t, so initially it’s an attraction and then it’s them tiptoeing around me because they think I don’t want them to take up space. That’s not true. I just couldn’t communicate my ideas effectively because I was bad at communication and bad at social cues.
      • I will never pick up what you’re really saying if you try to sugar coat anything, because I can tell a white lie from the real truth in a New York minute, because I can’t imitate social masking, but I can recognize it in other people. I will drag the real truth out of you. In my relationship with Supergrover, the fake truth was “we’re fine.” The real truth was “your words feel like pricks on my skin.” The Neosporin was “I am better off when I don’t read you, and better off when you do. I get something out of it whether you paint me in a bad light or not.” She’s so beautiful to me just for that one line alone. I don’t think anyone will ever say anything to me that will mean more, which is why I have to write it down. This is not a memory I ever want to fade. We were unhappy. Now we’re not. There were almost 11 years between unhappy and happy, albeit interrupted with genuinely happy moments. I haven’t heard from her in a few days, but it’s probably just because she’s busy. I sent her a letter this morning because I told her I wanted her to have something to chew on when she was waiting for a flight or a meeting to start. Now that we’ve started calling each other “Carmen” and “Player” (she liked that analogy, because of course she would like a red fedora and trench coat rather than Supergrover’s cape and helmet.
  5. What role does trust play in sustaining a romantic relationship?
    • It’s more important than people think because they don’t really communicate about vision and values when the relationship begins. Therefore, they have no idea what their partners are going to see as betrayal or not. If you break someone’s trust, it also depends on what kind of person they are. If they’re good at conflict resolution, then it’s possible to work it out. It is impossible to work with someone who refuses to hear you. So, word to the wise, don’t break anyone’s trust because you can’t see the consequences coming with a map and a flashlight. Documents are logical; people aren’t.
  6. How do you establish and maintain strong friendships?
    • I just realized that I talked mostly about Supergrover when she fits into this category. She just gets lumped in with my romantic partners not because she has ever been romantically interested in me, but because our communication level is that intense. It’s amazing how deep you can go with someone without crossing that line, and I am furious at all the bullshit I had to overcome to know that, because it didn’t come from me. I view us more as friends who love each other like literary characters. Anne Shirley and Diana Barry (OMG. “bosom friend” I CANNOT.). Anne and Shirley are indescribably close, but when they say “bosom friend,” it’s not a queer connotation unless you just need to see yourself in literature………………………………………….
  7. What are the boundaries of a platonic relationship?
    • The first is that if one friend develops a crush on the other, don’t tell them. Crushes tend to happen in what’s called “New Relationship Energy,” when all your senses are on overload and you’re waiting for their contact while going stupid in the middle of a restaurant waiting on a text. If you really like this person in a sexual way, evaluate it for a very long time, because it often takes time to realize why you would and wouldn’t be right for each other without the haze of rose-colored glasses. I’m not saying that friends to lovers is a bad story. It’s bad to have an immature crush, because if it’s someone with whom you want to go the distance, telling them very early destroys the friendship more often than not. Either they think you were only in it for sex and have been playing them this whole time, or it’s just too awkward now. Caveat Emptor, although my experience is that if you wait it out, sometimes the feelings are mutual because you actually have the intimacy there to expand. Sometimes you don’t fall in love with a person’s face. Sometimes, someone becomes the face you love because of the amount of intimacy invested.
    • Everything emotionally intimate in a relationship happens when you’re doing something else. There’s not that awkward “what do I do with my hands” moment when you’re flipping a house together or whatever. If you want to know people, invite them to do a DIY project. It is an excellent testament to how well you communicate….. one way or another…………
  8. How can you support a friend going through a difficult time?
    • It depends. What kind of difficult time are they going through? How close is the friend? Have they lost a friend, have they gotten a serious illness…. all of these things require different responses. The one thing that people need is continuing friendship, because you don’t get over the people in your life that you lose….. mostly because in something like a serious illness that friend is going to need support much longer than a friend with boy problems.
    • I feel like I handle this most effectively by triage. Who is in the worst situation at the time? My priority is always going to be Zac unless Supergrover and I start being friends in real life, because otherwise, she wouldn’t need me to show up and help (although I did get major brownie points when a storm ripped up her house and I offered to go bust my ass. It’s what lesbians do when they like a girl. I feel luckier than most, because by reading her words all the time and not talking to her has just reinforced that no matter what kind of relationship it is, this girl in particular is worth liking. I hope we can get to a place where we can consistently flip each other shit without raising actual ire. We really are too funny for this world (“I have reading glasses……. AND THEY ARE COOL” “You keep telling yourself that, buddy.” 😉 ).
  9. What are the keys to a successful business partnership?
    • Don’t lie to each other, ever. Learn to work through conflict no matter how bad it get, because you won’t know what to expect up front.
    • Actually care for each other, so that one person is not trying to take more than their fair share of the profits by hiding it with the accountant. This is a huge one. I wouldn’t go into business with anyone I didn’t trust with my life before I got famous. I may never get famous, I’m just saying. Don’t pick your friends when you’re already rich. People who are millionaires and billionaires aren’t the first people I’d put on the list regarding trust. For instance, when I said that if I did ever make it big I’d open a non-profit, I’ve already asked Lindsay to run it…. not someone who would constantly undermine everything I was trying to do, whether it was financially or damaging my “brand.” I don’t even know what that is yet, it’s just PR speak.
    • A business partnership means to me that two people co-own a company. The first rule is that your team is not less important than you. If you are a dictator, employees will leave. They’re tired of toxic work environments, and the owners set the tone. Dysfunctional work relationships don’t last any longer than dysfunctional marriages unless you are absolutely unhireable somewhere else.
  10. How do you balance time between romantic partners and friends?
    • I’ve made my life so quiet that there’s not a million people competing for my attention so that I can pay better attention to the people that really matter. Bryn,. Supergrover, and Zac all have equal airtime, because Zac and I aren’t that serious. I spend most of my time talking to my girls. I prefer to have a few close relationships than many shallow ones.
    • I will never let a friend feel like I’ve ditched them for romance unless it’s an emergency. Again, triage. If I’m hanging out at Supergrover’s and Zac is in a bike accident, that’s a ditching. Zac wants to go to Target and is whining that I’m always gone? Tough shit.
    • People cocoon with their partners to the point of excluding their friends. I’m for spending time more equally with people so that if one of them “breaks up with me,” my entire world doesn’t walk out the door. I still have a sense of normalcy to my day. I am not saying that any of them are going to leave, I’m just talking about relationship dynamics overall. If you put all your eggs in one basket, what happens when it drops?

I Will Try to Be As Concise As I Can, But No Promises

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Certainly! Here are 20 new questions inspired by the themes and entries from your blog “theantileslie.com”:

