We take mystery to bed.

[reddragdiva]

A thing hardly anyone knows about me: My name at birth was Alan Joseph McLeod!

(No-one knows because it has almost no relevance to anything. Except my friends at the time I found this out telling me to start a band called Al and the Ternatives. I was adopted as a baby, but that was my name at birth.)

ozjester in particular is not permitted to call me Alan henceforth either. I am definitely a David.

What does hardly anyone know about you?

Comments

Just because no one knows it doesn't meant it's interesting

[venta.livejournal.com]

My middle name is Cheryl.

I have no idea why so few people know this - I've never kept it a secret, but people always seem surprised if I mention it. I guess a middle initial C is much more likely to be a Clare or a Catherine or something.

Irrelevantly, it's pronounced with a Ch not a Sh, because that's how the person I was named after pronounces it.

Re: Just because no one knows it doesn't meant it's interesting

[venta.livejournal.com]

In case it wasn't obvious, my subject line was applying to my bit of information, not yours :)

How do you get your entire name switched in such a way that you only find out about it later ? Or was the first one not legally registered ?

Re: Just because no one knows it doesn't meant it's interesting

[reddragdiva]

I was adopted. I've added a clarifying note :-)

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

I am one of the people who "disappears". About 16 years ago, I vanished, leaving all my friends and everyone who knew me in the country I was in with no idea of where I was or what happened to me. Since then, one person found me, and promised to keep my secret. The others apparently believe me dead

Re: Just because no one knows it doesn't meant it's interesting

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, I guessed about the adoption. Following chatting to a friend who's recently adopted children, though, I thought that the adopters were expected to keep the child's given name (and optionally change the surname). Not a subject I know a lot about though :)

[reddragdiva]

You would have been nineteen? I remember you posting about your life around then and it sounds like you could have disappeared without trace quite easily. Speaking as vaguely as you would on a public post, was there any particular reason, or just a wish to get away from it all?

Re: Just because no one knows it doesn't meant it's interesting

[reddragdiva]

It was when I was a baby, so I didn't know myself to have any other name. I always knew I'd been adopted, though.

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

the reason was to save my life...

[reddragdiva]

Sounds about right!

Re: Just because no one knows it doesn't meant it's interesting

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah, that makes sense. The younger of the two whom my friend just adopted was about 18 months, so already old enough to recognise her own name.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Please forgive a complete strange being incurably curious (and feel free to ignore this if you'd rather), but has that given you huge problems with bureaucracy and establishing your identity (in a legal sense) ever since ?

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

nope, as I came back to this country as a citizen, so it was OK. Had lived int at place for nearly 2 years when I vanished

[rosefox]

When I was a child, I didn't get the whole crying-at-movies thing, and it was almost a point of pride that movies didn't make me cry. Then I watched The My Little Pony Movie and bawled at the end--no, seriously, and I used to be able to sing every song in that movie from memory too--and ever since then I've been a serious movie-crier. sinboy is trying to find a movie where I don't at least sniffle at something touching or romantic; there hasn't been one yet.

I suspect it's an inherited trait. My mother rates movies by how many packets of Kleenex she goes through.

[necialma.livejournal.com]

I'm scared and physically repulsed by slugs....

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

On behalf of the Alan Alliance* - we hereby renounce and repudiate you. Feel free to remain among the Davidians.

[reddragdiva]

"Fnarr, fnarr!"

[hazyjayne.livejournal.com]

Errrmmm... I have an allergy to jam and penny sweets... My mother is a clone...

[reddragdiva]

Your mother is a clone? Please do explain ...

[arkady.livejournal.com]

Well, that's something about you I didn't know.

You are so not an Alan. I'm visualising your face and trying to mentally append the name "Alan" to it - nope, doesn't work. Although funnily enough, that old photo of you looking like an accountant - now, that could be an Alan. Sort of. If I squint a bit.

I'm sure there must be some sort of trivial thing with no real relevance that no-one knows about me, but I'm damned if I can think what. I think most people are aware that my real name is not the name on my birth certificate. And I think I've mentioned the Sunday School teaching thing to quite a few people.

I ca't think of anything that I haven't already told you at some point or other, to be honest.

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

i'm betting identical twin.

[hazyjayne.livejournal.com]

She's an identical twin... but clone is technically true and sounds more 1950s sci-fi film-esque

[reddragdiva]

I only didn't tell you that because it never occurred to me to!

[ladykathryn.livejournal.com]

I'm more evolved than everyone else!

No, really. I was born without posession of wisdom teeth or appendix. Unfortunately, as I found out as a child, I do have a tailbone :<. (Something else: my favourite childhood sport, before I discovered rugby, volleyball, and chasing girls, was rollerskating.)

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

i have a big scar on my very low belly, from hernia surgery when i was a newborn. it used to tear and bleed if i was lifted by the armpits when i was in HS. very few people know about it now because it's hardly visible, and looks like some kind of a panty line, and i don't know many people now who knew me IRL when i was in HS.

[arkady.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised it didn't come up during the whole name-change thing. But then again, technically not are you not an Alan, but in a way you never were except very briefly on paper, so i can see why it wouldn't have occurred to you to mention it.

I think you pretty much know everything about me though. I'm trying to think of anything I haven't already told you and can't think of anything. You already know about my half-and-half thing with cola, which is the only thing I can think of. (Explanation for anyone else reading: I like to drink flat cola, or failing that diluted half-and-half with water. I find it more refreshing that way.)