My Friends Do Have Real Names. Really.

A bunch of my closest friends, I met on the internet. (I know that sounds slightly kinky or vaguely pathetic, but I'm a writer who works at home and spends much of her time in a very small town.) Sometimes these friends have online names or use code names for their nearest and dearest, as I do for my friend Pinecone, so nicknamed because of her hair style. But knowing people from their online names can become somewhat problematic.



VodkaMom, I will likely always think of as nothing but Vodka,...