What She Did

December 31, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Daily writing prompt

What makes you feel nostalgic?

The thing that makes me feel the most nostalgic is when I open my inbox and see all the e-mail I’ve received over the years. I never delete anything (in case that is a thing you’d like to know). I also don’t archive anything. I take the good with the bad, the chateaubriand with the Spam (“I’ll have your Spam. I love it.”).

WordPress tells me that I wrote 614,000 words this year, and I feel like every single one of them was dragged out of me to varying degrees. I wrote when I was elated or devastated. I wrote whether I felt physically well or that day was a disaster. I don’t know that I turned pain to beauty in all cases, but I do know that I wrote it down. It doesn’t matter whether it’s recognized or not; it matters in how much all my writing changes me.

Over the last 10 years, I have become more introverted and keep to myself. I think it’s always been that way, but at the same time, I needed to learn self-reliance as well. The last decade can only be described as “hard as shit,” but I’m looking forward to that getting better. It has to, because I swear to Christ it can’t get worse. When I think of everything that has made me who I am, the last 10 years have contained everything I needed to know to be successful by breaking me into a million pieces first. I hope that you never learn what it feels like to be hit by a partner. I wish for you even less that when it happens, people assume you did something to deserve it.

Some people think that about everyone no matter what, but I feel that when it’s just two girls fighting, who cares? Neither Dana nor I were in a good place, and we chose to handle it with avoidance and rage. At times, it was unbearable because I could feel her being nice to me because she knew I was ill, while taking no responsibility for being a factor in my downward spiral. If she’s not an alcoholic, I can at least say with certainty that at the time, she had a problem with drinking. She was not drinking the night she hit me, but she got a DUI and spiraled out afterwards. I did not handle it well, and I’ll never forget the people who stepped in for me when I couldn’t step in for myself.

Nostalgia arrives in the most powerful of ways from reading Supergrover’s old e-mails. It’s not because I need to live in the past, it’s that in a lot of ways, she helped me create a new future. But now it’s my work to do, and I’m on my own. I will never give up hope that the matter is not closed, but I feel it should be- at least for the foreseeable future. I am thinking that she has left the building, but I have no proof of that. All I know is that she’s hiding something, and she won’t tell me what it is. I would rather live the rest of my life without her than continue to tiptoe around her trying not to upset her…… and failing miserably.

There were two gut punches that I’ll never forget, and in order to erase them, it would take a lot.

She has said that she’s exhausted by everything and she wants to throw all my e-mails away.
She has said that I do not write her as a 3D character, that she’s always the same.

That first thing is easier to forgive than the second, believe me. I do not believe the latter is true, because I have talked about all the times she’s been avoidant and all the times in which I was absolutely ecstatic to even be on her radar.

I have written this before, but it is apt here….. “She walks in beauty, and I do because of it.”

I would not be the person that I am today had we not met, because she thinks so much differently than I do that it opened up new neural pathways in my brain. The logical jumps she was making were not the messages I would have gotten, and she doesn’t miss a trick (even with nachos). So, over time, I began to pick up her patois and my writing voice is totally different than it was in 2013. I’m more strident, and I take a lot less crap. But sometimes I go overboard, even with her, and that’s definitely what happened in this case. She made me strong enough to stand there and fight with her, but didn’t like her tone being parroted back to her, either. I’m guessing that’s because she’s a terse writer, anyway, and if you irk her, she’ll make sure you know it. But, then you push back, and she will fucking destroy the land where you live.

She also gives in to the other extreme, loving with wild abandon when she feels safe. I broke her trust, and we could not get back to “safe.” I don’t blame her- it’s a sad situation, not “Supergrover is a bad friend.” But as I’ve said before, I created the original break, and I felt that absolutely never opening up again was not the answer. We had to resolve our conflict, because otherwise, we’d keep being pissed off under the surface and people please until the end of time.

We are both guilty of this; neither one of us wanted to rock the boat.

So, in a lot of ways, when I’m writing here, I am only talking about the character, not the person. She has made it so unpleasant to talk about conflict and resolve it that I just don’t want to try until I have some buy-in. Actually, a lot of buy-in. None of this is fair- not the mistake I made, not the pattern we set up to deal with it yet not, not our treatment of each other when people-pleasing failed. I am sure I have been a frequent topic of conversation because everyone knows what I think, every day….. and not because I am trying to speak to anyone. The people involved read my writing, so they think I’m speaking to them. The reality is, though, that I am just as happy with using them as an illustration for people who don’t know me at all. There are patterns in everyone’s behavior, and I can see my own in stark relief.

Whether I’m bathed in light or shadow depends on where you’re standing.

So, in terms of nostalgia, the last 10 years are going to be monumental in my memory, because some of it is universal and some of it is alarmingly specific. In all cases, I loved hard….. but not often well. Sometimes it’s because I’m mired in my own crap, sometimes it’s because you can’t have a great relationship all the time and conflict is going to arise. If someone else is avoidant, there’s nothing I can do about that. I don’t have authority over anyone, but by the same token, they don’t have authority over me, either.

Adults don’t have authority over other adults except for asking them about things you’re making up right now, because they’ve probably made it up before. It doesn’t matter what the advice is about, we’re all making up everything as we go along. Life takes on a heightened definition when you realize everything begins and ends with you. It’s not how others behaved, it’s what you allowed. Trust your intuition, because no one else has your best interests at heart, even if they say they do- this is not always for malice. Sometimes it’s just that someone else’s idea of what’s good for you is, in fact, really shitty advice.

So, when she says “who cares what I think,” the deepest parts of my heart only have two words:

I do.

Special K -and- O Canada

December 14, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

From October of 2003.

I got an e-mail from someone who works at ExxonMobil the other day, interested because I mentioned being an out lesbian and working there in the same weblog.

So I talked a little about my experiences in Fairfax, both the good and the bad. I started with Kathleen and I walking in Dupont Circle and picking up a copy of The Washington Blade, then nearly dropping our ice cream on the pavement as we read a quote from senior media advisor, Tom Cirigliano. I’ll paraphrase it here: “ExxonMobil does not support domestic partner benefits, but in countries that allow LEGALLY BINDING gay marriage…” We started planning our trip to Vermont that afternoon.

