No, I Just Hurt

September 7, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Are you holding a grudge? About?

I am not a person that holds onto things. There’s a part of me that would love a day with any one person from my past whether they’ve wronged me or not, with one glaring exception that I wouldn’t have thought would come in my lifetime……….. but I’m not even holding onto anger regarding that situation. I’m just angry about it in my writing because I do not want her as the kind of fan who thinks she can reach out any time she wants, because that would destroy me…… for a bit. There’s no one alive who ever really gets over anything. It just moves from a place of pain to “this is something that has happened,” but if the situation comes back up, the feelings you had then are still stored in your body. Even if the same thing isn’t happening, it will feel the same way.

I would like to see the look on Supergrover’s face if and when we had to have we had that conversation, because my beautiful girl is a monster on a leash…… that she carries in her mouth and will let you hold if she thinks you are worthy of lifting Mjolnir. My mind bent like a pretzel when she decided I was. If you try to hurt me, you try to hurt us. It won’t go well for you whether it’s her or me that made your hackles go up. That one fan coming up into my yard would set us both off, I don’t care how pissed we are at each other, the enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that crap. It’s the same way on both sides. When someone comes after her, I want to jump between them. It’s just not possible, so I hope it’s the thought that counts.

There is such a thing as loving someone until you die while also knowing you aren’t good for each other, and either you need to correct the problem or move on. It might be hell in the moment, but love doesn’t go away. If I found out that something was going on with her I could actually fix, it would be done already. It doesn’t mean I should sit and wait around until she needs me. It means that no matter what happens between us, I’ve made promises that I intend to keep.

I think it’s cute that she’s a boss ass bitch and I’m basically “Player” from Carmen Sandiego. It makes our perspectives wildly different and thus easier for us to call out each other’s bullshit because we’re objective and uninvolved with any of the people the other might talk about.

That part I really did like about our relationship, and I’ve made other friends that way. I am not as close to them because it hasn’t been as long, but still the same feeling of two people in wildly different situations that can listen to the other because they don’t care about anyone but the person they’re talking to in the moment.

I don’t have to care what their husbands do, what their kids do, what their friends do because I am not trying to maintain a relationship with any of them, therefore I don’t have to balance my emotions because if I say something about one, it affects my relationship with the other. Conversations are sacred, and so is trust. I’ve learned everything about how to do virtual relationships the wrong way, so I’m adapting to make it better. I found someone that made me think so hard about myself that it was sink or swim. I could deal with the fact that me being in love with her was a pipe dream and move on, but nothing can be unsaid and I’m a writer. I don’t have the safety and security of knowing when I’m close to the hard out because I want to be seen as the loving friend I said I’d be….. after I was a total dick, of course. Rejection sucks, but it doesn’t last forever and I am not the kind of person that believes in the friend zone. There was never going to be a time where my ruminations meant that if she said no to me, her friendship didn’t mean anything to me. It would be the opposite. I know how we work. She’d fire me in a hot second, probably due to annoyance alone. But I’ve always wanted to know the things that don’t mean anything, like I said about Zac’s work colleagues the other day. She’s unique in a different way, but the concept is the same. I liken it to Cyrus and Olivia from Scandal, after hours, when it’s just them and wine and popcorn.

One of these days, she most certainly will wonder whatever happened to me and look it up. If the stars align, I hope it’s at a book table…….. where I’d gaze lovingly into her eyes, and ask her to sign my book.

I believe in fairy tales. I would never hold a grudge that meant we couldn’t fix it in the end. There’s a solid reason we should be friends, but she thinks I need too much when she hasn’t said what she needs from me and how we could establish boundaries that made us both happy. Believe it or not, I do not enjoy being ripped a new one for my crafted pages and having them called lectures by a judgmental dickhead. She never knew how my responses would have changed had she told me honestly how she was feeling and focused on the good things I was telling her, or asking me about things she thought were negative so that I could tell her if they weren’t.

Because our ways of showing love are so wildly different, neither one of us were getting what we needed from the other. I tried to correct that problem, and she bailed. But she didn’t take back her friendship. She said that nothing was ever going to change and the way she treated me blew sometimes and was incredible at others. I tried to love her in a way she could hear it, and sometimes she did. Sometimes she didn’t. It was very confusing for both of us and she didn’t have time to mull it over. I got tired of so often being responded to when she thought I was trying to fight her and not when I was telling her that I thought she was the greatest human being I’d ever met. Poll ten people that know her. We all agree, even if nine of them work for her.

I don’t dwell on my negative feelings because to me, the things that I’ve written about her combine to make a truly intimate portrait of our relationship all the way through, and it means something. Even now, I know it means something. Even if Michael and me are the only people who ever read it, it doesn’t matter. We’re the ones that will need it the most if she goes before we do, which I only say because now that my mother died so young, I can’t be sure of anything. The dice of the universe will roll one way or the other. I don’t have to focus on what might happen, I feel happy that I have prepared something that will last longer than all three of us. One of these days, WordPress will be an artifact. People will want to know how we lived, and a blog is a good example of writing about daily life. Sometimes I feel like I’m a column in a small town newspaper.

Not feeling guilt or remorse over any relationship once I feel enough time has moved forward to have closure is essential. I don’t want to be the type person that spends her life wishing things were different and not actively trying to fill my time with new opportunities.

But you guys have read every day what I’ve dealt with in all of this. How it’s painful and glorious, but there’s no problem that is not solvable if we both want to work on it. I’m just okay if she doesn’t, because my memories are enough. It’s pointless to hold a grudge, because it will do more to hurt you than they will ever care.

Just Come Pick Me Up

September 6, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 5 Comments

Bryn, the other author on this site, had to put one of her dogs down today. His name was Duncan, and he was deaf and blind. Despite his limitations, he could do tricks such as balancing on a ball. I can’t do that and I can hear and see. He was a marvel to watch, and he will be greatly missed by both of us. I haven’t lived in Portland for over a decade, but Duncan was part of my life back then, too. It’s hard to be in DC while she’s in Portland, but she’s not going through all this alone. Dave is with her and I’ll get to video call with her when she’s ready. I don’t want to intrude on her grief, and wanted to let you know what’s going on if you want to leave her a note. Having lost my mother, I do know that right now she’s probably not up for reaching out, but I’m trying to send her as much love as I can for when she’s ready to receive it.

I know that I’ve said that a woman irritated me because she said that she knew exactly how I felt about losing my mother because her cat had died. That was because I didn’t think the two things were comparable, not that I don’t have empathy for deep grief no matter what kind. I am not saying that it doesn’t hurt. I’m just saying that it’s different in scope, but the reaction is generally the same physically. Grief makes you weak, weepy, and lost in your own little world. That’s because trauma takes time to process and it’s a little while before the shock wears off.

When I get frustrated with a situation because I’m here and my friends are elsewhere, the line inside my head becomes “Jesus Christ. Just come pick me up.” I figure if anyone can displace time, space, and location he’s probably my best shot given the available options.

Right now I’m miserable because all I want is her- to comfort her and make sure she’s okay in the middle of a really hard situation. Most of the reason that I’m miserable is that I’m one of the people she’d turn to for love in a practical sense. Of course I can go to the grocery store. Of course I can sit here and listen for hours. Let it out. Of course we can sit next to each other and not say anything. Should I put on some relaxing banjo music so we can sit outside on the back porch and talk? I could install a swing…. probably the thing we both miss the most about The Big Yellow House because we had so many conversations there.

When Bryn and I have been at parties together, whether at The Big Yellow House or her parents,’ we become the social battery charging station, disappearing and generally making others wonder where we went. Because we are both ridiculously social right up until we aren’t, our conversations were a way to get away from all that having to be “on” bullshit. Not being introverted is a mask for both of us, and it’s because we are both Timeless Children. We live to please to avoid having to deal with conflict, so we call each other on conflict when we have it in a beautiful way. We are both re-parenting ourselves to be self-sustaining and it is beautiful to watch. We have a sweet, innocent, intense love that will never go away because our bond runs so deep. She was 14 and I was 19 when we met, so there’s pretty much nothing more pure than having someone you’ve known that long still in your life. I didn’t move to Portland to be with Bryn, but she was a large part of the package.

That’s because after I finished my first year of college, I left the day after classes ended to see what Portland had to offer. It was just a two week visit, but it was enough to convince me I’d be happy there and I went for two more summers to make sure. In ’97 was the More Light Conference (meeting of pro-queer Christians at Lewis & Clark), ’98 was billed as the “ordination of the century,” and ’99 was the wedding of the century. By then I was completely enmeshed. I just fit in without having to try so hard.

I met Kathleen shortly after, so I spent a couple summers with her instead of going to Portland, but we went together for an MLK holiday trip and it was a haul and a half from DC. We had a good time, and I wonder all the time what would have happened if Kathleen had gotten a job in the PNW…. and not for selfish reasons. Portland has a vibe where you really relax and she was wrapped way too tight. I also wonder all the time what would have happened if my beautiful girl had come to Portland, because when we were talking about it, she wanted to see Dana and me and drive down to Coos Bay. It’s a beautiful memory to create in my head with both of them. I love moonlit walks on the beach whether it’s romantic or not, and we’d be bundled up in sweatshirts and jeans even in August. Touching the water in the Pacific is not really advisable without a wet suit. I’ve lost the feeling in my feet every time. So, it would have been great in my mind to walk along with either one of them at a time where they could really let go and be themselves.

Even though it’s neither here nor there, those images make me happy. I don’t have bad feelings toward either one, and I often retcon the past with stories of what would have been nice so that I know what I want to do next time for the people in my life. Ways in which I can emotionally show up when I can’t afford to just book a plane ticket.

The other thing I really enjoy thinking about is the Pacific Ocean, because where I lived made me able to see Cape Disappointment and find my way back home.

To Duncan and Bryn.

Hell….. with Beads

September 6, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Share a story about the furthest you’ve ever traveled from home.

