A lot of my friends have more than one name, more than one identity, nay, a duplicity of identities. It began with nick names, then friends of mine changed genders and the whole identity spectrum became more colorful and confusing than ever before and the codes of sexuality more elaborate and difficult to decipher. I feel like I need an instruction manual to follow the latest fad in Trans identity that I will playfully call "Disco Tranny."

I'm not kidding, some of my friends have gone through more names than underwear in the last ten years. The Trans community is tied for the sex worker community in the quest for the Genis Book of World Record for the most names. Personally, if you count legal and illegal name changes, nicknames and stripper names, I'm at 21. If you have several names that you go by, I want to hear from you.

Is it that we just don't like the names we were born with? Or is it about a declaration of our individual identity that we are so in love with in the US? Or-is it about hiding?

  The digital craze brought the possibility of every person having their own free website, thanks to My Space. It also brought identity theft, blogs and porn names galore, burlesque names, Second Life and Twitter. Two competing forces collided suddenly; the desire for recognition was equally matched with the desire for privacy.

But like I've always said, "You can run but you can't hide." If someone wants to find you they will. Eventually. Which brings me to the ever creepy and ever magical world of Facebook. I was talking to my friend Christina (who has never gone by any other name than Christina), about how strange it is to hear about deaths of friends via Facebook.  I had two of these "updates" in two days from people I hadn't seen or talked to in twenty years. And I had to tell a girl who lived with us as an exchange student and now lives back in India that my Mom died of Cancer over Facebook. There was a painful intimacy about that conversation, yet a weird time warp technological distance. Time had passed but it also stood still. People I loved had died. And I could respond so fast, on Facebook with sympathy and memories to share.  Or, I could attempt to avoid death some more- under another name until someone found me again in ten more years.