Happy New Year! Hooray!

Once upon a time I, too, was a New York Waitress.
Ah, to be pressured into working Holiday Shifts!
Ah, to divert the attention of the customers AWAY from the wall where the cockroach was crawling at a leisurely pace.
Ah, to try serving without being groped!

I was a sucky waitress, not because I was slow or forgetful or neglectful. But because I was, and still am, very, very, very, extremely, incredibly, bad at hiding my true feelings. Simply a very bad liar.
I really wish I was a better liar since I have no scruples about lying. I think it is a good way of dealing with potentially harmful situations. Of course, there has to be a certain amount of morals involved.

The Ethics of Lying

1. You cannot lie about things that WILL or COULD make trouble for those you care for. Example: "No, honey, I did not empty the bank account and place all our money in various Terrorist Organisation Funds."
2. You cannot blame someone innocent in order to get off the hook. Example: "I didn't polish off the Johnny Walker bottle, Auntie Sheila did, even though she has been in the AA for years. Quite frankly, I am concerned."
3. You can, however, blame someone who already is of questionable repute, alternatively to frame someone who has wronged you. Example: "I certainly did not pelt your window with snow balls, The Minister of Foreign Affairs/President/Cable TV company did it!"
4. If you are a good liar, you should use you skill to combat evil. Example: "Nope, sorry, you have the wrong prison. There are no adulterers to be stoned here. You must be thinking of the one that is miles and miles and miles away."
5. Lying in order to protect someone's feelings is pretty much ok all the time. Example: "Oh, no, no, the dinner wasn't disgusting! I'm just allergic to burnt pasta, is all."
6. Lying in order to protect someone's feelings when this may in fact hurt them is not ok. Example: "Oh having that Eating Disorder makes you look stylishly gaunt. I hear the hollow eyed hair loss look is making a come back."

I read somewhere that when children start to lie, it means that they have reached a certain level of social maturity. They are capable of distinguishing that people have expectations of them and that certain outcomes are better than others. But what if one reaches that level and just never learns how to lie properly? Does it mean that there is a flaw in my social skills?

Only now, in my thirties, have I started to catch my 'gives', the physical signs I give off when I lie. No, I'm not gonna tell you. But I wish I had known earlier. It would have saved me a lot of trouble as a waitress. For example, I could have concocted some really great stuff in order to get out of working Holiday Shifts, such as New Years Eve.

But there is no use in looking at what could have been. Instead, in the spirit of New Year's Eve and New Times ahead; from the coziness of my couch, an Honestly Happy New Year to You!

Love, or Something

Am grateful that my friend who was vacationing in Thailand is safe and sound. Am grateful for everyone in my life who is safe and sound.
About a week ago I read an article written by a man who was defending his belief in God. He said he could no more explain his faith scientifically than he could give exact proof of the love he feels for his wife. This pretty much sums up how I believe, except I refuse to attach myself to any church or following.
I cannot fathom how horrible the disaster in Thailand is. I don't get it. It goes beyond my realm comprehension. I have no idea what I would say to someone who has lost their whole family; I imagine that the last thing they would want to hear is that there is love in the world and a kind and gentle God.
I don't know what to do, how I can help, and I desperately want to.
So I suppose all I know for certain that I can do is to love my Husband, to love my family - yes even those who keep going on about pregnancies - and my friends near and far. And I hope I love them fairly and justly and that for someone, somewhere it makes a difference.
In two days The Husband and I will celebrate our three year anniversary. For various reasons known only to Icelandic bureaucrats and their Holiday schedules, we ended up getting a Protestant Minister for our wedding ceremony.
She was amazing. She made our wedding a truly individual declaration of love. At the risk of being schmaltzy I am going to leave this post with my favorite (as in: pretty-much-the-only-one-I-even-like) biblical quote, as it happens to be one of the few that were actually used at our wedding.

I Corinthians 13:1-13

1: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2: And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3: If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4: Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
5: it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6: it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
7: Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8: Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
9: For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
10: but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
11: When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
12: For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
13: So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.