Tag: siblings

Relationships & Co.

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Today is just going to be a hodgepodge of questions about relationships. They’re not all about my relationships, because it’s a prompt from Carol. Keeping in mind that these are questions from a machine, I will try my best. She gets some things right. 😉

  1. How do digital interactions shape our real-life relationships?
    • It depends on what kind of person you are. Do you live your life mostly on the ground without paying attention to the Internet, or are you connected umbilically? How long have you been using the Internet? What age were you when digital relationships started? Were you 15 or 40? The biggest thing I can think of is “divide and conquer.” Which world has more of your attention? If your attention is in the cloud, your life on the ground will suffer. If your attention is on the ground, your relationships in the cloud will suffer. Mostly because those two crowds don’t interact with each other. There’s a chance for jealousy that one group knows you better than the other- and they don’t. They each know different parts of you that the other doesn’t.
  2. Can long-distance relationships truly thrive in today’s world?
    • If relationships were about logic, I think every long distance relationship would be a success now- there are too many tools to make it forgettable that you’re not near each other. But you don’t get contact comfort through the Internet. The biggest problem with long distance relationships is that generally one person is committed to it- going out and having their own lives- and the other is sitting at home waiting by the computer for news. A long distance relationship only works if both people are comfortable leading their own lives. Zac and I aren’t in a long-distance relationship, but poly is a good example of something similar. Zac would be horrified to find out that I sat and waited for him on anything. He wants me to have a full life, and I want that for him. It’s a new way of doing relationships, and I like it. The trick in a long distance relationship (as with poly) is wanting your person to be happy whether you are providing that happiness or not. By definition, if you live in Los Angeles and they live in Vancouver, you’re both going to have people taking care of you that aren’t your partner. You can either be jealous or grateful. Hint: grateful makes long-distance work a lot longer……..
  3. What role does vulnerability play in building strong connections?
    • It doesn’t just play a strong role in building relationships. It plays a strong role in maintaining them. I know when people are telling me one thing with their mouths and another with their eyes. That’s because the person won’t get vulnerable about what their eyes are saying…. it is the scary truth they’re not brave enough to speak. I’m not very good at giving people their white lies about me. The things that make them feel more comfortable. That’s not necessarily a good thing, but it is definitely an autistic thing. I know you’re hiding something, and I won’t rest until I know what it is- even if it ends the relationship, because I’d rather know how someone really feels than to accept their pity friendship. I would rather have no friends at all than friends who don’t tell me things “not to hurt my feelings.” It’s counterfeit kindness. Your neurotypical friends can see through that bullshit. I can’t. I will take everything you say as literally as a heart attack, and not only that, I’ll remember what you said. People’s best way of dealing with me remembering what they said is to deny they ever said it. Again, vulnerability is huge in a relationship, and masking true feelings never works. Ever.
  4. How do cultural differences impact romantic relationships?
    • There were so many people weirded out by the fact that I was in an interracial relationship on the streets of Houston that people totally forgot we were gay. Small blessings.
  5. Is it possible to maintain lifelong friendships in a constantly changing world?
    • It depends on the kind of person you and your friend are. Do you value history? Do you value the vulnerability that comes with history? If you don’t, you’ll always be looking for new friends. By the same token, letting go of a friend is not always negative. As you grow, you don’t take everyone with you. You feel out who is supportive and who is not, and you don’t want to surround yourself with unsupportive people. The best test of time is if you and your friend grow toward each other during change or away.
  6. How does the concept of ‘soulmates’ influence our approach to love and relationships?
    • It’s a false narrative designed to keep women incredibly choosy. Men have never been taught the concept of “soulmate” or “waiting.” Men get very good at talking that bullshit when they have daughters who they hope won’t run into boys like them…… but they will, because their dads didn’t do a damn thing to change ANYTHING. By the time you’re 19 or 20, that fairy tale has probably been busted…… and because so many women are taught that one man will complete them and their soulmate left, that means their worth is gone, too, because you don’t get another one. Lesbians are not immune to this, because we pick up stories that are all true, and none of them actually happened. As in, just because lesbians are not taught that one woman will fulfill their needs from adulthood to death, that doesn’t mean we don’t buy into what our heterosexual counterparts are taught.
  7. What are the effects of social media on our perceptions of relationships?
    • It’s different for everyone, because for some people it’s a competition. Some people must have the best of the best on their feeds- top vacation destinations, new cars, etc. For others, it’s a hospital for outcasts. It’s friends for whom you’ve cast a wider net. Autistic people built the internet. It’s our safe space. The reason there’s an archetype for computer nerd is that most of us are neurodivergent. As much as “the internet is for porn,” it is also the place where the people who fit in normally are the misfits.
  8. How do childhood experiences shape our adult relationships?
    • Your childhood creates the script of how adult relationships should go. Whether your parents were healthy or not makes a huge difference as to how that script was written. Because it’s a script you’ll use with every connection you ever make in your life from that moment forward…. so parents, no pressure.
  9. Can friendships between men and women be purely platonic?
    • By that logic, I would have problems being friends with myself (I’m nonbinary). But the truth, like everything, is “it depends.” Just because there’s no attraction at first doesn’t mean there never will be, and that’s true of all people, all the time. We get hung up on genders, but emotional availability when you’re not getting it at home is appealing no matter who the person might be. There should be less emphasis on gender roles overall, because there don’t need to be two different standards of behavior.
  10. What are the key ingredients for a successful and lasting relationship?
    • I don’t know. No one does. There are millionaire authors out there who have made a name for themselves writing about relationships when the truth is no one fuckin’ knows. People are seeking security when there’s none to be found. The only security is in making yourself the best partner you can be, because you will not get any results except anger if you try to change someone else. And the thing is, if you try to change someone, you deserve their anger. Lasting and successful relationships know where one person ends and the other begins.

Into-me-see

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I have answered all of the WordPress prompts recently, so I don’t have a question to get started. One from a few days ago sticks with me, though, so I’ll answer it again. I think my answers would be quite a bit different now:

What is your definition of romantic?

The most recent romantic thing I can think of is that I asked Zac for some citronella candles for the backyard so we could sit outside until October at my house (ask Bryn, the backyard is the definition of “home”). Instead of candles, he sent me a Thermacell Mosquito Repellant, which charges by USB and sprays mist while you’re outside. Right now, it’s going in the greenhouse, because there aren’t any less bugs inside when nothing is really insulated for this room. It’s not meant to hold humans. It’s meant to hold plants. So, the most romantic thing that Zac has done for me is allow me to do my work without bugs, whether I’m writing inside or outside.

Or as I told him, “I have a ZONE of protection, Zachary.”

The way I say “Zachary” for emphasis is not really me. It’s me doing an impression of my younger sister talking with her husband. He is “Mathew” for emphasis as well. I hope Zac gets my tone of voice… that he’s not in trouble until it’s his full name at back door level. And even then, I’m just throwing Southern shade.

Zac is the most perfect man in the entire world, as long as I keep in mind that he’s perfect in his flaws. That he’s 36 and I’m 46, which means that neither of us are immune to emotional baggage by now. We’ve both been through other significant relationships, and are in that nebulous adult age where neither of us want to deal with bullshit we’ve dealt with before. It at least has to be *new bullshit.*

Me being 10 years older than Zac is not an issue because we’re in different places in our lives. He’s younger, but much further ahead. Therefore, in a lot of ways, Zac is older than I am. I look up to him (mostly because I’m short) because he’s a great boyfriend, and also a great man to social mask, because he’s already doing what I want to do- he’s a success in a neurotypical world.

Romance is working on stuff together- one of our most memorable dates to me was when he let me “help” on a piece of fiction he was writing for a contest, and it was at *Safeway.* Romance doesn’t need to impress me with gifts. I prefer people thinking that my thoughts are valuable.

If Zac has shown me nothing else, it’s that my thoughts are valuable- I’m worth listening to even when we don’t agree.

To me, that’s the only definition that matters. I find you valuable, even when you’re wrong. You don’t have to be perfect to be mine.

Back to Normal

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Last night I got to talk on the phone with Zac for the first time in what seems like eons, because we have a date coming up on the 10th to go and see Jason Moran at The Kennedy Center. I was teasing him and said, “do you even like jazz?” He, very, very diplomatically, I might add, said, “I like you enough to buy you tickets and go with you to a jazz concert.” I fell over with laughter, but then he said that he wanted to catch up in person, so we didn’t talk long. But it was very good to hear his voice and I am glad that I don’t have to wait much longer to see Oliver, who is a dog. I have always teased Zac about this, that Oliver and I are in a relationship and he can come, too. He jokes back that Oliver is arguably one of his best features.

I don’t know whether it will happen any time soon with my move and all, but I can’t wait to have more couch time with Zac just watching Slow Horses, because it really is fun hearing the real stories behind how they do things in tradecraft (it doesn’t matter whether we’re watching CIA or MI-6, they use nearly identical techniques). I had to wait while Zac is out of town because that’s the one “couple show” I promised him, although I have gone back and watched “The Pigeon Tunnel” several times to fall asleep.

The first couple of times I watched it because it was exciting, and now it’s John le Carré seemingly rocking me to sleep. Have you heard his voice? It’s distinctive and posh, which he explains is an affectation because he grew up a trained thief whose family was always broke; his father was often working for/running from the Russian mafia.

When David’s father (Cornwell- I use it with John le Carré interchangeably) realized how successful his books were, his dad started running a game on him. Threw a shit fit because David wouldn’t give him any money, and he never heard from him again. But David wasn’t hard-nosed. His father asked him for money to invest in some pipe dream of a farm, and David said that if he wanted to work a farm, he would buy it for him outright and give him an allowance to run it. David’s father running off into the night clearly meant that David’s money was going to be used for completely legit purposes.

So, exploring old le Carré adaptations has been my jam recently. I think “The Little Drummer Girl” is actually better than “Tinker Tailor,” but perhaps I’m biased because it felt as adrenaline-fueled as Alias and Homeland.

