names no reason sometimes your names change who you are 071022 ... green tshirt sometimes who you are changes your names 071023 ... flux sometimes you don't know who you are, and sometimes no one does. sometimes the government give you a photo id with your picture and a name you've never heard of before. 071024 ... flux apex_sarcophagus 140728 ... flux names taken from a database of the new_york_city area: aaron rabbit wang attitude jones beloved slaughter brain powers carleather midgette celeste lard sky chablis warning chianti arms coaxum butts empress menen omnipitant barbel essence irresistible richardson explovent dayonot flores fancy blain future raven angel anglin geisha cookie philomen mendy genuine simmeon lexus pringle guy shoulders jr infallible davis infinite gold spikes jarrell christian brain-herring jihad artist messiah robinson lovely erase loyalty wall luna tickle furtwangler max sod napalm patel olivia butt hermitt ouan pounder phyllistene elizabeth poindexter quantum justice agrawal refined ashe sandy champagne semen ring subaltern hall thanos apocalypse boyd treasure loudermilk unique everlasting gray urban primus venus loveless wenching hsu yvette bunny colon 140728 ... raze i've been dreaming them. giselle peters. eleny jurec. not people i know. only names dreams have given me. but interesting names. 151127 ... tender square lately, i’ve been making more of a concerted effort to remember people’s names when i meet them. i have a habit of hearing them, but letting their names pass through me without anchoring it in my brain for future retrieval. i am trying to be better with this. though there hasn’t been many opportunities for engaging with the outside world in covid life, i’ve been trying to get to know our neighbors. i repeat names in my head, i write them down for future reference, i use a mnemonic device, whatever i can to make it stick. there’s patrick, who’s house is north of ours; eric, who’s house is south of ours; jeffrey (and his wife ivy, who i have yet to meet) live across the street from patrick. i don’t know the woman who’s renting the house across the street from us, but i did meet the owner, lynn, when we first moved in (just the other day she waved hi to me as i was sitting on the porch). two doors down and across the street, is james and cynthia and their two dogs. next door to patrick is an older gentleman who rides dirt bikes and goes by both doug and wolf. the thing is, none of these folks can remember my name. i’ve engaged each of them in multiple conversations, i make it a point to say their names as i greet them, and yet, i can tell by the panic in their eyes or the coolness in our interactions that they haven’t the faintest idea of who i am. with patrick, we needed to get a dead tree removed near his property line this past spring, as it threatened to fall on both our houses. we had multiple interactions by email, by text, and in person; every time i say hi to him, he can’t get away from me fast enough. doug, the dirt biker, came by our house when the tree work was underway, wanting to see how the crew did their work, telling michael and i about how he’s lived in his house since the mid-80s. if i wave to him as we walk by his house, there’s a confused look as he tries to place where he knows us from. i’ve had a half hour conversation with jeffrey across the street when his basement flooded after heavy rainfall in july. he suggested getting together for a bbq at some point, but it’s never come to fruition. i brought him and his wife baked goods about a month ago, and every time they walk past our house to bring their kids to daycare, they avoid making eye contact with me. once, i asked james if i could come up and pet his dogs when he was walking and he said to me, “they’re trying to get their human home,” as i approached from the driveway, dismissing me. i don’t understand this. eric can’t remember my name, but at least we converse each time we cross paths. i ask him about his work, his farm in upper michigan, i ask about his mother who lives in town, i notice when he’s gotten his haircut. he seems grateful for the conversations, given that he lives alone, and i enjoy making him smile when i can. i don’t like the neighbors that live behind us. they made a bad first impression and as a result, i’ve written them off entirely, which maybe isn’t fair, but oh well. strike one: banging on our door in the middle of the afternoon while i was napping on the couch (how dare you). strike two: coming to our house, without having a mask on, at the height of the covid pandemic last year. the woman didn’t even give michael her name when he answered the door. strike three: the woman telling michael that we needed to take care of a skunk in our backyard because they had dogs that could get sprayed. our yard is unfenced, and there’s nothing back there where skunks could have a den. he told the woman that we wouldn’t be doing anything about it and she seemed pissed and marched off with her yappy dogs. the audacity of people astounds me sometimes. i’ve had two interactions lately with folks not from this area, which are making me wonder if this is an ann arbor attitude. in the piece “drew” that i posted last week, i wrote about a service rep originally from kentucky who worked at our local at&t store. he remembered our names and used them when we parted ways. it was drew and michael conversed the whole time, i listened; drew still remembered my name after he asked for it, which caught me off guard. a couple weeks ago, michael and i were opening a joint account with td canada trust and the banking associate we worked with, abdul, was an absolute delight. he referred to me my name before thoroughly reviewing my identification, and i have no idea how he did that because i didn’t even tell him what my name was. by the end of our appointment, he was asking me if i preferred to be called cassie. “how did you know that was the nickname for cassandra?” i asked him. “oh, i have a friend with the same name and she goes by that short form.” after we made a deposit into our new account, abdul asked if we would give him a good review on any survey we received. “abdul, you were wonderful,” i told him. “if i could rate you a 20 out of 10, i would.” 210922 ... tender square i suppose everything’s not lost. today, while michael and i were out walking two blocks from home, i spotted doug/wolf on his dirt bike coming past us. i was about to raise my hand to wave at him when he raised his towards us in greeting first. later, when hauling wood and building supplies from the basement out onto the curb, i saw patrick on his porch sanding something. “are you a woodworker?” i called from across the yard. “yeah,” he said. “why?” “do you have any use for a table vice?” i held out the one i was holding in my hands. “sure!” “it’s all yours,” i said as i passed it to him. 210929 what's it to you? who go blather from