But the real fun began after we came home.When Kathleen presented our certificate to Human Resources, they acted like they had never heard of civil unions, and to be fair, they probably hadn’t. We were assigned a caseworker and given a possible date at which we might be given more information. That date came and went. We finally called back. We were given another date at which we might possibly be given information. We went to church. We prayed. We crossed fingers.

Another month went by, and the date at which they said they’d call us back came and went, and we were assigned another date at which they might possibly give us more information. It was a nightmare of bureacratic red tape. What we didn’t know is that the senior media advior had spoken without any clear definition of what he was talking about. They were literally having to write a proposal for how they were going to include us from the moment we presented them with our certificate. No advance planning had gone into it, presumably because they thought no one would take them up on it.

Another few months went by, and I was hired by ExxonMobil Research & Engineering, which alleviated our concerns about joint health coverage. Now that I had my own, we weren’t concerned about my getting ill- but it was still a justice issue in that each of us wanted to be listed as the other’s spouse in case of a true emergency.

Another two or three months went by, and we finally sent a letter that was very kind but firm- something to the effect of “if the next time we meet we are only given another date at which we might possibly be given more information, we would like to seek legal counsel.” It was worded more diplomatically than that, but our intentions were clear nonetheless. I sent copies of every e-mail and every transcription of every voice mail to the ACLU, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and sincerely thought about the Washington Post. In retrospect, I would have had a lot of compassion for the people in HR if they had just e-mailed us and said, “we didn’t really think anybody was going to use this, so be patient with us while we write this thing from the ground up.” Wading through months and months with no inkling that any information would ever be forthcoming was the hardest part.

This morning as I sat down to write I didn’t particularly feel like writing about anything. But people who work on the assumption that you only write when you feel like writing don’t get book deals. So with that in mind, I went to Yahoo! and searched for “writing prompts.” The first site that came up was a writing resources page for people who teach junior high. Most of them were pretty inane, but this one just cracked me up: “What does Canada mean to you?”

I’m assuming that this prompt was meant for Canadian teachers wanting to bring out a small bit of patriotism in their students. But in the interest of having a good laugh, I’m going to attempt it anyway. So here it is, for your viewing pleasure:

What Canada Means to Me
by Leslie Lanagan

I am pretty sure that if Canada weren’t around, it would have taken the world a lot longer to realize just how ignorant and egocentric Americans can be. For instance, when I was in high school, I dated a girl from Fort St. John. Her accent was so thick you could cut it with a knife, so when we would go out together, people would instantly start in on this conversation in various forms:

Random person: Hey, that’s a great accent. Where are you from?

Girl I Dated: I’m from Canada.

RP: Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever met someone from there. Do you guys have Christmas on the same day?

GID: (flustered) Of course.

RP: Say out and about. Come on, please!

GID: Ok, let’s just get this out of the way: Out, about, house, mouse, boot, shoe, sorry. Is there any other word in the English language that you’d like to hear me pronounce before we move on?

RP: End a sentence with “eh.” Come on, you know you want to.

GID: (turning to me) That guy is a total fucking hoser, eh?

As an American citizen, Canada also means easy access to good Cuban cigars and cheap European imports. Hey, let’s not forget that even though I am sympathetic to the fact that Canadians have little to no identity outside their own country, I am also one of the egocentric bastards they do their best to avoid.

The end.

From October, 2003: My Old 100 Things You Probably Don’t Know About Me

December 14, 2023December 14, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

From October of 2003.

I decided to publish some of my old stuff from “Clever Title Goes Here,” which has been archived in “The Wayback Machine.” However, I cannot download all the data at once, so I’ve been picking through things to see what’s still good. 😉 I have a list of 50 Things already, but I got a new one for 100 Things…………