I also found a really old adaptation of the Bourne series that was on TV in the 80s or early 90s. It’s so great, although quite dated and no one will ever be Matt Damon…. or Julia Stiles, for that matter.

I also got to talk to Bryn a little bit and we’re getting excited. May first is not all that far away. It’s going to be hard to believe she’s real, but I hope we have a blast. And I’m up for as much sightseeing as they want to do, or sitting around and catching up. Perhaps it will be really nice weather and we can sit outside. I can’t wait to see how Colin reacts to Bryn and Jack’s (also a dog) “Conversations.” Since Bryn is a dog trainer, dogs don’t move unless she allows it, and all dogs naturally do it around her because she just exudes alpha. How can you not, after working with primates all those years? And in terms of “screaming alpha,” it doesn’t have to do with anything but soft, quiet strength.

Alpha males in the human population are picking up lessons from animals that they never meant to give. Alphas lead from the back, they take care of everyone else. They’re the ones you go to in a problem. They are not parading around telling people they’re they alpha because no one has to ask. It just shows.

I think we’re both getting used to each other’s strengths, and picking up where the other feels weak. I can’t divine things over text all the time, so I would say that I talk to Bryn on the phone and Video Messenger most frequently than I do anyone else. What I’ve discovered is that having female energy around me is enough- that if I don’t meet a life partner, I’m happy as I am. It’s fine for Zac to have other partners, because I set up our relationship that way. I knew he already had partners, and I was prepared to be fairly low on the totem pole because I didn’t want to be a partner in the capital p sense of the word. I’m too busy a writer…. just because I write in volume doesn’t mean I’m not saying anything of substance…..

All of the comments I’ve gotten in the last few years have proven to me that’s not true, so that’s not a dart that can hurt. My readers have been with me through everything, the good and the bad. They don’t act like the universe has punished me for a decision because it hasn’t. I go on to a new thing depending on the options in front of me, knowing that how it worked out is how it’s supposed to be. I said something yesterday that I didn’t clarify in the moment. I have before, but not just then. When I said that it wasn’t my destiny to belong to one person, but to many, I didn’t mean my partners. I meant all of you. That this is not a joke or a hobby, it’s been a portfolio I’ve built over 20 years.

Who has peer reviewed me?

  • Martina Navratilova
  • Margaret Cho
  • Wil Wheaton
  • Eden Kennedy
  • Ernie Hsuing
  • Anil Dash
  • Jonna Mendez
  • Mary Karr

Therefore, I don’t need external validation to know that I do help people more than me. I say things of substance all the time, and there is nothing on God’s green earth that will ever convince me otherwise. That’s because not only have I looked at my own writing and thought, “I like that line.” It was one Supergrover liked, too. There’s no more substance to my writing than that. I’ve already made it. I’m done. My career will never get any better, and I swear on a stack of Bibles.

That’s because I will never in my lifetime be seen the way I am right now, the way I have been for 10 years.

If SuperGrover saw Daniel’s “I will skewer you” letter, I bet you anything her reaction was “Fuuuuuuuuck. Let me get my purse. :::::sigh::::” Even if she never reads this entry, that image made me fall over with laughter, because it was like the beginning of “The Incredibles.” “Can’t you just stay clean for one minute?! I just cleaned up!” Like, the newsreel is playing in my head and I’m cackling. I need laughter right now, and it feels good.

You know, even when you’re no longer speaking, if you don’t dissolve a company, it still exists. Therefore, I choose to believe that Leslie Lanagan & Pet Monsters on a Fraying Leash™ is still intact. In fact, I have added new members. It’s just a longer flight for Bryn….. but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t do it.

We’re big enough to face our feelings head on, and it’s so hard to fool a dog trainer that I stopped trying long ago because I figured out quickly I couldn’t keep up with her. Because of this, I have an innate interest in seeing her on the floor of Congress. 😉 She wouldn’t do it, I’d just like to see what happens when I just light the firecracker and she goes.

She also doesn’t care that my blog makes me sound like a dick.

I’m so blessed that I have friends who support me no matter what, no matter when. Even Supergrover. How do I know? She told me.

So, she may be far from my heart, but not from my soul. It’s only now that I realize because our communication was so poor, I was never receiving any of the messages she was trying to send and vice versa. I don’t know that we can ever be trusted to create new patterns again. But I know us. If we knew the other was in trouble, we’d have to sit on our hands to keep from moving and even that wouldn’t last long.

She gave me the confidence to believe that I am the one who knocks, and not in a scary way. It’s just an illustration that I am old enough to have boundaries and limits. I am old enough to decide what I want to invite in and keep out of my life. I don’t have to accept the status quo, as in trying to fit in where I wasn’t wanted. What I found was that Daniel loved the idea of being married, but didn’t seem to like me much. He only had two problems with me- everything I did and everything I said…. because it was always a blame game instead of working together.

I decided that it wasn’t going to get any worse because I wasn’t playing another game. He’s still playing games, but all of his e-mails are going to Spam, because I’m not interested in reopening the discussion or reengaging. He’s right- I can’t block him from my blog. But I can limit my exposure to him. I have to trust my instincts on this one, and my instincts say he’s not the right change for me now….. when people tell you who they are, believe them. I could forgive Daniel being totally avoidant last time around, because we were both under pressure. I did not see enough change in him to warrant continuing the relationship because I’d say things like “I want to work with you,” and I never got more than “I’m tired of being yelled at every day.” First of all, I never even turned on a caps key.

Second of all, I was talking about how we could integrate both Cora and Daniel into a house with me- there wasn’t anything about which to yell. I didn’t ask for heat, but I got a lot of it.

And it’s not about him. It’s about me not wanting to take a gamble that my next ten years are going to be exactly like my last. I’d like to make new mistakes now, because I have people in my life who allow me to do that, because they know they’ll always make new mistakes, too.

I know this is all over the place, but what’s different about that? I just wanted some room to stretch out, process the last week or so, and enjoy some time with solo packing and getting ready for my new house. I really am excited. It’s time for a change all around.

The funniest thing that’s happened is that there are two Colins in my phone. I was telling one that we should overhaul a few old iPods and see how much we can get for them- Bluetooth, USB-C, etc. Colin responded that he might have an old one I could play with, and I said, “oh, that wasn’t meant for you, but I love that you just responded like this was a perfectly normal thing to ask a housemate.” He laughed. I like that we’re doing all the good witty banter so that it’s not awkward when I get there.

David has already told me that he has a girlfriend, but I haven’t met her yet, and don’t know if/when I will. But it will be cool to know her and to have Colin meet Zac and Bryn. Bryn won’t be around all the time, but it’s good that they’ll know who each other are nonetheless.

It would also be perfect if Lindsay was here that week, but I’m not going to hope too high on that one. Lindsay is a mythical figure, both here and not here. I think she is secretly a mythical creature, and no one has ever bothered to prove me wrong. You wouldn’t either if you met her. She’s pretty invincible.

So, if Lindsay’s in town, now I have two fierce dragon women saying, “fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck……… let me get my purse.”

And now things are back to normal.

A Whole Lot of Probably

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I don’t know what to do except get my room ready to have pictures taken for Zillow. I overheard a conversation that my landlords are selling the house. They didn’t deny it, just said they were getting it appraised. Therefore, I know that pictures are going to be taken, just not how all this will turn out. I’m not going to sit here and wait until the very last moment. I also know that they think there will be a lot of interest in the house, so they say they’re waffling, but I’m not so sure that’s true. I’m looking around for a place, and it doesn’t matter where as long as I’m close to a train station. I might stay in Maryland, or I might move out to Virginia. It really depends on my tax and health care status.

The thing about moving to Virginia is that there’s too much space. It takes longer to get everywhere. However, there are some pluses. One of them would be being closer to Zac. We wouldn’t get to see each other any more often than we do now, I don’t think, but it would be nice if I could cut that commute down…….. but then I think, “you write on the train.” So, there goes my need to look for a house in Virginia except for some very specific laws I don’t like in Maryland. But, they’re not so important to me that it’s worth gaining a shittier health care system. I have work to do in terms of where I go next, but I do think it’s time for a change. And yet I don’t. I’m miserable thinking of leaving after just starting my 10th year here.

I’d like to move into another group house, because I like having a front and back yard, plus a big kitchen, all that. I don’t want to go back to a white box alone every night. It doesn’t have to be the right fit at first. I will find the right fit. I just lucked out when I called these landlords first. It’s not coming at exactly an opportune time for me because it never would. This is a huge deal, a huge life transition.

I called Hayat from Houston pretty much the day after Dana hit me. It sped up my timeline quite a bit, honestly. I figured I could live anywhere for a month, so just stick it out and get the lay of the land. I joke now that if Hayat hadn’t picked me up from the Metro nine years ago, I’d still be there.

But now Hayat is thinking about retiring, and everything looks different. As it’s supposed to do….. nothing is certain except moving on.

What I do know is that I will not be taking off for another city unless it’s within the DMV. I even thought about Baltimore for a hot second, because I love it there. However, I know it’s so much easier to see my sister without having to get the MARC train involved. It would also be nice to stay near downtown Silver Spring, because I love the way it’s so walkable. I feel the same way about Alexandria, though, so maybe I’ll check over in my old neighborhood and see what’s available. My old neighborhood is only one Metro stop up from Zac’s, and the buses in Alexandria are just as good as the ones in Silver Spring.

I get weird vibes about my old neighborhood, though, so we’ll see. It just depends. As of right now, everything is coming together in terms of Lindsay, Matt, Bryn, and Dave all being here at the time I’m supposed to move and I have like three boxes of stuff (kidding, but not by much).

The only reason I don’t have much is that I switched to a Kindle.

I know that when one door closes, another opens. I just want to start looking for the right handle.

Try Not to Panic

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

You get some great, amazingly fantastic news. What’s the first thing you do?

I have problems with transitions, and even if something is good, it takes me a while to adjust. I seem like that’s not true, like getting a while hair to move to DC. I hated leaving DC from the moment I left. It was not a bad move to come back, it just took me about three years to really settle down and feel like I had roots.

