If nobody calls your bluff, does that mean it didn't exist?

Because of its infinite reproductions, the Mona Lisa hanging in The Louvre was said to be fake. But whichever way you wish to go about it, the allure lies in her smile, not her authenticity.



Dinner was wonderful and the iced coffee, more so. I had my favorite french toast at UCC for free, courtesy of Illyria's mortal birthday. Like clockwork, conversation flowed continuously as everyone whipped out his/her arsenal of sarcastic retorts. We talked about the inevitability of old age, the insatiable appeal of money, high salaries and high costs of living, Dubai the impossible city, the 12-21-2012 apocalypse as predicted by the Mayans, Helvetica, The Virgin, our nurse friend in Wellington, New Zealand hippies living on solar energy, Jacko's propofol addiction, celebrities faking their deaths, Facebook, Illyria's newly acquired living space, her parents, our parents, and everything else that had been imperfect since Y2k.

As we downed glass after glass of lemon water, Barrycade was finally able to consume his fugly-looking coffee concoction. It was right then that I realized all my friends had been frauds.

It was a shock. Somewhere in the background, I heard the sound of crickets making noise outside to mask the scandal that had been. So while everyone became busy admitting themselves to this fiasco of a shrink session I now call Worrywarts Anonymous, I decided to pour the syrup over the francais-ed pieces of toasted bread. Concerns about my own fraudulence sashayed their way around the plate in between the slices of cinnamon bread. And on another rainy night like tonight, I realized we unraveled yet another faux pas.

We worry about money too much and too often. I thought I was alone, to be honest. I thought I had the most reason to panic about not having money than the rest of them because I'm the oldest and I've been the most occupationally vacant, the most emotionally unstable, the one without insurance or pension, the one without the property or tangible output; that while they've all been earning ginormous sums and building up their careers and resumes, I've been busy trying to be busy.

It is a breakthrough to find out that this is the one true thing that we all have in common. It makes so much sense now why lunch in the mall 10 years ago, meant having to reach a consensus in the classroom first. It's like the word "budget" is a mantra chanted only in the mind and wealth is the halo everyone stressed they saw each other have, yet nothing that anyone ever admitted to having.

Tonight's discussion gave me renewed fuel to the fire, a new excuse to act impulsively and abandon all arms. I want to get a new mobile phone against my better judgment. For real, I can't afford it but my 3-year old cellular is giving up on me already. I plan to test the theory of equilirium and Murphy's Law both at the same time and see if I'll soar to new heights or crash and burn, thereby effectively exposing my greatest scam: that if nobody calls my bluff, I exist.

Maybe I am a fraud, the type who can't really write, so I make up for it by poring over this entry like my future depended on it. Sacre bleu! If my experiment proves to be successful, I'd have something to smile about. But if it fails Les-miserably, then I'm toast. French toast. ☺