You've heard of taking back a word, but have you heard of taking back a name? That's what I plan to do with this blog, my eponymous blog (don't you love that word: eponymous?), since my identity on the internet suffers at the hands of two very powerful forces.
The first force is a science fiction force, a critical force, an academic force. That force is Adam Roberts of adamroberts.com. My whole life I've been Adam Roberts. And so, apparently, has Adam Roberts. If you Google Adam Roberts, he's the first result. He even has a Wikipedia page devoted to him. I have an author page at Random House, but that's not really as cool.
So I've adopted a D. A middle D (for "David") that will help me combat this first force that squashes my identity on the web. As Adam D. Roberts, I will join the ranks of G. Gordon Liddy, Arthur C. Clark, and J.K. Rowling as a person with a prominent initial in my name. I wonder if these people always used these initials before they became famous public figures? Because for me, at least, it's quite unnatural to have that D there. I've always been Adam Roberts, my whole life, and adding that D makes me feel like a different person. Not a bad person, necessarily, but more accountant than rock star, don't you think? That D. ages me about 10 years. With that middle initial, I feel like an adult.
Force #2 is a force I've created myself. My Frankenstein force. My main stage blog, The Amateur Gourmet. That person is me, for sure, but because The Amateur Gourmet has been so successful I feel like my life is so saturated with food, I've lost touch with all my other interests.
I mean, my God, all of the pictures on my computer right now are pictures of food. Craig (my boyfriend) and I just celebrated our one year anniversary and I tried to make a slideshow of pictures from the first year of our relationship, and you know what? Almost all of the pictures involved food. Craig eating, me cooking, us at a restaurant. Yes, this is my career nowadays, but there has to be room for all the other parts of myself on the web. I'd say that 28% of my day is spent thinking about food (clearly more than the average person's) but the large majority is spent thinking about, dreaming about, and worrying about subjects that vary from Rosie O'Donnel's strange notions about September 11th to my grandmother's capacity for survival. My friends and I sometimes discuss food subjects, but more often than not we're arguing about "Children of Men" and the length of time we can hold our breath under water. We argue about politics, we argue about recycling. My life is a jungle of topics that need a forum on the web and that forum isn't a food blog.
And thus a new blog is born, a blog with a peculiar name that will slowly become my own. Welcome to Adam D. Roberts, home of the other 72% of my brain.
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