Tag: truth

Making Connections

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Speaking of which, I need some.

It’s a connection I made.

I Would Have To Pretend to Make it Interesting

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 2 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Because I don’t Google normally.

TV Time

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What TV shows did you watch as a kid?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Stroke, Hopefully of Luck

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 2 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It wasn’t child labor. We got paid. 😉

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

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

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

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

But Jesus Christ, just come pick me up.

Right Now- 0500

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What’s your favorite time of day?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m not friendly, Bob.

Writing a Letter

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 3 Comments

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

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

Dear Mel,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They want another pancake.

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

I think your dishwasher’s about to quit.

Love,

Leslie

Live, Laugh, Love

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 11 Comments

What’s your favorite recipe?

Anyone who actually knows me knows two things. The first is that I don’t have any recipes, and the second is how much contempt I have for the phrase in the title because it is emotional shorthand for a whole mood…. the Karen special.

However, I do cook well. I can’t give you recipes, but I can tell you how I do things and you can cook like I do- I became a professional cook by tasting every step of the way. That’s why we don’t use measurements. We add until the gods have let us know that they are sated.

So much depends on what kind of technology I’m using. Cooking over a fire is different than gas and electric ovens/grills. You also cannot ignore the part of cooking that involves feel, because I get why we need to wear gloves. I believe others underestimate why it’s important not to wear them and just wash your hands constantly. A grilled steak or chicken breast will have a certain feel to it. Wearing gloves dampens our ability to detect it. Moreover, an open flame grill often made mine catch on fire and fuse to my skin. On an open flame, you really have no choice but to touch it because you cannot be certain that the heat is equal everywhere you place it.

To combat not trying to touch things, we risk presentation because we’ll have to cut something open to make sure it’s done in the middle. I do not want anyone to get served pork or chicken medium rare.

These are all of the things that run through a cook’s mind before we even start thinking about ingredients. You don’t buy the ingredients for the technology, you work with what you have.

I saute most things. I even prefer it to the microwave and toaster, because I would rather toast bread in the skillet with butter. I make a mean cheese toastie (grilled cheese). 😉

I start with lots of butter and herbs in a skillet on very low heat. Most of the time, it’s Montreal Chicken Seasoning or herbs de Provence. While that’s warming up, I butter some bread and add hot sauce, pico de gallo, or black pepper, along with two thick slices of cheese. I set the sandwich in the pan and it takes time. You don’t want the toast to be black and the cheese to be unmelted. Putting the lid on the pan for a few minutes during cooking will help the cheese melt with steam, but you don’t want to leave it on too long or the sandwich will be soggy. Low and slow is the name of the game. You can use softer cheeses to speed it up, like Gouda or Jack. You cannot increase the heat. You’ll know it’s time to flip when you see the edge of the bread turn the color toast you like. I prefer to get it very, very brown- almost black- because I think char stands up well to cheese.

To really up your game, make caramelized onions beforehand. Caramelized onions take a lot longer than you think. A lot. I don’t think I’ve ever achieved perfection in under 45 minutes. That’s because caramelization is a process. If you help it along too much, they’ll have charred edges and not done enough in the middle. You have to put more butter than you think you need into a pan with way more onions than you think you’ll need (just like 20 pounds of spinach is almost enough to feed one person after cooking it) and just leave it on low heat. Don’t stir it as much as you think you need to, because the caramelization happens when onion touches metal. Think about how often you’re interrupting that when you turn things over.

Touching the metal is what cooks mean when they say “respect first contact.” That means put it on the grill and step back. Do not adjust, do not do anything. The process of caramelization has already started and moving it will rip the crust that has begun to develop immediately. If you respect first contact, the caramelization process will have created a crust so thick that the meat will lift off the grill on its own….. same for pancakes. I know to flip mine when I can lift up the skillet and the pancake slides around independently. I still use a spatula to flip, though, because generally there’s so much hot butter that it would splash in my face. Besides, I like to make my pancakes really thick and it would ruin them to be flipped with that much violence. I save that kind of movement for foods that can take it, like eggs.

Eggs are there for you when no one else is. I swear it. You can add an egg to anything and instant meal.

Eggs are another food where it’s best to respect first contact, but hold the butter to a manageable level. You want enough to coat the pan, but not enough to splash in your face if you’re trying to be me, the home version.

You can flip an egg in any frying pan, but I find that the smaller ones are easier. Not the ones marked “egg pan.” Those are so tiny it’s like playing with Barbie cookware. I mean the smallest normal-sized frying pan because it feels balanced in my hand. If you’re 6’6 and 280, you’re going to have a different favorite. Choose the one you like based on how it feels to you.

When I say respect first contact, I mean that the same thing will happen with eggs that happen with meat and pancakes. They’ll stick to the metal and develop a crust, lifting independently. When you can move the egg in the pan on its own, it’s safe to flip. How long you leave it after it has flipped determines whether it is over easy, over medium, etc.

I find that flipping eggs is infinitely easier than trying to guess when sunny side up is ready. It helps to put the lid on the pan for those, too, because it ensures that the bottom and the top cook evenly.

With scrambled eggs, I tend to respect first contact and break them up very little. I also undercook them a tiny, tiny, tiny amount so that they remain cheesy in texture. Very important sidenote: eggs don’t need anything. They don’t get fluffier with water or milk. You can add volume, but the flavor will thin out to an enormous degree. I would go with a drip of cold water before I’d add milk, but I wouldn’t do either unless I was almost out of eggs and needed to make them stretch.

Cooking is all about learning how to make things stretch, and not even from a financial perspective. It’s also learning how to make use of what you’ve already bought, because you had a creative idea for something…. where you rise to the level is forgetting everything you know and just looking into the pantry.

I always keep pancake mix on hand, as well as cheese, bread, butter, pasta, and the occasional frozen pizza, with which I almost certainly will make double cheese and double jalapeno before I bake it.

Everything I make has a ton of calories for two reasons. The first is that I don’t eat often and I walk everywhere I go. The second is that my stomach needs some help if I’m going to go balls to the wall with Scoville every day in search of relief from hideous allergies. I pad my stomach with the butter and cheese no matter whether it’s dairy or plant-based. A not dog with vegan cream cheese and kim-chi hot enough to blow your head off is just as tasty as beef or pork franks.

Another thing I do is buy spring mix when it’s on sale so that I can do warm salads. My favorite is to saute spring mix, carrots, Brussels sprouts, and kale in a combination of olive and sesame oils. Sometimes I add nuts, seeds, dried fruit if there’s no added sugar, etc. When the veggies have cooked for a little while and I can tell the stems are getting soft, I hit the pan with rice wine vinegar and close the lid.

When the veggies are entirely wilted, I push them to the sides of the pan and crack two eggs in the middle.

It’s done when the yolks are just starting to get hard. I like them best when the texture is gelatinous, not runny.

The egg and the rice wine vinegar play off each other extraordinarily well.

