Tag: Relationships

Into the Multiverse

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Describe your life in an alternate universe.

I am good at a lot of things. I’m going to write until I find something real. That might be in one scene, that might take a couple. Today is one of those days where I just have to start the tap running and hope something comes out. I am very low energy today, but I’m fried. I’ve written an entry every day for over a month- today is my 40th day in a row. I know that I am posting more than normal because I can’t find things as easy when I go back. 😉 I am dedicated to letting the past stay there, so I don’t link to anything. If you’ve missed it, good luck. It’s a different way of reading the web, and it is successful. That’s because people know they’re OG and can prove it. A true Fanagan knows what my life was like in 2013 and still does, so I can make jokes about things I’ve written without all of you knowing what I’m saying.

It creates intimacy, and it keeps blowback to a minimum because if someone didn’t read something about them, they generally won’t go look it up unless someone sends them a link. Trust me when I say that no one ever lets someone know when I’ve said something glowing about them. It’s a lot to want to escape from, which is why my inner circle is so small. I cannot have anyone in my circle who doesn’t understand that they are a complete person. That they are light and dark and angels and demons and hot sauce and peanut butter. All of ’em. None of us can truly be changed by the other, and no one gets changed by my silly web site, because they don’t pay attention to it unless they want to be here. There is no requirement on being a reader and being my friend. But when I don’t have friends who care about my writing, it makes me comfortable enough to continue. My writing matters. My personal relationship with every one of you does not.

If Hottie McHotterson wanted to define me by one entry and I was happy about it, it would have been “Go Tell the Bees,” preferably the audio version as I think it means more in my voice. I’d re-record it if I had spare time and server space, because I was so emotional the first time around. But it got me where I needed to be. Full of love, anger, remorse, grief….. and also joy. In one scene I told her about the day she was having a moment and I told her that we were sitting outside with a glass of wine in the sunshine, and we worked at GEICO.

That would be a good jumping off point if only because I’ve thought about that picnic for 10 years, and have imagined it many times. However, I can make our friendship look good. I can do nothing for working at GEICO.

So, I’ll write about what I could have done had my life followed the track that most people’s do. I used to be married, and I had all the hope in the world for that relationship. In fact, I was married twice on too much hope. With one, it was that we were the wrong personality type for each other. With the other, we were so much alike that we didn’t take our conflicts as seriously as they should have been taken for far too long to course correct. I’m going to write about being married to Kathleen, since it’s the closest to my real life now. I could have stayed in Alexandria after we met. It’s an alternate history that starts in college as opposed to 20 years ago.

I am alone in the doctor’s office. Kathleen would have come with me, but she’s at a softball game. I’m flipping through a magazine when she comes in. She’s smiling.

Leslie…. it took.

I say, “are you sure?” This woman has run three blood tests, but I’m asking if she’s sure….. #thankselizabethwarren

The doctor’s glasses slip a little on her nose and she looks at me like she’s gotten an A on the group project. “Your little monsters are going to own this town.” She knows she can say stuff like that to me, that I already feel like there has been some sort of alien invasion…. one that I can’t feel yet….. but she can. There are two heartbeats, both of them strong. We weren’t trying for twins, just a side effect of the implanted embroyos. We only did two, because Kathleen is Catholic and neither one of us wanted to think about having to remove them. I just hope that they turn out looking completely different from the jump. Otherwise, I will have to write their names with Sharpies on their foreheads. If I don’t, I know myself. One baby will get fat, one will look like it’s malnourished, all because I’m embarrassed that I don’t know which child is which. Thank God there’s not a chance they’re identical. There’s a chance they won’t even be the same race, because we didn’t use one donor. We chose based on education. Both donors majored in math- if I’m going to be of help in the homework department, it’s not there.

My doctor has noticed that I have left the conversation and that I am off in my own little world….. and when I get home, I’m going to blow up someone else’s. Oh, wait. I’m not going to need to go home to blow up someone’s world.

Kathleen is at work softball, but my mom and dad aren’t.

Kathleen is at work softball, but my sister isn’t.

That’s three whole ass phone calls to jump up and down and say “it’s twins” before I go home, because I know how my parents and sister are going to react. I cannot predict my wife, and I stopped trying long ago. I’m surprised she didn’t want to quit trying to have babies at all. She’s been distant lately, but I don’t care. The entire world fits into my tiny 5’2 frame.

I’m not in it for her reaction. I’m in it for my kids.’

It’s not that I think she won’t make a good mom. I don’t think she makes a very good wife, but she’s what I’ve got and I’ve made promises I intend to keep. Besides, I don’t really have to pay attention to her if I don’t feel like it. I have better things to focus on than who she’s screwing this week. If it makes her happy to have boy toys over a real relationship, I can only go with the flow. I cannot change her behavior. I can only change mine.

If I didn’t have to tell Kathleen I was pregnant, I probably wouldn’t. I wanted the real deal, and I got it….. but having everything costs something. If I had it to do over, I might have chosen differently. Now, it’s all a matter of dancing with who done brought me. I am only asking her to hold onto more hands when she twirls.

My doctor says “you’re not even really here anymore, are you?” I apologize and say, “I absolutely was not, but I am now. How do we do this?” She tells me to cut down on the pizza and beer (I found this banana cove one out in Fairfax…) is non-negotiable. I look at her and say, “I can understand why babies don’t like pizza, but why is beer a problem?” She laughs because she knows I’m joking and we start making a diet plan.

It will all go to shit later. I know it will. Kathleen and I do not have the emotional fortitude to fight through something like this. But right now? In this moment? She’s going to hear the most important words of her life and I get to say them.

“Sweetheart, I went to the doctor today…… and we’re going to need to do a lot of shopping. I’m not pregnant with a baby. I’m pregnant with two.”

She will look at me with the same wide-eyed wonder I gave my ob/gyn.

“Are you sure?”

Describing the Color Choice

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s one of my favorite colors.

Whatever It Is, It Isn’t Enough

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What’s the most money you’ve ever spent on a meal? Was it worth it?

I am a cook, therefore I cannot afford to eat all the places I’d really like to go. Since my sister can afford to treat me, she does. But that’s not how I spend money on food and drinks. I lay out serious cash at the grocery store, because I can make food exciting by making a dish, then making a completely new dish out of the leftovers. I buy things at grocery stores that most people just think, “it’s too much work.” I will roll sushi at home. I will soak beans overnight so that I don’t need the convenience of cans. I will wash rice. I will do all the things it takes to be an awesome prep cook so that I’m comfortable on the line at home as a solo act.

The only thing I don’t do is buy meat at the grocery anymore. It’s fine if I’m eating out at a restaurant. I just don’t like wondering if it’s going to spoil, or the whole process it takes to thaw things without cooking them. I don’t want to leave chicken in the sink with water dripping down because my housemates will either get soap in it or try to clean it up. I have had them throw away things when I went upstairs to get my phone.

I think the most money bit comes from having the “keeping up appearances” marriage first. We ate a lot of money trying to be social with our ExxonMobil friends. We went to bars and restaurants that cost a lot, but we never really got anything substantial out of them. There’s only one thing I remember from that time in my life with clarity. It was a brewpub out in Fairfax that made banana clove beer. The combination of lightly sweet banana (not artificial) with Belgian spices made my palate sing. This was before I met Dana, before I went to her mini culinary school. The palate was there, I just wasn’t putting energy in to the right direction.

Meeting Dana brought a lot of things together. The above paragraph is why we would have had a lot of fun in DC together. The thing is, though, I had to get away from her to become a better person, and I hope she feels the same way about me- that we are both wonderful people, but we do not need to be together to know that. We’ve checked.

It would have seemed less weird to the outside world if we’d moved to DC together, but the plan was always to end up here eventually. It’s an adventure we wanted to go on together, and when we split, I still had fire in the belly to do it.

It made it look to the outside world that I was chasing a girl, and I did nothing to help myself out there, but I just didn’t care. It wasn’t worth the energy to figure out how to care about so many things that were beyond my control. Getting the girl in the end would have been nice, but it wasn’t necessary. She and DC are not synonymous in that if I’d suddenly taken off to a city I knew nothing about and the only thing other people knew is that she was there, I’d allow everyone to raise eyebrows at me. Clearly that’s insane.

But when you’re presented with a move that will solve every need including getting the girl? We’re getting somewhere. That’s because there was never any pressure on the relationship to succeed. Washington is big enough to hold both of us, even at full strength.

I stopped thinking about food a few paragraphs ago because I’m still reeling after getting an e-mail from Supergrover that I don’t know what to do with. I’m just spiraling out in my little neurodivergent head because she is bound and determined to wall off and let me know she thinks I’m not that great a writer because I paint my feelings as fact and everything is all about me.

This is my web site. I don’t project feelings onto other people unless they’re interacting with me and I am trying to explain it. No one else in her life has made any move to get to know me, so what they think is all her business and none of mine….. but it would be my business if I knew what she was talking about.

I am only an authority on me and what I perceive.

What I perceive is that prepackaged food holds no nutrition, and very few people are willing to create a dish without shortcuts.

Wash the rice. Soak the beans. Dice the mirepoix.

The most expensive ingredient in food and relationships is time.

