The hood over my stove sucks up air through a tube about a foot in diameter that runs behind my kitchen cabinets for six feet or so before reaching a vent near my front door. Occasionally, a squirrel would climb the bush under my kitchen window, jump to the windowsill, and scale up to the vent. It would get in, run around a bit, and, after discovering no nuts, leave.

I’d bang on my cabinets and on the hood of my stove to encourage it to go. I had a neighborhood friend growing up who got a squirrel stuck in his chimney once. I used to go over to his place and play Mortal Kombat. But then the stuck squirrel died. I remember the smell stuck around forever. We spent a lot more of our time outside after that. I did not want any dead squirrels over my stove.

My method of banging on the wall every week or so worked. Every now and then, a squirrel would find the vent, I’d bang on the wall, it would jump out and learn its lesson, and I’d be safe from one more squirrel. But then it turned out that the visits weren’t coming from multiple squirrels. They were coming from one squirrel. One persistent, soon-to-be mother squirrel.

When I heard the familiar scratching inside the vent about a month ago, I banged on the wall, and I saw the squirrel jump out. But then the scratching continued. For a week. I would bang on the wall, a squirrel would jump out, and the scratching wouldn’t cease. Until it finally did. I banged on the wall, and the scratching stopped. Then my roommate came in the front door and asked, “Did you know there are three baby squirrels poking their heads out of the vent outside?”

I went outside, and there they were. Peering at me. I took a step closer, and they ducked their heads back inside in unison. If they weren’t so annoying, they would have been cute. I called my landlord to take care of the squirrels. He came over, looked at the baby squirrels, and something to the effect of, “Huh…” He would come back in a week to take care of it.

The scratching continued. My roommate and I talked about our family of squirrels. My landlord came back with a squirrel trap one afternoon. Of course, he had nowhere to put it, so he just kind of looked at the squirrels for a couple hours, concluded, “We’ll just have to wait for them to leave,” and then drove off to his squirrel-free home. To his credit, he left a wooden board as a sort of gangway from my windowsill to the vent. I think it was meant to make it easier for the babies to leave, but it also made it easier for the mother to come back.

I thought about the squirrel nest over my stovetop. I thought about the squirrel droppings over my food. I told my landlord that I was going to hire someone to take care of the problem and reduce the cost from my rent check since the nest posed both a fire and a health hazard. He agreed.

And the next day, Tim came to my rescue. Tim wore jean shorts and smelled of tobacco. Tattoos came out from under his shirt sleeves. He had a goatee that meant business. I welcomed him into my home, and he came bearing the tools of his trade. Namely: a shop vac.

“What I’m going to do here,” he explained, “is open up the vent over your stove and vacuum everything out.” I smiled. “You see,” he continued, “the noise is going to scare ol’ Mama Squirrel out, and the baby squirrels too if they can make it.” I started wondering what would happen to the baby squirrels if they couldn’t make it. Right on cue, Tim said, “If the baby squirrels are too small, though, I’ll just suck them up.” My eyes widened. “Don’t worry, though, they’ll be fine. I suck them up all the time, and nothing bad ever happens to them.”

Tim posted me outside to count the squirrels as they left their nest. He turned on the shop vac. Sure enough, Mama Squirrel jumped out quick. And then a baby squirrel climbed out. And then four baby squirrels looked out of the vent, not sure what to do. I didn’t want to scare them. I also had a small desire to see them get sucked up by the shop vac. Tim turned off the shop vac and asked me how things were progressing. I told him to keep going.

The baby squirrels craned their necks out of the vent. Then one of them reached for the wooden gangplank my landlord had left, and half-tumbled, half-climbed to the ground. A few seconds later, and the others hesitantly followed. I was watching their first steps outside the nest. One scurried beneath my car. I made a point to remember that before I drove somewhere next. Were they as adorable as can be imagined? Yes. Was I glad to have them gone? Yes.

