Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

People have been lying forever, and although there was a famous study that suggested that Koko the Gorilla blamed a cat for the damage she caused with a temper tantrum, I maintain that lying is one of those traits that separates us from other species. Ravens and coyotes might be tricksters; the fox might be cunning; the bird might deceive predators in order to protect her offspring. But the human is the one that out and out lies, often only for small personal gain.

People lie for money, they lie to save face. They lie to cover up mistakes or to avoid having to work. Sometimes people lie to protect others from harm. Sometimes they lie for pleasure. The little guy lies and the big guy lies. Sometimes it seems that everybody lies although I know for a fact that that's not true.

Philosophers from long ago contemplated the reasons for, and implications of, lying. Some asserted that lying was wrong because it's a perversion of the gift of speech. Others suggested that lying undermines trust in society. Nietzsche said that the only people who don't lie are those who find it too hard to maintain a lie.

I recently witnessed an adult lying in the presence of his child and mine. The outcome was that he saved a couple of dollars, and in the grand scheme of life it wasn't the worst transgression possible. But I worry about the effect that all of our little lies have on our children, when taken together. It's the same concern I have about people who bend the law when driving, or songs with inappropriate content. A little here and there might not seem all that bad, and I'll be the first to admit that I'm no saint in a lot of respects, but I've got a thing about lying. I don't like to lie. And when I see a child observe a lot of lies over his or her lifetime, I've got to think it has an impact. It's bound to.

So what? So what if our children grow up to be liars? They could earn money by lying -- or they could lose it. They could earn fame -- or notoriety. Lying could keep them out of jail -- but it could also buy them a ticket to jail.

Lying could help them build relationships, I suppose, but -- in my opinion --lying is ultimately poisonous to relationships, and relationships are the foundation of society. Fame and money and power and all that stuff you can get by lying are not what bring you happiness in the end. It's relationships that matter. I agree with the philosopher (I think it may have been Thomas Aquinas) who said that lying undermines truth in society, but I'd take it one step further. Lying undermines society.

Ann Landers said the naked truth is always better than the best-dressed lie. Pearl Bailey said you never find yourself until you face the truth. And another famous pearl of wisdom was spoken by Pearl S. Buck, who said that truth is always exciting, and that life is dull without it. So why lie?

Children know when they're quite young that lying is wrong, even if they don't understand the philosophical reasons why, and that's why they so readily chastise one another when a lie is discovered. As adults, it's our moral obligation to uphold that instinctive value that children have by telling the truth and by refusing to let the liars go without consequence.

And that's the truth about how I feel about lying.

I Know Why the Caged Blog Pings

A new blog is like a new, fuzzy pet. Fun to play with, cool to show your friends, like the kitten that psycho-scrambles through your house or the hamster that runs into perpetuity. You get a really good feeling from taking care of the new little thing, and you secretly relish that ego-stroking sense of power, knowing that it is 100%, completely, dependent upon you. You don't even mind at the beginning, too terribly much, when it ignores you. The kitten slinks off to the corner and refuses to sit on your lap. The hamster is more interested in the inanimate leaf of lettuce than your smiling face. Nobody posts a comment on your blog. It's okay, though. You can deal with this.



But then life rings your doorbell and you veer off into other directions. The kids are swallowed up by soccer schedules, the school has an irritating habit of requiring homework, and your son's teenage romance begins to invade your time and emotional energy. Your ailing parent ails some more. And then you open your mail to discover that your money has gone AWOL, and it's a lot worse than when your keys are missing, because you can't so easily retrace your investment steps or pull the extra set of mutual funds out of your junk drawer. You are treading water in major grown-up issues and don't have time for that new little pet.



And what happens when you don't feed the kitten or hamster? The same is true with the blog. I returned from a couple of weeks of Life to find my blog gasping for breath, shriveled from dehydration. There was a part of me that thought about just turning and walking away. I know, that's lame; it shows my weaker shadow. But I confess it's true. I knew, however, that I simply couldn't do that. I couldn't create something and then just abandon it, like those nasty people in Nebraska do with their unwanted children.



And so I write again. And it feels good. The blog is fattening up and purring and beginning to yawn and stretch. We are a pair again, like Timmy and Lassie, or Charlie and Snoopy. We are here for each other. And that's why the caged blog pings. It needs me.