A friend said this about New Orleans, but this is how I feel about travel. It’s a full-on parade of thought; I’m excited until I’ve been away from home for an amount of time that’s never enough to settle. It’s why I’d like to do Air BnB. It would be great to spend a month in Paris rather than a few days in a hotel and at a better rate. Paris is a city that in order to understand it, you have to adapt. You’re from the United States. Your rhythm is not the same. That cognitive dissonance takes time to resolve, so I like trips that are long enough to make you forget your other reality and stop comparing things to it. When I’m in Mexico, what takes the longest is flipping my brain into Spanish. Having conversations where you are both processing thoughts and emotions while translating is exhausting, and Mexicans are so kind about it. The French are not, or at least not the ones I’ve met because I’ve only been to Paris. It has less to do with the fact that I only know a few words and they’re frustrated and more with the fact that Paris is like New York and London. They don’t have time for you not to know what you want, just like if you need something from someone on the tube in London, say the bare minimum and move on. Talking to strangers isn’t their thing in either city. It would take me a long time to adapt to Paris, but “my wife” says that when she reads me, she sees colors of David Sedaris.

That wasn’t flattering at all, JFC.

It makes me feel comfortable that David is the kind of person that if I ran into him in Paris, we might be able to strike up a friendship because I would remind him of the time we met in Frederick without hounding him for anything. I have so many creative friends in my life that fame doesn’t faze me. I just want to sit at the table if they think I’m worthy of it. Writers don’t give other people their time if they don’t think that person can keep up with them intellectually. They have so much fun and devastation on their own that it takes a lot to get through to them. You have to prove that your company is better than “the characters they keep.” Nothing is more important than complete isolation when you’re writing. For me, that looks very much like the classic image of a coder because I did web development for a long time. My favorite tools are text editors that color code and I type with all the lights off and my editor in dark mode. I’m just not doing the HTML because WordPress does that for me. I mention the way I work because it leads to the fact that the story of the farthest I’ve ever traveled includes times where I haven’t left my house.

I have lost myself in this world where I spill out everything in order to lead from the back, and it has fed me in every way that’s been missing. I love feeling confident in the fact that I can express myself, and don’t mind that my archetypes are Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Mr. Robot. I also have to accept that the virtual world is not the physical, and to be responsible with relationships. For instance, I don’t know if my new writer friend knew how I felt beforehand, but it made me feel good that when I asked to friend her, she really saw me as an actual friend because when she messaged me, she sent voice notes instead of typing. It just normalized everything, and she’s got a gorgeous voice Yes, we’ve sung for each other, and now I know a karaoke night would be in order if I was in the ATL or she was headed to Air and Space.

I have to remember the fact that other people don’t have the archetype of Mr. Robot and don’t write like they’re coding into the night, one thought pouring into the next at a frantic pace, made more urgent by the sound of their own typing. I get going and I say things that are over the line without truly thinking of the consequences. The separation of being virtual heightens everything, and I don’t want to feed into it.

I don’t want “my wife” to feel like I am wandering from who I really am, and she can be a better judge of that by hearing what I mean in the way I meant it. Her voice notes were just a good reminder to keep it real, and we’re having a good time. She’s not only an actress starring in a play right now, she’s a recovering attorney who went to school in the DMV and does conflict management in the ATL now. Endlessly fascinating and we haven’t found a lag in conversation yet. It’s what really examining how far from home I was willing to go has meant to me over the last 10 years. It’s been the journey to hell and back with someone because I caused the root of the conflict. Losing someone is one thing. Being responsible for it is another.

It’s why I’m glad there’s medication to help me cope with all my silly ruminations, and ironic that the more I spill them, the more you gather. My medication just introduces upper and lower limits. It guides the direction of my compass, the only thing that matters when sailing foreign seas.

Explaining Myself To………. Myself #shatnerellipsis

September 5, 2023September 5, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

If I hadn’t been trauma bonded to Supergrover and not to Dana, none of the last 10 years would have happened. I am not “goading and provoking.” I am talking about the things I understand to the best of my knowledge, knowing that my memory can’t always be correct and if I want a relationship now, being able to forgive and forget extraordinarily quickly because I’m using the power of my writing to lift me out of depression when I go back and read it.

This makes me self-sustaining to an enormous degree. This epistolary chapter is a “lecture” on how a relationship is affected by deep secrets that aren’t bad in any way at all. I am accepting the reality of the situation. I am acknowledging my humanness- being responsible and letting go of guilt, being mindful and carrying no shame. I believe the good news of the Gospels, that we are loved unconditionally by God. This is part of the creed from the UCC church I attended in Portland, written by my abuser’s partner. That’s how good I’ve become at letting go through my faith. I hope you’ll let go of yours by the end. This is because my relationship with God is not cute. Everything in these entries is me arguing with God like an old grumpy writer with the personality of an Evangelical Orthodox nut job who is an emotional dumpster fire a lot of the time.

I’m also neurodivergent, so I spiral out when everything is in writing and therefore hits harder because I’m making up their tones of voice and no way to correct things when a joke doesn’t land. No matter what starts a conflict, my anxiety rises to the level of The War Doctor, where I am the bomb and you are The Moment……… because that’s my definition of what God is and will always be. The moment you are abused, your reality breaks and you need a third party. That’s why being an addict and bipolar present the same. It’s how trauma affects you your whole life once it happens. I know that now because I met my emotional abuser when I was 12 years old. It didn’t get physical because it didn’t have to. We trauma dumped and handfasted because I intrigued her mentally whether it was intentional or not. I had to forgive her and move on, but I swear to God her world will fucking end if she trauma dumps with someone else that age. No one will kill her, but she might not hate it as a viable option. That’s because Dante’s Inferno is every bit as real in terms of the lens through which I see everything and so do you if you’ve had anything similar happen to you. That’s why I trauma bonded with Daniel and agreed to marry him so fucking fast. I didn’t go insane. I’m emotionally equipped to deal with a Doctor Who is a very bad patient (a turn of phrase from voice dictation on my iPhone in a letter to the absolute love of my life. She just doesn’t accept it because she thinks that her trauma is so much worse than mine and treats herself like shit because of it. If she only knew what kind of person I think she is and started to believe what I’m telling her the first time, she’d see a person who has no problems with worshipping the water she walks on while also being able to tell her that I think we’re headed for a train wreck.

She escalates because she doesn’t want to open up and so do I.

We could have had a love that lasted for all time in these pages, because our secrets married us the moment we said them. Words made it real. Real fast. I agreed to all of it. It was Oppenhemer, and Fallout 3 is entirely responsible for the allegory I saw in playing that game because it was Biblical. When I destroyed Zax with logical fallacy, that he was omnipotent because he was programmed to be omipotent, seeing the loop in the code for the first time, I saw my inner Vault-Tec for what it was and accepted that I was a Lone Wanderer- not only because I wanted it desperately. I also couldn’t get out of it, and that’s why both Supergrover and I think that no matter what, we have a past, a present, and a future.

I am not asking for her to be mine, I am asking her what our future looks like and my problem with her is now twofold. The first is that she only understands me to the level she understands her. I am not guilting her. There isn’t a human who doesn’t do this. I am saying that we cannot interact in the future if she can’t acknowledge her humanness as well. I don’t want the stakes to be so high in our relationship. I wanted to normalize everything, and it was up to her whether that was virtual or physical, but never in a way that she thought was inappropriate for reasons that span from she’s straight to us both acknowledging that if we did it, there’s more chance that we’d destroy each other afterwards than accepting a different reality and being happy in the long term. That if we fuck this up, it’s over for both of us. Just mutually assured destruction and I’m serious as a heart attack. I didn’t give her my whole heart because I wanted her inappropriately. It’s because our emotions made us Siamese twins.

It’s why I devour everything about intelligence. I crave it. I don’t know anyone at CIA and I don’t have to. The reason I love it is because they can blow shit up when things are actually wrong and I can’t. I’ve been emotionally laden like a pack horse since I was 12, a deep cover operation in which I got lost and forgot my real identity. That’s why I need David Webb to become Director of CiA by the end of the story. When he wins, so do I. That’s why I love the conflict in Black Panther. I am both T’Challa and Erik. When love wins, they have a Tolkien CIA agent. Now you know I’m actively trying to make Zac laugh. He is giving me what served me in relationships I’ve had previously, without taking on the baggage of what didn’t. That way, I can love him with my whole heart while also not being bothered to care about absolutely anything he wants to do when we aren’t being the most obnoxious couple you’ve ever met in your life. Really. Talk to us together and you’ll throw up in your mouth a little bit. I’m not bothered about finding someone else because I am not desperately seeking attention and validation……… as people who are sick from trauma do when they don’t get well. Boldly keeping all your emotions hidden in order to be what other people want will kill you, and I mean that literally.

The best sermon I’ve ever heard came from one of the people I’ve been emotionally intimate in an extremely healthy way right up until it wasn’t because we reverted to who we are- neurodivergent and unaccepting of each other’s humanness while both being ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. It’s why I think things could be perfect between my beautiful girl if she’d let it happen. Our professions are compatible and we chose them for a reason, which makes us literally perfect for each other when we aren’t complete assholes.

The first line was “the day my father died, my brother was in jail.” She gave an unpacking of what it’s like for a church to hold on to that level of trauma and I’m a fucking PK. You have no idea what kind of trauma I was dealing with and not because of their inner demons trying to hurt me. I was bleeding out in empathy because I didn’t have any clinical separation. That’s how my trauma bond presents, and it is as ironclad as a marriage in the Holy Roman church………….. and you have two wolves inside you. You decide which one you feed. I express that by talking to a God in which I can stand up and say “I AM BAPTIZED.”