Tim finished cleaning out the nest and showed me more dried leaves and grass and hay than I could have imagined being up there. I was really glad he had come. I told him there were five baby squirrels, which apparently is a very large litter for a squirrel in the fall. Then Tim sealed off the vent with a metal grate and allayed my unspoken fears by telling me that Mama Squirrel would round up all the babies and go to another nest of hers—she probably had a few. She would probably try to get back to my vent at some point because it made a good home, but she wouldn’t get in.

Sure enough, when I was cleaning dishes that night, I looked out the window and saw Mama Squirrel with three of her babies on the windowsill. I can only assume the other two babies were nearby. Hopefully.

They haven’t been back since. There’s no more metal scratching behind my kitchen cabinets to greet me as I come downstairs in the morning or say goodnight to me as I head to bed. It’s a much more relaxing kitchen, not having to worry about squirrel droppings falling on my food—a legitimate fear, according to Tim, though, thankfully, I never got to that point. Fall is here, and now I can cook fall chilis and stews and whatever else I want without worrying about a little extra seasoning. Plus, the fan over the stove works better than I can ever remember.

It rained today. Not too hard or anything, but it hadn’t rained in a while, so it was nice. It was the kind of gray morning where I didn’t want to get out of bed. I opened my windows to air the apartment out a little bit. I took the bus to school, but the on-again-off-again drizzle meant I only needed my umbrella about half the time I was out and about on campus. I could have gone without an umbrella for most of the day, but I was glad to have it on my return home when the rain started to come down more heavily. I know I’m growing up because I had my umbrella with me all day. There was a time not too long ago when I wouldn’t stand for such an inconvenience. I also wouldn’t think that far in advance.

In college, I tried to be a good liberal arts student and take a broad swath of courses from a variety of disciplines. I’ve always been interested in, if not particularly knowledgeable about, art, so I took an art history course to enhance my appreciation of it all and to become more cultured. I wanted to be able to talk about art at black-tie gallery openings. I saw art as a possible foray into a mysterious, elitist class where members threw champagne and caviar at me just to hear me opine on whatever hung in front of me.

Apparently, I never found the right people to impress. Or I did, but instead of wowing them with my art-speak, I told them an embarrassing story about myself in an attempt to put us all at ease. Or I didn’t learn as much as I liked to think I did. No matter what the reason is for me not going to classy events and shoveling down caviar on a regular basis, I took an art history class as an undergrad.

I really enjoyed the course. I feel like I learned a lot at the time, and I hope that I still remember some of it. An element of the course was to visit the local art museum and write about one of its special exhibits. One of the nice things about going to school in DC is that the local art museum is the National Gallery. The special exhibit focused on turn-of-the-century, absinthe-addled Montmartre artists.

I decided to visit the exhibit on a Saturday afternoon because I had the afternoon free from any pep band activities and it just seemed like the thing to do. I invited my friend, Pravin, to join me, and he was game. When I make plans to do something—when I makes a schedule—I like to keep to it. So when Saturday afternoon came along, I was going to the National Gallery. I folded up some computer paper and placed it along with a pen into my back pocket to take notes.

I noticed the skies were a bit overcast, so I grabbed a thin rain jacket before heading out the door. I did not, however, grab an umbrella. I’ve never really owned an umbrella until this past year, actually. I’ve had umbrellas in my possession, but they’re always umbrellas that someone left at my place or that I found near a garbage can. Many of my past umbrellas have featured broken spokes and missing handles. These features were a bonus because when I lost or misplaced one of them, it was no big deal. I did not bring an umbrella with me to the art museum, though, because it wasn’t raining outside. My rain jacket would be sufficient in case it decided to drizzle outside.

When I stopped by Pravin’s place to pick him up, he decided a rain jacket would be too much. Besides, we were just going to take a university bus to the closest Metro station, and then we’d only have a short walk outside to the museum. By the time we got to the bus stop, we remembered that the bus didn’t run a regular schedule on the weekends. We would have to wait a half-hour. Of course, we reasoned, the Metro stop was only about a half-hour’s walk away—it would be more efficient if we just walked across the Key Bridge to the stop in Rosslyn, Virginia.

