Tag: truth

Into the Multiverse

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Describe your life in an alternate universe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Leslie…. it took.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are you sure?”

Describing the Color Choice

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s one of my favorite colors.

It Has All Become Uninteresting

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Scour the news for an entirely uninteresting story. Consider how it connects to your life. Write about that.

I have scoured the news, and I cannot find anything on the surface that fascinates me. I am obsessed with hearing the real story on the news, then mining my resources for details. Zac and John (Fot) are my best bets for chatter about international relations and cyber warfare. John also worked with me at Biddy McGraw’s, so I ask him for a heard on things I write about the kitchen. Both he and my former chef, John-Michael Kinkaid, are both great about critiquing my work when it relates to something we went through together. When I’ve surpassed those two things, it’s off to the library or the spy museum.

What I am saying is that the story isn’t the story anymore. It’s how we got here. The former president being arrested is uninteresting. Why it took so long? We’re getting somewhere. I don’t mean the current rounds. I mean why did SDNY have to have 36 counts of something before they built a case? They’re the reason he thinks he can get away with anything. They waited until there was an exponentially larger amount of evidence than needed to convict.

The cost of food is rising. It generally does. That is not interesting. What is interesting is why. Are there crops failing in other parts of the world? Why do we not have the infrastructure to grow our own crops? That’s where the real story begins.

Why have the Republicans decided that the only thing they can do is say no to Democrats? That question is uninteresting. The interesting question is why they are so unsure of their own policies working that they don’t put anything forward? Why are Democrats doing the work while Republicans run out the clock?

Why have Republicans stopped caring about our standing on the world stage? Why aren’t they interested in what our allies think of us? I would venture to guess that they think the United States is the beacon of hope it once was. That’s because they stopped listening to our intelligence agencies when the former president told them to do so…. in front of a wall meant to honor case officers who had died in the line of duty.

The former president’s path to power is the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to our nation in a very long time. People gave into their basest instincts after a black president ran the country successfully. His biggest scandal was a tan suit. Racism that was quiet got its volume turned up to an enormously frightening degree. Where racism goes, so does homophobia and transphobia. The story is not that we had a black president. The story is how so much of the country reacted to it.

The story is not why Joe Biden was elected. The story is why Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren weren’t.

The story is not why Joe Biden is great, but why Kamala is the most unique individual in our nation’s history. If Joe runs again, I know it’s because he knows that if he dies in office, he will create history and no one will have to vote on it.

The story is not Michelle Obama’s arms, but girl…… we all know it ought to be.

Oh! That’s a news story I can connect to me, indirectly. My friend Giles is married to a lawyer that used to work in the Obama administration. Therefore, my friend Giles has seen Michelle Obama’s arms. The fact that he did not write me a two page essay on the subject is his only flaw as a friend.

Probably more interested in his husband’s arms, but whatever.

I like thinking about the Obamas, because they’re a few public figures I’d actually like to meet….. but not in a formal setting. I mean that even though they only live a few miles from me, they’re so famous we’d never run into each other at the grocery store. I have learned that if you really want to meet your political heroes, it is really damn hard unless you were there during the campaign.

As a writer, I feel this intimately and I do not argue with it at all.

If you have to tell someone to carry the bricks, they’re not the ones to be building with.

I hope it’s how my sister feels about me, that I cannot give her everything she needs to be physically safe and sound, but I am caring for her heart. She is my news story at least in Texas every day of my life.

When you see on the news that a law involving trans kids is up in the Texas legislature, know that my sister has a vast network on the ground working to make sure that it doesn’t even get out of committee. They can’t always do it, but no one talks about the people that do that kind of work. Those people who walk into the dark so that they can bring the light……

The story is the law that passed regarding a bathroom bill, excluding trans kids from sports, etc. But that is uninteresting. The story is how close the vote was, and how much it took to get even that.

Always look for the story, because it isn’t on the surface.

Life happens when you’re doing something else. In order to get the facts to line up with the news, you’re going to have to make every story relate to you. The hardest part if you are an American is tuning out all the messages that say you are already the best because you are an American.

Some of the greatest American patriots who ever lived worked for governments they couldn’t stand.

But that wasn’t the story.

I Had Enough in a Good Way

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

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

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

I told her to keep reading. Keep absorbing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Commence Smiling, Part II

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 3 Comments

Now that I’ve eaten, I realized I would like to continue talking about nothing. Things that just make me happy whether I’m trying to answer a WordPress writing prompt or not. I can make anything into a happy thought given time and space, but here are the things that make it easy to love life.

