Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire

I like to think that I avoid lying, even little white ones. Personally, I hate being accused of lying when it may be that the accuser just doesn't have the brain capacity to understand what I'm saying. Worse still is being silently accused of lying without the possibility of explanation.

People can jump to some pretty extraordinary conclusions, I've found.

Now it may seem that with all the forms I've described above that I have extensive experience as a liar. No, that's not it. What's the matter with you?

People lie. They lie all the time. "Hey, how are you?" "Oh, fine, good!" C'mon! Your son is cheating on his wife and she's pregnant, your boss keeps hinting that your division might see big cuts this year, your spouse suddenly treats you to flowers, candy and lots of oral, especially after those weekend-long fishing trips with "the guys from work" whom "you don't really know them" and "you know the cell phone doesn't work out on the lake." So: fine, good?

No, of course not. But you know that the first lie, the proffer of care through polite questions such as these, have a social expectation of the answer as a lie. Imagine you answer, "My world is falling apart, Bill, and I haven't gotten laid in six months." Yeah, you're probably not going to get more than a confused half-chuckle and "Sorry to hear that" which is also a lie because it really means, "Oh, God, I always suspected you were troubled and insane but please don't unload your mental shotgun in my cubicle. Please?"

Love lies are my favorite as I have studied them with great vigor. I only have sort of half a girlfriend at the moment because I ain't gonna lie. To her. If she asks me whether her ass is too round, I intend to answer honestly (by the way, it is definitely fi-yi-yi-yi-ine, so, no worries there, mate) and probably get kicked to the proverbial curb.

When is a lie not a lie but a compromise?

As If It Wasn't Enough

You think your life is tough? Imagine you are a pig, ripe for the slaughter. Your ancestors, cousins, sisters and brothers have already met their fate and are serving man in the form of a component of an Egg McMuffin with Sausage. Some guy says to himself, "Y'know, getting the assholes outta these critters sure is a pain in the rectum. Oh, I know, let me invent an asshole removal device." He sets pen to paper and lo and behold, comes up with just the thing. The United States Patent Office agrees that it is in fact wondrous and unique and grants him this here patent:

http://www.google.com/patents?id=XtsnAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&dq=anus#PPP1,M1

So, the next time you think you're having a bad day, just imagine that someone, somewhere is cooking up a better way to make you anus-less. Harumph, Jenkins, looks like we have 'em at both ends.

Since we're doing some technical reading, let's check this out:

http://www.ispub.com/ostia/index.php?xmlFilePath=journals/ijs/vol7n2/vibrator.xml

This describes the case and resulting surgery to remove a rather large vibrator from the rectum of a 29 year-old female who was using it for "anal eroticism" God, I love doctors and their accepting ways. I also found the X-Rays rather stimulating - enjoy!

Background This, Beyotch

By the way, I just got a call from (the company that is wildly enthusiastic about hiring me) investigative arm (rhymes with: yeah, right.) The woman on the other end of the line informed me that she was unable to verify my high school graduation, so she was going to have to return the hire to HR as a negative. I asked her whether she contacted Albany or the City of New York and she said, no, only the school and she's getting voice mail and no call back, I suggested that she understand that such records were likely held by the Board of Education of the City of New York or the Board of Regents in Albany since I was a Regent's Scholar. She said she couldn't make any inquiries beyond what was reported in the application. Why not? Isn't she an investigator?

