Full Circle Associates

I have a "handle" or name that is really an essential part of my online identity: choconancy. There have been variants: choco, choconan, but choconancy is a part of me that came to life when I joined my first online community, Electric Minds. I started out as Nancy White. Quite original. Then one of my mentors, a man named Michael (handle: bodhi) from Chicago said "I know too many Nancys. From now on you are choconancy to me." He died suddenly in that first year. My first experience of losing someone online too. (For more see this thread at the new Electric Minds.)

It stuck, like a fine dark chocolate glaze on a brownie. I shed my common Nancy White for something different. I liked it.

As I began to move professionally into the online world, I reverted more often to the "Nancy White" login. After all, who would take choconancy seriously. Yet the name came up again and again.

Today, in a continuing fit of work avoidance (that will soon have consequences crashing down upon me) I Google Searched: choconancy.1200 results.

A little perspective. There are 3,670,000 Google hits for Nancy White. But there are a lot of Nancy Whites. There is the fabulous folk singer, Nancy White, Queen of the Topical Song. The illustrator, Nancy White Cassidy. There's Nancy White Carlstrom, the children's author. And for some reason, there are a lot of references to geneological searches for Nancy White. Doubtfully my ancestor, since I married into this name (from of all names, Wright!) So yeah, I show up amongst those other 3+ million hits, but as a sliver.

Interestingly all of the references I found for choconancy had some direct relevance to me. Many were the result of using choconancy as a handle in an online interaction space (many were repeats or variants at a single site - that accounts for the volume). But it was still me.

I am choconancy.