I really am glad that I sat down, 24 years ago, and created an entirely new name for myself – one I could use when being creative, or making new friends, or needing the slightest obfuscation. One I owned so entirely that I could hand it out to others with whom I felt kinship.
I literally printed out a sheet with two-letter combinations I liked the nebulous "feel" of, and a Scrabble rack and tiles, to make something 8+ characters long that would be accepted by username
fields.…