Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Lies, all Lies!

What an exciting night, huh? Everyone seems to be walking on air today. Moral is high, people are hopeful, strangers are hugging each other. Of course, in my county, Barack (or, Brock, as Leila calls him) won by 80%, so we're pretty confident that we can share our relief and happiness with total strangers without the risk of getting into a fist fight. California also voted, however, to change its constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman only, so one step forward, two steps back. Okay, one GIANT LEAP forward... and two steps back.
But enough about the election. We voted, a winner was decided, and you can't get away from it today, so I will be your respite from election mania.
Yesterday, Leila flushed her vitamin down the toilet. I found out she's been doing this for a little while, and when I asked her about it, she lied to my face. Can you believe that? Little shit. When I said to her, "You are lying to me right now." She looked at the floor and said, "Shoot." She got a talking-to, and I had to try not to laugh and keep the Disappointed Mom look on my face (much more useful and guilt producing than the crazy, angry mom face) and she was very obedient for the rest of the morning. I guess kids have to lie to see what will happen when they do, to see if they can get away with it. She's such a bad liar, though. I can see right through her little rouses. First of all, when I asked her, "What did you with your vitamin?" She said "Nothing!": If she had actually eaten her vitamin, she would have said, "I ate it." Her first mistake. Then there's her face. She cannot not smile when she is lying, and this is a curse for her because sometimes when she's telling the truth, but knows I'm trying to suss out a lie, she smiles, too. It takes all my cleverness and guile to tell the difference. I was a great liar. I could lie about anything, any time, and my mom would believe me. Although, its entirely possible that she knew I was lying all along, but just didn't feel like dealing with it. Its tedious to give the same lecture again and again, and also more work for me to sit at the table every morning watching Leila chew her vitamin, so sometimes you know they're lying, and you just go, whatever.
Sometimes I would lie to my mom because I knew I could. My brother could never lie. To this day he can't lie without his face turning beat red and jittery. Maybe it was because he's blonde and fair skinned, and I'm olive skinned and don't blush easily, but that wouldn't explain the give- away grinning. I can't lie anymore, though. I think I peaked in high school, and now I can't lie without smiling and feeling like my whole body is going to turn inside out. On one hand, you could say that I'm blessed with honesty and integrity, but, seriously, I can't even lie about someone's bad haircut or awful shoes. Its a burden.
In other news, I did 45 minutes on the eliptical this morning. The machine said I burned 500 calories, so I ate at least that much at lunch. Rob says I don't need to do 45 minutes, I can just do 30, but I say I'm a fat cow and that extra fifteen minutes is the difference between losing one pound and one and a half pounds this week. I'm getting better about the nakedness thing. I'm still breaking the club rules and using two towels instead of one to cover myself, but I'm freaking a little less if someone walks by while I happen to be exposed. I started out being grateful for the anonymity that people seem to respect at the gym, but now I think its a little weird. If you know someone from school, isn't it weird to pretend you don't see them? To not say hi? Am I just that starved for interaction? And just when I was starting to feel slightly less pathetic. One step forward, two steps back.

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