what i call myself when i'm at home

[jazzfish]

nixve, then silmaril, now me.

1. My username is ____ because ____.

jazzfish. Back in the mists of time (um, summer 1996?) I needed an email account that I could check from my parents' place, since there was no such thing as "Tech webmail" and the Tech mail server wouldn't let you check mail if you weren't talking to it from a recognised Tech IP. So I signed up with Juno (remember, this is also in the days before Hotmail). tucker@juno.com was taken, so that left me scrabbling for something else. Steph had just loaned (or more likely 'made me buy my own copy of') this really wonderful book called Jazz Fish Zen, and the character kind of resonated. So, there you are.

2. My journal is titled _______ because ____.

Only in silence the word. It's the first line from a fragment of a song in Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea. (How's that for obscure?) . . . only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk's flight on the clear sky. It may be the wisest fiction book I know. "What of death?" "For a word to be spoken, there must be silence. Before, and after." Five years ago I couldn't have told you why I liked the book so much, just that I did. Today I can see that it tells me why I write, and why I live.

3. My subtitle is ____ because ____.

"What do YOU care what other people think?" It's the title of the sequel to Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! It's also what Feynman's first wife Arlene used to say to him when he didn't want to do something because of social pressures. It's there partly as gentle remonstration, and partly because the Arlene section of the book is so incredibly sweet.

4. My friends page is called ____ because ____.

Indeed do many things come to pass. Because, well, they do. The Earth quakes and the heavens rattle; the beasts of the field flock together while the nations of men flock apart; volcanoes usher up heat while elsewhere water becomes ice and melts; and then on other days it just rains.

5. My default userpic is ____ because ____.

Howie Green's Jazz Fish, for reasons more or less explained above.