nce upon a time, way back in the dark ages, I was a fresh ideal-istic little newbie with a very feminine sounding login.

Adrift in a sea of horny male geeks.

I originally chose the nick Weevil out of necessity. I didn't realise when I picked my original login, "Phoebe" (an endearing Shakesperian character from As You Like It), that by assuming a female name in an overwhelmingly male geek society I was...well. A comparision might be sort of like shucking off your clothing, dousing your bod with pheromones and hanging a target around your neck. And bellydancing. Suggestively. (I could go on with the analogy but I think you get my point.)

"Phoebe" attracted more attention than I was comfortable with and the novelty wore thin almost immediately. For the good of my sanity I needed to pick a less stimulating nickname (as it were).

I thought "Weevil" was innocuous and sort of cute (to picture a weevil, visualize what you would get if you crossed Gonzo the Muppet with an elephant and small beetle). I also thought Weevil wasn't too gender specific, but strangely enough people usually assumed that 'Weevil' was a male. I had peace for awhile until people realised I was still the same Phoebe parading about in disguise, but by then the nickname had pretty much stuck. It didn't matter. I had found my nickname, and I loved it.

Instead of being constantly hit on by hard up MUD-ing dweebs, I was only occasionally hit on by lusty depraved Mills chicks under the delusion I was an available male. This sort of attention was far more amusing than the previous sorts of harassment I got, so it was almost welcome.

Another perk to my new identity was that I started to recieve random information from various people about the namesake of my wonderful new nick, which prompted me to seek out new avenues to further educate myself about weevils (and arthropods in general). My quest for knowledge culminated in a couple Cultural Entomology classes on 'Insects and Human Relations', a magnificent research paper on modern literature using naration from the colepoteran point of view, and quite a few stuffed weevil-toys handed in for various Soft-Product development (design) classes.

----------------------------------

The one part missing from it involves YERTLE, as most devious things often do. My good friend Carrie had started quietly (in a passive yet persistent manner you are probably all too familiar with) introducing me to the _concept_ of 'geeks' - a probably very maligned people from the sound of it, that she and Heather had recently discovered and succumbed to. Knowing full well I would find it creepy as fuck, Carrie found the correct button to push to hook me good: I would need to get an email account so I could correspind with my best friend (her recent ex), Scott; an exchange student who had returned to England only a few months before.

Never mind that I had no idea if Scott even knew what email was, the promise of staying in contact with him was fairly blinding. :>

So Carrie lured me to the Porter Lab (which smelled not unlike stale Cheetos and unwashed feet) to set me up with a 'login'.

Carrie, in her infinite wisdom, knew if she slipped out little interesting factoids that _something_ would eventually stick. What had stuck, and was still there when she demanded I come up with a 'cool name,' was an exchange we had had on my hallway a few minutes before about the quality of people you could find online, and how even though they called themselves 'geeks' - the term 'geek' lacked the connotations at immediately popped to my head. Think 'social retard', think 'misfit goober.'

"So you know that girl who lives over there? SHE'S a geek. And that guy she goes out with? HE'S a geek. I mean there are FEEBS too, but there are genuinely cool people you would like as well."

FEEBS. I hooted at her. FEEBS. Now she was even talking like one of her new sect.

"So what did you decide your name was going to be?"

FEEB. And all of a sudden I made a connection.

"Phoebe. Like the tarty goatherder wench in 'As You Like it'. FEEBIE."

"Oooh you'll get a lot of attention with a girl's name," she said.

"Oh whatever. I'm just using this email account thing to mail Scott." Right.

Also note: if I had had any idea there was a FEEB named Philb, I would have thought a little harder about it.

Weevil evolved from necessity, but it really stuck the best. I dabbled, also changing account names as I moved on to new services or machines, but Weevil stayed constant as my nick on icb. Names which revolved around Pixies themes also surfaced frequently.

Other acct names were: critter@b, siren6@gorn, veloria@netcom, fobia (a moo character, dont tell anyone), altarboy@vatican...then I broke down and it became weevil@everywhere. I have started using rebecca@ more, because it takes too long to explain the weevil thing.

fhew.

*curtsey*