1. I have a hard time filling out these ‘Random Things About Me’ lists. Even now I’m very self conscious about what I type here. Half of the time I worry about being shamelessly self-aggrandizing, the other half I worry that being normal may be seen as a deliberate attempt to be ‘lookit me, I’m so righteously humble.’ Apparently,

2. I over analyze. Or perhaps, I’m guilty of exposing myself by the lens through which I fear being seen.

3. I’m worried about being seen as arrogant or fake. One then wonders, is that because I am either

4. Secretly very arrogant or

5. Secretly very fake? I hope that I am neither, but I recognize that my personality harbors elements of both. Compare this to being told that:

6. I channel pre-school teacher. Someone I love told me that once, and I was hurt by that. I wasn’t sure why, I just knew that was an incorrect analysis of what I was, and realizing the incongruence between my inside (Abez Soup) and my outside (Preschool Teacher?) made me feel incredibly artificial.

7. I hate pretending.

8. I’m wondering where I’m going with this, and whether I’m exposing way too much of myself instead of just filling out sixteen silly things like

9. I once met Morgan Freeman and

10. I own silver sneakers.

Pretending is a kid in camo pants. Being is a soldier in camo. My preschool teacher exterior is not the candy coating, it’s the work of years of nafs-beating, lip-biting, hard-earned restraint. 11. I am not pretending to be nicer than I am, I am being nicer than I want to be, given that I am

12. Impatient

13. Self-Righteous and

14. Naturally inclined to vengeance. My façade is not to keep the light of prying eyes out, it’s to keep the darkness restrained within.

I think I’ve lost direction on this. Also, this may be way more than anyone has ever wanted to know about me. (So, did I tell you about my sneakers yet?) I think this meme and the preschool teacher comment just happen to come at the same time, and when I sat down to fill out that one silly list, I came up with this silly one instead.

What’s the moral of this story? You might not want to dismiss “nice people” you meet as being one-dimensionally Good, any more than you should be absolutely certain that patch of leaves isn’t a commando.

15. I talk too much.

16. I rearrange the furniture every time HF goes on a bidness trip. Where’s your sofa now, HA!