Things That Make Me Laugh

April 30, 2024April 30, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

This meme, which I posted on Facebook with the caption, “they would never tell us if they were watching us through our microwaves. That is Pop Secret Information.

But as I have said before, I am not offended by the NSA or CIA because if China and Russia are spying on me, I want my people in the room, too. People do not realize that they are willingly handing over their every move to the Chinese government. They do not believe that we (the US) are trying to protect people by banning it. It’s a huge injustice to content creators, when all we’re trying to do is keep US information inside the US. It’s not working when people actively invite China into their mobiles. Why use the back door when you can walk through the front? Social engineering at its finest. For that reason, I do not have the Tik-Tok app installed on my phone. I do watch them, but on the web site in private mode or re-vlogged on YouTube.

I honestly don’t care if the US knows what I do and don’t. I really care if China can pick me up out of a lineup, because I am dangerous to them being interested in intelligence. I would not go to Iran because of this, either. I would love to see Tehran as a tourist, but if anything would get me marked as an American spy, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say it’s “writing about American spies.” Just a wild guess.

It doesn’t take much, because they’ve got relatives selling prayer rugs on La Brea. 😉

There is an “Argo” quote or reference for every occasion, and that makes me laugh.

I’ve also gotten a huge kick out of watching Donald Trump go blissfully into every hearing and genuinely believe that he has never done anything wrong in the history of his life. It’s catching up to him in a major way, and I do not have schadenfreude. It’s fascinating to watch, like JK Rowling if she ever showed up at Pride.

Surely neither of them is that out of touch, and yet they are.

People say that both parties are the same, and on some issues, they’re right. I do not like the way either party funnels money to Israel. I do not like that Republicans are fighting over who gets to be a person. Who gets to be an American. So far, the mold is white, cis, straight, and male. It is unsustainable, and yet we continue to uphold it….. or at least more than half the nation does, because not all Democrats are that liberal. They do not see the problems inherent in treating minorities like shit, because none of, say, my problems affect them.

For instance, abortion would look different to most politicians if they were poor.

It makes me laugh, because I always laugh at people’s blind spots. It is better than rage or depression. Like, how dense are you if you don’t know that the news of a new baby is not always happy?For some women, it’s a death sentence because they made the devastating mistake of not trusting the bear instead.

The most vulnerable time in a woman’s life is pregnancy, because some fathers don’t support abortion. They support killing the mother because they’re not financially stable and the pressure becomes too much. The woman becomes the problem.

It makes me laugh that men do not understand this, because it makes them look like they don’t have eyes. As my friend Evey Winters points out, one of the reasons we trust bears over men is that good men stand there and say nothing. What am I supposed to do but laugh at their stupidity? I cannot solve everything by not leaving the house. If I didn’t laugh, I wouldn’t function.

My jokes are dark because the world is dark. It’s black humor to deal with an often black world….. or as I’ve put it before, trying to be an Easter person in a Good Friday world, but the way I go about it is to shed light on problems. I often am using dark humor to make a greater point, and I just have to hope that people come along with me. I think that most people who are minorities for any reason have a blacker sense of humor than the majority because there are so many more obstacles in our way….. and the more obstacles created the more things that make you a minority. For instance, AFAB (assigned female at birth), queer, neurodivergent, physically disabled, and poly are all separate sets of discrimination. The only way I escape all of it is by claiming it, because there’s no way to blackmail or shame me over any of these things. I learned that lesson at 14 when I came out as queer and it’s one of the few things that’s stuck.

Don’t cut myself into more manageable bites. Let them choke.

Republicans are asking minorities to either be just like them or get out of the United States. That should not be acceptable behavior in any country, much less “land of the free, home of the brave.” I quote this a lot, but it’s apt here:

Only the Americans would put “free” on a note so high no one could sing it. -Tony Kushner

I mean, I can, but that’s because I’m a classically trained soprano, not because I’m free.

Singing makes me laugh because that’s what I do when I hit a wrong note, and I hit a lot of wrong notes while trying to find the right ones, especially since it’s only now that I have a piano in my house (electric keyboard in the music room). This is also the first house in which I’ve been able to work out, and by that I mean “sing.” The attic is soundproofed, and so is the basement. David is also a singer, so hearing me warm up would not send him into hysterics the way it would have with my other housemates. I was very lucky that I got to sing at Bridgeport, because I was terrified to go into opera voice at 2300. I cleared it first, but permission is not reality when you have never heard someone sing before and they go full hat with horns in what would be considered “the middle of the night” in my neighborhood.

That thought makes me laugh in and of itself. It also makes me excited for January, because I might be in shape to try out for the opera chorus this year since I have a practice room that is ACTUALLY a practice room. Singing, like everything else you do with your body, gets easier as you limber up the muscles. I have not used those muscles in a long time, so I would prefer to be in a sound proof room until I can get control of it.

I can “fake it til I make it,” but it’s not how I prefer to sing. I will warm up for an hour before a performance. Otherwise, the chances of missing a note are greater, as are the epiglottal stops that make it where I can’t sing at all. The funniest time that’s ever happened was that I was filling in for another soloist in something that went up to a B flat (the highest note in the chord for the Star Spangled Banner, as well). I get up to the A and I have an epiglottal stop and just glissando down. It was…….. something.

I would like to work with Giles again, but he’s not taking students because he’s an elementary school teacher now. Giles was my voice teacher at University of Houston and we just happened to end up in the same city. Because he studied with Katharine Czienszky (apologies if I’ve spelt that wrong…. don’t have time to Czech), I have a lot of singer friends in common with him all over the country….. some of whom have known me since high school.

I think knowing really famous people before they got famous, like Robert Glasper, prepared me for the life I have now…. which is knowing that life doesn’t get better. You do. I just happen to know a lot of people that have defied insurmountable odds to get where they are, like Mireille Enos (The Killing, Good Omens) and Justin Furstenfeld (Blue October). One of the best plays I’ve ever seen starred Mireille as Anne Frank and Justin as Otto. Justin didn’t go to PVA for music, he was theater as well…. although one of the violists in my orchestra, Ryan Delahoussaye, is also in the band.

Yes, musicians. I know a violist with a gig.

Now that made me laugh.

I’m spending my evening writing because it’s distracting me from the fact that Bryn is not here yet and David has choir practice. I thought seriously about going with him, because I could commit to Tuesday nights. I have to think seriously about going to church twice a week again. However, it wouldn’t affect my schedule too much. I am rarely gone over the weekends and it would be a church in which I already had a ride. It’s a liberal church, but it’s Catholic. I would rather get paid as a ringer than attend a Catholic Church voluntarily, because I believe in open communion. I’m fine with the current pope and he’s one of my heroes because the Catholic Church is not where it needs to be in terms of being a liberal church, but it is better off than it has been in a long time. Christianity must change or die, and Catholicism would have been first due to their outdated views on, well, most everything.

However, church makes me laugh, and I’ve come a long way if I’d even consider it. What made me leave the last time was grief. I didn’t like going to church because I saw my mother in everything everyone did….. and I saw myself in the pastor. In fact, I’d been reading my pastor’s work for years because he’s also a blogger. I knew who he was online, but I was surprised as shit when I accidentally walked into his church.

There’s an Episcopal church near me now, so I might walk to it instead of Christ Cong, who was faced with closure due to their building issues. I think a reconciling Methodist congregation has it now, so that is also a viable option if I just want to stare my childhood in the face twice a week.

It makes me laugh, so it might be worth it. Or perhaps both churches are sharing the same space like “Little Mosque.” Maybe there’s a buddy comedy happening without me. I should look into this.

I’ve been a part of something like “Little Mosque” before, because we had a Jewish congregation rent our space at Bridgeport up until relatively recently, when they got bigger. I went to schul some Fridays just to listen to the transliteration, and I also enjoyed Ariel’s preaching. I also preach from a Jewish translation of the New Testament, because Jesus was a Jew and I’m trying to put him in the correct historical context. I once had someone say to me that “United Church of Christ” stood for “Unitarians Considering Christ,” and I don’t think that’s true at all. I think that people like Baptists depend on Jesus to comfort them when they’re distressed.

The UCC knows that Jesus was sent to distress us in our comfort.

And that makes me laugh.

Business

April 30, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

It’s one of my favorite Eminem tracks, and I have done it at karaoke (POORLY). But today I get to say that I had a win, because it made me feel good. I was going to post this in the article about productivity, but I’m neurodivergent. My brain diverged and I forgot. I said that I locked down my personal Facebook page and redirected everyone to my professional author’s page. What I did not say is that I started thinking like an entity and not a person, because now that’s true. Bryn also has an account on this blog, and has the capability to create entries independently of me. She doesn’t always post, yet I have to be prepared for the possibility that she could. I also would have offered one to Supergrover (after I’d added Bryn- it didn’t occur to me before) if I thought she wanted it…. For two reasons. The first is that she’s a wonderful writer. The second is that I would be very surprised if I didn’t give her an account, just access to mine, and you could tell the difference. It would be my voice, just on crack. You’d think I’d gotten better in a hurry, but you wouldn’t have thought I changed style and structure except a quarter of never.

That’s because Supergrover writes fantasy and I don’t. I am so cerebral that the only fairy tale I’ve ever liked in my life is the one she handed me. I think that she thinks I get lost in thinking of her as the evil stepmother when I’m trying to reach “happily ever after.” Every story deserves an “HEA.” I can already see it, feel it on my skin. It just looks different than hers, and I have to be at peace with it. I am.

So, I started thinking of my blog as the beginning of Lanagan Media Group when I added Bryn and became open to the possibility of adding others; I felt an amazing amount of business savvy in locking down my personal profile. People don’t need to become friends with Leslie, they need to become friends with Lanagan Media Group. I am not a person anymore- because I have another author, I’m a brand.

But that brand is not Bryn pedaling my voice and views. It’s being able to talk about those things and discuss boundaries. We just don’t have to discuss much because we agree on most everything politically and neither one of us has a conniption fit when we write about the other. If we had a fight and she wrote I was a bitch that day, good for her. I probably needed to hear it. That’s because I know that when we have an intimate moment that strengthens our relationship, she’d reflect that, too. She’s not out to get anyone when she writes about herself, she’s digging deep and letting the right people go with her….. Because they like her for who she is and not who they think she is.

Sometimes, people don’t notice that it’s not me, so I started asking Bryn to introduce herself at the beginning of every entry she writes. I love it when she posts because she is naturally so much funnier than I am. My entries are not as full of laughter, because when I write, I am focusing on myself. How many of you when you sit alone and think are consciously trying to make yourself laugh? I am, and that’s the only reason there are jokes in here at all. However, no one does it all the time. Bryn just likes making herself laugh more than I do, and it shows.

Bryn is also neurodivergent, which is why we don’t have a problem in communication most of the time. Everything the other says is #relatable. Therefore, I am stereotypically #blessed.

I’m talking about her so much because she gets here tomorrow and I haven’t seen her since way before the pandemic, so the right amount of time to be over the top excited and can’t think about anything else.

I’m also excited to meet Dave, her boyfriend, and get to know him in the flesh as opposed to “this is Dave” occasionally as he walks by the video call. 😉 It’s necessary to get in good with your best friend’s partner, because we both need a person to talk to about her, because we both love her. We want to support her. I am not offering either of them more than that, just that when push comes to shove, I’m Bryn’s friend and not Dave’s. I am not ANTI-Dave. 😉 I am only anti-Dave if Bryn becomes anti-Dave. Just like Bryn would never in a million years be anti-Zac unless I became anti-Zac, and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I have both freedom and security. It’s a lot easier to deal with life’s ups and downs when you know you always have someone in your corner no matter what. And both Zac and Dave are Navy, so obviously we both know what we’re doing in terms of picking men. Navy, you are a different breed and we’re here for it.

Zac and I have similar stories- he joined the military because he didn’t know what he wanted to do after high school, but he wasn’t interested in school. I tried to join the Air Force for the same reason, because at the time music classes were the only ones I liked and I wanted to try to get into “Airmen of Note.” I just wasn’t medically eligible and Zac was.

At the time, being in the military and also in the jazz band seemed like the easiest way to work as a musician every single day and not worrying about chair tests, ever, because even if I got last they wouldn’t kick me out altogether. No matter what happened, I could work as a musician, even if I turned out to be a crappy one and did something else for my day job. As it turned out, what I did not like was grade school.

I had a great college experience because that’s the first time academics are on a level playing field with neurotypicls and neurodivergents alike. That’s because in college, they don’t do “daily work.” You are perfectly free to inhale all the reading in one night if that is the way your brain works (and mine does). I couldn’t see the forest for the trees in grade school, but I kicked the shit out of college unless it was something I didn’t understand, anyway, like Logic or Trig.

It’s not school I objected to- it was the system of education. So, if you’re a neurodivergent who struggles in grade school, don’t worry about college because it’s a choose your own adventure. Study every day, or study for 27 hours in a row before a test. Your choice. You do you. Don’t be afraid that you’re not smart enough for college, because “smart” and the way your brain works are two completely different things.

I did a lot better in school when I wasn’t micromanaged and my brain could just be my brain. That I wasn’t set up to fail by not having papers in my bag that day. I was excellent even in classes with the Socratic method, because I would inhale the reading and be able to talk about it, and in classes where reading wasn’t mandatory (as in, we didn’t discuss it), I wasn’t punished for saving up the reading til later because I knew it would be on the test….. So I had to read it at some point and did. Class and the reading were often disjointed when they didn’t reflect each other, because both we as students and the professor would get off on tangents, especially in International Relations (we were obsessed with the war in Kosovo at the time).

So, for all you ADHD/autistic kids it’s okay to stop worrying about what you’re going to do in college because you might find when you get there that college jives more with the way you think than high school did, anyway. No matter how you do it, it’s right.

Just like now, I would have a problem with being required to write long essays every day on a given topic, but I write them to myself because I think they’re important. I am lucky that they have become important enough to other people that the reason I allowed other authors was to increase my reach while I was asleep, because I’m on Eastern time and Bryn is on Pacific. It was a very Pacific strategy.

I am capable of synthesizing and adapting ideas. I got that one from ITIL, which is the Bible on how to run a helpdesk- “follow the sun.” Maybe one day I will make friends close enough to add in New Zealand and Australia rather than requiring one of us to move there. 😉

I worked for Alert Logic, and we had a “follow the sun” approach, which led to one of the greatest victories of my career. The vice president of the company in the UK took a support call and transferred it to me without hanging up the phone. He was absolutely blown away that it was 0300 and I was chatting to him like it was just a normal workday…. Asking who his Doctor was (I asked all British customers that just to calm their asses down before addressing the issue at hand. If they’re calling to say something doesn’t work, they want to fight. Don’t let them. A cappuccino machine in a dress is the one true way). This vice president said that if everyone was like me, they’d have a better company. Unfortunately, my manager did not also think this.

That’s because I thrive on my own structure, which I had a lot of at night, especially when I transferred my business phone to my cell phone so I could answer calls in my pajamas in my home office, which I did when I was the one following the sun, handling international customers from midnight til 9 AM.

