"I'm afraid that doesn't look like your signature. Can you try it again?"

I was being asked to sign my own name again. The notary scrutinized the tiny squiggle at the bottom of my driver's license, holding it against the paper I was asking her to notarize.

"It's here, this line at the end. It's not long enough."

I tried again, biting my lip. She looked again, shaking her head. She carried my things into a back room. Was she going to erase me?

What if I wasn't who I thought I was? What if somewhere down the line I had started pretending, wearing someone else's clothes, saying what she said, forgetting how I used to wear my hair?

"You'll have to try one more time."

My hand shaking, I tried to pretend I was myself, tracing the curve of my own name, trying to figure out how on earth I made the Q. "I swear I'm myself."

She shakes her head. "It doesn't look the same."

If we were all suddenly somebody else.

(The old me would have made sure to remind you that the Tournament of Books kicks off today.)