So I realized I was doing the online DC tax form wrong, and when I ended up correcting myself I managed to score a refund. Not as large as the federal one, but still impressive. I'm happy about that.

On a tangent, I realized two weekends ago that I'm a pretty lousy listener. I tend to either let people drone on continuously or interrupt them with pointless questions. On the other hand, I'm an excellent interrogator: within about a minute I can normally tell if someone is lying to me, or isn't telling the whole truth, and within five minutes I usually am able to extract key details that shed greater light on the story in question.

The real problem, with my listening skills and interrogation tendencies, is simple interest: everyone wants to tell stories to other people, but no one is really interested in listening to them. The trick is to either buy into the social compact, politely listen to someone describing how boring their day was and how Unbelievably Hard it is to do Their Very Important Job, only to allow yourself to go off on a rant the minute they finish about Your Super-Mega Important Job. I'm not a huge fan of this technique. I'd rather have people tell me my story is boring, and stop there. The other method is to embellish beyond rational belief: this way your stories are interesting, even if what actually happened wasn't. Instead of saying you went to get lunch and the line was long, simply say you walked in right after a robbery and the cashiers were being interviewed by the police. Through a few facts into the mix and it becomes a cool story. Instead of being late to work because you were out late partying, have a gas explosion in your neighborhood. Or a car accident that you witnessed. Everything's fair game, right?

That's what I've noticed lately: people seem to lie almost without compunction. There's the usual "oh, i'm fine" distraction, or the more nuanced "i had a bad day at work" when obviously work isn't the issue. I spent a good hour talking to a young woman last week about this guy who went on a few dates with her. It was clear from the beginning that something didn't add up in her story: when I called her on it she added more relevant details but by that point the story made even less sense.

That, in the end, is the cost of lying: once you lose veracity, you can't get it back. As soon as you start to shade the truth in a way that appears inappropriate (ie, not for comic effect or to explain a larger meta-narrative), everything takes on a certain hue of denial. At that point all you can do, if one is as socially awkward as I occasionally act, is to keep pushing until you break their will to lie. Not a pretty sight, in the end. Better to keep yourself surrounded by white lies, by the thoughts that everything is fine, that nothing is wrong.

Of course, in my case, it helps to have a fairly charmed (even if star-crossed) life. I mean, I'm sitting in a house with enough technology to run a third-world country. I have enough credit to buy a car tomorrow if I wanted to. My house is cool, but I can sit outside and not give a damn about anyone else. Why would I need to lie? Things are too good to need icing right now...

Which reminds me: the blue room is opening up May 10th or at the end of June, depending on a person applying to live here. If any of you know some people that are interested in living in the best house in the city, send them my way, okay? Thanks. Time to remove the contacts and begin the shutdown procedure.