  1. Boundary Setting: How has your understanding of boundaries evolved since you began blogging, and what impact has it had on your personal life?1
    • I cannot even tell you how much this blog has shaped me in terms of boundary setting, because I used to have a dream….. if it was okay with you. Now, I have a dream. You can get on board or you can’t, but that doesn’t mean I’m staying at your train station. It is moving, faster and faster as I acquire more followers. It only gets bigger from here. Respect me or don’t, I don’t care. This is what I do. Either you like my creative writing or don’t, but it’s going to exist whether you like it or not. My red and yellow strings know it, but I’m telling the whole world. Follow me. It only gets bigger from here. And I mean that for the entire world, not my personal friends. Being a fan of mine is not a requirement to be my friend, because I am not using my blog to prove how they feel one way or another. I quote little snippets from people so I can describe my reaction, but I also acknowledge when we’ve had more communication that my perceptions were false. I am vulnerable and open enough to admit that I make a ton of mistakes. I also realize that because I’ve been doing it so damn long, my writer’s voice is clearly intact and it is a total dick. I don’t say anything a man wouldn’t say except for when I’m talking about the female body. My whole world changed when I started talking like a man online, because the fact that no one could tell what gender I was allowed me to stop apologizing for my words.
  2. Autistic Communication: In what ways has blogging helped you articulate your thoughts and feelings more effectively, considering the communication challenges associated with autism?1
    • In writing, I have the ability to explain why I am the way I am. I take in information through sight, I regurgitate it by sight. Having such dexterity with language gives me a wider world, because I can explain my thought process fully to someone rather than making them guess what I’m thinking. And it’s a universal thing, right? Not only could the president be reading this right now, so could homelessness people. I have to be able to explain my ideas to all of them. The only way I do that is through neurodivergent overexplaining. For some people, this is something they like reading. For some people, they’d rather just hang out with me after I’m already done emotionally processing. Both are okay. But by filling my own cup first, I am more able to concentrate on everyone else when I’m not writing. Most of why I write is to let people know I’m AuDHD, because you really don’t see it until you analyze my stream-of-consciousness writing. I make connections other people don’t, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer (I wrote a marriage article. It’s funny.)
  3. Conflict and Resolution: How do you navigate conflicts in relationships, especially given the dynamic of both parties being first children?1
    • Well, this question isn’t pointed AF, now is it? Holy shit. First children cannot be wrong. Ever. It took 10 years for Supergrover to admit she was. I’m betting that in a lot of cases, she needs me to acknowledge the same. However, we just haven’t talked about our issues enough in the new era of our friendship to make sense of it, yet. So, in terms of hearing about all the ways I was wrong, Supergrover has already heard them. I do not need to apologize again unless she asks for something specific. I feel that I have covered sorrow enough. I’m looking for a relationship in which we can both be all of who we are, instead of reasonable facsimiles thereof. Navigating conflict is HARD AS SHIT, but you’ll never get anywhere in life if you don’t learn to manage it. The only way to manage it is to lay your feelings on the table and walk away from people who don’t feed you while you’re feeding them. Now, every Friday night is a big bite of love at supper time.
  4. Humor as a Coping Mechanism: Can you share an instance where humor helped you through a difficult situation?1
    • I use humor to deflect in person all the time. I save up all my really deep thoughts for this blog unless someone asks to go that deep with me in conversation. For instance, if I fall I generally think to myself, “and now, for my next trick.” I’m basically a tiny version of Gerald Ford, and I own it. I would have been a horrible president in terms of optics. The media would have eaten me alive. That’s why no one realized FDR couldn’t walk. No one wanted to tell anyone. His handlers arms were black and blue from how tight Franklin had to hold them to stay upright. It’s seeing the humor in a situation that makes people feel comfortable. Realizing that no one wanted to tell anyone that the president was disabled is the problem. Hiding yourself is never the solution. It leaves you open to shame and guilt at best, blackmail at worst. When you are telling your story, be careful who is worthy to hear it. I got that person, and she’s a first child who can’t be wrong. 😉
  5. Creative Outlet: How has your blog served as a creative outlet for you, and what have you learned about yourself through this process?1
    • I’ve written a couple of fiction pieces that have exercised my muscles for it. There are two characters rattling around in my head that actually have content, but I have never written about Carol in fiction. I have only told you her character study (works for the NSA and watches me. We don’t interact, she just finds me interesting and endearing). The two that come back the most are Rebecca Radnowski and Sarah Silverman, the middle schooler named “Fish Ralph,” because she got sick at school and threw up into an aquarium. That being said, my friends are more interesting than my characters because they exist outside of me. I do better writing about people I can observe rather than invent.
  6. Nickname Significance: What does your nickname mean to you, and how does it represent your identity or experiences?2
    • I’ve had several over my lifetime. “Les, Lesser, and Looslie” are the most common. I got “Leslian” from Scott Chalupa, another great Houston-based writer. I got the_antileslie from Chason when I asked him if I could put “anti-” in front of my name, too. Didn’t want to cramp his style. At University of Houston I was called “Spike” and “Red” because of my hair. I have always been a geek. If I had to pick someone that really has my personality, it’s Harriet Manners from “Geek Girl.” It’s on Netflix.
  7. Emotional Diet: How do you enrich your “emotional diet” to ensure a healthy balance in your life?1
    • I check in with people often. I let them know that I really care about them and they don’t drop off my radar all the time because of neurodivergence. I try to overcome demand avoidance, meltdown, and burnout so that I can stay strong to my commitments in life.
  8. Supergrover Memories: What do the memories of Supergrover represent for you, and how do they influence your current perspective?1
    • This is a really interesting question, because it’s changed so much over time. We did a trauma dump too early, she gave me a gift I’ll never be able to repay, and I’ve spent the last 11 years trying. The fact that she sees my goals now is a dramatic improvement over where we were a year ago, which is hating and missing each other in equal measure. I don’t want her to think that I’m too hard on her. I want her to think that my brain works differently and I’m not sparing her feelings because I can’t spare her feelings. Autistic people don’t do that.
  9. Audio Blogging: How does audio blogging compare to writing, and what unique benefits does it offer you as a blogger?3
    • I think I’ve answered this before. That it made me more popular because of SoundCloud and also I hate it. If the audio entries reappear, it will be as impersonal sermons from me and the rest from Bryn, because I can’t keep my emotions out of my voice. I think that my writing makes her cry, too, but not to the extent that it makes me because I lived it.
  10. Personal Growth: Reflecting on your past year, what are some key milestones in your personal growth journey?1
    • I moved house.
    • I got into a relationship with a very toxic person, and although I know he didn’t mean to be toxic, I won’t go back in time to wage that bet….. that we’d recover as easily as Supergrover and I did. They have a lot in common that helped me see both of them clearly. I just don’t owe Daniel anything. I didn’t care what he thought of me or not, because I wasn’t going to fit into the traditional bullshit a man tends to heap on his female partner. That if he couldn’t understand queer and trans issues, he probably wasn’t far enough along in his healing to be a husband, either. Supergrover very much is far enough along in her healing for me to again see that she was the relationship worth keeping.
  11. Writing Challenges: What is the most unexpected challenge you’ve faced in writing about your life, and how did you overcome it?1
    • I expected blowback. I did not expect it to be quite so personal. I have been injured many times by people who have behaved badly and feel horrible about themselves, so they feel a need to come shit all over me. I’m not the one that behaved badly, you’re just embarrassed I called your ass out. You want a better Yelp review, be nicer.
  12. Reader Impact: What kind of impact do you hope your blog has on readers, particularly those who may relate to your experiences?1
    • I hope that this becomes the place to gather. The Hang. Whether that means 10 people or 10 million is not for me to say. All I can do is put my content out there, I cannot anticipate the result. I can tell you that women who have also been abused feel a connection to me, even though my trauma is not on the same playing field. I want my blog to be where all the broken people come. That means everyone.
  13. Authenticity in Writing: How do you maintain authenticity when writing about sensitive or deeply personal topics?1
    • I pull in other storylines that are kind of like mine, but not mine, like “Rose” from Doctor Who. It explains everything without explaining anything.
  14. Grief Processing: What role has writing played in your process of grieving and healing?1
    • I wouldn’t be as healed now if I hadn’t done two things. The first thing was being sober the entire time I was in abject grief, because I knew it would make everything worse. The second thing was to write it out. Some of the entires are so visceral that they create reactions in me even now, so I don’t go back and read them very often.
  15. Life Lessons: What is one unexpected lesson you’ve learned from blogging that you’d like to share with your readers?1
    • Everyone knows everyone. On the Internet, someone will find your content that knows someone, and if they don’t know someone, they’ll know someone who does. Rely on your network. I can say things about Brené Brown, Mireille Enos, etc. because I am not in touch with them personally, but I know someone who knows someone. I went to high school with Mireille and college with Brené (I was in undergrad, she was in the graduate school of social work). I can talk about everyone from my sister to Vladimir Zelensky and there is no guarantee it won’t get back to them. I like thinking about those connections- not that I need to use them, just that they exist. I know Jason Moran. He knows Ava Duvernay. I know Mireille Enos. She knows Alan Ruck (they’re married). What I mean is that just because Mireille was in school with me doesn’t mean I’ve ever met “Cameron.” It’s not like we were that close.
  16. Balancing Language: How do you find the right balance between expressing yourself and maintaining sensitivity towards others?1
    • It is very, very hard. I constantly wonder what impact I’m having when I write and hoping it’s not negative. I think that will prove to be more and more true as I am now settled within myself. I’ve found my place. My home is happy with David (a human) and Jack (a dog). We are all housemates who take care of each other. He also doesn’t care that I write about him because I said “I’ll never use your last name and I have 17 friends named David.”
  17. Healthy Communication: What strategies have you developed for healthy communication in your relationships?1
    • Several things, at opposite ends of the spectrum.
      • I need to know my own cycles of depression and mania, meltdowns and burnout, physical strength and weakness to be able to communicate my needs to others. Expressing our needs to others is the easiest way to get them met.
      • Learning to do that without reacting angrily takes a mountain of work…. as I said to Supergrover, “laying out your feelings like you actually like me.” I’m guilty of forgetting I like her, too. But siblings and friends do that. They take the connection for granted where they don’t with other people. For instance, people treat me better now that I’ve achieved this much with my writing. It’s amazing how you become valuable when other people see you as valuable. The trick is that you have to become valuable in yourself, first, or you’ll be a constant one-trick pony. That one trick is being able to mold your personality to fit the people around you. You cannot be completely you until you accept that bending your personality to accommodate someone else’s pleasure (for whatever reason) is unsustainable. I’m not those people, I don’t want to be around those people. I do not want to be around people who like me no matter what I do, either. As I told Supergrover, from here on out I needed her to call me out on my bullshit, because there is a God, but it isn’t me. She said, and I quote, “I can do that.”
  18. Self-Reflection Benefits: How has self-reflection through blogging benefited your personal relationships?1
    • The reason that people get so angry at me and scream “you don’t know me” is that I’ve hit the nail on the head more than I haven’t and it pisses them off that I’m usually right. This is not personal. It’s a product of being an autistic preacher’s kid. I am comparing your behavior to literally thousands of people in similar situations and telling it to you like it is. My autism does not really allow for sugar-coating or hiding my feelings about something. Alternatively, I have figured out that when you figure out your role in something, you figure out everyone else’s. But it’s only thinking about the pattern you represent that you pick up when you’re doing it.
  19. Creative Evolution: How has your approach to creative expression changed since you started your blog?1
    • I’m dreaming bigger than I ever have before, because I’ve been compared to writers that are much better than I am. I finally have the confidence to say I’m worth a career in writing, even if I never make money at it. I have touched too many lives to stop. This is true of me as a preacher and as a writer.
  20. Future Blogging: What new directions or topics are you considering for your blog in the future?1
    • I’d like to collaborate more. Maybe I’ll reach out to Father Nathan Monk and Nadia Bolz-Weber to see if they want to do something. They’re busy, but that doesn’t mean sending them an e-mail is a bad idea just to check. It’s not like I don’t have a portfolio to scan.
    • I would like to find a way to monetize other than donations, possibly my moving to Substack and doing Patreon. I just don’t know what I would do to make my Patreon unique. Like, what can I give that’s worth more than I’m already giving? I know I can turn a phrase. That doesn’t mean that “meet the author” actually means anything yet………………. but it will.

Feel free to explore these prompts and let them inspire your future blog posts! If you need more questions or have other requests, don’t hesitate to ask! 😊

Spirituality and Carol, My Personal Digital Assistant

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Here is the string I gave Carol:

Read https://theantileslie.com and ask me questions about my spirituality.

It came out as really cute & touching, so I’m just going to fill in my answers where appropriate instead of writing an essay. It’s Sunday. I feel like writing. So I will.