But recognize that there are certain things at home you cannot do well and pay the people that do it. For instance, I have no shame in admitting that it would cost me hundreds to do rotisserie chicken the way I’d really like to do it, or I could just go to Don Pollo. I don’t have to buy their sides, I can just add their chicken to what I do know how to cook well at home…. or, at least, I would if I did that kind of thing. The last time I went to Don Pollo was years and years ago, and I still remember the taste of the black beans and pico because it was served cold, like Cowboy Caviar (Texas black-eyed pea relish). I loved it because they’d taken the time to dice the jalapenos, so they were perfectly deseeded and none of them were bitter.

The other thing they have at Don Pollo that I could not do at home is fried yucca. It’s delicious and I wouldn’t even attempt it because I don’t want to own a deep fryer. I want them to own a deep fryer. 😉

If we’re talking about my personal favorite foods, let’s play the chef’s game. You’re on death row. What’s your last meal? There are no stipulations to this game. The food can come from anywhere.

I would start with bone marrow and crostini, paired with a simple red table wine.

Next, a salad filled with vegetables. Please do not fool around with an iceberg wedge and some bleu cheese. Put your back into it. I want a bright yuzu vinegar with some cracked black pepper. Heritage tomatoes. Romaine. Real food and not restaurant filler.

If John Kinkaid was going to outlive me, he’d know that as my chef, my last meal would be his. He could surprise and delight me, but I already know what he would make.

It would be a vegetable jambalaya and a Purple Haze from Abita.

Because it’s the end of the night, and I’m about to clock out.

The Moral Arc

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

“The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today I went to the reflecting pool for the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington. I couldn’t hear well enough to distinguish speakers, but I’m going to use an idea from one of them and I wish I could give them credit. It made me stupid for a second as my internal computer lagged trying to process the moment.

They said, “the moral arc doesn’t bend itself.”

I was glad I was sitting down.

Raphael Warnock said much the same thing on Rachel Maddow the other night. He said, “pray with your lips and your legs.” I grew up with much the same idea… that if you’re going to pray, put on your shoes. You don’t feed people based on whether they deserve it, you feed people because they’re hungry. Then you pray about it and do it again.

Christianity at its best focuses on self-improvement, and social justice is a wonderful way to point groupthink in the right direction. You are bettering yourself with other people trying to better themselves through the common activity of standing up for minorities, both the ones you are and aren’t. Trauma has many basketball courts in one gym. All minorities have it. Jesus would have been subject to those same things, because of course he was Jewish, but his government wasn’t. The Sanhedrin was very much the governing body for Jews, but the Romans had control of everyone.

I wish more people would take in what a radical socialist Jesus was in his day and time. I wish more churches would take in how much their prosperity gospel is embarrassing. It is not what was ever intended by a group of radical Jews who went their own way. What people tend to forget if they aren’t interested in theology is that Christ would understand exactly nothing about what was said in the New Testament because they weren’t written down until 80 or 90 years after he died. The whole thing is a game of telephone. The Nicene Council approved international standards for the Bible, but Jesus still thought like a Jew. Jesus does not give a fuck about your abortion. I guarantee it. The Talmud is sane in this regard.

We were marching for all of it. Black lives matter. Female bodily autonomy. Black trans lives matter. Queer people matter.

Today, the moral arc of the universe did indeed bend toward justice.

But it didn’t bend itself.

I remembered that Laura was a preacher’s kid. What I did not realize is that both her parents are retired from the United Methodist Church, albeit a vastly different kind from my dad’s because I was in Texas and she was in New England. But, this woman catches jokes that no one else in the room would understand, and it cracks me up. I felt the same way about her mom. I said, “my dad was a pastor, but my mother was more the ‘smile and play the organ’ type.” Without missing a fucking beat, she says, “oh. That’s more typical….. as IF THEY HAD A CHOICE.” I died for a second. If my mother had been standing there, she also would have been struggling not to fall on the ground laughing.

It was great to feel at home with both of them right away, instantly translating from virtual to physical as if it meant nothing at all. I think people our age do it better than most, because we’ve spent more years chatting online than older people have, yet we’re still young enough to remember life before the Internet… we’re basically the first generation of people who have connected for years virtually because we could.

It would be impossible to keep up the rate with which we contact each other if we only had letters and phone calls. Therefore, the transition is much more difficult. It’s easy to continue a conversation when you can talk right up until you find each other in front of the Washington Monument.

Turns out, I can look forward to seeing more of Laura eventually because even though she lives in Boston, her aunt lives in Alexandria. So, it’s not impossible that we’ll run into each other, especially for days like this. In fact, Laura is only here for 12 hours, and her mom flew in yesterday. It made me feel like part of something very historic- I knew it was, obviously, but that it also meant a lot to all Americans because people had traveled so far for it.

I also didn’t hear about it, strangely enough, and I say that because I read the news all the time. Both Laura and her mom said that it was hard to find information about the event and that even they had to do some guesswork. All of us thought the crowd would be bigger, but it was great seeing everyone, including the Kings and the Sharptons.

Part of being there was just enjoying the moment, even when I left to get water and couldn’t find my way back to where we were sitting. I got lost in the moment when Sasha Baron Cohen was speaking about the collaboration between blacks and Jews. I did not know that it was historically black colleges that opened their doors to Jewish students when they were rejected from other American schools. It makes sense. Trauma sees trauma. Both have been tortured by the same people.

It’s the same type people that would torture me. Never in American history have any minorities been truly safe from persecution. Black people didn’t have rights in England, so why would they here? We forget the Founding Brothers were English just like we forget Jesus was Jewish. The Founding Brothers suffered under the weight of white supremacy Jesus and the country still won’t give it up. To the majority of Christians, what I am saying is blasphemy because the picture in their heads is as white as they are. The picture is every bit as infectious as the Coca-Cola Santa Claus, yet neither are real. The historical Jesus, in my head, looks like Reza Aslan (He’s the author of “Zealot,” about the historical Jesus).

Black people have held onto their Christian faith because they saw the real Jesus like no one else…… they saw him for who he really is.

They saw a man broken by the system who rose up and rescued himself, bringing us all with him. White supremacy will be the end of Christianity as Evangelicals drive more and more people away who leave church altogether instead of joining a liberal congregation fighting against the system. They’re so done with the hypocrisy that they just won’t come back unless a relative is singing, preaching, getting married, or dead.

If you insist on treating your very modern members like they’re failing at life because you’re making them terrified of ancient rules and regulations, you’re doing it wrong. Jesus was not a professional Christian superhero.

He was a man broken by the system, as all minorities are at one time or another.

The problem is when your church doesn’t talk about it.

11:00 on Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour in America.

Not just by race, but also perspective. When you think of Jesus, you think of you. So, if you are the majority, so is he. You are upholding a system that has gone back thousands of years, new generations picking new people to hate. How Jesus’ message became so twisted is easy to put together when you look at it that way. As Reza Aslan said in a famous YouTube video, “God doesn’t hate gay people. You hate gay people.”

