Got friends locked in boxes

Back in ye olde days of Facebook -- back when it was still mostly a place for college students to meet friends and find dates, rather than a place to get bombarded with Buzzfeed quizzes and political arguments -- the "About Me" section of your profile was a crucial part of your page. These days, you can still find the About Me section buried deep in the "About" tab, under "Details about You," but it used to be the crown jewel of your Facebook wall. Most of my friends carefully crafted their About Me sections, or else deliberately and defiantly kept them sparse, like my good friend and future bridesmaid whose About Me unchangingly and accurately stated simply: "Really big feet."

(Incidentally, I encourage everyone who's had a Facebook for six or more years to dig deep into their profiles to see what their About Me sections look like these days. I'd bet most of us forgot about the existence of About Mes four or more years ago.)

In typical Linda fashion, when I was in college I put a lot of thought into my About Me and cultivated it according to my own weird set of rules. For years, my About Me was a series of factual statements about myself that 1) people wouldn't be likely to know, 2) my friends might find mildly interesting, and 3) didn't give away anything I wasn't willing to share. To keep it fresh, I'd put out a new About Me section every few months. Also in typical Linda fashion, every time I created a new About Me section, I'd save and archive the old sections in a gmail draft (for posterity, but mostly to ensure that I wouldn't repeat any fun facts as I went along, like some kind of hack who wasn't awesome at About Me sections).

I completely forgot about my About Me archive (and about About Mes in general) until today, when I was deleting obsolete email drafts from my gmail account and ran across it.

Obviously, I've decided to copy and paste all of my historical About Me sections below. Surveying the lot, I'm simultaneously amused and a little flabbergasted by the sheer volume of writing that I managed to accumulate. While I didn't keep timestamps, I estimate that these About Mes date from roughly 2007, while the last draft I saved was from June 2011.

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My name is Linda. I recycle. I don't like Trivial Pursuit because I'm terrible at it. My music taste has, on average, changed significantly every three years or so. It's easy for me to mentally mix up conversations that I don't have in person. Turtlenecks look ridiculous on me. I wish I could get by on a smaller amount of sleep. It's hard for other people to tell when I'm excited about something. Working at the Dress Barn made me fear middle age but look forward to being elderly. My dream job will never be a real job unless I figure out how to pursue three different careers at once. I've been asked a surprising amount of times if "Linda" is short for anything. It's not.

My name is Linda. I constantly feel like I need to buy another pair of jeans. People tell me I have really small feet. Figuring out what time it is when it's presented in military/European-style takes me way longer than it should. I refuse to buy wide ruled notebooks. The snow scenes in Calvin and Hobbes always falsely get me excited for making snow sculptures that are far beyond what I'm actually capable of. I don't like the new food pyramid. No matter how I dye my hair, it always fades back to the exact same shade of Not My Real Color. I haven't had stereotypical fast food in over a year. I have no idea how zippers work. My backpack is about ten years old. The punch-buggy car fad was the worst thing that ever happened to my elementary school bus riding days.

My name is Linda. For some reason I still remember the fight songs for my high school, middle school, and elementary school. I've had about seven or eight "serious" injuries and more than half of them were due to me tripping over something/myself. I have seven step-nieces and nephews. If I discover a Law and Order marathon on TV, the rest of my day will be wasted. My computer is six years old. Usually I have weirdly realistic dreams. I think baseball is deliriously boring but since you asked: Cubs. I've never used a lawn mower. I compulsively crack my knuckles but not my back or my neck out of fear that somehow I'd turn the wrong way and paralyze myself. I think airports are cool. After watching a few home movies from around 1990, my sister and I discovered that we have video documentation of her halfheartedly trying to kill or injure me on like six separate occasions.

My name is Linda. I've learned and promptly forgotten the rules of football at least three times. I'll only join Facebook groups that have properly capitalized titles. Giant Drop is my favorite Six Flags ride despite the fact that it murders people. In Mario Kart, I'm Toad. I stopped dyeing my hair after doing so regularly for 7 years, to find that my real hair color isn't really close to what I thought it was. I'm inconsistently both a great and a terrible driver. Recently I've become as addict of both The Office and The West Wing DVD sets. I think movie sequels are cop-outs, no matter how good they are. One of my life goals is to ride in a hot air balloon. I never went through a brooding angsty stage as a teenager, so at this point I'm really hoping it happens completely inappropriately when I'm around 45.

My name is Linda. I always wish I had mint gum with me but I never get around to buying any. I'll remember practically anything once I write it down. Slow circulation has rendered me incapable of giving blood, but I always feel guilty about passing the booths. I store bread in the freezer for no other reason than "that's the way my mom does it." Despite consuming it regularly, caffeine has never become an addiction for me. I crack my knuckles. The recent cicada infestation of IWU has made me paranoid and spazzy when walking outside. As far as I know, I'm not really allergic to anything. I would consider giving up my own personality if it meant I could take Tina Fey's. When buying used books, I retroactively judge the person who owned the book before me based on the highlighting/comments he/she made in it.