Living here has been a lot longer than I ever lived anywhere as a preacher’s kid. In the Methodist church, they’re “rated.” You don’t get more money from the same church, you move on to a different one that pays more….. which generally means bigger problems, but that’s neither here nor there. I could write an entire blog entry on the way I’ve seen parishioners behave with all religious piety- the letter of the law and not the spirit.

So, I could see those things on a small scale until we got to Houston and Sugar Land. It got bigger. More people to minister to, too many people who weren’t sure about us because we were new and the last pastor, no matter what, walks on water. Because of this, we all got the hell out of Dodge the moment it was time to move, because you never wanted to seem like a threat to the pastor that took over for you in what’s called “move day.” I only remember the exact date for Houston, because it was the day before I met my emotional abuser (we moved on a Saturday).

In order for their to be continuity across churches in the conference, everyone moves at the same time. There are exceptions to this, like when my dad received an emergency appointment because of the previous pastor’s death. But on the whole, it’s in the summer when things aren’t as busy, anyway, and it’s amazing how efficient the system is. I never had a parsonage that was full of things that were left behind.

They’re furnished because with parsonages, you really only carry your personal effects when you move. It’s a huge cost savings, especially for very small churches who can’t afford to pay their pastor much. Not everything has been my style or color because generally people furnish it with their old stuff, the “Dear Aunt Sally” collection at Goodwill. Naples was the first house that was perfect from the beginning, and Sugar Land made it perfect because they asked me what I wanted.

I wonder if the walls are still pale yellow (I accented everything with sunflower paintings, pillows, etc. I was inspired by the Elizabeth Arden perfume bottle. Of course I was in 1994).

I was lucky in that my father took me along for many meetings, visiting “the sick, the friendless, and the needy,” and consoling people whose relatives had died. I wasn’t around for this one, but I only remember one instance where we lost a child. It is felt by the whole community, particularly an empath.

She wasn’t even a member of our congregation, but in small towns, you’re everybody’s pastor when they’re talking to you. One person who talked to my dad a lot was the principal of the elementary school. They liked each other, I wasn’t a “problem child” all the time. In fact, the worst time I ever had in school was when a boy tried to kiss me and I punched him in the face.

That same principle walked through the reception area saying, “Leslie, I don’t condone fighting and this is not acceptable.” I’m sweating bullets as he closes the door. Then, he says, “I keep pencils in my desk for people I think have shown courage…. and they are some very special pencils.” He was bluffing, and also he knew what was up. Of course you hit a guy that tries to kiss you without your consent. It is the way they receive information the fastest because since men are angry that’s what they do. The principal knew that, which is why the loss of “our child” was so devastating for the entire area, not just the people that were closest to him.

Melanie Allen was a fifth grade student who was invited on a class trip to the principal’s house. He lived on a lake, and had a barge. Everything was going perfectly until Melanie realized that swimming looked so easy everyone could do it, and jumped off the barge. She started struggling quickly. The principal jumped into the water to save her, and had to let her go when he realized that unless he changed tacks, they were both going to drown. I don’t know what happened, but what I do know is that the principal survived and Melanie didn’t. The principal was absolutely blameless, because I’ve heard lifeguards on This American Life that not every one is a good save.

I can’t imagine the grief that comes with surviving something like that, but he learned to deal with his demons and was very good about boundaries so that we were as protected as we could be.

I tell that story because to me it illustrates how much pain I’ve taken in since I was a child that didn’t belong to me, and now I’m trying to shed it to be my own person….. and I feel more me than I’ve ever been because Zac and I are stable, Lindsay’s dropping in a lot of the time now, and my house situation is going to get resolved one way or the other because today I cleaned up hair dye. If I’d gotten a chance to talk to Bryn, that’s what I would have told her. Maybe there’s a light at the end of the tunnel because I am finally getting someone to notice that I’m doing all the work when it comes to taking care of common spaces.

I had to finally get tired of not being heard, and finding people who will listen is the thing that makes me the happiest. I do not need people to agree. I just need them to hear me out. I will always hear you out, because hearing and listening are sometimes very separate things. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder…….. what if I know that this amazing, wonderful thing will only be good for me and not my partners/friends/family/etc? I want the shiny thing, but I’ll brood for hours over any benefit to only me because I don’t want to come across as demanding or undeserving of anything.

I am way too hard on myself, but that’s probably because I know that there’s got to be a combination of words that will unlock my mind. I will find the secret to life, the universe, and everything. Because I’m neurodivergent, I’ve had a lot of emotional moments where I thought I was saying something new and exciting, but the way I said it made it seem like a bad thing…… when in reality, that’s my own social anxiety talking and unfortunately I am passing the savings onto you.

I have so many stories that have sad elements to them, because everyone is fighting a battle you don’t know anything about. I just tend to hear a lot of them, often, because I have that vibe that says, “tell me anything.” And people do. Sometimes it turns out great. Sometimes not so much.

Part of it is me; I am not always the same person in terms of where I am in terms of depressed or manic, meltdown or burnout, etc. I have so few moments of feeling well that here’s the good part about seeing pain on other people’s faces. I am grateful for what I have, and those I love….. and even when I don’t have two nickels to rub together, I have people who love me. Even when I’m not of sound mind and body, I still have people who love me.

It doesn’t make me feel better about transitions, though. I need time, and then you’ll know that I’m truly content. For instance, of course I want to go to San Diego with you, but I’d like some notice. If I got the news that I was going to San Diego, that would be one of those things where I’d call Bryn, the thing I do when I get the most excited about something.

The flip side of being able to deal with so much hurt is being able to take in joy as well. I will try not to panic in the moment, but I have a different perspective than I did when I was young. The first is that given enough time and space, I can make it through anything. That includes things that are supposed to blow my mind and make me happy- I will be, just give me a chance to take it all in.

I do not live for the bad moments, I live for the good. I try to find it, but my stories don’t always go down the road where there’s gold at the end. Happiness always writes white, as if the ink isn’t dark enough to make an impression. I have a tendency to delve into the dark so I can get a lantern in there. I also need to be reminded to look up, because my mind is a very busy place.

Going to see Charlotte Cardin was a great experience and I loved it. However, a live concert would not be my first choice to go out because of the noise, lights, etc. Therefore, it was wonderful news we were going, I was excited for weeks, then wanted to back out because of social anxiety until I put on my “honey badger don’t care” face and got my happy ass to the train. Sometimes I have to straight up say out loud, “you’re being ridiculous.”

It was Lindsay. It was my city. It was my kind of music. Charlotte is Canadian and it was her first American concert ever.

Still almost missed it because I didn’t have enough spoons. Luckily, I generally get a second wind. But if I get home, I do not have enough energy to go back out because generally, again, transition time.

The hardest part of this growing up is that my mother had a very specific idea about the way I should look and it took time in the morning. My dad would be like, “I have a wedding/funeral/visitation to do this afternoon. Want to come?” Of course I did. Free food. “What time are you leaving?” “Oh, I think we’ve got about 15 minutes.”

15 minutes to do my hair, pick out a dress, and hope I left with the shoes on the right feet. I wanted to go to the wedding (or whatever, this happened at least two or three times a month), but not having any transition time made my anxiety go through the roof. But then I’d get to where we were going and be okay again……. after I’d had some time to get used to my new environment.

The second thing I do is pour myself a drink. I need to relax, because we are celebrating. I don’t think I’ve ever done a toast with Sugar Free Tang before, but that’s what I’ve got.

Tomorrow is an exciting day- Air & Space with Lindsay and then it’s date night for Zac and me. There’s also a possibility that I’ll get to see her more than once because she’s staying in the NoMA area (which I always pronounce with a HUGE Boston accent like when Garciaparra played for the Red Sox).

And the first thing I did was tell you, so maybe that’s the real lesson in all this. What’s the first thing I do when I get good news? Share it with the community who has come to love me and my weird little life over the years.

But again, transition time. I haven’t had a boyfriend all that long. It’s taken a year for me to even get used to the idea that this is a real thing. He’s so unfailingly kind that I know he has my back, and I feel the same way about him.

Even when he’s snoring.

This is Going to Take a While

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Name an attraction or town close to home that you still haven’t got around to visiting.

DC metro is much, much smaller than Houston. I cannot express this enough. That’s because even though there’s maybe half the space of the city from whence I came, if you don’t live in The District, you forget it’s there.

In other cities, where I live would not be a suburb. I live 11 miles from The White House, northwest of The District in a suburb called “Silver Spring,” In another city, a neighborhood. The District and The Potomac define the geographic lines of something that doesn’t exist and yet very much does. One of the first things you learn when you move to DC is that people who live in The District are territorial, because they have to be. If you don’t live in the The District, you forget it’s there…….. The reason it’s hard that they’re territorial because they’re unseen is that Marylanders and Virginians can’t vote to do anything to help them. It has very much been an offense to tell someone I’m from DC if they live in The District and I have lived in Maryland and Virginia, Therefore, to a local, I tell people my “suburb,” but on my blog I say “DC” because that’s the city people know.

For instance, I actually did live in Houston, but for some of the time I lived in Sugar Land, an actual suburb. International audiences shouldn’t have to care, but in person I’m more specific. No one from Houston would care if I wasn’t specific and said “Sugar Land,” but people in DC are particular about it. They are a tribe of their own, and you have to fit in. It’s a weird setup.

Most of the population doesn’t live there, and the income disparity is enormous. Gentrification is everywhere, and the heart of the city is being destroyed because our history is African American and again, gentrification. Plus, DC only has a city council and The Senate to govern them. DC residents’ needs shouldn’t have to depend on the Senate, because they get ignored by pork barreling something unacceptable into a bill on a different topic that also contains something for DC residents. It is a whole other world to Virginians.

I think for Marylanders a little less so geographically, but more so politically because being governed by a state looks so different. The Potomac makes DC seem very far away from Virginia, yet Portland, Oregon looks the same- there’s just not the same geographical feel because you’ve changed the name from a district to a state once you’ve crossed the river.