Walking down to the Key Bridge, the sky darkened. We continued walking. A quarter of the way over the Key Bridge, a light rain fell. I zipped up my jacket, making sure it still covered the paper in my back pocket, and we continued walking. Half-way over the Key Bridge, clouds turned black in a gray sky, and it began raining in earnest. Pravin and I decided it best to start jogging. By the time we reached the end of the Key Bridge, we were running through sheets of rain that stung the back of my hands and splashed into my eyes, blinding me.

Groping our way to the Metro station, we finally found safety from the elements and went underground. We took the Metro down to the Mall, and left puddles of water on our vacant seats. Coming out of the depths, we saw the torrent had not let up. A mad dash took us to the museum. At the entrance, plastic bags were made available to store your umbrella to keep you from tracking water into the museum. Going through the metal detector, a security guard looked at me dripping onto the marble floor and shook his head sadly.

“Sure is raining out there,” an old man near me offered.
“Yeah,” I said, “just a little.” I ran my fingers through my hair and squeezed. More water ker-plunked to the floor.

Pravin and I walked to the exhibit. I took out my paper and pen. I couldn’t unfold my paper. It was a white-ish, slightly fuzzy blob. I found a program to write in the margins of, but soon gave up after realizing I would have to go back through the rain after my visit. Pravin and I made a quick tour, made quicker by the fact that we were sopping wet and freezing in the air-conditioned gallery, and left.

Back in the rain, it just didn’t matter any more. We reached the point of complete saturation. We explored the barren downtown a bit, sat on empty benches, jumped in foot-deep puddles, and looked skywards, laughing and drinking the rain. Images of Gene Kelly and Singin’ in the Rain entered my thoughts. My wallet was in my pocket, my cash was soaked, my shoes wouldn’t dry out for days, and in that moment, there was nothing I could do about it but enjoy it. The complete lack of choice in being drenched gave me a weird sense of freedom. Eventually, we found our way back to campus. We parted ways, and I took a hot shower.

I ended up having to go back to the museum the next week to take notes on the exhibit. I remember that it was nice enough and there were a few pieces I really liked, but the trip lacked the luster of my earlier visit. Maybe because all of me was dry except for my shoes. Wet shoes can be pretty annoying.

You can’t really plan moments like getting caught in the middle of a down-pour. It’s nice now to be the kind of person that has a working umbrella that can keep me dry from the rain, but it also reduces the likelihood of unexpected, joyous disasters. I wonder if that’s part of growing up. Of course, a working umbrella wouldn’t have made a bit of difference in that storm other than the fact that I could have done a better Gene Kelly impersonation.

In watching it, I had a few thoughts. To begin: Katy Perry’s outfit isn’t revealing enough. Of course, that’s just my gut reaction. After considering this is for a children’s program, I guess it’s a bit revealing.

But what really stands out for me isn’t how dirty the whole thing is, but how sterile it all seems. The clean, colorful, cartoon background. The ridiculous over-acting. Also, Elmo is disgustingly cloy. I know all sorts of producers and child psychologists have decided this aesthetic is what is best for children, but it’s amazing how much Sesame Street has changed. When I watched Sesame Street twenty or so years ago, I can’t say I always knew who the musical guests were, but the style was different. Simple, a little gritty, and wildly sincere. Here’s James Taylor on the Sesame Street I want to remember:

In thinking about all of this, I started watching clips of musical guests from Sesame Street over the years. There’s some really great stuff from Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Johnny Cash… I got to wondering if Sesame Street had forgotten how to do music. So I did a little looking, and while some of the recent stuff out there is pretty crappy, some of it’s still great. Feist, John Legend, Norah Jones (a solid companion to Smokey Robinson’s appearance), and even Ricky Gervais:

It seems that Sesame Street just kind of screwed up with Katy Perry. Also, there’s no difference in Elmo’s “fast” and “slow” in the video. Oh, well.

I remember road trips to the beach or to visit grandparents when I was a kid. Me and my brother would sit in the middle seat of the Previa, playing with Micro Machines and Tiger Handheld racing games. My sister sat in the back seat, all by herself. She could lay down if she wanted to, and she had an affinity for poking me from behind. Up front, my parents played CDs of James Taylor, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Kenny Logins, The Mamas and The Papas, and Lowen and Navarro. Not all the time, but on certain songs, we’d break up the monotony and sing along. My sister always shouted along with my mother on Bette Midler’s anthemic “Chapel of Love.” But the most sung-along to artist by a long shot was Jim Croce.