I cannot wear high-heeled shoes properly.
Current favorite beer: Bridgeport India Pale Ale
Current favorite wine: Rosemount Estates Pinot Noir
Current favorite spirit: Bailey’s Irish Cream
I am currently housesitting for my friends Ann and Scootter. Therefore, for the next three weeks, I have a dog. She is a boxer and her name is Radley. I love the name so much I might name my first daughter that, but she will never know it came from my best friends’ dog. Unless I’m mad.
Ann and Scootter call people they like by both their first and last names, and fortunately or unfortunately, I have picked up the habit. If I don’t call you by both your first and last names, though, it doesn’t mean I don’t like you. It just means I like other people than you MORE.
I do not like white wine, and I get migraine headaches from red. But does that stop me from ALWAYS picking red? NOOOOOOOOO.
I am married- but not emotionally… and divorced… but not legally. It’s very complicated. In short, no matter how much you love someone, do not fall for that old “let’s get a civil union certificate in Vermont” line.
I am a native Texan, but currently I reside in Oregon.
I have dated three women seriously… and two boys.
I met my current girlfriend through Friendster, and it has caused no amount of grief among my friends.
Especially when we moved in together after a month. Well, technically I’m just staying with her until I find a new apartment/house, but it was worth saying that just to give my parents a heart attack. 😉
I sing in an all-women’s chorus called Belle Voci. It means “beautiful voices” in Italian. Some days, I’m not so sure.
My father’s family is from Ireland, and there’s a fairly interesting story behind it. Apparently, our family is not related to anyone else with the last name of Lanagan in America because my great great great great great grandfather was the captain of a ship during Ireland’s cholera epidemic. Therefore, he was out to sea when it hit and our clan survived.
I am active in my church, Bridgeport United Church of Christ. I sing in the choir and I teach senior high Sunday School. If that doesn’t get me extra brownie points in heaven, I don’t know what will.
My father is the clinical coordinator for Angela McCain, M.D. Incidentally, Angela McCain, M.D. is my stepmother.
My mother is an elementary school teacher in a neighborhood so horrible that the teachers in the accompanying junior high and high school receive hazard pay. Her husband, my stepfather, is the Chief Financial Officer for the Port of Houston.
Once, on a job application in high school, I was asked this: “Give an example of extraordinary customer service.” I replied that one time a blind man had come into the Eckerds in which I was working and needed a greeting card for his daughter. So I read him an entire aisle’s worth of cards until he found just the right one. It didn’t happen to me. But it was a damn good story, a tearjerker even, so I wrote it anyway.
By now you’ve probably learned that for me, morality is a sliding scale. This happens to a lot of writers. I hope it doesn’t get in the way of our friendship.
I hope that clears up before I start seminary. I want to be a minister when I grow up.
The best book I’ve read this year is The Solace of Leaving Early by Haven Kimmel. I wish I could explain it to you, but I like very complicated stories and I only have so much room…
I also like John Grisham novels, however, as I believe that they are the literary equivalent of crack.
The man who sat next to me when I was volunteering at Oregon Public Broadcasting thought it was HYSTERICAL that I wanted to be a minister. I’m trying to decide if he thought that because I was sitting next to Jenn and clearly indicating that she was my girlfriend, or if he just knows me entirely too well for sitting next to me in that short of a time period.
I am horrible with e-mail. I try to keep on top of it as best I can, but I get so many a day that I think my brain is going to explode. So if I haven’t e-mailed you lately, don’t give up hope. One day I WILL wade through it all.
When I was in grade school, I was such a dork. I had braces and a headgear and I wore glasses. But just look at me now, baby!
I have met most of the really great trumpet players: Maynard Ferguson, Marvin Stamm, Dizzy Gillespie, Wynton Marsalis, Clark Terry, Barry Lee Hall, Jon Faddis, Dennis Dotson, Lew Soloff, etc. The story about meeting Jon Faddis is the funniest, because when I went to meet him I was absolutely punch drunk on the experience. I had just met Lew Soloff, the lead trumpet player for Blood, Sweat, and Tears, who thought that if I knew who he was then I must be a trumpet player myself (well, kinda…). He told me about an audition in New York for the Manhattan School of Music, which I took down for a friend. So after that, I was on cloud nine. I went to Faddis’s bus and told the guys already on board that I was a big, big fan and I wanted an autograph. Total MISTAKE. The guys started ragging on Faddis like, well… like junior high band geeks, frankly. So I finally get my autograph and my few minutes in the “FADDISPHERE” and I just about walked away on air.
I WATCHED CANADA SHUT OUT CHINA IN THE 2003 WORLD CUP, AND I WILL NEVER, EVER FORGET IT! Miracles do happen, and I was there for one of them.
I have managed to turn my girlfriend, Jenn’s, attic into usable space, but only because I have a futon and an electric blanket that can be turned up to HELL.
My favorite blogger in the whole wide world is Heather Armstrong of dooce.com.
My butt is starting to hurt, and I still have 70 more to go.
I was born in Tyler, Texas at a hospital that has a statue of Jesus looking like he is directing traffic.
I am still in touch with my first love.
I have always been a voracious reader, and I would rather read than do almost anything else. Currently I am rereading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and reading David Sedaris’ Naked for the first time.
My grandfather died when I was in junior high, and I played Amazing Grace on my trumpet at the funeral.
What is really weird is that although the only people I’ve dated seriously have been my age, I don’t normally have friends that are the same age as me… but I do not discriminate. That’s just been a force of nature.
I am three years older than my mentor was when I met her, therefore I regret just a little bit not getting to “catch up” to her because she’s a different person now. We would have been great bad girls together.
I am starting a writing class on Sunday regarding spirituality. Our first assignment is writing about something that’s a curse as if it’s actually a blessing. So far, I’ve got nothin’.
For some reason, actresses do not appeal to me. Perhaps it’s because I prefer really down-to-earth, crunchy granola girls, or perhaps my crushes are on actors because I’d rather be them than be with them.
I’ve had four Diet Cokes today. It’s a sickness.
I have now been to Seattle, and while I was there, I ate at the restaurant in which the tiramisu scene is filmed. Or at least, I think it’s the tiramisu scene. There’s a big picture of Tom Hanks in the front window.
For the first time in my life, I am dating someone who is ALSO a first child… but we’re still very, very different.
My favorite recording artists (in no particular order): Eminem, They Might Be Giants, Ben Folds, Live, Panic in Detroit, Koufax, Indigo Girls, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Staind, Tenacious D, and Weird Al Yankovic.
Favorite character in the Potterverse: Arthur Weasely. His fascination with the Muggle world is endlessly entertaining, particularly in the fifth book.
Though I’ve only seen him once on Comedy Central, my favorite comedian is Stephen Lynch. He does this great show with beautiful music where the lyrics are all twisted, such as, “Had to see you one more time, there’s somethin’ on my mind… How about bitch, gimme my money…. Gimme my money and I want it fast…
No, of course I’m not bitter. Why do you ask?
I have never cheated on anybody, but I do, much like Jimmy Carter, lust in my heart.
However, having been cheated ON does not make me a martyr. For long. Two months tops. Okay, four, but that’s my final offer.
My favorite driving experience was loading up Kathleen and Lindsay and going to Manhattan. I drove the entire time, and I wasn’t scared once. It’s a new record for me. In fact, it was especially cool cruising down West Side Highway and looking out over the water.
My two best friends in the whole wide world have the same name… Sorry if it’s not you.
I’ve really begun to feel the responsibility that is involved with the term “faith community.”
I often have ideas that do not stick with me, so when they do, I know that they’re worth pursuing. Right now my dream is to retire in Greenwich Village. Therefore, somebody better tell both Simon AND Schuster that I’m alive.
