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100 things about me, #78-100:

78. I blow my nose very, very loudly.

79. My sleeping self (and my semi-sleeping self, which might seem like an awake self but really isn’t) is an entirely different creature from my waking self. She’s mean, she’s rude, she doesn’t love you, and sometimes she bites. Beware. It isn’t me doing and saying these horrible things. I swear. In the morning, I won’t even be conscious of having done them.

80. I do much better with people on a 1 on 1 basis, rather than in group situations. A group being three people or more.

81. I have performed with: Maya Angelou, Sid Caesar, Staceyann Chin, Rosemary Clooney, Quincey Troupe, Roger Bonair-Agard, Marti McConnell, Eugene Redmond, Reggie Gibson, Naomi Ayala, Uchechi Kalu, June Jordan, and Big Bird, among others.

82. I have seen the death of a great many people directly connected to me:

* Mom-Mom (Edna Fields), my surrogate grandmother * Pop-Pop, my surrogate grandfather * Aunt Barbara, my grandfather’s sister * Uncle Ben, my great uncle * Miss Fredonia, my great aunt’s sister * Mrs. Goolsby (“Aunt Boots”) and Mr. Goolsby, miscellaneous older relatives * Grandma Joseph, my cousin’s grandmother * Emily Leaphart (“Miss Emily”), an early caregiver of mine * Rudolph Leaphart, (“Mister Rudolph”) an early caregiver of mine * Morris Leaphart, an early caregiver of mine and love interest of my mother * Ben Nizliolek, a high school friend * Jen O’Hare, a friend and would-be future lover * One of my classmates in the 3rd grade, whose name I cannot remember * My grandfather on my mother’s side * Coleen Gragen, head of my martial arts school * June Jordan, teacher, mentor, poet, idol, would-be future friend.

83. I know people who have never been to a funeral. I have been to more of them than I can count on two hands and a foot. At my grandfather’s viewing, my cousin and I went into a side room (at the funeral home) and laughed hysterically until tears streamed down our cheeks.

84. I would like to be cremated. I do not wish to be “viewed,” nor to have a funeral. Please don’t let anyone put a Catholic Mass on top of me.

85. I don’t like to make fun of people or to talk about them nastily behind their backs. Unless the person has wronged me. And in that case, I still only tell the truth. And don’t try to convince others that they’re bad people and that one shouldn’t like them, because they’ve been yucky to me.

86. I don’t like to listen to people try to convince me that other people are bad and that I shouldn’t like them, because they’ve been yucky to them.

87. I don’t like to judge people on the basis of their writing. Nor do I like to dwell on writing that does not move me. Granted, I’ve never dated anybody who has called him or her self a writer, whose writing has not moved me.

88. I’m rather contradictory.

89. I used to be a complete kleptomaniac. When I was a little kid.

90. Bowling for Columbine was the best film I’ve seen all year. Possibly the best film I’ve seen in several years.

91. I bit a little girl when I was in the first grade. On the cheek. Hard. Because I liked her. I think.

92. If I had to check off a little box for religion, I’d probably choose “Buddhist,” although I don’t really interact with Buddhism as a religion. I interact with it more as a philosophy.

93. My middle name is Serena. I feel no connection with it whatsoever.

94. To date, I’ve never had a professional massage, though I love to massage people and offer it up as often as I can.

95. I love women. Love them.

96. I think that war is necessarily a bad thing.

97. I think that there is no such thing as peace-keeping military action, nor do I believe that the United States fights for freedom.

98. I don’t feel safe in a world with the United States in it.

99. Not in Our Name. Not in Your Name (gentle reader). Not in My Name.

100. Freedom is one of my favorite words, ever. I don’t like to see it misused or abused.