10.05.07

At the poetry slam in Victorian Square, the "main event" woman, the woman from Seattle, made a lot of girls sing and chant their names. She said, "Your name is a mantra," your name is powerful.

Hi, I'm Britney.

Whenever people want to show me that they are serious, they use my name; any kind of serious.

Hi, I'm Britney, and once...

I have always been neutral about my name. Britney Viola sounds better, but only in the South can you really get away with two names like that. Mary Jane, that kind of thing. But I'm not a Mary Jane, I'm a Britney Viola someone-or-other.
I cast my father's name from me when I was young. I am not a derivative of German "powerful," or some kind of English court bitch to the King.

I am Britney Viola, Chaotic Bretagne, Bretagna Viola. I'm Britney. Hi.

When I was younger, I hated when people shortened my name to Brit. Hey, Brit. Like you know me enough to not have to waste your time with that second syllable, those last three letters. Ne[y]? Hey, Brit, like I enjoyed their company to the point that they could refer to me as someone from Britain. The fact that my name does actually mean "one from Britain" is irrelevant; you don't call the British Britneys, you call them Brits.

I'm not a Brit, I'm a Britney. Brrrriiit. Knee.

I also hated it when people spelled my name wrong, because while I understood that Brittany is a more popular spelling, it made no sense that they wouldn't ask me for my personal spelling. I'm not Brittany, and I knew even then that there are Brittneys and Britanys and all manner of stupid spellings for that name that sounds and looks like mine but is not. "What's your name, hon?" "Britney." "Can you spell that for me?" Would it have been so hard?

Hi, I'm Britney, and I'll be your awesome for the evening...

I hide myself behind AIM screennames and MySpace and MSN display names and all manner of hiding the internet has to offer. I pretended I was not Britney, and for awhile I wasn't. Who was that girl living in Fort Wayne; she could not relax. That was hardly me. Oh, but it was, very barely.
I am all about names. I look up to the great names in history, literature, music, even the mafia...

Hi, I'm Britney. Remember that. I don't think I'll be changing the spelling of my name; maybe I'll start really going by Britney Viola, but I won't become someone else. No one I know loves me for what I am, but who I am. I'll become someone great, but with my name.
Britney Viola.