It’s important for me to write in ways that I choose not to describe here. Perhaps one day, but today is not that day.  I can’t always write about that which is on my mind. I have to consider the feelings of others, I have to consider unresolved issues post ‘the incident’. I still need to write though so on occasion I will use a prompt. Welcome to today’s words.

Do I like my name?

Which one?

There is my birth name which I think is Elizabeth. Bonnie & Lewis adopted me so there was another name given to me first.  Bonnie gave me a newspaper clip once, it was of a child who looked like me who was in the paper as eligible for adoption.  She says that it was me, but the logic behind that doesn’t add up.  If I were available enough to be in the Philadelphia Bulletin then I should not have been available enough  to land in the arms of Bonnie & Lewis.  They weren’t that well off or special.

Elizabeth is a nice enough name. It doesn’t fit me though I don’t think.

There is the name that my parents gave me – Nicole. Some still call me Nikki. That is rare though these days, most call me Nicole. I’m not sure when the nickname became less popular. Close friends like Carla & Tempest still call me Nikki.  My spoon doesn’t.  At some point I stopped being Nikki and that is alright. It was mostly used by my family and these days my family is pretty much dead to me.

I like Nicole.

There is Aphrodite. Aphrodite Brown.

That’s the name which many of you know me from here. What many of you don’t know is how I got this name.

As Vizionz expanded and I gained readers from across the globe, yes the globe, I started to grow concerned that I was putting too much of myself out there. The Internet is not a safe place.  I asked The Man what a good pen name would be….back then I asked him about everything. This name was his vizion.

I was his brown goddess of love back then. Back then his suggestion was my course of action. Few people on this planet have ever known me as well as him. Through it all, his judgment when it comes to my future was rarely wrong. Rarely.

In the years after I kept the name, it’s become as much and natural to me as Nicole. It’s what will be on the first novel it’s how eventual appearances will bill me. It’s how I teach alternatively.

Do I like my name?

Yes.

Aphrodite Brown