My First Handle

Hmm. There's a lot of firsts in one's life. I recently watched the Godfather for the first time (and had cannolis to go with). Choosing just one of those firsts is a bit of a doozy--and I know that there's a number of firsts that popped into everyone's head that they're not going to write about. Maybe because they'd consider it inappropriate, maybe because they'd consider it too personal. I'm a rather open person, but I'm not one to make others uncomfortable, so I'll save those things for those who show an interest in them.

I came up with a relatively short list consisting of my first stitches, cosplay (costume play, for those unfamiliar with the term), LARP (live-action role-play), friend and publishing. The main question is which would I most want to write on or (as we are egotistical human beings), which would be most interesting for y'all to read about.

Then it hit me. There we all were, sitting in the computer lab coming up with usernames and display names for these blogs. At some point in our lives, each of us has come up with our first username, screenname, etc--our first "handle."

Mine was for my first email account, ari_sky15@[censored by clan Tremere].

I had a friend make the account for me in middle school (seventh grade) because it was the new thing and my parents (aged 68 and 56 this year) wouldn't consider getting us wired to the web at home. Now, seventh grade was my "fanfiction" stage of life, my most creative stage to date, I would think. My friends and I made our Mary-Sues and had our cross-overs and whatnot. We'd refer to each other by the assumed names. At one point, code names were the first three letters of the first and last names of said characters.

If memory serves, Arianna Skydancer came from two different series; Arianna from Mary Stanton's Unicorns of Balinor series and Skydancer from Bruce Coville's Unicorn Chronicles. (Yes, I was a unicorn girl, get over it. We all had one or another "embarrassing" stage in life.)

Why the 15? My lucky number, of course.

"arisky" became my most common internet handle. Go ahead and do a Google search. The first page results I got today were from deviantart.com, facebook.com, TV.com, movietome.com, ip-adress.com, myanimelist.net, gamespot.com, 123people.com, peekstats.com and twitter.com. Of those 10, five would take you to me. It doesn't hurt that tv, movietome and gamespot.com are linked via c|net. These names tend to stick with us because they mean something to us. I still use that email account made eight years ago.

We do tend to branch out, though. If the URL for this blog is any indication, we don't always go by just one handle. If you search "flaymsbane," which is much more obscure than "arisky," you get much more accurate results. The first 10 hits on Google will take you to my Gaia account seven times over and will link me to myanimelist.net, livejournal.com and greed7.proboards57.com (a forum RPG for Fullmetal Alchemist).

I digress. I've used "arisky" for so long because even after all these years, it means something to me. It reminds me of a time when I was more carefree, less jaded and possibly less subconscious about sharing ideas that sound ridiculous. Using it is a constant reminder of what used to be and in a way helps me retain some of the mindset from those years.

What about y'all? Surely you've got a handle (or handles) of your own. What stories are associated with them?

Cheers,
~Katie

Side note: If y'all want to know about my brainstorm ideas, just say so in a comment. I wouldn't have thought of them if I wasn't willing to talk about them.