I wrote in my last 100 Things that my friend Giles is getting his Master’s degree at University of Montreal and I was wrong. He’s at McGill. In Canada, that’s like saying, “he’s at Harvard.”
My standards are bendable. If I truly hate a movie and all my friends want to watch it, I’ll go ahead and give in for the greater good. Though I think it’s prudent to think of a way my friends can pay me back for all the crappy movies I’ve sat through.
At ExxonMobil I had a 21-inch monitor and an Aeron chair. It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
The reason my hair isn’t red anymore is that it costs money for hair dye and I’d rather spend that money on other things. But the hair will be red again when I have copious amounts of disposable income.
My favorite DC memory is standing on the roof of Molly’s apartment building watching the fireworks over the Potomac… and the ones in Virginia and Maryland in the distance.
Even though I am 26 years old, when I hear a song that was played a lot during my senior year in high school, I forget that I’ve aged at all. I particularly enjoy Back for Good by Take That, Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Deep Blue Something, and Santa Monica by Everclear.
I have daydreams of the lovers/friends/acquaintances I’ve lost over the years that will suddenly flock to me when I sell my first novel, short story, and or New Yorker article.
There is a cry that comes from deep within me that I know is the sound of true sorrow. Fortunately, I’ve only cried that cry three times: when my parents broke up, when my first love left for college, and when my first wife told me that we should get a divorce.
It’s been over a year, and I still can’t believe that I now have to say first wife. Because I still believe in marriage. It will just take a lot longer for me to enter into it.
My church is throwing a Halloween party on the 25th of October, and they have asked me to be Dr. Frankenstein. Perhaps because I have nice knockers?
Meagan was the first person to whom I ever wrote a REAL love letter, and when I gave it to her, I learned just how much time could slow down while people were reading.
My friend Chason says that I have a bigger smile than anyone he knows, and I really can’t dispute it.
My AOL Instant Messenger Buddy List has 42 people on it. My screen name is Leslian.
I was so premature when I was born that my six month old pictures look like the day I came home from the hospital.
I have a long scar on my chin because I busted it open three or four times and had to have stitches. I think each time was due to the concrete steps at my nursery school.
Speaking of injuries, I once had to be rushed to the doctor because I had watched my dad put in his contacts and then at school stuck a red sequin in my eye.
I’m not terribly fond of the Thanksgiving/Christmas holidays.
My biggest pet peeve is when something doesn’t go with my outfit. Like if I’m wearing a brown shirt and I don’t have brown shoes, or I’m wearing a belt that has a gold buckle and I can only find my silver earrings. Being ADD means that I’ve just learned to deal with it because I never remember to put things back where I found them… mostly because I don’t REMEMBER where I found them.
I love the heaviness of a good fountain pen, and the absolute dazzling quality of a good purple or deep red ink.
Radley just farted under my desk.
I have a membership to SuicideGirls. It was a birthday present that I did not ask for, but well loved nonetheless.
The thing I love and hate about being in long term relationships is that if they end and you move on, there are still really intimate details that you don’t need to know anymore that stay with you.
The entire time I’ve been writing this, little ants have been crawling around on my desk. Ew.
I’ve probably had 400 ideas about what to write on this list, but haven’t put them all down because I can’t think of a way to phrase them correctly. I am SUCH a writer.
My girlfriend has gotten to meet David Sedaris, and I am so jealous that I could spit nails. But not at her. Directly.
Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I think about the piece I’ll write that will get me on Oprah. I don’t know why I like Oprah so much, but ever since she played Sofia in The Color Purple I’ve followed her career both as an actress and talk show host. I didn’t much care for Beloved, but I thought The Women of Brewster Place was great. I apologize if my admiration for all things Oprah makes me sound more like a Midwestern housewife than a crunchy granola Portland lesbian, but that’s just the way it is.
My hair is terrible in the mornings. Scootter calls it HAIR NOT FOUND IN NATURE.
There are only three commands that I would like to teach my dog if I ever have another one of my own: 1) Sit. 2) Lay down. 3) Bring Mama a Diet Coke.
I’ve only smoked pot once, and I will (probably) never do it again. The reason why is because Matt was using a broken lighter and set my fingernails on fire. If that isn’t enough of a deterrent, I don’t know what is. You might think that one cannot set one’s fingernails on fire, and you would be wrong, grasshopper. If there is plenty of acrylic on the tips, it lights most magnificently.
But I will sit in the backyard and smoke cloves with you if you bring me one, INSERT NAME HERE AND YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE(S).
I thought Spirited Away was the most fucked up movie I’d ever seen in my life and I can’t believe they show it to small children VOLUNTARILY.
I never knew true natural beauty until I went to the Columbia River Gorge for the first time.
Some of my best Portland memories so far are about being in a kitchen with lots of women and making soup… I’ll probably write about it- Divine Secrets of the Church Lady Sisterhood.
I’m not afraid to disagree with people as much as I used to be. My girlfriend can attest to that.
I am not the guy that you want implementing or wrapping up your project. But I am definitely the guy you want comin’ up with the ideas.
Listening to my friend talk to her father after the Cubs lost the NLCS championships made me incredibly homesick, not only because it made me miss my own dad, but because she and her dad have roughly the same accent as we do.
I opened a tampon just to see what was inside the little plastic thing. What do you mean, why? It wasn’t that exciting, so let me save you a tampon. It’s cotton. It’s string. No big whoop. I thought it was somehow going to be more than that if you have to put it in your hoopdedoo. Big disappointment.
I did not like breakfast food until I found French toast flavored bread. I think you are supposed to use it to make French toast, but I just like to put it in the toaster and then add butter. Normally my breakfast is a smorgasbord of whatever leftovers there are in the fridge.
I find it ironic that when I went to Boston, I was not nearly as taken with the history of the city as I was with The Real World firehouse.
Though I have several different online handles, I don’t generally let people call me by them because to me, when you get called by your online handle it is proof that you haven’t been spending enough time offline.
Last night I went walking with Radley and Kristen whereupon I proceeded to fall flat on my face on the sidewalk because I had my hands in my pockets and couldn’t break my fall. Surprisingly, I walked away with just a scrape on my pinky and on my knee. But they both hurt like a mofo this morning.
Sometimes, if I can’t get into whatever is being said at church, I lean up against my friend Diane or Matt and think about what I’ll wear when I meet Matt Damon.
I eat too much because I am such a foodie.
Before I was asked to play Dr. Frankenstein at the Halloween party, I had come up with several ways in which I could make a SpongeBob costume. That’s right, kiddies. I was going to be SpongeBob for Halloween. Bring it around town.
I am often accused of being on drugs and it is always a moment of displeasure for me when I have to reassure the accuser that no, really, I am this way. Sometimes even on purpose.
I should never get manicures. Each time my girlfriend has manicured my nails, I’ve forgotten about the polish and it just starts chipping away week after week. Since the last time she painted my nails I asked her to make them “margarita green,” it looks like I have little pieces of booger clinging to the ends of my fingers.
I am just now starting to realize what a gift I am to the world. Before now, I needed lots and lots of people telling me how wonderful I was and I didn’t really believe them.
I still remember how cold the surf was in the Pacific Ocean when I stepped into it.
Life is beautiful, but the movie of the same name rendered me into a puddle on the couch