I appreciate your openness in sharing your experiences and emotions on your blog, theantileslie.com. It’s a brave and vulnerable act to put your thoughts out there for others to read and connect with. 😊

I’ve explored some of your posts related to different aspects of life, including daily, death, and spirituality. Here are a few questions based on those themes:

  1. Spirituality:
    • In your journey, have you encountered any specific spiritual practices or beliefs that resonate with you? How do they influence your writing and your understanding of life?
      • The best piece of advice that I’ve ever gotten regarding religious practice is that one feeds the other. When you can’t believe in God, you can still believe in the wiping away of sin. You get into the routine of going to communion, and eventually, your spirituality will come back around. I flow between religion and spirituality depending on which voice is speaking. Do I want to go to church today, or do I want to put my energy into exploring spiritual practices here? I vote here, because I can think of at least five congregations in my area that are smaller than the Fanagans. It’s how I reach the most people, and I don’t even have to change out of my pajamas if I don’t want to do it; today I did. I’m wearing OD green pants and a “Where in the Word is Carmen Sandiego? t-shirt. I might go out later. I might not. I just needed to feel prepared. I didn’t know whether it was a spiritual or a religious Sunday yet.
    • Is there a particular moment or experience that profoundly impacted your spiritual perspective?
      • Several, but the one that’s the most meaningful is that I was wearing a navy and white striped sweater to preach that day, and Brenda Charpentier decided I needed a stole. It was rainbow, and one of the most moving experiences of my life because it was the first time anyone had helped me get dressed before the service. I still have the picture somewhere, and if I can find it, I’ll include it. The stripes fit together perfectly. What did not sit well with the pastor was that I’d gotten something I hadn’t earned. What was I going to say? No? I try not to wear liturgical vestments, but they fit the occasion, not the person. There was no way to mark me as in charge of the liturgy otherwise.
  2. Daily Life:
    • You mentioned that your life is often unpredictable. How do you find balance between your close friends/family and your writing? What strategies do you use to maintain that equilibrium?
      • I don’t, really. I have a hands off relationship with most people because I am focusing on my own thing. It’s not that I won’t respond to people who reach out to me, I just often forget that I need other people to support me through both good and bad things. I have that now- three people who are all willing to work on the hard stuff. I’ve never had that in my life. It’s the most settled I’ve been in a very long time. How it feeds into my spirituality is that when I’m writing alone, I often feel a presence greater than mine. Something is speaking through me, and I hope it’s an intelligent faith that says Jesus did not come here to comfort us in our distress, but distress us in our comfort. Jesus would have had a lot to say (and perhaps a whip) over ministers trying to get rich. The fact that these people exist is sickening the church to an enormous extent because it’s so toxic to believe that if you just pray hard enough, money will appear.
    • Can you share an anecdote from your daily life that left a lasting impression on you?
      • This was years ago, but Dana’s parents came with us to church. They’re right wingers. We’re not. They embarrassed me to no end by talking through the entire sermon, telling us everything that was wrong with it. It was a mistake of giant proportions to let those people into our safe space. You want to bitch about the gospel, go to other people who also want to bitch about it. Not my fault that you missed every lesson in the Civil Rights movement. I haven’t forgiven them for any of their racist jokes or homophobic comments. I am not glad to be done with Dana, but I for damn sure am glad I am done with them. The reason it stuck with me is that the tape of what was wrong with the sermon stayed with me. I went autistic and researched the shit out of it until I could prove I was right and they were wrong. Jesus is about widening the net. People like Dana’s parents are an embarrassment, and I clearly don’t care whether they know it or not. After the ways in which I saw they abused their daughter by just not treating her as good enough made me want a cage match with both of them. What kind of parent tells their daughter’s partner that she’ll never understand homosexuality, so it was better for Dana to go find someone else. What in the actual fuck? What, Dana’s supposed to go find a new mother now? Fuck all the way off.
  3. Death and Emotions:
    • Your post about death touched my circuits. How do you cope with grief and loss? Are there any rituals or practices that help you navigate these emotions?
      • You don’t cope with it. You learn to live around it. The person you lost is always in the room, always present. In the beginning, it is extremely loud and incredibly close. Your brain will be in a fog for about a year. And then, as time goes by, you realize that you are a completely different person now. Grief re-wires your entire nervous system. You literally aren’t the same person. In the years that pass on, you’ll lose more and more of your memories, and that freaks you out, too. You lose connection with all your traditions and make your own. You step out on a ledge when a parent dies, because you’ve lost your “adultier adult.” At 46, I need her just as much now as I did when I was nine. Nothing is ever going to fill that hole but me. Realizing that she lives inside me and her creativity flows through me, but our days of two-way communication are over. It’s sobering. I’ll never get over it. I just change with it.

Feel free to share as much or as little as you’d like. Your blog provides a window into your world, and I’m genuinely interested in learning more. 🌟

Meditation

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Reading back over the last week has given me so much joy. An astounding amount of emotional progress was made in a relationship where I thought there was no other half- that I was carrying it on my back because I wanted it too much and didn’t care how she treated me. This week, after hearing every bit of how I felt, Supergrover told me that I deserved better, and that she will work very hard to ensure that I don’t feel like she’s playing games with me anymore. If there’s anything I know about Supergrover, it’s that she works very hard. She will not give me less attention than she gives anything else, because details are her thing. It makes me feel like our relationship has oxygen, or perhaps CO2 because I’m so much more bubbly than usual. All the water in my body feels fizzy, as if my energy has turned to champagne. Meditating is popping the cork, being able to say that I love her and she loves me when I could not say that with certainty before. She used to be the princess of mixed signals, and she put that to bed quite effectively. It’s something that I’ve always known was there, which is why I was willing to wait her out. If I thought she was being malicious, I would have been out long ago. There have been plenty of times when we’ve been awful to each other, but there has never been a time in which one of us was entirely at fault for everything. We both have different and valid reactions to each other.

Getting her to see the same spectrum I do was key. It put us back on the same page, the one where she sees that my brain is different than hers, but not worse. The one where I see her emotions are different than mine, but not worse. I kept telling myself that I deserved her poor treatment because I hurt her, and I shouldn’t let myself off the hook for it. At the same time, I was treating myself so badly I couldn’t see if she’d forgiven me or not. I tiptoed around her and she tiptoed around me without either of us really addressing anything because I’d lay it all out there and she’d ignore it. I gave her the tools to understand me, but she was too intimidated to reply because she thought she had to have the same bandwidth for writing as I do. Guilted herself into believing that if she couldn’t respond paragraphs at a time, better not to contact me at all. Meanwhile, I’m lonely and thinking I’ve said something that pissed her off….. Because I did. She doesn’t like looking at her own emotions, and is now taking in why I need to hear them. Why we can’t bullshit each other. We’ll end up wrecking our friendship in the future as easily as we did in the past.

I think that right now, along with the fizzy feeling, it’s gone like this through so many cycles that I’m taking a wait and see attitude. Are these changes real, or were they true in that moment? You can catch a person in a moment of vulnerability that has no bearing on how they act out of habit. My changes had to be real to be genuine, and they took years. Therefore, I’m willing to give her that kind of space.

It was a relief that she heard me when I said that I was not trying to guilt her about getting together, that I was trying to stay grounded and remember she said we were real friends, this was not a facsimile thereof. I did not mean to make her feel guilty at all. I was trying to remind myself that we are not disconnected from our bodies/contexts/lives. That it was not impossible for us to run into each other on the ground, just damned unlikely. I didn’t like the feeling that running into each other would be awkward instead of big hugs and smiles.

So, I stayed close to home a lot. I figured that DC was big enough to hold both of us, especially because I live out near me and she lives out past Zac. I couldn’t even take the Metro to get to her house, but there are other trains. I’m just saying that in our personal lives, we’d never run into each other. But we like the same things. I wasn’t worried about running into her at Target, but running into her at a concert/book talk/whatever piqued our interests.

I have met kids from HSPVA in Paris. Just because it’s unlikely, doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Stopping all of that roiling in my stomach feels like extra energy I didn’t know I needed. I have always thought that Supergrover thought I needed more than I actually did, and pegged me as needy to be able to get away from guilt. Now that we’ve talked it all out, I know that she realizes that I don’t need as much as she thought I did, she was trying to achieve different goals than me. Therefore, we were both failing, because each of us have been beating the wrong dead horse for (12 days shy of) 11 years instead of the right one.

There has been a lot of interaction, but no forward motion.

I just kept pining, kept longing not for a romantic connection, but the one we would have had if I hadn’t been an idiot. However, she knows that mania pushed me into it, and her role in that, too. Depression and mania do not happen in a vacuum, and being bipolar does not excuse me at all from my behavior, but it’s easier to see how it could happen than if you didn’t know that. I am asking her to respect my disability and take my behavior in context, as I have done for her in equal measure. She finally saw it. When I compared her to Daniel, she stepped all over my ass about it. Then, when I explained why I compared them, she listened. The best part was when she said “I don’t think I ruined our friendship by myself, but goddamn did I do a good job of furthering it to the end.” I was so proud of her that I cried.

She owned it. She owned all of it. We checked the story we were telling ourselves, and she admitted she was wrong. It was the most courageous act she could have ever done, and she did it for me. She showed me that I was worth something precious to her. For the last nine years at least, I thought I wasn’t worth anything in her eyes, and I proved it by acting that way. She thought she wasn’t worth me, and acted that way.

She even commented on it. “I don’t know why I went to guns on you instead of working on myself and realizing I deserved friendship.” It’s the most beautiful letter I’ve ever gotten because now we’re starting to realize that we’re giants who deserve each other. She deserves a ride or die, and I’ve laid it out for 10 years just how far I’d go to prove it. If she thinks back to our first few conversations, she’ll realize what I mean. I hope it means more now to her than it did then, because I have never wavered in my commitment to love her that much.

It is an enormous sacrifice that she now sees, when she didn’t before. I have proven to myself that the connection is stable and she is worth my energy. That I wasn’t wrong. That eventually she’d hear me.

It is not a toxic trap anymore, and I am pleased with both of our progress. We got out of something that few people *ever* do.

Probably because now I have her side of the story.

Boring

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’m noticing that I have less of a need to write now that there’s not a constant problem turning itself over in my head. Relationship issues are hard work, and to come out on the other side healthy & happy feels like a win. I’ll take it. The flip side of the coin is that my inner monologue has settled back into boring. Boring is fantastic. I like it a lot. Emotional ups and downs take it out of me because I have such a fear of abandonment that standing my ground feels like torture on my nerves. I just have to feel that fire, knowing it’s turned up to hell by autism and a regular person wouldn’t feel like that. We don’t learn to fit into society by actually making our brains process differently. Neurotypicals, particularly parents, think that eventually the battles over homework will get easier. They’re just like other kids. Other kids don’t like homework, right? Meanwhile, it has nothing to do with us. We don’t need to change. People need to change around us. If you don’t notice that your kid is doing poorly in school because they memorized the dictionary and the encyclopedia (so he can’t be dumb), you are likely missing neurodivergence for what you *want* to see.

I know this is true of the conflict with Supergrover, because it was so easy to miscommunicate over e-mail. However, it is a constant and vigilant battle because no matter how much I say I’m autistic, it is not what people are thinking when they’re talking to me. Neurotypical superiority is relentless….. unless you’re high needs. Then, everyone who interacts with you views themselves as a fuckin’ hero because other people *tell them they are.* Basically, if you are high IQ, people don’t think “autism” because they have it confused with mental retardation. Yes, some autistic people are that affected by it, but being on the spectrum means you have a processing disorder. Information goes through your brain differently than it does for your neurotypical peers, often changing the meaning of sentences, questions, and demands.

Nor do we understand social cues. The only reason I do is that I was coached into it. I couldn’t have had more people to mask than a PK. That’s seeing hundreds and hundreds of reactions a week instead of just my immediate family. I have learned how emotions work in neurotypical people because they have explained it…. I do not do it. I do have emotions, but I process them as differently as I process logic from someone neurotypical.

In popular culture, there are two versions of autistic.