It makes the march come together, this feeling of solidarity. If we ban together and include women as minorities, the minority is the majority. We have protested in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Now it’s time to protest, and soon it will be time to vote. If you’re going to pray, put on your shoes.

The moral arc of the universe is long and bends toward justice…… but it doesn’t bend itself.

Laura

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Tell us about the last thing you got excited about.

My friend Laura contacted me yesterday to ask if I knew anyone going to the march tomorrow. I said, “first of all, I didn’t know there was a march tomorrow. Secondly, if you’re inviting me, I’ll come.” I don’t know Laura at all. She’s a Facebook friend of a Facebook friend. We’re both the nerdy Biblical scholar type…. she came up with one of the best lines ever…. I said something about Jesus being hilarious and she said, “it’s a dry humor….. they’re desert people.” So, if Laura is inviting me to anything, I’ll go. In fact, the last text message I got from her was “boarding. Talk later.” I believe she is coming from Boston (Logan) to DCA.

Her mother and aunt are also along for the ride, and I’m looking forward to meeting them as well. It’s been a long time since I just lightened up and agreed to do something outside my comfort zone. I don’t even know what I’m protesting today, but I mean it.

In case you’re wondering, this is what Bible nerds do. Jesus was marginalized, a person of color murdered by the state. Jesus taught women when it just was not done. He gave away free health care to poor people without asking whether they were his countrymen or not.

One of the biggest moments in Christianity is often overlooked, and it is the key to unlocking my faith.

It’s when the woman comes to Jesus to ask for a blessing and he says no. She says “even the dogs are worthy to gather crumbs at the Master’s table.” You can see it register on Jesus’s face. It’s written straight, but that thought process must have cooked his noodle. Jesus changes his mind. From then on, he is not just the savior of the Jews. He is the savior of the gentiles as well. Now, I know we cannot make this lesson look perfect in today’s world, but we can make it look like the miracle it actually is. Progress was not a one-way street. Jesus was changed by those around him, too.

That’s what I’m doing. I’m allowing my thoughts to be changed by those around me, because I know that no matter where I’m going today, it’s not going to be somewhere I don’t like.

The only thing I know at this point is that the march starts over by the White House, 17th and something. I have looked through the Post trying to find a link, but I got nothin.’ I am willing to be led because I trust in my friend. What we’re protesting is almost secondary to a day out in the sunshine when the high is only 89 degrees and not 104.

I get angry and sullen on this web site because it’s the space where I’m allowed to be that when I feel it. Sometimes I don’t think I do a good job of expressing when the world flattens me with wonder. I am going to walk where Martin Luther King, Jr. and Raphael Warnock have walked. I’m going to walk where Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug walked. I’m going to walk in the footsteps of other people advocating for desperately needed change, because that is what my faith calls me to do. It doesn’t tell me how to vote. The stories of Jesus do that.

To see Jesus as he of “the cross and the lynching tree” instead of “awesome cosmic power, itty bitty living space” is to understand that he didn’t change anything by revolutionary acts on a grand scale. He and the people around him decided what was worth fighting for, and decided that was more valuable than fighting amongst themselves.

Coming together for a common purpose is what groupthink does when it’s pure. It just so rarely happens when people are determined to believe they’re the main character instead of seeing the cause that way.

I love things that help me remove my ego, because with protests, neither Jesus nor I have any dog in the fight except letting people who don’t have voices be amplified. That the least powerful among us should also get what we need from a corrupt government.

He was also pro-government to the level that people needed to interact with it. Of course you should pay your taxes…. “render unto Caesar,” just don’t let the picture of the man on that coin be the one who holds your soul.

It’s not the last thing I’m excited about. That concept is what excites me about everything. There is a way to both fit in and stand out. It seems that Washington, DC is the best city in the world for it. We are gathering for a common cause, not a common person. We are changing each other collectively instead of making a person’s picture the authority on our lives.

Not even Jesus would want that.

The United States: A Primer on What’s Wrong with It and Why

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I wonder a lot about the future, which is why I was so glad I got to write out my thoughts about it. I’m not a scientific genius, but I do have enough smarts to predict what’s going to happen if we can’t live above ground, or the ground is ruined by radiation. Unlike Fallout 3, there is a brighter future underground, because we don’t have to live socially any different than we do now. It’s our physical limitations as humans that bind us to a huge problem, a lot of whom don’t see there being one and won’t do what’s necessary until their house explodes or there’s a food shortage because our farmland has been nuked.

A lot has been written about our dystopian futures, but it’s all fiction. We’ve never stopped to think about what would happen if we were faced with nuclear war or natural devastation. If the United States is attacked with a nuclear bomb, it would take the ground around it a hundred years to be fertile again. Nuclear treaties keep the world safe for a number of reasons, mostly because world leaders are not able to starve their own people or others if NATO is any threat at all. The immediacy of nuclear war would kill people right away. No one thinks about the fact that their grandchildren and great grandchildren may not get enough to eat because there’s not enough soil unaffected by radiation.

It’s not just bombs. Nuclear power is a wonderful thing right up until it’s not. Things go wrong at plants with the best laid plans. We can’t ignore these things, we have to find a way to successfully live around it. Leaders who wrestle with nuclear war are only thinking in the moment, and I cannot fathom what that discussion was like during WWII, particularly among the Japanese after they didn’t know what hit them.

By the same token, they’re responsible for their own radiation leaks with plants like Fukushima. That’s not to say that nuclear plants are bad and we should get rid of them. Just that for now the technology and chemistry is not capable of defeating human error.

People aren’t capable of acting as smart as they are under the best of circumstances, and the level of intelligence in the room goes down the more people are in it. Groupthink is a powerful drug, as evidenced by the former president’s lovely mugshot. We cannot defeat global warming with anti-vaxxers. It cannot be done if they can’t be convinced that science is real, vaccines are real, and global warming is not a hoax just to fuck with them.

Scientists are not saying that the globe is heating up and will get warmer consistently. They are saying that as the planet heats up, the swings in temperature, air currents, and water level will create chaos. We are not slowly getting warmer at a rate where everything happens concurrently. We are adjusting to a new reality…….. poorly.

The worst part is feeling the politics of all this. Other countries are so much more aware than we are, and so much money goes into making sure we’re as environmentally disastrous as we can possibly be for way longer than we can afford. The oil and gas industry own the United States and we cannot pretend it doesn’t. All climate change policy has to pass based on interest, and they buy out all the votes they want. If you want to grease the wheel, you will. who cares whether it’s legal or not?