My name is Linda. I've seen every single episode of Boy Meets World, Growing Pains, and Gilmore Girls.  I don't like shopping for shoes. When I meet people, I unconsciously tend to assume that their parents are divorced until they tell me otherwise. I have a horrible sense of direction but I'm good at reading maps. Despite working in food service for three years now, I don't really know how to cook. Before I die I want to become fluent in French and Polish. I've never had a cavity. When I have big projects or assignments I tackle them right away and get done early, but for everyday or simple tasks I procrastinate horribly. I named my car Phoebe. When I was a year old, my mom let me choose my first Christmas tree ornament myself, and I picked a ceramic cow.

My name is Linda. I haven't bought new notebooks for over a year. I can't sleep when my pillow is too fluffy, but I sleep perfectly fine without one at all. For no real reason other than habit and upbringing, I barely ever use any swear words. I don't like skipping class. Thanks to this horrendous winter I've become physically and emotionally dependent on hand lotion. I don't eat hot, prepared meals very often. I'm not a sports fan, but if I happen to be paying attention to a game I'm capable of getting surprisingly invested in it. I'm the only person from my high school graduating class who came to IWU. I have a hard time remembering sequences of numbers for more than 10 seconds.

My name is Linda. I have a weird aversion to using forks. I like jobs that involve some sort of manual labor. Thanks to inconsistent reports at the doctor's office, I'm really not sure how tall I am.  I sing in the car but not in the shower. I've more or less stopped using AIM, which would have been inconceivable to 15-year-old me. I don't really understand why going to the movies is considered a social activity. I went to prom as a sophomore, but not as a junior or senior. Because I do it so rarely, I think I look really strange and out of place in dressy clothing and always wonder if other people think so too. When I was in fourth grade a kid made fun of me for smiling too much. If I'd been alive before 1920, I wouldn't have been classified as white.

My name is Linda. I really need a haircut. I love browsing through the housewares section of department stores, which makes me feel like I must be nearing adulthood. I can identify a surprising number of dog breeds. I've never solved a Rubik's cube, though I've never been patient enough to really try. I'm a non-smoker. Tornadoes don't scare me as much as they probably should. My face, like my sister's, tends to unconsciously express whatever I'm thinking, which I take to mean we should never play poker. I think IQ tests are silly and misleading. Every time I have to travel by airplane, I'm always a little let down by the dramatic difference between how cool the concept of airplanes is compared to how cramped and boring flights actually are.

My name is Linda. I regularly confuse the words "cavalry" and "Calvary" when I say them aloud. Relative to most people I know of both sexes, I don't own very many pairs of shoes. I have an unhealthy love for Velveeta cheese. For the first 10-13 years of my life, if you asked, I would have identified myself as blonde. I'm aware of having dreams almost every night, and I usually remember them upon waking. My favorite trees are ginkgoes. Minimum wage has gone up $2.75 since I started working. I'm not addicted to caffeine despite my dubiously frequent coffee consumption. A lot of cosmetics products kind of scare me. I really want to be friends with Emma Thompson, even though she's middle-aged, famous, and in England. There's a consensus among my friends that I wouldn't look half bad with a shaved head.

My name is Linda. I've never lost my cell phone. Every new year I feel like it's really important for me to buy a pocket calendar/planner, and every year I wind up barely using it. I love cornbread. If I'm sleepy during the day, it's probably because I got too much sleep the night before rather than too little. I'm excited for summer so I can finally stop wearing closed-toed shoes or shirts with sleeves. Samus is my Super Smash Bros character of choice. No matter the chair I'm in, I'm probably sitting cross-legged. I'm better at saving money than I am at spending it. I don't understand why anyone would ever buy a cappuccino. Given that I have accepted the fact that I'm a generally klutzy person, I feel a little grateful every day I come back from my waitressing job without spilling lemonade or cajun chicken pasta on a guest.

My name is Linda. I like talking to people on the phone, but it takes forever for me to stop being lazy and dial a number. I think reading from hardcover books is awkward and annoying. The other night I had a dream that my car rolled into a lake. I don't understand why knuckle-cracking bothers some people so much. My handwriting has gotten noticeably worse since I graduated college. I love solving jigsaw puzzles but for some reason I view word searches as a huge waste of time. Generally, I give my hair fairly little time and attention. I sustain injuries without much complaint, but I get motion sick at the drop of a hat. I knew that I finally attained a "real" job when my nails were able to grow out without being broken by relentless dishwater and turning chairs over at the end of the night.

My name is Linda. I don't own a smart phone. I sporadically whiten my teeth with those gross, over-the-counter strips. My feet are unusually wide. I feel like I should actually learn how to spell Massachusetts before I move there. According to my mom, I was very nearly named Madeline. When I sign my name in cursive, none of the letters dip below the signature line. If my name were Madeline, that would still hold true. I'm not really sure why anyone puts china dishware on their wedding registries anymore. I think most TV shows go downhill after season 5, except for Law and Order, which is immortal. I hold pretty strong opinions, overall, which is offset by the fact that I'm also pretty accommodating, overall. I'm regularly horrified by fashion, particularly women's shoes.

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For the record, I now love Trivial Pursuit, but almost everything else in here is still pretty solid.