English & Language Arts

November 10, 2023November 10, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What was your favorite subject in school?

In elementary school, I had two classes. One was called “English” and one was called “Language Arts.” It has been at least 40 years since I started school, and I still can’t tell you the difference. I am 100% certain that it would only take a quick Google Search to make the distinction, but I enjoy being a writer and not knowing. It’s just funny. However, if I had to guess, it would be that “English” = Grammar and “Language Arts” = content. I’m guessing because I always got grades like 97/95 in English and I think those were the two criteria. I then, like now, wrote in stream-of-consciousness mode so my grammar wasn’t infallible, but even before I learned to type it was typo-adjacent. I only spelled things wrong when I wasn’t thinking about it. Also, in high school I wasn’t a very good typist. I caught more mistakes that way because I was going slower.

Learning how to chat online made me a better writer, because now I can touch type. In fact, I can keep up with my thoughts to the tune of only being a couple of words behind what I’m thinking. Most businesspeople can do this, but it’s a specialized group that didn’t know anything about typing and learned it because conversation moved too fast for them to keep up. My first real foray into language arts was with meeting girls (of course it was). Then, just like now, big emotional connections, but not outright flirting because I was 15 and they lived far, far away.

I will tell you about them (mostly because if they Google themselves, they’ll re-find me), but I have to tell you that I might not be in any way correct because catfishing was a thing even in the 90s. But whether these women were real or not, they were my friends and there was no sexual content to anything, leading me to believe that they were legit. Yes, I was young, but I found other young people, or at the very least, adults who did not hurt me.

The first was Rainey McMillan from Swansea, Wales. It was 31 years ago and she’s still fresh in my memory. I didn’t have a personality with her because we’d never met. In her, I found my real self- the autistic person who went non-verbal for very, very, very long periods of time because writing took away my barriers to conversation. I believe wholeheartedly that Dana didn’t see it because she couldn’t. I used to be a lot more okay with forced extroversion than I am now, which was bad. Very, very bad. I was overwhelmed a hundred percent of the time and lived in burnout often. If I can narrow down my demand avoidance to the most essential of needs, I can feel my body’s rhythm and flow. It gets lost in an overloaded schedule. I notice when my demand avoidance gets so debilitated I cannot move. My biggest job right now is to learn how to deal with these disabilities, because I cannot even ask for ADA accommodations if I don’t know what will actually help.

I could do lots of jobs in a quiet room. Very few offices have them anymore because it’s all about cubicle farms and conference rooms. People have asked me how I worked in a busy kitchen. It was a process. First, my relationship with Dana was strong and a lot of it was just us alone in the kitchen. She was a sensory experience in and of herself and my eyebrows are going over my forehead and that was meant to make her laugh because she knows her. They’ve met.

Dana becomes very excited about things. Very excited. I was irritated by a lot of it, but she also became very excited about me. It wasn’t all bad. The negative aspects of my sensory experiences paled in comparison to the positive. 😉

However, this shouldn’t be taken as a slam on Sam, either. A positive of waiting is forgetting enough about the experience to make it new, which is what 90s gays in Houston called “Baptist virginity” (because they get re-baptized all the time and we have no idea why. The first one didn’t take?).

I’ve always thought sex was hilarious, since I was a kid. One of my favorite comedy routines is the one about Jeff Foxworthy trying to make the room all romantic for his wife. He puts candles on their headboard and halfway through they realize wax is dripping on their faces. I would like to believe that I am also hilarious with stuff like that. There’s no point in getting too worked up over it. One day it’ll make a cute story between us, what doesn’t kill you makes good writing, etc.

I also think being queer had to cure me of Protestant beliefs about sex because I had to talk about it so often. The glossary of my community alone, JFC. Learning it takes years and I’m behind the eight ball. If I’m talking to someone under 30, they’re going to have to use flash cards. :::pause for laughter::: On the other hand, new terms come to me easily because I want to learn the language even if I never use it. I picked up “new relationship energy” or NRE from polyamory because it describes how I feel at the beginning of every relationship. I’m what’s called “demisexual” or “sapiosexual.” That means I am not attracted to people by the way they look, but how much they excite my brain. That’s why it doesn’t matter what kind of relationship it is, I’m going to get lost in a fog. I feel the same energy with Supergrover that I do with Lindsay- because since Lindsay only works here and hasn’t actually relocated, every time I see her it’s the brain fog of it feeling new and heightened. Strong, comfortable, and exhilarating because she’s such a big shot. What I have learned from both of them is that I am worthy of being married to someone like them. That they weren’t more powerful because they were smarter. They were more powerful because their brains were built for the system and you couldn’t find more beautiful women in a catalogue selling fuckin’ anything.

Thus the first, Rainey, eventually became Supergrover…. and not because I tried to replace her. It’s that by the time I met Supergrover, I’d had 30 years of relationships entirely in text. My relationship on the ground with my sister helps me to understand Supergrover’s life by being able to see what a powerful woman is like and how they became so without it actually being her.

When they walk into a room, it’s not only their employees that snap to attention. It’s all the men above them, too. It comes in handy because their beauty makes people trust them before they talk to them, and they’re wonderful people so being magnetically attracted to them is easy. They’re also the type of people that are infinitely kind…. the type people who other women don’t see as a threat because they go a little stupid when they see them, too. If Supergrover has had one real crush, she’s had a million “girl crushes” on her since birth. She’s the kind of person that’s gorgeous enough to have power like a mean girl, but she gets it through attraction and not malice. I know all of this because I grew up with her personality type. Every man wants to be her boyfriend, every woman wants to be her bestie.

That’s because they both have the power to make you feel like you’re the most important person in the room when you’re with them, and it not coming off as manipulation because it isn’t. They genuinely like their small moments with people that are quality, true connections. A connection is worth something even if it only lasts a few minutes, because networking is more important than mental/physical labor. Networking makes any job easier while being at work is more specific.