We are not the only ones in the world that have a corrupt government, but we’re one of the countries that can do something about it because we aren’t beholden to a monarchy or a despot (anymore). We are also not the only country leaning toward the fascist right, which generally leads to deregulation of all sorts of things. We cannot afford to move backwards, and currently not enough of us are voting forwards. It’s not just the presidency. It’s the congress and local politicians down to the school board. The entire country is centered around who believes facts and who doesn’t. We found out who would justify civil war and who wouldn’t….. and what we found is “more than you might think.” Are we really going to wait until there’s a section of the military that’s on board with a coup? Because this is how you get a coup de etat. It’s not the difference between supporters and non-supporters of the orange gelatinous shitbag, it’s between the people who pick a side and who don’t. If we don’t vote out fascism, we’re going to get it.

I cannot live under that regime. No person of color or queer can. So far, we have no way in some states to advance representation to the smallest degree. The state of Arkansas just passed a ban that high school students cannot take African American history in high school to count for college credit because it might be some sort of indoctrination. “Heather Has Two Mommies” is not welcome in any Florida classroom. I would suggest, before people ban books about persons of color or minority sexual orientation/gender, that they go back to Emett Till. This covers both bases. People can still be killed for whistling at a woman for being black or same sex. Violence against lesbians is very real, although men are more likely to rape us than hit us.

Emett’s story encapsulates everything that’s wrong with our society, as well as what is right in terms of what his legacy has created. I just think it needs to create more by white people recognizing that this country is very much not what they think it is. That’s because all communication in telling the majority they’re wrong is being banned as well. Voting rights in Georgia come to mind.

Perhaps it would be easier to work together on future problems if we weren’t so busy actively trying to destroy each other. The environment is not just physical. Safety doesn’t always correspond to the physical structure you’re in. Sometimes, it’s a feeling. Safety in our society is falling by the wayside. Even the cops are in on it.

Those who study history are desperate for those who don’t to get a clue, but politicians have no idea how to get ahead in the system while also changing it. The government is not built for quick change, and I think that’s mostly good because too much change with this large a population would break most people trying to keep up. That being said, it’s time for more than what we’ve been getting. The planet is getting sicker and only one party cares. Other countries care so much more than we do that we’re an embarrassment.

That’s probably because we don’t have Eisenhower taxes coming in anymore. Government research is not being funded to the level it could be thanks to people like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. Yes, Bill Gates has a foundation, but it’s not exclusively working on American infrastructure like the country would be able to if the same money came to us in the form of tax. We could spend more on climate change because we have money. But, of course, going to space on a vacation is much more important than funding grants for science and technology research.

We don’t even have government-funded health care, and even with our population we have the money to get it done…. we just won’t. Yet prescription drugs are lower in cost everywhere in the world because buying in bulk for the whole nation makes it where drug companies are only getting a set amount of money for them and not jacking up the price in different areas. There is a marked difference between drug prices even doing the research at home on your own. If you call three different pharmacies, you’re going to get three different answers…. except on over the counter meds. They seem to be about the same price no matter where you go because there’s only so much you can charge for paracetamol.

The question becomes which problem to work on first? It’s people. Nothing happens without buy-in, and we are lost to figure out how to create it.

Meanwhile, we make movies to highlight all the hypocrisy. The reason it’s not getting through is that people either think it doesn’t apply to them or the message is being written off as leftist propaganda.

We had a good thing going in the 50s in terms of the space race and figuring out how to adapt society to move forward. The thing that didn’t is the people. All the racism is still here. All the homophobia is still here. Everything that needs to be weeded out never left, it just went dormant.

You can fix the technology, but you can’t defeat stupid.

As the National Park Service says, “it’s hard to make containers to keep bears out. There is considerable overlap between the smartest bear and the dumbest tourist.”

I think that’s a lesson from which we can all learn.

This Could Go Either Way

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 2 Comments

How would you design the city of the future?

My city would be completely sustainable and small, perhaps even easy to break down and move because global warming is slowly killing us whether we like it or not. Eventually, you may not have a choice whether you live in Houston or Helsinki. I’m not trying to be all doomsday here, I’m just trying to troubleshoot what issues we’re dealing with. We should have researched more about what carbon emissions could do before we built cars. We just didn’t know we needed to do it. We needed time to discover that CFCs were destroying the ozone layer and I had to give up my Aquanet habit until they could figure it out.

(I’m glad they did, but I use a water-based wax & gel called “Gorilla Ear Wax” now. I also have the gel alone and it’s called “Gorilla Snot.” It’s a Mexican product originally, so when I bought it the first time it was because the label made me laugh- it wasn’t in English and I thought it was clever, so why not?)

I thought Al Gore did a great job with “An Inconvenient Truth” and I wish the government had truly listened. I feel that car companies have not embraced new technology easily and therefore have no idea how much they’re going to become completely irrelevant if they don’t change. It will speed up the relentlessness of Mother Nature, because we won’t be able to predict what’s going to be hit next with accuracy in the future because the temperature swings are going to be too violent.

That leads to putting together buildings that have enough strength to withstand extreme temperatures and weather. I feel the that Finns are the best in the world at this because they have to be. They have to have a lot more in place for “oopsie babies” and poor people because the temperature is too cold to leave anyone outside and feel good about it. The construction of their houses usually has the finest insulation available and windows with three panes of glass with argon instead of two. We could learn a lot from Scandinavia about living with extreme cold as much as they could learn about living in heat from me. I’m from the South and I’ve lived in the Pacific Northwest. Ask me anything. 😛

I think it would be smart to learn from the military on how to build down into the ground in the desert and make it comfortable. I’m sure part of it is full-spectrum bulbs in the overhead lights or permission to bring a lamp if you need it. It stands to reason that places like southwest Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona can’t withstand heat if it gets any hotter. They’re going to have to get creative, and I believe that letting the heat pass over you is a viable option. It would also be good for places that experience wildfires. I believe that a lot more houses would survive if the only thing you could see on the ground level is a concrete slab. What else can we do without building an entirely new infrastructure to regulate temperature and acts of God (in the insurance sense of the phrase)?

I’ve found houses built in the US, New Zealand, and Australia on this very concept. The ground provides natural insulation if you can keep your house dry, because it won’t take as much in power to cool your house. The walls will stay cool longer with that much padding. Even in the desert, groundwater is colder than the air above, thus the need for dehumidifiers built into the HVAC system. It is not easily or cheaply done, but it’s amazing how much you adapt when you have to, not because you want to spend that money or DIY that much.

If we’re dreaming entirely new ways of building, the earth will survive whether we do or not, so it makes sense that we adapt to it. It will never adapt to us. Because we already have more technology in living underground than living in, say, space, I think it would be wise to invest as much money as possible in getting it even further along. We could create buildings in the middle of lakes and oceans to naturally cool them. My favorite cinematic wonder in film is the underwater kingdom on Jar-Jar Binks’ home planet. Seeing the fish swim in the windows was just magnificent on the big screen.

