CItyMouse@confused.com

Today I am thinking about email addresses.

When we were getting near to graduation the "business" class we had with our assistant dean (which, as I recall, was not required or at all geared towards the directors, which in retrospect is kind of a shame) gave a talk about the professionalism of our respective answering machine and voicemail messages (no one had cell phones then - we all bought VM Service plans for like, $6.95 a month).

"You all are graduating. You are adults now. You are professionals. Your outgoing message should reflect that."

Well. at least he got one out of three right.

What he neglected to address was the volumes that ones email address can say about them.

I'm putting together some auditions for the fringe show I am directing. And I have to say, nothing scares me more than an email address like: likestoact!@yahoo.com or singsintheshower@gmail.com or tuneinabucket@erols.com (I made these up. If they connect to anyone, sorry, my bad). In fact - any email address that includes the title of your profession? Makes me wary. It just does.

Because, frankly, they make you sound like a big dork. I'm sorry but email addresses like that are the equivalent of wearing a letterman's jacket in high school with drama masks or music notes on it.

BIG. DORK. Big one. And trust me, I know, because it takes one to know one.

Now, some people can get away with unusual addresses (cough, kickyourself) because they just are innately cool. But that is the exception rather than the rule.

Vague, cryptic addresses? I don't mind. They add to someone's mystery. I have a friend I've known for nine years and I have no idea what the derivation of his email address is. And I have never wanted to ask. Because he has dark curly locks and sings in a rock band and that mystery? Add to his coolness quotient.

It always fascinated me when people still have a school email address decades after they graduate. Everyone I know who went to Princeton still uses a Princeton address. Which is strange because they all went to school when I did, and the whole email thing has gone through several overhauls since, well, the mid-nineties. So, what's the deal with that? Are they that proud of having gone to Princeton?

Fine. You have a right. But the Yalies all changed their addresses...

Now, in a pot calling the kettle twist, my beloved aol email address is in itself the source of some... conversation.

Beloved, not because I love aol (hardly) but because it is the one thing in my life (save for some friendships) that has lasted since high school. Everything else changes. The email address stays the same. It is the last six letters of my last name. Simple. Straight-forward. Appropriate. Or so I thought.

I recently had to write to a playwright I know to ask him an annoying question. A friend of a friend is doing his play at a small black box theater out in Southern Maryland. Very far away. Very small black box. He wanted to "ask the playwright some questions" and I opened my big mouth and said we'd shared a cab ride once.

So after months of procrastination (me? procrastinate?) I finally sent him an email with the request.

Lovely dear playwright responded the next day welcoming questions from small black box in Southern Maryland man and also had this to say about my own email address:

"Your last name is dignified and has a rich history, I'm sure, but couldn't a lovely, productive woman like yourself have an email address that's more evocative of the fullness of her gifts?"

Ummm, what? Wow. What "gifts" exactly is he referring to?

Good lord. I am really not quite sure what he meant. Frankly, I'd be surprised if he even remembers who I am.
Playwrights. You can't live without 'em.