Because DC’s history is African American, historically Virginia was where the white people lived and 5:00 pm became known as “white flight,” and still is in some circles because the federal government is overwhelmingly white. Very, very few people who work in Washington want to have The District as an address. The only person I can think of is Barack Obama (Kalorama Park).

It’s like other government employees found something about DC that they just didn’t like, and couldn’t put their finger on it……… more recently. Historically, it’s always been very clear why white people don’t live in The District. The government employees who bought in Georgetown should have bought up more neighborhoods and made it affordable and invulnerable to creep because we need cheap housing for people on those salaries. We could have insulated it from the beginning, but it’s too late now. What is happening is that the few white people who lived here got rich and then it took about 30 years for gentrification to happen in other neighborhoods, and now it’s insane. Crack houses will still sell for way more than they’re worth because of the land.

In addition to Barack Obama, I also love that having Kamala Harris here feels like having her “home,” because she went to Howard. She thinks of it as one of her hometowns as well, so that love is returned.

Speaking of Howard, that reminds me of a thing I haven’t done yet in DC that I keep putting off. I’ve been to the African American History Museum, but not recently. Chadwick Boseman, also a Howard grad, has his original Black Panther costume there and I haven’t been to see it. I know it will be emotional because so far, Chadwick has been my favorite superhero in both the real and Marvel universes.

I do try to get to museums often, but don’t have the spoons. My favorite is The National Portrait Gallery, followed by Air & Space. Since my sister and I are planning a “staycation” over Galentine’s Day (must remind her we need to go for waffles), we are going there soon. I joked that I would be surprised if she did not bring at least $400 just for space ice cream (it’s been her favorite since childhood). I can’t remember if Lindsay has ever been to A&S on her own, but I know she wasn’t on my trip. She was a toddler and was being shuttled between my grandmothers at the time. 😉

I told her to think of some things she’d never done but wanted to in DC, and she definitely wants to go to the Zoo. I don’t know how many animals we’ll see in February, but I’m down. It’s a great park and I love walking through it when it’s not precipitating. Even in the cold, it’s wonderful because if you’re wearing layers, it’s a workout and you’ll generate enough heat to keep yourself warm.

I also haven’t done Mt. Vernon since I was eight, but I don’t know how much time Lindsay’s got. It takes a while, but it’s one of my favorite tours. I’m not sure Lindsay has been to Ford’s Theater and the house where they brought Lincoln after he was shot. The memory of seeing that gun does me in to this day…. as well as the fact that the blood stains are preserved on the pillow. I went to Ford’s Theater when I was eight, too, and it’s a core memory. So, in a lot of ways I feel like the attractions I’d want to see are around here, just not in DC. For instance, I’ve never gone to the Maryland coast. I’ve been to Annapolis, but that’s on the Chesapeake Bay and a different experience from Ocean City.

I also want to go to Great Falls, Virginia, because I hear there is hiking equivalent to the Columbia River Gorge. I need to walk with Zac and Oliver, who is a dog, before i make that commitment.

If you love being outdoors, this area really is for you. So much great hiking, biking, kayaking, sailing, waterskiing, and actual skiing within a few hours’ road trip. I love the idea of being a biker and no idea what to do with it once I get somewhere. However, I have found that I do love sailing. Lindsay and I have been sailing on the Chesapeake, and I’ve been in Galveston and Corpus as well (not sure about her). The difference between moving here and moving to Oregon is the weather. Having more sun in my life really does make a difference, but there are no less outdoor things to enjoy and it doesn’t irritate my depression.

DC was just a great choice all around, because everything I’ve ever wanted has been here the whole time. I’ve known it since childhood. It’s just that now, the “Local” section of The Post means more…… I mean, after Shane Harris at National Security. Let’s not get stupid.

I’m Racing Against the Clock

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Can you share a positive example of where you’ve felt loved?

In order for this to count today, I have to have it in by midnight. It’s 11:09 PM. So, if there’s a Monty Python ending, it’s because I’ve realized it’s 12:59.

Love this week came in one screenshot:

First of all, I didn’t even know I was building suspense (in my fiction entry, “Words Are Hard, Part I“). The entry is called that because the box of writing prompts that Zac got me for Christmas are packaged as a game called “Words Are Hard,” and that’s the first prompt I picked up that really spoke to me.

Rebecca has been living in my head for ten years now, as have Gregory, Leila, and Kermit. I just wasn’t sure what direction to go with them, so I came up with what I hope was intelligent fiction, because it can’t be accurate enough to be fiction about intelligence.

JL Henry is a relatively new friend of mine, introduced to me by Tyler Moore. They’re both accomplished novelists, and they run a podcast called “The Quill Drivers;” they’ve both been amazing about teaching me tips and tricks to get readership….. and with readership comes the possibility of Facebook paying me. I’ve thought they should for years, but no one asked me.

The blessing of my life was when Tyler said, “join my writing group.” I said, “I’m not a fiction writer. Are there other bloggers?” He said there weren’t many, but writing is writing. And now I have a whole box of cards and a Facebook group called “The Writer’s Forum” that will beat me like a red headed stepchild when I need it.

It’s solid growth in the direction I need to go, and it meant leaving behind some beautiful things. I am in the position of finding the next beautiful, starting with Zac and his box of torture devices writing prompts.

For my readers that have already heard that story, you haven’t heard that I feel loved because my “date” for dinner with my sister got snowed out, so we planned a staycation over Valentine’s Day. So, this year the love I’ll give is the kind you want to give someone you’ve known and loved since before they were born.

Let me tell you. Methodist Hospital never knew what hit it.

To All the Pets I’ve Loved Before

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 3 Comments

What is your favorite animal?

Interestingly enough, I cannot tell you the exact date that the last time this prompt appeared. I can only tell you that it was the day I got together with Lindsay to discuss ideas for Matt’s Christmas present. She didn’t know what the hell to tell me, because our men are hard to buy for- Dad, Zac, and Matt- because when they like things, they just get them. So, I bought Matt two things I knew he probably wouldn’t think to buy for himself….. they were on his Wish List, but I can’t imagine that these were necessary purchases….. just cool. Because of my history with the sport, I got him the soccer ball he wanted (I figured a soccer ball is a gift that should come from me, frankly. Matt knows more about the sport, but I know more about the players (I’m guessing). Oh, and I didn’t even know he was a Weezer fan, but I got him “The Blue Album” on vinyl. That’s a gift that should come from me as well, because they’re my favorite band of all time.

There’s no better feeling than a nice stretch of highway and “Dope Nose” blaring like “Peter Gunn” at 70mph.

But the reason I bring up Lindsay and Matt is that today is the same writing prompt, and Lindsay and I are going out for dinner….. again. This prompt is now an omen, so I’m going to keep praying for it. 😉

I said, “it seems to me that you’re in DC a lot more often now. Is that true?” She said “yes,” so I’m looking forward to seeing more of her as time allows. She’s not always free enough to get together, but when she is, it’s a blast.

When I first moved here, this was all a projection on my part and I was right. Lindsay and Matt are involved in politics on many levels, so it was not inconceivable that they’d both end up here. In the 2016 election, if Pete Buttigieg had won, Lindsay would have gotten a job in his administration because it pays to have old, old friends/bosses who are also behind the scenes. Lindsay basically ran Annise Parker’s campaign after Peter Brown lost (we love you, Pete…. rest in peace). When she won, Annise put her in Constituent Services and later “body man,” like Charlie in “The West Wing.” Then, Annise ran Pete’s campaign; I’ve never been more sorry that anyone didn’t get the nomination, because it affected me so personally and to me, Pete was “the guy,” like they talk about with Bartlett. He has it, man. But, of course, I am incredibly biased. He’s military intelligence, so I was literally obsessed with him on multiple levels.

What I have to say about Lindsay ending up here is………. sort of. I know for sure that I see Lindsay more now than I ever did in Houston, because her whole life is there. When she’s here, she’s not balancing a million different friends and their needs as well. After work, she’s all mine. Jill would be proud to know that we’ve been very responsible and no communities have been built…. and she’s an e-mail subscriber so I know this will immediately go to her desk. 😉 But, in all of this, there are drawbacks for me because Lindsay and I have a different form of ADHD. Mine is combined with Autism, hers isn’t.

Therefore, her brain is designed to think about and manage a million thoughts at once, because her brain is bursting with creativity and she can retain that information. My autism makes it where I cannot handle a million details nor remember them; I get so frustrated because I want to drill down into policy just as bad. I just don’t understand as fast when Lindsay is doing it by talking.

I have to transcribe a conversation to understand it, because I take in most everything through sight. It’s why I don’t get clarity on a subject until I’ve witnessed something and written it down. It makes me know that I am accurate in guessing what neurotypical people would do, but struggle to imitate it and make it feel natural. That’s what makes autistic people feel like aliens, and why “Resident Alien” is one of my favorite TV shows, because Alan Tudyk’s character, whether it’s his alien tendencies or human, is coded as autistic and really funny about it. But because I due process information through reading, it makes me shy when Lindsay takes me along to events where other important people are also there.

I am not a fan of the rarefied air in which she walks, and not because I don’t want to meet people like Kamala. It’s because I don’t pick up social cues well and I don’t want to make a mistake that Lindsay can’t recover from, like me getting on my high horse about something (politics is part of my intelligence special interest…….. love, love, love Karl Rove and not because I agree with any of his bullshit. He’s just the anti-Carville and I admire his “strategery.” Democrats could learn MUCH, but they won’t.). Her career is so important to both of us. It shouldn’t be about me and my behavior, but it comes with the territory.

Here’s a recent conversation (Lindsay and Kamala have known each other since the campaign trail. They’ve met…..):

Lindsay: I have a meeting with Kamala.

Leslie: I will give you five dollars if you walk up to her and say, “my sister lives in DC and she wants to know if you want to hang out.”

Lindsay: She’s a politician. Of course she’ll say yes.

Dead.

