What's in a name?

Okay, so this London blog launch is LONG overdue. But the delay came with the name, of course. I battled for the perfect title for days, trying out a thousand variants on a handful of themes, as though I thought if my title were just one iota off of Ridiculously Profound, my readership would plummet. Because it would, of course. It even got to the point where I almost performed an animal sacrifice to the google gods as a plea to PLEASE free up all the blog names not used since, say, 2001, which in blog years is like, prenatal. Because all the truly good blog ideas (read: Lizzie's) were taken, and most had not been posted to since the days you clicked F12 to print.

But then one evening an epiphany hit.

I was drifting off to sleep when the beginning of 'Howl' entered my head. Please note this is not a normal occurrence, and usually only happens when I am starving hysterical naked and have been dragging through the negro streets. Which is only, like, once a month. But here is the direction my mind went when given complete pre-sleep freedom:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
     madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
     looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
     connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-
     ery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
     up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
     cold-water flats floating across the tops of
     cities contemplating jazz

This entire thing did not go through my head, mind you, as knowing all of the above by heart would put me in the category of beat-worship and I draw the line at trying to reproduce the madness. But the first line, sure. Then my mind naturally proceeded to 'Footnote,' as one cannot have Howl without the Footnote to Howl, and I wondered if London was holy. And then I knew: 'Footnote' was my name. And I fell asleep.

Upon waking the next day, I raced to the laptop (and by 'raced,' I mean, 'read my book in the bathroom for a while, then went downstairs, then made coffee, then washed the previous night's dishes, then wiped off the counters, then rearranged my daisies, then pet the kitty'). I then got online and typed in 'Footnote dot blogspot.' Taken. Naturally. But this one--London Footnotes dot blogspot--was not. And so it was mine.

I feel like this year's blog is going to be a footnote in every possible interpretation: from the literal breakdown--'notes taken while on foot,' to the denotative definition of 'a minor or tangential comment or event added or subordinated to a main statement or more important event.' My posts, of course, being the 'minor tangential comment' to the greater statement that is London.

And so we have it: my London blog. Cheers!