Tuesday, January 20, 2009

TotusMel

Well my mind is all over the place this morning. I was reading a blog post by a steamteam friend about the Edwardian Ball early and besides making me horribly jealous, it got me feeling a little nostalgic. There were a lot of things I used to want to do and places I thought I might go. I know there is still plenty of time for many amazing adventures, but this short backward glance sent my brain in yet another direction. I realized that I sit here and mouth off nearly every day and I never seem to share all that much about who I am outside of craft. Sure, you know I'm a tattooed needle tatter that makes stuff to sell on etsy and you probably figured out that I'm married with a couple of kids, but aside from that personal revelations are few and far between. I'm not saying that I should start spouting out my address, phone number and social security number, but I thought it would be neat if once a week I offer up a fact or secret until I run of interesting things to share or get bored. So I thought I would start things off with...

What the holy hell is TotusMel?

Over a decade ago I got online and was faced with the challenge of created my first screen name. At first I was happy to try out something simple like Dragongirl, but it soon became clear that all the simple names were taken and if I wanted one of those I would have to add some ridiculous number sequence after it. I decided to change tactics. It is worth noting that I was straight out of college at this point and was feeling fairly pretentious. I had just finished reading Ulysses by Jame Joyce with the help of not one or two, but three dictionaries and thought I would look terribly intelligent if my screen name was in Latin.

It couldn't be just any Latin though, it needed to not only have meaning, but be a phrase no one else would ever pick. For this I started with my name, Pamela. Though the name was apparently coined by an author, I had read that the names meaning is "all honey". The word for honey is Mel and the word for all is Totus. I combined the two into what is probably a horrible grammatical error into TotusMel. I imagine that no one will ever try to use my screen name and I have yet to have a need to change it. It has simple become who I am online, my other name.

I am still working on my cluster effect masks and I predict that as soon as I finish and start on another project the cluster will rear its head again leaving me in a creative rut. I will try to keep up this personal exposure once a week, I hope it makes for an interesting read in the absence of new tatting to share.


3 comments:

Tom Banwell said...

Thank you for the name explanation, all honey. You don't mind if I call you honey, do you? Ha ha! I was wondering where that name came from.

Gina said...

I wondered about your name too! My very first IM screen name was Lillyslip and I still revert to that when my usual ginab6 is too short or already taken. I was told I needed to be creative to get a name no one else had. I have no idea why that name came to me though so I have no engaging story to tell about it! Except that it relates to an Irish lover...that story is long over. LOL!

. c h o k l i t . said...

Awwww, I'm going to come and kidnap you and dress you up and make you be debaucherous with me one of these times, you know it...

Anyhow, ridiculous events are fun, but at least you're not sitting at a day-job with a hang-over right now!

xox