This is what comes up for me when I think about the last entry that I wrote about Kevin, the giraffe I loved at the National Zoo and who does not live here anymore.

But what comes up for me now is that with all the things I struggle with in my daily life, the only being I’ve ever told is Oliver.

Who is a dog.

The Best Feeling in the World

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Leslie: Could you call me?
Lindsay: Do you just want to do dinner tomorrow night?
Leslie: This is great. I didn’t even know you were in town, but even for a call, you’re in the right time zone.
Lindsay: My dinner got moved to tomorrow night. Zaytinya at 6:00?

Wait, wait, wait…… you mean I don’t even have to wait six hours to see you? This is the best part of ADHD ever. I live for this. Of course I can drop everything. Please. Anything else on my radar is now completely unimportant. As of right now, I’m just sitting here chewing my fingernails and keeping busy until the alarm goes off to get on the bus. Zaytinya is also one of my favorite places to go because it only takes 40 minutes and is located three minutes’ worth of walking from the Gallery Place/Chinatown Metro stop.

My sister works in DC, but she doesn’t live here. Therefore, sometimes if I time it right, I get these text messages full of joy because it’s an outing I didn’t expect, and it’s at “our Spanish Flower.” If I dwell on it, I’ll get misty-eyed. Spanish Flower(s- no one called it Spanish Flowers because Eli, the owner, told us that he named it after Mary, his wife, THE Spanish Flower.) It then spread to eating there three or four times a week. Since Lindsay and I both like finding a thing and exploring it intimately, we go to Zaytinya nearly every time she’s here. We have branched out a few times, like going to Union Stage to see Charlotte Cardin (which lets me know exactly what I should wear tonight…. Lindsay bought me a football jersey with Charlotte’s “number” on it- her album 99 Nights….. I love how she just rolls with my eclectic choice in clothing….. She also got me a hoodie with matching sneakers….. FANCY.). We have also been to that restaurant on the end of the pier where Union Stage is, which Lindsay had been to before and vetted.

It’s what’s nice about Lindsay working here- she has been to nearly every place we try with other lobbyists or Congresspeople. If I had to describe Lindsay’s life in one sentence, it’s taking people out to eat. She sits around, listens to people, and talks about stuff….. so that when she’s older, she can “sit around, smoke cigars, and own stuff.” That is an old, old joke because we used to live in a very tony suburb, and Lindsay went to a friend’s house that happened to have an elevator. My dad asked her what the friend’s parents did to have an elevator, and Lindsay said, “I don’t know. I think they sit around, smoke cigars, and own stuff.” We have repeated that phrase as the ultimate profession since then- probably 25 years.

It’s an unusual day for me, because I spent yesterday panicking about how I was going to get my Lamictal today, because I was completely out. I thought I was going to have to go to urgent care if I couldn’t get a doctor’s appointment today, because at urgent care I could have explained that I can’t get ahold of my doctor and they would have given me a month’s refill. But this morning, I woke up to a text message saying my medication was ready. I do not know how that happened, because on CVS’s web site it said that it was going to have to contact my doctor for a new prescription, and that can take days.

If you are completely out of a medication that affects your brain, you cannot skip a day. The effects are different on each person, but when I go without my medication, my brain starts making sounds akin to the Emergency Broadcast System, a minor second blaring in my head and I just want to stop the pain at any, and I mean any cost. Doesn’t have a thing to do with how I’m feeling. It’s that the pain is that bad. So, I’m vigilant about getting all my meds refilled as fast as possible, and prefer the Amazon pharmacy because they’ll give me three months’ worth of maintenance medication at a time, and I only need to go to the doctor for controlled prescriptions like Klonopin and Adderrall. I need the Klonopin, but I do not need the Adderrall all the time. I take drug holidays from it because even though it works on my mind, my body feels strung out and weak from all that stimulation….. Again, trading physical health for mental. Your body is keyed up and exhausted while your mind is quiet………. and you can’t really tell that your body is keyed up because your mind is quiet.

You quickly get a benefit, and after about two weeks of your body screaming, you want off of it again. I am also starting to feel that because my autism wasn’t caught, I am only treating my ADHD…. and that doesn’t work on autism. So, I’m taking ADHD medication and still feeling like crap because the same symptoms overlap with autism and therefore, don’t go away with ADHD medication. At this point, I am doing well on Sudafed and caffeine, so I might want to keep it that way. If I can get the same effect just by keeping my nose clear and having a cup of coffee or a 100mg energy drink in the morning, then another dose and small energy drink/cup of coffee at noon, it controls my symptoms for the whole day….. and I’m only on the smallest dose of workable stimulants and not beating myself to death with them.

As I have said before, there is a LARGE jump between coffee/Sudafed and Adderrall. I do not suggest using Adderrall long-term. It just affects my muscles, bones, and teeth too much. However, I do not recommend never going on Adderrall at all. You need to know what controlled symptoms feel like so you can replicate it….. but of course, I’m not talking to everyone. I’m talking to everyone who thinks “Driven to Distraction” is really about them….. and them only, because everyone feels that their problems are unique. Like, if you read “Driven to Distraction” and it doesn’t come across as a personal attack, you don’t need Adderrall. 😛

“Driven to Distraction” is the seminal work on ADHD, the Bible for therapists and psychiatrists on ADHD….. every bit as important a work as “One L” for law students and “Intern” by Doctor X is for med students. Speaking of med students, “Intern” is out of print, but you need to get a copy pronto. See also “Five Patients” by Michael Chrichton. Nothing will prepare you better for life in the hospital than reading about someone who went to, I think, Harvard in the 70s….. because nothing about hospital politics has changed in a hundred years……….. see also “Scrubs,” which my stepmother has said is the only accurate show about medicine ever on TV. She noped out of ER during the pilot because there was an X-ray upside down and backwards.

Because I know how the sausage is made in medicine, I do not suffer fools gladly and yet I do because I do not want to exhibit “drug seeking behavior.” It is a balance of knowing my shit and not seeming “demanding.” I swear to Christ, you will not meet anyone as self-aware as me. If I tell you I’m panicking and absolutely need more Klonopin than normal, you can take that check to the bank and cash it. But what you can’t do is get a doctor to stand in your body and feel it. Feel the panic that you do. Feel the nausea that’s going to make you throw up if your brain chemicals don’t “get right with God.” What you cannot do is convince a doctor you have ADHD if your symptoms are under control that day.

Please take it with a grain of salt if you’re in that position. These people see genuine DSB all day long and twice on Sundays. I had a patient back in my MA days who, before they started tracking controlled medications nationally, would go to six different doctors in a day for Valium, and she was one patient of many who had the same idea. So, I don’t push my doctors hard on anything, ever, because that’s the shortest way to cut yourself out of getting narcotics, benzos, and methamphetamines when you’re actually hard up. For instance, knowing what I need ahead of time and being able to explain, “okay…. here’s what I’m dealing with. You make the call, but here’s what I suggest based on what my previous doctors have done and it worked.”

You do not, for instance, ask for a prescription for those drugs and then come in halfway through the month and say you need more, or that you need your dose upped because either you’ve already run through the first prescription, or the doctor doesn’t believe that you actually need your dose upped, you’re just saying that because you’ve run out. There is no chance that a doctor is going to believe that you still have all the pills at home unless you bring them to the appointment.

I had another patient in my MA days that bought a safe for his house, because he noticed that when he didn’t keep his meds locked up, for some unknown reason they went missing. You have to watch for other people in your house exhibiting drug seeking behavior as well as watching it in yourself. I’ll give you a for-instance. If I have Adderrall and I’m going to Zac’s, I keep maybe two pills on me. That way, if my bag gets stolen or the pills do, I have only lost two pills, not my entire prescription. Same with Klonopin. Also, it’s harder to tell that they’re controlled substances when they’re not in a labeled bottle.

You have to know the difference between “I’m doing better” and “I’m fried all day” as well. Because the point of those drugs is to make you feel better, not to numb you out all the time. There are just certain situations that make me more anxious than others. For instance, going with my sister to a familiar restaurant would not cause me as much anxiety as going to a party in which I knew absolutely no one. I’m always afraid that I will find one person and hang onto them like a sloth because I’m intimidated. Luckily, I seem to hang with people who also do this…. because we’re the kind of people who seek out “the introverts’ recharging station” at any large gathering, anyway.

This is generally the kitchen, btw. If you’re looking for the introverts, they’ve either gone to the bathroom or to the room where the least people are gathered so they can hear themselves think. Introverts do not do well in situations where they can’t hear themselves think, because they’re more drawn to their inner monologues than they are anyone else’s. But at the same time, I’m an empath and can feel others’ emotions, and can’t seem to stay out of the heavy conversations because I’m built to hear them.

As I have said before, I do not have the ability to protect my mind, so I carry a lot of pain that’s not mine. I have clinical separation when someone is bleeding, but not when they’re crying. My dad said something to me that’s stuck with me since he said it- which was at least 30 years ago. He said that one of the reasons he left being a pastor is that he was exhausted at only being able to pray for people and not help them concretely. It’s exactly why I would have ended up in medical school if the fates had thrown me the kind of autism that understands STEM completely. Like, that’s a whole thing with me. If I could be mad at a deity for the roll of the dice, it would be having the kind of autism that makes me lost to the rest of the world, inside my head and protective of my environment. If my parents hadn’t both been dedicated to helping me physically and pulling me out of my own thought processes, I would have sat in my room forever, and I know this about myself.

I discovered my ability to take on others’ pain to an enormous degree when I was a toddler, and because I’m an INFJ, I have a deep inner landscape where I can get lost- easier than feeling every emotion in the room and bleeding out until I am full of rage at my sensory environment. When I am in meltdown, it is not pretty……. and you only learn who your real friends are when you stop social masking and start working without a net….. when you are so overwhelmed with your own symptoms that any change in your environment sends you into a place where you cannot take in any more. Rage is about putting up boundaries, a cry for help when it doesn’t sound like it.