That’s a whole story in and of itself. When you’re a PK, if you pee on the person doing your baptism, you’ve just peed on your dad’s boss. Given how the UMC treated my father, I have embraced their inner Aziraphale and Crowley. The bishop who baptized me served a predominantly gay church after he baptized me, so clearly I was baptizing him as well. I love the idea that he made me a queer person loved unconditionally by God, and he is the YouTube video of Supergrover waking up Superqueer after an organ transplant with me. When I resolve trauma, I get funnier. That’s because Jesus is hilarious to me when he’s not struggling with his own demons. But what I’ve never done is go straight to Golgotha and looked away. I am Emmit Till’s mother. I want you to see what that man went through and how I view his story as a trauma survivor. He didn’t need to be bodily resurrected for me to believe that because his religious leaders gave him hell. He went straight to Golgotha without looking away and while he was on the cross he emotionally blessed and released everything by forgiving the people who murdered him. Doesn’t mean he didn’t want to murder them with words. But in order to forgive everyone on the cross, he had to walk through his own valleys of vulnerability. He had to get as mad at God as he possibly could in order to go to the mountaintop. To me, the importance of the crucifixion is a negative amount, because the resurrection didn’t happen on the cross.

He resurrected himself when he was ready to leave the garden and face death. if I could translate the scriptures written to account for his time there into line cook, it would look a lot like “fuck you. How could you do this to me?” He raged until the Red Sea parted in his mind, and if I know him as well as I think I do, he made that connection while he was still alive…………

because he was a rabbi, and I was born to upper management.

I’ll Have to Ask My “Wife”

September 5, 2023September 5, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What does your ideal home look like?

I may have accidentally gotten myself married off this weekend. Of course it’s all in jest, but I did make a genuine friend. It all started with an in-group chat re: a woman saying that she had just been on her first date with a woman, and was already sweating bullets over what to do next. Here’s my reply:

She’s a woman. She’s on pins and needles. Text her right now before she has a heart attack. And yes, I’m kidding. But trust me when I say that most women who date women are not direct and it’s confusing AF. You’re lucky you knew you were on a date and so did she.

And then I said, “and if you post in two weeks that you’re getting married, SO HELP ME GOD.”

It was then that the real conversation started, because I hit a nerve I knew I would. It’s just too easy, because what I’m talking about is fairly unique to women loving women and common in every country/culture. It has become a joke over the years, so much so that I’m surprised U-Haul hasn’t built an entire ad campaign around it.

So, anyway, a woman replied to me with a gif of a woman driving a U-Haul and I said “we need to focus on her right now. Stop flirting with me.” She thinks that’s funny and we keep talking. We have someone ask for a wedding invitation and someone offer to plan it for us- in “colors that are bold, yet somehow neutral.” I don’t think I’ve laughed harder in months.

We ended up friending each other because of a different part of the conversation. She says she’s an introvert. I said, “I was going to tell you I’m an introvert, but it’s so much worse than that. I’m a writer. And if you really need an excuse to poke your eyeball with a fork, I’m also a novelist.” Her reply? “Omg. So am I. Jesus. We’re already married.”

It was then that I knew she was a keeper. 😉

Well, in terms of a professional contact. I really don’t have many writer friends, so I asked her if I could friend her to talk shop. What started out as a joke turned into a genuine connection in the span of a few hours…. even if we don’t end up getting married in two weeks.

Here’s how my old life influenced my new one. For the last 10 years, I have had a boss ass bitch in my head giving me confidence. I am no longer one of those women who can’t be direct and just goes with the flow right up until they can’t. I wasn’t treating women like I had to be afraid of their opinions. It is not my job to be likable. It is my job to be myself and to let the right people gravitate toward me. It’s not being mean. It’s being in charge of my own vibration and making it loud enough that people either boost the signal or walk away. They have control over the amps, not my volume control.

So now, when I think of the perfect house, the only thing I require is a space that is totally and completely mine. Reflection is what I need to decide whether a problem does or does not go to 11.

As for decor, I haven’t even finished planning my “wedding” yet. Give me another two weeks. 😉

A Lot More Than People Think

September 4, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 4 Comments

What brings a tear of joy to your eye?

I cry a lot.

I’m the most tenderheart bear you will ever meet in your entire life if you could, because first of all most of you aren’t American, much less close enough to see me in real life. Secondly, I said I cried a lot. I didn’t say that anyone saw me do it.

To be honest, most of my tears fall when we’re talking, because your side of the conversation isn’t in the room.

I wasn’t always this way. I used to cry in front of people all the time… mostly because I’m a musician and there are certain chord structures that control my tear ducts. If a dissonance resolves by dropping the bass so that the resolution expands deep into your chest, my physical reaction often includes tears. If it is a choir singing a capella, I can pretty much guarantee it.

I have even fallen apart in rehearsal.

There is really nothing like a basso profundo standing behind you, projecting a low E into the center of your back. I’m a soprano, yet basses make me happy. There have been moments I’ve wanted to cry during a performance, and luckily not because it was a train wreck (usually). Sometimes, the beauty of a moment descends upon you and you really don’t have a choice.

I had a conductor speak to this once, and it changed my life by helping me put on a game face. When we (the choir) are singing, it’s not our job to have a reaction. It’s the audience’s turn to have a reaction.

After that, touching moments during a concert were not for me to enjoy. I hadn’t paid for a ticket.

Writing brings tears of joy as much as music does, because I’ve already said that I cry when I’m writing to you. But there are television writers that can flatten me way faster than I can destroy myself. I have cried at long distance commercials, Hallmark movies, and knives “made for my family by a Boston silver smith named Paul Revere.”

The tears of joy started falling while typing out the last line.

To Emote -or- The Letter of the Law

September 3, 2023September 3, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 19 Comments

Why do you blog?

Being raised as a preacher’s kid caused me to alternate between carrying my heart on my sleeve and shutting down so that my real emotions remained hidden. This is due in a small way to my dad’s congregation and trying constantly to be the one who doesn’t need anything from anyone. I was actively trying for perfection in this area, because according to my mother, I needed to be the perfect child. But she didn’t say that in words. It was more that we had a job to do. Stiff upper lip and all that. It was bonkers, because my dad was the one with the actual job and he never expected any of that crap. My mother was the puppet master, and I don’t know that she knew that, but we did. We all lived in fear of rocking the boat.

This is going to sound horrible, but you’ve never known me to do anything but tell the truth. I never told my mother to shut the hell up and get with the program, and I desperately needed to do it for my own sanity. And, of course, she’s not here to defend herself, but on this one, she really can’t. It’s the one time in my life where I thought, “I will never forgive her ever in my lifetime.” I was just angry, of course. I did indeed get over it. But it took a very, very, very, very, very long time.

When I came out, my mother cornered me in my room and told me “I will not embarrass this family that way.” There’s more to it than that, but thankfully I’ve blocked it out. Only that one line remains, a scar on my skin healed over with time, but never forgotten.

Here’s what she never really took in:

Everyone already knew and talked shit behind her back. They knew before I DID. People with eyes recognize baby queers, even if their parents don’t. When I was 14, they thought I was being molested and at least two people cornered her and told her she needed to get me the hell out of that situation. It was too late, because I was already gone. It was a Supergrover kind of love at the wrong place and wrong time. However, if that hadn’t been a factor, I do think I would have been stuck in a miserable relationship considering how I think marriage is working out for her partner. I wouldn’t be her for cold hard cash. I am sure that she professes her love to everyone no matter the case…… because she has more in common with my mother than she would ever admit. She’s the puppet master, and I don’t know that she knew that, but we did.

Actually, that’s bullshit. Of course she fucking knew. I had all the rights and responsibilities of a partner, listening to all the crap going on in her life that was wildly inappropriate for a teenager. But I didn’t have her. She wanted me to be the one that wanted her while she played blissfully ignorant. I didn’t get laid, but I was well and truly fucked. The situation didn’t have to be romantic for it to be terrible. Supergrover is actually a tiny, tiny bit older than this woman, and I’m picturing her at her age when I was 14, and that was my BAZINGA! moment. I couldn’t picture her telling me jack shit for anything in the world….. to protect me, the very thing that I thought was happening and it turns out it, in fact, was not.

At some point, I’m going to go see about a boy. He’s already married, so it’s not like that. It”s that he was my boyfriend before Ryan, so, seventh grade, the one that was there every single Sunday and could probably tell me a lot more than I could tell him about what was going on if he remembers at all. It’s not that I was insignificant to him, it’s that it’s been 31 years now.

If he doesn’t remember, his dad could have written the dissertation. He was one of the ones that really saw through the bullshit, and he didn’t stop anything, but he was really the first person that made me absolutely lock down.

Unfortunately, the F is no longer with us.

Contrast my mother’s reaction to everyone else’s, including the actual pastor in the family.. My dad told the United Methodist Annual Confereence to shut the hell up and get with the program. Very politely, of course. He went to the floor, where there were hundreds of his colleagues gathered to vote on whether “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” You could wake up a Methodist in the middle of the night and the only thing they know from The Discipline is that one line.

I would have been an incredible Methodist pastor. The best, really, because I learned from the best. I would have brought something new and completely different to them if they hadn’t taken me out like it was Trash Day in Harris County.

Here is a paraphrase of what he said, made all the more brave, crazy, and stupid because it was 1995. The other thing you should know is he did not tell me what he was going to do beforehand. He didn’t tell anyone. He stepped out on a ledge, and he flew:

“It’s really easy to say that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching…. to group everyone together and call them ‘the homosexuals.’ But it looks different when it’s Carol’s niece. Bob’s nephew. David’s daughter.”

The vote did indeed pass, but it was closer than it had ever been.

I went to the church that day seeking God. They weren’t there until my dad finished.

The Bible says in Matthew 18:20 “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them.” In that moment, no one else was in the room except my dad and me. It wasn’t the first time I had a spiritual experience. Life is full of them. But that’s the moment “Jesus wept” became extremely loud and incredibly close. The church itself was just an expensive building….. as if no one had bothered to invite him. He wept in sorrow for some of his followers, and elation for others.

Jesus wasn’t crying because I’m queer and therefore bad or unworthy. He was crying because these supposed “fishers of men” were trying to lift the net after they got into it. But they will certainly spend queer money……. because they love you…….. when you tithe. Otherwise, good luck. You can belong to a church for 30 years and give them millions, but they still won’t do your wedding or ordain you.

