eenage boy science fiction geek (Russell) meets girl science fiction geek (Anji). They fall in a state of accelerated hormonal influence. To pass the time between bouts of nookie, they start writing a science fiction story together, alternating chapters. Alien languages are invented. In the story, boy from starfaring culture A meets girl from starfaring culture B, they hate each other, they learn to understand each other, they fall in a state of accelerated hormonal influence, they have a kid. The kid is named "Kaleja", (kah-lay-zha), a word which means "synergy" or "fusion product" or "the part left over if you subtract 'the whole' from 'the sum of the parts'". Back in the real world, Russell and Anji break up, Russell starts hanging around on BBSes, needs a handle, picks "Kaleja", uses it ever since. Too much information department: As Russell in his 20s experiments with what I'll call "modal self-consciousness" (kind of like voluntary schizophrenia?), Kaleja becomes a sort of alter ego or label that represents a feminized version of Russell in a sort of "state of grace" -- having gone through rough times, but come out the other side stronger and calmer for it.
Apparently kaleja is Nepalese for "liver", or close to it... And some polish guy named "Arkadiusz Kaleja" sent me email a while back, but nye rozumiem po'polsku, so I have no idea what he said. And there's some hank williams song "Kalega the Wooden Indian" -RB |