Secrets and Lies (#20)

For years, I was part of the notorious Airing-their-Dirty-Laundry-in-Public gang. We terrorized the good burghers of Brockville by spraying their drying laundry with a patented mixture of purified tar and fishheads. I was caught and in exchange for immunity and witness protection, named names. The lifeless body of the last gang member was recently found in his cell, nose clamped with a clothespin and mouth stuffed with a Downy sheet. Finally, I can resume life as Delphine L’Amoreuse.

[Author's note: I have slightly exceeded the 56-word limit, but I didn't post on so many days this month that I figure I can exceed the daily word count with impunity. Plus if you report me, I will go after your laundry.]

Secrets and Lies (#19)

My passion for chocolate is waning. This passion has been an integral part of my identify since I was old enough to start ingesting solids, and on special occasions it’s inevitable that some well-adjusted person who has never had a passion dessert* them will present me with a cocoa bean-based gift. Bah, chocolate humbugs. 

*Mispelling** intended.

**Misspelling unintended.

Secrets and Lies (#18)

I Have a Dream… wait a minute, no I don’t. Fuck, [insert 38 additional expletives here] no wonder my life has gone nowhere. 

Secrets and Lies (#17)

I’ve been trying to devise a juicy lie to explain why my blogging performance rates an F- this month*. The truth is, I’ve indulged in a 27-day bout of serial sexual conquests that have also mostly rated an F-**, but I can’t go into any details because I’ve hit the 56-word limit. Sorry Susan.

* Today is March 27, and this is post #17.

** Except for that A++ 12-hour erotic marathon with Mr. 12" Johnson.

Secrets and Lies (#16)

My mother had a cousin who was, during the era in which they grew up, “mongoloid.” It sounds like she had more than Down syndrome: my mother remembers Inis being carried everywhere. While still a child, Inis was sent to an institution 1,500 kilometres away. She died young. “But I’m sure she was well cared for.”

Secrets and Lies (#15)

I am watching Season 5 of The Americans. Talk about pants-on-major-fire prevarication—Phillip and Elizabeth lie to everyone, including their friends, their children, and each other. Additional perks of being a spy* include donning fun disguises outside of Halloween, participating in the occasional exhumation, whacking other spies, and bonking most everyone in sight.  

*Besides being able to lie to most everyone in sight and not having one's pants catch on fire

Secrets and Lies (#14)

Like an aging trope*, I’ve taken to reading obituaries. The majority contain some variant of “so-and-so died peacefully.” I wonder how often that’s true... I hope for all our sakes it’s 99.99999% of the time. But I remember a nurse who said that that’s not the case. 

I’m glad Canada now allows medical assistance in dying. 

*I'm not sure this phrase makes sense, but I feel linguistically reckless this morning.

Secrets and Lies (#13)

I have faked a number of things in my life, including a university degree (which I needed to get a job in Japan, but didn’t have at the time), a handful of injuries (sprained wrist, sprained ankle; I’m not super-creative when it comes to anatomical fraud), and an anaphylaxis-inducing allergy to cruciferous vegetables (stir-fried boy choy excepted).

Secrets and Lies (#12)

It’s the spring equinox, but my world is growing darker. I can’t read more articles with titles like “We should be hopping mad about Australia’s inhumane killing of kangaroos,” walk amongst people wearing Canada Goose parkas trimmed with fur from coyotes that are “sustainably harvested,” open more online petitions with pictures of dogs strapped down, masks over their muzzles, as Johnson & Johnson tests the toxicity of a new window-cleaning product.

Let the rhinos die out. They’re better off that way.

[Author's note: Although this post looks like it's 81 words, it's really only 56.]

Secrets and Lies (#11)

They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children.

The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary.

Both these books have sat on a shelf, unread, for many years. I doubt I’ll ever develop the fortitude to look past their covers. As I commented on someone’s post recently, there are many, many truths that I really, really wish were lies.

Secrets and Lies (#17)

I’ve become addicted to true crime podcasts and many a night find myself listening to tales of gruesome murders*. I wonder: is there an audience for true epidemiology podcasts? They would also involve a perpetrator—often a mass/serial killer—an investigation, and the need to prove that the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

*This isn’t helping my already poor sleep, and I’m starting to think that I need to stash a large knife under my pillow.

Secrets and Lies (#9)

We arrived in darkness and ascended to the visual crescendo of a desert sunrise. Having opted for the economy flight, we were served orange juice instead of mimosas and after 30 minutes, the balloon descended. As it hovered, we were ordered to jump airship. We watched, forlorn, as the balloon soared again with its richer payload. 

[Author’s note: Mali’s post the other day reminded me of a hot air balloon ride two friends and I took in Australia in the 1980s.]

Secrets and Lies (#8)

Some of the lies I’ve told were not intentional, but figments of my misconceptions. For example, as a child I thought Frank Sinatra was African American, Mount Rushmore (yes, including the presidential heads) was a natural phenomenon, and my mother was a nurse (she taught phys ed). (And no, I don’t own swamp land in Florida.)

Secrets and Lies (#7)

When we were 12 years old I and my two best friends at the time pooled our newspaper delivery earnings and ordered a Mark Eden Bust Developer*.  It was sent to my house in a plain brown wrapper, which should have raised parental suspicions immediately. The device died from overexertion during our first bust development meeting. 

*None of us would have had a chequing account or credit card, so we must have defied Canada Post’s dire warnings and sent cash through the mail. 

Secrets and Lies (#6)

We shaped the Pillsbury chocolate chip cookie dough into two balls and rolled them out. We laid one “crust” into the pie pan, sprinkled on the “filling,” and topped it with the other “crust.” We may even have fluted the edges. After consuming a gigantic piece, I spent most of the night conversing with the wall.

Secrets and Lies (#5)

My adolescent vehicular shenanigans were not confined to hit-and-runs*. Once, when I was at the local strip mall with my best friend and our boyfriends, we jumped into a taxi that was empty and idling and sped away on Highway 20. I’m thankful that my life of crime predated the advent of cell phones.

* Let me be clear that I have only ever hit objects, never people.

Secrets and Lies (#4)

Not for me the casual lie; I’m in for the long haul. So when, as a teenager, I backed my parents' car out of the driveway and rammed the neighbour’s car parked across the street, I drove away with barely a glance in the rearview mirror. Forever afterwards I professed my innocence, even as both parties filed insurance claims.

[Author’s note: I am still a lousy backer-upper.]

Secrets and Lies (#3)

Whoever told me that Outlander is Scottish porn is a lying redcoat (or Jacobite, depending on where your loyalties lie… although I would find it hard to swear allegiance to any group that includes blacker than Black Jack Randall). Frankly, I’ve seen very little fucking and too much flogging and fighting and fee-fie-foe-fum-I-smell-the-blood-of-a-kilt-wearing-man-like behaviour.

Secrets and Lies (#2)

“There is no downside to lying.” That’s Martin Amis, quoting a Republican strategist he talked with in 2012. I shook my head and muttered “asshole,” but realized I felt powerless to devise a logical counterargument in the face of such a sweeping and seemingly contrarian sentiment. And maybe it’s no longer contrarian, but the new norm.

Secrets and Lies (#1)

I hate ice cream. I know this doesn’t qualify as an earth-shattering confession, but judging by the reaction it elicits, I may as well have confessed to being a porn star, or an alien with sensitive teeth dispatched from Planet SOWIELSDIOASDNOU3091393-1 to study earth’s inhabitants and to select probe-worthy specimens for further study.