For instance, Lindsay has worked in both private sector and non-profit lobbying, plus campaigning and body man for the mayor of Houston and did constituent services for a while. Knowing Annise Parker was her connection to the White House because she ran Mayor Pete’s campaign. Pete losing was hard on me because even though I never realistically thought he would win, I thought “now she’ll have to move to Washington and I won’t have to make it my idea.” It’s not a priority to me because it would be so nice to have her here all the time, but I wouldn’t see her any more than I do now. She just doesn’t have time. I don’t even see her every time she comes here. I text her 99% of the time for the same reason I e-mail Supergrover, and why I say that if we had a relationship on the ground, it would look a lot like the one I have with my sister. That being close meant “I can give you 15 minutes in March.” And that’s only if I ask in December and am willing to be picked up and driven somewhere, find your own way home because I got shit going on here, man. But you know what? Those would be the most valuable 15 minutes in my entire life. I would walk differently after that. I get the impression that time with her is valuable because she makes time, never actually has it. We’d play by the rules and improvise on them as necessary. I’m ADHD and don’t give a fuck. That means spur of the moment get together or cancel and I’m great either way.

That’s what I mean about being in Washington at a time she wasn’t supposed to be and joking about having an affair with Michael’s wife. That it wouldn’t do to hide anything because it’s more trouble than it’s worth…. what I feel is happening when she doesn’t claim me outright, and feel secure when she does. It had gotten to the point where I thought that Michael didn’t even know about me because she seemed so secretive with me, I assumed she was secretive with him as well. It was a surprise to me that she wasn’t, and I had to be furious, overwhelmed, and forgiving all at the same time because her whole shtick is that adults don’t discuss their conversations with other adults and that she didn’t want any of what she said to go to Dana, or have to worry about it so she wasn’t going to say anything more when what she told me was the source of my anxiety. She destroyed me in a second, and because my environment was threatened, I completely rearranged my life in order to get peace I so desperately needed. She took all her feelings about me and told someone else, where it would do the least good.

So, in short, I felt like I kept my word and she screwed me to the wall.

That’s because now it’s 10 years later and I’m still a nervous wreck. She won’t listen when I say that because she’s programmed herself to only think of me as a threat. It helps her ignore my reality, because I know she feels guilty. She tells me that all the time without ever resolving the problem. I keep hoping, and keep being disappointed.

I decided that was all her own shit, that I didn’t think of her as a threat until she acted like one. That I didn’t paint her as a villain in every story, just the one where she was. I also painted me as the villain first. It’s not only that I hurt her. It’s that she had the high ground first, and relationships tumble and roll. She cannot win every fight, all the time, and she won’t give on anything. It’s like working with a Republican congress, but not one where we can’t get anything done. When they used to collaborate to the bare minimum.

It’s so sad because we could have been Obama and Biden.

I bet she’d look good in aviators. I don’t know for sure, but she has the personality of a flyboy…. the equivalent of Finn Hudson, the quarterback popular kid and the choir nerd (she doesn’t sing, I just mean she has a soft side). It’s more fun looking back than it has been the last eight years, because I felt so constrained by what I could say to her. Since she took everything as a negative, I was constantly searching for the right thing to say and landing on the wrong one.

One of the songs on the playlist I made to move my mind forward was a Ludacris duet that I hear in my head all the time… “can’t live with you, can’t live without you.” I only wanted to solve the swings, not kill the relationship altogether. But like I said, we both get defensive immediately, which lead to not listening on both sides. That’s because she’d only answer when she was angry. She wouldn’t feed the positive, so my reactions to her were angry as well.

I own a lot. I just don’t own everything. I am not the only person that needs to learn and grow in a relationship, and this is what happens when only one person makes the commitment. And I don’t care if it’s because of apathy or not. Whether I made the mistake of wanting her to work on something when she didn’t and not walking away, or whether she really does love me with Mama Wolverine intensity and I’ve underestimated her feelings, I couldn’t get her to say how she felt either way.

I told her I thought that and no response. I have no idea whether she’s licking her wounds or happy I finally got the message. If she’s happy I finally got the message, then I deserve more than her, no matter what I think of her. I will eventually find someone else and hopefully she’ll see she made a mistake. But by then I’ll be gone and I’ve told her that if she comes back, she has work to do with me. Nice is not going to cut it. It’s not that she can’t come back in and of itself. It’s that I will no longer tolerate this crack-smoking foolishness. I watch Doctor Who. I have standards.

She doesn’t see her hypocrisy. I’m the only one who ever ruins anything. But I didn’t ruin us. I ruined me trying to find her.

For Susan Hoefer and Sue Protheroe, my English and Language Arts teachers. If they hadn’t taught me how to express my feelings clearly then (7th grade), I wouldn’t be able to express myself to the degree that I do now. They are precious to me because of it.

It All Mixes Together

September 25, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

I remember things by the way people say them, because if it’s a good line, I will hear it in their voices for the rest of my life. Good lines often have a cadence to them. For instance, my pastor came up with “resurrection happens in the middle of the mess.” I came up with “messages I’ve missed in the middle of the mess.” I gravitated toward it because it had the same musicality. One line leads to the next, a call and answer. Resurrection happens by examining the emotional places you’ve never been.

I have memories playing in my head like movies a good bit of the time. My writing is what happens when I stick my head into a pensieve, and I’m giving you access to it. The messages I’ve missed are often in plain sight when I’m seeing me as a different person, rather than perpetually reliving things. I am not reliving anything, I am searching for what I can do better in the future, and that only happens when you can look at yourself and see both your inner Aziraphale and Crowley.

How do I know what will work in the future if I don’t know how I broke the past? I know how I’ve broken my past because I wrote it down, essentially giving myself a past because few people write about their lives to this degree. When they go back to reassess, their memories are faulty. You cannot say that yours is infallible, but if there’s a blog entry on what happened written that day, that memory is secure by the nature of the timestamp. I’m not just making shit up. I am also very musical with words by nature of crafting rhythmic phrases on my horn, music only I can hear because only I know the voices on who said what.

I retain information with rhythm, essentially becoming a mimic in my writing and in my thoughts; I don’t just go back to that one line. It feels like I’m standing in the same room again, even just for a few seconds.

I give myself a lot of good advice by going back and reading what I thought years ago and seeing if I’m doing okay comparatively. Except that I don’t think of it as listening to myself, but the people who inspired my writing that day. It’s like an actor watching their old films. They aren’t living in the story on screen, but the one about how the art was created.

I like having written intimate things about the people in my life, hoping that the musicality of my words will stick with them, because being my friend isn’t easy. They all have their favorites, I’m sure, and their favorites never match up to my favorite things I’ve written about them.

