For lines, I like "I feel like a teenager, practicing my signature." I like an "unwanted burden to roll call" even better.
I wouldn't have made the connection between using initials as a pen name and the "they/them" pronoun. I understand the use of that pronoun can be a rejection of the gender concept, but my first reactions to "they/them" are to think the person is either politically liberal or not conventionally masculine or feminine. The use seems more conspicuous than neutral (not that by using initials, one is trying to be boring!)
Just the other day, I went through reading a long magazine article, then realized towards the end of it that I had the gender of the author wrong. So I guess I do notice, and it does affect my perception of the piece, if ever so slightly. Perhaps my tendency to identify or be alienated. A few weeks ago, I read a magazine piece, and this time the author, of ambigious gender, was part of the story. I found not knowing his/her/their gender much more distracting, if for no other reason than that it was really hard to interpret the reactions of other people in the story to him/her/they without not knowing the gender. I make assumptions about what people think of each other and read context from gender. Gender and sexual attraction are certainly there, at least for now.
I responded to what M. M. said about the consequences of adopting names, and once you do, you're not quite free to go down any path you like. I still rue the day that I introduced myself as "Dave" in college.
I once had a job at a debt collecting company, and had to pick an alias. For some reason, everyone found "Ed Oliver" very funny. I took the task seriously and wanted a random name, I suppose one that couldn't be traced to me. I came up with something neither super weird or conventional (Oliver isn't Smith). I felt fortified in my originality when no major sports figure appeared with the name until one did 23 years later (Ed Oliver is a Buffalo Bill).
An undercurrrent I get from the piece is that names shouldn't be this hard. I guess part of that is somehow we believe that they should be completely factual, out of our control completely, and not subject to any effort, but they do not actually fall into this category. There is just enough grey area to make sorting through them stressful but not enough to make it enjoyable. Then, too, names bring out self-consciousness. They are you, in a sense, as the opening says. I agonize over forms of self-expression like clothes and music, so not enjoying wrestling with my name comes naturally to me. But for those who are generally less self-conscious, who are braver about showing what they represent, the self-consciousness seems more curious to me.
For lines, I like "I feel like a teenager, practicing my signature." I like an "unwanted burden to roll call" even better.
I wouldn't have made the connection between using initials as a pen name and the "they/them" pronoun. I understand the use of that pronoun can be a rejection of the gender concept, but my first reactions to "they/them" are to think the person is either politically liberal or not conventionally masculine or feminine. The use seems more conspicuous than neutral (not that by using initials, one is trying to be boring!)
Just the other day, I went through reading a long magazine article, then realized towards the end of it that I had the gender of the author wrong. So I guess I do notice, and it does affect my perception of the piece, if ever so slightly. Perhaps my tendency to identify or be alienated. A few weeks ago, I read a magazine piece, and this time the author, of ambigious gender, was part of the story. I found not knowing his/her/their gender much more distracting, if for no other reason than that it was really hard to interpret the reactions of other people in the story to him/her/they without not knowing the gender. I make assumptions about what people think of each other and read context from gender. Gender and sexual attraction are certainly there, at least for now.
I responded to what M. M. said about the consequences of adopting names, and once you do, you're not quite free to go down any path you like. I still rue the day that I introduced myself as "Dave" in college.
I once had a job at a debt collecting company, and had to pick an alias. For some reason, everyone found "Ed Oliver" very funny. I took the task seriously and wanted a random name, I suppose one that couldn't be traced to me. I came up with something neither super weird or conventional (Oliver isn't Smith). I felt fortified in my originality when no major sports figure appeared with the name until one did 23 years later (Ed Oliver is a Buffalo Bill).
An undercurrrent I get from the piece is that names shouldn't be this hard. I guess part of that is somehow we believe that they should be completely factual, out of our control completely, and not subject to any effort, but they do not actually fall into this category. There is just enough grey area to make sorting through them stressful but not enough to make it enjoyable. Then, too, names bring out self-consciousness. They are you, in a sense, as the opening says. I agonize over forms of self-expression like clothes and music, so not enjoying wrestling with my name comes naturally to me. But for those who are generally less self-conscious, who are braver about showing what they represent, the self-consciousness seems more curious to me.