I Had Enough in a Good Way

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I learned something today because Supergrover came to me to say that she’d read all that she needed to read- and said that I cast her as a villain. Nothing about why I call her Supergrover, why she’s my beautiful girl, why she is light and dark in one gem. She sees me as writing her as flat, when I think of her as a spectrum. I almost quit writing, because I thought, “if I can’t do her justice, what hope do I have of anyone else? She’s lived inside me for 10 years.” It hurt like a bitch, because she focused on one entry where I was angry and not any of the others. Not the letter to Michael. Not the entry where I said I thought she was the face of God. She sees what she wants to see, and I cannot fix that for her. I do not want her to see herself as the villain in my story. I want her to see why it was so important for us to have met at all. If someone is determined to misunderstand you, let them. There’s no changing their minds.

I didn’t do anything but think about that letter for hours, like I knew I would. But I realized that she proved my points on a number of levels. Nothing said “I’m really sorry you’re hurting, let’s fix it.” By the same token, she thinks she’s the villain in my story and a flat character and her personality shows across my stats. I wasn’t lying when I said that she was the Aunt Voula. She will be your favorite. When I write about her, I feel so deeply that you will, too. Some of my best work that has connected with people came from me looking at our relationship for everything it is worth (still worth?).

I told her to keep reading. Keep absorbing.

I need her to know that what she said in her letter didn’t clear up anything, and also made me feel bad for needing anything… while at the same time having so much empathy for her situation that I overfocused on it. I didn’t need the primer on what she was handling emotionally. I could recite it, chapter and verse. I needed her to trust me, love me, see me.

She did not see me. She saw her in the most negative things I wrote and not in the most positive. That is not my call. I have never and will never love anyone like this again. She is unique, perfect in her imperfections, and I will always wish that things had ended differently. If she’s willing to listen, I’m willing to talk. What I don’t want is to end up in the same place next year.

I got a haircut today. The hardest part was not sending her a picture.

But I did hear from her, and despite everything I am in love with her words. It doesn’t matter what they are, because they bend and challenge me.

She lives in my ink, in the spectrum of color that has defined our relationship. I am sorry that she only sees in grayscale. I don’t love this. I miss her terribly. I just can’t anymore, really, because when I miss her I place hope in something that I think is there? There should never have been a question mark. I told her point blank that I feel helpless about the situation, not that I am painting her as a villain. That I’ve owned everything. I cannot do anything more or better, and she will not lay out her thoughts and feelings so that different patterns can emerge.

I hope for our sake that they begin, but love does not depend on the recipient. I get to love her whether she loves me or not. Even if it doesn’t mean anything to her, it means everything to me.

I smiled down at that e-mail for a long while, knowing that no matter what came of it, even nothing at all, I had done enough work within myself not to get rattled. She focused on thinking that she was a bad character.

I didn’t tell her she’s everyone’s favorite.

You’ll Have to Define It, First

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Describe one habit that brings you joy.

People with attention deficit or autism don’t create habits. There is nothing in our brain to create subroutines and keep them going. Every task takes the same amount of energy as learning to do something the first time, from brushing your teeth to remembering to take out the garbage on Wednesday nights because trash day is Thursday. Trash day seems insurmountable to someone with time blindness.

There is a meme going around Facebook that addresses this. “The problem with 10:30 PM is that it is one minute before 2:30 AM if you’re not careful.” The way time slips away at night for most people is how time works in neurodivergent people all day long. It’s relentless. We live and die by our calendars and task lists with alarms, because otherwise we’d have no real sense of the month, day, or year. It my mind, it has been six minutes since my mother died and also years.

Memories are arranged by importance, not when they happened. Time blindness was actually a good thing in one case. The way I was treated during my childhood melted away and I stopped thinking about it at all. It just failed to register. Every bad memory I have of ages 12-36 is not locked away anymore because it doesn’t have to be. None of those things can create a reaction in me unless I let it.

I will dig deep into them for resolution, but that is only to make the present me a better human being. It has nothing to do with trying to resolve those memories to make anything better for them. Too much has been done for there to ever be reconciliation, and if being sorry was ever childhood abuser’s intent, she would have come to me long before now. She said she was sorry, but I don’t believe it because her actions didn’t line up. I had every right to make her jump as high as I wanted, so when she proved that she couldn’t even do the barest minimum, it was okay to be done.

Our relationship was virtual in that before the Internet, there were letters and calls. Even with both of those things, you’re not really living the same reality. You’re fitting each other into your real lives…… except it cost me money I didn’t have. There was no such thing as long distance calling across the country for free. I didn’t even have a cell phone until I was an adult, so my parents knew who I was calling because they could see the number on the bill. I think they thought that making me pay the money back would make me quit calling. They did not understand the game. They did not understand the trap. They did not understand being willing to die before you’d tell a secret.

It is my habit to treat everything I know with that kind of security because it was ingrained when I was 12. It doesn’t matter how the secret makes me feel, even if it is toxic I have proven that I won’t say a word. It made me who I am for richer or for poorer. In some ways, I’ve kept secrets that have made me sicker. In others, it makes me powerful enough to be someone like Bayard Rustin, who knew all MLK’s secrets and lies. If I’d go so far for the wrong woman, just think of how far I’d go if I met someone like Martin?

Olivia Pope completed me because I saw her as having to manage the same secrets I did when I was a child. It was translated through the lens of politics, but to me keeping Fitz’ and Jake’s secrets was as difficult as keeping mine.

There was also light and dark. Keeping the president’s secrets was one thing because he was a public figure. Jake very much wasn’t. But one fed the other and Shonda Rimes healed me with a bit of media. Art imitates life, and it was so awe-inspiring to have that mirror.

My abuser’s public persona needed to be protected, and so did the dark undercurrent from everything else in her life. I knew that because I was a preacher’s kid. I’d been taught to be that kind of friend since I was born. Therefore, no one could get a word out of me and even though my personality changed practically overnight, no one noticed because I was already hard to predict being ADHD. I always had my head in the clouds to one degree or another. I am an INFJ, the pastors to the whole world at once. I am built for it, and all the things I don’t know cost me because I think I can take on way more than I can without support from everyone else. That requires someone like Bryn, who can deal in emotions as large as mine consistently because she knows I can offer what I require. Her secrets are mine, in some cases, literally. When Supergrover convinced me of what I’d been ignoring, I didn’t get to tell her that she helped another little girl, too, because I got to pass on the knowledge that her strange feelings weren’t strange at all.

There was a reason I became a frightened dog, not sure which way was up in almost every relationship of my life. I had so much to protect and nowhere near the ability to choose how. The secrets made me the alpha dog, given the responsibility of protecting the person and the path, but no support in how to do it. I think that’s because of the nature of the cycle of abuse. No one taught them how to react during trauma, either.

Support would be empathy that goes in both directions. No abuser tells a child thank you for keeping those secrets. No one notices when you’re saving their career. Therefore, as adults we know we need it. We know that a relationship is not equal when one person is the dumping ground emotionally for another………. because they’re so focused on themselves that they don’t think to ask about us.

It’s not that we mind being the emotional dumping ground, we’re asking for equal airtime. Reconnecting with Bryn reminded me why that was so important. That I couldn’t have a healthy, successful relationship until I’d been in a more serious one with her in terms of emotional intimacy because I needed to learn what a healthy relationship felt like before I could extrapolate that into a full-on romance with someone else. I even know that’s hard, because Bryn wouldn’t care if I slept with someone else, but she’d for damn sure notice if I ditched her emotionally for someone else. It would have to be a balance, because she needs to know that I have enough love in me that my partner will know how much you matter to me and not taking us as a package deal is in and of itself a dealbreaker. There will be times where she is way more important than you. Die mad about it.

I feel like that’s the way Zac loves me. That if something was up, depending on the situation there would be times when I was more important, die mad about it. But at the same time, I am also respecting the fact that he and I are not close enough to expect his attention the majority of the time and I am not asking him for that. I am saying that if I was in the hospital, I could call him from there because he would definitely want to know. That would be true whether we were dating or not. I don’t care about the dating as much as I care about the not, because a long term relationship isn’t built on romance. The cornerstone is knowing you’ve got someone who will be there for you in a crisis, big or small, because even if they can’t do anything to fix it acknowledge that they want to know. Acknowledge how big that is. Relationships take showing up, and people won’t if you don’t communicate that you need it. You’ll just feel stepped on all the time, and I’m telling you it’s your own doing if you’re the Type B who never says anything.

Not saying anything doesn’t allow our friends to respond the way we want them to. It doesn’t test anything. It doesn’t allow you to notice the way you’d be treated if you needed something, and that is completely fear-based. You’d rather not know until it’s so bad you can’t ignore it.

Choose not to stuff things down so that you can see if someone can give you what you require instead of constantly giving them what they need emotionally in hopes that someday will come because they’ll divine that you’re in trouble.

I moved heaven and earth to stand next to greatness because I could give what I required. The fact that she couldn’t is of no consequence, because I love it here. The main problem is how to get Bryn to think it’s her idea to move here. 😉

The thing is, people, I have that friend. I have that friend who would move heaven and earth to be near me if I needed her. Even if it damn near killed me, I’d do the same for her. It would be a lot. I’d have to live in the city where I chose to continue a very toxic relationship based on the one we had when I was a child. But her life is so different there that I could see it working out long term. I think it would be hell on wheels in the beginning as I grappled with being grateful to be near her and muting all the triggers that would reappear.