It was so intimate to be the only voice in the dark on my end with the busy chatter of their offices in the background. I often got to know people quite well because you have to do something to pass the time when files are transferring, etc. because it’s not enough time to put someone on hold. So, we’d chat to each other. I also got to know my British coworkers in Cardiff better than most because I was the one on the American end who was handing things over.

In fact, I once met a “Davies” that looked very much like Greg, and in retrospect I wish I’d asked if they were related. He’s one of my favorite comedians of all time, and on “Who Do You Think You Are?,” Greg finds out that he’s Welsh. I also had a fascination with Cardiff and “The Doctor Who Experience,” but I did not get to go before it closed. I’m sure that if I’d stayed at Alert Logic, I would have gotten a rotation in Cardiff at some point, but they were not the best with autistic employees who didn’t know they were autistic. Hindsight is 20/20 on agreeing that why I got fired was unfair, and yet it wasn’t their fault, either. I cannot hold them responsible for something they did not know, I can only lament that I did not know to tell them and move forward in a different direction.

Which reminds me- I get so much attention from the daily prompt tag that the next time I get to use it, I will say it again. If you want to read me, you’ll have to follow me, because I don’t appear in #dailyprompt every day anymore. That’s because even if I use it, I don’t have the specific tag for that day to put me into that feed. So many people have gotten used to reading me on that tag alone, because of the number of people that showed up every day back then vs. now. It’s not that I don’t do well in other categories, that’s just a big one for exposure. I got a year of it, so I should be grateful, and I am. What would be more helpful is another year of prompts rather than reusing the same ones.

I suppose I could create another author tag and use THAT account, but I’ve been theantileslie for so long that I don’t think of myself as anyone else, except for possibly “Rev. Argo,” because that’s how Bryn used to address my mail (I did her wedding years ago, am ordained by the church of the Latter Day Dude, and Argo is my favorite movie). If I had thought of it on Dec. 31st, I probably would have done it. It’s too late now. But maybe next year if there are no new writing prompts to be had.

Writing prompts make it easier to blog, just like sometimes Alzheimer’s patients come into lucidity about the past if you prompt them. Details come up for both of us that wouldn’t have come up otherwise. I find that especially the way I write, no writing prompts is ever going to be the same from beginning to end, because it’s going to bring up different aspects of an experience depending on how I view it that day.

I don’t think the same thing about every situation all the time. I make peace within myself by seeing things in a hundred different ways, because there are a hundred different ways to explain what happens when I’m around other people, or two hundred stories total because my 100 won’t match theirs. A lot of it is that autistic thought processes don’t seem “correct” to neurotypical people. Because our pathways are different, they are wrong.

Sometimes, I have to get used to the fact that I’m wrong whether I am or not, because I cannot get people to see that my thought processes are not “crazy.” They’re DIFFERENT, because I cannot even begin to think like someone else and in a neurotypical world, difference is bad. Very bad. They googled it, and they do not like it.

I have known this for a long time because I am not officially diagnosed as autistic, I am in the process of waiting for a diagnosis and doing all the research/online tests I can do until that appointment. However, I have been diagnosed as ADHD, and had I known more about ADHD when I was at Alert Logic and why it’s like autism, I could have been more specific in my demands for accommodation. Very few of the things I need in a working environment are specific to Autism or ADHD. Both accommodations are nearly identical. If I had known that I take in information through sight and that’s why I have trouble talking on the phone and writing at the same time, I might have gotten accommodation for it. I cannot process what one person is saying and process a response and write down my experience while it is happening, i.e. documentation. There are ways around a problem if you know you have it. I could not help myself.

That’s what all this autism talk is about. It’s not trying to “prove” I’m autistic because there’s no real way to do that. We all look different, we all have different ways of presenting. I especially know that you’ve met autistic women your whole life without knowing it because most women don’t know whether they’re autistic or not. It never would have occurred to their parents to get them tested because classic presentation is young boys. That means there are millions of undiagnosed women in the work force and we all struggle a fuck you amount. That’s because they’re caught in a system not built for them, but never taught that it’s not built for them. They’re just angry and frustrated because obviously, it’s not the system. They’re just failures.

Up to 80% of autistic people are unemployed at any given moment, and for women, this is mostly expressed in not being able to handle life like a “normal woman.” We are taught that we are failing when we cannot handle being a partner, mother, and coworker/employee all at the same time. However, the more and more roles we take on, the more we’re spread thin without realizing it. The potential for constant meltdown/burnout cycles gets larger, which makes us look like we’re shirking our responsibilities because all wives and mothers are built to handle a million details and you’re just defective. I am so glad that I’m queer, because I have no doubt that if I’d bought into what being a wife and mother really was to a man and married someone to have that life, I would be dead by now. This is not saying that my husband would have killed me, but it is not unfathomable that he would be enraged by my lack. No, I’m talking about not having gender roles in a relationship kept me from feeling like I was failing as a partner all the time.

Life is relentless as an autistic person in an allistic world, because you cannot convince someone that you really didn’t know/understand something. “Everyone” knows. I would like to punch this mythical “everyone” in the face. They’re setting me up for failure, like commercials that try to convince people with no money that they need extravagant cars.

I thrive in my own system, and so do many autistic people. I just don’t think that many women have the language for it. I hope I’m giving it to them straight, because autism is probably a diagnosis they never would have thought they had because no one ever told them it was possible. There’s a woman I hold in my mind when I say this, and I hope she knows it’s her. It’s a face with many, many names when I follow the sun.

That’s because I’m not a brand, I’m an archetype. There are millions of women out there just like me, and I’m trying to find them. It helps not to feel so alone. I am already friends with lots of autistic guys due to the nature of always being online and having been on the Internet since it was born. I already indulge my autistic male side because men are more likely to know they’re autistic.

I have said that I’m enby and I mean it. I have just already met my quota in autistic men and want to get to know other autistic women, because it affects us differently in terms of the role we play in society. There is no room for an autistic woman to be herself unless she ignores a MASSIVE amount of American culture.

I get called “difficult” a lot when I don’t understand. It also doesn’t take much for a woman to be difficult in my society, so I am guessing that whether or not I am difficult depends on your perspective. I have definitely had to turn a negative into a positive, going even further against the grains of what female means in order to understand myself. I am not all of anything. I am a little bit of a whole bunch of things. I contain multitudes, and I’m not a good enough writer to have thought of that first but it doesn’t make it less true.

So, you should follow me because I am not going to be the same person tomorrow. You will perceive a different aspect of my personality then, because Bryn will be here…… And also because I’m a different person every time my outlook changes, because what I present depends on what I pick up.

Therefore, I would also like you to pick me up.

You know what I mean. Get your mind out of the gutter. 😉

Productivity

April 28, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 4 Comments

Today’s daily prompt is about times in my life that I’ve felt productive, and this is a great time to ask me about it because I don’t think I’ve ever been more productive writing-wise, and I don’t want to be known for anything else.

It’s been a transformation of enormous proportions. I have been pulling myself inwards, thinking about my directions and distractions. What and where are they? Why do I fail when I am so motivated by hearing other people talk about success? It’s all about dealing with the gap between knowledge, emotion, and communication. I do hear people, and I do take in emotions. However, I don’t do it at the same rate or speed because my pattern recognition is different. There are literally different pathways to your conclusions than to mine. I am not a sociopath, cut off from all my emotions. I show all of them very well in writing. I show them very well in person, although I am much less likely to tell people what I think in person because it’s hard for me to verbalize it. If something feels like a threat, I go mute. I do not stop taking everything in. My mind decides “we’re not going to do speech today.” And we don’t.

Part of being so much into chatting online vs. getting together is because I don’t experience those gaps in between trying to say what I think and trying to verbalize it. It is why I now think that Supergrover is my puzzle piece by now, because she’s had unfiltered access to my brain for 10 years without once hearing a stutter as I figured out how to put words in my mouth. I solve the problem of stuttering by taking time to think before I speak, because most of my stutter is just lag. Damn lag.

Therefore, people who know me would probably say “you don’t stutter.” I don’t when I’m not choking on buffer overload (and as you get older, the amount of RAM decreases). When people are talking to me, the thing that you are reading right now has not stopped. It is running underneath my speech. Therefore, I have multiple trains of thought running at all times, and picking one of them in order to speak slows me down by quite a large margin.

It also depends on how many other sounds are competing with your voice in the room. I like very intimate conversations because I can really only process one voice at once. I am never trying to “get people alone,” because I don’t have to. I go off to be by myself and the other introverts adopt me because they see it’s okay to be overstimulated… Or someone is concerned and now the person that’s concerned about me is in my bubble. Either way, it’s not about my personality. My personality is “when you’re overwhelmed, find somewhere quieter.” That’s how I got Bryn. She has always been in my corner because we were the introverts trying to get away from the noise. We talked to each other in quiet spaces because we could hear ourselves think.

I remember myself at that age (19) and just realized that my haircut now is the closest it’s ever been to when I was that young. And yet, I really don’t look much different except a few gray strands and a few more wrinkles. Some people say that they don’t feel any older. I do. I feel ancient- partly because I see how I’ve grown, but partly because I’ve been middle aged since I was nine. I have never talked like a child, ever, which is why in our family no one imitates things I said when I was little. No one. I have been very precise with language since I learned to use it; it just so happens that most people excel at conversation and I excel at taking a second to think of a reply and chatting back.

Supergrover once told me that it was clear I often said things before I thought about them, and I believe that is true. It has to be, because I’m ADHD. But at the same time, I think she was also talking about consequences that a naurotypical person would see coming, but not a neurodivergent one. I don’t mean issues of clear right and wrong. I have that. I mean being able to divine consequences and/or their feelings out of thin air, and our relationship was only using 7% of what went into communication in the first place. A good example of this is thinking I’m being the bigger person by laying out my vulnerabilities first. She took it not as “this is what Leslie is worried about,” but as “Leslie needs to guilt me about something.” Meanwhile, I think I have said something perfectly logical and she thinks I’m trying to hurt her. It’s unsustainable, because I do not want her to feel guilty.

I want her to see that these are the problems we need to resolve so that we can move on, because I can imagine that some of the things I think and feel do indeed make her feel guilty, but making her feel guilty was not my intent. I think she thinks I want to punish her for what she’s done, when she’s the most precious thing in my life. The fact that she thinks that I feel such negativity is overwhelming, and I feel like I’ve proven that within myself I was not asking for anything huge. She reassured me that I do come up in her mind all the time, and that was that. That she didn’t have to drop out of her life and appear in mine. That I was worried our relationship was truly lopsided and I was on the wrong track. It was a half a line in an e-mail, not a day at the beach.

Wanting to do things together is dreaming because she doesn’t have the bandwidth, but I didn’t make it clear that I was just dreaming, so she thought I was being demanding. If I was demanding, e-mails wouldn’t have been enough to sustain a relationship for 10 years. When I throw ideas out there and they’re not for her, she becomes part of the problem by not saying “eh. I don’t think meeting in person is for me.” Or whatever. She’s never said anything like that, so I’ve always treated her like a normal person. And in fact, I believe she sees me the same way. That’s because I was preaching at Bridgeport during the pandemic and she told me to send her a link. She didn’t get to come because something came up, but the fact that she told me to send her the link made my heart beat eighty times faster and I did very well that day.

However, I didn’t know she wasn’t able to come until after the service (Zoom), so I still put a reference to her in it because it tends to make people laugh to themselves. I also thought it would make her laugh to be an atheist and think “a preacher mentioned me in a sermon today.”

And the thing is, I wasn’t disappointed in the slightest because she was genuinely sorry that she couldn’t make it because what came up was really important- not that I’m not, but I’m not her only friend and I’m not a member of her family, unless you count the space in her head I’ve been renting all these years.

It feels very much like a constant running version of “All of Me.”

I do not know whether she would be Lily Tomlin or Steve Martin, but as I’ve seen Steve Martin age I actually think we’re more alike, despite Lily and me both being queer. I love comedy, but I also love zoning out and doing my own thing, like buying art and writing novels/screenplays. I have a feeling that Steve Martin is a neurodivergent introvert as well….. That stage presence is an affectation for EVERYONE who is in any way creative. You get to see us live, you don’t get to see us in the practice room.

You don’t get to see the thousand pictures I took before I got to the good one……………. Except you do.

I write in bulk, so how many of these entries do you think I think are amazing? Not all of them, I assure you. I feel like I spend my days work shopping ideas, throwing them around in my brain and trying to word it so that I understand them. If I can understand them, then mostly so can other people. I get lost in my own head and forget transitions a lot of the time, but that’s what it’s like to get a blog and not a book.

You are not getting the finished product, you are reading my notes. I am a different writer outside this blog because when I am writing for publication, I tend to clean it up more. Not only that, if it’s important I get someone to edit me (A friend or a Fiverr). By “important,” I mean anything I’m turning in to a contest or I’m being paid, like a book review. Even if I don’t get a salary, the book is the payment.

I took a break to make breakfast, and now I don’t remember where I was going.

The stove is gas.

I have to keep pinching myself when I say it. It has made me cry several times, both because having a gas stove is such a a good thing and because there are All-Clad pans to go with it. I remember every moment of learning to cook just by the way the pan feels in my hand. It’s too professional not to trigger me in a good way. David hasn’t seen me flip mushrooms or anything, but he has come home and say it smells good. What he’s smelling is butter. A lot of it.

Now that I have All-Clad, I’m back to cooking like I’m in a restaurant. It’s good, because I don’t eat very often, but everything I do eat is loaded with calories. Most days, it’s eggs and toast. Today, I made oatmeal.

I started with a couple tablespoons of butter, oatmeal, and chia, flax, and hemp seeds. I sauteed all of it until it was brown, then added water, Mexican vanilla, and sugar. It sat on the stove for about five minutes (steel cut, but microwavable so it doesn’t take long on the stove) and then I added some peanut butter and dried cranberries to finish.

Then, I let it sit while I was cleaning the kitchen, because I like oatmeal to cool so that it breaks apart in chunks. It took me about 15 minutes to clean up, at which time I took the liberty of pouring some almond milk on it.

Now, the whole house smells like brown butter, and I am very, very pleased. I wish I had made a larger pan, because I like steel cut oatmeal warmed up in the microwave rather than buying quick oats. These were some I’d ordered off of Amazon years ago and I’m still using them up because I didn’t know I was ordering six boxes of six. Normally, I buy Irish steel cut oats and it takes about half an hour. For my money, now that I’ve cooked with microwavable steel cut, it’s fine. It tastes the same when you put the amount of ingredients in yours as I do in mine. I didn’t do it this time, but last time I sauteed pumpkin seeds for oatmeal as well.

Generally people who say they don’t like oatmeal haven’t had what I consider oatmeal. It’s watery, or soupy, or whatever. Mine actually looks like cereal. Plus, the grains all taste better after they’ve been sauteed in butter first. Pretty much anything tastes good sauteed in butter, but get exponentially better with sugar, vanilla, and dried fruit.

I need to go to the grocery store at some point today, but breakfast was just “throw it together.” I like to go to the grocery store when I’m full, because it helps my impulse control…… But not too full or nothing else will look appealing. I will go to the grocery store, walk around, and leave. I get overwhelmed at too many decisions. It is literally why I have a standard order on Uber Eats and I just hit reorder. If they don’t have something, I discuss substitutions. I do not want to go through decision fatigue with every single item.