  • Spring and autumn make life bearable. Neither deals in extreme temperature (yet). I love jacket weather because I don’t like summer clothes. I’m always too cold once I go inside.
  • If you are going to come to The District, it is best to come in Spring so that you can experience the monuments and the cherry blossoms at the same time. If you don’t come in the Spring, every tourist trap gift shop and museum will have something that looks or smells like a cherry blossom……. but not really. Not a digital reproduction in the world compares to standing next to a tree.
  • If you are going to come to the DMV, it helps to learn about us before you get here. There’s a culture to the Metro. There’s a culture to DC that everyone ignores because they’re just trying to hit tourist spots. Learn where politicians and reporters come to dine and just be quiet. Soak up information, don’t start fights with your political rival. You’ll learn more the less you say. Learn about gogo music, wings and mumbo sauce, Frederick Douglass’s house. Washington is covered in African American history, and especially as white people we should be silent observers. Their voices first, our empathy. You’ll learn more the less you say. Like chasing a story, it is your witness that matters, not your will.
  • Even trying to find wings and mumbo sauce (I like fried rice on the side, some people like fries) is a step in the right direction, as is going to have a half smoke at Ben’s Chili Bowl. Ben’s Chili Bowl was the African American History Museum before we actually got one. There are pictures on the wall that are just unbelievable, but you have to look. REALLY look. You have to read the captions that aren’t there, because white people do not have the right to ask those questions. Introduction to someone’s pain is an invitation-only event.
  • Washington is the only city for me that contains real connection to the Revolutionary War, and not because other cities didn’t participate. It’s that Washington is where we keep the memories. Washington is a treasure trove of news, stretching back to before the country began. I remember the first time I drove into Alexandria and read the charter. It was established 30-odd years before the Declaration of Independence I would imagine that Silver Spring is the same way, because Baltimore was established in 1729. We just kept creeping toward each other, which birthed The District and in a lot of ways, me.
  • I woke up the morning after my 24th birthday and the whole world had changed. I was still young enough to have a child’s reactions to it all. It was too formative not to count. Plus, it really helped when I moved to Portland when I learned that people were suspect of George W. and therefore me, so I just started telling people I was from DC….. at a time when that was the lesser of two evils. It was either that or to tell people that I understood their hesitation and their crap wouldn’t work on me because I’d had to put up with him way longer than they had.
  • Molly Ivins made me happy because she put words in my mouth that I sorely needed. It was good to make fun of him, and she knew all the best ways. He WAS born with a silver foot in his mouth. He DIDN’T compare to someone like Al Gore, a successful senator by his 40th birthday when on W.’s 40th birthday he realized he probably had a drinking problem. Molly didn’t think that the loyal opposition was wrong all the time, necessarily. She just believed in picking the smartest players in the game. Bush’s only play was that his vice was smarter than he was….. who was also evil. Molly made dealing with all of that better. Molly saw that my life was hard and why.
  • Shane Harris makes me happy. When I’m not sitting in the middle of the Spy Museum with six books open on the floor, I could on him. He’s the National Security desk at the Washington Post, so even though I’m not working in his time period, I learn how intelligence says things to the news. How do I get to the real story when all we get on the news is “senior intelligence officials indicate” and not how they got there.
  • Jen Psaki makes me happy because she and her department handle news as well, like hearing “White House officials indicate” and not how they got there. It’s all connected, because intelligence is given to policymakers. I have found that the more I research, the more I get bored and then find an AHA! moment. I am not chasing James Bond around town. The reason true spy stories seem so exciting is that the real story is often too boring to film. Just trust me. But when you hit a gold mine, you really, really hit one. If you live abroad, try it in your own country, especially if you’d like to come here. The easiest path is to tell CIA information that they need. If you get a job working for us where you live, you might end up here quicker than applying for a visa. Your mileage may vary. See web site for details. No promises. But if you’re already interested in spy shit, anyway, it’s a good move. I promise that you cannot make yourself love it. But that’s for operations. They also need just as much support staff as everyone else. My cousin James painted offices. Since Foster and James worked for CIA, I would have been involved somehow, too, because I was taken with Foster’s story from the time I was born. However, since my genetics dealt me a losing hand in the mental health department, I never tried. But like most people the right age to have obsessed over The West Wing, it would take dragging me away. I couldn’t be involved in intelligence, but they don’t have those restrictions at State, which is often the same job from a public and private perspective. It all fits together, it’s all one puzzle, they all play a role. The only thing I’m not interested in is military, because I want defense to be clever. I watch Doctor Who. I have standards.
  • Doctor Who makes me so happy. I am proud to be part of a tradition that has lasted decades. I am proud that they taught me to love the whole world at once, that every person has a story, and they all matter.
  • It makes me happy that I have proven my story does matter, because I write it exactly the way I want, say exactly what I want, and people find it interesting. I do not have to be less. You have allowed me to be my whole self. Thank you.

Commence Smiling

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

List 30 things that make you happy.

The thing that is making me angry right now is that I cannot find a way to do an ordered list, and the way the instructions are worded, the software won’t do what it says it will, either. No, you cannot just type a one and a period and the list will automatically begin. So, I don’t know if there are going to be 30 or not. Decide it’s 30 when you get bored.

Disco and Rosie are the dogs I cared for all last week. They’re both adorable and hilarious. Both of them have elongated toes, and once I massaged their feet, I was not allowed to slow down or stop. Paw massages were very popular with Rosie when Disco would let me give her attention. Paw massages were very popular with Disco as long as I gave Rosie no direct eye contact. Learning their quirks made me very, very happy.

Bluetooth coffeemakers make me happy, and I didn’t know that until I got to use one while housesitting. Very cool to make your order from the app upstairs and come down into a professional coffeehouse. The only drawback is that it makes one mug at a time. I can just picture my partner and me racing to wake up five seconds before the other one to ensure our order is made first. The interface was like Starbucks Mobile. It didn’t add milk, but you could choose coffee/espresso/Americano and how bold.

Jason Moran makes me happy. The last time I saw him, he told me he was planning on doing a Duke Ellington concert in DC. I told him he was a brave, brave man. Then, Saturday I got a brochure in the mail announcing that the time has come and the concert is this season. I believe it will be a hit because Jason will do the homework. No one leaves a Jason Moran concert sad they didn’t see someone else. The last concert I attended was the 25th Anniversary of Black Stars. Sam Rivers had passed, and it was still one of the most moving things I’ve experienced at the KenCen.