I was in a bad relationship the last time I lived in DC, too, with the same archetype of the woman I’m talking about when I call that character “Supergrover.” It was like trying to hug a cactus every day. I got a lot of negative attention…. It will pop up if you search for “The Great Raspberry Jello Caper” or something like that.

It was so different, though, because Kathleen and I were both adults. I could expect her to respond like I thought she would, or I could express needs and she’d kick my ass. It was unsustainable. I have chosen that relationship over and over, making them that if they weren’t that already.

It’s the pattern with which I’ve become most familiar, and I bring it out in people after having wronged them, then them getting very resentful that I need anything because the fissure has begun.

Bryn deserves me because she doesn’t expect me to be perfect, and I’ve tested her on that to an enormous degree. I have never intentionally tried to hurt her, and she knows that, too. It counts for a lot.

What I have learned is that Bryn is completely unique, and Supergrover is a dime a dozen. That’s because once a fissure began, the power imbalance was set for the rest of our time together. It was imperative for me to jump high because I’d found someone I could be as vulnerable with as I could with Bryn. That became problematic when I was vulnerable to her about her. I was trying to be tender and to heal wounds. She thought I was trying to load her up with guilt, make her feel bad, etc. and didn’t tell me that for a long time. I wrote her the longest love letter of my life, annotated with detail about why I wanted to help her. I wanted her to know that I really saw her. It was not a one-way transaction. I shouldn’t have said anything, because she just took it as psychoanalysis and that I was trying to provoke her.

I thought she was the sweetest person I’d ever met, and she liked thinking that I thought of her as a monster. It’s why I call her Supergrover…. that even when she acts monstrous, she’s still cuddly, furry, and blue. It’s the smallest part of her, the little girl I love.

It’s a habit.

Over and Out

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 3 Comments

I realized this morning that the fairy tale I’d been living the last ten years had come to an end. That it has been long enough now for me to get some distance and close the book. My beautiful girl has gone into the wind at my invitation, and I no longer feel any pull toward her in terms of friendship or protection. She said something about me being “hostile” now that she didn’t fit into the mold of friendship I made for her, and I’m sure they were sharp even if they weren’t meant to carry that much anger. What she didn’t seem to get was why I was acting that way. I needed her, and I thought I was more important than I was.

I will no longer apologize for having emotions. I will no longer apologize for anything that makes me tamp down my feelings to the level at which she can accept them. I will always be more than she’s ever thought, because she doesn’t seem to think of me at all.

We haven’t been in contact since March, and that’s not the longest we’ve gone without contact, but something about this time feels final. I don’t think she cares what I know and what I don’t. I don’t think she feels any pull to be near me.

I also don’t want to be in a relationship like that. I don’t want to go years on end jumping up and down for attention because I actually need it and have never been trying to goad her, provoke her, take her to task. She was hearing all of that through me expressing genuine need. Her life is just so busy that she attributed everything to me being on her ass all the time. There was nothing I could do or say that would change her mind. I am also sure that telling the world about her shitty behavior has helped us both to move on, probably because if someone treats you badly, it’s not okay to say so.

Meanwhile, it feels like she is emotionally immature to an enormous degree because she can’t get into a conflict without running, and she does that with spikes. I don’t want to feel like I’m trying to hug a cactus anymore. Her wire monkey schtick brings nothing into my life that doesn’t hurt, because when I open up to her, it might be good in the moment, but it will devolve whether I want it to or not.

She will not address bad patterns and change them to accommodate emotional health on either side of the equation. She is not responsible for what I understand, but no one could comprehend her story with the amount of information I was given. I felt like she half-assed her side of it just to keep me happy, but there was never going to be a happily ever after…. even though we definitely started with a “once upon a time.”

I feel like this chapter of my life is over, and I want to close the book. That being said, the nature of the conflict will never go away. I just won’t believe anything she says ever again, because the truth isn’t found there. It will be found in her actions.

If being my friend is important to her, she’ll have to show up. I would like it to mean knocking on my door, but that’s not necessary. If she actually came clean and told me how she felt and made her behavior line up, I would accept her back into the fold. It was not a bait and switch where I told her I would leave the door open so I could later slam it into her face.

It’s that I want our relationship, but not like this. I cannot let her reopen wounds and then react as if I’m trying to rattle her on purpose. She doesn’t realize how much my actions are in response to hers. She thinks that I make them up.

It’s easy to tell yourself that story when your side comes from a completely different book.

The End

One of Those People

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday in my thread about Sinead O’Connor, I was called “one of those people.” The assumption she made was so far off that I could easily see she was butt hurt in her own life and lashing out at me. Those of you that do know me will laugh. She thought I was a health nut when I said that high cholesterol was an indication of how bad you need to break up with Pizza Hut…. that certainly people do drop dead, but it’s difficult to separate out random cards when the deck is stacked against you. That’s because people who die of natural causes so young are in the minority. There is ALWAYS an explanation if you look hard enough, because it’s science. We are not talking about woo woo shit here. I am also betting that the person who called me “one of those people” didn’t have JAMA articles for company. I could have been wrong, but she didn’t say she was a medical professional or that she had family who are.

However, I’m definitely “one of those people.”

It’s just not who she thinks. I’m bipolar. What I have noticed is that no one loves a bipolar person more than they do at their funeral. They weep and gnash teeth and say “they’re so sorry,” but people aren’t generally interested in learning how to support people with mental issues because it’s genuinely difficult, especially if the patient isn’t medication compliant and has symptoms that show consistently.

It is a truism that Sinead O’Connor had mental health issues that weighed on her. She also had lots of critics that treated her like crap, as well as people who aren’t fans just talking trash and none of them had any idea what was really going on. She took people’s shit her whole life, and it wore her down. It might have been cancer. It might have been a heart attack. What I know for sure is that bipolar didn’t help. It made her feel worse, carrying burdens that are too large for anyone because the medical example would be an autoimmune disease. Your brain is constantly trying to protect you. It thinks the answer is to shut down. It will, if you let it.

I am doing what I can to become emotionally bulletproof so that people can’t rattle me. But it doesn’t take away from the fact that I still deal with people who are insensitive all the time and very, very sure that they’re right. What they don’t say is that they’re bipolar.

Not the woman that called me “one of those people.” Not the person who said she was a fucking therapist and proceeded to try and diagnose me from a couple of Facebook comments. You aren’t even supposed to diagnose someone in the first session, as impossible as health insurance makes it to leave it off the table. After I said that I was just talking medicine, that I was expressing an opinion, that I had the patient perspective and the background to be able to express my opinion as educated but not fact, she said, “I don’t need your resume. I don’t think you’re being attacked as much as you think you are.” There were 75 comments worth of bullshit. My phone has been blowing up all night. The audience will kill you if you let them.

I told her that her comment about “I don’t need your resume” came across as passive-aggressive and that I hoped she was more objective with her actual patients… and that if I needed to look at my words, she needed to look at hers. She assumed that I had some sort of wish to say that Sinead’s whole life could be summed up with bipolar. I was talking about her health history.

My phone is still blowing up, but I’ve tapped out. I’ve said everything in the most objective, dispassionate tone I can muster. To other people, it comes across as aggressive, apparently, but I think that’s because on the Internet, people aren’t used to there being boundaries. That you cannot make up a whole bunch of shit and decide that’s the sum total of me, either.

When people don’t have context for something, they make it up. I cannot tell you how true this is with my beautiful girl. I made a ton of assumptions because she was so busy that she couldn’t pay attention to me, but she could skim my e-mails and tell me if I was on the right track. Sometimes I was. Sometimes I wasn’t. It just was difficult because when she’d get angry about an assumption, we wouldn’t talk it out.

That’s because I was sending her heartfelt letters, and she was reducing me to a Facebook comment section. I can’t show her my weird little world, and I can’t show that to all of Facebook, either. But what I can do is clear up misconception as long as other comments don’t anger me. When I get angry, I withdraw. I deal with my anger on my own instead of taking it out on other people.

But people have a stunning ability to gut you when they think you’re wrong and they’re right, because fuck your feelings. It’s not just Republicans vs. Democrats. It’s all of us. We’re too quick to anger, trigger happy idiots because when someone questions you on something online, you must go nuclear immediately. And then when you don’t get the answer you thought you were going to get, you must double down and keep stabbing.

The audience will kill you if you let them.

So I stopped putting on the show.

Tuesdays and Also July

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

…….and also never.

I have never needed Jeremy Bearimy more than I do right now. However, I wouldn’t know how to change things if I went back in time. I’d only be able to go with the flow, knowing what I know now. I don’t know if I would or wouldn’t survive Life on Mars. Either I’ll save humanity over and over, or I’ll take in the whole vortex. There is no in between.

I’ll decide in the car. Guess it depends on who’s driving.

If I had to go back in time, I would be Meagan’s friend and let go of the idea that we’d be good together. I was too wrapped up in my damage to pay attention, and it wasn’t fair to her. She just thought I was intense and weird, so she either went on a date with someone else or had a one night stand. She was also supposed to be a mutual friend, so seeing her after Meagan noped out wasn’t the best experience. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to. It was written all over my body. It was more grief than I could carry. The relationship wasn’t fair to either of us, because I’m not the alpha dog…. or I wasn’t at 18. She found an alpha dog and married her. I was livid, and not for the reasons you think. I loved her more than me, and to see her commit for a lifetime to someone that would steamroll her every single day made my heart break into a million little pieces. My friend was fucked, and it only took about a decade for her to see it.