The only thing I know I want today that I haven’t gotten in a while is toilet paper. Hayat always bought all of ours, I didn’t have to get it myself. So, I get to pick out my own. This is exciting for me. You have no idea.

Before David left for church, he told me I could put my office in the sun room. He said that no one uses it, and that it’s kind of cold. I told him that was fine. I could get a little electric heater if I had to. It’s nice to have a place to write that’s not shut up in my bedroom. I’m having trouble transitioning into having a whole house again. My housemates and I stuck to our rooms and rarely came out. Therefore, I’m usually in my room. I think David thought I was unhappy and that’s why I’m shut up in here. Nope, it’s that I only think of myself as renting one room.

I have seen David visibly relax over time, because since he’s also neurodivergent, having someone move in with him was VERY intimidating. It was intimidating for me, too, but not in the same way. He’d never rented out his space before, so he didn’t know what to expect from anyone at all. I’ve had housemates in every living situation since college except a spot here and there. Once I lived in a junior efficiency by myself. All of the others, I was either in a relationship or I had housemates. Once, I had a one bedroom in a retirement community. I was in my 20s and I was delighted. They didn’t legally discriminate, they picked up the trash door to door, there were two pools on the grounds and I was the hottest person at both of them….. I mean, what was not to like in that situation? 😉

They stopped doing things for the residents after a while. At first, we all had breakfast together every Sunday morning on the landlord’s dime. That stopped, and then picking up trash door-to-door stopped. The only thing left that marked it as a retirement community at all was a bus that went to several shops around the area. In Houston, I drove, so I didn’t use it. Basically, though, what made it unique was gone.

I am trying not to do that to myself. To give pieces of myself away so that I am no longer unique. I am also not trying to be invulnerable, to actively disconnect myself from my emotions so that things hurt less. If I felt less, I wouldn’t have so much inspiration to write, because I wouldn’t think my life was worth remembering.

Smiley

April 27, 2024April 27, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What are your favorite emojis?

I have jokingly called Zac “Smiley” since we met. That’s because George Smiley was John Le Carré’s main character and Zac is not in a big three letter, but he works in both military and civilian intelligence roles. I was delighted one day when I said something in voice dictation like, “you’re adorable, Smiley.” Siri wrote:

You’re adorable 😊

So, if I had to pick one out of all, it’s the OG. I was around when it began, and I use/say it almost as much now as then.

I feel like I use emojis the way they were intended, which is to indicate which lines are jokes… not a mode of communication. To me, that is like saying “I need 300 words on my desk by 1500, but make sure it’s in Wingdings.” Therefore, I hardly ever use emoticons that I can’t type.

It’s not fun to me to stop and insert imagery like a web designer. I will add emojis at the end, but only sometimes. Mostly I am concerned about getting you an answer, not picking pictures.

My other top two are a winking face and a smiley with the tongue hanging out because they’re easy to use at 90 wpm. I also try not to use them in every single paragraph. They are decorations, not cake. My feelings may have more to do with the creation of the web not being what maintains it. As in, I may be telling you things that no longer apply. In my background, they were lifelines to ensure that you let someone know your intent in a chat room, because an emoji transcends language. I get that going to pictures is nothing new and hieroglyphics are valid, but that’s not how we did it in the beginning. I’m not advocating we go backwards. I just haven’t had a situation where I needed to stop talking and use emojis instead. It has never come up.

I also don’t expect other people to be writers, so I am not telling you what you should do, either. I am saying that my habits are built from having specifically a desktop since I was eight. It was a different feel not to have the Internet on all the time, like a utility. You might have only been able to chat for a few minutes before someone accidentally picked up the phone. The phone lines carried both data and voice just like the internet does now, but picking up another phone in the house would drop the data connection and you would be “kicked off.” I have to explain this because not all my readers are my age.

I wish I could remember more of those early conversations, because I didn’t realize how quickly my day to day life was changing. My watch has a faster processor now than my desktop had back then.

I have a watch that would have genuinely been helpful at CIA during The Cold War, and I would not doubt that they had something like an Apple Watch long before we did. It’s not because I think there’s a deep state or anything shady. It’s that with all the technology research CIA does, a computer that’s capable of sitting on your wrist like a Pip-Boy can’t be an original idea. Jonna used to take calls from her staff after “Get Smart” and “Dragnet” from officers saying, “can we do that?”

But there’s a second reason, and that’s that during one of Jonna’s talks, she said that they do such specialized things that one person will spend their entire career on one thing, like batteries or cameras. That’s because once an asset got to the place where they were supposed to plant the bug, it had to last a long time, because who knows how long it will be before we can get into that room again? And in fact, she was talking about “The Americans,” the scene where the maid hides the bug in Caspar Weinberger’s clock.

(I thought it was really funny that Ollie North consulted on “The Americans. It’s just the richest ending to that story I could imagine, because it was a major one. I remember it and I couldn’t have been even a teenager yet.)

We, the people of the chatrooms, have conversations exactly like this because we’re always looking for the next new thing, computer-wise. Zac and I have a Chinese Wall on technology, because he knows I’m interested and I’ll ask way more questions than he could possibly answer. The only thing he’ll say is the history of something if it’s UNCLASS. Like, “we have stuff that looks similar.” If he says “looks similar,” that’s kind of my cue to go read a book. 😉

I have never been in a chatroom where we weren’t discussing computers or the chessboard at some point. I have no doubt that I’ve met half of Anonymous by now. I know for certain I’ve met one. I didn’t even have to catch him at anything. He took some Ambien and came to my house because he still couldn’t sleep……… Then I didn’t sleep for three days.

However, he was the kind of hacker you want. Someone who’s a hacktivist on the good guys’ side. White hats do exist.

In all of my years on the Internet, it’s been as nonbinary as everything else about me. I got sucked into the world of hacking, but I don’t hack. It’s kind of the way Lindsay is woven into the queer community in Houston even though she’s cis and straight.

Oh, and I should write this down. “Enby” is short for nonbinary. It’s the gender that most fits me, and yet I don’t care if people think I’m male or female. Pronouns are not about respect to me, because I think it’s more important for me to know who I am than anyone else. Pronouns are a non-issue because I don’t make them one. The easiest thing is just to say “they” if you don’t know, anyway. It’s funny how my gender often depends on how people perceive me, which most of the time is female, but when people don’t look closely, I’m always a “sir.” Neither bother me in the slightest.

(And for the record, if you misgender me, just apologize and move on….. Because you didn’t misgender me and I’m not offended. Plus, I do not need your entire history with trans people as an apology. I’m sure your nephew is great.)

The truth is, though, lots of people on the Internet are nonbinary by now, whether we like it or not. The Internet has changed the rules of the game because you become disconnected from your physical body during emotional intimacy. It’s not that way for everyone, obviously, but it’s a good observation of most. For instance, “straight guys” trolling gay chatrooms because they’re curious and don’t want anyone to know they’re chatting with other queer people at night.

And most of the time, that comes off as rage bait. It’s very popular to come into a gay online community and start asking things like “so which one’s the wife?” And you watch a mix of insults go by because it’s our space.

It is also true that a disproportionately large neurodivergent community exists on the web because we built it. I have always worked with other autistic people without being able to identify it for myself, because I did not know that I was social masking, first of all (in a way that other people don’t), and I also didn’t know that you can have a full range of emotions and pick up all social cues and guess what? That’s not what autism is, either. It’s a criteria, but it’s not all of it.

Being autistic is absolutely why I gravitated toward Linux. It wasn’t to play around with Linux, necessarily. Part of it was learning Linux, and it was exciting because I could do things that very few people my age could do. The better part was a group of people who could understand me in my own language, which for years turned into me being the only woman in many rooms (because that’s mostly how I’ve presented at the office, although we all kind of look nonbinary in Oregon because we’re all wearing the same Columbia jacket we got on sale last summer at REI.

I wouldn’t have learned any of the things I’ve learned about myself without an Internet connection, because I didn’t have many queer friends growing up locally in Texas, but I had a ton of them in Australia.

So, I suppose the easiest way to say it is something you’ve heard all your life, so I hope it makes sense.

“My kindom is not of this world.”

😉

Locked -or- Friends of Friends

April 26, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I am sending out an announcement to all of my readers, because people tend to find me personally on Facebook and either follow or friend me. I don’t get paid for that. But I do get paid if you share things on my professional author’s page. I am on my way to being what Facebook calls a “Rising Creator,” and I can now give Top Fan badges and all that. The one who has it right now is a Canadian writer/editor that is not even related to me- not even on my ex-girlfriend’s step neighbor-in-law’s side.

However, she does live close to Ottawa so maybe we’ll meet some day simply because I like the city and want more photographs of it. I was very impressed with the French cathedral aspect of Parliament, and you really don’t see how different Canada really is unless you go there and see it for yourself. It’s kind of like stepping back in time and wondering “what if we lost the Revolutionary War?”

I’m not joking or being light. Canada is the country I think of when I think about how they’re so much happier than we are and they have WAY CRAPPIER WEATHER. So, it’s definitely a thought experiment because it’s a delightful blend of British and American culture. But if you only know Canadians from their accents, you don’t see the street signs in French and English, or the aforementioned Parliament. You don’t see how disorienting it is because it’s like the US, but it’s SO not.

No one in Canada breaks a leg and owes thousands of dollars.

There are other government safety nets, but that’s probably the biggest. Preventative care is so much cheaper than emergencies and because no one goes to the doctor because it’s too expensive, everything is a multiple thousand dollar emergency. If we kept people healthy, we cut down on emergencies.

Americans should be mad as hell by Googling what other countries pay in medical fees. It does not cost $5,000 to set a leg, but that’s what you’re going to pay. It doesn’t really cost thousands of dollars for all drugs, but that’s what you’re going to pay. That’s because prices in this country are built for the government to pay, not us. For instance, it’s not what they’re supposed to charge the patient, it’s what they’re supposed to charge the insurance company or Medicare/Medicaid. Putting those prices on citizens is insane. And the government and all the insurance companies know it, but it’s too big a racket to shut down.

Reaaaaaallllllyyyyyy wishing I was a Canadian about now.

No, I’m not serious, but I’ve been thinking about it since my senior year of high school in a “Calgon, take me away” sort of haze. As I was telling my “Top Fan,” I’ve never had enough points because you get so many for being bilingual.

I am not saying that I hate America and we aren’t a good country. I am saying that some countries do things better than others. We have filmmaking wired. Taking care of poor people? Not so much.

I have no idea where I would live, but I do know that I would like television. My favorite Canadian TV show is “Little Mosque on the Prairie,” which I saw on Hulu a million years ago. It’s about a young new imam (which was originally autocorrected to “Miami.” Eyeroll. ) whose congregation is renting space from an Episcopal church (or some variation thereof). It’s very much a buddy comedy like “Boston Legal,” it’s just theologically hilarious instead of legally hilarious.

I’m not sure which is better, but render unto Caesar?

I like them both.

I sat here for a minute and I was thinking about other old shows that I like besides “Boston Legal,” because there’s some characters missing in my life that I’d really like to interview.

I would love to sit with Sidney Bristow and find out how she finished her career. Bonus points if I get both the Bristows at once (Jennifer Garner was Sidney, Victor Garber played her dad, Jack).

Another great character interview would be Austin Powers and Foxy Cleopatra (plus getting to tell Beyonce who I am). It would be good to see Captain Mal and Wash to see how that whole thing turned out in retrospect (I’m a Browncoat.).

I would like to live in the world of Good Omens, because I think it might be the only thing I’ve watched that’s weirder than I am (in a good way).

I know that SpongeBob is perpetually in his late teens/early 20s, but since I’m a line cook, I have a good time thinking about him being retired and that whole line of conversations.

I would like to meet Dexter Douglas and Freakazoid, because Dexter is Autistic and Freakazoid is ADHD………………………….. And yet they’re the same person.

This Needs Attention

April 26, 2024April 26, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

There needs to be an overhaul of #dailyprompt on WordPress, because not being able to use it cuts you off from the WordPress community. I got more exposure from #dailyprompt and #dailyprompt-x than I have from tagging anything else. That’s because you’re more likely to appear in people’s feeds because they have it- people have to go looking for things like “friendships,” “relationships,” and “CIA.” And now I’m really laughing hard because to a new reader, this must look horribly confusing and I think it’s better to just leave it.

If you only have dailyprompt-x for so many days, and then you just start reusing them, eventually, you can’t answer them anymore. It doesn’t matter to me that it’s an old prompt. I am never starting from the same place on a different day, especially with 365 days in between. It also reinforces using the Jetpack app, which I have noticed they like reminding you to use it a lot…… So make it easier, Matt (Mullenweg, owner of Automattic). It creates a habit, and literally the only habit I have. Now, I’m feeling a bit weird at committing to write every day and I somehow have to think of it myself? Like I’m a creative writer? This is bullshit.

I hope I’m kidding…………..

I have gotten so used to rolling over, picking up my tablet, and seeing what the prompt is- then taking a few minutes to think about it while I get myself together- and writing everything in one shot.

One of the funniest things I’ve ever gotten is that the prompt came out at midnight and by 12:30 AM I had a fully functioning essay ripping Evangelicals a new one; a reader said, “whoa. You are good at this.” How did he know I was good at it? Daily prompt tag.

I write a lot faster when I feel passionately about something, and a writing prompt doesn’t have to be followed strictly. You receive the idea, and whatever comes up, comes up. If the prompt is about a time in my life when I felt embarrassed and it was on a fishing trip so my ADHD brain jumps to everything I know about fish, it’s still valid because I was still prompted.

Today’s is “topics I’d like to discuss.”

And I’m all like, “this web site is always about me. What about them?”

I will talk to anyone about anything, but I like listening to subject matter experts. That’s why living in Washington is so important to me. One of the best nights I’ve ever had socializing in Silver Spring was stopping into a restaurant on a whim (All Set for some Sriracha Cheddar biscuits. If Red Lobster closes, Silver Spring is going to be okay). I started talking to the man next to me and he was president of the National Black Journalism Association. So, I got to hear about what he does and how he does it. Those are the conversations I treasure because I am all about self-improvement and learning from people who are better than me at what they do. I think that people think I’m obsessed with fame, but they don’t see Tim Ferris that way.

There’s a difference between wanting fame and wanting success.

Not only that, I’m not impressed by anyone, ever. I find that if I get impressed, I won’t speak at all. The inverse is also true. The more that you treat people like you’re impressed, the less they want to get to know you because you’re somehow weirdly obsessed with them. I got my own taste of that when I realized that I did not want to date a fan. Since I have mentioned that Supergrover started as a fan, I feel like I have to specifically say I’m not referring to her.

I went on a date with a woman who’d read me and she grilled me over the coals. It felt like one would feel when they show up to a party and get served because of the bait and switch. I will give you a for-instance. If I said on my blog that I was married three years ago, then why am I not married now? Fair. But it just kept getting deeper and deeper, like she was trying to catch me in a lie and there was some kind of “gotcha” somewhere. She didn’t do anything specifically wrong, per se. I’ll just never forget the feeling of being on the witness stand and not being able to give any right answers. If they didn’t match up exactly to what I’d written months ago, then I was a liar……. When time had gone by and I was in a different mindset and god knows what I was thinking while I was writing that day…….. You get my drift.