When I could have been a “contenduh.” I know I talk a lot of shit, but not about this. When I’m on fire, I’m unstoppable. It just doesn’t happen all the time…… but that’s not being a bad preacher/pastor. That’s being a perfect human.

My dad didn’t quit his job because of me. He acknowledged his divinity and his humanity. It is both too complicated to explain and above your pay grade to know why. But on the way out, he raised hell in front of THE PEOPLE WHO FUCKING DESERVED IT.

Not me.

But everything was fine.

You can completely ignore me and I will be totally fine until I explode, angry at the world because NO ONE IS PAYING ATTENTION TO ME. It seems so ridiculous on my part to feel like a toddler, but sometimes I do. It’s okay for no one to notice that I’m sad or hurt or depressed or whatever… but if they love me, what should happen when I fade into the woodwork and am not noticed for years? I can keep it up flawlessly right up until I can’t.

How I have turned needing other people into not needing them at all is knowing that everything in the world would disappear and it would take a lot for me to notice if I was in the middle of an entry. I am now in charge of taking care of me, and I am much better about expressing a full range of emotions, especially when I am sitting alone and writing here, because nothing is directed. It is not my job to have a reaction when I’m finished.

Again, I don’t need friends. I want them. I cannot be dependent on them for validation, however.

It is to acknowledge that writing itself is a spiritual experience, and you (plural) becomes you (singular) in my mind…………

Where two or three are gathered, and Christ walks into the room.

If I know Christ as well as I think I do, here’s what Jesus would have said to the Annual Conference that day, actually the words of “Paul” in the second letter to the Corinthians:

You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts. known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the Living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant- not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.

The letter of the law killed me…….. and resurrection happens in the middle of the mess.

There is nothing more responsible for that rebirth than you are.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Coffee and doughnuts will be served in the Fellowship Hall. 😉

Happier Than I’ve Been in Weeks

September 1, 2023September 1, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

How are you feeling right now?

I didn’t start my day writing because last night was date night with Zac and I’m staying at his house until Tuesday morning; he’s going camping and Oliver isn’t. Oliver would love to go camping, but he’s just not wired that way. He would deal perfectly with the nature aspect, he’s just not friendly, Bob.

Oliver, for those just joining us, is a dog. He loves being outside. What he does not love is strangers. I cannot trust him on a walk, and I appreciate the HELL out of people who ask me if they can pet my dog, because I can tell them ahead of time that it’s not a good idea. Oliver is a pit bull mix, so other people seem to innately understand without pushing. It’s not just people. Oliver is not friendly with other dogs, either, but not in an aggressive way. He’s basically me with two extra feet. I, like him, choose a few people to love incredibly intensely and ignore the outside world. I absolutely adore days where it’s just the two of us. We should call Bryn later. I love talking to her while I’m curled up with him…. almost as she loves talking to me while curled up with her dog, Pippi.

Zac is currently getting ready to leave, not imminently, just puttering about the house trying to make sure he’s got what he needs. I find it best to stay out of the way, because I can’t help him unless he tells me what he needs, and his brain is too scrambled to do that. My way of helping is limited to pithy comments.

I love this relationship so much, because I can be all of me. I was just thinking this morning that I am way less Zac’s girlfriend than his twinkie bitch boyfriend…………….. I love that I don’t want to be anything but his twinkie bitch boyfriend. Neither titles really apply, I just don’t have a better word for it. Neither one of us want anything more than we have, and yet our relationship is not insignificant to me, either. It is very much how I saw much, much older people dating when I was a kid. If a woman becomes a widow, in my experience they look at how hard being married is and think, “nope.” I feel that way and nobody died.

I joke about being Zac’s boyfriend, but there’s an element of truth to it. I’m genderqueer and nonbinary, but it’s not a 50/50 split. I don’t have a male side and a female side, just like being bisexual doesn’t render me half gay, half straight. I still use she/her because it’s the most apt description, but it’s not the only one, either. Genderqueer and nonbinary are similar terms, but the way I’m using them here is that my appearance on the outside and the inner workings of my mind aren’t all cis. I know I would never change a thing about myself, that I am not giving you new information. I have words for the confusion now and can move on to bigger things.

The most interesting discussion that Zac and I had yesterday was about my writing. That it could be seen as problematic because places like CIA would want to know why I was a drooling fangirl (Zac’s words, but he’s not wrong), and might want a background check to know that I’m not just with him to pump him for information because I’m not who I say I am. I’m not worried if such a thing did come to pass. You’d only have to talk to me for five minutes to ensure I’m actually an idiot about all this stuff on purpose. I don’t want to know what’s going on in Russia and China because that’s not what I’m looking for. I am looking for things that are far more granular.

I want to know about the people, and not even certain ones. My alternate history covers military and intel, so it isn’t about learning facts. It’s about learning what it takes to do the job, what kinds of personalities are in the room, what they eat, drink, wear. I want to know everything CIA wouldn’t care that I know. Lots of things are classified, but I’m betting that what kind of cookies Carol made Tuesday isn’t. Now I’m picturing a meeting minutes document with “chocolate chip” blacked out.

CIA gets really fucking funny when you look at it like an episode of “The Office,” even funnier now that Jim Halpert is Jack Ryan. I love things that are humorous more than serious- for instance, one of my favorite intelligence movies is “Burn After Reading,” because you don’t even know how bad you need to see CIA written by The Coen Brothers until you do. Every bit as funny as Intolerable Cruelty, O Brother Where Art Thou, and Raising Arizona. It’s just not my favorite movie because Argo is just as funny and packs a more serious punch now that I’ve actually spent time talking to Tony Mendez’ widow, Jonna.

It will always be a regret of mine that Argo lit my fire to learn how to write stuff like that and not making it to DC before Tony stopped doing public appearances due to his Parkinson’s Disease. It was a glorious moment when Jonna told me it was a shame I never got to meet him, because he would have really liked me. She also told me that she loved what I wrote about us meeting, but there’s no accounting for taste. 😉

Part of what drives writing about intelligence is where I live. I have loved spy movies since childhood, but in the way that a casual observer would. Like, they’re cool, but whatever.

This is how it works in my family. You’re just going about your day and then you see a movie that speaks to you and then it becomes part of your personality. For me, it was Argo. For Lindsay, it was Jurassic Park…. and My Girl…. Pretty sure Lindsay will never leave her Ellie and Vada phases behind, just like I’ll never leave Tony. It is just a bonus that he is not fictional. I even have a picture of him wearing “my shirt,” the one that says Argo @#$% Yourself and has the museum logo on the sleeve.

I picture working with CIA to create things, not working against them. Homeland was brilliant, and they had a hand in it through their Hollywood relations board, or whatever it is they really call it. Yes, I’m a drooling fangirl, but it’s also part of my job as a writer. I cannot write things I don’t know, so I study a lot. That’s because all I can do is study. I would have had a great career at CIA had the random dice of the universe not rolled “mental illness.” I write about spies because I am not capable of being one.

Accepting that I cannot do everything, but I can write about it has made all the difference in the world. I see my position as truth teller about lots of things as valid….. keeping in mind that it’s only my truth.

It’s not just acceptance. It’s feeling settled and happy living with purpose. It’s creating character, both for me and the fictional ones who live in me. I am liking spending time with my characters more and more, because I don’t feel responsible for them. They do and say what they want and I just write it down. It doesn’t even matter if I like it. It’s their conversation.

Making My Own Space

August 31, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What daily habit do you do that improves your quality of life?

What really helps me is a place of my own. I think about it all day, every day. About how in this house I have one. It is my space and no one is allowed in without permission. There is no social expectation on me to share my bed with anyone.

When Dana and I moved to Houston, not long after I realized that our house was huge enough for Dana and me each to have our own rooms, and I set it up that way. It didn’t have anything to do with my relationship with Dana. It had to do with the fact that we seemed to be exceptional at everything except sleeping next to each other. When I moved into my own room, I slept deeper than I had in years, and it made me a convert. One of the things you can do to make your relationship better is to sleep in separate beds as long as neither one of you are taking it personally. Dana definitely did take it more personally than I did, but also rolled with it, so at this point, I don’t know if my needing space was good for both of us or not. If It was too selfish, I apologize. Cosleeping is just not going to be a part of my life going forward. I have to take care of me in this way or I do not function well.

If Zac and I were on a relationship escalator, the thing that would work in his favor is that he has a huge house with many bedrooms and absolutely no expectation for me to be in his. I am betting that neither one would turn down the other’s invitation, however…….

That’s the difference. Right there. Even in a couple, you need to carve out room to still be the two individuals you used to be.When I could sleep better, I could handle having the rest of my identity being leslieanddana. It wasn’t the relationship I objected to. It was the cultural norm, thinking that there was something wrong with me because I didn’t want to sleep next to her every single night. So, I looked it up. Lots of couples suck at sleeping together, and sleep is too precious to waste.

Not cosleeping is dating energy. It’s as fresh and as hot as you want it to be… But that is my answer. It is not everyone’s. I’m not saying it’s the right way, just my way. At this point in time. I am both too young and too old not to know what’s coming down the pike. If I say never again, the next person I date is going to have a toddler that likes to sleep with his ass glued to my face. Never say never.

It has nothing to do with the way I feel about my current life… and everything to do with the way I sleep. I get night terrors, and I’d rather be alone. They don’t happen often, short and intense. I don’t think I’ve been with Zac long enough for him to see one, because if he did, he would have said something. That’s because I see him so rarely that sleeping next to him is a treat, not an obligation. If we were closer, the novelty would wear off. I can make it work for a night here and there, but in negotiating living with another partner, I need to know it is not demanded of me unless there are extenuating circumstances like a toddler sleeping with his ass glued to my face.

Although now I’m getting old enough that my partner’s kids would be teens/20s or there would be an age gap between us. Not that I am complaining about either thing. It’s just reality. The only thing of which I am certain is that if I do have children, I will not birth them. I know I am physically capable of carrying a child at 45 or 46, but I have no desire at all. Just put it in the negative numbers.