I would love it because I am a fish person, anyway. Just not goldfish. They’re pretty to look at but require too much maintenance. I’d probably go with tilapia because they are so plentiful and freely available if I catch my own. Because of course, by now in my head there’s a beautiful underwater house in a lake I’ve filled with tilapia myself. I watch so much of this stuff on YouTube that I’m very Elle Woods about it. “What? Like it’s hard?” I may not be the best at DIY, but I can certainly tell when a contractor is bullshitting me or not. I know what things cost and what’s worth the hype. Insulation with as high an R value you can find is priceless because you’ll hardly have to do anything to keep yourself comfortable. Energy will just keep getting more expensive, and I don’t think it’s a bad move to start making your own. You can run an entire homestead off solar panels and batteries. You can even tap into the grid and make your utility bills negative, but won’t experience a loss of power if your batteries are dead.

The thing about construction and insulation is that you cannot miss a trick. Any leak and the whole concept is ruined. The quality of every material matters, but not as much as the skill of the people doing it. If no one tells you that you need a French drain for your basement in order to convert it into livable space, your basement is going to flood every time it rains. You just won’t notice it until your beams are rotted.

It is very, very hard to retrofit a house, especially where converting basements to living rooms is concerned. If you want a three-story house, you have to know that up front. Retrofitting a house for the proper drainage only sort of works. The only way to do it properly is not worth the money because you’d have to rip everything out. Even more expensive when the ceiling isn’t tall enough and you have to lower the floor to live comfortably.

In other words, basements build to hold Christmas stuff and basements built to hold a gang of teenagers like it’s “That 70s Show” are not the same.

That’s all about building the cities of the future. Using materials that work with the earth to make us more comfortable, instead of insisting that this fight is one we can win if we do nothing long enough.

But in every seed of desperation, there’s a strand of inspiration. We don’t need to let global warming paralyze us. We need to learn to roll with it. I, personally, will deal with it a lot better if I can see fresh or saltwater fish. But that’s just me. Maybe you’re the spaceship type. I wish you peace, luck, and any other color shirt but red on a trek not to be lost in space.

Mother Earth is trying to tell us something, and we are falling down on the job. We have to fix it one way or another. Mine would address it before it even leapt off the blueprints, in my city I build in the future.

Random Thoughts and Feelings

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 7 Comments

I already did the writing prompt for today, and it didn’t really bring up anything great for me. I don’t know that this entry will, either, but I have a lot on my mind and figured this is the one place where I can just ramble about nothing to see what happens.

It’s 7C/74F with a 44 percent chance of rain in Washington today. The District is gorgeous when it rains. Drivers are no good at it, but the storms themselves are strong. I might even get to see a few lightning bolts, which means either run down to the sunroom when it starts raining or hide in my bedroom. The storms look beautiful through the skylights right up until they don’t. I’m not generally scared of thunderstorms, but there have been a few that really haven’t been pleasant. I’m used to it, though, because we have the same type flash flooding in Houston that we have here. It’s better to be entertained by storms, because we of the Mid-Atlantic and Gulf Coast are only given one commandment…. Thou shalt deal.

The carafe on our Cuisinart coffee machine broke, so Hayat got us a whole new system (I don’t know why, it’s just cool). I am way behind the eight ball on this whole pod system thing, and Keurig is the biggest brand name for them, but this Cuisinart has a regular-sized carafe on one side and a place to make single mugs of coffee/tea on the other. I thought I would miss not having the hot water heater, but I don’t because I can just put Stash tea leaves in the pod instead of coffee. It’s every bit as fancy as the one I used while I was house sitting for Thomas, it just doesn’t have Bluetooth to be able to “order” from upstairs. It’s ok, though, because the coffee maker will only do about three tall mugs’ worth before the water needs refilling.

I’m currently brewing Amazon’s dark roast, and I have to say it’s pretty tasty. I haven’t tried the disposable pods because I know they would solve the ADHD tax of having to clean out the coffee maker and terrible for the environment. I think I’ll just keep buying my own when I can find the best brands available for the money on my own. If I’m shopping at Starbucks, I like Komodo Dragon best. If I’m shopping on Amazon, I have several choices. I lean toward store brand dark roast, but Cafe Bustelo is just as cheap and that’s what they use at all my favorite Cuban restaurants. My only rule is that I do not prefer light and medium roasts, but I will drink them if that’s the only thing available.

I really like coffee because it’s so comforting to wrap my hands around a mug. The one I’m currently drinking from is copper. I can’t say that it makes the coffee taste better, but it feels good in my hand. When I buy coffee mugs for myself, they’re usually large with a big handle so that the mug doesn’t feel unbalanced. Nothing feels worse to me than a mug where the handle isn’t big enough to support the weight of the cup.

It’s a sensory issue thing, just like Bombas socks and American Giant hoodies.

I’m also taking a lot of acid reducer because I don’t want to live without spicy food. It’s really the thing that’s handling my congestion, because even with taking Sudafed PE, it’s not completely knocking it out. As a singer, it bothers me when my entire facial mask is full and I can’t breathe, because allergies are the quickest path to laryngitis when your throat is so raw from having to deal with the crap invading your face.

My favorite thing right now is a scrambled egg sandwich with butter and hot sauce.

With all the talk about Hawaiian pizza lately, I bought one just as a vehicle for ghost pepper wing sauce. I got extra cheese and shredded parmesan to bake on top. Maybe that will be dinner today, but I still have some butterscotch pancakes left over from making a batch last weekend. Easier to heat up something I’ve already made, and these pancakes are divine. The butterscotch chips that end up near the surface melt into the butter, and it’s decadent. It’s cake that tastes like a pudding cup. Millions of school children can’t be wrong. 😉

I am all about trying new things these days, obviously. I found a meme the other day that reminded me of Zac….. “remembering the day I kissed a beautiful twink in Brighton because she thought I was a lesbian.” My comment on the meme is that my partner is male and that is our exact description. It makes me laugh out loud that when I dress in what I call “girl clothes” or “ho clothes,” we look depressingly heterosexual. When I’m all dyked out in a baseball cap and jeans, it’s a whole twink/bear mood…… except Zac is clean shaven.

It’s okay that sometimes we look depressingly heterosexual some days, though, because there are days when I just feel depressingly heterosexual. It’s a whole mood. It doesn’t have anything to do with my orientation. It has everything to do with playing into the well-ingrained enculturation of heteronormativity. But Zac and I can share that without it being weird. If I feel strange, I can just tell him that.

Besides, he gives me street cred when I’m writing about intelligence because no one trusts a reporter, but everyone trusts unconfirmed chatter. 😉

However, none of the stuff I write about is unconfirmed. Zac cannot tell me things directly, but he can point me in the right direction. If I find news articles that back him up, I’ll talk about it here. If I don’t, it’s something we need to keep between us until I can verify he’s right. It has nothing to do with Zac giving me information he isn’t supposed to give, it’s that if I write about intelligence here, I don’t want to spread misinformation.