Robert Glasper makes me happy, because he does concerts here that also blow my mind……. and at the same time, we’re both the geeky jazz kids who stood behind Jason Moran just to watch. A kinship was born in our teen years from sitting together in history and also watching a master at his craft. Jason could do something as a high school student that most professionals can’t. He could speak with authority. If Jason said something about jazz, it was true. Period. It wasn’t because he projected that…. it’s that we could all see that he was a subject matter expert and we were kids with instruments. His virtuoso didn’t start with being on the cover of Jazziz and Downbeat. It started with walking the halls of HSPVA with not a single moment unaccounted for in terms of bettering his jazz education. When he wasn’t playing, he was listening. When he wasn’t listening, he was teaching us how much we could learn if we listened. If he runs across this, he has my undying devotion for introducing me to Oscar Peterson, and realizing I needed to listen to Miles with different ears. So, seeing Robert is a reminder that we both aspired to do great things by watching someone who already had things handled.

The marvelous thing that has come out of ending the Internet relationship is that I’m not spending energy crafting pages for her. I’m spending energy crafting pages for you. It’s not that hers were more or less intense, it’s that now my energy feels so much higher because all the information is going in the right direction. If I could be a great writer in a sandbox, I could be a great writer on the world wide web. The difference is how much to personalize something. With blog entries, I’m always looking for the thing I’ll want to remember about someone 20 years later. Everything matters, good and bad. I own everything that has happened to me. Blogging feels much more like an episode of one of those podcasts where you have to read your journal. It makes me happy to know I’ll always have a time capsule.

It makes me happy that those things I’ll want to remember often jog people’s memories and take them to where they need to go. I hope it matters that you can clearly see how much people mean to me even when they aren’t acting all that lovable. That I do remember the little things, and I write them all down. I heal myself by not forgetting the moments I loved you so that I have a place to go when I feel weak. My writing makes me fall in love with you when I think I can’t. I am a better partner and friend because of my web site, not in spite of it.

It makes me happy not to hold myself above like a sky god watching ants. I am a deeply flawed, scarred individual and I take myself to the mat as often as I can so that my wounds don’t become infected. It makes me happier that Zac and Bryn understand this.

It makes me happy that I was able to create boundaries with them on what I could write and what I couldn’t, but that wasn’t just it. They respected me enough to see why writing was important to making me a better person. I thought it was really sweet when Zac said that he should be a bigger fan. It was in no way true that he should be, it pleased me that he said it.

Washington makes me happy, has always made me happy. I came here the first time when I was eight. That awe and wonder is still present. I cannot land at DCA after sunset without crying when I see the monuments. It has stopped happening during the day. That’s just exciting.

Taking off at DCA is a trip in and of itself. That’s the happiest I’ve been as a speed junkie. The incline at takeoff to avoid federal airspace is the most expensive roller coaster ride on record.

Cooking makes me happy, as does gardening as I watch more and more DIY. I wouldn’t want to get into gardening for a living, like selling produce or plants, but I would like enough yield to feed myself. I get the whole commune thing now. I don’t know that I’d want to do it, but I get it. See “gardening for one” for details.

Food makes me happy. It would be a blessing every day to pick out my own chilis, for instance. I could wait to pick them until they were truly ready, caramelized just by age before I take out the seeds and roast them, making sugar dance on hell’s tongue.

Shaving makes me happy. It’s one of the few rituals I remember to do on a semi-consistent basis. I’m into it. I have the soap and the brush, and I watch YouTube videos. It’s surprising how many tips for getting a great shave on your face also help you get your legs that smooth, too. I had to study up because I don’t have a bathtub anymore. It’s just a shower. Shaving is not the same when you can’t soak in the tub for 10 minutes before you start cutting.

Walking makes me happy because it means I can eat what I want. I don’t have to worry if I want three slices of pizza for breakfast because after three miles, it won’t feel like enough. But that’s only when I’m not appetite suppressed. The rest of the time, I’ll have three pieces of pizza for breakfast and not eat the rest of the day.

Speaking of which, I do need to eat breakfast. I’m sure there are 30 ideas here, even if I couldn’t find the ordered list button.

You’ll Have to Define It, First

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Describe one habit that brings you joy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s a habit.

The Library in Alexandria

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 2 Comments

What are you curious about?

Even when it was 2001 and I struggled through the aftermath of 9/11, I wanted to be here in DC. I don’t live in Alexandria anymore, but it is a library of images that I’ll never forget. I do not judge people on their reactions to that tragedy, but I do feel my own stomach turn when people talk about their reactions from hundreds of miles away when the pictures rattled on my walls and the fighter jets flew over my house every 10 minutes for days. The entire city shut down, because the Pentagon had been hit. People drove up to the site and turned off their cars to gawk. This interrupted drive time to an enormous degree, but I don’t remember anyone complaining. We mourned as one person, breathing through it (or trying). FBI and CIA had a fire in the belly, as did the entire military.

And then we went after the wrong person on purpose.

Soon after, I moved to Portland. It was a mistake that has now been long forgiven and forgotten, because I wouldn’t have met the one I needed to meet so that I could rest easy for the first time in years. I celebrate having erred every day.

Therefore, I felt a strong pull to come back, because I didn’t feel like I was in the middle of everything unless I could get on the Metro. I wasn’t here long enough last time to be satisfied. Washington is a city where you can look at a new thing every day and still not see them all by the time you die. Some things, you want to experience over and over. I could not do what I do if I didn’t have the International Spy Museum close, where I can sit on the floor with six books open like the store is my personal office (it is. Don’t tell them. Snitches get stitches.). This is because in my alternate history, CIA is part of it to an enormous degree, because one character is a political figure who has to make a choice to work with us or not in order to stop a war………………. or not. I haven’t decided because it would be infinitely realistic either way.

Both case officer and handler become those roles over time, which is why I need so much help. Zac is the only person I know that has any access to CIA at all. Even then, he knows so much more than he lets on. I lean into the gaps, taking the trail and following it to six books open on the floor at a museum.