Croce’s “Roller Derby Queen” (which I’ll post at the end of this) paints roller derby players as big, mean, and sexy. That’s the truth. I don’t know if it’s because of years of listening to the song on long road trips or what, but I’ve always been attracted to strong women. They know what they want, and they get it. And in the case of roller derby, they get it on skates. Lingerie football (yes, a real thing) sexualizes women in a kind of pervy way. Roller derby is about self-confidence, which is inherently sexy.

Anyways, I went to roller derby with Eric, and had a great time. It was this awesome subculture, and I got hooked. I started thinking about how great roller derby is. I started thinking about how fun it seemed. I started thinking about volunteering to help officiate matches, and I went on-line to explore the possibility of joining a men’s roller derby team. And then I remembered I haven’t skated in well over a decade and was never very good at it to begin with. Also, I’ve been meaning to focus on my schoolwork, and picking up another activity would not help with this endeavor.

It all made me realize, though, that I have this weird habit of getting way, way into a subculture without ever really taking the first step into it. In middle school, Dungeons and Dragons seemed like the coolest thing out there. I loved fantasy books and was obsessed with board games. D&D seemed like the logical endpoint. I picked up manuals and handbooks about how to play and read about all of the different possible races and classes over and over again. I got excited by all of the lore surrounding the D&D universe. I spent hours coming up with different characters and trying to figure out which one I would want to be for my first adventure. I purchased D&D books for my friends in order to get a group going. But nobody else really seemed all that interested, and nothing happened. I was rejected from the D&D subculture by default.

In high school, I was convinced for a few years that I would build a BattleBot. Robots on Comedy Central smashed into each other with flails and spikes and hammers. Pieces of metal flew into the air. In pre-fight demonstrations, robots blew bowling balls to dust. I spent time after school trolling robot websites, looking for designs and considering the pros and cons of different design types. I saved money to cover the cost of the machine and wondered which of my friends would be valuable in building it. But just as no dungeon master took me under his wing, no robot technician came forth to share with me the glories of battling robots.

In college: Dagorhir. Imagine taking a foam Nerf bat, calling it a sword, and beating like-minded people with it using a complex set of rules for fighting. Countless hours wasted exploring the community on-line and thinking of battle tactics as well as the usefulness of chain mail in a costume. I had grand plans, but I was too embarrassed to even bother explaining this to my friends. I thought my secret desires might finally be met when a friend once invited me to sword fight with him on the roof of a building late at night with wooden swords. But, he didn’t quite understand why someone would use foam swords when wooden swords were so readily available. I have gone to a couple of Renaissance Faires since my mild fixation, and while it’s not quite the same, I have discovered that mead is pretty tasty.

Going out on a limb to be a part of a subculture is tough work. People are going to judge you. That is why the people that do it—whether their niche is D&D or roller derby—are awesome. They are confident enough in themselves that they don’t care what other people think. Having a support network, like I had for marching band or pep band, can make the transition into a subculture easier, but a lot of the effort is still in an individual’s willingness to take that first step. Since graduating from college, I’ve tried my hand at a few different subcultures (including improv, radio, and contra dancing) with varying degrees of success. I still don’t feel like I’ve found a niche that fits me perfectly, but I hope to someday feel the sense of community I saw at roller derby.

Public transportation in the Triangle leaves something to be desired. In college, I took the bus and Metro everywhere. It was cheap and easy. So when I moved back, I thought about using the bus to get around. I had never used the bus before college, but maybe I was just missing out on a hidden gem. Maybe I could take the bus to work.

To be efficient, I went to a website that would figure out the quickest route for me. And the website informed me that taking the bus to work would only take two-and-a-half hours and only require me to walk on the side of the road for two half-mile stretches. I decided that a thirty minute drive to work was the way to go.

