i like to google myself in public

Everyone's done it, right? Googled ourselves, to see where we're "out there" on the net. To see if there's another "me" out in the world.

This came up in band rehearsal last Tuesday night. Our director has a reasonably common name with an uncommon spelling, and he was shocked to find there was someone else in the world with his spelling. I am proudly the only Brooke Yool ine the world. Google myself, and I come up with sites about marathon results, music stuff, old chemistry teaching sites, science research... all about me.

Which got me thinking: when I married, I kept my name -- mostly because I'd been Brooke Yool for 27 years, and it felt weird to be called anything else. So I wondered: if I'd changed my name, would I have lost my uniqueness? So I googled Brooke Caruthers yesterday, out of curiosity.

And there is indeed a Brooke Caruthers, who lives on the east coast, is a few years younger than me, and runs lots of local 10Ks.

Ha! I maintain my uniqueness. Glad I didn't change my name.