Thinking about the one thing I do every day- being safe in a space of my own- lets me branch out to an enormous degree. My thoughts can run wild because there’s no one to interrupt them (although interruption can be a good thing when I’m going down the wrong road). Being alone allows me to be a better writer because I am living in shifts. I am reacting and reflecting. To take away a space of my own limits rumination, certainly, but it also curbs creativity. I don’t just bitch in these sessions. I’m trying to figure out what’s signal and what’s noise.

For instance, I got a Facebook meme THIS MORNING bitching about the U2 album Apple put on their phones once. That was in 2013. As if that is the worst problem in your world….. to get FREE MUSIC (and if you didn’t want it, you could just delete it).

When I listened to that album, I found one of my favorite songs, “Every Breaking Wave.” Of course my favorite song of 2013 came from that album, but knowing why is above your pay grade. That’s an inside joke, and I know who will laugh when they get here. People who have real problems just roll their eyes at stuff like this, and that’s a large part of the joke.

I remember the conversation surrounding it- not funny until we ran the conversation into the ground a hundred times. Basically it was all about perspective. There’s conflict all over the globe, as well as hunger and a thousand other problems, but you’re cranked up because you lost maybe 150 MB on a 16 GB phone. What the fuck ever.

I have two paths of thought regarding this. The first is that there are so many problems in the world. Why is this something they remember over 10 years later? Alternatively, most people don’t like to get vulnerable. Bitching about U2 is infinitely easier than walking into your own valleys of vulnerability. Even then, I said something along the lines of “honey, I get it. The world is fucked up. But more today than yesterday?” Said person was also using the surface level to express fear and doubt about much bigger problems.

At the time, I was sort of going through a thing vicariously through someone else. A friend of a friend had been murdered. So, of course the U2 album was going to set them off. It was the right thing at the right time to blow off some steam.

It wasn’t that the world had become worse. Ours had.

I think about those kinds of memories all the time in the name of putting them down. I wake up every morning and reassess the day before, and it has been habit for 20 years. Although I haven’t always posted daily. I’m on my 61st or 62nd day of that, trying to get it ingrained as a habit. I was going to talk about writing every day vs. cosleeping, but two things about that. The first is sleeping alone informs everything else. I could not do what I do without rolling over and accessing my tablet first thing. The second is that I already have an entry called “This,” It asked about my collections, and these entries are it for me.

They don’t take up space. In my room.

And now, without further ado, the best thing that came out of the worst thing that Apple has ever done, apparently:

Making Connections

August 30, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I was just thinking about how I said that the Bible was an ancient blog at best, because there is no argument for God. There is an argument over people’s reactions to God. My ruminations are just as important as theirs because reaction to the divine is individual. You talk about how it influences your life, and it either attracts or repels people upon execution. I hope I act like I’m in touch with my divinity, and lead them to believe that it guides me in a way that atheists would never find offensive. That’s because most atheists don’t actually hate God. They hate what Christianity has become and they’re mad af about it because we keep forcing something down their throats that they’ve thought about for years and decided enough is enough. White supremacy Jesus can only be justified so much.

It would be so much more if Christians hadn’t been overtaken by the Republican party that their set of beliefs is the first thing that comes up in an atheist’s mind. There’s sometimes no room for me in that crowd, because they don’t believe I exist. It’s my job to just keep being me and not judging anyone for anything. Anyone who thinks otherwise isn’t really listening. Zac is. He gets to stay. 😉 All atheists who aren’t offended I’m not are welcome. I love debates between Christopher Hitchens and Rowan Williams. I think he would have loved Michael Curry as well.

Michael Curry added a depth to the Anglican church that they didn’t even know they needed, even after electing Katherine Jefferts Shori as bishop. That was important, but being black is unique in a singular way. White people do not support the black perspective as much as they should, but when they did, Michael Curry brought James Cone with him. Liberation theology hits different, and it is one thing to always preach to a black audience. He got a chance to direct that message exactly where it needed to go. He preached one of the most famous sermons in the entire world- Harry and Megan’s wedding. He said that we could set the world on fire with love if we only tapped into it.

I’m trying to explore what’s stopping me. I have a talent for self destructing. It’s brilliant, really. It’s also not all my fault as I am set up to fail six ways from Sunday. I am learning how to deal with my limitations realistically instead of having the pipe dream of getting better as a cook. There are things I just cannot do that able-bodied people can. It didn’t work out. Doesn’t mean I can’t 100% miss the thing that makes me the happiest in life.

Just like Anthony Bourdain (I know people call him Tony, but he said once that he only likes it when his friends call him that), writing is the thing I love most in the world that can give me the highs and lows of cooking. Just like him, intelligence and cooking are woven together, his in fiction. Mine is real in the sense that I write about my life and I’ve taken the time to listen to Zac and really take in what he’s saying because I’ve been interested in it since childhood, everything I didn’t get to ask my great uncle because he was taken from us when I was too young to understand. And he might not have been taken from us the way it went down, but no one will ever know. It just adds to the mystery, the legend in my family. I could get the public version through a FOIA request, but I don’t think I want to know what really happened. I’ll find it on my own eventually if I keep researching the era of C/DIA I’m studying for dialogue and accounts of real events.

It’s not that the people of the Bible hold authority over our lives. It’s to show that a group of people trying to write a story can succeed. Christians continue to write that story, but more of us write it like we’re in it for ourselves rather than our betterment in order to be in community. You cannot take on more than you can handle, and you cannot expect everyone to catch you all the time. Recognize the hell out of the people who do, because they’re the ones to which you owe the biggest honors and favors.

If you don’t act like a connection matters, it won’t- depending on your tolerance for not being able to fix a problem. Sometimes your rope is very short and you have to apologize for being quick to jump to conclusions. Sometimes it’s enormous because it takes time for a problem to simmer to the surface. The honeymoon phase of any relationship is addicting. Bromance is almost as instantaneous as it was in Stepbrothers. Because of this, it’s really hard to break into a group of guy friends and feel like a regular. That’s because they have five friends from fifth grade so you’ll be FNG until you die. 😉

I’m the same way. I value time and effort. That’s why I value input so much. When I talk about my response to God, you can talk back because I speak in a universal language to express something ineffable (thanks, Neil). Everything comes down to secular humanism, because no one has a lock on what God is or isn’t, but everyone knows how they feel in the Blue Ridge mountains or on a plane with the possibility of going down. I am betting that Zac can describe this fear more than most because I cannot imagine the feeling of being trapped on a ship or a sub during conflict. Even if you love it normally, you’re going to react like a goalie. Most of the time, the play is on the other end of the pitch, but when it comes down to you, it really, really counts. Being a goalie can actually come down to 89:53 of nothing followed by a stunning amount of terror.

It was getting quiet in here, so I put on my latest mindworm. It’s jazz, “RFK in the Land of Apartheid” by Jason Moran and the Bandwagon. It’s inspiring because it’s mathematically complicated, but I’ve been listening to it on repeat for years to get it out of the way. Now the bass is a life blood.

It is another thing that puts me in the correct frame to write because I also hear people dealing with white people Jesus. Apartheid Jesus wrecked South Africa. Every time we talk about it, we reinforce why that stuff should never happen again. Americans need to face the reality that all minorities fear being put under that kind of system. Hopefully it will never be a dictator who think white lives matter just a little bit more. A lot of Americans have proved that’s what they’re looking for in a leader, and it’s our right and responsibility to write it down, but not to add to the fire. To be there as a witness. People are doing it with their cameras, I choose to do it in words.

You cannot always feel a divine presence, but it’s up to you to nurture it in the way you know best. It’s not that atheists don’t experience those feelings of wonder. They just don’t attribute it to God because they don’t see that thread of divinity that comes with acknowledging someone’s humanity. They see it mostly as a grandfather in the sky, because that’s what the church has represented for thousands of years. I, like they do, see morals and relativity through the lens of other people’s behavior. I, like Arundati Roy’s brilliant title, believe in the God of Small Things.

I choose to correlate that to the message in the book of Acts, that resurrection happens in the middle of the mess, or in this case, when you least expect it. It takes work to get down to the smallest part of yourself, not just to be able to acknowledge your feelings but to tell another person as well. Just like the historical Jesus, the message is here if you want it. I’m just never going to say that your way of viewing the divine is invalid and that it’ll land you in hell. I don’t even know whether I’m going or not and I am nowhere near 94% correct as to how God works. Neither were the people in the Bible.

Old Testament is all of us on a bad day. New Testament is all of us on a good day apologizing for it. Feeling saved by God/Jesus is the same feeling as being saved by friends or family when you’re in the shit. God is not the grandfather in the sky. It’s the audience I talk to when I’m alone, because especially when I’m writing here, I can’t be sure that God is listening, but I can be sure that you are.

It also helps my friends understand me better because they see me talking about both them and others when I can’t be sure they’re listening or care. They, in effect, see the way I talk about them behind their backs, but not for malice. Because both good and bad reactions are valid. It takes work to resolve a conflict without either party feeling slighted. Depending on who’s in office, we’re better at it or worse. Some administrations, frankly, just like the dollar signs that come with being pro-war and don’t want to be smart about intelligence keeping conflict down because it’s “good for the economy.” Whose, exactly?

Because when we stop thinking as a worldwide people instead of Americans first, we open the door to being oppressors instead of support police. We end up staying longer than we need because we’re making good money. Who cares what it does to them? And then when their countries have been ransacked, we pull a lot of racist bullshit when we have plenty of room. There are even states that are basically empty.

The huge problem we have in Texas is that when Greg Abbot sends a busload of people to Washington, his supporters cheer. He keeps doing it whether it’s legal or not because it’s popular. You can’t stop that problem from this end without federal intervention.

The problem is twofold. The first is that people don’t actually come together to fix the problem. They sort of kick the can down the road rather than hiring enough people to handle that kind of influx. Meanwhile, if you don’t know anyone here, you could get a higher priority if you’re willing to settle where we put you. That way, we have more infrastructure and tax base in places that need it to survive.

No requirement to stay, of course. Just that it might give you a better chance if you were willing to live in a smaller city.