This is not blaming her. I just see how it is.

That’s because I love those type women as well. She had it together better than I did, but cut off from her emotions a good bit of the time. I only say that because my dad said I was after I started dating her. That I receded into my shell.

Hm. That has no bearing on “this thing we’ve created and managed.” My eyes are rolling out of my head. That phrase hurt worse than a one night stand. I never got laid, but I am well and truly fucked. It’s too much. And yet, 10 years is not nothing. I have the right to be upset for the time it takes for waves of tears to wash over shallower wells of injury. It doesn’t feel like the end of a romance with my beautiful girl. It feels like wondering where it all went. I know we both participated. I have owned my part. At the same time, the story will not go away.

It’s just that now, I like her character more than I like her. It’s painful, but it’s true. I love her like I love all my friends and family, but I don’t have to like her. She was not being very likable at last interaction, and neither was I because of it. If I start a letter with “I don’t want to fight about this,” the answer is generally not “you’re not getting what you need and I am not going to give you any more than three words. Die mad about it.” I am doing the work so that I don’t. She doesn’t get to steal happiness anymore.

She replaced it with fear that had nothing to do with either one of us. It was our filters for it. We fought because it was easy to read each other wrong and I felt constantly impaled. She would say that she wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t been such an asshole to her, and she’s right. She has also been great about saying I’m forgiven and treated me like dog shit. So, which story do I believe? Do I believe that I am worthy of this treatment, or do I believe that what I did was eight years ago and she’s still a brick wall. It made me so angry that I realized I could not live that way anymore. I had just met Zac and reconnected with Bryn, and I felt settled in a way that I haven’t in a long time. I realized that because her dark begets dark, I couldn’t shine a light bright enough to get through to her. It was her choice to say “you are clearly not getting what you need, and I am hell bent on never giving it to you.” She created a fucking mess, and then blamed me for everything. But because I hurt her, what she did became totally invalid. I couldn’t have pain anymore. I couldn’t have issues anymore. Her right. Her barometer. She would not submit on it and admit that things had not gone as planned on either side.

She thought she was trash, and treated me as an extension.

I do not have to entertain her opinion anymore, but not wanting it is a whole other thing. If she wanted to break me, she did. I think she did want to break me, because when she’s angry she’s quiet as well. Her words reverberate, and she has never grasped how much. So, of course she doesn’t have to apologize. It wasn’t lashing out. If I hadn’t done what I did, she wouldn’t have been forced to treat me like shit until I gave up.

That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

I needed her to pick up the clue phone, but I was always too much for her. If I am too much for you, now I don’t care how important you are in my life. This aggression will not stand, man. That’s because I’m an easy target to blame for other people’s refusal to look inside themselves. There’s never an actual conflict where we both present stories and try to figure out objective truth. Very few people do what I do, because they hate it. It’s too hard and it hurts too much. And yet, I do it anyway because it helped me to see what I was doing to participate in everything without doing the same thing to her. I didn’t make it all her fault. She saw it as that, but that’s because she was looking for it.

If your self esteem is so low that you cannot open up about anything due to fear of other people, you will hurt them. That’s because you’ll make everything about me. You didn’t do anything, I made you. If I hadn’t x, you wouldn’t have had to do y.

First of all, that’s bullshit. She acted too much like a victim for someone who supposedly forgave me. It was her damage, not mine. If she only needs to be hurt once to lock down forever, I’m out.

Our relationship devolved into as long as I agreed to do everything she said and keep quiet about anything that was bothering me, she was ready for anything. She actually said that I was the only one who ever trashed anything. It was a dick move on her part.

I didn’t respect her boundaries because she didn’t tell me what they were. I would just hit a land mine and she’d explode. I have the ability to make her feel things that other people don’t, because I can say it in a way that actually makes her emote. She just doesn’t do that for me. She gets angry at me and tells someone else.

Meanwhile, I am of the opinion that if the information goes out, it has to go to the right person.

She was my perfect picture of the companion that my INFJ personality profile said I’d get. She traded friendship for shallow communication because apparently it takes a very long time to write e-mails unless she’s telling me to fuck off. Those she takes time with.

Meanwhile, I know why she’s hurt. I know why she’s angry. I know why she cuts off her emotions. I can have sympathy for all that and still think she’s on a path of destruction. She can’t cancel everyone when they make a mistake.

If she goes through life treating everyone like me, that when they hurt her she recedes into her fortress and nopes out, that’s going to lead to a lot of short friendships. But that’s the view from where I sit. Maybe she has managed to meet people that never do anything that ruffles her feathers. For their sake, I hope so.

She’s a lot to lose, and if you piss her off, she’ll hold it over your head for the next 30 years. But she’ll also be nice and not tell you that.

It comes out when her actions and words don’t line up.

She treated me like I was sick when I wasn’t. My perception when she check in on my dad was that my mother died two or three days later, so she felt like she couldn’t tell me that she didn’t really want to be my friend, she just wanted to send me a compliment. At first, it felt like she pitied me, coddled me, anything to make me not get upset at anything. She walked on eggshells no matter what I did, because don’t upset the crazy person. She took away my agency.

She’d beat me emotionally like a southern mama with a hair brush,

I didn’t walk away because she deserved to take a shot at me. But she didn’t deserve eight years of it.

Meanwhile, I also walked on eggshells and tried to please her because I felt like she thought I was a threat. The truth is that I have never even been within 15 minutes of her, and when I truly tried to walk away, she wouldn’t let me go. She could say the same thing about me.

But she wouldn’t believe any of it.

A Comprehensive Response

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I blog, therefore I am healthy.

Writing is a comprehensive response to life. That is true no matter what kind, but particularly blogging because the story moves forward every single day, because it’s a choice to post, not a responsibility. I do not feel like I have an audience to whom I owe anything. If I needed to, I’d push the red button and everything would be gone. Nothing threatens you if you don’t need something out of it. I would be giving up a lot, but I wouldn’t stop writing. It’s a huge deal to be a blogger, because people cannot predict what you’ll remember and think they can.

Someone might be totally freaked out and barking up my tree not to write about them, but what they don’t know is that if I can’t make an illustration out of them that works, I won’t. Not everyone makes a good character. Telling them that is worse than blowback, because their ego gets involved. What do you mean, I don’t make a good character?

I feel like I handle this better than most after coming out to straight people without a clue. You’ll never see a more butt hurt child than when they’ve told a gay person they don’t like them “that way” and the person says “you’re not my type.” They are horribly offended in the most hilarious of ways. It is more than physical attraction, and they’ve taken your rejection as if you think it isn’t.

My straight girl crush was because I was struggling in my marriage and it was easier to feel high as hell on new relationship energy than it was to deal at home. She is drop dead gorgeous and it didn’t mean anything to me because I wasn’t looking at her picture while I wrote. She was the equivalent of my “corporeally challenged celebrity girlfriend on the radio.” (I went on a date with a woman from OPB/NPR… maybe two… but this is what Dana and I called her for 15 years.) I could have a crush on a straight girl because it couldn’t go anywhere. I’d get all the good stuff without all the bad except I didn’t. My trauma bond screamed with empathy because she didn’t give me a slap bracelet after the fire.

When I say that someone makes a bad character, I mean that when I write about you, the emotions fall flat on the page. If I can’t make myself feel anything, no one else will feel it, either. If you go back to my older entries, you’ll be able to tell when I’m distressed. I can, but I also have the memory of writing the piece if it’s so overwhelming it made me sob. People think I get really angry when I’m actually crying my eyes out. I am literally pouring myself out onto the page so that I have an accurate idea of how my mental and physical health are treating me. I realize when I’ve been too harsh. I realize when I’ve been too nice.

What makes Supergrover such a great character is because when I write about her I can cry. Not many people evoke emotion in me like that because I just won’t get vulnerable enough. When I write about my beautiful girl, I step into a museum with ten years’ worth of collected art. Some of it was bought and paid for. Some of it we stole in a heist. We’d push and pull and tumble and roll, but for whatever reason, we didn’t cut each other off. That’s because the museum had no easily accessible exits.

I became exhausted because bringing up conflict and it never getting resolved was eating my self-esteem for every meal.

It was very, very confusing because we’d have a fight and she’d say we were done. When I assumed she meant it, I’d try to move on and then she’d drop in. When I assumed that she was just angry af and apologized, it was perceived as me trying to get attention. She would tell me that she told me it was over and I just pushed, but I have two solid memories that stick with me.

The first was a huge fight that really was the end of it for me. Like, I am just not capable. She reads on my blog that my dad is having surgery and checks in. I was pleased, but I felt weird about it because I thought, “surely she sees why this would be problematic.” It felt like “leave me the fuck alone, but I’m going to make sure you know I’m watching.” It has never gotten any more resolved than this, because when she dropped in on me, it was fine. When I dropped in on her, she felt creeped out because she thought it was me saying “I’m always watching.” It happened again when we had another blowout and I thought maybe then I’d get a break long enough to figure out what really happened. Someone said something to her that reminded her of me, and she was back in my DMs.

