{"id":54,"date":"2001-02-09T03:14:32","date_gmt":"2001-02-09T08:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/?p=54"},"modified":"2001-02-09T03:14:32","modified_gmt":"2001-02-09T08:14:32","slug":"lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/?p=54","title":{"rendered":"lie"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><a TITLE=\"definition of lie\" HREF=\"opWin('http:\/\/www.m-w.com\/cgi-bin\/dictionary?lie', 'liePopupWin', 'toolbar=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=50,top=0,width='+(screen.availWidth\/1.5)+',height='+(screen.availHeight-20)+',scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes');\"><tt>lie<\/tt><\/a><\/div>\n<p>\nit&#8217;s midnight, and i&#8217;m just getting started.&nbsp; (maybe i should move to new york.)&nbsp; i unplugged the phone today, about an hour after i plugged it back in from being unplugged since yesterday.&nbsp; &lt;sigh&gt;&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\nwhere is this tedious place?&nbsp; what strands touch it from afar, anchor it within the (in)firmament, at once toying and discarding?&nbsp; and why do we stay&#8230;&nbsp; we, who can do anything, be anything, even reinvent reality; is this life perhaps a fun-house we chose, during some past enlightenment, to visit &#8212; a dark and startling place intended for amusement only &#8212; and have we perhaps forgotten this?&nbsp; taking life seriously leads to suicide.&nbsp; it really is all a joke &#8212; and i don&#8217;t mean that derogatorily.&nbsp; i&#8217;m serious.&nbsp; it&#8217;s a comedy, a light farce, heavy with camp and desperately believable, and tempting, so very tempting to believe&#8230;\n<\/p>\n<p>\nand where is faith?&nbsp; belief?&nbsp; the concreteness of knowing?&nbsp; should we just make it all up as we go along, like so many do?&nbsp; how much should we allow ourselves to lie?&nbsp; and we really only lie within ourselves; everything else is costume and pretense, even when we try our best, still then, the expression of our truth is incomplete.&nbsp; any representation of the other &#8212; of what they think, say, or do, of who and what they appear to be &#8212; is never as significant to us as who and what we are ourselves.&nbsp; besides, one could argue that no truth survives intact the transit across the interval between persons.&nbsp; we are only naked inside.&nbsp; the best we can hope is to discover our own nakedness, and perhaps to approach the nakedness of another.&nbsp; but we can never get all the way there.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nalong that vein, it occurs that i would like a chance to approach the nakedness of my <a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.abercrombie.com\/anf\/\" TITLE=\"abercrombie and fitch\">abercrombie<\/a>-attired neighbor, matt.&nbsp; he is young, short of stature, innocent of eye, fresh of face, italian of descent, and loose of boyfriend; my neighbor is gay (i hope?) like me.&nbsp; of course i am almost 20 years his senior, and somewhat reclusive (interpreted, i hope, as enchantingly mysterious).&nbsp; i am probably viewed by him as somewhat strange.&nbsp; he and i seem to be up all night, every night lately.&nbsp; he comes and goes til about 5 am which is when he sleeps, i think.&nbsp; on those rare occasions when our paths do cross, he gives me a look that <i>might<\/i> be saying, &#8220;gawd!&nbsp; you&#8217;re <b>so<\/b> fucking desperate!&nbsp; will you get a <i><b>life<\/b>!&#8221;<\/i>&nbsp; but i like to think his shy, expressionless glance is saying in breathy, whispering needfulness, &#8220;did he notice me?&nbsp; doesn&#8217;t he want me?&nbsp; isn&#8217;t he <i>ever<\/i> going to grab me and press me against the wall and hold me as i faint?&nbsp; well, <i>isn&#8217;t he!?!<\/i>&#8220;.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;<br \/>\nwell, it <i>is<\/i> possible.&nbsp; remotely.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\nin the end it is all intellectual dishonesty, a game that i am drawn to no less nor more than anyone else, a game i would gladly play with matt, because we humans are a species that does very much love to lie.&nbsp; come matt, come lie with me.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>lie it&#8217;s midnight, and i&#8217;m just getting started.&nbsp; (maybe i should move to new york.)&nbsp; i unplugged the phone today, about an hour after i plugged it back in from being unplugged since yesterday.&nbsp; &lt;sigh&gt;&nbsp; where is this tedious place?&nbsp; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/?p=54\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[99],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-new-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/burgwinkel.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}