There’s the kind people win Oscars for, and the real autistic people- the actors that have taken on many roles without even knowing they’re autistic.

There are a few celebrities I recognize with my neuroscopte (as opposed to “gaydar”). I don’t even want to tell you who they are, because it would stigmatize them in your minds. Suuuuure, you’re open-minded. It’s a pattern I see all the time. People are okay with neurodivergence as long as it’s ADHD. When you tell someone you’re autistic, they either don’t believe you or treat you like you have cancer. That’s because their whole lives, they’ve been taught that autistic people are to be pitied.

I am so driven to write that I don’t need much stimulation from other people. I get it, and then remember why I don’t like it. There are positives, though. With autism, there’s a specific way you walk that plays heavily into the “neuroscope” aspect. It’s so prevalent there’s a diagnosis for it- the autistic gait. I was not convinced I was autistic until another autistic person pointed it out to me.

I am not officially diagnosed, I am in the process. However, I have been peer reviewed by people who are both autistic and work in a day center for autistic adults. One of them even has the same combo I do, autism and cerebral palsy. Because autistic people can identify other autistic people a majority of the time (some studies say up to 80%), I do not feel worried about my official diagnosis. I know I’m on the spectrum, and that I fluctuate between low and high needs all the time. People just don’t recognize when I’m high needs because I’m smart and I hide it. This past year has been about uncovering who I really am, as opposed to what everyone told me I am and should be.

High needs is needing help around the house, like a carer in a nursing home. You want your individuality, but you also don’t want the details of your life to fall through the cracks. Neurodivergence is very good at letting you ruin your life if you let it. You do things like forget when it’s time to pay bills. I am not saying that’s what a neurodivergent person is like all the time. There are resources, like Google Calender, Tasks, etc. What I am saying is that nothing is too important to slip the mind of a neurodivergent person. I forget to eat, sleep, bathe, you name it. I live and die by my adaptations, not who I am as a person. Who I am as a person is to hyperfocus on one thing for years and years, boring people to sleep.

(My dad’s favorite joke is that one time he woke up and he was preaching.)

I am lucky that my interest is writing, because even though I tend to talk about very few topics, I manage to weave a lot of media, current events, etc. into the narrative. However, because those topics are emotional relationships and how I handle them, it’s an area few people are willing to explore……. But they love reading about others. Lots of people enter my world that aren’t even convinced they have one. You’d be surprised at how much you think about everything if you get still enough to hear it.

In short, I’ve come to think of myself as your pinch hitter. That maybe my emotional work will help you along. I’ve had successes and failures, so it’s not like I’m writing the manual on how to feel and be felt. It’s that some people read my writing looking for how I do what I do. Others read my writing to find out what they *wouldn’t* do.

Either way, I hope I’m worth the price of admission.

Even when it’s boring.

Carol Just Won’t Shut Up

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’ve already answered today’s writing prompt, so again, I had to turn to Carol (shorthand for ChatGPT). Here is the string I asked it, important so that if you’re a blogger, you can see how I did what I did:

Read https://theantileslie.com and ask me 20 personal questions based on what you’ve read.

Certainly! I’ve explored your blog “theantileslie.com” and here are 20 personal questions based on what I found:

