Pseudonyms for one and all

In this age of Big Brother (Orwell's version, not CBS's), identity theft, and the insistence of certain government blowhards that they know what's best for us, as well as their lust for absolute control over every aspect of our lives, I've been thinking that I really shouldn't be using my real name on this site. Especially since I want to be a teacher, which is still a very conservative profession, and especially since there are those out in the blogosphere that have been fired for what they've written on their personal sites (http://www.dooce.com/). I know no one is actually reading this, and I haven't yet posted anything remotely controversial, so it really doesn't matter, but I get a little paranoid at times. Too many X-Files episodes, I guess.

So I've changed my blogger name to Smithee, in honor of Alan (or, in my case, Alana or Alaina) Smithee - that infamous pseudonym used by filmmakers who don't want anyone to know they've worked on a particular film. I was going to go with a Star Wars name, since that movie is such a huge part of who I am, but every name I came up with was either too obvious, too lame, or too obscure. I'll also be going back through my previous posts changing the name of my husband to DH (Dear Husband or Damn Husband, depending on my mood as I typed), and the name of my son to Monkey (my nickname for him due to his mischievous and energetic personality).