Sheesh. I thought you knew me.

Five things you didn't know about me:

1) I am scared of the dark. This has come to be highlighted by my recent viewings of LOST, three to four episodes at a time. For the first time I'm really feeling like "Hey, maybe I need a man around the house!" I have to do this bizarre Tarzan-y like swinging through the house, going forward and turning on a light, then going back and shutting the last one off. And I've taken to sleeping in my office because it's less creepy than my bedroom. I know, being scared of the dark is something you're supposed to outgrow and I never did. And yes, singing to myself makes it better. And yes, I do. There must be therapy for this.

2) I have a little dent on the top of my left ear where it just kinda flattens out. I thought this was pretty cool, but that was back in my teen years, when being weird was a badge of honor. I got an ear piercing up there that kinda swings over it, so no one notices. Fun fact: my cousin who just visited from Paris has the same one. Apparently ear oddities run in the Khazai family. You figure I'd get the family green eyes or the amazing high cheekbones. Can you say "short end of the stick"?

3) I've never seen Braveheart. Or Gladiator. Or anything in the Star Wars series except the first one. Nor do I want to. I went through life thinking I'd seen Star Wars, but really all I'd seen was a promo filmstrip my dad had. I didn't figure this out until recently. I should point out that it doesn't have the same appeal when your first time watching the whole thing is when you're 28 (which I was when I finally realized this gaping hole in my pop culture education and sat to watch it). Stop booing me or I won't continue.

4) I am extremely superstitious. I knock on wood (even though I heard it's a Christian thing to do so). I bite my hand when someone says something you hope would never happen (Persian thing). There is a HUGE evil eye hanging by my front door and another little one in my bedroom (note to self: get bigger evil eye for bedroom). I burn Persian incense whenever someone says many good things about me or someone else, or I even think them. I don't vacuum at night (even though I can't remember who told me it was bad luck). Yes, I even adopt superstitions I can't trace. So screw you people who send me forwarded chain letters! I read my horoscope religiously. As in, I wait up late the last night of the month to see what astrologyzone.com says is coming up for me. I go to a sidewalk psychic and think about it for years to come (can you say "self-fulfilling prophecy"?). I water the money tree in my 'career center' of my house religiously. Even though it's in the bathroom. It seems like I'd be this big old atheist, but I'm both superstitious and, get this... very very spiritual. (And not just in the "dear God, please give me a blackjack!" way. But that too.)

5) I don't want to be taller. I know, it seems inconceivable that someone 5'1 (for the record, I was 5'2" before I went to law school and carried books that proceeded to dwarf me) wouldn't want to be taller. But after I got through my childhood and adolescence I never for a single day wished to be even an inch taller. It's like I had my time battling the mean tall kids (that Andy Sternberg! (shaking fist)) I still kinda have an aversion to shrimp due to it being my unwanted nickname for so long. But I'm over it. Haven't wanted to be taller for like 10 years. Not even for a second. Thinner? Hell yeah (mostly because I could wear really cute flats all the time). But taller? Nope. I like that I fit in small spaces. I like that a 5'9 guy feels like a big giant in my world. And I will especially like it tomorrow when I fly freakin' Southwest and have to sit in row 35, you know, the one that doesn't recline.

Speaking of which, off to Phoenix tomorrow. Tune in next week for : Tales from the Desert, a Middle Eastern Memoir...

ps. I just went to check my blog and realized I'd posted this... on my company blog! AWKWARD. So for like 2 seconds the gory details of my weirdo life were dangling in front of writers everywhere. A day of that and I'd be the neurotic character in a novel!!!