Prompt: New name. Let’s meet again, for the first time. If you could introduce yourself to strangers by another name for just one day, what would it be and why?
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Unless I’m reflecting on being a complete jacktard and manifesting a future in the witness protection program, I am absolutely unclear about the point of this question. Beyond that, I actually find the suggestion that I write an answer to it offensive. Look, I’ve been giving reverb10 the college try. I’ve been planning a whole post wrapping it up where I talk about my resistance but also the positive value of doing it, and I really have found taking it on primarily positive. But this prompt makes me want to slap not only the idiot who wrote this prompt but also Gwen Bell for thinking that this prompt was worthy of more than three thousand people’s time. I mean, even if every single person refuses to write on it, we all had to consider it for 30 seconds. And that’s 30 seconds I’ll never get back. (By the way, I’m sorry for making you spend 30 seconds on it, too. I’m kind of an asshole.)
I actually didn’t mind this one too much, but maybe it’s because I kind of have an alternate name (last name that starts with a first name which confuses everyone, so they call me that one). But in general, I agree with you about being kind of over reverb10. I found the prompt from the goddess author particularly awful. On the other hand, I’ve found a lot of interesting bloggers that I wouldn’t otherwise have found — the ones I like best are also struggling with it, I’ve noticed.
Look at the bright side — we’ve only got a little over a week left!
I was (maybe still am) planning a whole post on how fascinating I find everybody’s (and by everybody I mean the tiny handful of bloggers I know who are doing this this) resistance to this thing.
Brenda – yes, finding new bloggers I wouldn’t otherwise have found has definitely been a positive for me, too! And thanks for stopping by and commenting!
A – I’ve been thinking a lot about my resistance, and I think a good bit of it stems from when I feel like a prompt is too “closed” if that makes sense. The more open the prompt, the more I feel like I can fit myself into it. But so, for example, today’s just felt so ridiculous to me. I mean, what was I supposed to say? Jennifer? Natasha? And what difference does it make? At a certain point I think it makes sense to be fed up with the whole thing. And, interestingly, I’ve noticed that Gwen Bell herself is not writing on all the prompts on her blog, which does irritate me more than probably it should.
I actually thought this one was kind of interesting. Perhaps a bit absurd in the context of the whole project, but I like the idea that we have images in our heads that go with certain names and whether we think our own names match those images. Guess I should actually write my response rather than go into detail here!
My pseudonym is an actual name, so I’d be tempted to use that. Thing is, my real name? I think it’s perfect for me. So this prompt…reminds me of Anne of Green Gables wanting to be called Cordelia, which is one of those details that made me hate that book. Seriously, hatred for Anne of Green Gables. For so many reasons.
I heart Anne of Green Gables. On this we must agree to disagree
That said, I, like you, think my real name is perfect for me. As a kid I do recall having some irritation at the fact that my name can’t really be transformed into a nickname, but as an adult I’m really glad of that, actually. I don’t know. I think NK is right that names carry certain associations with them, and maybe my problem with the prompt is that the exercise of picking a different name is about wanting to be somebody other than who I am? And I’m actually really happy with who I am right now? And this is also why I’d be unlikely to take a husband’s last name if I married, because I’m really attached to my name in all its parts?
I actually considered responding to the prompt by picking an alternate name for Dr. Crazy, which would be my own actual name, which I thought was amusing, except for I feel like that’s just way too convoluted for the purposes of this, and I don’t actually want to come out on the blog, so there you go.
This discussion is making me realize that I liked this prompt because I’ve always hated my name and wish that my mother had won the argument to name me something else. That, and too many 18th-century novels make me wish my name were Fanny. Yes, I know that would have made me miserable as a child, but there’s just something about the name that I love.
I thought this was related to the idea that names of things are important and convey some kind of meaning about the thing itself, like in A Wrinkle in Time (I think). That said it does seem a little forced.
I’m not doing this reverb thing, so I can’t really complain or rejoice about the prompts. But I’ve never wanted to have any other name than my own (my first name is a totally boring and common name for someone my age, but has always just felt like “me”).
Oddly, since commenting on numerous blogs under the name “helenesch,” which is actually my middle name plus the first three letters of my last name, I feel an affinity with my middle name, Helene, which I had not previously liked or felt connected to. (Hmm… maybe it’s not a pseudonym at all for me, since it’s a legitimate part of my name, just not the part that people recognize or use to address me.)
By the time you are a relatively well balanced adult, I suspect we’ve made our names our own… though as a child, there were times when I wanted a more exotic one.
I wanted to do this in theory but decided not to after the first couple of cheesier prompts. I think our little corner of the academic blogosphere should do our own version of this next year (haha like I’ve blogged in three years).
Everyone loves Anne with an E except for me. I have come to accept this.
YEAH! FUCKE REVERBE!!!!!!!!!!