Neither one of us could break the connection, just “tumbling through a freefall, no one’s going to go unscathed….. but it’s not because you held back, and it’s not how I behaved.” Now I’m humming…. “and I believe that underneath it all, you are my friend. And the way that I fell for you, I’ll never fall that way again. I still believe despite our differences that what we have’s enough” because I believe in her (and I believe in love). You know I have the ability to cry about this if I’m writing and suddenly quote Indigo Girls.

I told my friend Missy that I didn’t even listen to them for the longest because it created a “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” amount of “AS IF I’M NOT WEIRD ENOUGH.” I had a stereo in my room. Their albums didn’t leave when I did for years.

Now, one of my favorite songs is “When We Were Writers.”

Writing is not what Supergrover does for a living, but she does write in her spare time to get away from work. She’s right. It’s a bubble, When I say that I can’t do something or I have to go because I’m writing, it is taken every bit as seriously as when Lindsay says, “I’m going on a run.” Nothing else is more sacred than spending time alone so you can actually hear your thoughts.

With a virtual relationship, you never have to feel alone. That’s because their physical presence has never been needed. The relationship wasn’t created that way. We’d become each other in our work, borrowing style, structure, and tone. It was quite sophisticated in retrospect. It’s amazing how much we were able to do for each other virtually, and now everyone knows it because of the pandemic. We were virtual BEFORE IT WAS COOL.

We’d trade off being The Holy and The Moly.

We both went scorched earth too much when it was infinitely possible to just be out with it and either be done or decide we have something and work toward it. My emotions were larger than hers and always have been. She absolutely knew this. But I do not think that she ever thought that she’d be reopening a wound if she reached out. My part in all this is that because my feelings were large, I ignored everything bad and just kept on believing that one day, I’d find the combination of words that would unlock her. In my mind’s eye, I’m 14. She’s six. I’m older, and I should have known better.

When you know better, you do better. Maya Angelou’s words, but true for me as well. I don’t even know if she likes Coke, but she has a unique name and I knew for damn sure she wasn’t going to find a “Share a Coke with…..” bottle anywhere. So I ordered her one from Atlanta. There were actually six. One with her actual name, one with her character’s name, her husband, her kids, and her dogs. Except the Coke bottle said “Boytoy” on her husband’s because that’s how we referred to him. She never saw them, because I mixed up the address and put my name on the wrong part of the form. So they got a box addressed to me for a reason completely unknown to them and returned it. I was furious because it cost so much to do, but I was only angry at myself for mixing up the web form. It was so unique, and ADHD fucked me. I was absolutely miserable because it was the nicest thing I could think of to do virtually because I’d been a jackass. It was the friend equivalent of having to sleep on the couch and buying chocolates and flowers to beg.

Since she wears suits and crap for work, she also travels sometimes. I sent her a bracelet with a charm for her favorite cause. She told me it was perfect and sent me a picture of her wrist. I feasted on that for weeks because now I could go wherever she was, metaphysically. She just isn’t the sort of person that would tell me where she went, because it’s not important in her daily life and that’s really what I wanted to hear. I don’t care how she’s doing professionally. I care how she’s doing emotionally. I am the red telephone where she is concerned. Even now that we’re done I won’t hear a bad word about her because my friends don’t care about her. They care about me. They don’t recognize how much she gave me because even I’ve never heard her side of the story. I couldn’t make anything better. She was looking for hurt, so she found it.

The bracelet said to me that as long as I kept my behavior consistent, she’d know that my drug protocol was working , and not to worry if I spiraled out, that it had nothing to do with her. It had to do with my mental health, and no one else is in charge of managing it. I know when to go to the ER/psych ward. If that doesn’t end up being the whole story, still not her damage. Blame poor health and bad medicine, not the patient.

It all seems scary to people the way I lay it out because I’m dispassionate. I have a disease. It has to be managed. People need to know they’re off the hook for checking in on me, because when mental health issues pop up, if I don’t do anything that’s my fault.

“Oops. My bad. Should I leave a note?”

Wow. That was dark, even for me. I’m mostly fine, so that’s not an indication that things are about to get worse. It’s just a reality check. Run the numbers, don’t diagnose me.

I am awaiting the cause of Sinead O’Connor’s death. I think I already know what it is…. and no matter what it is, you don’t die at 56 of natural causes.

I don’t want to know, but I ran the numbers.

Here’s the other thing you need to know. You cannot guess what mood I’m in, or whether I’m experiencing depression or hypomania in my work because I write about things that have already happened and I’m searching for the road ahead. I map out what I feel now to plan for what I’ll feel later. It’s not because I know you better than you, it’s that I have to decide how I’m going to react to our next interaction based on past history. I will know whether it’s time to stand up for myself or apologize with fancy Coke.

However, I did not just send a gift and assume that she’d take it as “I’m sorry.” It’s just that her love language is action and mine is words of affirmation. I compromised, she didn’t. She could respond in her own love language, but she couldn’t meet me halfway and talk about her feelings. I never knew which way was up. It’s just not fair to leave someone in that much confusion because my need was being rejected. I needed her to show up, be present in the moment. Instead, her responses were dismissive or angry. Meanwhile, I’m trying to do things that make her less angry and annoyed, but I couldn’t because I was guessing all the time. I got done with guessing way too far past my breaking point. She had enough information to blow up my life, not the other way around. And yet she saw me as a threat without realizing she felt like one to me, too. We were in the same boat, just back to back.

She is the Aunt Voula. I am the Toula. She will be everyone’s favorite and I’m okay with that because she’s my favorite, too. We’re in that weird age gap where I’m not young enough to be her kid, but not an average age between siblings, either.

In the beginning, she treated me like an equal. After fights, she treated me like a pest. It is my fault I treated her badly, and her fault that she never got over it.

The problem isn’t even that she “never got over it.” It’s that she is free to be someone who decides how they feel about you on a daily basis for someone else. It was chaotic and I was tired of the swings.

It wasn’t good for my mental and physical health.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I have found that being direct has cost me a lot, because especially with women, they think I’m attacking them because I’m not sugar coating anything to protect their feelings. They’re responsible for their feelings. I should not have to do the emotional work of walking around in someone’s mind to determine the reaction I’m going to get before I say something. It makes me people please and my need gets ignored.

That’s because I used to stuff everything down. Anything anyone has ever said to me that mattered is still there. So is everything that has been done to me because I am a victim of childhood emotional abuse and queer, so I’m a big hate double ticket being female as well. Women being chattel is not something we created for ourselves. Queers being construed as mentally ill pedophiles is not something we created for ourselves. Hell, even being female wasn’t part of the plan. It’s just the hand I was dealt.

My mind isn’t all cis, which gives me some confidence now that I’m not four damn years old. I will not take anyone’s shit anymore.

First of all, if we are in a relationship, we have to forgive each other over and over and over and over. I will not accept anything less, because I cannot abide passive-aggressive abandonment. “There’s a problem, so instead of being a grown up, I’m going to avoid you for all eternity.” If you don’t love me enough to struggle, GTFO.

State boundaries clearly and be consistent on letting me know when they change. Again, I will not predict you.

If you’re a homophobe or a misogynist, you cannot come see me until after you’ve already done the work. My friend Erin said that straight people should check with queer people before they decide to say they’re an ally. I told her it meant a lot to me that I could have an opinion on that. That an ally shirt is not something you buy for yourself.

It’s also problematic to buy things that say “ally” on it for some people, because it becomes clear that you’re not willing to take on our burdens. God forbid someone think you were gay. The point of being an ally is realizing it’s relentless. You have a habit of putting on all your rainbow shit until something happens that you don’t like. Maybe it’s that someone hit on you. Maybe it’s that you experienced discrimination. Either way, when you take it off because it’s too hard, fuck you sideways.

Resurrection happens in the middle of the mess, but it will never happen if you believe you’re the main character in every goddamn story. If you’re going to ask me to recommend what you should do as an ally, and then say I’m attacking you because you ended the paragraph by explaining why it’s too hard to look queer, you are not welcome at my table.

Alternatively, I could never get my beautiful girl to open up enough to figure out how we could solve all our shit, and it was a similar issue. By holding everything in, she became the main character in every story because I was constantly begging her to open up because we went through some shit and had way different reactions to it. I NEEDED her, and she half-assed it. The only reason I say this is because she never explained to me that she was any busier, but I knew how I was being treated.

She was an open book once I learned to read, it’s just that now my opinions are not valid. I cannot always be wrong. I am too smart for that. If you insist that your words are never the problem, GTFO.

It’s not that you’ve pissed me off so bad we can’t work it out. It’s that we have a bad pattern and me doing all the work isn’t going to solve jack shit. Go with God. Don’t accept any wooden nickels. May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house. Just don’t come back to me until you know what you want and you can say it out loud. Have the integrity to own that you are responsible for a percentage of what is happening in every situation. Even my emotional abuse isn’t that woman’s problem anymore, because I’m a grown ass woman.

There are absolutes in life you can’t change, though, and with my beautiful girl I found a big one. She did not. We need to be together and yet we are apart. This is not personal. This is that not being able to have a relationship with her causes consequences bigger than me and she’s fucking blind to it. But that’s all her shit. If she doesn’t figure it out, then she can watch as I trip over a land mine.