I sent both the museum and Jonna Mendez (on the board) my idea for something that could fall under continuing education. I thought it would be cool if retired spies started a class for writers called Farm 101. It would be the entire experience from Day One to making it as the director. It would just be what it takes to do the job, not any actual specifics. I figured they might be able to do that because CIA already does outreach to screenwriters. My favorite intelligence officer in the entire world is the one Allison Janney plays in “Spy.” The shit she comes up with, like making her the most stereotypical white woman in the nation. Her pocket litter even identifies her as the “vice president of the gardening club,” and Melissa McCarthy says, “I couldn’t even be president?” I died for a second.

It never escapes my attention that it was Tony and Jonna Mendez’s job to make sure the pocket litter was accurate, and now I picture both of them up to those antics. They make me laugh because the picture is so clear. Jonna is currently writing her own memoirs, and what I want to know isn’t going to be in the book, I’m guessing, because I don’t care what she did with other people. I want to know what she did to her staff. This is because she talks a lot about men who refuse to dress as women, refuse to wear a mask, etc. I don’t want the book to be about operations. I want the book to be about revenge. Like, she didn’t have to make someone wear a tiny rock in their shoe, but it just felt right for no reason at all……….

She has said in interviews that she was a hardass.

That’s the part that makes me laugh the most. Of course she was. She was what all women in the military, intelligence, and politics are encouraged to be. They have to put away anything that makes them different. Tracy Walder bucked the system by carrying all kinds of girly shit, which made people underestimate her when she was actually an expert in counter bioterrorism. That doesn’t mean she wasn’t a sorority girl in college. So what if her coffee mug is pink? Who cares? Lots of people, apparently.

Tracy’s book is my favorite in my entire library because she made a style choice that no one else has. She sent her manuscript to CIA’s publications review board, and when CIA blacked out something, she left them in. They’d cut out parts of sentences, and it was exhilarating because you could figure out what they meant if you did the homework.

My favorite homework actually came from “Homeland.” I was confused about the creation of Space Force, so I went back to the show. Turns out, we may not need a special branch of the military for them, but ownership of the moon and its resources and having to defend against threats are very real. Whether it is true or not, our panic during the space race was that the moon would be armed with nuclear weapons by Russia. We need to increase our capabilities in space, but I believe that should be mostly intelligence-based, because we have no business building a military base up there. Keeping it staffed isn’t the problem. It’s what it would take to have comfortable facilities there with the intent to maintain them. My fear is that they’d create the atmosphere and the appointments on the cheap so that more money could go toward weapons, which is the same situation in the rest of the military. It’s not a big deal to spend money on weapons, but it’s looked down upon to spend money on boots, clothes, hats, and air conditioning.

If the military can’t handle taking care of soldiers for the rest of their lives when they’re on the ground, why do we think they’ll be any better about it in space? This is not the final frontier just yet, because we’re not ready. We need to stop pretending that we are.

it’s hard to acknowledge problems in space when there are so many problems right here. That doesn’t mean they’re not important, just secondary. We don’t need to give resources to other countries (in aid or defense) until ours is clean. It’s not that we shouldn’t collaborate, it’s that we have a history of working on a deficit while giving money to countries who can’t possibly pay it back. Now, we’re defaulting on our own loans and expecting the world to understand. I think some of that is valid even if it doesn’t do anything to move the needle. We’ve gotten respect from other countries by helping them out. They need to recognize that costs something. But they don’t need to excuse that behavior. They need to make it where money is money and politics is politics. I do not want money to affect diplomatic relations or vice versa.

Ukraine will never be able to pay off this war, even if they win. Too much corruption, too few taxes going to the right place. Zelenskyy is determined to change things, and for their sake, I hope he does. I’d really like to meet him if I ever had the chance. I’d tell him that I’ve spent time with his characters and that he’s a brilliant writer….. and what would it take to get seasons two and three of “Servant of the People” on Netflix? He is every bit as funny as Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.

Being able to write intelligently about all of this stuff means everything to me, because I’m one of those people who wants to love the whole world at once. I can’t unless I actually understand both the pro and con of the arugument. If the Republican party was worth a damn in terms of not screwing over the American people by trying to parent them all, I wouldn’t vote liberal on every issue. I just have to get on the right bus at this point. That’s because there are absolutely no points on which the Republicans will bend. Even the most clever of them have shut down like a steel trap and act like they’re actively drinking Kool-Aid even though they know it’s poisonous and they can’t help it.

Being intelligent just can’t compete with that, because it works its way around everything that makes logical sense. It also reflects the values of the leader. Eisenhower was wonderful about actually caring what happened to poor people and trying to make everyone’s lives easier. Nothing like him has happened for the Republicans in years because they’ve locked him out of being elected. If I was a Republican, in 2016 I would have voted for John Kasich. He had the only platform I could stomach. It wasn’t about the best person for the job. It was about winning. It was about revenge, and it’s been going on since the country began. Both parties are so powerful that when one splits, the other wins. There’s no way for a third party to win, or there hasn’t been in recent memory. The Democrats are the same in terms of being electable. Speaking of recent memory, it’s surprising how old you have to be not to think of your childhood in terms of the president being a Bush or a Clinton.

That’s because they both played the game brilliantly from opposite ends of the spectrum. They liked Clinton because he was brilliant. They liked the Bushes because they got the tax cuts they wanted and didn’t think of much else. Things have deteriorated in government significantly with the advent of the Religious Right, because you can’t argue with that , either.

The presidency has become essentially the difference between someone who can do the job and someone who can make it look like they can do a job.

I learned just how interested I was in world politics when I went to see Masha (Marie) Yovanovitch do a book talk.

I was curious….. at the library in Alexandria.

