the video doesn't lie

i thought i'd gamboled up that warped wall like a gazelle, hoisted myself to the top victoriously, and gracefully slid back down the pole to rejoin my teammates.

no.

i crawled up like a sloth, dragged myself up laboriously, and slid down awkwardly.

i've always been ugly and awkward. 

now i'm also old, fat, and slow.

i have finally figured out . . .

. . . that i am never going to make it. 
but i will keep faking it until i finally fucking die.

Shhhh . . .

I'm lying by omission and coerced inference, at least a little, when I say I've had plenty of time to miss you. I'm sure I actually would miss you if you were gone much longer, but for now I'm enjoying you being gone.

God forgive and help me.

Smart aleck comment I bit my tongue on instead

"My brother-in-law is trying to poison me," she jested after encountering a bad hard-boiled egg.

"Tell him I'm not paying him until the job's done," I realized (barely in time, but fortunately) I shouldn't say in reply!

I don't think that would have been received as I would have intended it.

She isn't the one I'd want him to poison.

Challenge

"Get your head in a good place," she said.

"Yeah. Good luck with that," replied my head.

What sort of person???

Don't put those shirts back in my room. 

Where are you taking that ironing board?

Into the sewing room.

Why?

To press my shirts.

I don't want that in my room.

i don't leave it in there.

(never freaking mind the minimal amount of room it occupies standing folded up in the corner if i did, i don't say out loud)

Why do you need to do that in there anyway?

Well, the iron's already in there, and it's a convenient space. It's just easier.

(Silence.)

You don't mind me using your iron, too, do you?

Actually, I do.

Okay. Can you explain why?

Well, the only reason I can think of I asked for a new iron for myself for my birthday, not for the house. 

Really? i have to have my own ironing board and (crappy old) iron and space, even if i put everything away every time, because you don't want to share your nice new stuff even with me, and even when I bought it for you? Are you afraid I'm going to break your fancy new iron somehow? Do you think I want to overpay for another one to replace it if I do?

More significantly: what do you think our life together is supposed to be about, exactly?

Another day in paradise (by the dashboard light). As anti-marriage as that song is, there's another reason I hate it.

Another lie

They've been the same from the very beginning, but what they all come down to is:

It's okay to decide for yourself (or, to all of humanity, among yourselves) what is right and what is wrong. 

Isn't that the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? But what is the true, long-term fruit of that tree? Isn't it relativism?

I prefer to trust in my loving Father, who both knows and truly wants what is best for me, rather than in the mass of humanity whose chief interest lies in each of ourselves.

So when humanity insists that my sin is not so bad, a normal part of human nature, or even laudable and beneficial, it might appeal to my natural - and, I should be honest: selfish - inclinations. But it will not ultimately result in my becoming the person my loving Father dreams for me to become: the image and bodily presence of His beloved Son.

The arrogance of self-determinism underlies all the deadly sins and undermines all virtue.