all of me

walt whitman said, "i am large. i contain multitudes."

he didn't know the half of it.

it's a combination of boredom and egotism that makes me google myself. it's like masturbation -- everybody does it, not too many people admit it. it's thrilling and a little bit dirty. i was under the illusion that my name wouldn't be too common; after all, i never even met anybody who had the same first name as me until i was in junior high. which, in retrospect, says a lot more about the size of my hometown than the rarity of my name. i even learned, shortly before the world wide web thing totally blew up, that there was another music critic with the same name as mine. (she now uses it with another last name on the end; i guess she got married.)

but now, now ... there are zillions of me! ok, more like dozens, but still. at first it freaked me out, but maybe it's actually better. i already suffer from a terrible case of iamspecialitis. knowing there are more of me around might just humble me a bit. meh ... that's boring. reality is sooo dull and disempowering, anyway, so why should i see this as an opportunity to diminish myself in my own eyes? i prefer to pretend all those other people out there with my name are actually me, too. that could be way cooler.

yeah ... well, not sure i would want to actually be all of those versions of me. several of them are dead, for one thing. and i wouldn't dig being a christian author, but that's just me ...

... all of me, that is:

* i'm a small forward on a JV girls' basketball team: a superb outside shooter who can pass exceptionally well and is "a silent assassin on the floor." yeah, i like the sound of that.

* i am a seven-year-old "power tumbler" (whatever that is) who came in second in my category at a summer competition last year.

* i am a metro traffic reporter. (whose dad has the same name as my dad; this is getting weird.)

* i am an under-12-year-old australian runner who came in first in my age group in a 5k race. go, me!

* i am a chemical engineer in texas.

* i am a 9-10-year-old swimmer who holds a team record for the 100-meter freestyle AND 200-meter freestyle. go, me!

* i play alto sax in a middle school band.

* i am half of a clog-dancing duo!

* i am the website administrator for a down under rugby club.

* i am a graduate assistant at a south florida university.

* i died in oregon in 2004 at the age of 83.

* i am on staff at a college of oriental medicine.

* i am a "campus instructional specialist" at a texas high school.

* i am an insurance agent.

* i am a character in a novel by debbie macomber.

* i am a teenage golfer from the midwest.

* i died in 1953.

* i am the alias of a mutant superhero in a role-playing game. i have blue eyes and black hair, and my speaking voice is "very fast, almost a blur of words."

... and i think i will quit while i'm ahead. i am a fucking superhero. go, me.