Over and Out

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 3 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The End

The Day God Sent Me an Angel

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 3 Comments

Write about a random act of kindness you’ve done for someone.

As I’ve said before, I live in Maryland and Zac lives in Virginia. Therefore, going between our houses takes a little minute- on both sides. Zac would get stuck in traffic longer than it takes me to ride the Metro. Using public transportation, it takes me about an hour and 20 minutes. In Washington, that is definitely shorter than fighting through rush hour, even shorter if you also have to find a parking space. Finding parking will make you 20 minutes late even when you thought you were half an hour early.

Therefore, it makes more sense for me to go to him all the way around. He doesn’t want to be away from Oliver any more than I do, plus I like to hike and there’s a trail starting practically in his backyard. It also gives me a chance to talk to lots and lots of random strangers, but it never turns out the way either one of us thought. I am so emotionally open that people tend to spill everything to me whether they want to or not. They can look up at the end of that hour and 20 saying, “I can’t believe I told you all that,” and I am very confident in my ability. In fact, I believe that’s the one consistently true thing about me over my 45 years. There’s never been a time where I seemed “unapproachable.” I do not deal in small talk, and neither do others when they talk to me.

I think it was two months ago that this story takes place.

To get to Zac’s, I take the red line to Metro Center, then switch to blue to get out to Franconia-Springfield (interestingly enough, one stop past my old house in Alexandria, Van Dorn). It generally means I have two random encounters instead of just one. If I’m lucky, they’ll ask for my number or vice versa. This is because I’m always looking for new connections, no matter what kind they might be. It doesn’t matter what they look like or what they do for a living. Everyone is going through something in their own way. I just have to pay attention and notice when I really, really feel something. It has never been romance. It has been good stories.

I saw her before I talked to her. Biracial, hair in braids, white t-shirt, nice kicks. She looked to be about nine years old. Her younger sister and her mother were with her, but they were outside my purview at the moment because I noticed that something was up. I just couldn’t put my finger on it. So, I say what I always say when I feel eyes on me. “I like your shoes.” It’s the best conversation starter ever.

Her face lights up and we talk for a few minutes about nothing. Then, out of nowhere, “my dad is dead.” It was a non-sequitur of enormous proportions, but when you’re a preacher’s kid and empath, these non-sequiturs are par for the course. You just have to line up the shot. Your response cannot seem startled, especially when talking to children. I don’t want them to think they’ve said anything wrong. So, even though my internal monologue is “SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT,” outwardly I say, “I am so, so sorry. My mother died in 2016 and it is so difficult.” She nodded at me quietly.

Her mother looks at me and says “we lost him during the pandemic.”

The last three years dropped in my stomach like a rock because I hadn’t lost anyone close to me. It became real very, very fast. We move on to lighten the mood a little bit and her mother says, “hi. I’m Angel.” We go through the pleasantries of what we do for a living and she is infinitely interested that I’m a writer and wants to collaborate on a few things. But the whole time, I’m watching her daughter as she battles with what she just said. The truth bomb left a visible crater.

The subject turns back to her dad, where Angel and both daughters told me about him in reverential tones. When I saw that her oldest was nearing her breaking point, I said, “look at me. Your father is not dead. You are half of him. He lives in you.” I could tell my words ran deep, because she struggled not to cry. We pull into the next station and Angel asks if she can call. I tell her that she surely can and her daughter mouths, “thank you.” They exit and I cannot hold it together anymore. The pain inside all of them was enormous and I took it all on. I had to go through the process of blessing and releasing it, because that pain was not meant for me to carry. We are not close enough yet.

I can say “yet,” because Angel is the first person who has asked for my number that actually meant it. I think it must be a sign.

After all, it came with an Angel.

I Wouldn’t

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

How would you describe yourself to someone who can’t see you?

If there is anything I have learned over the last eight years, it’s “stop trying to describe yourself to someone who can’t see you.” It is wasted energy because they’re running on deduction and inference, and skipping over what you’re telling them. It is also true that people see what they want to see. Know when you’re not it, and celebrate the people who show up.

I was reminded of that by my favorite author, Jonna Mendez. However, if I hadn’t started with her late husband’s books, we never would have met at all. It is so beautiful to me that my first favorite spy/writer introduced me to the second…. and he thought she was just as beautiful inside as I do now.

She made my heart overflow with gratitude when I sent her “The Spy in the Room,” a blog entry where I talked about seeing her live at the International Spy Museum:

It was so validating to have someone who writes professionally really take in who I am and what I do. It changed my perspective and my self confidence, because she saw me in a way that no one ever has.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy compliments from readers. I really do. They’re so valuable. At the same time, there’s something about meeting your heroes and them saying they think you’re on the right track.

The reason I’m posting about this is it’s actually a screenshot from four years ago today.

It humbles me to stand next to greatness, and for a few minutes, I really, really did. She thought I was perceptive because the entry talks about the armor you put on when you’re in grief.

It was not a one-way transaction.

I saw her, and she saw me.

I have just described it.

It’s Going to Be Okay…. Eventually

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Write an open letter to your 15-year-old self.

Sometimes you see a writing prompt and you know it’s going to hurt. I’m going to be blessing and releasing a lot of pain. It’s not going to be easy, but I hope it’s going to be worth it.

Dear Leslie,

You are my precious, precious child and I wish I could protect you. You’ll learn to protect yourself, but it will take so long you’ll lose hope. Just when you think it’s never coming back, you’ll find the woman of your dreams. It’s not what you think. She’s safe. Do not fear her. You’ll know her by her suits and crap for work. She will hug you so tight all your pieces will glue back together. Please don’t be too jaded to let her. There’s going to be a lot more pain before It Gets Better. Love her to the best of your ability- it’s for life if you can learn to be kind even under stress because sometimes………..