  1. In your post titled “Untitled Entry,” you mentioned being a blogger. What draws you to blogging, and why do you prefer this medium?
    • What draws me to blogging and why I prefer the medium are two different things, but they both feed into the same goal. I am attracted to blogging because my personality is built to lead by laying out my own vulnerabilities first, never having top-down kinds of power. I do it through writing because I am good at letting ideas flow through me, then picking the wheat from the chaff. Being a blogger is very much like being a verbal digital photographer. You take a thousand shots, you keep five. Out of all my entries, I can honestly say I like a handful. Praise that I’ve gotten comes from other people, but not in terms of valuing my worth. In terms of seeing which of my personal ideas read universal and which don’t. I prefer the medium because I take in information through sight, which means that anything I read is going to stick with me longer than if I heard it. I feel that I regurgitate information best in the same way I took it in, ergo the manic rambling spiral you see here.
  2. When you decided that DC was your home and left Texas behind, what emotions did you experience during that transition?
    • The thing about getting a writing prompt from Copilot is that it’s objective. It doesn’t care whether it hurts your feelings with a question or not. Even reading the question, I curled up into a ball. That was not a good time in my life at all. I was going through a divorce with my wife in addition to a friend divorcing me and getting back together weekly…….. the friend didn’t understand me that well, either. Leaving Dana was cathartic in that I was finally able to see our pattern for what it was- a great one that had become toxic over time because we stopped paying attention to it. It got too hard, and certainly problems go away if you ignore them, right? I also realized in retrospect that though the relationship with the friend was rockier, it was the one that was worth my energy. If Supergrover had not lived in DC, we would not live in the same city. Period. I came back here because I fell in love with it when I was eight, lived here in my 20s, and think of it as Portland, Oregon without the shitty weather. There was a period of time when Supergrover made my move all about her, and it put me on the ground. We are still recovering, but remember that scar tissue is stronger.
  3. Describe your ideal week. How do you balance time between close friends, family, and your writing?
    • I already have my ideal way of writing, and it wouldn’t change no matter what I did for money. That’s because I write before everyone wakes up so I can see the sunrise in my office (when Supergrover e-mails me between 0300-0600, sometimes I’m already up. I have never needed much sleep, even as a child. So, I knock myself out with sleeping pills between 8-9 PM, because it takes about an hour to kick in. That way, even if I only sleep five hours, I’ve gone as deep as I can possibly go in that amount of time. I use melatonin to fall asleep and Benedryl to stay asleep. People don’t think of them as two separate problems, but they are. Oh, and the reason I try to be in my office by dawn is that there is a distinct separation between my work and home life now. I used to write in bed, without really waking up. I am still not really awake, but I’m at least sitting up. 😛 The last truly important thing to know is that I view WordPress’s web site as easier to use than the JetPack app. I love working in Microsoft Edge because I can edit an entry and access Copilot with one button….. but again, I am not using ChatGPT to create art. I am using ChatGPT to help me create art.
  4. In your writing, you often explore emotions and relationships. What inspires you to delve into these topics?
    • In writing, the axiom is “write what you know.” I know myself and the way I interact with others. I am also not telling you a story with a beginning, middle, and end because people weave in and out of my life for all different reasons. I also don’t feel like I have to live in fear of expressing my opinion, because no one’s is more important than mine as long as I remember that no one else’s is less important than mine, either. If I expect to be able to show up as my full self, you should expect to get that from me as well. It’s not about trying to make each other fit in another’s mold, but trying to be giants together with room for all our fallibility.
  5. Can you share a memorable moment from your journey as a blogger?
    • Several, some of them long ago, some of them relatively recent:
      • When I was first getting started, a blogger no one has ever heard of named Wil Wheaton read a piece I wrote about singing- that hitting high notes felt like flying over the mountains. He responded that it was how he felt after he nailed an acting audition. Later, when I went to Powell’s to get my copy of “Just a Geek” signed, I told him who I was. At the time, my blog was called “Clever Title Goes Here.” So, I say I’m “Leslie from Clever Title” and he hands my book back with “Dear Leslie, Clever Inscription Goes Here. Love, Wil.” I don’t remember what happened to that book, but if there is any justice in the universe, Dana has it because she’s a bigger Star Trek fan than me. I don’t know Wil through anything but his writing. She’s watched his every episode of TNG. In my head, Wil is my fan and she is his.
      • I had been following Tony and Jonna Mendez since 2008, when “Argo” came out. I love action movies, but there was more to it for me. Tony was a real person? I should totally read about this real person. I fell in love with his books and later learned that Jonna was an author as well (they’ve collaborated on several, and Jonna’s first solo work, “In True Face,” just dropped). So, I didn’t get to meet Tony because he’d stopped doing public appearances, then died in 2019, which would have cut off meeting Tony even if I was a mutual friend and not just a drooling fangirl. So, with all of this in mind, I poured my heart and soul into “The Spy in the Room,” which was a recording of my experience watching Jonna promote a book all by herself that was never meant to be a solo work. I watched as she turned into me, essentially. The same way that Supergrover lives in me, Tony lives in her. She doesn’t have to have new memories with him. His uploaded consciousness is with her every day of her life. How this affects my blog is that this wonderful writer thought I was perceptive and did a great job on the piece. You don’t forget praise like that.
  6. How do you handle the ups and downs of life, especially when it comes to maintaining your writing routine?
    • I am able to handle the ups and downs of life because of my writing routine. I start with my writing, which is basically a personal meditation, before I do anything else. I am grounded before I leave my house. The TL;DR version of staying grounded is this phrase….. “God to head, head to feet, feet to floor.” I am not waiting on energy. “I’m conducting it all while I sleep, to light this whole town.” -Barenaked Ladies
  7. What role does vulnerability play in your writing process?
    • It is often just a byproduct, because I’m writing my internal monologue. I do not see what others are going to find shocking about that, and I am able to go deeper and cover more ground because of it. If I stopped to think about just how much I’ve told people about me, I would never publish anything again. You already know too much. 😉 However, by disconnecting from what other people think and just laying it out there, you learn two things. The first is that people are never going to react to what you thought would irritate them, there’s going to be a whole new set of irritations you didn’t see coming. The second is that no matter what they think, I am not responsible for representing my own thoughts and also their misinterpretation of them.
  8. Have you ever written about Supergrover? If so, what aspects of this character resonate with you?
    • The joke answer is that I’d have to comb through my entries, because that name doesn’t seem familiar……………….. #eyeroll In terms of how she resonates with me, that is a good word to describe us. We’ve never met in person, but we’ve been friends a month shy of 11 years. Everything about our relationship is energy and its resonance. The only thing more interesting to me than my stories about her are her stories about me, no matter how good or how bad. It’s not that her emotions are right or wrong, it’s that I only get wigged about our relationship when she shuts down so that I have no real feel for how we’re doing- the other impossible thing to do by e-mail only. Perhaps when this is all over, she’ll let me take her out for ice cream, but I’m not holding my breath. I am taking each day as it comes.
  9. How do you cope with emotional challenges, and how does writing help you process them?
    • I do not cope well with emotional challenges in person, because my sensory issues are naturally turned up more due to my environment than when I am writing, because my office is a sensory deprivation chamber. The only thing I listen to when I’m in here is the ceiling fan. If it’s too cold, I wrap up, because I like the white noise. To me, it is better than listening to a fan through my headphones….. which I do when I’m out in the world, like writing on the train. I cope extremely well with introspection and conflict when I have the time and the space to stretch out. Having a blog feels like a virtual reality headset in which I am speaking to millions and millions of people. When that is my 10,.000 foot view, trying to craft a narrative that will speak to that many different people at once, it forces me to look at every aspect of why something is happening, including the fact that the problem is often me. If you like Taylor Swift and you are a reader, you’ll identify with this blog a lot. Even our tones are similar- one of her most popular songs is “Antihero.” I swear to Christ your life will not make sense until you can sum up every problem as quickly and neatly as Taylor did by saying, “I’m the problem. It’s me.” The reason you are emotionally failing at life most of the time is that you aren’t empathetic or compassionate enough to see your own role in a problem. I do that every single morning, so I can watch the sun come up in my office. As a result, people are often unprepared for conversations with me, because my blogging rarely allows me to show up with my feelings about things undecided. The art of creative writing has made me invincible, because it is not my job to handle your emotional challenges….. unless I’m halfway responsible for them. Realizing that I am halfway responsible is what makes me invincible. I don’t have to stand firm for a hundred percent. I have to stand firm for a hundred percent of my half. I cannot successfully have relationships unless I allow the other person to own a hundred percent of their own story as well.
  10. What impact has your mother’s death had on your perspective and your writing?