I will struggle to forgive noping out when I needed her most. I realize that she needed time to recover, but I gave her eight years. It seemed like she didn’t have any other dogs to kick because I was getting massive anger in response to legit nothing.

My beautiful girl, I will always annoy the everliving shit out of you and make you angry because it doesn’t take much. Every accusation was a confession, and we can both be dead honest about that. We were seeing each other through our own filters. I would never escape judgmental dickhead. I would never be her goddess of the moon ever again.

But she saw me being a writer as a threat, so instead of just asking me what I was going to write or helping me craft the narrative or helping me gain understanding about ANYTHING so that I had parameters? She told me that she could no longer allow my words to cause fear in her and to go find new friends. I was livid. I hadn’t written anything about her in a long time because she hated it so much. I could write beautifully about everyone but her, unless I fed her ego and then she’d realize being a character wasn’t so bad. She just couldn’t see herself as true in my eyes. That both sides of the spectrum exist in her just as much as it is in me.

She couldn’t see red to indigo, and beat my ass with blue.

So, now when anyone crosses me, I ask myself what she would do. It works. I’m not a totally different person. I have confidence in what I believe for the first time in forever. I do not think she has the same confidence in her own beliefs when it comes to emotions and relationships. This is because my experience of her is that dealing with conflict is bad and we don’t need to do it at all. Not talking about it is the same.

I’m a verbal processor and I was trying to work through some shit. She could read it. Instead of realizing that I didn’t have to make sense of the way she felt, I only had to make sense of my own emotions, she felt like I was on her ass. Got annoyed when I asked for fucking anything, called me a judgmental dickhead 80% of the time, but if I told her that, she’d say that she thinks I have an extraordinary mind and she’s wildly impressed with me as a person.

Well, start fucking acting like it.

I don’t need friends who don’t respect my opinion on things because they think they’re the whole story. If we can’t collaborate, I am out.

This one relationship is reflective of how I feel about homophobia. It is not my job to struggle with it. It’s yours.

Maybe you should talk to someone.

The Letting Go Show

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I said something about a Supergrover playlist the other day, that she reminds me of the color green, new life, new earth, etc. But what I needed in the moment was to release pain before I could enjoy everything again without anger or resentment. Here is the list.

  • She’s So Mean, Matchbox Twenty
    • Her clothes are on the floor and my records are scratched, but she’s the best thing that ever happened to me.
  • I Believe in Love, Indigo Girls
    • When we tried to rework all of this, each to our rendition, painted blindly in a corner, lost for ideas blinding fishing for a compliment or kindness just to bring us into view. You could not interpret me, and I could not interpret you.
  • Unwell, Matchbox Twenty
    • I wasn’t crazy, I was unwell. She’s hell on wheels in a black dress, but not by choice.
  • Hold On, Wilson Phillips
    • This is a direct result of the movie “Bridesmaids,” and it is completely responsible for making me cry and blow my nose at red lights.
  • Nobody Knows, The Tony Rich Project
    • It’s everything you can’t say, because no one wants to hear it.
  • Pink Triangle, Weezer
    • It’s the quickest way to make me sob with empathy at Rivers’ plight, because I would know nothing about the reverse….. #eyeroll
  • Not Your Fault, AWOLNATION
    • I yelled at her for so much that didn’t have anything to do with her, and that’s where I’d start if I got to meet her on the ground. Just “I’m sorry” all over the place. Alternatively, there were other times when I felt she was doing the same thing to me with no hesitation or apology. It cuts both ways.
  • Despacito, Louis Fonzi and Daddy Yankee
    • This is probably the most controversial song on the list because I loved it based on the idea that I was blogging the most innocuous things about her because no one else would think they were important and the narrator talks about writing on her body. This is what happens when you decide a song is about someone and ABSOLUTELYFUCKINGNOT fluent in Spanish. Dude is a creep, and my thought was beautiful because she was writing our story on my shoulderblades as well. I still like it, it’s just not a mutual story anymore. The ink on my skin I got from the amusement park is fading and when it goes, there’s no re-entry. I will not let people tell me one thing and do another. I want to hold your hand while the ride lasts, and if you decide to jump, my emotional support can’t depend on whether I’m happy about it or not. It can’t depend on getting things I want that you don’t, and vice versa, trying to convince the other we’re right. Relationships aren’t supposed to be THAT much work. You aren’t supposed to find dealbreakers once a week.
  • Superman, Eminem
    • This is only when I’m really angry, or I skip it. She was the equivalent of “I’m not fazed, I hang around big stars all day, It’s not a big deal to me anyway… you’re just plain old Marshall to me.” I was all “girl, you run that game. First off you don’t know Marshall. At all so don’t grow partial… that’s ammo for my arsenal.” Great at first, a shit show later. I could never recapture her attention even though I wanted to rescue her.
  • Love Game, Eminem and Kendrick Lamar
    • The chorus makes me laugh my ass off in this context. “Have a blessed day.” I am the little fuckin’ Ferris wheel and I have no shame.
  • Business, Eminem
    • I desperately want to know what it would be like if Dre and Em were us. She would drop me like a sack of potatoes in a rap battle. You can do that when you have ten years of blackmail. Alternatively, I’m cleaning out my closet.
  • Closer, Nine Inch Nails
    • It’s not about her. It’s the cry of The Timeless Child. It’s perfect when you see it in the context of abuse.
  • Dope Nose, Weezer
    • This has no particular meaning, just a good beat to make me feel good….. even if it is a little “Peter Gunn.”
  • This Could Be the Start of Something Big, Count Basie
    • I can’t not hear brass like that without thinking of her. She’s too quick. I should have put this as the intro track.
  • Church, Lyle Lovett
    • She should have joined me at National Cathedral if she wanted to see me fly like a lead trumpet. Not getting to see her face while I was riding on a high C makes me sad. She has heard me on a recording and all I have to say is that you didn’t even see the best part yet.
  • Til the Sun Comes Up, David and Devine
    • The video says more than the song.
  • Paper Bag, Fiona Apple
    • What it feels like to struggle with ***gestures toward everything***
  • Hit Me Baby One More Time, Bowling for Soup
    • Chad Michael Murray played me in a movie. It is every bit as embarrassing as it sounds, thank you for noticing.
  • This mashup. It’s too cool to describe.

Sensory Issues

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I realized that I’d told you I have sensory issues, and that I do my best to mute them while they’re not my focus. Here are the things that make me feel the most comfortable:

  • Professional-grade Crocs, the kind you wear in a kitchen or hospital. They keep my feet on the ground, whereaas Danskos have a heel and it makes my foot rock side to side. That is a disaster for someone with floppy muscles. I don’t care what people think of me when I wear Crocs, but I for damn sure notice what they think of me when I fall. There are very few Good Samaritans in this world and I’ve found that to be true everywhere. I can be walking around with blood on my face and pants and no one says jack shit.
  • American Giant’s “The Original Hoodie” is the only jacket you’ll ever need in your entire life. The only reason you’ll ever need another one is to change colors, because it gets better the more you wear it. Yes, they’re over a hundred bucks, but they get cheaper than nearly anything else when I look at price per wear. Same with the Crocs. It turns into less than pennies.
  • Unchallenging food, like white bread, pasta, yogurt, etc. I will get wild with yogurt because I don’t like sweets. I leave it as is and just add fresh fruit. Not many people like it that tart, and my favorite flavor at all yogurt shops is plain. If you mix it with dark chocolate yogurt, it will taste like the best sour cream donut you’ve ever had in your life.
  • Bombas socks are the tightest elastic that holds over time. My whole thing is about making my body feel secure, so anything I can do to stabilize is critically important. I need to feel balanced, and I am irritated when one foot feels more bound than the other, etc.
  • Button downs, but only the ones that have buttons on the collar as well. I also like it better when they’re 20 years old and white or blue having been laundered a thousand times and still look classic. I joke that it’s the “Visiting Professor” collection at Macy’s, and I also love sports coats and Nehru jackets that fit like a glove because of it. I also want everything to have a place and look put together. It’s almost impossible to get a collar correct when you iron and have it stay that way. What looks good on the board has fallen flat by the time you put it on.
  • I like Dockers because they’re just as comfortable as American Giant and Crocs. They just don’t last very long and they’re confusing to buy because every fit is a little bit different. You have to get the name of the make and model, and sure as shit by the time you look it up to order more it’s not there.
  • Big boys’ dress shirts are always welcome because I prefer men’s clothing because of the way they feel and have a teenage frame…. with the exception that I’m just between a size 16 in boys’ pants and a size 30 in men’s length. It’s mix and match, but nothing too crazy. I’m a visiting professor.
  • I will do anything to get my hair out of my way, and wear my CIA baseball cap almost everywhere. I cover my head a Muslim amount because it makes me feel safe. I can hide behind it, both because people aren’t staring into my eyes and for some reason CIA is more intimidating than other agencies. I can’t figure that out. The FBI was built on slave catchers, but CIA is the problem. Ok. Whatever blows your dress up. I am genuinely using it like I would use a yarmulke or a hijab. I am hiding in plain sight, because I have trouble believing that people want to notice me. I make people jump too high sometimes, and it’s all my own shit. These sensory inputs being dulled helps me to keep from swinging at every pitch. If I don’t work on my reactions, I’m not keeping up my end of the bargain in relationships and cleaning my own house before I clean someone else’s.
  • I pay close attention to bar soap because I like to use it to shave. You actually use up body wash and shaving cream much more quickly. The bare minimum is Dove, but I have a housemate who cold presses her own soap and lotion bars that don’t have any scent to them (or are lightly scented). My favorite is charcoal, but I have to have a serious cleanup afterward. All the shower walls are dark gray when I want to turn off the water. It’s nice having the cleanest products available in a quantity that makes me think my housemate likes making soap faster than she can give it away. I’ll have to gift some to Zac if and when I remember it. If I write it here, there’s a solid chance.
  • I enjoy soap designed for men from high end shops because they always have both cologne and shaving in mind. Basic men’s soap is wax stripper with no conditioners. High end men’s soap is designed to make it harder to cut yourself. Soap and a brush is so much better than anything else I’ve tried, and I’ve had to remember all the best stuff because my skin will freak out at anything less. The best part is that Dove really works on my face and in shaving my legs. It doesn’t have to be expensive. It’s just something I value- continued safety is not nothing, and that’s what grocery store soap offers. It will never change.
  • Things never changing is why I love futbol jerseys so much. I can ask Lindsay to bring me one from any country in the world and it will feel the same. If I ask her to bring me a scarf, it will feel the same. Right now she’s in Barcelona and I’m wearing a Messi jersey.
  • I will start a new game of Skyrim like people rewatch The Office. There is comfort in hearing dialogue you’ve already heard, like a famous comedy routine. There is also camaraderie. We used to be adventurers like you, but we took an arrow to the knee (got married).
  • I go through phases with media. It’s “binge/purge.” I have to see it, then I need to retreat and write my own content. Lather, rinse, repeat. The hardest part is coming back and looking at my own writing, because it’s twofold. Both the WTF? of what I’m saying and the “WTF?” of how I wrote it. How did I miss that twice?
  • If I was wealthy, I would put a lot of money into peripherals that I don’t now. My Fire tablet is not great on its own. It’s great with a keyboard that makes me feel comfortable. It’s long lasting because Office and Chrome don’t require many system resources and the Fire can handle a browser and a text editor in split screen. Therefore, even with my sub-$200 throwdown laptop, I am just as productive as I would be on a $4,000 laptop. It’s not because I wouldn’t use that expensive a computer if I had it, it’s just that I don’t have a need for it. I will save up for an M1 or a Ryzen when I start seriously thinking about video rendering. If everything can be done using Audacity, Google Photos, and JetPack, I have no need to put together a monster gaming rig.
  • Because of what my current tablet will do, I think if I bought a new computer it would be a top of the line Samsung or M1 iPad, because there is no need to carry something heavy when you just don’t have to. I don’t even need an M1 iPad to do what I currently do. I have an old iPad Pro first gen that will edit the videos on my phone quite handily. I would get a gaming-rig level processor if I bought a camera that required it or it would take an hour and a half to render everything. I can’t have my computer incapacitated that much of the time. If I was shooting/working in RAW with a Nikon or a professional studio camera, that’s a whole other thing. If I needed that kind of editor, it would be easier to let a professional do it than it would to save up enough money to buy that kind of workstation.
  • Touch and feel above everything else. So much of the world is uncertain that it helps to have things you can count on. Clothes are one of the easiest ways to make yourself feel safe, because when you feel good, you act completely differently than when you’re threatened. It also helps to look at why you feel threatened so that clothes don’t become a permanent trap to hold in all your feelings.
  • It works as a relationship analogy as well. If you’re going to wear a suit, remember to occasionally change to sneakers and a zipper cardigan. If you learn nothing else from Mr. Rogers, learn that. No relationship will ever progress until you learn to be as vulnerable as you were the first time you saw his face, and you will not feel any differently after learning that he was also a very flawed human and treat your relationships like that as well. You cannot cancel everyone, and you will not know what’s up until you can look at the situation from a third person perspective. That’s much easier for me than it is for most because I can go back and read myself with a dispassionate eye. I am clothed in the softest material to allow myself to feel words more deeply.
  • If I can’t distract myself, I won’t. So if I dress weird to you, I don’t care. If I eat weird to you, I don’t care. If people believe I’m in the wrong relationships or saying weird things about people, I don’t care. That’s because all the people I do care about have laid out their boundaries and so have I. Other people are free to look at me from the very, very outside and make their own judgments, because their opinions can’t matter. I have to write what I saw because I have to remember things accurately according to what I was thinking in the moment. Otherwise, this is not even self help to me, much less others going through something similar.
  • So. Crocs? You have to give me this one. Especially if you later admit you also own them. I will notice. 😉

The Wood Song

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

Here’s what you need to know about Zac.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Life happened while we were doing something else.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We Will Come, Because We Love Our Girl

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Dear Michael,

I wish I’d thought to write this letter a long time ago, because I have things to say to you that should have come from me years ago. You know everything I didn’t. Just more than I can possibly take in. It was a shitty hand to be dealt for both of us, because here’s the thing…. the woman we love didn’t let us bond, so we couldn’t talk to each other about the ways we could support her. I wonder all the time what it would have been like had I been your wing man long ago, because I would have. I would have cheered you on from the beginning. All the things I never knew cost me, and you should know it. We both know how it feels.

She should have let us feel each other out and then claim our corners to regroup. It would never have come together in one hour. We both would have had to learn to manage the other’s feelings and not get frightened of them, because we both know they’re large.

We should have been allowed to make room for each other, and I was stuck in the bathroom. I hope we’re both sorry we never sat down at your table and just served every dish we’d created over eight 10 years. If you were me, you would have traded those two for a lifetime and you fucking know it.

We should have been allowed to bond because we didn’t have a full house and wouldn’t until all parties saw all the cards. I would have dealt you a hand if you’d been allowed.

What I know for sure is that that we all would have won and rotated hands. What I know to be even more certain is that you and I would remember every loss and celebrate every victory until we were dead.

If you’re the man I know she’d choose, I know you’d move heaven and earth just to stand next to her. If you didn’t turn out to be that man, God have mercy on your soul for this life and every lifetime after. My feelings are just as feral as hers and I will find you.

My only job in this whole equation would have been to allow you to be the best husband you knew how to be, because I wanted to be you and I’m just not capable for many reasons. Neither is she. That doesn’t mean that my protective nature went away when she said it should. She may be her daddy’s little girl, but not the fuck in my presence. I said that about her EA. But her EA was me.

It was my role to be “The Girl Whisperer,” and we never got that chance. So here is an itemized list of things you’ll do if you love her:

  • If you can’t cry when she does, you’re not paying attention. She doesn’t generally cry, so by the time you get to that point with her, she has no myelin on her nerves and she’s working practically blind.
  • She loves levity because of it. It preserves her armor for too long until she’s desperately needing help because she hasn’t asked for it. You are going to have to fight her on accepting love every day, and if your game isn’t sharp, her life will pass you by because you’re not really taking it in.
  • If men do not talk to her first, they will overfocus on her beauty and undermine her smarts. If you have never seen her with someone who has underestimated her and taken in its enormity, you are missing out on the best part of her. When you realize that you are missing out, course correct immediately. Your story is not more important. Her story is only more important right now.
  • If you give up, you will never see what delayed gratification looks like, and it is immense. You cannot take it in. She will see your sacrifice, I promise. She sees it too much and it weighs on her. I am walking away because I did not want to cause those swings of emotion in her. I didn’t need her to think about me while she was busy. Neither do you, but don’t go too long. One resentful feeling can be put away. Years of them can’t without resolution.
  • When she doesn’t have time, she doesn’t take time. Do everything you can to lower the volume on television channels in her mind. You can’t turn them all off, but you can make your signal more pure. I hear she likes well-written letters.
  • If you write something beautiful for her, she will keep it forever. Even if everything ever written between us has been put into the trash, she’ll be able to quote her favorite lines from memory. This is not a humblebrag. This is acknowledging sometimes a piece of notebook paper and a pen end up being more expensive in value than a day at a spa.
  • She is also a writer. If you can’t reach her through talking, switch mediums.
  • Dark begets dark. Make sure she knows she’s an absolute diamond every second of every day, and make sure she knows she’s of the purest color, cut, clarity, and brilliance. That’s because she won’t tell herself, and her inner monologue keeps her from seeing how beautiful she really is.
  • I will never get over this loss, and you won’t either if it happens. Make her your first priority because you can’t not. You will not be able to afford those consequences, and I assure you from the wisdom of my experience.
  • Everything I write has a thread of her running through it, and if you were me, they’d be mostly about her. It’s not because I’m not capable of doing my own thing. It’s because my story isn’t more important right now. It will be more important later. I had to choose which story was worth telling. Look at me and tell me it’s mine. I dare you.
  • Because she’s a boss, she’s going to remembered for her professional accomplishments. I hope you’ll come here to read about her emotional accomplishments, and know that they are much more important than anything anyone else will ever read, and only we know it. We’re the ones that love her for who she is. We will remember all the things other people never knew.
  • She uses ellipses to an enormous degree. It’s your job to find out where the trail goes.
  • Sometimes, that trail leads to me. Being apart is injuring all three of us.
  • It is not lost on me that I can move on, but if you ever do it’s going to be a straight up problem. I’m glad she knows you well enough to know that I am not projecting jack shit. You’re a rock and I fucking love you for it. You have no idea. Just none.
  • Make sure that you’re capable of telling when she’s in hell, especially when it’s your fault. Most of the time it will be. That’s the hand we’ve been dealt.
  • In moments when it gets difficult, remember that her love will overtake you with a forest fire’s intensity. Remember everything you love about her in order to keep the flame in your mind and not the ash.
  • She thinks she needs less help than she does. You’re going to be stuck in a fight to let her love you, so sharpen your weapons.