Blog entries are just a snapshot of my day, and you can see it in my feelings between entries, because some entries are diametrically opposed. To me it is a way of saying to the world “yes, she can be taught.” I don’t feel like I am now lying, I feel like someone is holding me to the past. My blog is helpful to me because I can see where I need to grow and adjust. It is not useful to have people around me that do not see it as a living document. Everything is being amended to reflect progress.

It’s also about accountability. I can’t go back and cover up my past, but I can read it to change my future. It’s scary to go back and look at what you’ve said in light of what it did and didn’t do for you, and that’s what happens when I go back and read an entry from even last year or the year before. It doesn’t take five years for things to change. It doesn’t even take one. The blog changes every single day not because I’m making things up, but because I make it my business to think about how I can improve my relationships and get clarity on my life.

However, I made a decision to paint myself as an unreliable narrator because I am. I have given you everything you need to know about why I am an unreliable narrator, and that mostly has to do with the fact that narration is unreliable in and of itself. It’s harder to take seriously when that person is documented as having mental health issues.

I am not trying to be anything I’m not. Interesting, yes. But an expert? No. I’m also still laughing about “who peer reviews you?” Because if there was a peer review for bloggers back in the day, it was all of us commenting on each other’s posts. People don’t comment now. They acknowledge. It’s the difference between Facebook and Reddit. Both have ways of one-tap recognition, but redittors are not known for being terse. Reading people’s writing on Reddit is sometimes better than reading a novel…… As long as you don’t mind looking through a lot of spam and porn to find actual intelligence. Reddit is the best of us because it’s the worst of us….. Just like we loved “The Real World” when it stopped being polite, and started getting real.

For instance, I posted on r/washingtondc about the beauty of Washington and how you should stop and take a look because it’s worth it, etc. Basically using lines I’ve used with you guys about DC before. All of the sudden, I had almost 300 upvotes along with a cacophony of where’s hiking? Where’s biking? What are you talking about?” People came out of the woodwork saying “here’s where to rent a boat,” here’s where to hike/bike, here’s the good lakes, etc.

And when you’re in r/washingtondc, you do not dare mention Virginia or Maryland. There are places to do all of these things inside the city if you are not expecting the Columbia River Gorge dumped into a major metropolitan area, which is what most of the people from Seattle seemed to be so fucking mad about. Like “Rock Creek Park is not hiking…. When I was a hiker…. :::dramatic flare:::

Sit your jack ass down.

I realize that this is not The Gorge, but Rock Creek Park does have good hiking, and I think that Great Falls is just as beautiful as anything I’ve seen on the West Coast. Just because it’s a little different doesn’t make it less divine. Sailing on the Chesapeake is just as spiritually satisfying as driving out The Gorge.

I’m blessed that I’ve gotten to live on all three coasts in the US, because I’ve lived in Houston/Galveston as well. I also know that I am an Oregonian, not a Californian. I am not that kind of “West Coast.” Portland is full of old white lesbians that nine times out of ten look something like Paul McCartney. I fit right in.

Oregonians and Californians have a tense relationship, because basically when California started becoming expensive, Portland became the new hot place to live. Oregonians are gatekeepers, most of whom think should have closed when they came in. I am guilty of a little bit of that because it made rent skyrocket dramatically. I lived in Portland when it was the right time for someone my age to do that, but I’m glad I left. It’s not just that I’m a different person, it’s that Portland is a different city. If I moved back, Portland would remind me of DC and not the other way around in terms of the way the city is more focused on business and industry, less on being the place where “young people go to retire.”

Maryland’s suburbs do not remind me of Oregon, but Virginia’s do. There are lots of pockets that look like Lake Oswego, Beaverton, etc. On the Maryland side, the population is too dense to spread out like that. Zac’s neighborhood is a perfect example of what we don’t do here in MD, because it’s a townhome community backed up to a nature preserve. It looks very much like many of the houses I visited in Oregon. It’s not a beauty contest to me. Both cities have a lot to offer, I just think Washington has more because of the transit infrastructure (I would be broke trying to get around Portland or Houston). I don’t wake up every day and think, “God, The District is gorgeous, but it’s not Oregon.”

I’m not always on Reddit.

Here’s my favorite quote so far:

That morning was when I began to invent my own personal version of shorthand, which I would continue to use throughout my career. It was so secure and so covert that even I couldn’t make out its meaning sometimes.

I gravitated toward her style in some ways because it’s reminiscent of mine. Or mine is reminiscent of hers, but I started writing before I started reading her books. So, chicken and egg debate on who sounds like whom. I know I sound like her when I write about intelligence because she’s my touchstone on how to do that. But as a general rule, both she and Tony write like me because their books and my blog are both memoirs. Mine is just written paragraphs at a time.

Memoirs are one-sided, always. People get very angry about them. Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Harry Wales are the three recent memoirs that have caused the most scandal, but all memoirs are written with one person’s story in mind- the writer’s. I keep memoirists in my head all day long because I only have a few people giving me blowback at any given time, not a nation or a kingdom.

I don’t think I could cause an international incident with my blog, but give it time……. Eyeroll.

If I could pick a writer that I would like to spend a day with, learning their secrets, it would be Vladimir Zelenskyy. I’ve thought he was brilliant since I saw “Servant of the People” on Netflix, so I know that we are kindred spirits. This is because he’s also interested in writing, comedy, political affairs, satire, etc. I believe I would need a translator, but if I were to meet Zelenskyy at all, I would FIND a translator. There’s got to be a Yellow Pages in this house somewhere, damn.

The other thing I learned this week that I’m going to have to tease Jonna about the next time I see her is that I’ve already found a typo. She called it “Silver Springs.” I kidded her that one day I’d write something as good as hers and she said, “it’s good you’re still workin’ on that.” Every time I hear her say it in my head, I fall over laughing. It was the right way to tease a writer…. Because I like talking to subject matter experts. It means a lot to me that we can joke about craft, and more importantly, I know that Jonna has lived in my little town.

The funniest gag in the first episode of “SOTP” for me was the newly elected president saying he needed to stop by the mall for a CD for his niece on the way to work because it’s her birthday. His staff offers to do it for him so he can get to work. He agrees and the scene ends.

Later, the secret service show up with the band, because as they explained, they could not find the CD.

And on that note, it’s time to go and make coffee…….. Because I just heard the pipes.

Gratitude Journaling

April 25, 2024April 26, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I just caught a dog rifling through my trash can, so I am not feeling particularly good about myself right now. I didn’t know that the dog was smart enough to open the trash can himself. I shouldn’t have doubted it, and I can’t get him to clean up the trash, either. So, I cleaned it up…. by myself…. again.

I’m not bagging on David, my housemate. I am bagging on Jack, who is a useless housekeeper. My coworker needs a visit with HR for a performance improvement plan. I don’t know how to keep a dog out of the trash except getting a different trash can or keeping the door closed all the time. I’d rather just train the dog, but again, Jack is very smart. You have to get right up in his face before he will even begin to think you have half a brain. So, we’ve been working on “sit,” “heel,” and “bring Mama a Diet Coke.” That last one was a joke that Heather Armstrong (Dooce) wrote about her dog, Chuck, the former Congressman.

I’m trying to keep Heather’s name alive because she’s a part of the zeitgeist, but no one has influenced the direction of this web site, because Supergrover and I both loved her once upon a time. It was the same for me- I fell out with reading her when she got on the influencer bandwagon, because like my beautiful girl I thought it lost something when Dooce stopped getting so real. There was no more Dooce (a typo she used to make while typing Dude), no more Asian Database Administrator (probably good she took that one out), no more dry humping and Sprite.

Sometimes I feel like Dooce is gone and I got the best of the best and you just got me. I keep trying, though. I’ve just realized that what I thought was Texas old guy is actually Utah blogger, apparently, and I know her writing well enough that she would be pleased by this. Unfortunately, I never got to meet her. We just ran in the same circles. If I had an hour with her, I’d ask her about blowback.

I’ll ask her about the friends she lost, and the friends who came to take their places. It’s something for which I’ll always be grateful, and I’m glad she came up in my mind while I was trying to say “I’m not in a very good mood, so I need to find things for which to be thankful.” I count blessings, every single one. It keeps me from thinking that I am failing all the time, because I recognize when I have a win.

I continue to be thankful for my house, and even Jack. He continues to be “my dog,” and he’s as lovable as every dog ever. If he’s ever missing, I know he’s in my bed as far under the covers as he can go. He’s shaved almost to the skin right now; when the wind is blowing in from the windows he shivers. It’s how I like it, because it’ll be 55F outside, but I’ve got a sheet, a blanket, and two comforters on top. I think I’ll be okay.

At the same time, when I take sleeping pills my body temperature goes way up, and having the windows open keeps me from sweating because of them. There have been a few days, though, where I woke up and thought I lost three pounds because I’d shake the blankets off, it would be too cold, then I’d pull them all back…. All night. It was glorious, let me tell you.

I’m grateful for a comfortable place to sleep, and a room with so many new possibilities. Neither my lamp nor my shelf with a light came with light bulbs, so I ordered some retro LEDs. They look like they’re from the early 1900s. I have a floor lamp without a shade, which is why I thought it would be nice with the bulb exposed to go decorative. I am hoping that I will have enough light, because each bulb is 60w. I wanted higher than that, but I couldn’t find any yellow bulbs that came in 75w or 100. I do not like the bulbs where they take all the yellow out and it leaves a slightly blue glow on everything. I do use 100w white bulbs in my bathroom because I want to get dressed in the most unflattering light possible. That way, when I get myself fixed up, I will look better when I leave the house. It’s good to have goals, anyway. 😉

I’m grateful I have a bathtub again. Hayat replaced our bathtub with a stand up shower long ago, so it’s nice to be able to sit and relax when I want. I liked the stand-up shower, too. I’m not knocking it. I just had trouble shaving because I am terrible at balance. It’s not that one was bad, it’s just that with a bathtub I can also sit in lavender and eucalyptus salts.

I’m grateful to still have a garden. David is the gardener, I’m just the enjoyer. I’m going to have to put some lavender out for me, because I’ve talked many times about talking to the bees. It’s real. I don’t mean that they can hear me, necessarily, but that it does make you feel better to talk to them.

I’m grateful for DC. There are limitless possibilities for beauty here. There’s kayaking, biking, hiking, sailing- basically everything I could do in Portland is also right here. The two cities mirror each other in lots of ways when it comes to layout. That’s because people in DC do not think of Arlington as the same city, but if you look at it from the sky, it looks the same as Portland being divided by the river north to south and Burnside east to west. We are a bridge city, and I can’t wait for Bryn to see it from the air. The only real difference is that when you land at National, there’s not a long airstrip parallel to the river. If the pilots at National can’t stop in time, they’ll fall into the Potomac.

Seem to remember something about that in the news when I was a child.

Zac says he has never met a person that loves this area as much as I do. Zac has never left and come back for any real length of time. I wonder how it would look different to him if he’d lived here in his early 20’s and then traveled all over. I missed the Potomac because the Willamette is always cold. Always. I cannot remember a 4th of July in which I was not absolutely freezing my ass off. I once drove with a housemate up to Mt. Hood for lunch (we weren’t skiing that day) and it started as we were driving home. It was June 27th. DC is the beauty of a city with a river running through it that is also not 54F and raining 280 days a year. I love Portland a whole lot, and I would move back if I had to do so. It’s just not my first choice for a number of reasons, and the weather is at the top.

The only pro here would be getting to live in the same city as my best friend, because the position has been filled- end of story. That being said, occasional video calls and visits are fine. I do not have a need for Bryn to move here or me to move there. If so, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I just can’t think of a good reason all our time needs to be in person.

There are moments, of course. You don’t move to your partner’s or your best friend’s city because something is happening. You move there to be available if it does. That’s because even now when something is going on with Bryn, I can’t help but want to jump on a plane. Therefore, I’m not sure I’ve ever been more surprised than when she said she was jumping on a plane to get to me. It’s getting so exciting thinking about her visit, and it’s already the 25th. So, not many more sleeps. I’m grateful.

I’m grateful that both Bryn and Dave want to see SPY so it doesn’t feel like I’m strong-arming them into going there on my account. I live here. I can go any time I want (and do). We haven’t decided what we’re going to do all days, and I know they’ll probably also want time to themselves. We just need to talk about dates so that I can send Zac an invitation. I live and die by Google Calendar.

Zac’s acceptance is not mandatory, I just want him to know he’s included in the fun and he’s said that he does want to meet Bryn. So, now Zac will have met one friend I met in high school and one I met my freshman year of college. I’m glad I can bridge those gaps in time, and it makes me happy that Zac is going to learn just so many “Borum-isms.”

I am grateful for “Borum-isms.” It’s a specific cadence, and I will pick it up instantly because it’s not based on accent but rhythm. Bryn’s dad said something so incredibly profound that I’ve remembered it for over 20 years…. “the hardest part of teaching is remembering what it was like not to know.”

Bryn also reminds me of Arya Stark, and I don’t have to squint. But by that I mean she is take charge alpha dog all the time, which means that she is strong and firm, but also the most loving person in the room because the alpha’s job is to manage the whole pack by seeing their needs and helping them……. serving, not owning……. as opposed to whatever the fucktard morons think it is this week.

In some ways, I’m grateful for guys like that because it reminds me of Roy Wood, Jr. who said that he appreciated businesses with the confederate flag outside because then at least you had a tip it wasn’t going to go well for you. If someone is advertising on the internet that they want a “tradwife,” they probably mean that they want someone who will take all their bullying all the time and call it Biblical. Therefore, there’s no confederate flag, but there’s a big waving red one.

I’m grateful for the ability to see red flags and work on them. I see them in myself by rereading my work. Throwing words on a page and seeing what they look like once they’re outside you gives you enough separation to say “ok, that’s good…. but that’s bad.” Not the writing, the way I behaved.

I am working to find peace within myself, so don’t think I don’t notice when I’m angry and figure out a way to resolve it in myself. I think I have. My tone is completely different than it was a year ago. A lot of it has to do with Supergrover finally telling me what she really wanted. She wants peace and rest, I assume for both of us. Maybe one day our paths will cross again, but I doubt it. I require something she does not have, which created the initial attraction to each other in terms of energy. This is because she has something I don’t, which is pragmatism and logic. In some ways, our personalities are exactly alike. In others, they are diametrically opposed.

But leaning in through all of that made me who I am today, and I’m more confident in myself as a result, and grateful I ever got to meet her at all. I am so angry that what she chooses to highlight in our relationship is all the negativity and not our incredible potential for joy. Maybe she already has these things with everyone else but me, and it’s because I’m a shitty friend that I don’t have these things with her and I’m whistling Dixie because no one else ever has a problem……. I would tell her the same thing I told her when she said she was giving up Diet Coke. “Yeah. Uh huh. Keep talkin,’ sweetheart.” No, wait. It wasn’t about Diet Coke. That was another day. And now I’m laughing my ass off, but that joke is above your pay grade.