Bryn loves the mirror I hold up on our relationship because she says it teaches her new things about herself. She gets what I’m trying to be, which is so real that people identify. I don’t want to be famous, I want to be heard. That’s why I don’t have to be on Oprah to know I’m making a difference. My platform is smaller, sure, but a platform nonetheless. And on the Internet, where everything is protected by a wall of anonymity, I never know when I’m speaking to people like her or people like me.

In fact, now that I think about it, Oprah did give me the best advice ever. On the last episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, she talked about how everyone has a platform. Your family. Your church unit. Your work colleagues. All of those people add up, so no matter how small you think that platform is, it’s enormous. Use it.

Oprah’s not on at 4:00 PM anymore, so someone has to pick up the slack.

It’s the message I’ve missed in the middle of the mess.

When We Are Amused

April 3, 2023 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What makes you laugh?

I laugh so easily, and shake when it happens. Being happy changes my whole posture, and the dumbest jokes will do it. Most embarrassingly it’s when I’ve made a “dad joke” and no one else is there. When I make myself laugh, I tend to make others wonder if there’s something wrong. It seems so conceited when it’s really the laughter of knowing I’ve thought of something you’ll read later.

My audience is always with me, not as a monolith, but a whisper. The person to whom I am continually speaking whether or not you are present. It’s a one-way conversation. Making you laugh is a great part of my day, because I might not get a laugh at that joke this year, but I might in three.

In terms of types of humor, I love wordplay. It makes me laugh harder when I realize something is a double entendre, or a joke due to convenient homophones. Moments like that live in my memory a long time, and I bring them back to life upon remembering. Truly rare writing craft with a joke is something to be shared and nurtured.

Beauty makes me laugh, because that is my response when something is too big emotionally to take in… the difference between hearing someone say that they are Puerto Rican and Ukrainian and receiving a photograph of them. One is a random factoid brushed off by small talk. One is a pair of eyes staring back at you, begging to be seen.

I laugh with intrinsic joy… happiness so bright it can’t help but escape upon remembrance of the thousand smiles before it. Memories age like fine wine, and Southerners get drunk with pleasure. Some of the biggest laughs I’ve had in recent memory are talking about my childhood with The War Daniel, because we slip back into NE Texas-isms and he remembers things that I don’t and vice versa.

Editor’s Note: If you have to get married, make sure it’s the person who remembers you had a Black Moor goldfish in third grade and when you can’t remember what you named it they know it’s Othello and you know they’re not bullshitting you because it’s so on-brand. It also matters that Daniel actually came to my house and talked to my fish in third grade. He didn’t know I kept fish as a kid. He knew THAT FISH SPECIFICALLY.

The sheer amount of bullshit I will not get away with if I marry Daniel is what’s currently making me laugh, and it has nothing to do with Daniel being male, because the women I’ve dated/married (save Dana) were just like him in terms of reacting with their minds. What is different about Daniel and the other women is that he is constantly in touch with his feelings. Full stop. I am not in touch with my logic. I never have been…. So between having a better logical/emotional toolbox than me and being big enough to pick me up, put me on a shelf, and walk away tears are streaming down my cheeks with laughter.

Comedy equals tragedy plus time.

Now we’re cooking with gas, aren’t we? I love dark humor because I was never raped or molested, but something happened. I didn’t make sense of it for a long time, and becoming a cook finally gave me access to a library of images that would actually make me feel something. It takes a lot to make me laugh at times because stupid doesn’t always cut it. I am not a cutter physically because my keyboard is the extension of my mind just like my right arm ends in a chef’s knife when I’m cooking. Sometimes when it seems like I am the most selfish person you’ve ever met, I’m actually trying to protect my energy. I am such an introvert that I protect my energy in order to be able to laugh.

This is less weird than it seems. When I am in public, whether that’s with one person or several, I want to be present and in the moment. If my social battery is charged, I’ll often come off as hyper because I haven’t had any social interaction with anyone in days. If it is drained, I will fall into trauma reflex mode, and that’s when I’m just a delish and a delight, I assure you.

Trauma reflex mode is a direct result of meds being off and/or not getting enough sleep. Sleeping actually puts myelin back on my nerves in a way that Starbucks will never capture. I also take medication to ensure I sleep deeply so that I can laugh more at myself… being irritated by everything I do generally means I’ve tried to replace sleep with caffeine and my body is noticing.

When I make the commitment to sleep, it changes what I think is funny and the way I write about it. When I’m feeling safe and secure, I don’t interrupt that vibe much with jokes about trauma or podcasts about crime. I can always tell when I need to re-dedicate myself to sleep when I’ve listened to more than three Crime Junkies in a day.

When I’m dreaming, I build things. I process information with my feelings, so generally I build relationships. I think about how they could get better. So much of my humor is informed by the dream I had about you last night, and I don’t mean that in a shady way in the slightest. Sleeping is a playground for my characters, whether I’m working on the book or my real life issues.

I love that there’s so much humor inside me that no one will ever see, because it belongs to someone. I am more situationally funny than I am “joke funny.” I mean, I do have comedic timing, all preacher’s kids ought to by 45, but the thing I value the most in a relationship are callbacks. It makes me laugh when I tell a joke from ten years ago and you spike one over the net with a riposte like you’re sitting in that memory with me.

That’s the golden ticket. That’s winning at life, especially if I am lovingly the butt of said joke.

I’m also very clever at wordplay, and will probably make fun of me better than you.

En garde.

Nothing Stays the Same

March 5, 2019 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I wanted to wait to post my next entry until I actually had something to say. I know that not updating my blog reduces traffic, thus dampening my quest for world domination. On the other hand, I don’t want to be one of those people who doesn’t take time to think before writing…. anything will do, because it’s not about craft, it’s about attracting views, visits, likes, and followers. I feel like I have enough already. Not believing I have enough just leads to verbal vomit for its own sake… and to me, that just doesn’t cut it.

I mean, I’ve always been the type to just lay out everything on this web site and let people make their own decisions about what they read, and when I post often, it’s because having something to say comes along that frequently. It’s organic, never forced. Lately, I’ve realized that most of my ruminations are just continuations of things I’ve already said, probably more than three or four times. I promise that I am not regurgitating content. It’s the way my brain works.

