The Po Show

Anonymity

I realized that in my last post, that was the first time I've said my name. And I'm wondering why.

Certainly this is The Po Show, and I'm Po, but no one calls me that. Ross used to quite a bit, but more or less stopped years ago. I'm Paula, but I haven't been Paula here.

Lots of bloggers (real ones and posers like me :)) refrain from putting their real names on their blogs, for a multitude of reasons. Most just don't want the public to know their full identities, as a privacy issue. Some fear wackos out there (and certainly there are plenty of those) who might do who knows what if they had a real name that might lead to a real address.

But I don't have any such fears. I really don't think anyone's reading this anyway other than a few dear friends who know who I am. I have stated my husband and children's real names on numerous occasions. If you google "the po show" you get a bunch of articles about some poetry theatre in Seattle, or things that involved a show with a post office box. I'm not there. And who would be looking anyway?

I think the reason I haven't said my given name here is that I like being Po in this venue. I like being able to write and think and carve out just the tiniest bit of mental space, apart from my daily life of driving children from place to place and grocery shopping and putting a million little Trader Joe's pizzas into the toaster oven. All necessary and important tasks in their own way, but pretty fricking banal. That's what Paula does (or actually, that's what Mommy does).

But Po, she gets to write, even craft, a few paragraphs every once in a while. Even if they are nothing earth shattering, even if they are mostly about the mundane goings-on, they are mine, and feel like they should have a different moniker attached to them.

Rock on, Po.