Day 19: Protecting the Innocent

As some of you may have noticed, I recently decided that everyone who appears in the blog should have an alias. It just seemed like the right thing to do. I mean, if I'm gonna write that ________ and I have gotten stoned some 2,000 times together, or that ________ has webbed feet, or that ________ and I once knocked over a liquor store, well, that might not be the sort of information a person wants floating around the world wide web.

Okay, so I made those last two up. You get the idea.

To add spice to the proceedings, I offered people the option of choosing their own names. I sent emails with at least one possibility, but the choice was theirs. Some, like Maggie, cycled through 276 nom de guerres before finally settling. Others, like Samantha, didn't really care, and were happy to accept whatever name I'd suggested (her husband, however, whom I love dearly despite the fact that he voted for W not once but twice, will be no doubt annoyed by my fittingly unilateral choice of "Bill," in honor of our former president. This also makes my point better than dope, duck feet, or armed robbery. I mean, talk about information you'd never want in the public domain.)

And then there's Bambi.

I never imagined I'd know a "Bambi" ... once I gave up my childhood dream of becoming a stripper, such possibilities kinda flew out the window. And yet, here I sit, slowly coming to terms with the fact that one of my five closest friends is now known to the world as Bambi. (My favorite response to Bambi's name came from Grace, who asked, completely deadpan, if it was because her mother had died.) Downright ironic, however, is that the person in question is as far from being a "Bambi" as you could possibly imagine, which, I assume, is exactly why she chose it. Either that, or she's trying to torture me (okay, so both reasons are no doubt working for her).

What's true across the board, however, is how people accept or dismiss names based on personal associations. Grace, for instance, wouldn't go for "Jo" because it was the name of a former lover's strap-on (so much for Little Women). My own reasons for rejection were far more mundane: I turned down, among many others, "Penny" (a girl who tried to beat me up in 7th grade), "Diana" (too dead princess), "Suzanne" (too Somers) and "Cousin" (sorry, but you're stuck with "Mom," although I did appreciate someone's smart-aleck suggestion that you try spelling it backwards).

I have to admit I already miss the real names, and not just because it was a satisfying way to "out" people who've pissed me off (that's right, "Heather" - I'm talking to you). I guess I feel that no matter how necessary, it's one small step away from the truth, and telling the truth is the crux of this entire experiment. Plus, it gave me comfort to see my friends' real names.

But hey, if I can finally hang out with a Bambi, who am I to complain?