"One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter." -James Earl Jones

Damn, ain't that the truth?

"Even a lie is a psychic fact." -Carl Jung

Have you ever caught a close friend in a lie?

I recently did, and I don't quite know how to handle it. It's not a BIG lie; and it was most probably put forth for altruistic reasons. This person cares deeply for me, and would do anything to prevent my feelings from being hurt. But I KNOW this unnamed soul -- who happens to be someone I love with all my heart -- told me a fat one, and my feelings are hurt, anyway. It's a tiny betrayal, but a betrayal, nevertheless.

And my righteous AA sensibilities are nagging at me. See, if I had told this untruth, I know I'd have to make amends at some point, because it would gnaw at me like a dog on a beef knuckle, like a rat on cardboard, like me on my cuticles while thinking about what to do with my beloved's lie.

Not that I'm Miss Perfect Sober Girl. Not that, in my 11.2 years of sobriety I haven't fibbed. White lied. Shifted the truth. But only a little. Just a handful of times. And I've pretty much always cleaned it up, especially when it looked like the other party would slip on my spill.

(Okay, wait: some of you out there know about that one rather sizeable falsehood, originated almost 5 years ago -- yikes -- and are wondering how I could have possibly forgotten -- after all, it changed my life and another's quite dramatically. Well, friends, I didn't forget. I confessed, offered a sincere apology, and moved on, promising myself I'd never do that particular thing again. Which I guess is the best thing one can do with a lie.)

Here's the other thing about today's lie from mon cher ami: I'm now thinking there may have been others, or may be others to come.

So, do I call the perp on the fabrication? Or do I let it slide?

It's after midnight, and I'm having breakfast with dear friend Heij in 9 1/2 hours. She's not Carl Jung (one of her best attributes), but I'm thinking she can help me sort this out.

...which may be why those of us who make it don't actually watch it.

"If you came and you found a strange man...teaching your kids to punch each other, or trying to sell them all kinds of products, you'd kick him right out of the house, but here you are; you come in and the TV is on, and you don't think twice about it."
-Jerome Singer, psychology professor

They come in threes...

First it was the disbanding of Phish; phinally. Now Creed is at last splitsville, as they say in gossip columnese.

Who next? No, not THE Who. In fact, they're actually back; sorta.

Sorry...Reagan doesn't count. But they do all fall under the category of an idea whose time has come.

He's chuckling in his grave.

"Television's perfect. You turn a few knobs, a few of those mechanical adjustments at which the higher apes are so proficient, and lean back and drain your mind of all thought. And there you are, watching the bubbles in the primeval ooze. You don't have to concentrate. You don't have to react. You don't have to remember. You don't miss your brain because you don't need it. Your heart and liver and lungs continue to function normally. Apart from that, all is peace and quiet. You are in the man's nirvana. And if some poor nasty-minded person comes along and says you look like a fly on a can of garbage, pay him no mind. He probably hasn't got the price of a television set."
-Raymond Thornton Chandler, writer (1888-1959)