I have never wanted anything but Kings full over Aces for you. I would have reached out. I would have been a better person if she’d let me grow into that role. I would have trusted you to drive, and just slept in the car.

There are so many more bullet points, but I couldn’t go any longer without expressing all the things you never knew, either.

There are so many things we could have shared. I will leave it up to you to decide what I mean because that’s exactly why I need you…………………. on some days more than I need her. It’s just that you have the Google Calendar and I have a yellow string.

That yellow string is now yours if you want it. I just wanted to offer because that’s all I was ever trying to do. If our relationship was going to get healthy, it had to be the three of us, with a relationship that allowed for more as I accepted it from the universe.

You’re the coauthor of her story, I just wrote it down.

Always and as you wish,

Leslie

Let’s Think About Breakfast

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What foods would you like to make?

Because Dana and I had a brunch gig for years, we made a lot of breakfast at home. It’s the thing we knew how to cook the most quickly and efficiently. We were also auditioning recipes for the restaurant. The most fun I ever had off the clock was picking my own chesterberries, because it made me feel like a real chef. They weren’t even for the restaurant, but they were by the time we got back from our little “pick your own” road trip. I still have a cute picture from that day, but I don’t want to post it without asking and I don’t want to ask. So, know that chesterberries are a cross between a berry and a grape, and in some applications (I know this is Oregon heresy), better than marionberries. I look forward to your letters.

I started out with simple syrup (1:1 sugar to water) and added the berries. I let everything cook for a while so that it became a thick, smooth compote. I must have added at least a pinch of cinnamon, but I don’t remember putting in anything else because even cinnamon is too much for some berries. You literally have to know their personalities as well as you know your coworkers. The point was to make the chesterberries sweet without adding anything that would cover up their natural undertones.

I know I used it for stuffed French Toast. If I had it to do over, I would have made chesterberry Croque Monsieurs. That’s because I already know it’s traditionally served with raspberry jelly and making anything more “Oregonian” is a big hit.

If you cannot see how much I love food, I spent half a day picking berries for myself and donated them to the restaurant at the end. I didn’t even ask to be reimbursed for them, and it’s not even because it would have been a whole other thing. It’s because I was thinking about work when I wasn’t there to an ENORMOUS degree. What I found is that I could cook every dish a thousand times without blinking, which gave me the confidence to have an opinion. There was no executive chef. If I want to make hazelnut pancakes, go for it.

I think the most adventurous I ever got was pineapple thyme stuffed French toast, but not because that’s the most adventurous thing I can do. It’s that in a restaurant, you can try whatever you want. That doesn’t mean someone else is going to agree and pay money for it. The pineapple thyme worked, but I did not have the luxury of making just anything avant garde.

For instance, my chili in Oregon is never as hot as I make it here.

Also, anything can become breakfast if you put eggs on it:

  • The aforementioned chili
  • Cheese pizza
  • veggies and kale/spring mix/spinach/etc. sauted with sesame oil and hit with rice wine vinegar to finish.
  • Rice, beans, salsa, and cheese
  • Cheese pizza
    • Tthere are more, but this one will blow your mind so I have to say it twice. It tastes the best putting them raw on a frozen pizza and letting them bake together. It just mellows the egg out because caramelization is key.)

Therefore, I do not go out of my way to make breakfast, because I don’t really do anything to make it special. I don’t separate out what I will and will not eat into times of day. What makes me a pro to everyone else is coming downstairs in the morning and seeing me flip my eggs like a boss. Everyone can tell the difference between a home cook and a pro by how much fear they have that veggies will go everywhere.

That’s partially because it will go everywhere when you miss and most people are too scared to make a mess. They’re too scared to suck until they don’t. If I miss, it’s a two minute cleanup job because I’ve done it so many times on the line and had my ass beaten for not working clean that I could give a shit who’s watching at home. I can do all the things I used to do in a pro kitchen and actually enjoy it because no one is telling me I’m terrible at it.

By the way, this is no indication of how good I am. Some people think I’m great. Some people think I’m terrible. It’s just that the people who think I’m great know nothing and the people who think I’m terrible were kind enough to make me as much better as I could handle. No one was trying to make me feel bad. It was like private lessons in voice or trumpet. It’s isolating to a sandbox so when you get on stage, everything is perfect.

If you want to get good at flipping eggs, you’ll need way more butter than you think. Flipping eggs is not for people who think butter is the devil. Even margarine doesn’t have the same properties. Hell, even olive oil sucks at this particular application.

If you want to get really good, take out your egg pan and try to flip a piece of bread. Getting really good sometimes requires buying multiple pounds of veggies you won’t use, either. You cannot learn how to cut a carrot in a day. In a pro kitchen, you can’t learn to cut any veggie in a day. It’s not that it’s hard, it’s just that it won’t look natural until you can make an entire pan of something and it all looks the same.

Carrots and apples are my favorite, because as Chef taught me, always find an edge. Turn the vegetable so that the most mass is always touching the cutting board. It makes julienne and batonet so much easier. If you’re wondering, learning to julienne/batonet an apple and carrot were for spicy cole slaw. It was a particularly unsweet Granny Smith. I had to practice that shit for weeks, because of my lack of 3D vision. It affects the way my knife comes down.

Therefore, I’m a speed demon at home because I don’t have to perfect anything. It’s only me. I still treat myself like I’m in the kitchen, just not like I’m constantly going to get fired, because I’m the boss and fuck her, she’s a bitch.

By the way, when I stopped thinking all my opinions were like that, my life got better *FAST.*

I am well and truly fucked in terms of technique, and if I married another chef/pro cook, that’ll be why. Together, we have a complete education and I’ll miss that part of being married to Dana forever.

It’s something I’ll seek out in a partner, because if I don’t have it, I know enough to teach it. I don’t care if someone’s interest is cooking or not. They’ll know how to feed us by themselves if it kills me, because my worst nightmare is feeding someone until I die because “I’m the pro.”

I don’t care if my husband has made his past wives eat shit because they thought they were so important. Remember who I am in the kitchen and submit, or you will not last very long. If being with me is important to you, you will learn to cook. It’s that simple.

You can treat me like a know-nothing asshole or you can treat it as lessons from a truly great chef who taught me every day, and that isn’t limited to one person. Dana is not more important than the Johns, Drew, or Knives. It’s just that Dana was with me for the most meals both served at at home. We started making brunch based on the very idea that because we worked well at home, we’d work well at work. This was absolutely true except when Mommy and Daddy were fighting, and you can take a guess as to who was whom on those days, because it was never a one way street. However, if the conversation was only about the food and didn’t move goalposts, I was wrong. Period. End of story. I didn’t spend time and money at culinary school. She did. She earned those fucking blue stripes and I heard about it to the point that I cannot watch Julie & Julia anymore without sobbing through the scene where Julia is cutting onions.

When we’re talking about “Mommy and Daddy fighting,” we’re talking about less than 4% of the time. And who cares about the other 97%….. 😉

And if Dana had been honest with herself, she would have realized that we needed to pack up and move to DC for all sorts of reasons, because she didn’t think about who I am and what I do, either. She thought working and playing on the Internet was invalid, and I’m a fucking blogger. She was never going to see me as valid, and she was never going to truly see what I’d gotten myself into, or she did and didn’t want to play. Either way, she knows and it’s just as bad as she thought it would play out because the Internet relationship didn’t listen to me and what I do.

I hope she feels relief that I actually said, “Dana wasn’t right, but she wasn’t wrong, either.” I hope for two things. The first is eventually feeling peace that I did the right thing. The second is that my beautiful girl didn’t get screwed over by me (for that particular issue) and I wish I could take away that pain. Not being able to is a massive regret, and now I am either so far down the list that I’m not worth addressing, or I fell off. I won’t know it for years, and I might not know it, ever. She has truly gone into the wind at my own invitation, which was warranted. She cannot come back until she gets herself together, because she couldn’t learn to sous. She’s a boss. She couldn’t generate her own light to compensate for the lack of light from above (God, Ani is brilliant). She couldn’t learn how to bend and sway like all same-sex relationships no matter who they are to each other. She flat out learned to love me, worried for me, protected me, all the things. What she could not do is let me do those things for her and didn’t see that as a problem. It showed me exactly who she thought I was.

I also, if I could have a third thing, I wish she would realize that it’s not just me that gave up someone fantastic. She truly fucked up, because we could have had something. It wasn’t what I thought it could or would be, but it’s so solid you could build a house on it. I watch videos on DIY, and I know what it takes to make a foundation. The concrete is now cured.

Now I’m overexplaining why I don’t have private lessons anymore and why I feel bad about it. DC might have changed both our lives in concrete ways, but we’ll never know that, either.

I didn’t choose the wrong relationship, we chose to move to the wrong ass city.

And that’s why I started doubting all my decisions. I lost True North and I paid for it.

I just never got change.