Things Fall Apart

You need to learn about the Civil Rights Movement. I know you know what it is, but dig deep. You’re already thinking big thoughts. You want to be the Martin Luther King, Jr. of pink people. In some ways, you already are- but in order to be great, you’re going to have to find a way to be strong. You already know this, but I’m not sure you know how much. Those big thoughts will never go away, and you have a stunning ability to write and speak in a way that people will listen. The hard part will never be getting others to believe in you. The hard part is getting you to believe in both of us.

I know you’re fragile and broken. I know you don’t recognize love unless it destroys you. Just keep writing to deal with pain, and start taking Tylenol before school. The one thing I can tell you about the future is that we find out Tylenol also dulls emotional pain. The next three years will be the hardest of your life so far, and I’ll be 46 soon if that’s any indication. You’re going to grow in so many ways, but everything you know right now is not everything I know, and I cannot change anything because you are a child. It’s not our call yet. I know you don’t feel like a child, haven’t for a long time. But Leslie, you are…. even if this letter doesn’t convince you.

I know it will be hard for you to accept it as reality, but it is true. It will be true for a long time, longer than you thought possible. Just hang in. I cannot give you anything more specific, because if you don’t go through the hard parts, you won’t get where I am now. It’s all going to be okay if you can learn to walk through fire.

You are capable of leading your people, but you need to protect your energy until it’s time to step off a ledge. You will feel in your bones when it is time to jump. You’re a superhero, but no capes. it is very good advice. Live in the now, darling. It will be Incredible, and you think that being Incredible will come later, and it will in some ways. In others, you’re already the bravest person I know.

Being “out” at school is one of the most courageous things you’ll ever do. You will not be at your schools long enough to see what you’ve done, but it matters. People still talk about it as if you’re some sort of hero…… and yet, you’re just trying to survive. Stop listening to her music so you can hear your own. If you work hard, you’ll be as good as she is. There is no doubt.

If you work harder, you’ll be even better. Maybe don’t go to PVA for trumpet next year. I think you’ll have more fun in choir. Just don’t be a soprano. Be an alto if you want to survive. I know you already know this, but it bears repeating. You will turn out to be a lyric soprano, but it’s not your personality. Just “cigar and vodka it down” (that was a joke). Your inner diva will come out regardless when the right teacher comes along. You’ll be able to sing to the heavens while you’re in hell.

I can picture you walking the halls of High School for Performing and Visual Arts with your Walkman, because Jason Moran said that you needed to listen to everything and he had a Walkman, too. But only you and I know that it’s not jazz on the tape. It’s her.

I know this is the biggest heartbreak you’ve ever had, and there will be so many more. Some will be older, some will be younger… but if you’re not careful with picking a partner (this is a future word you will like), you’ll be exactly where you are now. Jumping up and down for an approval that will never come because of what has happened over the last two years. This will happen over and over until your person arrives, and even then it won’t go all that great. Just keep hope alive. With enough courage, you’ll gain a lot of respect. It’s just that no one will tell you that until years later. You’re going to think people don’t care about you, when in reality you’re their hero.

I need you to do something for me. I need you to take better care of Lindsay.

This is critically important. Tell her you love her in both words and actions. Protect her while you still can, because later on it’s her turn and you won’t want to feel like you haven’t done enough. You just don’t know how she’ll save you, and if I could tell you I don’t think you’d recover from the happiness. Through her, you’ll get to tell Jimmy Carper about the clock radio under your pillow, the story every teen in Houston has for him.

I know you’ve harbored a lot of pain. This is one of the things that will go right. She’s the best thing about your life. I know you already love her. Make sure she knows it goes to 11. If all goes according to the same plan, you’ll look up to her. Literally. I’m sorry, but you’ve grown as much as you’re going to grow. You’re going to be in her shadow, but I also know that you already know that’s where you want to be. Her shadow is The Grand Prize Game.

You’re going to get the new bike, Archway cookies, the Bun bars, AND the photogirrafic pimento.

Spoilers. However, I cannot tell you how much joy will come out of your pain. It’s coming out right now in this letter. That’s because you’ll learn how to look over your life as I have, like you’re doing right now. It’s going to change your life. Lean in, and enjoy the ride.

You’re just not there yet, but already know you’re a disaster in the PVA hallway- a ticking time bomb that’s about to go off….. but I checked with me and it’s still okay for you to tell your nemesis to go to hell. Remember that nemesis rhymes with emesis. Do with that what you will.

You’re going to vomit up emotions until you’re dry heaving, and then you’ll keep on doing it because you don’t know how to stop. You already have a good friend, though. Dianne is safe. You’ll love her more as the years go by, and realize you were on the wrong track. The extra N means that she is a better person, even if you can’t imagine that’s true.

She’ll pick you up in her little green Volvo and it will change your life, in what you think are small ways, but here is the secret to life. The small things are the big things……. because she knows what you refuse to acknowledge at home- and think you’re hiding at church. She will hear the distress in your voice when no one else does. Love her to the moon and back. Love her until you think you just can’t and then love her a little more. She sees you, Leslie.

Look for the people who see you. Always. I give you permission to walk away from anyone. Protect yourself, but not so much you can’t receive love.

If you keep that in your mind and keep writing, you will go places and see things you never thought you could. You’ll meet people that define you, because you’ll love yourself when you’re with them. Cut yourself some slack. You’re a pretty great kid. It’s okay to love yourself, too….. even when it seems selfish.

The only thing I would suggest is that when Dana invites you for Easter dinner, go.

Love,

Me

It’s Only 0600

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Was today typical?

