…Username v. 1.0 was my name. How predictable. And, frankly, how imprudent in this Internet day & age.

What can I cook up that says something about me, that is more abstract & obscure (though not to my immediate family) than ordinary?

Something about being my mother’s daughter — something I wouldn’t have liked to admit thirty years ago, something with which, now, I’m completely at peace.

My mother, christened Margaret, was ‘Mugsy’ to my uncle Bill: her closest sibling in age, a childhood rival in everything, & a man who went through life with a wicked twinkle in his eye.

[Mom certainly lived up to the tag. She used to tell a story about the time Bill threw her favorite doll down the outhouse. Her response? She clocked him one with a hammer. He wore the scar on his forehead to the end of his days.]

And dotter? Swedish for ‘daughter’. No, we’re not Swedish; but I’ve been to Stockholm, liked it very much & would love to spend more time in Sweden. I chose dotter as a suffix in the spirit of Scandinavian surnames à la Kristin Lavransdatter.

So, there you have it: Mugsy’s daughter. That’s me!