We fail ourselves by telling us that we are so much better apart than together. Being apart creates separation from God, because we make God in our own image. If people are displeased by us, so is the divine. It’s the only thing that can inspire true change in behavior, because you have to want change to come and you cannot process it properly without looking at it from a third person perspective. It doesn’t matter to me whether people have access to that concept through running or prayer. It’s not the semantics, it’s the protein.

Speaking of which, I need some.

It’s a connection I made.

I Would Have To Pretend to Make it Interesting

August 30, 2023August 30, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 2 Comments

What was the last thing you searched for online? Why were you looking for it?

I Google very little. I absorb news, and expect my audience to look things up if they’re confused. It’s work easily done and taken off me, because I can just refer to a story instead of trying to find the link again amongst thousands I skim. Therefore, most of my Google searches are in support of my very random brain trying to process what it’s hearing. I am also not writing a part of my book that requires things like “please God NSA this is for a novel how fast does someone die with cyanide?

I don’t even have to look that up. It’s seconds, thanks to “The Moscow Rules” by Tony and Jonna Mendez. We had a Russian asset take one by biting into a pen. He was dead before he hit the floor. It’s a completely tragic end, but better than Russian torture and death.

I feel I should say that I am not being gloom and doom here. My dad is all good so far and there’s nothing to worry about. If there was, I’d know it with accuracy.

Because I retain so much information, it’s like I cook. I forget everything I know in relying on recipes and just look at the ingredients I have. When I write, I have Googled ahead of time rather than working toward a point. Clearly. 😉

I have not once Googled myself to see what other people are saying about me. I get enough of that in my own life. Besides, I don’t think anyone is saying much of anything. Life is long, though. Maybe something I write will go truly viral like Dooce, but even if it doesn’t, I am happy with my life right now. I write because I cannot stop, not based on its worth to other people. It’s my outlet, not theirs.

I don’t even care if Bryn and Zac read, because sometimes it’s really nice to have a conversation that’s not based on what I wrote that day. That people aren’t anticipating what I’ll say based on what they understand before our next interaction. I can and often do change my mind between entries, and when I do, I will explain it here.

I figured out why it bothered me so much when my beautiful girl is upset that I write her as flat. It’s that she’s a part of me, and if I’m writing her flat, then I’m coming across as that, too. I march to the beat of my own drum, but the rhythm has changed over the years. Life is in the rests.

That’s got to stop, obviously. However, it won’t change unless we do. We will see each other as part of ourselves because our conversations are not out loud. They resonate deeply because of lack of tone of voice. It’s a lot different when you’re always making up your own and it doesn’t match up.

I could not say the things I say about anyone out loud (unless I was working a crowd and it was innocuous enough not to be offensive) because my neurodivergent urge is to just run and hide, but be clear in my communication when I don’t want to be in front of people. My social battery varies from Oprah to Harper Lee.

I take a lot of things people say way too seriously because I want them to know that what they’ve said has resonated and I’m listening. That’s because most of the time their words are echoing through my filters and I’m hearing something different than they’re saying. We do it to each other all the time in conversation, it’s just quicker to correct a mistake.

Even Zac and I are good at this- saving up conversations for in person face time. The reason I say we’re good at it is that tabling a discussion doesn’t make it go away. He’s better at circling back around than I am.

It’s a balance because sometimes I feel I express myself better in writing, sometimes in speaking. Either way, I am better at connecting with people in a public forum than one on one. That’s because if people hear you speak live, they are less likely to take anything personally because I have good boundaries and they know I won’t embarrass them. I’m a good person to ask when you need someone to speak at a wedding reception or a funeral. I’m really funny, I promise. I’m just a grump of a writer. We all are to some extent. Hard exterior from years of self abuse because not only do we think we’re not that great, neither does anyone else. People say that they respect authors. Most of the time, they respect fame.

I find it easier to express conflict in writing and love in person, so if you only know me in one arena, you’re getting more of me in one area and less of me in others. I don’t mean that I am always on fire about everything, it’s that I can be conflict avoidant in person, but tell them how I feel under no pressure to respond. I will tell you how long I think is reasonable to keep checking in to see if you are listening, but I am not goading you to respond, I am telling you my boundaries. I will disconnect, but I will express unhappiness easier because I’m not taking it personally. I focus on the people who show up.

It’s the only healthy thing to do, because you know for sure that you’re in the right relationship when you don’t feel like you have to do anything to get love. That you won’t always get when you need, but you’re allowed to be you and bitch about it until we can agree. Nothing is worse than feeling more lonely in a relationship than actually by yourself.

Show up for the family and friends who don’t make you feel lonely because they accept all of who you are. Who alternate between lifting you up and not making you the main character in every story so that you can see I accept you no matter what. That there’s nothing on earth that would make me run from something feeding both of us.

The last thing I Googled something that really meant a lot to me was stories about losing your female friends. One was a reddit thread, one was a book I bought called “Your Other Ex.” I thought it was so hard to explain our bond when there are legit millions telling this same story. Some of it goes back to childhood. I think it really is as hard as a breakup because losing Supergrover was losing the two things that mean the most to me about our relationship. The first is that she’s the bridge between my old life and my new one, and she’s been that for two moves now, not just one. Her feelings are probably about the same given that she’s now offered to hide several bodies under her pool. But it would be nice to hear it out loud. I’m not so much of a judgmental dickhead when that’s the energy I feel coming off you. I pick up on aggression just as easily as she does, but she did not like me trying to work it through or de-escalate. It came off as condescending when I was trying to not be “that guy.” The one who tells you to calm down. I thought I was telling her that I heard her rage and to have it out, but don’t run when that makes me feel rage, either. Sometimes I can keep my lid on. Sometimes I am not smart enough to take the high road.

We used to be great at taking care of each other, but then we both told each other things we cannot take back ever at all. Instead of continuing to take care of each other, we turned away. We shouldn’t have done what we did for all sorts of reasons because it made logistics complicated. I needed to have a real life that accommodated time travel, basically. Meeting her was like gaining a dual processor, and not even a basic ARM. I mean top of the line Threadripper.

That has way more than two physical cores, but you get the picture.

You have to give room for lag given our senior citizen appearance in tone of voice.

But it’s also a complicated construct, because our issues aged both of us in different ways, and yet it feels no different than fighting with another little girl when I was eight. Still that primal scream when you lose someone really important at that age. No one tells you that it’s just as hard having a friend from toddlerhood to junior high disappear as much as it is from age 35 to 45. On the young end of the spectrum, she saved me in a way that I will never pay back. On the end, she ignored my attempts to try. Our relationship got so fucked up from not changing mediums when we didn’t trust each other that it was great she was here if she wanted more, but it’s better for me that she doesn’t. Because here’s what could happen if she’d let it. We could forgive ourselves and each other and accept this new reality rather than slamming each other to the ground when there’s a problem.

I regret everything I’ve done to make myself seem like an untrustworthy friend, and find it useless to jump up and down trying to prove it now…. that DC has been home in my head since I was 23, not because we met. That I was correcting a mistake instead of trying to get to her, because I was writing down all the ways it changed me. I didn’t think it would ever change her mind about anything. I just love it here. I went to the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington on a whim from a text. That kind of thing doesn’t happen in Houston.

I don’t think any of that came through as clearly as I needed it to- that I was leaving for DC to be a better friend and not a worse one, because if I’d stayed in DC and regretted moving to Portland, I would have missed meeting her at all. The opposite was true. I liked having the TARDIS land on my lawn. Who wouldn’t?

It does affect the way I think, though. I am hesitant to have a relationship that is all virtual again. There are too many traps to fall into, mostly that I think I’m not asking a lot when I write to someone in order to be heard and it fails. Then what do you do? You start fighting tot distance yourselves when it’s not really possible.

Whether I’ll consider being a virtual friend to her is based on whether the internet is helpful or hurtful, whether I can capture real feelings and so can she without sacrificing humanity and focusing on individual divinity.

If there’s anyone I don’t want to write flat, it’s the voice I hear when I type. It’s just a shame I made it up.

Because I don’t Google normally.

TV Time

August 29, 2023August 29, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What TV shows did you watch as a kid?

I started this entry by just writing a list of the things I watched when I was a kid, and now I need to go back and fill it in. If I didn’t put the list first, I would talk about one show for five pages and then remembered I could add multiples. 😉

Snorks- I cannot say that I remember much about this show now. Then, I was absolutely obsessed. Mostly because they looked like underwater sea creatures and I have always been fascinated by animation of oceans, rivers, etc.

Garfield- There’s one line from the Garfield Christmas special from the 80s (I have a good memory) that reminds me of my unique kinship with my beautiful girl, and I’ve attached it to her for years without her even knowing it. “If the sky were made of parchment and the sea made of ink, I sill wouldn’t have enough to write my love for you…” or something like that, but it’s very touching and you should all look it up, because that one line and the way it’s delivered by Grandma made me cry for like four years running. Now, Pluto TV has an entire Garfield channel, and let’s face it. Garfield was The Dude before The Dude was The Dude.

Doogie Howser, MD- This show absolutely rocked my world, and is actually pretty influential to the way I live my life now. My blog as an idea goes all the way back to the last three minutes of this show. Knowing that Neil Patrick Harris is queer makes the show mean more to me, because it meant that while I was struggling in real life, he was struggling in front of the whole world. But I don’t think I’m that much like Neil. I do, however, think I am very much like Doogie. I know this because now there’s a reboot of Doogie Howser set in Hawaii with a female protagonist. I am very much like her, too.

M*A*S*H*= to be frank, I don’t remember watching M*A*S*H* as a kid. It was on a little bit past my bedtime. I do watch it now, but in the early 80s, what I remember about M*A*S*H* is falling asleep in my room and hearing my dad laughing so loud I thought he was going to burst. I wanted to know what he was laughing about, and now I’ve watched all of it thanks to Netflix.

Young & the Restless- If you have a mother and grandmother who like soap operas, you watch them by osmosis. You get hooked because you’re not allowed to watch anything else. I knew who Michael Damian was way before he hit it big as a pop star. THAT IS CRICKET’S BOYFRIEND MA’AM.