PS: Maya, if you read this, thank you for letting me play with your title. You have inspired me in so many, often unpredictable, ways.

Breast Cancer Awareness

Today I realized there's something strange going on. I've been writing a collection of stories, and a couple of the characters have breast cancer. Well, one has actually already died from it. The other is expecting she won't survive. I don't know why breast cancer showed up in my writing. It just did. I guess it's a midlife thing, but I didn't think too much about it or about what subconscious forces were at work.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I picked up a freelance assignment to write about Sara Fisher and Sara's Project. Sara died of breast cancer in 1992 and inspired a new program in Bend to promote education, research, early detection, and supportive treatment of women diagnosed with breast cancer. Last week I interviewed the woman in charge of the project and one of Sara's now-grown kids. It was an awesome interview.

At the same time, I've been trying to get through this book I picked up about life in the office world. It's a humorous book by Joshua Ferris called Then We Came to the End. I started it a couple of weeks ago but haven't been making much progress, and now suddenly I get halfway into the book and one of the main characters has breast cancer. I guess it was revealed earlier in the book, but it hadn't been a major focus until this point (and I might add that the humor factor has dropped significantly).

So this morning I realize that this is all pretty weird. Breast Cancer Awareness month starts next week, and there's something going on here, some reason that these three sources of awareness have converged in my life. It's sort of an exciting heebie-jeebie feeling, like something is lurking around the door.

I don't know where this will all lead, but one thing's for sure. I won't miss my upcoming mammogram appointment.

Trio of stories

Last night I went to a reading at Camalli's Book Store in Bend. I listened to a story about a tiny man named Ron, a story about death and deer, and a toddler-in-charge story. It was a strange mixture of images for one evening, and I wonder what might happen if that tiny man were to picnic with the toddler on the lawn where the deer grazes. The more I think about it, the more it gives me the creeps. Still, it's that type of experience that sometimes leads to awesome story ideas, and I think I will ponder that some more.

What's in a name?

Every once in a while I get a little crazy and decide to take another step into the abyss of technology. This week I took another step, an unsettling step for someone my age.

I opened a new email account, on gmail. No big deal, you might think. Right?

Let me tell you how wrong you are. Because deciding on one's identity is no small feat. Anyone who has set up a gmail account knows that you can't use the name you want to use. You can't be the person you want to be.

And I for one don't think it has anything to do with the fact that somebody else has your exact name and idea. I'm quite sure it's actually a Googleconspiracy.

I wanted an easy, snappy name, one that didn't require a lot of spelling. What about gailmail@gmail? Sounds pretty good, yes? But no, it's "not available". It's taken? I tried the old first and middle name thing: gailelizabeth@gmail. Nope. Already taken, too. And on it went. I could have used something like gailelizabethinbend2495@gmail . Obviously there are already 2,494 people named Gail Elizabeth living in Bend, a town of only 70,000. It makes me wonder where all those women are. I have never ever met a single Gail Elizabeth in my many years of living, but there sure are a lot of them out there in Googleland.

For a moment I thought it would be easier to go down to the courthouse, or wherever you go, to change my name. But I refused to let Google determine my identity. I've spent years (decades actually) working on this, trying to figure out what type of person I wanted to be. What style clothes to wear. What music to groove to. What to be when I grew up. And you know what? This is a free country, and I am not going to let some ginormous (spelled according to my thirteen year old son) company decide my identity!

So, I kept plugging, and typing, and clicking away, and finally came upon an email that uses my first and middle names and the initial of my last name. And in the end this all makes sense. My first name is of course how most people know me, but my husband usually only uses that name if he's keeping emotional distance for some reason. My middle name, or a nickname derived from my middle name, has become his pet name for me, so on good days I can be that person. And then, to others, I have been known by my last name, so the first initial of that last name makes sense too, if you're one of those few people and if you are even planning to send me an email via gmail, which is highly unlikely.

Of course, it's still all too long and complicated, and I have far more important things to think about at this stage of life, and the more I think about this email problem, the more I don't like it, so I think maybe I will go down to the courthouse and get a new name.

But first I'll check with gmail.