Of course, a half-hour drive often feels more stressful than an hour long bus ride. I think it’s a matter of control. When I’m driving, I’m responsible for when I leave. I’m responsible for how far over the speed limit I go. I’m responsible for who I decide to pass. If I hit a bad light cycle, it’s my fault. If I’m late to something, it’s my fault. If I get in a crash, it’s my fault. Traveling by bus is much more zen. I’ll get to wherever I’m going whenever the bus takes me there, and in the meantime, I can listen to a podcast or try my hand at the morning’s Sudoku.

My roommate takes the bus everywhere, so I figured I could take the bus for a week before I fixed the flat tire on my bike. My first morning taking the bus, I looked at the bus schedule she keeps in her room to make sure I didn’t miss the bus—it only stops by my place every hour. Then I went on-line and looked at a real-time map of the route with the position of the bus marked. According to both of these resources, I had twenty minutes before the bus came to my stop. Not wanting to miss the bus, I packed up my things and got to the stop fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. Fifteen minutes later: no bus. I looked at the clock on my cellphone. The bus was supposed to be there. I waited. I checked the time. I waited some more. And fifteen minutes after the bus was scheduled to arrive, I gave up. I walked to another route a few blocks away, waited a while longer, and finally got picked up. By the time I got to school, it was about an hour-and-a-half since I had left my apartment. Biking took about fifteen minutes. Walking: about thirty.

With a heavy bag, I continued to take the bus. I learned just to skip over the bus stop closest to me because of its unpredictable schedule. I brought a book or magazine with me to read as I waited. I narrowed my transit time down to about forty-five minutes. But now, my bike is fixed. My time with the Chapel Hill Transit has come to an end, though I may visit every now and again if it’s raining heavily.

In big cities, public transportation is convenient. It’s funded well enough that buses and trains generally run frequently and on time. Of course, it’s a trade-off because they’re generally more crowded. This can be a good thing (I once got a date from a cute girl on the bus) or a bad thing…

One day, I visited NPR’s offices in DC to talk with some people about jobs in public radio. I had a good morning meeting with everyone and hopped on the bus to get back to Georgetown in high spirits. I was excited, they were interesting, and I looked good. This might seem like an odd thing to remember, but when so much of my college wardrobe were shorts and t-shirts, it always made me feel like someone special when I put on a button-down.

Anyways, I got on the bus, grabbed a seat, and looked out the window at the beautiful day. The weather was finally getting warm, and all the colors—the blue sky, the green grass, the red graffiti—just seemed more vibrant. Then I noticed the woman behind me was talking. I know I probably shouldn’t, but I have a habit of listening in on conversations in public places when there’s nothing else to do. So I started listening.

“Yeah, I’m doing okay. I couldn’t find the dress I was looking for, but that’s alright.” *Cough* “I’m coming home right now; it shouldn’t be much longer… Yeah… Uh-huh…” *Cough* “There’s an astronaut on top of the bus. He just landed… Yes, I’ve got my mission: I need to protect him.” *Cough*

My ears perked up. So did everybody else’s. People in front of me were staring back and laughing. I couldn’t be so obvious or rude, so I just sat listening.

*Cough* “Give me the President, it’s a matter of national security… Yes, Mr. President, I’m on bus 5450. This is our only chance: your life is in danger.” *Cough*

I started to feel bad for the poor woman in obvious need of psychiatric help. And then:

“There’s a spy sitting in front of me. I need a knife.” *Cough* Sounds of rummaging through a purse. “That’s right, white boy, I know you can hear me. I’m going to stick this knife right through your fucking throat.” *Cough* “Yes, Mr. President. I’m going to take care of the situation. Don’t worry about Astronaut Wesley.” *Cough*

I thought about my options. I was still a few stops away from my final destination. I didn’t want to look back. I didn’t want to make any sudden movements. I didn’t want to be scared of some crazy person. Besides, I could probably take this woman if she touched me.

*Cough* “I’m going to choke you until your eyes poke out, and then I’m going to stab you in the chest.”

I reconsidered my options and figured being scared was okay. A stop away from my destination, I jumped up quickly from my seat, swung my way to the door, and got off the bus. I noticed the woman behind me was not holding a knife. I felt a little guilty for not staying on the bus an extra stop, but I was relieved to know I wasn’t about to have been stabbed.

