Sometimes you just have to keep your mouth shut. If you lie, you break a code of honor. Yet if you say anything, all hell breaks loose. So rather than lose the home field advantage, we practice deception by omission.

Shh. It's our little secret, and it's true.

I don't generally lie, but I'll keep quite a few things to myself if I can help it. Things that I don't generally want people to know about me. They're not earth-shattering -- just little things. Vices. Ambitions. Thoughts.

For instance, my secret sin is Wrath. Few people know this because I'm always smiling like a loon, but hell hath no fury like April in her raging mode. The public never sees this, not even some of my closest friends. This is because 1) it takes a lot to get me angry, and 2) I get downright irrational and monstrous when I do get angry.

I remember snapping at one of the girls during a high school cheer practice when my level of irritation just couldn't take it any more. It was only a sharp word or two, but a tangible hush fell upon the entire cheersquad that afternoon. I was nowhere near full-blown anger, yet everyone was awed because up until then I had never shown a single frown; I was always the accomodating and easygoing one.

Naturally that little outburst was nothing compared to the day I went to Disneyland to meet with some online friends. I invited my friend Bill for some support, and he in turn invited his friends from college. My purpose for the entire day was to spend some time getting to know my online acquaintances, but I never got to do that, and for some strange reason, that really pissed me off; I found myself blaming it on poor Bill and his friends. I gave them the fuming silent treatment on the way home, the tension in the car so thick it reeked.

[Bill, if you're reading this, I'm so sorry about my being such a witch that night. All I can say is that I have issues.]

But at least Bill never had to experience the full blast of my wrath. Only my family and my boyfriend have ever seen me scream my head off. I've actually had a blood vessel in my eye burst during one of my rages. Not a pretty picture, let me assure you. It's just one of many reasons that I keep my sin of Wrath a secret.

Secret dream? To be a successfully published writer and artist -- and I mean in actual print media, like books and magazines. It won't happen if I don't send my stuff out to the publishers, but since it's a secret ambition (shh!), I don't do anything that even hints at my goal -- you know, <expression emotion="wry"> like sending my work out to publishers and editors </expression>.

Secret thoughts?

Aw. Get your mind out of the gutter. Think I'd tell anyone those? I once told a good friend that I had a crush on one of the ROTC drummers. *Sigh* She immediately started flirting with him right in front of me.

So I say: "Never again." Far too painful allowing myself to be that vulnerable. That's why you're getting no secrets from me -- beyond my vice and ambition, that is.

Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies. In fact,...

I'm keeping my mouth shut.