johnny raze he ran from the same name i chose. when he was a teenager, he said, "my name's john. johnny's a boy's name. don't call me that anymore." no one called him johnny again. there were too many johns in my family. there are too many johns in the world. i wasn't even born a john. people who didn't care or didn't know any better rubbed out the hyphen that connected me to my ancestors and made me just like them, robbing me of half my history. i wanted to be someone different. i liked the way those two syllables sounded coming out of someone else's mouth. an opposable articulated structure meeting the largest joint in the human body. what would break every bone in someone else's face made me finally feel like myself. our names get given to us. we don't have any say in the matter. but we can bend them into better mirrors to tell ourselves who we are. 220309 ... kerry a charming name, timeless sounding. i knew a johnny when i was waiting tables at the diner. i think i was 22, 23? he was an even worse server than i was. spacy, restless-seeming. he was a roadie for deadmau5 and just needed extra cash. one day when we were sitting at the bar rolling silverware after the lunch shift he asked me out for a drink. i was tempted--he was cute, freckly, goofy--i had a boyfriend who i thought respected me more than he probably did. he disappeared the next week when deadmau5 went on tour. he was too old for me anyway. 220310 what's it to you? who go blather from