I think the thing that makes her spit nails is that I’m right. What I realized through my mistakes is that I didn’t have to sit in them just because I’d made a long time making them. That my history with her meant a lot, but not at the expense of my own health and happiness. It’s not because I wouldn’t have done it. It’s because I expected her to pull her weight. I would have done anything for her, but I realized that she didn’t feel that way about me, and it was stupid to think that, in retrospect. I did not feel that way every single day. I recognized her hurt and talked about what happened often, but she never took the bait and opened up to me so that I could better understand her. I thought, “I am going to end up giving her absolutely everything I have and she’s not going to notice in the slightest.” I’d listened to the whispers and the screams long enough.

I’ve said this before, but I did not get angry that she was also angry. I was furious because she refused to tell me anything that gave me any headway. All I could do was talk about myself when it was the last thing I wanted to talk about. I also didn’t always want to talk about her, as if I was mining her for information. I wanted an easy give and take, the strength and comfort of someone I’d known for a very long time.

There was every reason to stay except having a feeling of safety and security when we talked, because it was missing for a very long time. Any attempt to lighten the load was wrong, so I didn’t get tired of her. I got tired of how I felt about myself. She says I’m “a lot.” She has never really grasped that she’s a lot. That for everything she’d like to change about me, there’s something I’d like to change about her. What I cannot get her to see is “this is me. Take it or leave it.” And that’s what we’ve both been trying to say to each other for years, mostly at the top of our metaphorical lungs. I have found that it is much more fun to fly with a dragon than to be touched by its fire.

I’ve thought for many years that if I did ever see her face to face, that I would go mute. That she’s the only person I know where that would happen. It’s not that I am not interested in talking, it’s that I would be completely overwhelmed before the conversation began. But I know us. We both know how to make each other laugh. After a few minutes, it wouldn’t be weird. One of us would say something to break the tension, and the spell would be broken. This person that we’ve each built up in our heads will be gone, and it will seem like we’ve never met.

Here is something I also know. I will never know how much of my e-mails she’s taken in until I hear her talking around other people, because I know what I’ve written. I would know when she was quoting me and when she wasn’t, and I would never say a thing. It wouldn’t mean as much to her as it would to me.

I do know that if we were at the same party, one of two things would happen. The first is that I’d be telling a story and get a detail wrong, and from across the room I’d hear, “THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED. This is how it happened…..” The second would be her seeing someone else mistreating me because despite how she feels about me at any given moment I know she’d eat off their legs.

What I mean about getting a detail wrong is that all of the sudden she becomes very, very familiar with absolutely everything I’ve ever said when she is irritated. When she’s irritated, she quotes me back to me. How much she’s irked is inversely proportional to my joy at watching her quote me, because the more angry she is, the more likely she is to do it. I don’t do anything to irk her on purpose, I’m just saying that after a fight, when I feel calmer I go back and reread everything. I notice style, structure, all of it. Even when I’m devastated, I still find beauty in hearing from her at all because I rip her off mercilessly. Without my e-mail history, I am so much dumber, I promise you. I hope that in some ways she feels the same, because my dexterity helped her when her own words failed her. It’s something I hope she knows, really- that wherever she is in the world, my heart is with her. That’s because everywhere I go, her heart is with me.

So, even if she was trying to avoid me at a party, she’d never make it. We don’t have any mutual friends so far, and I’m not interested in making them…. mostly to protect the innocent.

I also know that no matter what, as long as I don’t start going with the crowd, she’ll still be in my audience. I know that when she told me that Dooce sucked now and she wasn’t going to read anymore and I told her it was her job to tell me when I should retire because she could just re-send that e-mail.

Come to think of it, that’s what would happen at a party. She’d hear me use a joke or two I’ve told in front of her and then we’d be picking up the end of each other’s sentences because we’ve both heard them before.

We could also have a lot of inside jokes that other people wouldn’t get, but we’d be falling out. For instance, me being the president of Overthinker’s Anonymous not because I am smarter, but because president is a public-facing office.

I think part of me hoped she would join Lanagan Media Group, because she would be great at both writing and podcasting if she had the bandwidth. She told me that she was always looking for what to do in her next career, and I think part of me hoped she would say “writer,” but I didn’t push. I got her stuff to help her in her own direction. She’s talked about writing before, but in a faraway sort of way. The bits of her story I’ve gotten to write because our lives overlapped are unique and beautiful. I know she thought it was unique. One out of two ain’t bad.

I feel like the way autism logic works, people think you’re much more negative than you mean to be because neurotypical brains are used to hearing things in a certain way. There are patterns to neurotypical speech that contain social cues. Autistic people can imitate them, but they cannot understand them. However, not being able to pick up social cues is only one of the criteria for autism. You do not have to have every single one to “prove” you’re autistic. For me, it’s a mixed bag. I do not recognize social cues in a person based on what they are thinking, but from the millions of faces I’ve seen before that looked exactly like that when X…… or when my parents described people’s emotions to me without meaning to…… I started understanding speech very, very early. Therefore, I have overheard things and ruminated on them for years before I understood them. But it’s because I’ve ruminated that I have accurate heuristics for the most part.

It’s easier to social mask when you’re hearing phone calls regarding pastoral care, because if you’re the pastor’s kid, you’re learning how to talk to people while they’re upset…… and mostly at each other. For instance, people who need marriage counseling, etc. But of course there’s a lot of people angry with you, too. Mostly over the things you’ve said.

Being a creative is being a creative. Preaching and writing are two separate skills, but they are two ways of expressing the same ideas. With me, it’s readers who don’t come back. For pastors, it’s church members who inexplicably disappear. Therefore, I am used to an ebb and flow in size and don’t get wigged about stats. I check them, but I don’t focus on them. The only stat I really like is how many flags I got that day. I like how far my site goes. This week, the leaderboard has been Africa- hello to South Africa and Ghana.

OH! South Africa!

Speaking of which, I started watching this YouTube channel called “Flipping Johannesburg,” and it’s incredible. It’s tempting to move to South Africa in some ways because land and resources are so cheap. I could build my own house or purchase one in disrepair so that I could have more land for cheap and more room to overhaul. The last house I watched on “FJ” was 800,00R, which is about $40,000. It was a U-shape with everything from a garage to staff quarters to a huge pool in the middle. I am certain that it took a lot of work to get it where it is today, and also a lot more Rand. Because of this, I am grateful that when I cannot go to South Africa, Flipping Johannesburg brings it to me.

And finally, I am grateful for Zac. He and Oliver, who is a dog, have made me feel more at home. It’s so much fun to have two hiking buddies. It’s nice to have someone to hold onto when I walk. It’s exciting to see him when his car (Antimony) comes over the hill to the Kiss and Ride. Yes, that’s really what they call the place where you pick up and drop off.

If he gets there first, he’ll park. If I get there first, he barely has to slow down and I’m on his way home, anyway. It makes me feel good that he’s relatively close to the Metro so it’s not a big imposition to drive me around. He also knows that all he has to do is say “I’m busy” and I’ll Uber. He does it just to be sweet to me and I appreciate little things. Like, how it is problem to worry how I’ll get around? It was Sam’s whole deal, too, except that Zac (for some disastrous reason) thinks that I am a fully functioning adult and doesn’t have an issue with saying “God, I’m slammed. Meet me at my house.” Therefore, Sam never got to see that I’m a perfectly capable adult. She drove me around and sulked about it because she offered and then regretted it. So, of course the easy thing to do would be to stop offering to drive me around so that I don’t have the choice to say yes or no. Because I can feel energy very well and if you resent that you have to come get me, I’ll know it. I feel it like a scar on my skin.

I would only need a car if I moved from the DMV metro area and out into Virginia or to the eastern shore. With a combination of bus, train, and/or Uber I can get anywhere. I just need a little bit more notice. This is great because if you call me and say you want to do something short notice, I probably won’t want to do it, anyway. I am bad at transitions and like to have my calendar planned out in advance.

Therefore, I am limited to staying in the city because I don’t want to lose excellent transit without a car payment and insurance. A car is just another place for me to let stuff accumulate. I’m not sure I used my car for much more than a high speed crap wagon.

“High Speed Crap Wagon” is my new band name.

I’m grateful.

Write Til it Hurts, Then Write Til You Feel Better

April 25, 2024April 25, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

My jumping off point today is this phrase, because it’s a play on something I heard at a lot at church- “give til it hurts, then give til you feel better.” It was our way of making fun of Evangelicals, yet let’s be clear. This is a church that I went to as an adult. Not that my dad and I didn’t joke about things we’d heard and seen….

For instance, one of my favorite stories about my parents when they were young is that my mom was having dental work done and she was all laid out with the bib. My dad walked in and said, “my. Don’t she look natural?” That’s what people say when they see the body at the funeral home. My dad is often funnier than I am, and I am often funnier than he is. It’s a give and take. Although I like it better when he calls me “Chief” than “you go, girl.” I am not in charge of anything, so it may not seem all that flattering. But I’m young (all things being relative), so perhaps I am just “not living up to my full potential,” which is not something he said but is said by every teacher ever who doesn’t know that kid is neurodivergent. That’s why gifted & talented classes are mostly filled with depressed, anxious teenagers.

We are so goddamn smart that it doesn’t make sense we’re so dumb. That’s because we’re not dumb. We:

Have demand avoidance, even down to taking a shower. Urging yourself to do things and not being able to accomplish them leads to guilt.
Guilt over having demand avoidance.
Shame over demand avoidance
Getting overwhelmed to the point of nausea
Hitting the limit to which we can be stimulated, leading to anger at ourselves and lashing out at others, or alternatively becoming non-verbal
Guilt over meltdown
Shame over meltdown
Go into burnout, which generally means sensory deprivation to reset, and the length of time varies for all autistic people
Lather, rinse, repeat all day long with every demand or decision all day long

When you are as smart as I am, along with all the other people with low needs/high IQ, you can see every side to every story. You are not limited to black and white, but all the colors in the spectrum. When everything becomes grey area with no solid base, you drift. You get overwhelmed, and go into a world of your own.

For me, that’s intelligence. I wouldn’t have a million dollars worth of trains in my basement, but I’d have a first edition Le Carre signed “David Cornwell.”

Speaking of which, yesterday autocorrect made me misspell both Jodi Picoult and change “Jennifer Finney Boylan” to “Jennifer Finney Boyle.” I guess I’ll need to go through my Android tablet and turn off spelling and grammar. I do that a lot, because I don’t misspell much and autocorrect doesn’t know everything- like poetic license, plays on words, acronyms, people’s last names, and thinking it knows better than me that it’s “utopian ideal” and not “utopia ideal.” Little things like that drive me up the wall, and it’s worse in voice dictation because Apple thinks it fucking knows where punctuation goes and it drives me up the wall and back down again. I want to throw my phone against a rock for making sentences look like this:

Rebecca, when are, we, going, to Starbucks?

Going back to correct all that is a nightmare, but I use voice dictation when I don’t have a keyboard because typing on my phone is hard as shit for me. It’s not that I can’t, it’s that I hate it so much. All phone companies lost me when they got rid of thumb boards and slide out keyboards.

It’s why I use my phone a quarter of never. I don’t like to call people, and I don’t like to type on my phone. Therefore, I use my iPad or my Android tablet for nearly everything. That’s because I like the bigger real estate for calls, anyway. If I’m calling, it might as well be a video call because I know I’m not going to see you very often, etc.

Therefore, I really only use my phone for voice calls. If I decide to walk somewhere, I leave my phone at home and connect my headphones to my watch. The middle man carries very little value except that I have to have it on to unlock all the features on my watch. However, it’s a fully functioning “dumb phone.” If I had money, I’d upgrade my watch before I ever bothered with my phone, or replace my older iPad with a newer one because it can do everything except control my watch (emphatic fist shake). However, for what I do, I do not need to upgrade any of my technology. I do three or four things and none of them are mobile gaming. Therefore, it doesn’t matter what chip and graphics card the motherboard on the tablet has, it just has to be adequate.

I have Microsoft Office, AndrOffice (Android port of LibreOffice- a full desktop application for you other writers in the crowd. I find it easier to use a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard for it.), a web browser, a basic photo editor, and JetPack. So far, I’ve been able to upgrade to every version, so my hardware can’t be that old.

I also watch movies, but that needs a better network connection than anything else. I’m not picky about the picture, but some people are. Those are the people that should buy high end tablets, because you’ll end up sitting in bed with it vs. watching TV, especially with headphones while your partner is sleeping (I have never needed to do this with Zac, but it’s possible, just like connecting Bluetooth headphones to your Kindle to listen to audiobooks.

I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again as writer’s advice.

We all make notes in our books. Having a Bluetooth keyboard connected to my Kindle makes it where I can use my notes later and sync them with Goodreads. You can choose whether your highlights are available to the public, so lock it down and it’s a private, free repository of your highlights and the notes you put with them. That way, if something happens to your Kindle, you still have everything and you don’t lose months of work. I also used my Kindle quite extensively when I reviewed books professionally (putting that out there because people often offer me books for free with a gift certificate so I have a verified sale to review.

I have liked most of them.

However, I’m not a harsh reviewer because I am so precise with language that I can make a bad review sound like a good one. That is because I want to say what I liked and didn’t about their books without hurting their feelings.

Of everything I read, I liked “Pancake Money” and “Dead Lemons” by Finn Bell the most.

Some of the others were downright drudgery.

“What would you say to universities about stifling writers?”

“In my opinion they don’t stifle enough.” (Flannery O’Connor)

This being said, you don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, either. They gave you their baby for free. It is something that they’ve birthed over a tremendous amount of time. A lot of care went into it just to get to the finish line. I was crushed when Supergrover thought I was dismissive of her writing when the only piece of advice I gave her was “come on, SG! I know you have more than that in you.” She doesn’t dive as deep as she can. However, she can turn a phrase when she’s in her element, and she’s not often in her element. I’m not sure there’s really a place she calls home in her soul, and I don’t mean anything derogatory by it. I mean that she doesn’t dig as far as she can go, but if she did dig as deep as me it would be the best book you’ve ever read in your life.

I know because I’ve read it. I know the parts of her that she’ll share, but she’s not often in a place to take those things and dig deep on them. She’s pressed for time all the time, and introspection is really hard work. REALLY hard work. However, I have never said she was a bad writer. If it were true, I wouldn’t have basically memorized everything she’s ever said to me- both the good and the bad. I have been furious by some letters and angered by others. We are not so different, we just choose to act like it. It’s devastating to an enormous degree, because if she read my entries from the standpoint of counting up how many phrases that are hers hidden here. And now my keyboard has decided that the “Enter” key is the only one that doesn’t work. I have no idea what is causing this, because it just drops and reconnecting doesn’t help. Maybe you’ll get more later, because I’m not really feeling the whole “writing session is over” thing. I am feeling disappointed and frustrated that I can’t keep writing right now. I should save that feeling for writer’s block. “What if I wasn’t permitted to write?” It goes a very long way. I could make it all one paragraph, but Chason told me that short paragraphs are easier to read on the web. I try to be mindful, because he does web design for a living. This is not one of those days, apparently. So, anyway, I quote her all the time from her e-mails and her other writing. She said I dismissed her when I, unlike President Clinton, inhaled.

