there will be lies

I embrace lying to a certain extent. I'm not talking about big lies, such as cheating on spouses, going to war over nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, or who ate the last brownie. But lies, no, let's rename that, stories about life are acceptable lies. Acceptable, hell! Encouraged!

See, I understand James Frey and Margaret Seltzer. Big things happen to other people. Exciting things happen to other people. This isn't just that I'm unlucky, but also that I probably didn't go out that night and instead curled up to read a book with a nice cup of tea and some cookies. It's my own fault really. So instead I make things up shamelessly or steal from other people's experiences. I used to feel bad about it. Now when I start into my bits of stories I'll just warn people--Do you want the truth or the lie? But honestly, the lie is more interesting.

There are some rules to this. You don't lie where it would incriminate another person or would otherwise make people uncomfortable. In other words, no made up stories of child abuse, rape, jail time, etc (which is where James and Margaret fall down). Those are big. If you are saying it, it should be real.

The stories I tell are goofy bits about how I started smoking (yes, I quit), the time a date left me at a party for his ex-girlfriend whom I was supposed to be keeping him away from (actually happened to a friend), funny driver's ed stories I picked up from all over and appropriated as my own. That kind of thing. Stories that sound more fun and immediate if I tell it like it happened to me rather than a friend or worse, a friend of a friend. Or...um... I read it in a magazine one time and stole it.

Because my own life is rather uninteresting and I can't help but want to put just a little spin on it and keep the listener enthralled in the story rather than tell the truth. But this does mean that I have accepted my fate. I will never be able to write a memoir. My own sense of story will keep the lies humming along, getting wilder and wilder, until I wind up on the bestseller list and outed as a fraud. Then Oprah would hate me and how does one live with oneself after Oprah hates you? Better to start by being honest and saying, I lie.