The buses in Chapel Hill are much less exciting.

I’ve had students in the past call me, “Mister Ritchey,” “Professor Ritchey,” and even “Doctor Ritchey.” I always correct them—I’m neither a “Professor” nor a “Doctor,” though I am a “Mister”—and ask to be called, “Andrew.” Informal and friendly, but not too informal and friendly. Now, for some reason, I am a “Drew.”

When I was a kid, I thought a lot about my name. I said my name over and over and over again. I still do sometimes. I wasn’t trying to memorize my name or anything like that; I was trying to pronounce it correctly. I was a sickly child with massive amounts of fluid in my ears, and with my poor hearing, I didn’t learn how to speak until a relatively late age. When I finally did speak, I used the words that I heard, not words that actually meant something. I went to a lot of speech therapy.

I had problems with L-s and Ch-s and Sh-s and Th-s and just about all other letter combinations. Importantly, I had problems with R-s. I got paranoid about introducing myself as “Dwew Witchey.” I was scared of having to repeat my name to someone multiple times until they understood me. I repeated my name multiple times to my speech therapist until she understood me. She gave me Garfield stickers. I kept going to a speech therapist through elementary school—one of the reasons for my less than pronounced Southern accent.

My speech problems weren’t debilitating. I made friends and got into fights just like everyone else and everybody knew my name was “Drew” after the first introduction. But I was always nervous that first introduction. I could have made it easy on myself and gone by “Andy” or “AJ,” but I always thought “Andy” was a weak, kid’s name (like Billy, Johnny, or Eddie), and I’ve never been cool enough to be an “AJ.” And while I sometimes thought of myself as “Werd” (“Drew” backwards) when I was outside playing games, I pretty much kept that to myself. I did, however, go by “Andrew” every now and then.

Having named me, my parents occasionally called me “Andrew.” They still do sometimes. It’s also my sister’s preferred name for me—excluding our rougher, teen years. In school, I became good friends with two other “Drew”s. We all liked the name, and it was fun being friends with someone who shared your name. It meant that your name was better than the other names or something. One of us was legally a “Drew,” but the other pair of us were “Andrew”s. We thought it was cool that “Drew, and Drew, and Drew” sounded like “Drew, Andrew, Andrew.”

On Free Enterprise Day—an annual event for fourth and fifth graders that involved creating “companies” and selling your goods for coupons that students collected for good behavior throughout the year—I paired up with another Drew to form “Drew Andrew Incorporated.” We sold brownies with M&M’s; the M&M’s are what took the brownies over the top. In fifth grade, I started the day with zero coupons. Math class always ended with the teacher saying, “It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings.” The day before Free Enterprise Day, I shouted for a larger girl to sing. I lost all of my coupons for that and had to stay after school to clean overhead transparencies. After all the M&M brownies were sold, though, I ended up a veritable Howard Hughes. A guilt-ridden Howard Hughes who chant-shouted, “Drew Andrew Incorporated,” to attract customers.

Elementary school led to a realization: while I wasn’t an “Andy” or an “AJ” or even a “Werd,” I could be either an “Andrew” or a “Drew.” I settled on “Drew,” but the option was there. In middle school, my football teammates called me “Ritchey,” which was pretty awesome, but neither football nor “Ritchey” lasted. I was “Drew.”

And then I entered high school. Things were official. Maybe the teachers wouldn’t know how to give “Andrew Ritchey” a grade if a paper was turned in with “Drew Ritchey” emblazoned on top. So while people continued to call me “Drew,” I began writing my name as “Andrew.” Before I got my learner’s permit, I sat at my kitchen table for hours, practicing my official signature. It couldn’t be “Drew.” This was legal. It had to be “Andrew.” Soon, my written name was “Andrew,” and my spoken name was “Drew.” Yes, that’s weird. Though it’s much more eccentric than schizo.