Everything about autistic rage is a cry for help because we don’t have the words to express something clearly when social masks fail. We say things wrong and others focus on how we’ve said something vs. what we’ve said. If we could have just gotten the words right, our problems would be valid. We learn over time that there is no tone we can take that will make you see that our problems are valid, because we adjust and the answer is still no, because you’re still rightfully hurt over what we’ve said previously and you’re focusing on it. We are not narcissists or borderline. We are in hell, and we are sorry.

The hard truth is that many people are diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder or Borderline Personality Disorder because they’re female and “hysterical.” Many people aren’t because they’re male and their opinion is expected to sound sort of arrogant all the time. Non-binary people get the worst of it, because sometimes it is missed for either or both reasons. I also think ASD is under-diagnosed and ADHD is over-diagnosed in both sexes because of “bad behavior” in boys and introverted behavior in women…. not that ADHD isn’t valid. It’s that sometimes ADHD medication doesn’t work and that’s because the symptoms overlap just enough for doctors to be allowed to miss it, frankly. I am not angry that my psychiatrist in college missed it, because I have watched hours and hours of video on YouTube where psychologists talk about the neurodivergent brain, and ADHD is always lumped together with Autism Spectrum Disorder because it’s a comorbidity in something like 80% of ASD cases….. also why there is argument in combining ADHD and Autism as one diagnosis, that ADHD is part of the autism spectrum, not outside it.

Where ADHD and Autism differ is that there is not such a pull to get lost inside yourself because you need so much stimulation, and the need changes frequently. ADHD makes you a daredevil, autism makes you need quiet and a lot of it. I vacillate between those two things, but autism wins 99% of the time. That means actively avoiding relationships because I get tired of trying to communicate and it just not working the way I thought it would. I develop selective mutism and agoraphobia because I am trying to create a secure environment again….. and once I find it, it’s hard to pull myself out. I feel like the more I explain that this is part of my disability, the less my people will take it personally. Selective mutism and unwillingness to change my environment doesn’t necessarily come from conflict with people close to me. If I go out to, say, pick up a prescription and the experience is taxing, I will retreat for days to fill my social battery………

Again getting lost in my own world because it’s not as scary there.

Tonight, though, I’m going to a great restaurant with the world’s greatest person.

Grief Sucks

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Lindsay and I have been through the emotional ringer because of our stepfather’s death, and I use that term loosely because my mom didn’t marry him until the aforementioned trip when I was 24 in which my wife called me up nd told me she was cheating on me and she was leaving. So, I don’t have fond memories of their wedding at all. She wanted to be the monarch, I wanted to be the democracy. I did not like it, and I’m glad the trash took itself out. I was miserable for a while, but not long enough for it to matter in retrospect.

It’s been a complicated relationship the whole time. Trying to appease my mother and being frighteningly uncomfortable around him because he felt entitled to my body and I don’t as a general rule like people who don’t know me touching me in a seductive way, being more familiar than they have any right to be. He kissed me on the lips once without asking and I thought I was going to punch him with rage and didn’t. He told Lindsay and me that he was sorry, that he had kissed his other daughters on the lips without incident…. *but they had grown up with him.* He, like every man I know, felt entitled to touch me and obsessed with Lindsay to a degree where I am not noticed.

But that came later. At first he picked up on the fact that my mother loved Lindsay’s voice and she didn’t treat me the same, so he buttered me up with compliments to make me feel better. It wasn’t necessary. I am used to walking in the world behind her, because the attention she gets that I don’t might be annoying, but she saves me from having to deal with a lot, too. Everyone, in my observation, rushes in to do things for Lindsay in a way they don’t rush in for me.

But our stepsisters didn’t even bother to tell either of us that Forbes was being buried next to my mother and give us the time and date. Lindsay found out on Facebook. No one in that family who is still alive ever accepted us, but I had a relationship with the oldest, who thought I was brilliant and deserved to work in DC. The funniest conversation we ever had was her outrage that Ben Affleck played Tony Mendez because he wasn’t Hispanic. I wish I had gotten to reassure her that Tony didn’t care. He just thought he was more handsome than Ben. 😉

It’s nice that I have some good memories, but they weren’t consistent because Susan lived in San Antonio and I lived in Houston at the time. She was half Latina, half white and was the chair of the Mexican studies department at University of Texas- San Antonio. We both identified with The Struggle, a perspective no one in my family shared because they are all white. Someone actually said to me “why do you focus on minority issues. You don’t have to live with them.” She was making fun of Oregon, deservedly so, but still. It felt like she as laughing in a way I didn’t like.

But that’s Texas for you. Everyone riding the line with polite racism…… which is ridiculous because we annexed part of Mexico in the 1800’s. So many, many, many Latinx people are discriminated against every day when their families have been Texans for hundreds of years. There is no “go back where you came from.” We’re on their land, Holmes. Slow your fucking roll, Karen.

I feel like I have to apologize to the Karens in my life, particularly the ones who are Latina, because they are not the stereotype. But there’s just no other word to give that complete a picture of a white woman who feels like she owns everything and everyone. Double that for POC and queers, depending on whether they’re an angry liberal Karen or a MAGA Karen (which now stands for *making attorneys get attorneys.*)

So, Lindsay went apeshit after the funeral on the youngest two of our stepsisters because she was so hurt. Forbes’ sister in law tried to make it okay, but there’s not a way to make it so. Lindsay was traumatized, and so was I because when Lindsay went to the cemetery and sent me pictures on the anniversary of my mother’s death, the gash was still there from the burial and the headstone wasn’t there for carving.

I made sure my mom’s side is beautiful. It has a treble staff with the beginning notes to “Amazing Grace.” Forbes was a CPA so his side looks like an incomplete Word Document.

And if that’s not enough, I don’t know whether this is true or not, but I haven’t to Forbes’ lawyer directly, but apparently Lindsay gets to start her financial planning and I don’t because I don’t have a trustee and it will have to be set up before the money is mine. Lindsay says this is not true, that both our trusts are set up the same way, so the jury is still out. We are also requesting a list of beneficiaries for our dad’s retirement, because we think that Forbes may have used it on a down payment for a house he built with the woman he married six months after my mother died. This was not problematic to me. He had health problems and if his wife wanted to take over his care and feeding, great. The problem is that our mother didn’t leave us any money in her will. She left it to Forbes to manage. The money that we got from him doesn’t add up. It feels like he may have padded the gifts to his biological daughters with money that wasn’t his by dividing everything equally.

I need it for my retirement, but it’s a possibility that I’d sink it into a down payment on a house if I wasn’t taxed at 40%. This is because I think I could do better with DC real estate than I could with an IRA. It would also be a crash pad for my sister. But the money we have isn’t enough for a down payment unless we bought an apartment or condo in a shitty neighborhood, paying attention to when industries might move in. If we’d had the money for an apartment in ’01, Kathleen and I would both be in a very different financial situation, especially considering where we lived. If we’d applied for a mortgage to buy a house in Alexandria or Arlington, we would have made a nest egg no matter how long we stayed. If we’d kept the house as a joint asset and just rented it out, today we would be millionaires, especially if we’d been willing to risk it a bit and buy in Columbia Heights or Shaw. You can buy a house anywhere in the city of Washington, but you’ll get the most bang for your buck if you go into a neighborhood that is currently trashed out. Washington, DC is only 60 square miles. That means property values begin to skyrocket quickly in undiscovered pockets. Think about the people that bought in Georgetown in the 70s. Their houses are worth five million.

I don’t have the money to dream big, because it takes money to make it. But it’s a nice thought and a good thing for both Lindsay and me, so we’ll see. Even if we never do it, the idea is fun to explore. I don’t know that Lindsay wants to work past retirement age, so I don’t know if she would even need a pad in DC by then. So, it’s the equivalent of just searching Zillow for house porn.

It feels better than arguing in my head about why I don’t walk in the world like Lindsay, and how I can use my strengths so that people don’t see me as her weaker, meeker counterpart. I am learning to deal with my emotions differently, which lets go of a lot of rage. I don’t feel like everything is going wrong all the time because I have more emotional strength to be able to handle something like this. I am not getting edgy at an enormous change that as of yet, I do not understand.

New environments are difficult for me to handle, and this is one of them. I have never had to think about money before in this way, and it’s frightening to have something explained to you that you had no capacity to understand in the first place. It feels good to be in a different financial place than I was few years ago, but untangling the emotional strings around it is difficult…. most notably that I’m angry my mother died. My mother is the one that I could have just said, “I cannot make this phone call under any circumstances right now and it’s time sensitive. Will you help me?” My mother would not have understood why I couldn’t make a phone call due to social anxiety, but she’d do it anyway. I will make a phone call for you because I am not emotionally invested in what the other person has to say. I will clean your house for the same reason. There needs to be an exchange between people like this who all clean each other’s houses for free, because we don’t have the emotional attachment as to how it became that way. Shame and guilt, etc. I don’t think it’d be a problem as long as we don’t get lazy and under value what others are doing for us. Bartering vs. getting work done for free because you can’t be arsed.

I don’t want any more stimuli than grief most of the time, because it’s what I can handle right now. It has to be managed before I can manage anything else. It’s not a constant scream of pain anymore, just that my reactions are always going to be irritated and angry if I’m thinking about grief and dealing with other people.

When I am being short with people, I only want it to refer to my height.

Fewer Than I Think Most People Do, But More Than I Thought I Did

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What principles define how you live?

I don’t have strict principles because I’m AuDHD. ADHD and Autistic people may only have one: “annoy the shit out of everyone and see who stays.” I can joke about that because we drive each other up the wall. But when we joke about our symptoms, we’re not punching down. The thing about “seeing who stays” is that neurotypical people do not have an easy time in neurodivergent spaces like my house.

Zac and I are made for each other in this respect, because his house is a neurodivergent safe space as well. He’d have to tell you what his neurodivergence is, I just know that we have a lot of crossover because we love being together and are also bad at scheduling. He gets busy or has a TDY (temporary duty) elsewhere, I’m utterly obsessed with writing and forget to look up. All of the sudden it’s been several weeks or a month. That’s because neither one of us treat the other like a possession. I can’t remember who said it, but “he’s mine like my neighborhood, not my notebook.” It’s an attitude I carry now, because I feel like Bryn is mine in that way, too, and so is Supergrover even if she never puts it together that I am indeed the friend I said I would be from the beginning.