I’ve been up for the last hour or so, but there’s surround sound system on the TV where I’m housesitting for the week, so of course I’m watching “Jack Ryan” loud enough to rattle the windows. You really need surround sound for the full experience. Otherwise, you don’t know Jack.

I’ve loved Jack Ryan since I was a kid, and John Krasinski is amazing. It’s kind of funny watching Jim from “The Office” as an action hero. I will fall over laughing if he ever breaks the fourth wall and looks into the camera. He didn’t last season, but I’m only halfway through the first episode now. I have ADHD. When my brain says “start writing now,” I do it. That’s because if I tell myself something is a priority, I have to do it right then. Otherwise, the flow disappears.

Flow is a good thing, but so is being distracted. I’ve been talking about Sinead O’Connor’s death from a medical standpoint, and proceeded to chat about medicine. The only time I got even a little bit angry was when this woman said that her husband had a widowmaker heart attack and died instantly, then his daughter found him. I told her I knew exactly what that meant, and that I was so, so sorry, and that my mother had died at 65 from an embolism, which isn’t that unusual, but it felt like she was young. Someone replied that her husband had a heart attack, but that the fancy insurance package at his job saved him…. and oh, I lost it. What if the husband had died because he didn’t have health insurance? As calmly as I could, I said, “interestingly enough, my dad had a widowmaker a few days before my mother died. I just didn’t say that because I thought it would come across as “my dad survived and your husband didn’t. I should have said so to avoid confusion, but I was only trying to avoid pain.” I figured that was the nicest way I could tell this woman that I thought she was an insensitive jackass.

Groupthink leads to violence so in a later part of the thread I got, “you’re not an MD. You’re just the help. You are a vicious little nobody.” Ohhhhhhhh, is there a lot to unpack there……. But I told her that I’d already said I wasn’t an MD many times and that it was only my opinion and that I was out. She then called me some other choice name, but that’s when I blocked her and went about my day. I’m still thinking about the hypocrisy. Sinead O’Connor wasn’t a vicious little nobody. She had a celebrity career and a disorder…… but when you only have a disorder and you’re not famous across the world, the compassion for them does not extend to me, a nobody. The “therapist” said that I must have been triggered because she thought I was “clinging to the lurid details of someone’s death,” because she wanted to remember Sinead another way. I had told her our perspectives were different, that I was talking about medicine, and that if she wanted to grieve a different way, then my thread wasn’t the place for her. That’s because there were no lurid details. Everyone in my thread was talking about young people dying all over the world from a lot of different stuff.

It went from passive-aggressive to violent speech very quickly, but I’m not one to engage a troll anymore.

That’s because I know I can verbally bitch slap just about anyone, but people I don’t care about don’t deserve it. They’re not going to change or grow from anything I say, much less in anger. It’s just hard to tell tone of voice from my words, so people assume I mean harm when I’m just neurodivergent. Overexplaining is both a trauma response and a symptom of ADHD. Being objective and dispassionate leads to people thinking I’m condescending, which means I look down on people. 😉

I am not responsible for what other people understand. It’s just that most people don’t register ADHD/Autism in Facebook comments. I also can’t reassure everyone when the hate starts piling on. I don’t let it get to me most of the time, because I know that they’re not angry at me. I’m just an outlet. I know I can be angry and loud on the Internet, but this wasn’t it. I don’t think I’ve ever been angry when using a word like “comorbidity.”

I need to try and forget that she said it, because she got into my head and it won’t let go. She had no idea what trigger she was pulling, and being a nobody is it. I’m not a person, I’m just wallpaper. So I replied that it seemed that she had anger issues that she needed to resolve with the real people in her life because I didn’t deserve it. I went about my day and this woman had left a series of comments that were equally rage-fueled, so I said, “I was asleep. I wasn’t ignoring you, but now I am. This is going nowhere productive.” And then I blocked her.

Keep in mind that this is a thread where I’ve already said I had the same brain disorder that Sinead had, that the thread was all about mental health from a patient’s perspective, etc. where everyone was pouring out their grief for O’Connor and acknowledging we should help people… check in with them….. because no one loves a bipolar person more than they do at their funeral. What I mean is that I was relating to her hardcore and telling people what it was like, but only Sinead deserves compassion, apparently. That’s ok. They can use me as their punching bag, because I’ll remember that hurtful shit, but I don’t have to react. It was just ironic how bad the hypocrisy actually got.

So, to people who think I was exaggerating about being attacked, no one tells you that you’re a vicious little nobody when they don’t want to bait you, especially when at every turn you’ve tried to de-escalate a situation, because that only makes trolls madder. If their opinion of you is nasty, it doesn’t matter what you say after that. I don’t know the leap between medicine and her rage, but I didn’t want to find out. I’m going to take an educated guess and say that someone peed in their Wheaties, but it wasn’t me.

If someone thinks I sound vicious when I talk medicine, they probably don’t know many doctors. It’s not meanness. It’s blunt. Medicine doesn’t run on touchy feely crap. I don’t sound emotional because I’m not. Medicine does not require me to be that.

You also have to go to medical school to be a psychiatrist, which means I am flat affect about that, too. Something will eventually kill me, and this might be it. There are a TON of things that go wrong with your body when your brain is diseased. Again, your brain will do everything it can to protect you. It uses the very best lies against you. It will shut down rather than allowing you to feel unsafe.

Telling people about your mental health doesn’t generally get results.

Because I’m not a person. I’m just wallpaper.

Little, Broken, but Still Good

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

How would you describe yourself to someone?

I can hear Dana in my head. She has a marvelous Stitch impression.

I’m supposed to be describing me, and this is the best I’ve got.

I’m trying to stop being nice, without losing being kind. I find that if I try and people please everyone, it’s not the flex I thought it was. People treat you to the level they see themselves, and are self-serving a lot of the time. They’ll help you if there’s something in it for them. Very few people will help someone a propos of nothing.