I was losing my cool, inside, but I asked her what the solution was. She said that typically, this would mean that there would be no hire since she couldn't verify my information. I asked her if she was able to verify my college enrollment, etc. She said yes, that wasn't a problem. I asked her whether she thought it was logical that a person enrolled in college and having graduated and subsequently gainfully employed for 30 years might in fact have a High School Diploma? She said that unless I could produce the actual diploma and FedEx it to her by tomorrow that she would have to return a no-hire in her investigation. I told her that it was thirty years ago and that I wasn't even disposed to locating by car registration this morning, let alone an arcane document dating back nearly to the dawn of Man. She said there was nothing she could do but that I had plenty of time to "look around, maybe in a desk drawer or something" as it was only around noon. I wanted to scream "I'm in New Jersey, you cum-swilling paper jockey. It's 3 here, for fuck's sake." Instead, I said that it seemed very unlikely that I would be able to accommodate the request. She said, "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Well, good luck on your job search." And then she hung up. Major WTF moment. Californians are fucked in the head. By the way, her last name, she said, if Wall. So, that's what I was talking to, literally, a Wall.

In the meantime, they got to touch my balls, by proxy, since one of the other bizarre requirements is a complete physical exam, and I mean complete. In fact, the doctor might have looked more at home at a Mexican abortion clinic. In addition, I went to a lab to pee in a cup to see whether I'm a major abuser of drugs and/or alcohol. What's next? Testing positive for Marsala Sauce?

Garden of Nay-Nay

I, too, like gardening, though I think I can't manage to kill enough pansies to suit the garden gods since they always demand more. I keep intending to have a professional landscaper come in and do what is better done by a professional, but I just get started on a planting project and can't seem to stop. Maybe next year . . . I do have lots of strawberries, tomatoes and peppers, some cauliflower and cantaloupe, beans, peas, zucchini and basil, lemon thyme, oregano, dill, and scallions. The herbs grow so well that I can't ever give enough away to make a difference, it seems. I imagine my friends tossing my new supplies to them out the window once they hit the highway.

I have enough property to be self-sufficient, food-wise, if I knew how to can and preserve and if I wanted to destroy the lawn in my backyard to make way for crops. Today, I bought ten ears of corn for 18 cents (!) each. So, what would be the point of growing corn? Or potatoes? It seems to be cheaper to but than grow on a small scale. The one benefit is this - whatever one grows does absolutely, I gorantees it, taste better. One season, I grew cucumbers that tasted exactly like their watermelon relatives. Yum. My peas and string beans are sweet as all get out. The eggplant are succulent and the zuchinni would make a fruit insertionist cry with delight. And, back to the herbs - yes, I have more than I could use in ten lifetimes, but I bet you'd love my pasta sauce. Bam!

STFU

No matter how I try to thoroughly explain things, it seems I always fail at getting to the heart of the matter. I misunderstand others, apparently and others misunderstand me. The only explanation that seems sensible is that I'm making poor choices in my modes of communication. I think I actually reveal too much and that either frightens the people I've chosen with whom to communicate, they simply don't understand the entire tableau of what I'm trying to say or they hear what they want to hear.

Now I understand why women idealize the strong, silent type. This way, they can apply their own fantasy of what's real and what's being said to the relationship. I guess that's one way of going about it, but it doesn't seem honest to me, on either part. But, maybe that's the game with rules I don't understand and, if I don't get it by now, maybe I never will.

Poor pitiful me, eh?

Time Is Mine Enemy

So, here's the deal: as much as I strive for balance in the Yin and Yang of busy/unbusy, I have not yet managed to strike a balance. Like a back-sliding twelve-stepper, I seem to make some progress and then hope that the fates don't throw me a curve I can't handle.

What's going on here? In the bigger scheme of things, there has been an insipid ramp-up to total time booking. I recently told a friend that it was importantly to write every day, even if it's nonesense or if it totally sucks. My personal experience is that if the muse is really not present, the process at least gets the crap out of the way. It's linear and has to be purged in order to get to the good stuff. This seems to be somewhat applicable to every other event, major and minor, in the trivial travails of daily living.