(I am her old, grumpy wizard and she is my young, brave, crazy knight. I am chronologically younger, but wouldn’t have her energy level at gunpoint. Not enough Diet Coke in the world. “Doctor Who,” as I’ve mentioned before, is not the only television analogy that fits between us, because we are very much like Arthur and Merlin from the BBC drama “Merlin” and Merlin and “Wart” from “The Sword in the Stone.” I take that back. She is still like “Wart,” but I am definitely, definitely Archimedes. She will be remembered as King Arthur, and I see her as Wart to cope. I do the same thing with my younger sister. Her professional persona is intimidating, so when I’m talking to her in real life it helps to think of her as a six year old. That reminds me of a principle I live by. Never treat anyone as if they’re older than 12 because they won’t respect you for it if they’re bad people. Good people need people who disagree with them and ignore their celebrity status. The evil are certain about everything, especially how important they are.)

Now, if there’s any principle I live with, it’s wanting relationships that are as drama-free as the one with Zac…. although I hope that Zac knows just as much as I do that our inattention doesn’t mean less care. We’re busy and we live over an hour from each other. The principle is just to be the person that has the other’s back. I frequently wish I could do as much for him as he does for me, but we’re at different points in our lives. It’s kind of different getting to be a princess every once in a while…… A princess that wears space man underwear, but still.

As I was reading back over earlier paragraphs, I realized that one of the principles I live with now is that my sister needs me more than she used to in a very concrete way. I am what she has left of my mom, because we’re still in touch with our aunts and uncle, of course, but we lived with her. My dad can tell her some stories, but not all because I was there with her after they divorced. I am the institutional memory of what was and will be, not because I can predict the future. I can just predict I won’t want to stop writing it down as it happens.

It’s something I know that I hope I can pass on to Supergrover and Bryn, as we’re all eldest children but their mothers are still living. My mother’s life was cut short by so damn much that I am going to be there for things that my mother never could, in way she never could because Lindsay and I didn’t open up to her like we open up to each other. I hope I can pass on that your siblings become your children when you realize you’re what’s left. No one gives you that authority, you’re just doing what you’ve always done and it feels weird not to try because grief is this whole other thing you will never understand. I don’t even say “I know how you feel” when someone tells me that they’ve lost their mother, because we almost certainly aren’t going to have the same experience. I am jealous even now at how much older Supergrover is than me and she still has her mom.

On the other hand, if she hadn’t died so young, me dating Zac (or any man) would have killed her… I wouldn’t have allowed myself to struggle with those questions on my web site because I never allowed myself to date anyone without thinking it was permanent before. Without knowing up front they were capable of marriage. It’s only because I’m starting to look at what I can manage that I can handle the dissonance between what works for other people and what works for me. I could not dive into myself to this degree if I was responsible for other people, and as I get busier I hope I will look back at this time in my life as a burst of creativity no matter how painful. I hope I’m now on a better path because I took the time to search for it.

I can’t control what principles guide others, the most important principle for interacting with others I live by.

If Ever

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 5 Comments

When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?

Neurodivergent people are stuck between childhood and adulthood through no fault of their own. The system is not built for them. People cope in all kinds of ways, but no neurodivergent person can claim that there are no problems in the system. We all manage the best we can, and I never feel like I’m doing enough. That’s because I’m not a real grown-up. People have explained this to me many times.

I don’t drive.

I don’t like to socialize that much.

I have never had job security because neurotypical bosses traditionally become parents. They think they’re helping you because you’re disabled/neurodivergent while simultaneously resenting that they have to do things differently for you than they do for everyone else. “Why do you question me more than anyone else? Why does it take longer for you than everyone else? Why do you look at me like that? Why aren’t you looking at e? It’s so weird the way your eye drifts off as if you’re not even paying attention. Are you even listening to me?” Then, while they’re talking, I’ll trip or something to make myself look even more infantile without meaning to. I spend a lot of time wishing the earth would swallow me up.

People love my personality here but doesn’t get that it comes from being infantilized my whole life. People give up on working with me really easily and I don’t know how to fix it, because it’s not something I’m doing consciously to piss anyone off. I literally see the world differently, and I’m sorry that when I’m trying to explain what neurodivergents see, there’s no way to translate perfectly. I have too many vision and brain issues for me to help you understand, because all my energy is going into the description.

You taught me how to do a task yesterday. You see me doing it today and it’s still taking the exact same amount of time. For you, that’s because work becomes rote. You don’t have to think about what your hands are doing every single time. I will never be able to put less effort toward a task. I will also not be able to divide energy between tasks. I can only choose a job like cooking, where everything is managed on a very strict clock with Machiavellian rules of order.

But in choosing cooking, I was often infantilized for being female, let alone disabled and neurodivergent. It was not a good fit except for the ADHD. Cerebral palsy didn’t win me any favors because I just couldn’t move as fast as everyone else and I got tired quicker; my performance was spotty because some of my muscles were weaker than others, particularly during exhaustion. Didn’t make me a bad cook. It made me bad at a racing against the clock.

Because of all of this, the first time I knew I was an adult wasn’t until I was 45. I hadn’t met many other autistic and ADHD adults so I didn’t have any coping mechanisms for being neurodivergent and disabled. I gave myself permission to push away relationships that weren’t working, even when it was killing me. Now I have relationships that I really want, because none of my friends see me as lesser than. I need it because some days I really don’t function all that well and I feel like a waste on society. I don’t need people who gladhand me and say everything I do is perfect, but people who are willing to work within my limitations because they know I’m willing to work within theirs.

Because I have only had masked, canned neurotypical responses my whole life to things, getting away from conversation and into writing is essential. When I’m writing, I’m not paying attention to what everyone else is thinking. I could drive myself insane with it, and often do. I wonder how long it’s going to take my beautiful girl to stop being mad over something I’ve said (while we were ON A BREAK) because she always comes back after she’s thought about it. Like I’ve said, something about this time feels final, but she’s my girl and I’ll always hope for better.

Being a grown-up in front of her is so difficult because I do have so much mother-love for her, admiration of how she raises her own kids…. and also knowing that her way of parenting wasn’t working on me. I knew it was going to be hard from the beginning. I asked her what she was like as a sister once, and she said “tough in some ways, rewarding in others.” This was before I broke her trust, so I knew when I did it that an apology would need to be complete and sincere.

I felt like a grown up when I asked myself what crime was worth taking eight years of so much tough when the rewarding was so hard to find? I felt grown when I didn’t need to be reminded I fucked up all the time. I didn’t need a friend who wouldn’t listen when I told her that’s how her actions made me feel and she just kept on doing it because hey, fuck my feelings. I decided I was worth more than that.

I can have moments of feeling grown up even while bawling like a little girl.

Safe

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Click to stream/download this entry rather than read.

What makes you feel safe in a relationship, romantic or otherwise? How did you learn those are the things that make you feel safe?

This is a writing prompt given to me by my friend Bryn, and I’m going to start with what I thought made me feel safe over time, because it’s different over decades.

In the beginning, what made me feel safe was having my needs met, and it didn’t take much because I wasn’t an active kid. I’m not sure I even had a social life until Lindsay was born (this is not actually a joke). Before Lindsay, like now, I was the kind of person who had one friend (Justin). When Lindsay got old enough to have friends over, I was in charge of them most of the time. “In charge.” Yeah, like I wasn’t soaking up human interaction when my battery was full enough that now I’d isolated enough to feel lonely… I wasn’t in charge. I was an introvert, and Lindsay was the extrovert who adopted me. She still plays that role, and we don’t even live in the same city anymore.

It makes me feel safe to give everything to one person. Just everything. I want to tell you my hopes, dreams, fears. I want to show you my inner landscape and walk around in yours. It makes me feel important to know things about people… that they trust me with their secrets because they know I won’t tell them. It makes me feel safe because it is an agreement. I will take on your inner landscape if you will take on mine.

My childhood was idyllic, so this didn’t become a big job until I was an adult. The War Daniel is one of the last people that saw that version of me, before life had hit me in the face. It’s the biggest reason I feel safe in marrying him if he changes his mind. The War Daniel knows leslie, not Leslie D. Lanagan, Trademark. What makes me feel safe in my relationship with him is that I know my inner landscape isn’t too fucked up for him to handle. He’s a nurse practitioner. WTF does he care that I’m bipolar?

Between my knowledge as a patient and his as a Doc, it’s handled. We both have our demons. We both need each other, and he turned on me when I needed him the most. But he should have, and I support him. The only person Doc needs to worry about is Doc. If we’re going to fight this thing out, I need him as healthy as he can possibly be. I need him to return to that feeling he had when he said he’d been in love with me for 36 years. I do not think that I am crazy in the slightest for thinking that this breakup is actually Daniel just saying “I can’t handle a relationship right now.” I am trying to think logically through alcoholism and rehab… walking around in his inner landscape and trying to understand because he made the agreement to walk around in mine. That kind of friendship and love doesn’t go away with a few angry e-mails. We’re in each other’s heads and hearts. Addiction and recovery are not the time to be making life decisions, and if I was short-sighted about anything, it’s that I gave too much credence to what Daniel was saying right before he went into rehab and not the grand possibility that everything he said would change once he actually got there.

It doesn’t make me feel safe in a relationship to think about it ending before it even begins, so I didn’t. What made me feel safe was to look at every possible outcome. I planned for the fact that Daniel would break up with me, and asked myself if I could handle it. I told myself that I could. That the most important thing was keeping his spirits high until their docs had them and I didn’t have to worry about him until he was ready to start doing the real work in our relationship, which was massive. I’m queer. Cora’s trans. Daniel is sincere in his love and support of us, but wasn’t ready for the massive change in his behavior it would require to make us feel safe and wanted.

