Words, Words, Words
a.k.a.,
the stuff inside
Nirvana and noodles in aisle nine
Scary but true tales from the toilet
Would the real Erica please stand up?
Diary of a slave to New Jersey Transit
The best import since the Camry
Solitaire only looks sweet and innocent
Seen and heard: Nifty stuff in the news
Stuff that rocks just like Lenny Kravits
I finally found Erica
Vonderheid. I am not making some obtuse psychological reference to my
"true self." This is not a literary device.
I actually found her.
In Pennsylvania.
She's a senior at Penn State, majoring in Public Relations (I guess not all Erica Vonderheids can be perfect). Erica is my father's cousin Eric's daughter or my third cousin. Up until last November, I though she was just a rumor.
The other Erica grew up in Pennsylvania, the Vonderheid ancestral home, besides Germany, of course. I grew up in Ohio on the grassy field belonging to the black sheep of the family. After our fathers went to college and had families of their own, they never spoke to each other much, just at funerals when the old folks passed away.
But now that I start thinking about how this other Erica Vonderheid is out there somewhere, I want to make her my best friend and take her under my wing. I could tell her all the difficult things about being Erica Vonderheid, such as where to find khakis that reach all the way to my shoes and about my best friend from high school dying suddenly. But she wouldn't understand. She's not me.
I think about how much fun it would be to go to bars in the New York and get carded. Would a smart bouncer think our IDs were fakes or would he notice that I am Erica A. Vonderheid and she is Erica T. Vonderheid? I want to show her how to buy a Metrocard and order a good chicken salad sandwich in a deli. But nobody else who has followed me to the New York metro area has ever asked for my advice on the city. Why should this person?. All we have in common is a funny sounding name.
Now that the idea of another Erica Vonderheid is sinking in, I wonder. Am I going to have to alter my professional name? For years, just Erica Vonderheid appeared in bylines, on mastheads and even in this zine. I had always used just the two names, with no initials or middle names because everybody called me Erica Vonderheid (and I think middle initials are kind of pretentious, unless you have a really common name like Jane Smith). I didn't think there would be any need to differentiate me between the scores of Erica Vonderheids out there. I didn't think it would ever be a problem. But thinking about it now, it still isn't a problem.
Although I have an almost perfectly formed image in my mind of what Erica looks like (definitely a brunette, probably on the short side, most likely cute, like all the other Erica Vonderheids out there), chances are we may never meet. Meanwhile, I am already trying to decide how to answer the phone if she decides to move to New York and needs a place to crash for a few weeks. Maybe she hates urban areas. Maybe she likes Pennsylvania.
I really wouldn't know.
Erica Tracy Vonderheid of State College, Pennsylvania, is not my twin, a friend or even a close relative, but maybe, just maybe, she knows a little of what it's like to be Erica.