“Andrew” was the name I used to apply to colleges. It felt more dignified or something. And since college is the time to reinvent oneself, I became “Andrew.” I introduced myself as “Andrew,” never “Drew.” To this day, my oldest college friends call me “Andrew.” Of course, this lasted for about a month. I started introducing myself as “Andrew,” and then asked people to call me “Drew.” That seemed right: a public name and a private name. A name for the classroom and a name for dimly lit, beer-stained dormitories. Except for a select few, professors knew me as “Andrew.”

The nice thing about introducing myself as “Andrew” goes back to my old insecurity about pronouncing the R-s in my name clearly. “Andrew” gets the ball rolling before any problems can occur. And then I started wondering more and more about how to pronounce my name. In introductions, I decided a hard D (Drew) would be the best. From there, I could settle into a softer D (Jrew) that I use when I think of myself. Could anyone tell the difference? Probably not. Do I still think about it every time I introduce myself to someone? Yes.

College wasn’t a time of nicknames for me. Technically, “Drew” is a nickname for “Andrew,” but it’s not a real nickname. I complained to a guy I knew named “Tex.” His solution for me: “The Drew.” It didn’t stick. One of my friends called me “Horse” because I reminded her of her horse back home due to my mane of hair and occasionally goofy demeanor. For some reason, nobody else felt comfortable with that one. My buddy Ryder knew this guy who made himself a nickname in college; he transformed himself from “Brian” to “Laser.” I joked with my friends about changing my name to Droe—pronounced like “shoe”—but that seemed a little esoteric and stupid.

After college, I applied to jobs as “Andrew.” Shortly after getting a job, my co-workers all called me “Drew.” After work, I started interning for a local paper, The Independent Weekly. I worked for the music section, and not long after starting, I got something published in the paper with the byline, “Andrew Ritchey.” My editor had only known me a couple weeks. I hadn’t told him to call me “Drew,” yet. I went to him.

“Hey, you can call me ‘Drew’ if you like.”
“Oh, yeah, man. No problem. Do you want to be ‘Drew’ in the paper?”
Shit. Which was better? How did I want to be known? What connotations did I want the name associated with my writing to evoke? Were there connotations associated with “Drew” and “Andrew” or was I just bullshitting myself? Solution: “I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I kind of like how ‘Andrew’ looks.”
“Okay. Cool.”

Over two years later, and I still sign my e-mails to him as “Andrew.” To keep some sort of consistency in my pubic persona, I’m “Andrew” when I DJ at the radio station or do a news or feature piece for the radio. I know my multitudes of fans want to follow my every move. I should make it easy for them. I’m a young professional now. Or at least I should be. People should know me as “Andrew,” right? That’s how I approached graduate school.

On the first day, I introduced myself to everybody as “Andrew.” I never asked them to call me “Drew.” For the past couple years, everybody in school—professors, administrators, fellow students—knows me as “Andrew.” Sort of. It’s started to change recently. Starting a couple months back, I left voice mails and signed e-mails as “Drew” to the occasional person. Some of these people are slowly switching over.

A month ago when I met with the professor I now TA for, I introduced myself as “Drew.” Crazy. I’m not sure what brought about this change. Maybe I don’t care what my colleagues think of me anymore. Maybe I’ve learned to relax my boundaries a little between public and private life. I don’t know. But since people have been calling me “Drew,” grad school seems to be a more friendly place. Of course, this might also be because it’s the start of the semester and impending deadlines haven’t made anyone crazy yet.

I wonder if I’ll ever settle on a single name to go by. If so, which? Also, will it really matter?

Generally, I take great pride in my stomach. It’s an ever-expanding iron cage. It can handle anything. I get seconds and thirds of Thanksgiving dinner. Nobody has eaten a meal with me and left unamazed at my prowess. In retrospect, I can’t believe I didn’t eat away my parent’s retirement money when I was a teenager.

In college, my roommates and I developed a ritual of consuming cheap Chinese food and watching LOST every week. My restaurant of choice was this little hole in the wall in a back alley off of a side street. I think I only saw it twice in my four years as an undergrad, and one of those times was on a mission to locate the restaurant. I always ordered extra spicy General Tso’s chicken. Fried and coated in an unseemly red sauce, it was the best. Greasy, gelatinous, and hot, I was in love. My roommates always tried to negotiate me into getting Chinese food from another restaurant, but I held the trump card: if we all ordered from my cheap restaurant, we got free crispy, fried wontons. It gave my roommates the runs without fail. They came back from the bathroom jealous of and perplexed by my stomach.