I think about a problem right up until I don’t. The interesting part (or, at least, it’s interesting to me) is that I tend to start a couple of steps back and rehash, but when I’m thinking about something a second (third, fourth, fifth, 17th……) time, the overall arc is the same and different small details jump out, often changing the course of the dialogue… conversations that happen between me and me. Though Shakespeare was not talking about discourse with oneself, he might as well have been. The play’s the thing… especially in moments where I’ve caught myself red-handed…. infinitely more scary than feeling caught by anyone else. I’m better at kicking my ass than you are. Write it down.

I’ve scared myself for the past couple of weeks because I make it a point to look at my Facebook memories, and along with all of my funny memes is this mountain range of emotions. Note to self: more peaks, less valleys.

WordPress propagates to my author page, which means that I am equally stupid and brave enough to post things to my own profile. If I skipped doing so, old entries wouldn’t appear at all. It isn’t about torturing myself- many, many more readers click through from my profile because I’ve been on Facebook for 10 years. The “Stories” page has only existed since 2015, and as of right this moment, only has about 100 followers. After a decade, I have 745 friends and 38 followers. The platform is exponentially larger. My Facebook profile propagates to @ldlanagan on Twitter, and my author page to @lesliecology. Again, I have more followers on my own Twitter feed than the feed for my web site… the difference is that @lesliecology is nothing but a WordPress feed, and @ldlanagan is everything I post on Facebook, period. My profile is public, and my Facebook statuses are generally longer than Tweets, so anyone can click through to the original post.

So there’s the setup as to why I wanted to separate out my blog entries from my Facebook profile/Twitter feed, and why it hasn’t worked out.

Scaring myself the last couple of weeks has been about entries from four years ago, starting with PTSD as a teenager and it unraveling my thirties into divorce, losing a good friend, and so much compounded mental instability that I needed more help than my friends and family could give. Poet Mary Karr gave me the phrase “checking into the Mental Mariott,” and I’ve used it relentlessly since.

Joking about it covers up deep wounds, and that’s why I write about them instead of speaking. When I am writing, I have a bit of clinical separation. I can look at the land mines without detonation. I cannot say the same is always true for reading. Occasionally, I feel the distance of having grown as a person, so that the entry feels like it was written by someone else. More often, I am remembering every tiny detail about the setting and the arc of the story. Then body memory kicks in, and if my heart and brain were racing in the moment, I feel it again; it doesn’t matter how much time has passed.

It isn’t all bad, though, because I write in equal measure about how good I’m feeling, and those excited butterflies also return…. sometimes, but not often, in the same entry. The other plus is getting to decide if what was true at that time is still true today, and as a rule with some exceptions, it’s not. There are truth bombs that hit me just as hard now as the day I wrote them, but for the most part, this blog has been dynamic, and has changed just as often as I have (which is, like, the point).

Whether I’m reading an up day or a down, it is exhilarating to see that few things stay the same.

I will always have the regular, boring adult problems… and at the same time, my life is bigger than that. Managing Bipolar II, remnants of PTSD (anxiety, mostly) and ADHD so that I am not a ball of negative crazy keeps it interesting. I emphasize “negative crazy” because I don’t know anyone who isn’t crazy in a positive way. I am not attracted on any level to the mundane. Regular people with big dreams are often lumped in with “crazy,” because most people don’t dream big.

Even my dreams have been adjusted. I am still dreaming big, but the focus is not on starting my own church anymore. Perhaps in the distant future, I’ll think about it again. But right now, when I enter into any church building, consecrated or not, “my mother is dead” becomes an ostinato.

From Google Dictionary:

Ostinato

os·ti·na·to
/ästəˈnädō/

noun: ostinato; plural noun: ostinati; plural noun: ostinatos

a continually repeated musical phrase or rhythm.

“The cellos have the tune, above an ostinato bass figure.”

Even the sentence used to illustrate the word is appropriate, because you don’t just hear bass. You feel it.

I have written before that she’s everywhere I look, because over our lives together, I cannot think of an element within church life where she was absent. I cannot think of a single thing that was all mine until I moved to Portland and began preaching at Bridgeport UCC.

I have always been the Mary. She was the Martha.

There was no judgment on her part. I just mean that I have always been the thinker and she has always been the actor…. Actually, I take that back. My mother was one of the few people I’ve met in this life that had extraordinarily creative ideas and the ability to execute them, which is rare.

Few people manage to live on the ground and in the air at the same time (it’s a miracle I can tie my own shoes).

In Luke 10:41-42, Jesus is speaking to Martha, who has complained to him that (I’m paraphrasing) “Mary’s just sitting on her ass while I’m doing all the work. Can’t you go rattle her cage?” And Jesus says, “Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about many things. But one thing is needful, and Mary hath chosen the better part, which shall not be taken away from her.” He actually says this to the woman that invited him and his entire crew into her house and wants to feed everyone. Now, I don’t know whether you’ve ever cooked and served for 16 (fairly certain Lazarus was there- unclear), but I can see Martha’s point and I get a little bit irritated with Jesus. It’s not that one part is better than the other. Thinking is not better than doing. Doing is not better than thinking. They’re just different mindsets, and the evening wouldn’t have been possible without both.

I am certain that Mary and Martha need each other. Martha is grounded, and keeps Mary from floating away. Mary reminds Martha to look at the stars once in a while.

So when I think about the work I did to investigate starting a homeless ministry in Silver Spring, what comes up for me is that my Martha is no longer with us. It rends the mental tapestry I created, and I descend into darkness.

I am still excited by theology of all types- Abrahamic, Eastern, you name it. But right at this very minute, I’d rather spend my time thinking and writing, sometimes posting sermons on this web site rather than waxing philosophic in front of a physical crowd.

What I do not know is whether I will always feel the same, or whether my time is not yet here.

What I do know is that the fight has left me. I am too mired in grief to get passionate enough to affect change. In fact, I wouldn’t say that I’m extraordinarily passionate about anything at all. When my mother died, so did several pieces of me. I know for certain that it would have been easier had I gotten to see my mother live a long life and there was no aspect of “dear God, they took her too soon.” I knew I would be sad when she died, but I was completely caught off guard by the rage at getting robbed.

Embolisms make great thieves who never need getaway cars.

I am still grieving the future that I thought I would get, and piecing together a new normal. It’s a good thing that on this day next year, I’ll read this again, and perhaps that new normal will have some structure. The concrete has been mixed, but I think I added a little too much water, because it just. Won’t. Set.