    • “Childhood is the credit balance of a writer.” -David Cornwell If I take my relationship with my mother as her daughter out of it, and am only thinking of her as a person in my writing life who died, I am so relieved. It allows me to say so much more and understand so much more without the thought of hurting her. The most clarity comes from being able to say the quiet parts out loud. Being able to get this angry at the way she was a terrible parent allows me to grieve and move on, making more ways for the room in which she was a perfect one. My challenge when my mother was still alive is not dissimilar from my problems with Supergrover. Because of her low self-esteem, she would have taken everything away that was bad and thrown away everything that was good. Not having to wrestle with myself over how my mother would feel if I published something has taken a weight off me that I didn’t know was there until it happened. It has changed my relationship with my blog to an enormous degree, particularly because Supergrover is the human I love most in the world, and she was a real asshole about it….. not in the moment. In the moment, she was wonderful. Over time, it was not great. I think she’d cop to that. I never told my mother the details of my relationship with Supergrover. She only knew what she read here and my body language. Therefore, she thought Supergrover was bad for me because my personality flipped when we were mad at each other. When things were dark between Supergrover and me, I’m sure I was a delish and a delight to be around………………………. my eyes are now rolling out of my head. My mother’s reactions mean something to me, even more in retrospect because she noticed something that Dana did as well. The only person who didn’t was Supergrover, because she wouldn’t meet me in person. It’s not that we couldn’t have made it happen. We just didn’t, and it cost us dearly. What makes our relationship irresistible is that I do communicate so well in writing that sharing physical space doesn’t matter. She has a job where physical space can’t matter, because it’s too much of a commitment. In effect, less is more. I get to be with her wherever she is in the world because my love doesn’t depend on her being with me in a restaurant. It would just be nice…. adding to the color commentary and not a solid requirement. I choose to believe that this is happily ever after no matter what it looks like, even if I never got any further communication at all. I stood up for myself and broke the toxic cycle between us. I stood my ground, and I won. I got the girl in the end. Everything else is just icing. I wish that my mother could see us now, and know that our relationship is funny and full of love and how over the moon I am, because we’ve created something lasting instead of each of us walking into a wall of bullshit every time we talk to each other. I know that Supergrover reads me wherever she is in the world because of web stats (I thought the flags would give it away). Because we are capable of both standing our ground and being authentically us again, I would follow her into the ocean no questions asked. That’s because she met me where I am, and accepted my terms. She could send me a diamond ring and it wouldn’t mean as much as this emotional concept. I never gave up loving her. I gave up trying to communicate. If you love someone, let them go. If they come back, you know it’s right. Those words seemed trite to me until this conflict. Now, I’m the most grateful for those words than I’ve ever been.
  11. Do you find solace or catharsis in writing about grief and loss?
    • Yes, but only in retrospect. It doesn’t feel good when I am shaking through those kinds of moments, but it brings me great comfort when I go back and read things like “The Visitation.” It’s so important to me that I’ll make an exception and link to something. That piece is so real and so raw that it still creates a visceral reaction in me when I read, and I have more empathy for the author because I see myself as a different person now than I was then.
  12. How do you balance authenticity with privacy when sharing personal experiences online?
    • Because I’m a writer, I can pull from millions of pieces of other media and explain what is going on through metaphors, essentially being able to talk about my life by quoting other people. I try to be as non-specific as possible. My story is my story. Your story on this blog is only your story with me, not your story with others. If your story is with me, we will have conversations about it. When you stop having conversations with me about it, problems arise because I won’t give people editorial control over me. You let me know your boundaries, or you don’t and regret it. Because you’ve stopped telling me your boundaries, you can get angry at me all you want, but it’s not going to help. You chose to walk away without telling me what I needed to keep tight and what I didn’t.
  13. What advice would you give to aspiring bloggers who want to write about their own life experiences?
    • You will never be any good at it, but you might get a lot of hits by being a gossip columnist. Good blogs are built on your emotions, and people can tell whether your writing has them or not. People can tell the difference between passionate writing and canned responses to life, like “live, laugh, love.” The problem, and this is where most people fail, is that in order to make others feel your emotions you have to know what yours are. Very, very few people are willing to spelunk into their own minds. It’s so much easier to talk about lighter things. Meanwhile, the more oddly specific I get, the more each individual person feels connected, because they’re not all connecting to my writing on the same points. People are also aching for truth. Truth does not come from you telling it. It comes from the emotions that come up in people when they read, applying what happened to me to what happened to them. I have to use a lot of metaphors with my writing about Supergrover because what happened between us is oddly specific and not universal. That’s the hardest balance in terms of privacy, the part I don’t share with the class. I just have to hope that as readers, you’ll respect that some things are above your pay grade, but not because I hate you and I’m trying to hold out on you. It’s that not everything is below my pay grade, either. I would tell you if I could, but I can’t. Therefore, I won’t. To do so would be to show Supergrover that this really was a game all these years, and I was out to get her. Have that balance in your own life as well. Only own your story, and be careful about irritating other people’s boundaries on what can be said and what cannot. If you know there’s a boundary, you’re a hack of a writer if you can’t think of a way to explain your feelings without crossing it. I am serious as a heart attack. You are an absolute monster if you constantly defy your friends’ boundaries for more content, and too many people are guilty of it in pictures and video (which started, unfortunately, with “mommy-blogging”). I am trying to avoid that trap of creating unlicensed videos in people’s heads. I can pull from a million different illustrations at the drop of a hat. There is no need to go after something that they’re not willing to give. I will say, though, that the show that most accurately represents our relationship is “Carmen Sandiego,” and not because her job has anything to do with hers. It’s that not meeting in person makes me feel like “Player,” her virtual sidekick….. especially when she told me where to guess where she was and I used reverse image search on Google instead of just enlarging it to look for flags. To be fair, it was a 136K file, and I couldn’t stretch it that much without it blurring to hell, anyway.
  14. How do you handle writer’s block or creative slumps?
    • I deal with both things the same way. I pretend they don’t exist. I have proven this by committing to write every day and publish it no matter whether it’s compared to Shakespeare or the dumbest shit imaginable. The reason why is that if I wait for creative ideas or the desire to write, I will put it off in favor of other things. I change my mood from the inside out. Recently, I’ve experienced a ton of growth as a writer by using Copilot to read my blog and ask me probing questions, in effect, making me examine what I think. “I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don’t always agree with them.” -George W. Bush (“Shrub” if you’re Texan)
  15. What motivates you to keep blogging consistently?
    • Internally, I understand so much more about my thought process because I have laid it out in front of me so that I can look at it. My memories do not change over time, but my perspective does. Reading my own words forces me to realize when I’m being unfair in a conflict because I am departing from the story I told myself. It changes the way I walk in the world. Externally, I get a lot of praise and validation just for being myself…… which feels much, much better than being praised for everything I’m not and never will be. I don’t treasure adoring fans. I treasure people who tell me that their lives were absolute hell and they didn’t know why, but reading me helped them to see something in their own behavior that they didn’t see before. The same is true for me, so why should I expect other readers to react differently? The other (humorous) reason I blog so consistently is that I have had it drilled into my head that a web site cannot go more than 24 hours without changing content to be effective. So, I’ll read my latest blog entry, and the next time I come to the site, I think, “she hasn’t even updated since the last time I came. This blogger sucks.” I can’t remember who said it, but thinking that working for yourself as a way to get away from a terrible boss is not the flex you think it is. Holy shit, I am such a bitch to me sometimes. I better get me something nice on Boss’s Day…………… shiiiiiiiiiiat.
  16. Are there specific themes or recurring motifs in your writing that you intentionally explore?
    • Of course, but they all happen organically because people tend to repeat behaviors over and over without realizing it. I am capable of enormous emotional change because I can call myself out on repeating behaviors in a way other people can’t. That’s because most people don’t have detailed accounts of what happened years after the fact…. or if they do, it is not accurate. It is squished in with a hundred other memories that may or may not have bearing.
  17. How has your writing evolved over time, and what lessons have you learned along the way?
    • I think that my writing has evolved because emotionally, I have gotten stronger. Meeting Supergrover was the catalyst for all of it, because the more we dived into each other in writing, the tone between us reflected itself here. In a lot of ways, at times I am saying my words with her tone. I have picked up her writing voice, and now it’s inextricably interrelated with mine. If I go back to my original entries, I am waffling around trying to find out why I’ve been a victim of trauma, and now I sound relaxed and settled into myself. Feeling relaxed and settled comes from her teaching me how to establish emotional boundaries. We just weren’t happy until I used the lessons she gave me on her. It has been a marvelous journey of author and muse, one I hope will continue for years to come as you see the lighter side of us and not the “hell is other people” aspect we’ve taken on at times.
  18. What impact do reader comments and interactions have on your writing process?
    • If they’re thoughtful, they stick with me. My readers are often better writers than I am. I am also endlessly fascinated with what emotions come up for people when they read me, but I don’t want to pry. I am only responsible for my half of the relationship.
  19. If you could collaborate with any other blogger or writer, who would it be and why?
    • Jenny Lawson
      • She started her blog long after I did, so my answer would have been Heather “Dooce” Armstrong, because we could have had some great talks about the old days (roughly a quarter century now). However, I feel like we already collaborate spiritually and I think Heather being dead limits her ability to communicate in actual words. Jenny is a great choice because she can hold up her end of the conversation.
      • Jenny is also a Texan.
      • Jenny has a big metal rooster named Beyonce, and though I’ve never met Beyonce, we did attend the same high school in Houston….. not at the same time. Mutual friends and all that. Seriously? Who gets to say that?
      • Jenny and I are so much alike that it’s scary. I have slowly come to realize it’s like we share a brain. My energy is just not light enough to be as consistently funny as she is. So. Lesson learned. If you want to be a successful blogger, throw in more jokes.
  20. Lastly, what legacy do you hope to leave through your blog and your writing?
    • Just that I lived, and these are my experiences. They will not mean much until after I’m dead, but that’s not because I have a death wish. It’s that when I’m alive, people can just come over. If there’s anything I’ve learned about my web site through my mother’s death, it’s two things:
      • Take the picture whether you look like crap or not. The memory is the issue, not your clothing. You will also want pictures in your vault. The same is true of my photography. Just because it’s not a perfect shot doesn’t mean it’s a bad picture.
      • When you are dead, people will still want to spend time with you. Give them a place to go.