I don’t link to news stories, generally, but my facts are easily verifiable when I use them because I’m talking about current events.

For instance, we’re talking about the Republican party intentionally trying to elect a criminal worthy of a high crimes and misdemeanors charge, a clear and present danger to the United States both foreign and domestic. You cannot let Hillary Clinton’s wisdom, former SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON’s opinion because she was in the room, fall by the wayside. That two-bit sheister is at least a Russian Useful Idiot if not a full-on asset. There has to be a reason that Trump was comfortable extorting Zelenskyy, and now he’s a hero to most Americans, blackmail forgotten. Don’t let him forget.

The Republicans need to face the fact that if they reelect Trump, they’re going to sell Ukraine up the river if the conflict isn’t over by then.

Also, if Trump is a UI, that means we have no idea how many Russian intelligence officers are affecting American voters through the cunning use of other people they can sucker into working for them, unwittingly or not. I do not think that Putin wants war with the United States. I think he has a vendetta and wants to take us over from the inside. We have not done a great job stopping it from happening. There are probably a thousand people just like “The Americans” embedded in Washington alone.

Just like we probably have a thousand case officers on the ground in Ukraine.

I have said this before, but Zelenskyy is my age, a creative, and absolutely brilliant. I have a dog in this fight because I will be crushed if anything happens to him. It would be tantamount to killing Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Martin Freeman all in one.

“Servant of the People” is just one of the reasons Putin is as dangerous as Trump. If you embarrass either “leader” on television, it will not go well for you.

I’m not asking for things to be perfect around here. I just think that we’re trading national security the longer Republicans hold onto the myth that Trump is capable. He is. He is capable of turning the United States into one of the shithole countries he proclaims to hate, all by being tightly controlled by the Kremlin. Does this sound like anything a SANE Republican would do given the hysteria toward Communism in the 80s?

Trump is not even capable to the level of a Reagan or a Bush. That’s why if he’s reelected, he’ll be perfectly happy to let other people run the United States, no matter what it costs. They don’t even have to live here.

But trust me, they do.

Everything going through my head feels random, but at the same time, my feelings are focused on world issues and I’m not lost in my own problems. I am done ruminating about a whole bunch of things that have made room.

Perhaps it’s good that my feelings truly are random, because they stop me from hyperfocusing and losing myself.

I mean, if I have a movie star name, I should at least grow into it.

😉

A Church Bulletin

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 5 Comments

Where did your name come from?

Disclaimer: My mother is dead and I probably don’t remember ALL the things she told me accurately…… but I am doing my best.

When my mother was pregnant with me, she didn’t think of me as “Leslie” at all. I think she had a few names picked out, but I went by “AJ” for a while just to try it on because she thought for sure she was going to name me “Amanda Jane.” I remember “AJ” because that’s one of the names she picked out that I really liked.

To my sister, you were always Lindsay Lorelee. Although I do remember that if you had been a boy, we would have named you “Paul” or “Leighton.” I don’t remember Mom having a boy’s name picked out for me, though, because I’m fairly certain that she felt it in her bones that I was going to be a girl and didn’t bother picking out boys’ names….. or at least, a boy’s name was not procured before the announcement of my gender.

Speaking of which, gender reveals were definitely a thing when I was a child, but not nearly as baffling. You might find out via a card in the mail, or a baby shower announcement, or getting gendered bubble gum cigars at the hospital. None of this “people died” foolishness.

At one point while my mother was pregnant with me, she went to a church service where the organist’s name was listed as “Leslie Diane,” and no other name had a shot after that. It wasn’t a special association with the name or anything, it just sounded good.

I didn’t realize how good until I moved to Portland, where I met my friend Ann’s mother. For some reason, my crowd of friends had gotten into the habit of calling each other by their first and last names…. for instance, when she called I picked up the phone and said “it’s the Karen Miller Show” for like a year. Anyway, I think it was Karen who said something about “The Leslie Lanagan Show” in front of Ann’s mother, and Ann’s mother says, “Leslie Lanagan…. That sounds like a movie star name. But like an old one…. Jayne Mansfield. Bette Davis. Leslie Lanagan.” That was easily 20 years ago, and I remember it like it was yesterday.

In terms of the origin of the name itself, I’ve gotten mixed answers over the years. My parents believed when they named me that it meant “quiet spirit,” but I can’t find record of it. I have found record of the place name, and that there is a clan in Scotland for Leslie as a surname and I have my own plaid. Apparently, it is also Scottish Gaelic for “holly garden” and “powerful ruler.”

I feel that it is the perfect representation of me, because I am not a powerful ruler, but I say powerful things. I am also quiet and recede to my garden a lot of the time. It’s a complicated construct, and my name represents it all.

Fear

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 5 Comments

What motivates you?

I am motivated by the same thing that motivates all neurodivergent people….. the fear of being misunderstood. I think I’m worse about trying to please others because I was raised in an environment where it was prized. My parents didn’t have to do or say anything. I would react if I displeased anyone anywhere. I don’t think I have necessarily been good at it. Sometimes I’ve stuffed anger down until I’ve completely exploded. I’m excellent when I have no needs and/or agree with someone that what they’re doing is correct. If I do not understand you, I will want you to explain until I do. If it’s a social cue I’ve missed that isn’t written down, please be prepared to defend your dissertation. I am not going to be the cook that walks around with everyone’s orders memorized……….. anymore.

I’m not being a hardass, I’m being real with you. In order for me to comply with something, I need to know why it is necessary. Sometimes I do not feel empathy if the reason you need me to do something is “I’m embarrassing you,” because first of all, no I’m not if you’ve got good boundaries. My behavior is not a reflection of others and I resent people who treat me that way. That’s because most of the time, they’re embarrassed by the same things I am because I am trapped in this body and they aren’t. I tend to be a clown because of my cerebral palsy, because God forbid someone actually need help.

I am starting to change that internal motivation, because there are starts and setbacks just like everything else. People are quite used to me not having feelings, and therefore not having to take them into account. I am not going to be the person who caters to everyone else until I die, hoping to get some of it back and feeding the problem by not letting anyone know what they’re doing is hurting me.

I know that if I put myself out there as your friend, I will do the things it takes to keep you when you let me know what they are. I cannot agree to a deal I don’t understand, especially when you make it murky trying not to hurt my feelings. I would rather you take a knife and stab me all the way through than think that we are solid because I don’t notice all the times you’ve simply shaved a bit off the top.

I am also not innocent of these things, and am not trying to make excuses for it. I am trying to create better communication with my friends going forward. I will do anything for them if communication is clear. I will work on any problem if I know that someone wants me to work on it with them. My PTSD makes me think that every problem in a relationship means it’s the end of the world, so I don’t need conversations that allude to “we need to talk” without actually talking about whatever change it is you need.

Keeping me in that kind of limbo is not okay, and I have enough emotional fortitude not to leave someone in that place of wondering whether I’m mad enough to walk off or not.