Guiding Light- Young & the Restless was my favorite when I was in the 4-8 range. For some reason, I liked Guiding Light more when I was older. My mom was fanatical about both, but I liked the actress that played “Reva” because she reminded me of a friend. Then she played evil twins or something like that and I really, really loved her. Big shout-out to Cynthia Watros for making my childhood so entertaining with her portrayal of “Annie Dutton.” If you remember Annie, you’ll know why Cynthia got a lot of umbrellas shaken at her in airports. She was so bad it was good.

Jonny Quest- Jonny Quest was part of a Sunday morning line-up, but I don’t remember what channel. What I did know is that it was the one show I had time to watch before it was time to leave for Sunday school, and even then I couldn’t see the end. I have never faked getting out of church to watch Jonny Quest, but don’t think I didn’t think about it.

Davey and Goliath- part of the same Sunday morning bloc as “Jonny Quest.” It’s the one Christian-based television show that didn’t drive me up the wall as a child. Very much like Pokey and Gumby, not too preachy, etc. I don’t think it would stand up to a rewatch, but I definitely loved it when I was a shorty.

The Smurfs- I loved The Smurfs, but I was way more interested in Gargamel and Azriel than I was to any of the little blue people. Azriel owned that show, let’s face it.

Inspector Gadget- I have always been the Penny looking for my Inspector. I could not love a TV show any more than I loved Inspector Gadget when I was a child (with an honorable mention going to Danger Mouse). It was Alias before Alias existed, and I think JJ Abrams knows it. 😉

Sesame Street- Sesame Street has always been SNL for kids, and I still have scenes run through my mind occasionally. My dad and I both love “Put Down the Duckie.” It is well established that as a Muppet, I am Bert, and representation on television is vastly important. See? There I am, monobrow and all. I felt close to Mr. Hooper, Maria, Louis, Susan, and Bob. I also thought it was hilarious when they did spoofs like “Sally Messy Raphael” and “Placido Flamingo.” And now we come to another truth. Kermit the Frog is one of the loves of my life. The Sesame Street News reporter was the first character I loved, but of course I also love The Muppet Show. It’s just the inanity, like reporting live at the scene with Old King Cole.

This Old House- The only show I watch consistently now that I did then. Back then, I was home sick from school and it was the only thing on. Bob Villa felt like a warm, close, personal friend. Now, Kevin O’Connor feels just as solid. In particular, I like “Ask This Old House,” because you write to them and if you get lucky, they just show up and help you fix it. I am sure that this brings hope to many, many people.

I am sure that this list will be different in other countries. Now I want to go explore what other people have said. 🙂

A Stroke, Hopefully of Luck

August 28, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 2 Comments

I just received word that my dad has had a stroke, but there’s a lucky aspect in all of this. That’s that one of his medications is likely to have caused it and the symptoms should go away. He’s having a bit of trouble speaking and moving, but his brain is fully intact. Therefore, it is less o a worry because he’s been like that for a few hours and nothing has gotten worse. The reason he has not already been through an MRI today is because you can’t have a pacemaker on while you’re in the machine, so they have to wait for a technician to turn it off. So far, the brain is clear. What you have to fear is not what you can see, it’s what you can’t. When you’re looking at brain activity from the top down, it spiders outward and one layer might cover up another.

I am hoping it is just a side effect, because I have a different reality now that my mother is dead. I know how serious all of this is, and to pay more attention. At this point, it’s not time to go home. And yet, I understand and have empathy for myself because there’s not a lot I could do if I was there. Everyone right now is just sitting around waiting, and I can do that from here.

Although I do have those moments of “Jesus Christ, just come pick me up.” I’m not airing a grievance with my family, it’s just an expression I’ve picked up over the years when a situation is bad. It’s especially apt in this one because I don’t say it much when going in this direction. Most of the time it’s directed at Southern oppression and am phoning home to Maryland. It’s a coping mechanism, and it’s a good one.

It doesn’t take me long to get tired of living in the Bible belt, but I would return in a heartbeat if my dad needed me, and he knows that. It hits different when the universe knocks you on your ass by your losing one parent, because it makes you paranoid about the other one. It has nothing to do with how my dad is- all signs are good at this point. It’s a waiting game. It has everything to do with my frame of reference for the world being completely smashed to bits. When your parent dies, you are not the same person. Not even close. It rewires everything.

Knowing how much it changes you changes how you feel about other people’s deaths. You know it’s important to celebrate people’s lives and the time they had with you rather than desperately wishing for more. The universe has dice, and it is good at them.

Although I will say that in my grief over my mother, it was very much loss of the future we were building together because dying at 65 is nowhere near long enough to enjoy being retired. She retired in May and died in October. Her husband was 12 years older than her, and it never occurred to her that she would die first. It didn’t occur to him, really, either I don’t think. We were all shocked, therefore death cannot frighten me any more than it already has.

Your parent dying changes you more than it changes them, mostly because once you’ve been through that level of grief, you don’t want to go through it ever again. The main thing is acknowledging that my dad is just unwell right now, and we don’t know anything. I am not making things more serious than they are, just saying where I am emotionally.

When my dad gets sick, it’s natural to worry. It’s just not natural to think that him being unwell means he’s going to die immediately, because that’s my own echo chamber regarding my mother, not anything regarding his health. My mother had an embolism that wasn’t caught in time. She was almost DOA from the time that my stepdad called the ambulance. There were maybe 35 minutes between calls from Lindsay that my mom was being rushed to the hospital and the one where she was dead and I needed to come home. 35 minutes to process what happened with my grandfather’s death, which is that he lived so long he was ready to go. My mother died years ago, and he was fine until a few months ago. He died right before his 93rd birthday. There is no rhyme or reason with illness or death. You’ve just got to dance with them what brung you.

I’m glad I have a place to go when I’m internally freaking out and you know it’s not reality, because I’m not telling you the emotions of everyone in the room. It’s how everything is coming across to me, which is not objective truth. The only objective truth that I know is that before my mother died, I was not prepared for the reality of either one of my parents getting sick.

I am not spiraling out because my dad is sick. I’m rambling because I don’t have the blinders I did then. I do not have to worry that there are things left unsaid or anything like that, it’s just the natural thing a daughter does, just like he always does the things that dads do.

If he could speak properly, it would have been him who called me to tell me his complete history, physical, chief complaint, what is being done, what will be done, and three links describing the procedure and the protocol. We’re kinda different from other families, but we’ve all worked at the practice long enough we can hang.

It wasn’t child labor. We got paid. 😉

It’s also a completely different situation with my dad because he has one of the best doctors in the world watching over him, so she can translate from doctor to idiot quite fluently. That would be talking to people like me, if you were wondering…….

I pretend to know a lot more than I do, which is why if I am sent links, I will read them. They won’t be articles written by Joe from college, they’ll be official prescribing information or JAMA articles. If my stepmom doesn’t think he’ll get the proper care, she’ll move him until she does. His defibrillator is actually controlled by a company out of Boston.

Therefore, my worries are nothing more than my own. I just know you guys will worry with me, and I take all those good feelings in just as easily as I overexplain incessantly while waiting for news.

So far, I have to assume all is good, because if it was bad, someone would tell me to be worried and they’d be accurate about it.

But Jesus Christ, just come pick me up.

Right Now- 0500

August 28, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What’s your favorite time of day?

Most of my audience is overseas, so they actually wake me up most days now. That’s because my watch starts getting notifications before my alarm goes off, generally regarding the entry from the day before. I sometimes start writing right away, sometimes I go downstairs to grab a cup of coffee first. But this audience is my first thought of the day because the Pavolvian urge to grab my tablet and keyboard when someone likes an entry is ingrained. I’ve been on WordPress a lot longer than I’ve done Facebook, but it’s that kind of vibe.

This morning, I wrote out the title of the entry, then promptly decided I needed something to drink and by the time I got back around to picking this back up, hours had gone by. It’s ADHD in a nutshell. Every new promise in the morning must be followed, even ahead of the five promises you’ve already said you’d explore. I have a lot of new beginnings because I have trouble finding middles and ends. ADHD is particularly talented at making you feel like a dumbass. and being a writer is a way to cope. Having a record of what’s happening is a way to keep track of progress… or not. Writing is such a wonderful tool to give yourself therapy when you can’t afford it or can’t get a doctor right away. Even when you do get a doctor, they still can’t spend more than an hour a week with you. Getting better takes so much more effort than that.

People wait to do therapy until they’re in a couple, and I had a thought about that. “If you don’t have time to fix yourself, why do you think you have time to fix someone else?” I’d rather be healthy before I get in a relationship because it keeps conflict to a minimum. I don’t have a problem saying what I mean and meaning what I say. I can give what I require.

I don’t have time for people who don’t have time to fix themselves, because it makes them want to fix me. If there are problems in our relationship, it’s not always going to be 100% my fault. I don’t want to be in a relationship with someone who is so defensive that they think it is because they cannot acknowledge their own humanity.

It’s good now that I know what I’m looking for, because maybe I can avoid that trap in the future. I seem to enjoy people who don’t emote, probably because I don’t want to deal with it….. while also being frustrated that they can’t deal with my emotions, either.

Looking for healthy patterns in which we both have each other’s backs is very important, as well as taking all the lessons I’ve learned over the last 10 years and not making the same mistakes. I have a clean slate in this regard. I am no longer holding onto the past as if I can make it better for the future. I am realizing that those are going to be two very different things and the trick is not to be threatened.

I am threatened by everything, to a certain extent. I already know I don’t fit in most places, and I am sometimes fearless, sometimes a wallflower. I make room for all of those moods, but I don’t expect everyone else to do so…… which is mostly why I write my reflections here. Then, they’re just an open secret because if the people involved want to see how their characters are playing out, they’re welcome. But they’re not required, and I will write them out just as easily as I wrote them in.

The writing reflects life, not the other way around. When I talk about knowing where I’m going on this web site, I’m talking about knowing what emotional changes I have to make within myself because so many times I’ve reread things I’ve written and thought, “that probably sounded better in my head.”

