Does anybody read these?

Blocked

So, I have pages and pages of notes and, not surprisingly, I do not have pages and pages of a magazine feature article. I do not have pages at all. What I have is writer's block. Even with my deadline in less than two hours (although not really, because my boss is out until Tuesday), I have writer's block. Maybe the illusion of an extended deadline has not caused the fear and panic to set in. (Sidebar: remind me sometime to tell you about the new Bridget Jones book, which is, of course, just more proof that I am a Darcy-less, American version of Bridget Jones.)

When writers are blocked, we're supposed to go find a prompt and just write about something. Just write and see if anything worth saving comes out. I'll apologize in advance because that's what you're -- as we say here in the South -- fixin' to read. I have a book of prompts shaped like a square called The Writer's Block (how clever) that used to sit on my desk for such occasions, but I took it home a few years ago when our former boss went on a tear and we all cleaned out our offices out of fear that we were about to be canned. Thank god for the internet.

So, thanks to our new friends at a website for bloggers called The Daily Post (with an assist from our pals at Google), here is the prompt I am going to write about.

Truth or Dare

Is it possible to be too honest, or is honesty always the best policy?

For those of you who are not new here, you know that I don't lie. I don't have the energy to navigate the webs that are woven when folks start telling lies and covering their tracks. I don't have the brainpower to negotiate alternate versions of reality in my mind. What you see with me is 100 percent what you get. No fibs. No lies. No alternate realities.

I don't believe you can be too honest, but I do believe that folks can be too direct with their candor. There is always a way to be tactful and respectful even when telling the truth. I don't believe in being deliberately hurtful, but I do believe that honesty is the best policy.

Sometimes you might ask me a hard question, and it might take me a while to answer. I won't lie (duh). If the truth is unpleasant, I might try to find a way to avoid sharing it. Or I might be slowing down so I can minimize the collateral damage of what I'm about to say as much as possible. Other times, though, I can be a total straight-shooter and almost honest to a fault. I guess being honest and valuing honesty is a blessing and a curse.

I just don't like lies. When I catch someone lying (and news to those who like to fib: you almost always get caught, even if you don't get called out on it), I lose a little bit of respect for them. Sometimes, the lie is big enough that I am just done. But often, because I am a good person, I will give the person a second chance. But every single time I catch someone in a lie, it erodes our friendship just a little bit more. And a lot of times, I wake up one day and they say something that I know isn't true and it's just it. And because I hate breaking up with anyone -- even on a friend level -- I either just disappear or just start fading them out little by little.

So yes, in my world -- if you'd like to be in my world, that is -- it's best not to lie. Of course, sometimes I wonder if this is why my world seems to get smaller on a daily basis. But you'll have that, I guess.

And seriously, if you do like to fib, make shit up, lie pathologically, whatever the kids are calling it these days, how do you even keep up with all that? I would be exhausted.

In fact, I am just thinking about it.

posted by Laura at 3:27 PM