ooh, get you?

received an email message from a very dear friend tonight that made me respond quickly and in rare fashion these days. and i've got a crooked wry smile at that thought of days gone by. it's a nice change to my general feeling of terror today. nothing feels right. not my eyes. my lips. the size of my shoes. the color of my hair. i came home expecting the place to be empty. and then everything was still here -- just as i'd left it. i'm not sure where the panic comes from. too much rain and not enough food, perhaps. i watched a movie that made me think about sex. [is that uncommon for me?] called myself a monster [for reasons unrelated to the sex thing] and laughed until i thought i might fall right directly from this chair. pretended i might go to bed at a decent hour. but i pretend a lot.

i told my best friend, the other day, something that i don't like to admit about pretending. we'd been talking about our propensity to lie -- to fool one another into believing things we'd swear were true. and i admitted that when i was quite younger, i started fooling people into believing i was a bad liar, by telling inconsequential lies very badly. this tactic worked almost immediately. because i'd catch myself in conversation and say -- i'm so terrible at lying. and we'd all laugh, as friends do. i'd even convinced my parents. and no one ever thought i'd be able to hide anything. while all the while i'd been tucking things away. there are some people who are still convinced i'd never be able to pull off a lie. when all the while i'd been snowing them for decades. i don't promote it as a way of life. it's actually fairly embarrassing, now, to admit. i'd never think of it these days. i'm lucky to not have to.