For instance, here's the routine "template" that I would normally find confronting me:

• Three mammals wake me up at daybreak - they hunger, thirst and need to pee
• So do I, so I do.
• Coffee, coffee, coffee.
• Feed the mammals. Empty them.
• Clean up the inevitable accidents.
• Wake up child.
• Eat a waffle.
• Chase the child to get ready for school. Sometimes this involve laundry(!!!)
• Charge the cell phone.
• Chase the child some more.
• Drink the coffee, check the e-mails.
• NEW! Check for new jobs, send out appropriate resume.
• Do computer maintenance.
• Check the weather.
• Water the plants - see if compulsory gardening is needed.
• Chase child, remind her she's going to be late, again.
• Child appears, checklist to see if she has homework, permission slips, musical instrument.
• Drive child to school, late, of course.
• Watch child scramble to avoid late bell.
• Smoke n' choke on the way home.
• Avoid being pummeled to death by pet dog.
• Pick up poo, wash spot.
• Vacuum.
• Make cup of coffee.
• Check e-mails again.
• Think about blog topic.
• Take drugs - don't worry, it's prescription only.
• Coordinate appointment-wearing clothes. Note that I need new pants as the cat has clawed my best Geofrey Beene power casual slacks.
• Shave, take shower. Blow-dry hair.
• Have more coffee.
• Allow dog to empty herself yet again.
• Check phone for messages since someone may have called after I passed out from sheer exhaustion last night at nine.
• Field a "feel-bad" Hallmark moment from the ex.
• Drink MORE coffee.
• Note that it's only eight A.M.

And then, the train rolls on from then. To me, this constitutes an unending mad rush. I know that you may have it all under control and so do I, to the degree that I feel comfortable and not guilty, but, really, c'mon.

In olden times, that is, in the ideal of Beaver Cleaver, this was not the way. Like Canadian Geese, spouses mated for life and shared these travails. Wah, wah, poor pitiful me: I'm doing it on my own. So, all you single moms are saying, what's the big deal? Well, it's not a big deal, per se, but ask yourself when the last date you had wasn't a time-coordinating nightmare. Be honest. Are you being honest?

So, I took some time to apologize to my "friends" this morning by e-mail, so that I could get a comprehensive thought out in one breath. Why? Two things happened this week. I bumped into one very nice friend while shopping (doesn't that sound leisurely) at ShopRite and he was very pleasant and I realized that he might be a little pissed that I have been otherwise occupied. We had dinner a month ago, I called, left an e-mail, and he's been crazy-busy, too. Another friend invited me to an event this weekend, I wanted to go and then canceled because it's my brother's birthday. The response was, "I knew you weren't going." Yup, quite a rep I'm building at this point. Makes me look like an unreliable, uncaring, disorganized fool. So, what's the solution?

For once, I actually don't know if there's one single thing that will "work." I think part of the answer is to realize that people are way busier today that our parents were and that a bit of straight-talking assertiveness doesn't hurt in keeping the connection going. Carve out whatever time by actively coordinating dead spots? I'm not sure, but man does not live by the internet alone.

Things To Do While Shopping

I was shopping with my daughter, after my stint as a wetback landscaper for much of the usable day, and I found a "to do" note lying on a box at Marshall's, apparently mislaid by a harried shopper. It was written on a 3x4 Post-It with the imprint "HALDOL Decanoate 100 HALOPERIDOL INJECTION 100mg/ml" That is an anti-psycotic drug, so, go figure. Here's what the list said:

PAM - SHOES
ALLAN BIRTHDAY
KIDS - SNEAKS
LUCILLE
ME - BORNS - CLOGS/SANDALS BR.
JOAN/DAVID
GOLD SANDAL
NATURLIZER HEELS
PATENT?

and in the upper right-hand corner

20 MOFEINS (not sure due to the hand - ed.)
20 ROBIN

Busy girl - or guy? You be the judge.

Just so you know, the Marshall's in my area not only has a HUGE selection of top-end shoes, like Merril, Nike, New Balance and so forth, but has unbelievable bargains on name brand clothes and even non-clothing stuff like decorative and kitchen goods. I saw, but didn't buy today, Levi 501's (my favorite) in my size (36-30) for $19 bucks. A Nautica long-sleeve dress shirt for $12. It's ridiculous.