There are two types of people who enjoy dining by candlelight.

The first type also likes long walks on the beach. That’s what Meg Ryan’s into, right? Candlelight is awesome because you can’t see the details so you can ignore the things you don’t want to know. Then, later, you can say it’s not your fault that things went wrong because, well, you just didn’t see them. How could you have? The lighting was dim. ::shrug:: Plus, candlelight is just SO romantic!!!!!!!!!! And it makes facial pores disappear so you look, omigod, So. Glam.

I am, proudly, not this type.

The second type sits in Zen repose, pondering life’s big questions with saucer-sized pupils nestled in eyes softly focused on the horizon, welcoming whatever comes their way. This type is unafraid to declare a love for earnest things like digging for sand crabs on the beach while the sound of the waves engulfs them and their toes go numb from the cold. They aren’t afraid of unanswered questions, soft edges or grey borders that bleed into each other without sharp definition.

Neither, sadly, am I this type.

I had a 6324 lumen headlamp surgically implanted into my forehead years ago. Things are always black or white – never both. Boundaries are clean. My pupils are pinholes and I damn well always know what’s coming.

Though I’m not quite as adorable, this is me, and her feet are life:

print Hello world.

Would it be a “good lie” – a pale little white lily of a lie – to say that I am confident about this project? That I am excited at the prospect of having an audience to my scrawl? That the very thought doesn’t terrify me, and that I don’t worry I’m dwarfed by my fellow writers in competency, experience and talent?

Is the good lie to grin, strut confidently center stage and declare to the world that, “I Am So Fucking Amazing!”?

Rhetorical questions, of course. But they are parading through my consciousness nonetheless as we kick off this Most Awesome of Awesome Projects slated to end with an orgasm of cakey goodness. Hello, fellow cakers!

print A history.

Those questions address a moot point anyway, as I was born without the liar muscle. It’s a handicap, really. The truth comes out faster than my brain can spin fiction. Earlier this year, I was asked on a probably-date by a colleague. It was fairly obvious what he was after, but not quite obvious enough that I could call him on it while standing outside of a press conference. Stripped of the comfort of my well-loved blurt, “I have a boyfriend – thanks anyway and sorry!” (Thanks, D, for being my excuse!), I had to come up with a good reason to not walk into this trap. You know: I’m helping a friend move. It’s my Dad’s birthday dinner. My grandma died. Big deadline in the morning. Or screw the details – “I have plans,” would suffice. Anything… Ummmmm….

“Sorry…”

::deafening silence::

“…I’m dog sitting…”

Totally true statement. Score!

Also, it’s 4 pm and no half-competent person needs the rest of the day to feed and walk a dog. But now I’ve blown my one chance.

“…so I’ll need to go home and feed and walk him, but I could come out after that.”

Epic, awkward fail. Terrible.

Actually, terrible does not even do justice to the train wreck that is me lying. A terrible liar plays with her hair too much, or buckles when asked to tell her story backwards. A terrible liar swears up and down that he has not yet had his dessert while donning a chocolate mustache.

But to really play in the big leagues, you have to take it a step further by practicing the art of the Self Tattle. My mother to this day likes to commit suicide by way of laughter while recounting the numerous times I snuck a cookie I wasn’t allowed or committed some other heinous offense and shortly thereafter came running to explain what I had done. Psh. Parenting me was a breeze (kidding!).

Fortunately for me, I gave up even attempting to lie years ago (see: dog sitting).

This past weekend, I went to visit The Boy one state over. On my last trip, I promised I’d see one good friend the next time I was there. And then I didn’t manage to make it happen. Literally while writing this, she texted me to say, “Long time no talk, how are you?”

Dude.

I JUST got back. I can’t IGNORE that I was just there, can I?

::fretting::

By now, you know how this story ends.

I suppose I am just too fragile to handle the remote (or not so remote?) possibility that I might be found out and have to endure reproachful looks. Or that I’d have to keep a detailed chart of lie details in my hole-filled memory so I don’t misstep. Or worst of all, that I might find myself floating above my body, watching myself red-faced and mumbling some half (nay, 2%) baked excuse while others look on, faces contorted in horror. Watching someone trying desperately to use a muscle they don’t have? So sexy.

This is my life. As such, I plead Insufficient Knowledge to Address This Prompt. Which amendment is that, again?

Guests are coming. Oh me, oh my. I’d better do some tidying up around here. Pay no mind to the cobwebs and ancient decor – I’ve been MIA for too long. All you need do is review the comments on my last two posts to see a friend has shown more dedication over the past few years than I have.

Dear me.

Well now, what have you missed? I promised myself I’d quit my last job before 2010, and I did. I moved back to my home state. I brought The Boy. He moved back six months later. Now we do That Long Distance Thing. I’ve traveled to Israel and Germany. I’ve had a small handful of Life Crises, as I like to keep it interesting by constantly reevaluating The Plan. I have a new job, in a new industry that is as unlike me as the last job was. Osama was killed. Allegedly. (Kidding!) Not Obama. Osama. And there was a Royal wedding. I didn’t see it. I hear it was wedding-y.

Consider yourself up to date.

What’s new, other than an updated About page?

My lovely other half has ingeniously devised a plot to enslave myself and others to the typewriter every week by triggering our Pavlovian response to the promise of cake. You can check it out the details here.

Welcome, Cakers!