Risky Business

April 24, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Today’s prompt, which I cannot officially answer again, is about “a risk I took that paid off.” I don’t remember what I wrote about, I just know I have the tags for it…. So it must be in here, somewhere. I am not a risk taker by nature unless I am writing. Because of my ADHD, I lack impulse control- so I get out of my comfort zone until my autism says, “dude. It’s late. You’re done here.” This is my eternal battle. Sometimes, autism and ADHD have the same symptoms, and others are diametrically opposed. I think that’s why my sister is able to keep track of a million gazillion details and I can’t.

Lindsay and I are both neurodivergent, and she is the one that started me on the path toward healing. This is because when she was diagnosed with ADHD and her therapist said it was genetic, I started looking closer into the issue. I do not have hyperactivity, therefore I was not the Lanagan sister who had a sweatshirt with the word “HYPERWOMAN!” airbrushed on it when I was a kid. I was, though, the kid who rarely had any idea what was going on at any time.

The first time I was ever truly embarrassed by this was when I was walking the halls wearing a t-shirt with Jesus on the front in some sort of configuration. On the back, in cursive, it said “I once was lost.” One of my teachers thought he was funny when he said I should change it to, “I’m always lost.” Of course it’s funny when you’re the adult looking at the kid, but when the kid already feels like absolute shit about themselves because they’re expected to be perfect by so goddamn many people………….. I wasn’t thinking about the joke then. I get it, but it’s only funny 25 or 30 years later.

For all of you who may think he was making fun of me because I’m a Christian, no he wasn’t. He was Jewish and we both have a great sense of humor about religion. I was just already anxious and overloaded, so his comment sent me into shutdown.

I completely dissociated and didn’t hear anything anyone said for the rest of the day. That’s what’s so frustrating about autism. When your body decides “no,” you can’t override it easily. There are all kinds of tips and tricks, but I wasn’t even diagnosed with ADHD at that point, much less a combo meal (Autism + ADHD= AuDHD, or “gold star ADHD”).

Mostly, the combination means “I say ‘it is what it is’ a lot for someone who has no idea what it is.” The flip side of the coin is that I am an expert on the things other people don’t notice. I am not often sure what is east or west, north or south. But Jesus has me covered….. “In Christ there is no east or west, in him no south or north.”

Your move, Witkov.

Where I excel is honestly on a whole different plane, and I absolutely mean it. An INFJ is not built to live in this world, and that has been true of all of us since time began. We are built to live in the next one, because the world we live in is created by our own minds, the utopia ideal of how the world should work. What’s really insane is that we seem to be in agreement. I agree with Jesus, Martin Luther King, and all of the other historical INFJs out there. It’s all about tapping into energy. Whether you call it prayer or meditation, the object is to get your ego out of the way. That’s why it’s easy to be an atheist in AA- they don’t care what your god is, as long as it makes you realize you are a part of something bigger than yourself. That the energy is already running.

I can’t remember what year it was, but an audience member asked Oprah Winfrey what advice she would give to a young black boy who was just starting college. She said something to the effect of “the crown is already there. The only thing he needs to do is reach out and put it on.” It was about standing on the shoulders of giants, getting him to think of all the enslaved people that had paid the price to get him to where he needs to be today. All he needed to do was tap into that feeling of emotional unity with his current family and friends, as well as all of his ancestors. All of that good energy is coming toward you, so use it.

And if I know Oprah the way I think I know her after watching her every weekday from the time I was nine until I was 34, her response would be “that’s what I said? It sure sounds good.” Roll the tape, Oprah. Roll. The. Tape. That’s because I can’t remember shit except good lines that stick in my head for years and years. However, as time goes by, I will remember the essence of what they said and can paraphrase. Because I’m a writer, sometimes the paraphrase comes out as good or better as what they said originally. The other thing is that reading back over my blog entries reinforces my memory, because I absorb everything I read like a sponge. If I don’t wait to record a memory, then there’s no way for another memory to overwrite it or squish in with it so that two memories that are completely contradictory don’t come out as the same story.

A lot of the time, people think I’m waffling, and don’t seem to realize that feelings are allowed to change over time. I don’t waffle. I evolve. My biggest problems center around people thinking that if I write something negative, it means our relationship is bad. As a general rule, how many of you are completely 100% happy in every relationship all the time?

Show of hands.

You fight. You make up. Or you don’t. Life is a series of conflict resolutions, and if you don’t like conflict resolution, your relationship won’t be as fulfilling because you won’t have the emotional accomplishment of working through something with someone you love. Those peaks and valleys are what make you valuable to each other. The more you overcome, the less you want to separate, because the feeling of “you and me against the world” feels better than “I have to do everything all by myself and no one cares that I’m struggling.” Meanwhile, the problem is that no one will notice if you do not say anything. There is no prize- not a Cadillac El Dorado, not a set of steak knives, not even lunch- for taking up the least room in hopes of being acknowledged for being so saint–like. You will never win anyone’s approval so that you can stop resolving conflict. Life doesn’t work like that. Either you’re out with your frustrations, or you’re internalizing a storm of enormous proportions. But you’re bringing the storm on yourself every day because you won’t talk about it.

If you don’t say anything, you are part of the problem.

I bring things up because I would like to discuss them. If someone is conflict avoidant, one of two things will happen. The first is that they’ll change the subject, the second is that they’ll say you’re attacking them. It’s a method of manipulation that doesn’t feel like manipulation because that person is not trying to control you. They’re trying to put concrete walls around themselves so that you can’t get in. That’s because they see a threat, and therefore unable to participate in a meaningful way because they’re overwhelmed and overstimulated.

Fewer people are narcissists and more people have trauma responses than anyone thinks. It’s more fashionable to reject people than it is to see that they’re broken and need help. It is easy for your anger/defensiveness to override your compassion. Rarely is a problem all one person’s fault, and a narcissist’s method is to prove you’re wrong at every turn. I come off that way easily in writing, because I am not thinking about the other person at all when I write. I am laying out my thoughts and waiting for a response instead of trying to get into someone else’s head and assume that I know their story. I assume that you know your story better than I do. However, I can’t get to know people and be able to keep conflict from coming up in advance. Knowing someone well is the best way to do that, because you’ve been told what makes them angry, what makes them sad, etc. and you do your best not to irritate their hot buttons. If you expect people to respect your opinion, you have to respect theirs.

When I don’t understand something, I need people to stick with me until I do. People generally get frustrated with me and give up before I get it. It’s not that I don’t understand and am anxious about it, it’s that I’m trying to prove I’m right and I dislike them. I do not have a god complex. I’m just precise with language and when other people aren’t, I get lost.

But.

“In Christ there is no east or west, in him no south or north.”

If I know Jesus the way I think I do after studying him since before I was born, it’s that some version of Mr. Witkov told him his head was in the clouds, too.

Pricks on My Skin

April 22, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I just thought of something and it occurred to me that I wanted to remember this feeling. I don’t write about anyone in a negative way to write about them. I write about them so I remember why reaching out is a bad idea. I have to remind myself every day that Supergrover and I aren’t talking this week…… Sigh. We’re both tired. Tired of so many things.

I don’t come absolutely unglued in these entries because I feel a need to shame people. I write to explain why I can’t go back in time. The fact that I broke my beautiful girl’s heart is a fixed point in time is so painful that I’ve been to some really dark places over the years. It doesn’t matter as much to me what she’s done as what I have, because it takes so much longer to forgive yourself than to forgive someone else.

I regret that I never got to know her in person, because she said she’s more fun and funny in person and I’ve never doubted it for a minute. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been in deep grief that wouldn’t go away simply because we wouldn’t stop picking on each other and get it together. We were never fighting about the thing we were supposed to be fighting about.

She couldn’t get vulnerable enough to fight about the real issue, and I don’t think she ever will. In her last letter, she talked around it. She got very close. I realized it when she said “you’re not the only one who has triggers.” I’m the problem. It’s me.

She can’t admit that she’s scared of me. I’ve told her I’m scared of her. We both took each other to the mat. We both fucking lost, because we each had a little red button regarding my writing and her career. Something we could hold over each other’s heads for 10 years and fight about something else.

So, that’s why we fluctuate on how close we want to be. It’s not a one-sided problem. It is, as she says, “a wheel with many spokes…” Which I had to retype because at first I typed “a spoke with many wheels.” I think we are on the same page, I just call it a tapestry. I think we say the same things in different words without realizing it a lot of the time. The most interesting thing to me about her last letter was how close I was in terms of seeing what was going on. I was right. She said that my words felt like pricks on her skin, and any strength I had left went out the window. I thought, “I am not communicating effectively, because this is not what I want in the slightest.”

So, of course I would just keep explaining.

Just like according to Jim Gaffigan, “if there was a Catholic service started somewhere, it’s still going on,” I felt similarly about starting a letter to Supergrover. Because again, I call her that because she’s cute, cuddly, and works blue. She also said once that she didn’t mind being monstrous, and that was the picture that popped into my head. That’s because she’s Alduin when she wants to be, and has always been my Pet Monster on a Fraying Leash, Inc. I sent her a meme of a little girl braiding a dragon’s hair.

Why a dragon had hair that long is another matter.

But the thing is, I’ve grown into my own type of dragon over the years, but I’m always afraid I can only sneeze sparks. I believe that in English, it would be called “imposter syndrome.” I’m not sure anyone really gets over it. I know lots of people older than me that still get intimidated by things. We’re always learning that the world is bigger than we think it is, which is why the greatest acknowledgement as you age is how relatively little you know. I’ve studied political science and international affairs since college. I can assure you there’s a lot I don’t know. But I do research the news thoroughly because I don’t normally write about stories immediately, but it’s the easiest way to get illustrations for my blog. Although I’m noticing that my posts on history have gotten attention, too, like “The Personal Computer.”

I study the news to stay relevant, because I want it to be a mix of me being able to exercise my demons when I need it, but also be able to weave current events and history throughout my writing no matter what. I have gone into sensory deprivation lately, though. I have never known less about the world because right now I’m in burnout over it. It’s too much, too fast. I’ll get back to it. I just need a breather to reset.

I feel like the blogging prompts were all meant for memoirs, except on rare occasions. This is because most of the prompts were talking about recreating a scene in your mind. Depending on who you ask, I am either brilliant or terrible at it. By the time the camp was large enough to be firmly divided, the less I cared because both sides had a hot take that wasn’t necessarily true. I am neither as brilliant nor absolutely fucking evil as everyone says. I talk a lot of shit for someone who can’t reach the top shelf.

But it’s because I’m talking it out and you’re seeing my emotions go up and down that eventually “shit works out, my dear.” You see my struggle as I come to peace within myself, because in order to let people go, this is how I grieve them. Fortunately, since this is the Internet, they’ll be able to come back later and re-read my words without so many emotions attached. I have often found it surprising how much I’ve learned in five years. 😉

That’s because they’re not seeing the 3D character. They’re reading every day, when entries are actually just micro chapters of a book. In order for you to see yourself as a 3D character, you’d have to read it bound. My dragon would look so much different to herself if she went back to 2013 and read forwards. The plot moves forward, and shit works out.

I have written about emotions that cover the entire spectrum. There are some feelings I can’t describe even now. But it’s not about making her feel bad. It’s to remind me that I shouldn’t reach out, when it’s not what I want. I’m not whining about it, just trying to retrain my brain. For 10 years, my absolute first impulse has been to tell her everything. I’m autistic and this is a monotropic thought process (the hitting “compose” part). Therefore, I experience a lot of anger- also not to anger her, but to remind myself that my emotions are valid, and her opinion of me doesn’t determine my worth.

I didn’t say “right” or “wrong.” I said “valid.”

We both invalidated the other’s feelings all the time because we were so eager to run out the door. It’s been a disaster every time I’ve tried to retrain my brain before, because I’ll just crash and burn and it makes her furious whether she says anything or not. When she does, she doesn’t say it without spikes, which gets my hackles up because I’m not itching for a fight. And yet if someone tries to make it hurt first rattle out of the box, it induces red mist rage and I go blind. Unfortunately, I can type with my eyes closed and hilarity does not ensue.

Unfortunately, this is also startlingly common among autistic people because we cannot regulate our emotions.

“Even when I feel nothing, I feel it completely.” -Sylvia Plath

With neurodivergence, there’s a switch that flips between “obsessed” and “completely disinterested.” There is no middle ground absolutely ever. ADHD people are great at multitasking in some cases because even though they’re monotropic thinkers, they can switch channels so fast that no one notices. Or, at least, that’s what I’ve noticed in the kitchen. You’re multitasking and in hyperfocus at the same time. It’s where you’re “in the zone,” and finding the right ratio is hard as FUCK.

God forbid I have an unexpressed thought, but I gave myself a space to do that without bothering anyone else, but they came here expecting that if I portrayed them as a deity once, it would always be that way… Even those who have been reading my writing for years. They’re never allowed to change and grow over the years because they fired themselves. I describe times where my emotional needs are being met and everything is wonderful, and I describe when my emotional needs are being ignored and how it’s my problem to deal with, but that doesn’t make it easy. When someone is committed to not hearing you, then you don’t try to change them. You walk away.

But I wouldn’t let Supergrover go and not because I didn’t want to; I felt like we were trapped in a vicious cycle because of our trauma bond. Believe me when I tell you that she is one of the most beautiful, most capable, most successful people I know. Believe me when I tell you that the medium is the message. Emotions hit harder in writing. Both of us have huge emotions and a terrific amount of empathy, and we both throw it away to pick on each other. Over time, it became less and less worth it because she was Breadcrumbing me and wouldn’t admit it until she did.

I don’t write to punish her. I write so that I remember I have a reason to move on, because otherwise I never would have had the strength to let go. In the beginning, I thought she was single and I never wanted to let her go ever. But then I decided her boyfriend would take issue with that once I really took in the enormity of the situation and had a better handle on it.

But it’s not just her husband that would object to not being able to spend time with her, and I’m ok with that. There’s her parents. And her kids. And her siblings. And her friends. And her dogs. I’m just the late night crowd, literally the piano man. She’s even put bread in my jar.

But that’s because my writing didn’t make her mad because she was reading as a fan. She read it with totally different eyes once she was in it, and I couldn’t leave her out. I just can’t say everything I’d ever want to about the situation, and she doesn’t want to help me manage it. So I wing it……………………………… Poorly.

There are some life events that are too important not to record, because I don’t really have any day to day memories of Kathleen EXCEPT for what I’ve written on my blog. We were together when I was a junior in college the first time around. Therefore, the reason I write so obsessively is so that my memories don’t fade. My grandmother died of Alzheimer’s. I want this fucking blog.

So, you can call it silly or stupid or whatever you want, but I bet The Bloggess is crying into her bank account over it. Maybe I’ll get there one day. Maybe I’m just a hack. However, that’s not up to me. Apparently since Jenny got a big metal chicken before I thought of it, she’s more successful than me (kidding, she’s one of my favorite writers of all time). If only I’d bought Beyonce first. Emphatic fist shake!

