Which now that I have done some research may not actually help much, but here goes: Find someone ELSE with a verging-on-silly name and ask THEM how they prefer (or don’t) others to handle it.

Specifically, I thought of contacting Breece D’J Pancake.

But now I have learned that he died a year ago, so that’s not an option. Maybe Daniel Pinkwater?

In any case, this way you avoid all responsibility for the decision. Which would appeal to me, personally.

Oh, the thing with the girls is absolutely true. Ugh…I hate guns.

But here is some beauty:

There is a Quaker cemetery just outside the grounds of the library where I go. People don’t know this, but just before the library closes up, it is not uncommon to see these Quaker ghosts sitting on the bench by the door, trying to get some fresh air.

“What hast thou checked out today, sir?” asks Zeke Somersault, a ghost friend of mine who generally disguises himself as a homeless guy and jumps from the shadows behind the boyhood home of Robert E. Lee to scare the crap outta local groups taking the Ghost Tour of Alexandria.

They don’t know they have literally seen a ghost when Zeke appears, crawling out of the dumpster, but the effect is the same. First, gasps (occasional shrieks), followed by revulsion.

Zeke actually earns a pretty good living for a dead guy. He works at a local shop off King Street called Time Juggler. The Time Juggler is a high-end Victorian antique store with a goodly percentage of regular gay Republican customer, but in the backroom, it is possible for a customer to, well, juggle time and space. But it costs a lot moola. Zeke mostly handles maintenance and janitorial duties.

“Well, I got another book here by this Indiana/North Carolina writer, Haven Kimmel. She’s a Quaker. Oh, and this biography of Arnold Palmer,” I say to Zeke.

“Kindly tell Miss Kimmel that Pink Dandelion doesn’t give a hoot in hell what she calls him. Oh, this just in… Elton and Mr. Fox offer kind greetings. They want me to relay this information, and I can vouch for it myself, having been dead myself for nearly 300 years: “No headaches in ultimacy.”

“Will do,” I say back to Zeke, who says to me:

“No use talking to a clairvoyant, son. I can tell thoust is remembering the cool oaks that surround the Willard Library. You are thinking of the dull shine on the wood floors, the low growl of the floor fan at the end of the nonfiction section, and the double bump of the librarians’ pencil when she stamped your card and the book.”

“Take me back there, Zeke. Take me back the next time I go to the Time Juggler.”

“Save thy money. As I told Ben F., a penny saved is a penny earned, the barcode reader works just fine and there is a child who will remember how they beeped book-by-book before the librarian handed over the stack of treasures.”

I looked at Zeke. Thought he should really do something about his hair because that whole left side of his skull was showing.

“Read to me, son, if it should please thee, for mine eyesight ain’t what it was,” asks Zeke.

So, I opened the book and began: “I sometimes think it’s odd, and in no small part revealing, what you manage not to forget…”

And pretty soon Zeke is interuppting to tell me about a great round of hashish-influenced golf he once shot in Amsterdam before turning Puritan and heading off for the New World aboard a leaky ship called the Mayflower.

By the way, I FINALLY got around to reading your first book and LOVED it. I was so very happy for you when you got that darn Christmas present a day early I almost clapped. I’m starting your 4th book now and I’m very happy to find a new author that I like who is young and from the midwest like me. I found your blog via Augusten via his brother John and you guys are all such good writers … and I love that you all take the time to blog as well.

I just started blogging about 5 1/2 months ago, and feel free to stop by my blog if your bored. I like to call myself a writer when really, I’m more of a dreamer.

http://www.thegirlfromtheghetto.wordpress.com

I do believe most readers will not have a problem with the name of Pink Dandelion, particularly those who will not blink when you refer to Elton Trueblood, as I assume you will probably do. Many will assume Dandelion is a wise Native American who went the pathway of Quaker theologian.

Speaking of going Quaker….the silence once gave me a powerful and darned simple insight. It was this: we were sitting quietly at a meeting once and from no place it seemed, I suddenly had this insight based on a voice that was not my own. This statement was, “Respect means to look again.” That was the long and short, the beginning but not the end of it.

The retelling kinda loses its omph, but we all seek our salvation in fear and trembling, right?

Fear and trembling was how my brother and I often approached dinner when we were kids. My Mom’s gravy was so thick you basically spread it with a table knife, smearing it like icing over bread, a sausage patty, or whatever.

It wasn’t until I was a grown up that I escaped the bounds of my mother’s gravy, but how I long for her corn fritters…those babies were asteroids of delight.

As for me and the nail..eh..much as it sounds like fun to give pleasure to a nail….I’d just think I wasn’t watching where I was going…

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=pink+dandelion+quaker&btnG=Search

Look at what Moon Unit Zappa has achieved…again google..

wandering off now

By the way, Fresh As A Daisy, the very first time Ben Franklin visited Philadelphia he was exhausted from his travels and wanted to find some place to stop and sit down. He saw through a window a group of people gathered and thinking it might be a — what did he think it was? Oh, who can tell, I’m sure if you were surrounded by Puritans you would be difficult to shock. So Franklin wandered in and sat down and pondered just a moment how everyone was completely silent, and then immediately fell asleep. He slept through the entire Meeting for Worship, which at that time lasted around three hours, and when the service was over someone kindly woke him. “And that was the very first place I ever visited in Philadelphia,” he wrote.

I think if I go with Pink D. I will add the epithet Macdaddy Pink D. And I’ll give him his own theme song, maybe “Cadillac Ranch.” THINGS ARE LOOKING UP IN THE BARN OF SILENCE!

Note to George: I fear it is gravity seeking me.

Phiadelphia, PA