Social conformity, self-involvement; or, 25 Random Facts.

1. It takes me a few seconds too long to edit my thoughts for conversation; therefore, I feel I am best in writing.
   
2. I once had a promising career in freestyle rhyme battling; that’s as much as I’ll ever reveal about that.
   
3. My favorite snacks include avocado + anything, apple slices + peanut butter, pineapple + cottage cheese, and pudding.
   
4. A deep love for flowers causes me to buy/pick them compulsively.
   
5. Compliments still make me uncomfortable.
   
6. I pretend they don’t.
   
7. An impulse to document moments comes from an intense anxiety over losing my memory and/or mind.
   
8. My earliest memory is of my mother holding me on her lap as she showed me a rainbow through a glass of water on a sunny day.
   
9. What made me saddest as a child was seeing people beg for money at the border crossing in Mexico. I vowed that I’d make enough money one day to hand out bills to all those in need; however, foreseeing wasteful expenditures, I planned on attaching notes to the bills, listing examples of good spending. (...I was an odd child.)
10. What made me happiest as a child was climbing haystacks with my grandpa’s giant hay hooks. And Babysitter’s Club books.
    
11. I will miss Italy until I make my home there.
    
12. If I could pick up a talent overnight, it’d be playing the guitar. Like a rockstar.
    
13. On rare and inspired occasions, I’ll take a caffeine pill in the middle of the night and let the world change colors for me. I get pages and pages of writing out of those experiences. I’m left with the only kind of exhaustion I like.
    
14. The degree of my silliness is known to few people. I am fighting to maintain composure constantly.
    
15. This summer, I tried converting my common nickname from “Fabi” to “Anna”, but it only really caught on with the Starbucks employees.
    
16. I suspect the life I inhabited before entering the world anew on March 3, 1986 was one of a young woman with flowers in her hair and love in her eyes. She followed nothing in particular across the country, toting her own guitar. Her first loves were The Doors. She died of heartbreak.
    
17. I dislike one-word responses to texts, and nondescript playlist names.
    
18. I’m dreadful at playing cool.
    
19. My tendency towards reclusion is becoming more and more apparent to me. Lately my life has been characterized by withdrawal from society, followed by fleeting reemergence, then back to withdrawal again. It is a cycle I am only minding now but unsure I’ll ever break.
    
20. Made-up words are tossed around my head constantly. I love when made-up words turn out to be real (see: reclusion, above).
    
21. I subscribe to three magazines—Glamour, Rachel Ray, and Rolling Stone. Interpret from that what you will.
    
22. I have many interpretations for love. The most conventional is my most seldom used.
    
23. I prefer toting pad and pencil, not laptop, to coffee shops. This is not an attempt to be indie cool.
    
24. When I can manage it, I take my outdoor runs minutes before dusk. The setting sun veils the countryside with a romantic, antiqued glow and lends the physical exertion an almost ethereal high. I’m likely to be bitten by a rattlesnake soon, though…which I’m not looking forward to.
    
25. Somehow, I’ll always find it productive to create a playlist. Or any list, for that matter. (Exhibit #1…)