It doesn’t bother me when people come and go, because if it’s not worth reading, I don’t encourage people to stay. I want to be worth your time, but not because I have to bend over backwards trying to explain my life in a way you’re not angry because I botched the characterization…. And come back later and apologize, because after you’ve thought about it, I had a valid point. You were angry. Or, alternatively, I explain my thought process more fully and you understand it, when you thought I thought one thing and it was exactly the opposite, because you don’t actually know what I’m alluding to- you think you do. How well we communicate is what allows me to capture people in real life.

So, first of all, I don’t want friends who don’t believe in me as a writer, because there’s never going to be a time in which I write the way you like it consistently. It’s an impossible task. It’s setting me up to fail.

I’m not going to let anyone set me up to fail. I owe it to my beautiful girl, because it was her love and adoration that made me feel this way. That I had a right to take up space in the world.

She gave me back to myself, and I sleep deeper most nights because of it. She appears in my dreams frequently, all the conversations I would have liked to have had playing out as scripts in my head. God, I’m such an INFJ. How dare I use my dreams to go to therapy? It seems like a lot of work. That’s because it is.

It’s essentially praying, dividing my brain in half so that I’m thinking about what I’m saying and creating the responses as well. It helps me get clarity and calm down. My clarity is not someone else’s truth, and if I wasn’t a writer, you wouldn’t know any of this. I am not out to psychoanalyze anyone but me, and the way I do it is by looking at the situation with an omnipotent third eye. I am very judgmental when it comes to situations, not people. I look at problems through the lens of medicine, psychiatry, and ministry.

“Grace never leaves you where you were found.”

-Anne Lamott

I Just Didn’t Have It In Me

April 22, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday, for the first time in a long time, I got demand avoidance over writing. I take a lot of heat for my opinions, but I am of the same mind as Ben Franklin…. “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” So, first of all, my blog is why I stand up- to have a voice at all. Sometimes it shakes, and I speak my truth, anyway. That doesn’t mean that my truth means someone else is lying. They are not having the same experience as me. So, if we have mutual friends and they have a different story than me, please believe both. It’s not a matter of truth vs. lying, but what both people picked up in the room- and by necessity, those won’t match because we didn’t know what the other was thinking. There is room for more than one truth, and mine isn’t the only one. That’s because there’s truth, the subjective, and Truth, the objective. I do not traffic in Truth so much as truth. I cannot be omnipotent, I can only be a diarist. The problem comes in when my readers want me to be omnipotent, representing their mindsets.

I am not here to take away validity from anyone else’s story. I am here to name it and claim it, whatever it is. It really hurt me when Supergrover said that I’d painted some things as fact that I didn’t have the right. I had no idea what the hell that meant, because it’s not like she talked to me about what I was writing, or offered suggestions as to how I could make it better and more accurate. I was floundering because I had no information and my responses were feeding themselves without any input at all. So, if you leave me to my own devices and never address anything, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing because you don’t have a problem with it. If you tell me there’s a problem, I can regroup.

I cannot be held to the standard of apologizing for everything I don’t know. Everything I don’t know is fucking enormous, in this situation and in others. What I can do is apologize for what I do know. I’m shattered that I hurt my beautiful girl at all, ever, but I am so incredibly human and fallible. I made mistakes. Full stop.

I just got tired of paying for them over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over……… You get my drift. As I told her, “I don’t get to decide how long you hurt, but I do get to decide where the line is between justifiably angry and holding a grudge.” I didn’t get tired of her being hurt and angry. I got tired of her not wanting to resolve any of it so we didn’t have to live in hurt and anger.

As I have said before, I would have cut off any one of my limbs to read her blog entries about me (she’s not a blogger, I’m just sayin’). I would have liked to have been angered and moved by her words, too…. And I was, but only when she was mad enough to say “I’ll answer this one, but after that, fuck right off.”

I know she doesn’t want drama. I know I don’t, either. But we’re both cutting off our noses to spite our faces. It’s an unbreakable connection on both sides, because after a few months goes by, the urge to tell each other things returns in full force. Then, we get close and after a few months, we’ll blow a gasket and tell each other to fuck off again. It’s seriously like an addiction I can’t kick, because neither one of us are very good at no contact. This is because it makes me cry every single time she says “I’ve been good. I’ve followed the rules. You said you wouldn’t reach out again, and yet, you did.” The fact that she thinks she’s being good by not talking to me wrecks me every single time. We are not cut out for this.

We are both tenderheart bears, yet not without our claws.

It’s just time to put them away, and for her, that answer is distance. For me, that answer is connection and resolution. I will never be happy with a relationship in which someone intentionally keeps things from me, because it makes me afraid and untrusting. I don’t need that anxiety, and I’ve confronted her about it many times before writing about it here. It’s frustrating, because she’s mad I let the world into ours, I’m mad that she doesn’t listen to me and you do.

In the end, I basically had to choose between being a writer and being her friend, and I chose me. It was time if she was going to keep stonewalling me, and I have no doubt that she would have done it until she died or I did.

But that’s my baby girl…. And I don’t mean that in a romantic way at all. I mean literally, in my mind, she’s a child. One I was supposed to love, protect, honor, all that. I did and I didn’t. Very mixed results. I do not blame her for any of that. I was a straight up mental mess. However, once I got it together, there were no more conversations in which we could make headway because we were still so cautious and resentful in the first place.

It is seriously one of the most fucked up things I’ve ever been a part of, and yet also something I never want to live without. I can’t, because even when she’s not here, she’s here. When I write, I can feel her presence, and she’s usually teasing me.

Something to the effect of “come on, Lanagan. I know you have more in you than that.” I basically just replace the person I know now with the person I knew 10 years ago because those memories are happier. I do not like all of the unpleasantness, and I am finished with it. I am receiving the closure I need the longer I go on having sent her very healthy messages in return, because it says to me that she was only in it for a dog to kick.

Being called a “judgmental dickhead” for 10 years will do that to you.

Meanwhile, I have so many terms of endearment for her that I couldn’t even write you a list at this point. She can also act like a huge jackass, but I don’t think of that as her personality.

When I think of her personality, I go a little starry-eyed. Still. After 10 years.

It’s not a game, and I resent that statement more than anything else. I promised her I’d be there for her for her whole life. I didn’t know what it would entail, I just said yes. At that point, we didn’t even really know each other, and yet I knew I was forging an unbreakable connection.

It started to feel like only her pain mattered, only her thoughts mattered, only her everything mattered. That’s because I made time for it. She did not make time for my feelings in terms of responding to them unless they were about other people. I have never managed to convince her that we need to work on our own communication. No one’s relationship with anyone is off the table except for apparently the one between us.

I haven’t been saying that this is all her fault, or using my blog to be shitty to her. That’s because I was not having the same experience as her, so I doubt she’s been tracking with me this whole time. I am positive that has led her to believe things about me that are not true, because she doesn’t respond. She takes things in and “reads between many lines.” But no actual communication regarding any of it except for “I’m furious beyond belief at some of your entries, and moved by others.” Well, what the fuck are you mad about and what moved you?

I feel like both of those things are important for me to know.

Because if I knew what moved her, I’d always write like that. I always want everything to be happy and sunny in my world, but the world doesn’t work that way. It’s complicated and sometimes it’s dark. Sometimes, it’s really dark.

But, for every storm, there’s a rainbow.

The Medium is the Message

April 20, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

How do you use social media?

I started with AOL Instant Messenger and chat rooms. The reason I touch type at 90 wpm is that I had to learn to type fast enough to keep up in a chat room. I have friends in nearly every country in the world after 20+ years, and I do not take that for granted because most are in the audience right now.

I see you, Finn Bell. I see you. 😉

I don’t know if Supergrover would remember Finn or not, but I reviewed two of his books and Supergrover was my editor on them. We got an A+, because of course we did. I am the kind of person that would have LOVED working with her in high school, and she would have fucking HATED me. We’re as different as Meredith Grey and Christina Yang. Also, just FYI, Christina is coded as autistic. When you go back, you can’t unsee it.

But in terms of group projects in high school, she would have seen me as getting her to do all the work, which I am betting that EVERYONE in high school thought of her that way. It’s not that I would have been lazy. It’s that her system of organization would seem like Greek, and her perception of my lack of a system would drive her batshit insane.

Or, at least, that’s the impression that I get from her e-mails. That she’s relaxed off the clock and seemingly also wrapped too tight at others. But that could have just been annoyance at me, which is usually completely deserved, I’m not going to lie. I’m annoying. I get it.

ADHD/Autism is annoying, even to me.

I think it would surprise neurotypical people at how much neurodivergent people don’t understand about their processing disorders. We can’t define burnout, meltdown, demand avoidance, hyperactivity, etc., but like obscenity, “we know it when we see it.” You can thank SCOTUS for that line, because it was used in the Larry Flynt case.

So, with no definition beforehand, we often go into these strange behaviors with absolutely no explanation for them. Demand avoidance is the worst. Even making coffee, which should be exciting. Once my brain hears “you need to make coffee,” I can’t do it. Once I hear “you need to take a shower,” I can’t do it. I have to trick myself into all of these things, which is why I’m so grateful to live in a smaller house. I can hear everything David (he has become important enough that he gets a real name instead of a fake one) does in the morning, so I just do it, too. I go to bed around 9:00 PM, because Jack, who is also a dog, wakes up around 5:30, and then we snuggle until about six. I hear David get into the shower because of the pipes, and I go downstairs to make coffee.

That’s because one morning I heard him in the shower and started my own, then I heard him turn his off and restart when I got out. So, note to self. Have coffee and just wait. It’s so funny to me that Jack has jumped into being “my dog.” It’s kind of sweet, and David is actually used to it because this is Jack’s room. He’s been sleeping in here long before I did. So, therefore, it doesn’t bother David that Jack sleeps with me because David isn’t used to Jack sleeping with him, anyway. This is his bed. I’m just renting it. 😉

Jack was recently taken to the groomer’s, and it really brings out his Chihuahua ears. He’s mostly Jack Russell terrier, but there’s Chihuahua in there somewhere. He’s a doll baby, and the way he crawls under my covers when he’s cold is simply adorable. I keep it cold in here just due to the windows being open. We haven’t turned on the air conditioner because we don’t need it. But some days it’s colder than others. I’m just used to having the windows open and wearing more clothes because Portland, Oregon (it needs no other explanation, really. The entire city lacks air conditioning. Don’t go to an old restaurant in the summer. Jesus.

Summer here is truly a temperature swing, just like in Houston. You carry a hoodie in your backpack because outside it’s 105 and inside it’s 68 or something…. Especially in the museums when they’re not full, because the air conditioning is based on full capacity. I also want to take Bryn and Dave to the zoo, because first of all it’s free, and second of all this is the right time to go. I do not like walking around outside and then going to the reptile house and the gift shop. The air conditioner always blows my hair back (literally) because I don’t have much body fat to begin with. It’s an issue, because I’m always cold. I’m glad when Zac and I are out and about that I can hold on to him, because it makes me less likely to shiver in the grocery store (not kidding).

I have learned that a LOT of autistic people hate swings in temperature that large. For instance, I hate both indoors and outdoors. I have just as much trouble with the temperature swing from air conditioning to a hot shower….. Yet another reason why demand avoidance eats my lunch….. And why social masking is so invaluable.

Because “my dog” wakes up at 0530.

To get back to the prompt, I use social media to say all of these things, whether it’s in a private conversation or what is basically a letter to all y’all here (the difference between “y’all” and all “y’all” is the size of the audience- for other countries, ‘y’all” is a contraction of “you all” and basically a product of my Texas upbringing.).

I still type 90wpm, because I’m still trying to keep up with the chat room…. Except I’m the only one in it. I am trying to teach Jack to type, but it is going poorly.

I haven’t had long enough. Give me time.

Here’s Jack after his haircut.

The Sight

April 19, 2024April 19, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

The sight of a blank page is intimidating, even in dark mode. There’s endless possibilities, and the longer you pause to construct your first sentence, the longer you’ll procrastinate writing anything at all. You cannot say you’ll start writing once the first sentence is perfect because guess how many years you can procrastinate off that one?

Sometimes I’ll go back and add a better sentence at the top if I think of one, because the slug on Facebook is important. Sometimes I don’t. It all depends on how much of a diarist and how much of a traditional writer I want to be that day. I do not compare myself to people like Ernest Hemingway (because he’s a novelist, not because I’m that talented); rather, I see myself more as a Dominick Dunne character from Vanity Fair. His only title was “Diarist.” His job was to go and sit in the back of famous court trials and write about them. I don’t write about trials, but some of my pieces (like the ones after the spy book talks) are reminiscent because I’m just taking in the whole room at once and writing it down. I would rather sit in the back and notice things.

Not that I can’t be a ham and make people laugh. I do that all the time because it’s how I know to relate to people. I often cover up how I’m feeling by trying to make the other person spit out their water. If they’re focusing on the fact that I’m funny, they won’t notice that…….. The list where that ellipsis lives is long. However, I think of that as The Leslie Lanagan Show, and being quiet in the back is my natural personality. For instance, when I was watching Jonna I was blogging the whole time. I just didn’t have my computer in front of me. When she’d say something I wanted to use, I’d make a note of it, etc.

I didn’t want it to be perfect, because I wouldn’t be brave enough to publish if I thought I had to aim that high. I just wanted to represent her accurately, always a challenge with people who are still alive, because you are not in their heads. You can only write your impressions of what they said, not what they were thinking at the time. I did not want to write something that made her wonder if I was even in the same room.

Twice, I have written things to be proud of, and I am. I think the biggest thing is that I wrote them like I write every other blog entry, as if Jonna and Tony aren’t my favorite writers in the universe and untouchable heroes, simply other characters in my weird little life. Because of The International Spy Museum, it’s kind of true. I met Jonna after Tony died, and we struck up a bit of a friendship.

The concept that she’s another character in my weird little life and not a deity is sort of alarming, frankly. I mean, who even am I?

Why do I keep saying things like this if someone like her knows my name?

It’s an issue.

I honestly think that the more known people are, the more they appreciate being treated like characters in my weird little life. That they want to be known as themselves, so they don’t have to be “on.” For instance, I would think it was way more interesting to meet Kamala Harris when it was just me, my sister, and some good music. That’s because I don’t care about the vice president as much as I care about her, if that makes sense.

Most Democrats have the capability to become characters in my weird little life because of my sister. She’s a lobbyist, so she lives in Houston (I’ve said this before, but new readers, etc.) and works in both Austin and DC on state and federal legislation. In her previous job, she had several states in her “territory,” and Maryland was one of them. We got to go to Annapolis and ended up in a regatta. We also found a great restaurant called “tsunami.” You really want the pork belly ramen.

I tend to eschew the spotlight, thus wanting to get to know the people Lindsay knows, just not in a place where everything is top volume and overwhelming. Cocktail parties are exhausting for me if it’s a lot of people I don’t know. I go into shutdown fast, selectively mute so that I couldn’t say anything even if I wanted to, because it would come out as stuttering while my brain lags like an Apple ][ e.

