Do Not Adjust Your Monitor
Nov. 8th, 2007 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamajoanHi! It's still me, the LJ user formerly known as chlaal. Thanks (perhaps) to some of your "votes" for me on the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
news post, I was gifted with a rename token from the LJ staff. So I am now ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mamajoan!
As I wrote recently, I had been considering a rename for a while. The name "chlaal," which I invented back in high school when I was a silly teenager, increasingly meant little to me and its particular uniqueness had become annoying. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have a username that is guaranteed never to be taken on any website where you're signing up for a new account...but OTOH people always misspell it and no one knows how to pronounce it, yadda yadda, it just gets tiresome after a while.
In the aforementioned post, I also mentioned that I wasn't sure about switching to a name that defines me purely via my kids. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed that a) everyone chooses a username that expresses only a small percentage of their selves. I mean, it might be the name of a band you like or a sports team, it might be your astrological sign or your cat's nickname or what your given name means in Sanskrit or whatever; but a username, which can be a maximum of fifteen characters, can never fully capture you in your entirety. So you choose what matters most at the time you choose the name. And b) at this time in my life, when my kids are so little, my "mama-ness" really DOES define me primarily. I mean, I'm many other things, but these days I'm a mama first.
And then, this morning after I found out that I had the rename token, I thought about it some more and realized that "mamajoan" actually does represent an enormous amount of choice in my life. Those of you who are new to my journal may not know that "Joan" was not my given name. I have a different first name on my birth certificate, and Joan is my given middle name; I started going by Joan in approx. sixth grade. And, of course, anyone who has read my userinfo knows that I had my kids as a single-mom-by-choice. So, in some ways, "mamajoan" is like an encapsulation of the person I have chosen to make myself into. And I think that's awesome.
So anyway ... here I am! "chlaal" is dead, long live mamajoan. ;) Love me or leave me! :)
news post, I was gifted with a rename token from the LJ staff. So I am now mamajoan!As I wrote recently, I had been considering a rename for a while. The name "chlaal," which I invented back in high school when I was a silly teenager, increasingly meant little to me and its particular uniqueness had become annoying. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have a username that is guaranteed never to be taken on any website where you're signing up for a new account...but OTOH people always misspell it and no one knows how to pronounce it, yadda yadda, it just gets tiresome after a while.
In the aforementioned post, I also mentioned that I wasn't sure about switching to a name that defines me purely via my kids. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed that a) everyone chooses a username that expresses only a small percentage of their selves. I mean, it might be the name of a band you like or a sports team, it might be your astrological sign or your cat's nickname or what your given name means in Sanskrit or whatever; but a username, which can be a maximum of fifteen characters, can never fully capture you in your entirety. So you choose what matters most at the time you choose the name. And b) at this time in my life, when my kids are so little, my "mama-ness" really DOES define me primarily. I mean, I'm many other things, but these days I'm a mama first.
And then, this morning after I found out that I had the rename token, I thought about it some more and realized that "mamajoan" actually does represent an enormous amount of choice in my life. Those of you who are new to my journal may not know that "Joan" was not my given name. I have a different first name on my birth certificate, and Joan is my given middle name; I started going by Joan in approx. sixth grade. And, of course, anyone who has read my userinfo knows that I had my kids as a single-mom-by-choice. So, in some ways, "mamajoan" is like an encapsulation of the person I have chosen to make myself into. And I think that's awesome.
So anyway ... here I am! "chlaal" is dead, long live mamajoan. ;) Love me or leave me! :)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-11-08 09:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-08 09:40 pm (UTC)You have a lot more to say about your username than I would have to say about mine, and yet, when I think of changing it--I'd like something that I wouldn't be embarrassed to admit in person, even though I keep LJ and "real life" largely separate--I can't think of anything that would have more meaning to me than this one does.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-08 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-08 10:05 pm (UTC)I considered changing my name to have something to do with my cat Mabel, but the thought of my journal outliving her really upset me.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-08 10:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-08 11:03 pm (UTC)mamajoan = chlaal to me anyway, but congratulations on your renaming!
no subject
Date: 2007-11-08 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-09 01:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-09 02:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-09 01:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-09 02:34 am (UTC)you go, mama. :)
Date: 2007-11-09 12:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-09 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-09 02:59 pm (UTC)