Paging Dr. House

When you're planning something you've never done before and you're not busy thinking of ways it could go wrong, you're consumed by the potential of what you're doing. I wrote down a fantasy of mine today, and it occurred to me that the people I talk to this summer might tell me their fantasies instead of true-to-life love stories, or at least might embellish the truth to turn crushes into lovers, prostitutes into mistresses, and "it's not you, it's me" breakups into "the bitch cheated on me" breakups. I'm not sure what to do about that short of offering each of my correspondents a sodium pentothol cocktail before the interview, so I've resolved to believe everything I hear while I'm sitting down with them listening to their story. Skepticism can wait until I'm back in the car. After all, the way in which the storyteller lies says a lot about the storyteller, and the reader's choices about what to believe say a lot about the reader. The fine dance of those near-identical twins fantasy and reality will add a certain texture to the stories. It's not even clear which twin will teach us more about love.