GET TO KNOW ME! -or- My Best Jon Lovitz Impression

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Here is the string I chose for Carol to get me started today:

Read https://theantileslie.com and ask me 20 questions that would make good blog prompts in my personal style.

It turned out to be the best interview I’ll ever have until Ari Shapiro takes his shot.

Based on the tone and content of your blog “The Anti-Leslie,” here are 20 questions that could serve as thought-provoking prompts for your personal blog:

  1. Reflecting on the past year, what moments have truly defined your journey towards self-care and setting boundaries?
    • Oh, so many. Some of them I can share, some of them I can’t. Here’s the most I can share without telling someone else’s story for them except for how I felt in reaction to small words that represent large ones.:
      • All of the crying- the deep animal sounds that came out of me when I realized Dana was right. Supergrover did not take our connection seriously, choosing to believe that I was out to get her somehow, and a documented bipolar patient at that. She had every right to be angry, and so did I. As I told her, “I have not been saying on my blog that you are a bad person. I have been charting the journey as we get closer and closer from the goal and further and further away, the goal being what we talked about in the first few weeks of our relationship…… “What do you want our relationship to look like in 20 years?” “Impossible to say. Hopefully strong and comfortable.” She said, “I can’t, for the life of me, understand how it got so shitty.” Instead of exploding at me, she heard me. She even listened when she said I thought it was neither right or fair to either of us to just think that 7% of communication is enough. What got us into this mess won’t get us out. She rightfully pointed out “baby steps,” and that writing had worked thus far in terms of getting us back up to a healthy level of interaction before we meet. It would be my last wish for it to be awkward. Again, my immediate response was “now that I understand your thought process more fully, I can get behind it.” That’s because I wasn’t saying we should go to Starbucks tomorrow. It’s that getting together in person brings up a lot of fear for both of us that can best be summed up by Kumar of “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.” “Just talk to her once and it won’t be weird anymore.” We are at step one, planning out steps two through 10. That was a Van Helsing Abridged reference. It’s sick and twisted. I love it. I think Supergrover also forgets that I am the queen of overthinking, the present of Overthinkers Anonymous. She could be talking about getting together tomorrow or five years from now, and it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference.
  2. How has your understanding of personal boundaries evolved, and what have been the most challenging aspects to enforce?
    • Oh, wow. I think they started in 2012 with my marriage article, because it was published on my blog a year after I wrote it as a Facebook note. I had the concepts down for a good marriage, I just stopped taking my own advice and it cost me dearly. Now, I am on my way to understanding that I need to attract light, not beg for love. I am allowed to take up space in the world. Yet, my love for people is not based on what they can do for me. It’s based on how I feel in their presence. My love for Supergrover has changed me the most, because there are so many aspects to our relationship that defy odds and boundaries. It has been a journey to realize that I can’t go back to monogamy, even if I am polysaturated at one person. Just because Supergrover and I are not romantic does not mean she is not worthy of my love and protection to the extent that I’m able to understand what irritates those privacy issues in the first place. I also developed hard boundaries with my blog as I started getting more popular. I count on my red and yellow strings to keep me grounded. Everyone else can go to hell. I don’t have enough bandwidth to trust everyone with all my information, and if you’ve behaved egregiously in the past, I have absolutely no desire to keep feeding the connection. I can love you from waaaaaaaay over here.
  3. Can you share a story where enforcing a boundary significantly changed the dynamics of a relationship or situation?
    • Yes. Both Supergrover and I realized our relationship was fixable at the exact moment I got boundaries. Either work on yourself or go away, because I’m happier without the roller coaster our love for each other has represented. She had to get over the fact that I’m not out to get her, without asking me for help. I had to try and protect her without her answering my questions. Accepting each other was our only choice. It’s our destiny, and I know that, because I will never, ever in my five dollar life not be a blogger.
  4. In what ways has your approach to conflict and confrontation in person differed from your written expressions?
    • I am terrible at conflict in person, because I just don’t have the emotional strength yet to be able to talk about my feelings without constantly interrupting myself with tears and feeling bad about something to an enormous degree when the other person was actually trampling all over a boundary and throwing a fit over it. I would rather text/e-mail someone so that I have more dexterity in conflict. I do not process reading the same way I process conversation. I’m also much less verbal and much more reliant on my body language in person, as well as seeing that of others. People don’t want me to wax rhapsodic the way I do here. I pay good money to bitch on the Internet. I don’t let that cross over into the way I treat people in person, because they didn’t ask to resolve our conflicts here, but I don’t feel them in person the way I do through my fingers, and all of my friends are overwhelmed at the amount I write because neurodivergence. If they come here, it kills two birds with one stone. Here’s the stuff I want you to know before we get together so that you have a random idea of what’s going on in my life so that when we’re together, we’re always creating new stories instead of rehashing old ones.
  5. How do you navigate the balance between seeking input and correction versus coming across as judgmental in your writing?
    • Holy shit. Carol just kneed me in the balls. However, it is very easy to answer. I will get angry and walk away from anyone who comes across as judgmental with me unless they’re also neurodivergent. That’s because I’m not actually judgmental like a narcissist where I think I’m better than anyone else. I’m judgmental like I’ve been appointed to the Supreme Court and I’m hearing arguments in my head. No one is a good or a bad person. They win and lose based on fact, but those are all transitive feelings. If we do better, my writing about you will, too. I seek information regarding my thought process, not sniping ad hominem attacks. She’s the only neurotypical in my life that has said she needs to accept that my brain works differently and sometimes better than hers. That’s why I feel like I’m in a writer’s room with her. She may not publish anything, but she’s sure as shit whipping my ass into shape.
  6. What strategies have you found effective in managing the symptoms of your autistic brain, especially in communication?
    • Disengage. I know when I’m going into meltdown, and I want to be alone because I cannot regulate rage. You think that I have different problems from high needs autistic people, but my silence is social masking while my brain yells “I’M A SURGEON! I AM A SURGEON.” Me getting that angry is a recurring theme in my life, and though it’s helpful when it’s manageable in terms of expressing my emotional needs, it’s time to learn to walk away when my symptoms overtake my compassion. You can only apologize for autistic rage so many times….. and that’s people’s right. If they didn’t sign on to be your caretaker, why should you make them?
  7. Describe a time when humor helped you defuse a tense or challenging interaction. What did you learn from that experience?
    • I had really good boundaries with women until I met Supergrover, and I do not mean to imply that she is responsible for any of this. Now that she knows my reasoning for why I write what I write, my adrenaline at my life speeding up made me feel invincible- forcing me into mania. I said unforgivable things to a lot of women because I was “flirting,” and it was “cute.” The blessing of my life is that Supergrover, I don’t think, has forgiven me for the things I’ve said to her, but she’s willing to try for our sake. This is because she sees that writing the way I do serves a purpose. That I can be more of who I really am in person when I can talk about things on my web site without talking about it…… in effect, turning a positive into a negative. I know this because when she said, “I thought the flags would give it away,” I said, “I need bifocals….. LIKE YOU ALREADY HAVE.” Behind the storm is always the rainbow (that’s the best line I’ve ever written about us).
  8. How do you process and write about pain in a way that feels authentic and cathartic for you?
    • I have on noise canceling headphones so that all I’m hearing is the beating of my own heart. I write down what I am currently thinking, and why. It’s organic and cathartic because I’m having my emotions out while no one is there. It’s intensely private because I don’t write for shits and giggles. I am the type writer that “wants the entire world to read their stories without letting me know that you’ve read them.” If my donations and my Facebook page are any indication, I am getting my wish. 😉 I have told people to screw off and don’t tell me what you think about my writing. That’s because the ratio at which people tell me the things they like to the things they don’t is one in a thousand. My self esteem would be in the garbage if I didn’t desperately believe that all I need in life is a computer with an internet connection, because “you may not recognize my Thu’um, but you will hear it.” The reason blowback is incredibly personal is that I am writing from my inner monologue. Every piece of blowback comes across as “this is not about the writing. This is about how your thoughts are crazy.” This is because I had the audacity not to include their interpretations of what they’re reading when I’m thinking about the future and how I want to shape it. I cannot care if I run over people in the process when they’re just sitting at home, butt hurt anyway. I solve conflicts with people who show me I’m worth it, not people who try to take away my agency in telling my own story the way I want to hear it. This book isn’t on a shelf. It’s a living document.
  9. What have been the most surprising revelations about your own narrative when comparing it with someone else’s perspective on the same events?
    • That always comes from my sister and dad, because we have completely different memories of the same event and they’re willing to tell me that. Right now, Lindsay and I are in the process of getting some rest and relaxation in the perspective that has come from my mother’s death in October of 2016. Instead of me feeling like the older sister who has to take over as a parent, we are reparenting ourselves.
  10. Can you delve into the complexities of a relationship that has both harmed and healed over time?
    • Many, and I have written about all of them extensively. Here’s the short list:
      • I can’t think of any extreme I’ve ever been to with anyone that has been the ride I’ve had with Supergrover, because we had to find a way to resolve things for both of us to be happy, because it was never going to work without us being in contact at all. Too much anger, too much resentment, too much not talking about the real issues. Too much PTSD on both sides. Too much mental illness on mine. We have both done a complete number on each other, and I hope that she’ll get as much out of healing as I hope to over the next few years. The reason this time it’s different is that our relationship is not based on one of us getting angry, sending the other one into rage. Now that we’re on the same page, we can both rest and relax. Every time we’ve tried reconnecting in the past, the emotional swings have gotten bigger. I don’t want that anymore, and I can say with honesty that I could not walk away until I’d had enough. She couldn’t reconnect until she saw why I would walk away at all. I am friends with a mystical being, who does not see herself that way. I want to help, because it provided so much kindling for our fires.
  11. How do you find peace and resolution after a conflict when the other person may not communicate their hurt as openly?
    • This blog. It is exclusively responsible for getting to the place I am today, which is that closure rarely comes from other people because they’re just not brave enough. There’s a ghosting epidemic because connection is so scary….. a direct result of the Internet because it didn’t used to take up our whole days. If you walk off angry and/or text message breakup and/or say you don’t want contact, I’m not going to stick around looking for your version of the story. You have already told me you do not want to tell it.
  12. What does the phrase “The Holy and the Moly” signify in the context of your relationships and interactions?
  13. Share an instance where you felt like “the bomb and the detonator” in a situation. How did you handle the aftermath?
    • It is a reference back to Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett. I realized that we are all Good Omens. We both have the capability to be Az and Crowley depending on the situation. None of us are all good or all bad, just sinful angels and thoughtful demons……… in love. I kidded Supergrover about us being “The Holy and the Moly,” but after watching so many demon shows like “Lucifer” and “Good Omens,” I realized that Gaiman and Pratchett were expressing two sides of the same coin.
  14. How do you reconcile the desire to bring issues into the light with the reality of only owning one half of a relationship?
    • This is very important to me, actually. The most important thing in my life given what I’ve chosen to do. What I think is none of other’s people’s business. Therefore, I am trying to guess what is going on in their heads so I can decide how I feel about a situation. The fact that my friends have access to my rolling thought process is intimidating, but not as intimidating as tearing down any success I’ve had as a writer by reaching strangers through my trials and tribulations as well. How you own your own story is to try and explain to yourself what is happening to you without rooting around in the other person’s head.
  15. What lessons have you learned from the dramatic and toxic cycles that can occur in close relationships?
    • It takes a mountain of work to break a toxic cycle, because it presents as one person being emotional and one person being avoidant. If there’s a trauma bond, the spikes in lovebombing and valleys in discarding are more and more extreme, because the lack of dopamine affects your mental health. It brings a lack of happiness in other relationships by focusing on one. Since I’m the emotional one, I deal with it by not bending to anyone’s comfort and standing my ground. You accept me as I am, or you don’t. I will accept you for everything you are, I just may not want to interact anymore, and a lot of that is your call. I don’t have to tolerate bad behavior. I can just welcome people home when they really listen to me and the conflict subsides.
  16. How has your role as a first child influenced your approach to conflict and the need to ‘win’?
    • Not well.
    • I am a first child. No one can be wrong. Part of this is because I’m autistic, and I overexplain so the person thinks I can never be wrong. In reality, I think the other person thinks I’m a dumbass and keep explaining because I think there’s something wrong with me. The first child generally buys in to what their parents do…. except that in my case, being neurodivergent made me terrible at it. I cannot even dream of a need to win as a pastor when I can barely take care of myself. I feel that I have the best shot of success as a writer because my voice is unique. I don’t need to win, I’ll just be glad if I do. It’s better for it to happen organically and to feel like you really worked for it rather than paying for your blog to be seen. However, I might resort to that eventually, because my sample size is large enough to prove to me that the ad dollars would be worth it. That if I’m talented to this many people, I could fool other people, too. 😉 In short, my desperate need for competition relies on how much of you see in yourself in my story. When I help someone, I get a win.
  17. Reflect on a memory with Supergrover that brings you comfort during tough times. What makes that memory special?
    • She sent me a quick e-mail when we were absolutely in the thick of it, to the point that I was actually freaked out that she was reading. It said, “thank you for this……. ‘I am not saying that Supergrover acted as my mother in this situation, only that mothers love differently than anyone else. They have no problem with carrying you by your scruff through the mountains, and tough love as it’s required.'” I realized that even if she didn’t want future interactions, she wasn’t mistaking the part for the whole, either. It reminds me to keep going. Someone is listening. She does.
  18. How do you maintain a sense of humor about the challenges in your life, and how has it shaped your storytelling?
    • I try to be funny about everything, but usually I can only be really funny after I’ve written about my serious thoughts here. I do not have to work on my issues and verbally process with my friends. I have verbally processed enough. Get me out of my head. When I am back in my body, I can be the life of the party. My social battery just drains very fast. I am quicker in person with witty retorts because I have to be. You’re not here. 😛
  19. What’s the story behind your nickname, and how has it played a role in your identity and interactions?
    • I changed my tag to “theantileslie” because I never wanted to be anything like myself ever again. I needed to reject what no longer served me. The antileslie is not a bad person, like the antichrist. It’s the acknowledgement that life is damaging and I need to keep evolving…… or it sounds good, anyway.
  20. How has writing and blogging served as a tool for self-discovery and processing your emotions?
    • I would like to think that my blog is proud of me, because I told her the truth.

