I just had a revelation as to why I chose my e-mail address/ICQ nickname:

I have yet to figure out what exactly an aswang is. Some describe them generically as sorcerors and witches or warlocks. Others equate them with vampires originating from Eastern Europe and similarly use garlic and crosses to keep them away. Others conflate them with the mananangal, a creature found also in Japanese mythology (I forget the name), which is a normal human during the day, but at night, the head and viscera detach from the legs and can fly around, eventually perching on the chimney of some unsuspecting pregnant woman and using its incredibly long tongue to suck the fetus out of her womb.

Why an aswang ? Well, I got tired of my AD&Dish e-mail address in college, sorceror@uclink2.berkeley.edu (now long defunct) and I guess I wanted to name myself after a peculiarly Filipino mythological creature. Perhaps it was also an expression of my subconcious self-criticism of my artistic aspirations. I long to create original work, but somehow I always end up feeding off of others.

I don’t know. I also just thought it was sort of cool how many people chat me up just because of my ICQ nickname.