the get-away girl

Years ago, when I lived on my own for the first time (in the beautiful slums of Baltimore), I lived above an interracial couple who grew marijuana in our shared backyard. I don't smoke pot (and have only tried it once), but I let them know they could trust me not to narc on them, so long as they never tried to sell or distribute on our shared property.

At the time, I was working for an oriental female doctor who couldn't pronounce German names and cringed when her inherited AIDS patients came in. I loved that job for a little while, but eventually she laid me off and I needed to find a way to get more income.

Right around that time, the pot neighbors' car stopped running, and then eventually got repossessed. They needed a ride a couple of times, and paid me gas plus a bit extra for taking them where they needed to go. I never took them to sell or buy drugs, but I did take them to pick up cash from their "distributors" on occasion.

Somehow, without me realizing it, I became the chauffeur (read: get-away driver) for my neighbors, as they stole DVD box sets and CDs from various stores and then sold them to record and tape traders. I was paid well for driving them around. They could "make" $500-700 on a good day, and I would get about 40% of that. I had no qualms about accepting dirty money. It paid my rent, car payment, and put food on the table.

I was always amazed they were able to get in a store (Barnes and Nobles, Borders, FYE, etc.) and take that much stuff, and not be caught AT ALL. I thought for sure the alarms would go off. I finally learned their secret: they heavily-foiled the inside of shopping bags (those paper shopping bags like Bloomingdales' has), because apparently the foil blocks the beepy-majigger thing from going off.

Unfortunately for them, they weren't too savvy with all that money, and ended up stiffing our landlord out of four months of rent. When the sheriff came to kick them out, I made sure they never made it in the backyard to see the cannabis garden (so that I wouldn't be liable for their bad deeds). Mr. and Mrs. Pothead pleaded with me to watch the garden, and that they would be back within a day or two to get their precious plants.


After two days, they never showed and I asked some of my scuzzier neighbors if they wanted their very own marijuana plant, for $50 a pop. I made almost as much selling those plants as I did driving the get-away car.

And that, my friends, is the time I was a get-away girl.

the truth about truth

Here is my truth: I was born into the underbelly of dysfunction, rubbed raw for many years from the chaos of bullshit.

When the institution imploded, I inherited the legacy of dishonesty. It came on the heels of sin and abeyance, gluttony and indifference, rage and greed.

Lies filled my head, followed me around the schoolyard and tucked me in at night. I was fed lies about everything and nothing, by everyone and no one. I was taught early on that the only way to get ahead in life was to lie. So I did. And I became skilled at it in ways that, in hindsight, make me sick to my stomach.

In my adolescence, I found out that the best lies are hidden inside truthfulness. Give just a hint of honesty, and people will believe anything. Lies by omission are just as powerful as outright dishonesty. Find a way to twist the truth and strap the burden of blame on someone else's back, and you can even fool yourself into believing your lies, because Denial is just Dishonesty's retarded cousin.

The good thing about being a skilled liar is that you learn all about truth. Because lying is just the truth, inside out. And when you see the ooey gooey center of the truth, it's hard to want anything else. See, in having lived a life full of lies, I have come to appreciate the lusciousness of honesty.

And I've realized some things:

• Most people don't really want THE truth. They want THEIR truth.

Everyone says they value honesty in their relationships, but most of them don't value true honesty, they value what they want to hear. If those jeans really do make you fat, you don't want to know. You want to go on believing they make you look like a svelte denim goddess.

• The truth is subjective; it is adaptable in that it becomes what each person wants it to be.

This is where that retarded cousin, Denial, comes in. If I tell myself enough times that I really am a good singer, at some point I'll believe it, and it will be true to me when I say I can carry a tune like a canary.

• Truth changes with communication. It is limited to what we know and don't know. As knowledge is acquired, truth changes to suit the needs of the situation.

If I get involved with a guy, and I don't know he was married, then anything he tells me only adheres to the truths that I DO know. This is also related to "lies by omission". It doesn't become a lie until I find out the truth.

People who fancy themselves as honest think they are the keepers of truth. But they aren't. No one is. Because honesty isn't real, it is existential in every way.

To me, truth is like time. It isn't real, but it is there, floating all around us. It isn't tangible, but we can see it and hear it and feel it. It doesn't stay the same, but continues in a rotations until it's completed a full revolution. And we'll keep on spinning in the opposite direction, circling around the truth until we're too dizzy to understand it.

things that suck

These are in no particular order (as you can see)

1. dead fish
   
2. stupid people
3. whiny kids with indifferent parents
   
4. bad drivers
5. people that don't get me
6. asking for no tomatoes but finding them on your sandwich anyway
7. bad manners
8. holiday traffic
9. celebrities who can't stay on the straight and narrow
10. BP
    
11. the lack of separation between church and state
12. homophobia
13. the smell of cat urine
    

for fuck's sake

this isn't a real post so much as me paying homage to the word "fuck".

fuck is the most useful word in the English language.

it is a verb, a noun, an adjective, a proper noun.

the freedom to say fuck is probably the greatest thing about living in America.

and we have the troops to thank for that.

so the next time you see a soldier, bitches, tell him thank you for fuck's sake.