Those few are worth more than you have in your bank account, and I don’t care how high your balance may be. It is even truer for billionaires that they need good friends, because they have to worry about things most people don’t. What if their kid gets kidnapped? It’s very real when the kidnapper can set the release at anything he or she wants.

Most people think it’s justified, like eating the rich. That doesn’t make it right.

It’s just one example to make my point, but there are millions of others.

It is interesting that now people see that my boundaries are ironclad, they don’t test them. It doesn’t matter whether they’re scared of upsetting me, whether they think I’m being an asshole, or respecting my privacy. I am not responsible for what they understand, and they don’t live in my head. No one can predict me, because I want them to stop.

The heuristic in their heads is mild-mannered preacher’s kid who will do anything and everything not to offend anyone. I was constantly trying to figure out how people emoted and thought so that I could keep them from getting upset. I wasn’t standing for anything, I was falling for everything, and I could hear Ben Franklin telling me to stop.

It’s probably because of the summer heat in Philadelphia. I hear it is not pleasant. If you do not know how bad, you should let Jill, Lindsay and me school you. We all had to read a book about early America that focused so much on the heat during the many Congresses it took to get to ::gestures broadly at everything:: that everyone sweated and grumbled and got drunk at lunch. Now that’s how you whip a vote.

I’m betting at least some of those guys had good boundaries, but not Franklin. He became the toast of Paris trying to win the Revolutionary War with their money and resources.

At the end of the day, there’s this gem from the International Spy Museam. “Washington didn’t beat us, he simply outspied us.” It’s a paraphrase, but you get the gist. Intelligence over military might, my goal in every conflict vs. putting boots on the ground. I have too many friends in the military to think of any of them in danger. Spies save lives by having good boundaries.

The first Moscow Rule, not Tony Mendez’ explanation but he wrote them down is, “don’t fall in love with your asset.” It doesn’t mean sleeping with them (a Moscow Rule…… for RUSSIA), it means that if you don’t have boundaries, you won’t be able to protect them. it means that you’ll start wearing rose-colored glasses instead of running the numbers. it means being emotionally incapacitated to some degree, because sometimes they get caught. It’s one thing for you to go to prison or be tortured. It’s another thing to watch someone else, and it’s something you asked them to do that got them caught in the first place.

It’s a metaphor for life, or it has become that for me. I have fallen in love with the whole world, but the whole world doesn’t deserve me. It takes my focus and directs it externally, leaving me with no energy. Pushing people away is not trying to hurt them. It’s trying to say that I only have enough energy for *some* people because I have many, many, many acquaintances and readers that are not my close friends, and yet I would bleed out if they needed anything while my needs, and my family’s needs from me go by the wayside.

I think when you’re an INFJ, if you are interested in International Relations at all, you love CIA because they keep people safe. It’s one thing to have a few people steal some documents. It’s quite a different experience walking into a base in Afghanistan or Iraq and seeing how massive it is because they have to accommodate thousands (or at least hundreds…).

CIA has done some shady shit, too, but what you see is what you get. If you want to see that they’re evil, you’ve got material. If you want to see that they’re amazing, you will. It just depends on your filter. Now, extrapolate that to everyone you know. Are you capable of accommodating six friends or at least, hundreds…….. What people see in you is what people see in “the Manson family,” which is what the FBI calls them in “The Looming Tower.” It’s not a real thing. It was just funny in the show (it’s on Hulu, I think).

But of course the FBIs filters are different. They’re a law enforcement agency built on slave catchers. Who’s really the good guy in either scenario when you look at them through those filters?

Giving the important people in your life the attention they deserve means shutting others out and not feeling bad about it. No one has the energy to have 50 friends, and if they do, they don’t know all of them that well. But if you’re a people pleaser, you might cater to people you don’t know well for a while, but then you’ll get overwhelmed and give up.

It reminds me of one of my favorite hymns:

Draw us in the Spirit’s tether
for when humbly in your name
two or three are met together,
you are in the midst of them.

Now, God does not work for CIA that I’m aware of, nor do they belong to The Manson family. That’s all on us.

It’s a reminder that to have a truly spiritual experience, it can be quiet. You cannot go deep with 50 people, especially if you can’t go deep with one.

Talking to 50 people is easier than talking to one when you don’t hate small talk. Being on stage or in the pulpit/lectern is even easier. That’s because even when I’m preaching a confessional sermon with 200 people hanging on every word, I still don’t feel responsible for their actions. I don’t feel responsible for the way they feel when I’m done. I know from experience how I did. If I did well, they’ll tell me so. If I blew it, they’ll say, “I like your dress.”

“I like your dress is polite, but it doesn’t indicate someone who will show up for you.

And that leads me to a story about Mikal, my 11th grade best friend. We were on a mission trip to Reynosa, and it turns out that I, in fact, cannot preach in Spanish. But I tried.

I think it was something like “los ninos es la corazon o la iglesia” (the children are the heart of the church). That’s because I preached Sunday worship after vacation Bible school (I was the only one who could even attempt such a thing. Had nothing to do with my qualifications except two years in school that barely covered first grade. Anyway, I say a couple of things after that and then I run out of words and couldn’t really “think of a closer.” So I just repeated the above line twice and said, “Amen.” My mother cried (partially because she had no idea what I was saying) because that’s what mothers do when you preach.

I finish not really knowing how I did, because everyone was polite.

I get back to my seat and Mikal says, “that was the worst piece of crap I’ve ever heard in my life.”

And that’s why she was my best friend.

One of Those People

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The audience will kill you if you let them.

So I stopped putting on the show.