today i have

• had a small meltdown (actually quite a large one)
  
• helped diagnose a problem with DW (Dreamwidth)
  
• bought a membership for the DW (Discworld) Con in 2014
  
• sent the concom an e-mail containing (a) you're awesome (b) here's ways I can volunteer ps have some info on the accessibility of the closest station to the venue (c) can you reassure me on this point
  
• posted a thing wot needed posting
  
• eaten several meals
  
• taken delivery of an noldo and an woozl
  
• spent rather more time than is necessarily sensible gossiping very enjoyably about people's sex lives
  
• had ~thoughts~ (not least about how much self-expression i am doing in parentheses these days)
  
• done a tiny bit of work
  
• done some research on an aspect of my condition that was annoying me
  
• self-care. holy shit, self-care. so. much. self. care.

{guitars and drums and desperate poetry}

( Clarity )

2am poetry; this is a first draft, or really i suppose the second, because it changed between page and screen, but -- here, it is what i bring, it is what i have to offer.

[3W4DW] 17. How many people on your reading list do you know IRL?

All of them! To quote myself, languishing in a drafts folder elsewhere:

kaberett is not my wallet name - the name in my passport, on my Prescription Pre-payment Certificate, on my various institutional ID cards - but it is no less real for that. I am the only person using "kaberett" as a name; search the Internet and you'll get me, and a bunch of German-speakers using non-standard spellings.

My wallet name isn't the name under which I perform; it's not the name under which I write; it's not the name under which I have formed countless close friendships; it's not the name under which I provide sex education and health advice; but: it is no less real for that. There are two other people with my wallet name living in my area (one has a private pilot's licence; one spends a lot of time on student theatre), and I have at least one relative who (superficially) shares it.

Both names are real. Both names are equally real.

Both names are chosen.

Neither is the name I was given at birth.

I chose "kaberett" before I had settled on "Alex"; I decided on "Alex" because "kaberett" felt right.

Both names are patchwork: of who I am; of who I was; of who I hope to be. They started out too large: I echoed inside them and looked over my shoulder, unable to tell who was calling me. And then: I grew into my names, settled them on my shoulders like a coat, and I got out my scissors and my needles and my thread and I took them in where they were still too large; added in another stripe - another layer of nuance - where they constricted.

And I have worked for these names - for these identities - and they are consistent, solid, whole. I refuse to do either of them a disservice by relegating them to the status of "pseudonym" or "fake"; I refuse to countenance the question "Ah, but what is your real name?" - as if I could, should, have only one; as if my name should not be context-dependent; as if the name chosen for me by people who didn't yet know me is more real than my names.

---

We are fond of these distinctions, though: between "real life" and "online", as though they can be meaningfully separated; as though through the mediation of technology our actions become fantasy, our selves fantastical. Yes, online we can fly - but the communities we build are no less valid for that.

So then, predictably: we go the other way: with "meatspace", for example, a graphic and unpleasant image. And, yes, for some of us - and I do here include myself - our bodies make unpleasant roommates; and yet - the mind is not purer than the flesh. Embodiment neither corrupts nor tempts me.

---

And so, in the end, to neutrality: my real name is what I say it is. My real life is what I say it is.

I am here, and I am real - and so are you. So are we all.