Coming out is a thing easier said than done.  I mean, not for lack of trying or anything.  After a bout of nervous farts and sweaty pits, I decided to  attend a blogging convention.

I’m talking endless fantasies of walking into some convention center with the words ANNE NAHM ironed onto my t-shirt, ASK ABOUT MY SECRET IDENTITY on the back.

I would goosestep into the hordes of my disinterested fellow bloggers, much like one would step off the curb into heavy traffic.   I’d either be hit by the city bus of NOBODY CARES, or equally gruesome  Mac truck of SOMEBODY ASKS.

Imagine my disappointment that the heyday of wild blogger conferences is apparently over.  Have totes missed window of utopian gatherings where I’d meet up with you guys in a bar, and we’d drink martinis, and get some kind of cool swag for being brave enough to show up.

Also, apparently they haven’t sold iron-on stencils for t-shirts since like 1985.*   Fuck me for having ideas in linear time, right?

I’m somewhat stewing.   Probably, if I were not such an identity chicken, and more fully embracing my father’s latest/last wishes, I would think of a solve immediately.   But what?  I mean, my ANNE NAHM t-shirt seems kind of lame if I’m just wearing it to the grocery store.   Guess I could do something like put my legal name up on this blog, but that seems much less than what I want.  A name is not any great connection.

Jennifer Swanktwat!  …. See?  Nothing.

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On the family front, there is a whole pant-load of bullshit going on.  We are ex communicating a relative.  As far as I know, this cutting of ties/burning of bridges type thing has never happened in our family before.

On the whole, we are a bunch of Charlie Browns, voicing our disappointments and hurts in melancholy voice-overs and over-exaggerated sighs, less shit-be-on-fire style emotional upheaval.

I’ve been thrashing between self-doubt and the conviction of my decision.  Clearly, one cannot extract a family member with surgical precision, cutting them away and leaving the rest of the structure intact. There has been some pretty bad collateral damage, and I’ve caused it.  It’s alleviated only by the fact that, right or wrong, at least I won’t have to see this person again.   Anyway, according to an old Christmas card I happened upon, this scenario is exactly how everyone wishes to start the holiday season.

*Remember those 80’s  iron-on huts in the mall, and you could get a sparkly unicorn or bitchin’ Camaro decal ironed onto a shirt?!   Eight year old me thought a person had to wear the blank shirt, and the giant sticker was ironed onto their chests.  Like getting a tattoo, but surely smelling much worse, and indescribably more painful.    I was almost sure it would be worth it for one of those Lisa Frank rainbow ponies.