My name is L.M. Rawlins.

I am in my late twenties, but apparently can pass for much younger.

I am a girl in search of… well, everything.

I don’t like labels, so I try to define myself by the little things rather than the big ones.

I may be one of the most soft-spoken people you’ll ever meet. The only true exceptions to this are either when I’m in a classroom setting or when I’m drunk. Lord only knows how interesting taking me to class while drunk would be.

When we first moved into what would become the family home, my brother left our Game Boy outside overnight. When I went to pick it up the next day, earwigs began crawling out of it. I threw it across the yard and have been petrified by earwigs ever since.

I love paper. My house is full of scraps, of old spiral notebooks and loose sheets of five-year-old college assignments, of cardstock and construction paper.

Sometimes I will try to relate something you say to episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It’s probably the geekiest thing about myself.

I own four pairs of glasses. One broke, one doesn’t have any lenses in them, one has the wrong prescription in them (they’re vintage), and I’m wearing the last pair.

If I start giggling, it’s hard for me to stop.

There are days where I miss drinking Diet Coke. I used to drink a can’s worth every other day (I’ve always had a hard time finishing a can of soda), but now ginger ale and I are exclusive.

I have a modest collection of vintage scarves. They go well with my not-as-modest collection of cardigans.

Growing up on a small Air Force base in Tuscon, all the kids walked to and from school. One day, as I was heading home, this small chihuahua began barking at me. I walked by it, not thinking anything of it, until it began chasing me. I ran the entire way home, little dog nipping at my heels. Chihuahuas still freak me out to this day.

To say that I love learning is a gross understatement.

My teeth were in really bad shape when I was young due to my thumbsucking. To fix it, I had to wear braces for about five years. I’m still really self-conscious about my smile.

I started playing the violin in the fifth grade after watching my cousin Jamie play. Over the years, I would go on to learn the cello, viola, doublebass, and the bells.

… maybe little dogs and I just don’t get along in general, for when I was fairly young (five? six?) I distinctly remember this little puppy biting me on my ankle and my response was to pick it up and bite it back.

I prefer British grammar rules to American grammar rules, especially when it comes to comma usage.

For all of the friends that I have who play video games, I really don’t have that much of an interest in them anymore.

I have a small scar on my bottom lip. It’s really small, and I’m usually the only person who notices it. It’s from when I fell on my face in the Philippines when I was about eighteen months old, and I’d like to think that’s part of the reason I haven’t been back since.

I wrote my first poem when I was seven years old. In some ways, I don’t believe there’s been much growth from then to now.

What I’ve wanted to be when I grew up, in chronological order: writer > games journalist > director > environmental engineer > scholar > librarian > writer > print journalist > graphic designer > writer > game localization…ist > photographer > games journalist > writer > academic > myself

I am a sucker for bespectacled people who are well read.

Am I smart? Well, smart enough to know that I’m really not as intelligent as people think I am.

I used to bite my nails until about a year ago, and overcoming that has been one of the greatest victories of mine. (Sometimes I still bite my pinkies, but hey, you win some and lose some.)

If you are taller than me, I will most likely try to use you as a shield and hide behind you during awkward social situations (i.e. all social situations).

I took ballet lessons for a while when I was in the second grade, but ended up skipping them in order to read an eighth grade textbook I’d found in the neighborhood. (Oddly enough, when I got to the eighth grade — and in a completely different state, mind you — that very same book was the one assigned to us for that year.)

Starting last fall, my mission has been to never leave the house looking shlubby. Operation Look Cute All The Time has been a modest success so far.