Characters (with and without Spaces)

Let's begin here.

Thus refined, let's continue.

My name is Benb Gallaher, as everybody who knows me on occasion sometimes knows or learns.

That’s not my given name. My given name is the far-less-challenging Benjamin, which happens to be a name that I rather like. I am pleased that my parents gave it to me. I like that it contains as many letters as are in my surname.

Even though Benjamin is a name of which I am fond, its derivatives and diminutives comprise a frightfully sticky wicket. I was plenty pleased as a young youngster to be called Benji, except that ratty dog of the same name was a mammoth irritant. So, when I turned 8ish (just before Benji: The Hunted appeared in theaters near everybody), it was truncated to Ben -- a handle that I detested but saw myself as never being able to escape.

I tried to like it, despite its uncanny resemblance to the Americanized pronunciation of been (the past tense of be), and despite being regaled with huckamucka “How ya Ben?” and "I've Ben Working on the [expletive] Railroad" quips until whatever trite saying that means "forever" suddenly came true like one’s own prophesy of one’s own non-event. As years passed (barely, like they do), I never got comfortable with the name, just as I never felt okay in any other department of living that bore any actual significance. 

And so it went until the end of 7^th grade at West Frederick Middle School, when some friends and I found ourselves courted by teacherly personages and vending-machine enticements to study Russian during the following year. (The Soviet bloc had just dissolved, so it was all Jesus Jones and “Winds of Change” and whatnot.)

A primary selling point of Russian-language scholarship was that it entailed learning a new ALPHABET in addition to new sound-and-meaning intersections. The Cyrillic alphabet was terribly fascinating to me, for reasons that I continue to understand, even with my grown-up problems One aspect in particular that I found riveting was the presence in the alphabet of letters that contained no standalone phonetic value. This was as good as poetry to me. I’ll post that entire alphabet (vertically, for effect):

А

Б

В

Г

Д

Е

Ё

Ж

И

Й

К

Л

М

Н

О

П

Р

С

Т

У

Ф

Х

Ц

Ч

Ш

Щ

Ъ

Ы

Ь

Э

Ю

Я

If you will, please note the 4^th character from the end (Ь). It’s called a miyaki-znak, and its purpose is to soften the ending consonant of a word, like one seeks to soften a blow, or a stool. While that’s an awfully esteemed purpose, what I dug was the personal absurdity of how it looked like an eternally lowercased b. I wondered what would happen if I were to append it to the desultory Ben.

The results were marvelous. Nothing like that extra b could stay silent for long, and suddenly, my name was two syllables, had a distinct bounce to it, and rhymed with “Brenda.” I was swept away.

That was a long, long time ago, but I continue to cherish the name. Molly’s never called me anything else. And people get so uptight about it—whether someone chooses to acknowledge it is a failsafe identifier of dullness or salient guardedness. Generally, I see someone’s decision to continue calling me Ben as being presumptuous in that dismissive fashion that none of us should brandish at another’s expense if we can help it. 

A recent (involuntary) membership of mine to the latest entrant in a parade of Vile Social Utilities Wherein People Can Choose To Forget What You're Actually Like has involved this dreadful succubus known as MyLife. (For the record, I would never say "I don't care what you say anymore" to anybody!) I have little understanding as to what its differentiating characteristics are or could be vis-à-vis other, identical social utilities, although nomenclature does, apparently, matter, however marginally.

In any case, MyLife thinks that I’m really, really into finding other people that share my name, like that’s a worthwhile thing to spend MyLife doing. And, every morning, it notifies me of my self-generated uniqueness.