My thoughts come just as fast in person as they do when I’m writing. However, when I am writing, I can handle that volume of information coming at me because I can process it through my fingers at 90wpm. My brain cannot translate information into speech at half that rate. I get intimidated quickly and just stop trying. If it’s important, they’ll e-mail me….. Or, one can hope. Sometimes it backfires because it seems like I’m not interested in talking to people, and that’s not the case. I just like to take in my surroundings and read the room before I jump into it.

I’m not shy in the slightest. I have just made mistakes by not reading a room before, especially with my line cook loud mouth, that have made me reticent to talk first. In short, I’m trying to prevent problems before they come up rather than popping off and then having regrets. And by “popping off,” I don’t just mean anger. Sometimes it’s humor that makes people think “what the fuck is wrong with you?” The neurodivergent sense of humor is kind of dark, anyway. Then add line cook, where we’re all some kind of fucked up (I promise), and the differences between us and our neurotypical peers becomes even more stark, because we’re gathering in groups. You just don’t see it, because you don’t see that the kitchen is for misfits…

As Anthony Bourdain points out, it is a tribe that will have us…… And we know it. We are not built for office work or polite company. We are built to be aliens- because we are that different and also few people are educated enough about ADHD/Autism to really be able to understand it. One of the reasons that we seem like aliens is that none of our behavior makes sense to anyone neurotypical, and it’s always on us to adapt. There is a power imbalance that is unbreakable because neurotypical people have an air of superiority over “special kids.” We know it, so rates of anxiety and depression skyrocket when you also have ADHD/Autism. Not being able to navigate the world like a normal person takes its toll whether we’re talking about our personal or professional lives.

Autistic people have trouble in interpersonal relationships, even among each other because if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person. It does not present in everyone the same way, and I often think after many hours of study that the kind of ADHD that presents in women and the kind of ADHD that presents in men is so different that women are probably at the autistic end of the spectrum and men aren’t so much. Their ADHD presents as aggressively hyperactive. It’s not that women don’t display these tendencies as well, because I was married to a woman like that. I just think that the “male” presentation of ADHD is more accurate, and that the kind of ADHD that only makes you stare out the window and get lost in your own little world is more likely to be autism. Therefore, the criteria is the same for all genders. It’s not that there’s more autistic women, it’s that more autism is being caught. There hasn’t been much research on autism in women, because there are so many women that are struggling and only hear “you don’t look autistic.” I get it.

But please know that because I am autistic, I can predict with 90% accuracy whether someone else is, according to science (really). Neurotypicals can’t, because they don’t have the pattern recognition. They aren’t looking for the same things, because people tend to equate autism with severe retardation. If you are high IQ, you fall through the cracks. People understand autistic people who rock, scream, etc. They do not know what autism looks like after years and years of social masking.

Here’s my pattern recognition and how it might differ from yours:

Your gait
The number of different foods that you eat
How many times you have to go to a private place during a party for some sensory deprivation
The way you talk, because there’s a specific patois to neurodivergence- conversations are spaghetti code
The speed at which you talk- if Aaron Sorkin and Amy Sherman-Palladino have nothing on you, you may be autistic/ADHD 😛
The look in your eyes when you’re overwhelmed
Seeing stimming that other people wouldn’t notice- for instance, adults condemn a fidget spinner, but not knitting your eyebrows……. and it’s the same exact idea for calming yourself
How often it seems like “you’re just not there”
When you are dialed into a special interest, and what happens when you’re facing drudgery
How clean people’s houses are, because all neurodivergent people suck at sticking to systems and live in piles- no judgment because if you came to my house you’d see the same exact shit you do
Living in piles and yet knowing where everything is- because we don’t fit into your systems, we make our own
The way you write an e-mail, because again, a specific patois- which may or may not match your voice in person
The way you talk about your task list when it’s clearly overwhelming, especially when it’s already overwhelming and it’s three things.
How well you can multitask
How well you remember what you’ve heard vs. what you’ve read- most autistic people take in things through sight
Whether you make eye contact, and whether it looks like you’ve been trained into making eye contact as opposed to it being completely natural
Perceiving social masking instead of genuine comfort…. If you have to appear at a party, you’re ready to go long before anyone else (it’s a universal “you,” but it’s me)
These are not all the criteria, but it’s a good start. This last one is just “et al.”

I am not the expert, I just have lots of education because I made time for it. I also have the lived experience so that when the MDs and PhDs were talking, I could understand my past behavior in a completely different way. It’s interesting that there are so many tie-ins.

A lot of people who are neurodivergent are INFJ as well. In order to be “The Counselor,” there’s so much that goes into it…. Mostly introversion unless you’re in front of a crowd. My examples for this are writers and ministers. With ministers, it’s easier to connect to a thousand people than it is to go to a cocktail party. With writers, they’d rather sit in their offices til Jesus comes than do a book talk. All of the publicity is a necessary evil, not what an author really, really wants to do.

Authors who seem arrogant are generally one of two things….. Trying to fake it until they make it, or they’re not really artists. They’re trying to sell books, and they know it’s not very good….. But it doesn’t matter because people will buy it anyway. For instance, all those non-fiction books on how to get rich without really trying. It’s not pulling pain out of you as a writer, which is what makes it art.

When you write crap, you’re never going to see the real point of being an author, which is to wrestle your demons- even in fiction. For instance, Mary Shelley poured her heart and soul into “Frankenstein” to talk about her relationship with Lord Byron. The book was never intended to start the sci-fi genre, and yet it did. Sometimes I wondered whether she identified more with Frankenstein or Jenny. Either is a hot take.

Jenny has never appeared on screen, but she’s someone who was raised with Victor as a brother and then somehow weirdly engaged to him. She was accused of something she didn’t do, and went to the gallows. The reason she didn’t do it is that the monster did.

It looks different when Lord Byron is the monster.

And now all the fright is over, because the page is no longer blank. On the other hand, to quote another marvelous author…… “Tomorrow, AND tomorrow, AND tomorrow AND tomorrow…..”

The sight is relentless, and turns pain into beauty…. But that’s only by going by and seeing the other days where the pages have not ended up empty. In order to understand my future, I have to understand the past.

It gives me the insight to make “The Sight” not so intimidating.

A little.

Sigh.

April 18, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Describe a random encounter with a stranger that stuck out positively to you.

Apparently, if I had just waited until today, the perfect story and the perfect prompt would have lined up. I wrote about a very meaningful encounter with an American Uber driver who was from Afghanistan originally. It always hurts when you can’t make them line up if you’ve published a story that would have been good for the prompt, like, less than 24 hours ago. That being said, I cannot answer all of the prompts because I’ve already answered them. This is either one in which I still have the post in my draft folder, or I took off that day. A large percentage of my readers come from the daily prompt, because people’s answers are highlighted and moved up. That’s how my audience grows every single day.

I am growing most rapidly in India, and honestly I think that’s because WordPress is more popular in India. There’s also not really a language barrier because my Indian housemate and her daughter were both taught English in school. Plus, Indians and I are the same tribe. We’ve been supporting Windows users since we were kids. 😉 I do not know what it is about my personality that attracts Indians, or people from any other country, really. I do consciously think about the fact that I’m writing for an international audience, though.

That’s why so many of my illustrations come from the Bible and Doctor Who. Jesus and The Doctor are two of the most recognizable figures in the world and not just to Americans. I am definitely a Christian and a Whovian, but it’s more than that. Both the Bible and Doctor Who give me an endless library of images with which to explain things to people who have also read/seen these things. There are not many things I can talk about to an audience that read global.

It is also why I talk about intelligence so much. Intelligence feeds my writing because it shows that I am an American, but I am not American-centric. I believe that we are allowed to work in our best interests, but none of this over the top “America is right about everything and other countries are stupid” bullshit. We could learn so much. We just haven’t, and won’t. We’re not smart enough to be humble and admit when things aren’t working and say, “hey. France has a good idea on this. Maybe we should take a look at it.” Substitute any country in the world for France, because there can be good things found in any government right along with the bad.

In short, I want to show more people than just Americans that I hear them, that their stories do matter to me, that I am not an American imperialist but a seeker of knowledge. For instance, Argo is my favorite movie. But when I really get down to brass tacks, can I really say to myself that the US was right to do what they did? I do not want to exclude Iranians and their story by invalidating their feelings and their history. I love that the movie starts out by saying that the Iranians were angry, and the way the voiceover plays out, you hear the anguish in the struggle. I rooted for Tony and the houseguests. I did not judge whether the United States was wrong or right for putting themselves in that situation in the first place. It is too complicated for me to comprehend, because I was not an adult at the time. I was two.

I am a student of the chessboard without assuming that the United States will or should win every game.

For instance, people have thought I was crazy for saying I’d like to retire in Mexico (not likely, but an interesting thought) because of all the drug cartels. I said, “well, if I get hurt by one of the cartels, at least I won’t be in debt up to my eyeballs.” We would be happier with socialized medicine, but most people (even those on Medicare) don’t support it because they don’t understand it. Think about all the school shootings, all the public events that have been ruined by gunfire, and the tremendous amount of money those people had to pay to recover from the privilege of being shot.

People say “if you don’t like it, just leave.” If I leave, there will be no one to vote for these things. Telling me to get out is so much easier than working with me to find a solution, my problem with that mentality in its entirety, and most of what I hate about Republicans and have since the 90s.

Republicans don’t do solutions. They didn’t like The New Deal any better than they liked Obamacare. This has become a pattern. They’re fine with just sitting back and saying no to everything while problems persist- while also not coming up with anything and being angry that Democrats get credit for cool things and they don’t.

For instance, Mitt Romney could have taken on nationalized health care as easily as any Democrat, but he didn’t win the presidency, first of all, and if he’d told the Republican party he planned to overhaul national health care the way he did in Massachusetts, he never would have been the candidate in the first place. This is why they can’t have nice things.

Hillary Clinton started fighting the Republicans on health care in the 90s, when Bill took office…. and it took until Obama to get even the barest minimum. It’s not a complete overhaul, but it’s a start. I have no doubt that’s one of the reasons why Michelle Obama’s focus was on preventative care and not trying to take on legislation like the “Patient’s Bill of Rights.” She focused on diet and exercise, which is the best you can do without medical or legal intervention.

The Republicans aren’t the idea machine, but it’s not because they can’t be. It’s because they won’t. It’s their personality now. All they do is try to stop the Democrats, they don’t try to come up with ideas that will work better. They don’t collaborate with Democrats, so there’s no Republican buy-in to basically anything that represents moving forward.

We are not the same country that we were under Eisenhower, and Eisenhower would not understand the current Republican party any more than I do, because our thinking is very much the same. The GOP has gotten more and more conservative, which has made the Democrats more conservative in order to be electable. What people think of in America as “liberal” is very conservative in the rest of the world.

Very. Conservative.

That’s why it’s hard to see that Donald Trump is a fascist for some people. They do not realize that we were already so tilted to the right in the first place. That fascism wasn’t a huge leap because we’d been sliding toward it so long. It is astounding to me the number of Americans who think Trump is perfectly capable of being president from prison. I am not kidding. There have been polls.

Joe Biden isn’t as liberal as you think he is. He’s not even the most liberal person in our party. In terms of world leaders, he’s very conservative, because the other leaders in the world do have socialized medicine in their countries (the major players). It is impossible to say that conservatives in other countries are equal to our own….. A good for-instance would be comparing Republicans to Tories. When Tories get angry, they don’t try to defund the NHS and take away gay marriage.

I will say that the United States has a history of crazy in the political arena. It is only relatively recently that we stopped rolling our eyeballs at that level of insanity and electing it instead.

Now it’s time for me to go put together my desk chair, because now that I have a really comfortable one, I’m going to be in it all day long. That’s because I put my desk at the foot of my bed so that when I’m writing, I can turn my head to look out onto the greenery and the trees. So much of writing is turning your head to look at the trees.

It’s nice, because I’m normally looking at the whole forest.

The Asset

April 17, 2024 ~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I had one of the strangest, most moving experiences I’ve ever had with a person just because he was my Uber driver, and I was wearing a baseball cap. If you’re a fan, you already know what it says, and your heart is probably beating a little faster now that you’ve read the title.

I have told you that I am the kind of person that people get deep with, fast. I hear a lot of “I’ve never told anyone this before.” People spill information to me that they would never tell anyone else. And in fact, I’ve been sitting on this story for about a week because I had to feel it completely before I could describe it.

I was using Uber Share, so I ended up in the front seat. I got dropped off last, so we had plenty of time to talk. I asked the driver where he was from. He said, almost too quietly, “Afghanistan.” Because of his demeanor, I thought, “oh, Allah. Here we go.” I walked right into it, because when people say “Afghanistan” quietly, there’s a story there. I knew it was going to be large, and it was going to hurt. However, I did not know in advance that it wouldn’t hurt because I’ve wanted to meet someone like him for a very long time. It was a blessing from Allah for both of us, reciprocal in nature…… Like slicing over a wound until he touched my arm.

He was a cleaner in the Afghan government somewhere, and we asked him to work for us. Then, we got him out when shit hit the fan. He knew he wanted to come here, and that’s why he agreed to work for the letters stuck semi permanently on my head…… The OG have seen it coming.

They’re my three favorite letters in the whole world because of three people. The first and second are Jonna and Tony Mendez. The third is Anthony Bourdain, who is a double dipper because he loved spies with every fiber of his being, and he also went to Culinary Institute of America.

One of these days, one of Zac’s friends who is “recovering CIA” will cook with me….. And I will get my moment.

“Didn’t they teach you ANYTHING?”

So, this man (a boy in my eyes) weaves a tale that has me so mesmerized I don’t even notice when we arrive at my house, nor do I want to get out of the car. Not really.

He left everything just for the American dream. Happier than he was in Afghanistan, but devastatingly homesick and can’t go back. Family still there that he won’t see for years, if ever.

It’s a lot.

People who sacrifice for America aren’t just Americans.

He started to cry as he was telling me how much he missed the land, more so when he told me about his family.

The reason I didn’t want to get out of the car is that I was crying, too.

When you are voting on immigration, think of people like him and not the pictures of immigrants that politicians try to make without reading any actual data. There is no doubt that once he was recruited, he could have died for our country and not his own. That’s how badly people want to come here. It’s people who believe in us more than we believe in ourselves….. Because we’ve created a pyrite dream all over the world, where the riches promised are left to the imagination…. Harder when that reality really sets in.

I do think that ultimately it was worth it, because even he agrees. That’s what matters. And an Uber driver in the United States probably makes the same as a cleaner in Afghanistan due to the value of each currency. It is not like he had to come here and discover all of his certifications were worthless. However, I do understand the feeling of exile. I had so many rights in Oregon that I lost when I moved to Texas. That’s because gay marriage didn’t come along until 2008 federally. So, even though we were a married couple in Oregon, we weren’t in Texas. It is a different feeling when you don’t want to go back than when you can’t.

He healed more things in me than he’ll ever know, and I hope that unburdening himself made him feel lighter as well.

Now I can say quite literally that CIA has given me some of the best moments of my life- meeting the Chief of Disguise, and now the type of people we need to collect information in the first place.

We saved him, because he saved us first.