[MD] My 'Reel" Name

[John Carl]

 "who I really am" is an endlessly amusing tale to tell, to myself and
others.  In my case, even more so due to the extreme irony in describing my
true name.

See, it's my mom's fault actually.  She put one thing down on my birth
certificate, but called me something completely different my whole life
long, even putting my nickname down in school records, etc.  Thus, even tho
it's not my actual name, everybody who knows me calls me Cary.

I mean, I never really liked the name since it's kind of a girl's name and I
wasn't a real macho type in my younger years, with long hair I was often
mistaken for a girl before puberty and sometime after as well.

Maybe having an effeminate name made me more so?  Who knows.   All I know is
I always hated it.

"Whaassyur name" some grizzled fisherman on the pier at Santa Cruz would
inquire.  I'd answer "Cary" and he'd be, "gary?" and we'd have to go so many
puzzled rounds it wasn't worth it.

  What could I do?  My mom insists and if anybody is in charge of naming,
it's moms.

She picked Cary as a result of a tug-of-war between her daddy and her
husband.  I mean, how obvious can you get, but that's my ma for ya.  Her
daddy was Carl.  Dr. Carl Romans, MD, and her husband, John.  So she put
"John Carl" on my birth certificate but called me "Cary" as short for "Carl"
so everybody would know where the power actually lay in the family.  My
grandpa Carl the Dr, winning out over my Tennessee carpenter dad.

Never had much chance to be his favorite after that, my dad not being
stupid,  but oh well.  We get along fine today.

The interesting thing about this whole naming debacle, is that in order to
disguise myself from the wrath of inquisitive, googling, relatives and
acquaintences on this day of the ubiquitous facebooked life, is to simply
disguise myself as who I actually am.

What a hoot, eh?

I could use my real name as a pseudonym because everybody who's ever met me
knows me as a nickname.

Here's the final laugh.  The main reason my ma picked "Cary" as a nickname?
 She got a schoolgirlish crush on Cary Grant in North by Northwest when my
dad sneaked her off campus in Loveland to take her to the movies.  And Cary
Grant's real name is Archibald Leach!

No.  I take it back.  The final laugh consists of being able to divulge
everything about myself that I want because I have an identity so poor, so
low in credit, that nobody in his right mind would steal it.

That's freedom.

That's the final laugh.