I’m still reeling that my beautiful girl thought I wrote her as a flat character, when I can see every emotion I’ve ever had about her in these pages, more in the words you don’t read.

The urge to write about her has faded except for batting cleanup.

I never could get through to her that her good parts and her bad parts come together to make her the purest person I’ve ever met. That I didn’t hate her for what she’d done, I made my life bigger to accommodate her. That I was in it for the long haul if she was, because I had prepared.

She thought I was saying that I wished our relationship never happened, and I cry at that thought even now. In trying to make it better, I made it worse.

That doesn’t mean my thought process was wrong, it means that she didn’t get the intended message. I’m not sure how it got turned into the complete opposite, but that’s not my call. I don’t have to love it, I just have to live it.

What does feel good is knowing two things. The first is that I cannot un-know or un-say anything. It might lead her to look at my writing in a different way when temperatures aren’t running so high. I do love her in a way I cannot even understand, it runs so deep. But I will have that whether I have her or not, so I have not lost anything in the transaction.

I told her that I poured my love into the character because I could not pour it into her. She has said too many times that she does not accept it. She doesn’t really accept that I have a different reality than her, so I cannot expect her to understand her way around the whole problem. I cannot even do that.

But what I can do is make sure that she knows I was never coming from a place of destruction. That we had to be in the shit for a little while to create something new that we both would enjoy. Like, why should she be the only one that gets to make fun of me and Michael? I am sure that all three of us could make each other laugh with witty retorts.

I just don’t hold out hope for that dream anymore. I told her that if she started acting like she actually forgave me, then she’d be allowed back into my circle. If not, I will know I just chose the pattern I love the most. That it was always about trying to find someone to please. I know that is true on my end, and she has a choice to make as to whether she tells me how she feels or not. So far, the answer is “not,” but I do not think this is a permanent state. Mostly because life is long and it isn’t over. I know that if I’ve been able to keep up these wild and crazy feelings for 10 years, it has never been a game to me. I do not believe it has always been a game for her. I believe as she does that no matter what, we have a past, present, and future. We just have different ways of getting there and cannot seem to jump into the chasm where objective truth is found.

But there’s another part of our relationship that has nothing to do with her at all. Over the last 10 years, she has not only become my real friend, but the one that puts me in the mood to write. When I say she’s my muse, it’s that she’s the one that when she says it’s a good line, I can take it to the bank and cash it. She’s gotten me published professionally by being my editor for the last five years. She’s told me that she’ll edit my book if I wanted, and I know it was a bad career move to walk away from that, but there was so much more to it than that.

It’s because editing my book is her love language, and that part of our relationship is as strong as epoxy. That glue holds us tight. Where we fail is speaking in my love language, because communication is a two-way street. She thinks that I’m the only arbiter of what friendship is and isn’t. I don’t think of it as that at all. I think that I lay out my thoughts and feelings and she thinks she can’t argue with me, get me to see things differently, change me as easily with her words as I change her with mine. I just didn’t think it was fair that we always spoke the way it meant the most to her, and not the most to me.

I think she thought that I needed her to do something so far out of her comfort level that she just didn’t have time and didn’t want to try. The opposite was true. Could you just change how you talk to me when we do interact? I am tired of you thinking that I am goading and provoking you when I am asking for your input? You think I’m asking for too much when you don’t understand the question.

Because she lives in my ink and talks inside my head, echoing in my chest, she’s part of my lifeblood now. I can feel her words coursing through me when I receive them, and it doesn’t matter whether they’re sweet or angry. They are all small pieces of artwork in a tapestry…. or one of those landscape photos made up of individual faces.

She has a beautiful face. It’s the one I look to for love, and have for years. I cannot do that if she doesn’t want it, so my work now is to take everything I’ve written about her and look at what I do want from it and what I want to leave.

What I know is that you can’t change anyone else with your own words, and you need to be prepared for relationships not fulfilling you and not worrying so much about getting out of them. Yes, everything feels new, but in a good way. A life where I am free of past mistakes in their entirety, and not because I wanted it that way.

As Kristina Mahr has said, “I took the tags off this love before I knew I was sure I wanted it. No, that’s not right. I took the tags off this love before I was sure you knew you wanted it.” I know for sure that even if my beautiful girl was interested in women, we would make horrible partners to each other. We cannot even make our love languages work with deep female friendship. I do think we could make friendship work, but because we have distance from each other. I can’t tell a partner to go home, but I can tell her. 😉

That’s because she would understand implicitly that we are both interested in socializing until the battery is dead. Please leave by nine. A group of people is a “no thanks.” We joke that I am the president of Overthinkers Anonymous, and she is the VP because president is a public-facing office. I still can’t get over that one, it’s so funny.

My last witty retort to this was “what a day. Need to find a meeting except there’s only one chapter and it’s really only us. We’re not friendly, Bob.” I said her real name, but “we’re not friendly, Bob” is a quote from my favorite Robin Williams movie, “RV.” You just have to see it to believe it.

Anyway, if you are also a member I will be holding a drive in late September. We’ll pass the hat for dues and coffee. No Folgers, and I get to make it before every meeting. “Leslie, you have one job.”

The point in all of this is that I learned a lot, and God I love her more than anyone or anything on earth, mostly because I’ve had 10 years to get used to the idea. She knows she’s it for me, in some sense, because even when she’s not in my life, she still lives in my ink.

I will look forward to the day when I can take all these life lessons and pour them into someone who wants them…. including her, but she has to show up. I’ve learned to celebrate the people who do. It’s why I think of Bryn and Zac as my partners in crime, both of them, because they serve different roles and I’m happy this way. Maybe it will change, maybe it won’t, but I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth.

I feel that it’s important to take guilt off of everyone when they don’t show up, and just do my own thing. I cannot make other people’s calls for them, especially on the telephone.

I’m not friendly, Bob.

Writing a Letter

August 27, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 3 Comments

Mel told me that she looked forward to my food entries, and I told her that’s because I’m writing her a letter in every single one of them, because even from across the world, she can catch what I’m throwing. She is a chef, the level above me, which means that if I put down a steak, she’ll stand at the expo window and bitch at me even though she knows that a steak takes 13-18 minutes and the ticket was just put in 30 seconds ago please for the love of God make it stop make it stop…….. Kidding, of course I’m kidding. But in the ballet on the brigade, she’s an artistic director, caught between letting me play and impressing the owners before we do a new menu rollout that will hopefully have something I created on it.

So, since every food entry is a letter to her, here’s a real one.

Dear Mel,

I remember that summer is the worst. My first job was in Portland, Oregon where it is both hot and wet in August. There was no air conditioning in the kitchen, and we kept the back door open all the time. Our customers were so bold they’d try to go through there no matter how often we told them it was illegal, even more after they’d already been drinking. If a fight was going to happen at the pub, it was going to happen in front of us, because the back door faced the very tiny parking lot. I was always so glad I worked there, because it was a guaranteed parking spot if you showed up for your shift instead of trying to come in later just to hang. Of course it was my favorite bar. That’s where I actually got meals that someone I knew cooked and it wasn’t me. However, if I hadn’t been drinking, I could go back into the kitchen. If that was the case, every cook knew it.

I’d order something and I would hear a yell from the back…. even from my ex-wife, which made it funnier….. “LANAGAN! Come cook it yourself!” Busted. I figured out that ploy real quick. Clock out and go IMMEDIATELY to the bar and take a shot of something. Anything. Quick, they’re coming! I want a burger and I am not going to stand there in no air conditioning to get it. Do it yourself, Cat Cora.

That was the restaurant where I learned the most, because I was in the kitchen with people I trusted both as coworkers and guinea pigs. If I came up with an idea, Drew would improve it and so on.

When I was at the pub, I did brunch almost every weekend, where there I made pancakes the way you make them. Light, airy, except with a bit of hazelnut fluff. It’s the closest I’ll ever get to pastry, I assure you.

If you ever do come to DC, I have to take you to Milk Bar CCDC. It was a concept built by the woman who, I believe, is the best pastry chef in the world and if you have a chance, come study with her. She’s called Christina Tosi, and she’s one of David Chang’s best friends. Dave had already had success with momofuku, and gave Christina the money to start Milk Bar. Therefore, in both New York and City Center DC, they’re right next door to each other and Milk Bar supplies momofuku with desserts.

Their cereal milk soft serve is divine- not too sweet because it’s made from plain corn flakes.

I am certain that you can get Milk Bar delivered for cheaper than you can come here yourself, but nothing tastes better than a fresh ice cream cone, and I’m not sure they ship in in pints, anyway.

Milk Bar also makes some of the best cakes on record, but they also make a corn pie that’s the most popular thing they sell. To be honest, I’ve always been obsessed with the ice cream and cake aspect. I haven’t had time for pie. But I know Christina’s work well enough that I will shove anything she made into my face no questions asked.

I am less interested in being a pastry chef than knowing a pastry chef. 😉

The closest I’ve gotten to pastry is pantry, where I helped make ice cream bases (bacon, cafe au lait, banana putting, buttermilk [which was actually aciduated milk and froze up like cheesecake], creme brulee, and beignets. It was Cajun food, but a very French execution because my chef and sous were classically trained.

The one exception was the jambalaya, which was served as a risotto and so good it would make you cry. It makes me cry to think that the restaurant doesn’t exist anymore, because it was one of the most exciting times of my life.

One Monday night my coworker, Trina, and I got a comment card that only said “Hot. Lady. Chefs.” And of course you know now my life is complete. No additional compliments necessary for the rest of my life.

Cooking has also been an intro into meeting people I never thought I would meet, because powerful people don’t want to talk about power.

They want another pancake.

Maybe one of these days we’ll take over the world as line cook and pastry chef. Until then, we will have to settle for fantastic food conversations and reminiscing about “the life.” I hope you do get back in the kitchen eventually. I will live vicariously through you. I can even teach you how to flip shit.

I think your dishwasher’s about to quit.

Love,

Leslie