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A Topic of Conversation

I’m it.

Recently, lots of people’ve been talking about me, or so they say. I sent an email yesterday to my folks about a certain question, and I’ve been getting a lot of feedback. This morning an old friend comes into work and says that him and another old friend were talking about me last night over a few beers. Where’ve I been? What’s so interesting?

All I did was tell my family that I was considering a legal change of name to something I’d come up with as a joke about a month ago. That’s not so bad if I really like the name. Maybe, sure, I should’ve been a little more serious since I’ve been thinking and thinking trying to come up with a good last name for years, and I actually don’t take it lightly, although I still want it to be fun and different. Anybody hear of this yet? Yeah, I want my name to be Orin Zebest. Write it down.

And maybe, hey, if I wanna get talked about I might as well tell those old friends what’s going on with me since I haven’t seen ‘em in, like, at least four months. That’d be good.

That would be the best.

6 replies on “A Topic of Conversation”

I don’t know, it’s too close to Ze Frank for me. And Best? Come on, how about Orin Zenotsobad?

@Jerome: you are the only one allowed to mix-n-match previous and (possible) future names, and you have it simply because you asked nicely, and I think that Pierre La Londe is a pretty good singer.

@Endless Dave: “Zenotsobad” is good (ironically), although it has kind of a middle-eastern quality to it. Don’t want to sign up for pre-screening at the airport when I wanna travel again. Ze Frank was an influence I guess, but not the inspiration.

How it actually came about was that for some time I’ve had a start-up message in my phone. Yes, my phone. At first it just said my name and an alternate telephone number in case it was lost. After awhile I changed it to my adopted name plus the number. I’ve never lost my phone, not once, and have had it for years, and so I realized I was the only one who ever looked at it. At that point I just changed the message to something silly and self-gratifying, something to pick me up when I was down and laugh when I was up.

“Orin is teh best.”

I don’t think that anyone else had ever read it before Lynae. We were on a camping trip by ourselves for a week at the beginning of September, and the day afterwards we were talking about changing my name in a natural ice-cave that wasn’t on the guide. I felt very reflective, very happy, and a little restless. It was her that suggested it, and it was an immediate hit. I know I’m not “Ze Best”—okay. But I like seeing people patting themselves on the back especially when it’s not too obvious, as in rhetorical whos-the-greatest Grandpa speeches, school pep bands with coordinated hair styles, funny little unassuming ways to say “look at this cool thing I made”… it’s a light touch that I enjoy and with which I want to identify. It’s not as forceful as having it come in a dream or some otherworldly context, like my other name origin, but it fits me just as well (if differently).

As for actually being the best, I have one thing to say: fake it till you make it.

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