The reason I was so extraordinarily hard on Daniel is not because I was offended. It was hard watching him be a bad dad out of idiocy and not malice. I could have handled it had it just been between him and me, but the group chat with Cora changed our dynamic because I could see theirs. I have seen everything, and this is why I’m willing to hang on for the ride. I feel like there’s more here to mine, like this isn’t the end of our movie if I’m just patient about it. It’s going to be even harder for Daniel to prove to me that I’m safe with him, but just because it’s hard, it doesn’t mean it would take a long time. We both process emotionally at a very quick rate. We’re writers. What would make me feel safe is to start writing letters again, and then for him to come and visit, so that my other friends can see how closely what I have said matches who he actually is.

Nothing illicit, nothing shameful, nothing to hide from either of us, especially from each other. I used to love the darkness.

This is because my one person changed immediately and inappropriately to an adult when I was almost 13, and for some reason, I got to walk around in her inner landscape as well. This is where things get complicated. In addition to walking around in someone’s inner landscape, feeling safe involved secrecy. I liked keeping secrets. I was more emotionally intelligent than most adults by the time this happened, and the undercurrent was strong. It turned everything dark, because then I began to crave relationships that were under the radar. The ones that felt illicit and maybe a little cooler than I actually was?

Relationships that created their own little worlds apart from reality, and I could go there when life got hard.

It was being able to run to a secret clubhouse, small and intimate. Not as big and intimidating as the whole world, because the universe is the two of us.

I am blessed to have those friends now that the feeling of needing darkness is gone. It was a process to get rid of it, and hell while it wasn’t resolved because of course the relationships I paid attention to weren’t the ones in the room. I came by it honestly. I lived with my mom and dad for years without hearing a word they said without it being filtered through one illicit relationship.

When things got hard with Dana, I stopped thinking about her because sitting alone in my office, writing e-mails into the night gave me more peace than interacting with her. They got hard for a multitude of reasons, but Dana became masterful at the bait and switch, where I’d ask about one issue and it would devolve into “you like your e-mail better than me.” We stopped communicating about anything else, because any conversation that didn’t start there found its way there quickly. Just a self-destruct button, because I didn’t think that who I let walk with me through life should be her choice, and if she didn’t like them, she didn’t have to meet them. Even I hadn’t met them. Remember? E-mail relationship.

When it became clear that the e-mail relationship was grabbing my heart in a bigger way than I expected, all I wanted from Dana was patience. That these feelings would work themselves out, and it wouldn’t even be a thing anymore. How things actually shook out is exactly what I predicted. Those feelings went away, but not on the timeline she needed. I’m sorry about that, but I couldn’t get there any other way except mine.

Do I feel like I threw away my marriage for an e-mail relationship because it was under the radar and Dana was in the room?

Yes, I absolutely do. I also know with eight years’ certainty that it was the best move I could have made.

When I left Dana and moved to DC, again I was alone in my office writing, and it was delicious. What made me feel safe was no relationships at all. Remember that Dana and I ended our relationship with a physical fight, so I was running scared. I didn’t trust anyone, and I was alone by choice. I had people to call if I needed them thanks to having lived in the area before and my cousin living in Virginia, but I didn’t.

My sister works in Washington, luckily, and so she was always close by in terms of the telephone and within a couple months of being physically available to hang. Sometimes I send her concert dates and things like that on the off chance she’ll be here, but I don’t expect her to show. I want to make her feel included… like she has two homes instead of just one. Washington can be a lonely place if you don’t know a local to keep you grounded.

What makes me feel safe in my relationship with my sister is the vulnerability factor. I can tell her anything, and vice versa. But it’s a much bigger deal that she’s vulnerable with me, because she’s powerful and I’m not. I actually think that’s one of the reasons our relationship works so well. We live in such different worlds that there’s no reason or even path to compete with each other. We’re just there to make sure the other one has her head on straight. In fact, I feel safe and vice versa that we’re each telling our stories exactly the way we want to tell them, and just advising the other on craft. There’s no, “I think you should do this.” There’s only “where do you want to go, and how can I help you get there?”

What makes me feel safe in a relationship is being in one with someone like my sister, who understands people on a large scale. She’s a lobbyist for a federally funded queer health care group. Her view is national. She does what she does because of me, because I helped raise her. Of course she’s the cis, white, straight, beautiful blonde woman who uses her platform to advance queer issues in the Texas and federal legislatures. Of course she is.

I am starting to feel like a wizened old grandmother character, because my role in Lindsay’s life is basically that. I don’t know the policy details of her job, but I do know people the way she does. Exactly the way she does. We both picked up our diplomatic skills from being preacher’s kids. We knew who Karen was long before there was a word for her.

It makes me feel safe that the ways in which she knows people are the ways in which I know people, we just use those talents differently. I ran away from a public life in terms of something like lobbying or preaching…. and into a public life where I have enough clinical separation to pretend that this is just a letter to myself in the future and there aren’t really thousands of you reading every day……

It makes me feel safe in our relationship. 🙂

Now, what makes me feel safe in a relationship is honesty, even if it’s painful to hear. What makes me feel safe is being vulnerable and the other person having enough courage to hear me, to talk it out instead of walking off. A bubble with a universe of two still makes me the happiest, and I write letters all the time.

I suppose the last thing that makes me feel safe in a relationship is actually hearing the words “please feel heard.”

The last person that said that to me became the most important person in my life, my editor dragon (it amuses me to picture her in dragon form and her glasses still inexplicably fitting).

It makes me feel safe.

The One That’s Mostly About My Sister

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

It’s the middle of the night and I just randomly woke up. I can’t get back to sleep, so I’m going to tell you about a funny conversation I had with Sam and then start reading. If I’m not hooked, I’ll go back to bed. If I am, I can’t think of a better way to spend a few hours than blissed out on the dopamine of a good book.

So, Sam wished me a happy Pride. We were talking about the events, and I asked her when the parade was. Then, I said, “I used to feel embarrassed about having to ask straight people when the parade was, but then I realized that no introvert willingly knows when events this size happen. We know it’s coming up, but we’ll wait until we know the approximate date and time before asking the exactly details.” I think it’s because we’ll spend time being anxious about the crowd- it’s sensory overload on every level imaginable. I like to be surprised with answers like “it’s tomorrow” or “it’s three days from now.” I do not want to know that the Pride parade is in three months. That’s three months of worrying about how to participate in the smallest increment of time possible.

She replied by telling me when it was (I don’t remember now…. I’ll have to look it up….. again), and then said that straight people like to be asked when the Pride parade is because they like proving they’re in the know. They like being thought of as “hip.”

Fine with me. I am not hip. I am the worst gay who ever gayed.

I’ve really only had one Pride parade that was so fun I never wanted the night to end. My sister marched with me, and we were both really young. I think she was 15-16, so that would have made me 20 or 21. There is nothing better than seeing the Pride parade through a kid’s eyes, because they notice everything and their perspective is just, well….. It’s better. They’re blown away by the floats, beads, flags, etc. and they just want to love you up and make you feel appreciated. They GET IT. Kids understand better than most adults, because they don’t like it when they feel like their loved ones are being attacked for something they can’t change, and the idea of one night to celebrate with a big party in the middle of the streets is catnip to a teenager. I think the meaningful parts of Pride move her differently than me, and I can tell you exactly why. If someone’s going to hate their sibling, it has to be them. Anyone else is just asking for a knock-down drag-out. Earrings will be taken out. Ponytails will be hastily made.

It’s not just the neighborhood block aspect. It’s also that my sister isn’t gay. She hasn’t had years and years and years of being picked on, so she has no immunity to it. We’ve never had this conversation, but I think it’s a tiny bit like Quentin Tarantino being worried that Jamie Foxx would recoil at saying the n-word while filming “Django Unchained.” Foxx said not to worry. It was Tarantino that was going to be uncomfortable, because for him, it was just Tuesday. If you are queer, homophobia and transphobia are just the iocaine powder to which we’ve built up immunity.

The struggle did not go unnoticed. The Pride parade impacted my sister’s life just as much as it did mine. She gave me so much self-confidence and love. I gave her the will to take on state and federal legislators who want to outlaw trans medicine by exposing her to what was going on in my community early and often.

My sister is pretty much the straightest straight woman I know, but at the same time, I’ve “raised her” to be a better gay person than I’ll ever be. Like, there’s no contest.

She’s a lobbyist for a federally funded health clinic that serves the queer community, working in Austin and DC. She knows more about queer issues than I’ve forgotten, and if I have questions about trans medicine, she’s the person I ask first (I’m not trans, I just always have questions about medicine). She was one of the people fighting prohibition of giving teenagers puberty blockers and the ban on trans girls in sports.

I don’t have the desire, will, or stamina to talk to Texas Republicans about that, because the fact that puberty blockers would alleviate their concerns was beyond them. Puberty blockers are a non-permanent way to treat gender dysphoria in children while giving them plenty of time to see a therapist and decide if they’re happy with their bodies as is, or whether they’d like to have surgery. It also gives them an “out” if they decide not to transition at all. As soon as you stop taking the pills, puberty resumes. I can’t imagine the disgust I would feel for my body if my entire brain was wired as male and I started seeing breasts grow in. By keeping trans people’s bodies immature, it also makes surgical transition easier later, because your face hasn’t grown into the appearance of your assigned gender- the one people decided for you because you’d just been evicted from your first apartment and measured on the Apgar scale.

For trans women, this could mean that their Adam’s Apples aren’t as pronounced and their facial features stay soft. For trans men, this could mean that their hips don’t widen in preparation for childbirth, they don’t start menstruating, and they only have to have bottom surgery later on.

It’s also misogynistic that this stuff is being targeted at trans girls, because I’ve never heard a legislator talking about males assigned female at birth and how that would affect boys’ teams. No one brought up trans men during the bathroom bill debate. It’s almost as if being female is the problem.

I don’t have the chutzpah to even read this blog entry to legislators, but my sister will keep knocking down obstacles on my behalf.

She is my Pride.