But I mustn’t mythologize my stomach. I am not a competitive eater. I am merely a man. In middle school, I went to a McDonald’s with a group of friends and got my picture hung on the wall. I ate twenty hotcakes—twenty burned on the outside, raw on the inside hotcakes—in one sitting. The manager took my picture with a Polaroid camera and put it in a glass case. But if I am to be honest, my stomach did not win that battle by itself. To reveal a deception that has never come to light before: I stuffed half a pancake in my mouth on my way to go to the bathroom and spat it into the toilet. My dirty little secret.

My stomach is not invulnerable. But part of my love of Ben’s Chili Bowl in DC is based on the fact that their chili half-smokes are the only food that I have ever felt going out. I’ve also been laid out by food poisoning before. I remember a particularly bad spell the day after a salmon dinner at the beach one year. I spent the afternoon alternating between hugging the toilet and lying in bed with a cold washcloth on my forehead.

For the most part, though, food doesn’t affect my stomach as much as nerves do (or carnival rides, but more on that another time). In third grade, I was going to be in a play. In front of people. Lots of people. Lots of judging people. I don’t remember what the play was about. I think I may have had three lines, if that. I might have been a shepherd? I’m not sure. What I am sure about, though, is that I ralphed in a trash can before the play. Not that the play ever occurred for me. My Mom picked me up from school, and I remember the drive home: embarrassed and staring into a plastic knight’s helmet on my lap in case I needed to throw up again. There was some masking tape with the name “Ritchey” on the inside of the helmet. I had worn it for Halloween one year. Of course, I’m not entirely convinced that I just wasn’t sick. I was in plays before and after that incident and never had the inclination to puke at those times.

The one argument that suggests that it was nerves is that I have had an annual upset stomach around the first day of school. It doesn’t matter how calm I think I am, I will have an upset stomach when school begins. When I was a kid, my Mom took care of me. When I was a teenager, I denied that I had stomach aches because they were silly. When I was in college, I blamed them on excessive eating and drinking and staying up late. I finally recognized my stomach aches for what they are two years ago.

I had been dating this girl, Jennifer, for a couple months (still with her now, too). It was the day before my first day as a graduate student, and I think I had made plans for the evening with Jennifer. But mid-day, my stomach lurched. Maybe I was hungry. I ate some food. My stomach churned. Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten food. I stumbled onto my bed and lay on top of the comforter. Breathing became more difficult, sweat developed on my brow, I doubled over. After an hour, I crawled to the edge of my bed, found my phone, and cancelled my plans with Jennifer. She came over ten minutes later and put a washcloth on my forehead. I was embarrassed, but I couldn’t kick her out. She scratched my head, and talked with me, and left after a long while. I still had my stomach ache, but I felt a lot better.

Jennifer had even left me with some Butterfingers for another day. I had told her how much I liked them. I failed to stress to her my lack of self-control around them. As soon as I felt like I could stand up and make it down the stairs, I went right to the fridge, poured a tall glass of milk, and drank it with three or four fun size Butterfingers. Bad idea. I never know what I should and shouldn’t eat with an upset stomach. I groped my way back upstairs and crashed onto my bed. I stayed there, doubled over, until school started the next day.

I told my Mom about how weird it was that I got an upset stomach because I almost never get upset stomachs. She laughed a little and reminded me about getting sick before the first day of school when I was a kid. So now I’ve got an upset stomach. I can’t reason my way out of it—I’ve tried. I can’t eat my way out of it—I’m scared to try again. But at least I know what it is. It will be gone in a day and then back in a year. It’s just one of those things I need to accept about myself. In reality, it’s pretty easy to accept my annual stomach aches or my need of glasses or my brown hair. But I still have difficulties accepting the fact that I won’t become a rock star or the President of the United States or both simultaneously as an astronaut. I guess part of growing up is figuring out how to accept who you are.