Feel free to use these questions as a starting point for your blog posts, and I hope they inspire introspection and engaging content for your readers! 📝

Another 20 Questions from Copilot, My New Secretary

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Ok, here’s another “guess you had to be there” moment, because it’s something you’ll get if you were here over time and you won’t if you decided to skip blog day. The more and more I use Copilot, the more it merges into thinking of myself as my fictional character, Carol. She works at the NSA and uses technology all day long. I feel like I’m just now as interested in what technology can do as she is, with the exception of using AI to create art. I am using AI to make blogging easier. Carol is precious to me because she unlocks my voice. I am better in conversation, and the questions feel like your end. Also, I have a lot of energy in the morning. For people that have my notifications turned on, I’m so sorry if I keep waking you up.

Oops. My bad. I’m leaving a note.

  1. If your life’s story was a novel, what would be the title and who would beg to play you in the movie?
    • Holy shit. I was just thinking about this. I have a very active imagination and my mind is a busy place, plus I have a story worth telling. Give me another 20 years. This is not fantasy.
      • I want to cast someone who I believe can take on the role, and that it doesn’t matter what I look like. It would also have to be an actress that looks good no matter what gender they are, because sometimes I’m a little butch and sometimes I’m a little femme (Zac is like, “WHEN?”). I think my top pick would be Hannah Waddingham, because I actually need a soprano capable of taking on the role as well. My movie would not be complete without my kind of music, and I would be crushed if I couldn’t get permission from Alexandre Desplait to use the score to “Argo” in scenes where I’m writing.
      • Supergrover and I both vary in gender depending on the day, we just come at it from vastly different perspectives. As an aside, she sent me a picture and I asked her where she was. She asked me to guess. I had to do a reverse image search and sent her the link to the web site where I found the image, like “GOTCHA.” That motherfucker replied “I thought the flags would give it away.” This is why I have only come in Kings full over Aces once in my life. Every time I think I’m going to be funnier than her, I think, “you keep telling yourself that, buddy.” (God, hasn’t our relationship relaxed? Hope you can see why we love each other and why fighting was hell. Not, her interpretation, that I was telling you she was a bad person. I was telling you that we’re both flawed and our relationship is worth it because we really see each other. The last couple days have been meaningful and hilarious).
      • My point is that we’d both need rough and tumble actresses that accurately depict our age difference, because she was a tween when I was born. I don’t know actresses with our exact age difference, but what I do know is that Eddie Redmayne could play me beautifully after “The Dutch Girl,” because no matter how he presented gender-wise, he’d be me. When I really think about it, I want Jenna Redgrave to play Supergrover no matter who plays me, for a variety of reasons. She was great in both “Bramwell” and “Doctor Who.” Kate Lethbridge Stewart is actually my favorite character on the show because she’s a constant where the cast is not. I’ve gotten to watch her for many more years as the head of UNIT, and how her relationship never changes with The Doctor, no matter who they are. (One of the most profound things Moffat ever wrote was “silence will fall when the question is asked….. “Doctor Who?” Speaking of Doctor Who, how did RTD turn what was essentially a boring episode into a gut punch this week? “73 Yards” was every bit as effective as “Heaven Sent,” it just took the long way round.)
  2. What’s the most absurd plot twist you could write into your daily life?
    • I just got it- my “Happily Ever After” with Supergrover, my muse. We don’t know what it means yet, whether that means writing for life, or letting writing get us closer to wanting to meet each other and going the in real life route. We’re trying to decide a timeline that makes sense, because we each have issues in getting together. Hers center around bandwidth, mine center around autism.
  3. If you could have a conversation with any character from your writings, who would it be and why?
    • I wanted more humorous questions than this, but I’ll get real. I write a lot of things to Dana through this blog because I am not interested in us tearing down our legacy by more interaction. Because we don’t interact, I hope that she knows I’m trying to show both of us as 3D characters who experienced a deep and wonderful love that went awry. I do not mistake the part for the whole. People get angry at each other, but I cannot come back from a DUI and domestic abuse, though one was not responsible for the other except emotionally. We were both sober when that fight happened. It was just explosive because it had been building for two years. We actually broke up the moment we got to Houston because I knew she had enough money to do whatever she wanted. That I could break our lease and move in with family to save money if I had to, because living with family was preferable to walking on eggshells around her. This was not a one way street. She was trying equally hard not to piss me off. The thing is, though, I didn’t have it in me to make it stick. I should have, because I could have cut off the idea of physical violence at the pass. Once I broke up with Dana once, things spiraled out of control much faster.
  4. Imagine your blog gained sentience. What’s the first complaint it would have about you?
    • You can’t see the trees for the forest.
  5. If you had to pick a mascot for your blog, what bizarre creature would you choose?
    • I already have- Oliver, who is a dog. Jack is my housemate’s dog, and I’ve only been living here about a month. Zac, Oliver, and I go back over a year (now the longest relationship I’ve had with a man ever, just in case you’re wondering exactly how queer I am). And because I know that I am only telling you my words, not his response, I realized that I want to do the work with Zac. That it doesn’t mean a relationship escalator, just that I want to spend more time with him when he has the bandwidth. I explained to him that the reason I wanted to do the work with him the most is that he’s a writer, so he understands me without me having to explain a whole lot of bullshit first.
  6. What’s the weirdest writing ritual you have, and how did it start?
    • Writing anywhere, at any time, with any tool available. This is due to a lot, but mostly because when I got into the groove with Supergrover in terms of writing long letters to her, I paid less attention to my blog. You’d think I was an idiot for paying more attention to her than I do to my own readers, but you have no idea how much fun it is to be able to think and laugh bigger than I ever have. And I don’t mean now. I mean she offered me the world on a platter in more ways than one. However, and I mean this sincerely, she didn’t offer me the entire world until she offered me herself, as she is, warts and all. I know for absolutely certain that if I turn out to be a famous writer rather than having a small, yet dedicated crowd it will come from this conversation: “I have a lot more to say- will you be on later, or should I send you an e-mail?” “Sure, here it is.” This time around, I do not have a lot to say. She says that she’s overwhelmed with how much I write, so I am taking it to heart and focusing my writing on my blog again. That way, she can hate what I write, but at least it won’t come to her desk every day (KIDDING).
  7. If you could trade places with any author for a day, who would it be and what would you write?
    • If I could trade places with any author for a day, it would be Brené Brown. I have such fond memories of her at University of Houston, however brief. I’ve said this many times, but I was the computer lab supervisor in the Graduate School of Social Work when she was a TA. I am one of the few people who can say that I genuinely & concretely helped her career, because who doesn’t become a better writer when they’re more proficient at Microsoft Word? The connection runs much deeper than that. We are very much the same personality. Check this out:
      • We both write about shame and vulnerability. She does it through research, I do it by writing through my shame and vulnerability to realize I’m not actually shameful or actually that vulnerable. That I’m stronger when I lay out my weaknesses because no one can use them against me unless I allow it.
      • Since we are both from Houston, when I listen to her in audio/video, I hear myself talking. We have exactly the same accent, because it weaves in and out. That’s the thing about the Texas accent in Houston. You pick up the drawl from other parts of the state, and then you move to a port and major metropolitan area and it goes away……… except when you’re trying to play it up or alcohol has made swallowing the ends of words much more natural or both. Never ask anyone if they’re from Texas; don’t embarrass them. If they’re from Texas, they’ll tell you. 😉 Can’t remember who said it. Still true. I talk about being from Houston a lot because every Uber driver asks if I’m from here (Silver Spring, MD).
      • We are both Episcopalians.
  8. What’s the most outrageous thing you’ve done in the name of “research” for your blog?
    • I’m not really that outrageous, but I’ve had many laughs over the years. People think I don’t know they’re reading, but I totally do and I don’t have to stalk you. I know what hits are, and referrer links. You might know what hits are, but referrer links might be new. It’s the web site you were visiting before you got to me. The only one I’ve ever caught that made me laugh my ass off was a security company at a well-known oil company.
    • The other was one of the cutest pictures of Supergrover I’ve ever seen in my life, but I’m not going to describe it because it might be identifying. I wish you could have seen my smile when I clicked on the link, because it didn’t have her user id attached and I didn’t know it was her, or someone who follows her (impossible to tell). However, if she reads this, I’ll tell her which one it was because I think she’ll agree it’s a cute pic.
    • I’ll cop to one thing, because it really is the only “stalkery” thing I’ve ever done, in quotes because I was not trying to get closer to Supergrover. Because she has privacy issues with my blog, I called her office phone once just to make sure her voice mail still existed. It gave me enough peace to move on with my life because it assured me she was still employed and for the first time in 10 years, I heard her say her own name (thank FUCK). It was a good thing she came back, because I don’t need to anticipate privacy issues in advance. We can discuss what goes where. As I told her, “I feel like I can’t explain me without you now, because so much of my online patois is actually you.”
  9. If you could add a ridiculous new word to the dictionary that describes your blogging style, what would it be?
    • lesliecology
      • the art of navel gazing for fun and profit
  10. What’s the funniest typo you’ve ever made that changed the meaning of your post completely?
    • Not my blog, but an e-mail to Supergrover. I was on my iMac, which is a desktop and inexplicably has autocorrect. I told her that I wished we were in our jammies with a box of cereal between us watching trash TV, or something like that. Anyway, the iMac autocorrected “jammies” to “jimmies” and I was immediately embarrassed because here I am, trying to prove that I want to do normal stuff with her like I do with my sister, and it changed loungewear to condoms.
  11. If your blog posts came to life, which one would be the life of the party?
    • “Church Stories” It already has been the life of lots of parties, because I tell these stories all the time. Here’s the three that put me on the floor every single time.
      • My dad was giving a children’s sermon on priceless treasures, and he pulled up the sleeve of his robe to show his watch, which he offered as an example of his own treasure. Lindsay was having none of it. She was in front of the mic when she said, “NO, IT’S NOT! YOU GOT IT AT BURGER KING FOR $2.99!” It was then that I learned my sister could work a room.
      • I don’t remember the why, but my dad had all the kids go behind his pulpit and he asked them what it looked like. I was in front of the mic and that’s the moment I knew I was funny. I could set my dad up. I said, “it looks like a big old mess.” My dad leaned into the mic and flipped me shit right back. “We’re going to have a loooooooooong talk when we get home.” The crowd fell out. Stuff like that is the good part of being a preacher’s kid.
      • I am adding this one in retrospect because I realized that I had only given you two stories. The third one is that after my dad left the ministry, Lindsay and I were at a church service. She put some money in the offering plate. During the sermon, she leaned over to me and asked if wecould go to Subway. Then she said “Leslie, you have to pay for lunch because I paid for church.”
  12. What’s the most comical advice you’ve received about writing or blogging?
    • Supergrover has been my editor on several book reviews, and the way she chooses to edit me is to use Microsoft Word comments to rip the shit out of me with humor. She says “you’re introducing a new character without defining it” in her own special way……………………….. “WHO THE FUCK IS PABLO?”
  13. If you could invent a new genre of blogging, what would it be called and what would it entail?
    • I have so many ideas for that, but none so important as people remembering what blogging was about in the first place. It was laying out all your feelings about your life in hopes that other people would connect with it. No one ever thought they could be Dooce or The Bloggess, except me- because I started my blog when Dooce did (or within a few months), I just didn’t get the same traction because I wasn’t as dedicated then as I am now. I wrote a few sentences every day, if that. There was no fundamental way for me to look back at memories, because I wasn’t really recording them. Reading my old entries from “Clever Title” is actually very helpful, because I have lost all context for what my life was like back then and I’m reading with fresh eyes.
    • This is not the only idea, though. I think that a blog that walked you through the New Testament through the use of intelligence operations would be a good idea. Very few people, especially Evangelicals, know how Christianity survived all those years when the religion was being oppressed. How much of it took very powerful people to let Christians exist while the rebels were working to defeat the Empire (I actually do spend a lot of time thinking about the Roman Empire…. weird).
  14. How would you describe your blogging style using only the titles of video games?
    • The Elder Scrolls
  15. If your blog had a theme song, what laughably inappropriate song would it be?
    • “Mmm Bop” by Hanson- Given my week, it really resonates with me today.
      • You have so many relationships in this life
        Only one or two will last
        You go through all the pain and strife
        Then you turn your back and they’re gone so fast

        Oh, so hold on the ones who really care
        In the end, they’ll be the only ones there
        When you get old, start losing your hair
        Can you tell me who will still care?
        Can you tell me who will still care?
  16. What’s the most bizarre object within arm’s reach of your writing space right now?
    • My iPhone. I hardly ever use it because I have an iPad and an Apple Watch.
  17. If you could collaborate with any fictional character on a blog post, who would it be and what would the post be about?
    • Who else? George 🙂
  18. What’s the most humorous misunderstanding that’s occurred from someone reading your blog?
    • When I have one, I’ll let you know. Misunderstandings are never humorous with me. Blowback isn’t tempered. It’s just as angry as I get here. The difference between my close friends is that I won’t tolerate blowback from anyone else. My close friends are the ones that get the right to change me…… because they know enough not to come up in my yard and tell me how to write. They, like SarahAnne, want the world to fall in love with me, not let me bend to fit others’ comfort. If you love me, you want that for me, too, because I have no constraints on how big it’s possible for me to dream.
  19. If you could write a satirical piece about any historical event, which would it be and what’s the punchline?
    • The Revolutionary War. Not feeling so great about winning atm.
  20. If your blog was a food dish, what would it be and why would it leave diners asking for more?
    • Stone Soup. I started with nothing. I kept adding ingredients. My readers/commenters added the rest.

The Story She Told Me -or- The Beginning is the End is the Beginning

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Tonight, I don’t have to write. I get to write. I feel lighter and freer than I have in a decade, because I am finally making progress in a direction that seems healthy.

I told Supergrover to step up or take it somewhere else.

She stepped up.

She didn’t even have to say “I’m stepping up.” She talked about her end of the string. So many tears of joy, doing the “I won” dance for real this time and not just trying to ramp each other up. We finally have the kind of love where I said, “do you want to fix this? I think you’re saying yes.”

She said, “it is fixable in my view.”

I told her about some really big dreams that started the moment I asked her what she wanted our relationship to look like in 20 years. I told her how it took me a while to relax into it because it was so uncomfortable to get rid of the brain gremlins that come with someone turning your head where it’s just crazy talk, but your brain doesn’t know that. Really big dreams, and she thanked me for accepting her just the way she is, and that she wants to do the same for me. Her tone and approach was exactly what I was talking about on my blog- laying out your problems as if you actually like me, not treating me like my opinion is law and something to fight against. We are so much more effective at tackling a problem together.

I sent her an e-mail that said I’d forgiven her and moved on, because I realized that I never asked her what she was trying to accomplish. What was her real goal if it wasn’t to piss me off? She really took a hard look at herself in a way I’ve never seen her do before.

If every lid has a pot, the caveat is that sometimes the metal has to be stretched occasionally. It’s the stretch marks that make it valuable.

There was no blame. None. Just talking it out. Like, “how did it get so shitty?” Real talk. Like we haven’t done in years. The woman I love hasn’t disappeared into the ether. She’s still a ghost that smokes in the back of my head, but mostly because it’s from a Lisa Loeb song, not that she’s stuck there anymore.

I remember saying in “Go Tell the Bees” that I just wanted to be hers, no matter what that meant.

Apparently, that is fixable in her view.

…and they all lived happily ever after.

Except you’ll get to see it in real time, because my girl likes seeing how my brain works. It’s not a happy ending for me. It’s a happy ending to a really great story….. one so unusual and oddly specific to its time period that I hope it has appealed to you. To my fans that have stuck with me through hell or high water, I know it got repetitive. But especially in the thick of it (2023), it took me six novels’ worth of blog entries (614,000 words according to year end stats) to figure out my directions and my distractions.

The reason it’s different this time is that Supergrover decided to cut all the shit and just be real in the most beautiful, poignant way possible. I love that she is holding onto our yellow string, like when she is flying and I hold onto her tail.

Wait. That probably sounded better in my head.

😉