I don't know a lot of things.  Most of which is my identity.

I know a girl back in Pittsburgh that plays guitar.  Once she was setting up in Angels for an acoustic show, before the main crowd got in.  She futzed around for a bit, picking up things, plugging things in.  She seemed at peace with a myriad of tiny details that made the hobby she loved so very much.

I tend to be inquisitive and fascinated with process of things.  You get to be that way when everything in your life is a fucking mystery. 

So I made my way over to her, slowly, non-directly.  I didn't want it to be obvious I was checking her out.  

She was tuning her guitar.  We have bands here all the time and they all had tuners and what not.  She was doing it one string at a time and letting it ring out while she turned the machinehead.

She caught me looking at her.  "Hi, what's up?"

"I've never seen anybody tune a guitar like that.  How does it work."

"I'll show you."

She stood and motioned me over to the stool.  She sat me down and gave me the guitar.  She pressed it tight against my sternum.

"Now focus your attention at your chest.  Can you feel this?"

She plucked a string and I felt a tiny continuous wave of sound hitting my solar plexus.  A pulse.

She turned the machinehead back and forth and changed the frequency of the wave.  Faster and slower.

"So how do you know when it's in tune?"

She smiled and turned the knob just a tad.  

The pulse stopped being an object that was passing through my body.  It became my body.

The wave rocked me from my feet to my hair.  My body became rhythm.

She saw the surprise in my eyes.

"That's how you know it's in tune."

And that's how the name Sam Conners fucking felt to me.  Part of me.  A rhythm, a channel for my identity.

Ricky Davidson is not a pulse in time with me.

Ricky Davidson feels wrong.