I’ve just stopped getting angry when they don’t do the same for me. I take inaction as my answer and move on. It’s easier to do having a journal, because even when I say goodbye to future interactions, I still spend time with them in our memories. It’s not an immediate end to a story when there are recurring themes.

Recognizing that I love emotionally unavailable people because that’s the pattern of relationship I love the most was progress. I learned to stop expecting other people to express themselves to the level that I did when I knew damn well they were incapable. That’s why I loved them.

I was familiar with that pattern/division of labor. The one where I did all the feeling and the other person just told me if I was right or not. It was great because they were doing all the logical, neurotypical decisionmaking and understanding why I don’t think that way. They also did not dive into themselves and give me information based on their understanding of themselves, just what I thought. By the same token, I could have read up more on logical decisionmaking and done my own.

Understanding the ways in which I am and am not the main character in every story has been essential these last 10 years. My perspective has changed. I have become a completely different person because of writing. I know that I only have the right to this space. I am free to spread out and decorate and be my whole self. At no time does that make me the main character anywhere else.

I am trying to motivate myself less out of fear these days and more in the hope that I can write stories here that are worth reading. That’s because they are so valuable to me that it makes me cry when I take in how much other people enjoy listening…… as fallible as I am. God, it would be easier to write down the mistakes I haven’t made. But even when they’re painful, writing them down does give them a better chance of being humorous in the future. I’m not sitting there holding everything in.

Sometimes, motivation is seeing the things I write about me and wanting to reinforce them. It makes me want to live up to the character I present, to take moments of bravery and remember them so they happen again, for instance.

I cannot expect anyone else to provide me with validation, so the motivation is to find the things in life that make me feel whole so that I am not searching for anything outside my own brain housing group. It is the thing that stops fear-based motivation, and it has given me some peace that I got to these conclusions myself. That they weren’t easily won. It took decades.

I cannot always be angry at myself for my mood and behavior because a lot of the time I’m berating myself for a symptom of a disorder. I cannot expect others to have compassion for it, but I need to or I’ll hate myself my whole life.

No one else has to love me, and really can’t, until I do.

Fear is motivating me to find my people and stick with them, but it’s the good kind of fear, now. The kind that keeps you from the people you know you can’t handle and directs you toward the ones you can….. and not for any other reason than them letting you know it’s okay. Their fear is your fear, and we’ll melt it together.

I May Have Mentioned These Before….

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What are your top ten favorite movies?

I still can’t figure out how to make an ordered list, so I may have 10, I may have more or less. Good luck. God bless.

“Argo” is my favorite movie. Period. Full stop. The end.

That’s because it combines my first girlfriend (a Canadian) and seeing if I was good at her accent by making my life feel like it depended on it. So, as far as I know, Meag saved me from getting caught by the revolutionary guard in Iran in 1979. I was two and we hadn’t met yet, but can you really be too careful? Plus, I am a creative. I have been Tony in front of the “two old fucks from the Muppets” many times. All creatives know how that feels, and if you get lucky, the CIA will finance your movie…… even if it’s “the very best bad idea we’ve got sir… by far.”

With other movies, none of them are ranked. It’s “Argo” and everything else. However, I do like spy movies so a lot of them are….. keeping in mind that I very much know the difference between real and reel, so the drama of the movie is secondary to the story seed.

“Space Camp” is another movie that I consider a favorite because I’ve seen it at least 25 times since it came out. I have been “RUDY TYLER, MA’AM” since fourth grade. I love science, just don’t ask me if I’m any good at it. Plus, are you really a lesbian if you see the way Leah Thompson and Kate Capshaw look at each other and wonder? Of course Leah was a camper and Kate was a counselor. When you’re 10-13 years old, that doesn’t register. You’re looking for anyone looking at another woman the way you do or want to later. It’s a core memory from childhood, pretty much the only reason I thought of it so quickly after “Argo,” because being a teenager connects to that movie as easily as being a child connects to this one.

That being said, if there were a second spy movie that completed me, it would be “The Bourne Supremacy,” and only because I like the Pam Landy character better than Christopher Cooper (no offense, he’s great, as is Bryan Cox- LEGEND). I am one of those people that will stop what I’m doing if I flip across any of the Bourne movies, but Matt Damon can make shivers go up my spine with one line…..

You look tired, Pam.

Here’s my favorite thing about the Bourne movies. I have heard through the grapevine (meaning tons and tons of research) that Turow’s endgame is David as Director. I don’t know if it will come to pass, but I need David to win in the end. I want him to get results after going above and beyond to prove his innocence, because that’s the next story in the series that’s going to have as much impact as The Bourne Identity. It will completely change the game and up the stakes.

For those who don’t remember, Jason Bourne is a cover. David Webb is Jason’s real identity. In terms of how that translates into real life, no one at the Agency uses your real name. You get an identity to use in their buildings and overseas. I know this because Jonna Mendez told us what hers was in a real-life lecture. It was “Faith.” So, it’s kind of fun learning about the movies from real life……. when most people think it’s the other way around.

Jonna Mendez can argue with me all day long that they don’t have passports in a box lying around and I will laugh with her at that stuff all day long, like in “Jason Bourne,” where David finds all the documents regarding “Black Ops” in a FOLDER THAT SAYS BLACK OPS RIGHT ON THE DESKTOP JFC….. I know spies must not watch spy movies like doctors generally hate ER (“the x-ray was upside down and backwards”), but here’s the thing. Inaccuracies in medical shows are hilarious because you can do something about it. If something in a spy movie is wrong, oh, well. It’s not like CIA is going to correct you. The reason spy movies are shit sometimes is because you can’t get an accurate procedural from any spy agency in the world. It cannot be done. There are rules. That doesn’t take away the hilarity of Jonna talking spy tropes on film (video at the end). I’m not sure I’ve ever laughed harder than her takedown of Carrie Mathison (why are you doing this to me?!)

I don’t get many good examples of who I am in film, so when I find it, that movie stays with me. I am very much the preacher in “Contact” and the minister’s kid in “A River Runs Through It.” Both of those are consistently in my top 10 because “Contact” explained God to me when I needed to hear it the most. I could use people I knew as the face of God to make that much power of the universe relatable to me, personally, a peon.

I need to write a script about a preacher’s kid spy, because it would make parishioners fall over with laughter when they hear how we use our people skills once we’ve seen them in that context- and how it would translate on the world stage. I love the idea of being able to negotiate with terrorists based on hearing arguments as a child. The small things are the big things. I am sure that in some ways, negotiating over a bomb and negotiating over a couch are similar.

I hate to laugh at my own joke, but you can relate if you’ve ever been waitstaff.

Waitresses. Oh my God. They would be pound for pound the best spies in the world, especially the beautiful actress types. That’s because they generally have faces that both men and women adore and would spill information- based on her bubbly personality, not her nosiness- making her job so much easier because she can get information without asking any questions.

