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What's in a name? A lot or a little, depending who you ask. This page will explain in brief how I came up with the nicknames I've used over the years and why I use(d) them.
The website address, "Walking In Circles", is the title of a new Our Lady Peace song. I figured I'd grab it before someone else did. Amethyst The main one. People are often surprised that it has very little background. I was toying with my amethyst pendant one summer afternoon in 2001, trying to come up with a name to use on an internet message board. It hit me: Amethyst. Pleasing to the ear, unique, and uncommon enough that many have trouble spelling it. Some of my real life friends have started calling me Ame or Amethyst. What can I say? It's more interesting than "Alana". Cryptic My second ID is Cryptic. I woke up one morning after a particularly vivid dream. I could not recall any details of the dream other than being in a spaceship and being referred to as "Cryptic Six" by my fellow travellers. I thought the name would be fun to use. I shortened it to Cryptic, and it stuck. You'll rarely see me on message boards under this name unless "Amethyst" has already been taken. Redshift Has vaguely to do with astronomy and my spiritual self. Don't ask. SilverWolf Also Silver Wolf. This was based on my first AOL account. When I was new to the internet, I had to choose a screen name. I liked silver and I liked wolves, so I thought, "Why not SilverWolf"? Turns out that a significant percentage of internet users had drawn the same conclusion. I dropped this ID after a year of use and went for something slightly more original. Why Neon Twilight? The website name is a little more difficult to explain. I have an odd attraction to streetlights. No, not that type of attraction— give me some credit here. Sodium lights remind me of my childhood. I suppose it's because I spent a great deal of time travelling with family when I was a child, and many a night passed sitting in the car and gazing out at the streetlights as we went from city to city. The real inspiration for the name comes from a Reader's Digest article on our eternal twilight [light pollution at night]. I haven't been able to locate the article since. |