That’s another reason I think I would have loved being a female spy. I’ve got the best combination of skills for the job that anyone could ask for in terms of recruiting assets. Thank Gd I’m not actually a spy because I would hate the paperwork. Oh, the paperwork.

That’s why my love of real life intelligence fuels my love for movies about it, because they can take an idea and flesh it out so that the story sticks, but the minutiae of paperwork is gone unless it’s absolutely essential to the story. I think it’s better to know that I’m being entertained and to relax about the inaccuracies because I know that the writers can only do so much. I do respect CIA for having a Hollywood relations board and collaborating on stuff like “Homeland.” To know that writers’ stuff does have the capability to be as realistic as it can be is a good thing. For instance, I know that most writers aren’t trying to get the procedure right. They’re trying to get character. It’s why I hang out at the Spy Museum on nights when they have book talks. That’s a chance to meet real spies and I can learn everything I need to know as a writer just by being in the same room. How do they carry themselves?

“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” is probably the most accurate procedural out there and I love it so much for that very reason. Le Carre lets me nerd out as much as I want whether it’s with his books or the movies/TV series made of them. I actually liked the TV version of “Little Drummer Girl” better than I liked TTSS, but we’re talking about movies. The thing about Le Carre movies is that if you like true life intelligence stories, the movies will be your absolute favorite. If you have expectations of James Bond proportions, you’ll be disappointed.

Spy send-ups are also among my favorites. I love “Goldmember” and “Spy” just as much as I do documentaries like MiBII (trust me, it’s all there).

Speaking of documentaries, I watch them to travel. I live vicariously through movies like Jiro Dreams of Sushi. If I can expand to television, I love both Netflix series where President Obama takes us through the world’s protected wild life areas and Prince Harry and Meagan let us into their home life.

I hope that there will be a movie script adapted from “Spare,” and it would help if he was a collaborator. That’s because I would want the movie to be accurate, but focused on his life from a third person perspective. He has a story that needs to be told from a journalistic angle, but they have to have truly fallen in love with telling his story. The history he has with journalists is first class PTSD and they do not give a shit when they talk to him. It is very, very clear and they keep adding kindling to the fire. You killed his mother. Have some fucking respect.

When I read it, I was getting over a man who’d been stationed in Afghanistan, and I was able to grieve the loss of my future by attaching it to him and letting it go when I finished the last chapter. I don’t want the movie to treat him as anything other than a normal person who just happens to be in extraordinary circumstances, because when the people think of Prince Harry’s military service, they don’t think of him as being just as damaged as American soldiers when they come home. They think of him as “the military must have babied him.” All soldiers know that the military does not do that. Also, Harry was communications. If someone wanted to kill him personally, he heard it firsthand. What do you think that does to a person?

If that movie was done right, it would tie with “Argo.”

The closest you’ll get to seeing the real Capt. Wales is a documentary series on Apple TV+ called “The Me You Can’t See.” Harry does what I do on this blog every day. He gets real and throws down about the subjects I’ve talked about here. I identify with these documentaries about him because to some extent, it feels like we know each other intimately. We both struggle with mental health. We both had parents in the public eye. We have both dealt with the loss of a parent. It’s not just surface-level. We’ve been similar since childhood.

In terms of cinematic beauty, I am astounded by movies that incorporate nature, particularly under the water…. even animations of it. “The Little Mermaid” and “Finding Nemo” are the most beautiful Disney creations on record, at least, to me.

I also love quirky movies like “Adaptation.” I got stuck on that scene where Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper are on the phone trying to hum a dial tone for weeks. I ate it like a meal, just like I did “Sideways.”

I love characters who are strong and yet show vulnerability, so I will watch anything with John Goodman…. another reason “Argo” is my favorite movie, but I also love him in everything from “Atomic Blonde” to “The Princess and the Frog.”

Because music is such a large part of my life, I do love movies where people break into song and dance. Hamilton is the first one I’ve been able to listen to over and over and still find new things, though, because the rhythms are so incredibly complicated I haven’t bothered to learn them from a singer’s point of view. Therefore, sometimes I don’t take in the words as much as I focus on the beat and my interpretation changes over time. When there aren’t as many words, I inhale them.

I can still remember lyrics from “Oklahoma!,” “The Music Man,” and “Carousel,” because those are the movies my mother introduced me to as a kid and later had to learn the songs because I needed to sing them for something (in case you’re just joining us, I’m a soprano and I’ve been told I’m very good….. I also know that the first rule about press is not to believe any of it). I can’t wait until the movie about “Wicked” comes out.

I’m going to include operas and musicals because I watch them on TV, and we’ve already established I’m going to include TV whether it’s in the scope of my parameters or not. “Great Performances” on PBS is the most amazing thing ever. Of course I want to see Bernstein conduct West Side Story. I also love “The Magic Flute,” “Carmen,” and “Madame Butterfly.”

“There’s a place for us,” and that place is us sitting on the couch watching Leonard Bernstein.

I am enamored by science fiction and fantasy, but I lean more toward sci-fi because it takes place in our world, past or future, rather than a word of its own. “Black Panther” and its sequel are both precious to me because Chadwick Boseman went to Howard and thus, he’s a hometown boy, celebrated not nearly enough by the rest of the world as he is here. Plus, it has provided me an EXCELLENT way to worm my way into a conversation with a retired spy. I just tell them I think it’s terrible they’ve been hiding Wakanda from us this long and I demand answers. If they fall over with laughter, I have found my people.

Like every lesbian in America if you’re my age, you carry a special place in your heart for “Fried Green Tomatoes” because you knew you were Idgie. You knew you were the bee charmer. You knew you were going to find a Ruth someday and might raise a Buddy.

That’s honestly where I am now- searching for a Ruth and it’s okay if there are kids involved. I don’t have a drive to be a mother, but that doesn’t mean I’m not okay if they do. I don’t have that partner, but I do have that friend. If Bryn wants kids, she knows I’ll do the work. That if we’re local to each other, those kids would belong to me in some way, but not in any way she wouldn’t allow. With kids, I am just the help. I enforce parents’ rules, I don’t bend them.

Which leads me to my next love in film….. brilliant children’s movies.

I love movies and TV that are written on two levels, jokes that are aimed at kids and jokes that go right over their heads. For instance, Mordecai and Rigby from “Regular Show” are coded as stoner idiots because soda stands for beer and pizza stands for weed. There is no limit to their idiocy and a lot of it is way too mature for kids given what the writers are really throwing down. They just do it in a way that the South Park writers don’t. They say everything without saying anything.

My favorite children’s movie will always be “Meet the Robinsons.” It is a brilliant script and I need Kleenex for it even still.

I think that’s at least 10 movies, so here’s a video of my favorite spy explaining exactly why I think all spy movies are hilarious to some degree or another. I laughed until I cried. I hope you do, too.