August 8, 2000

How I Came to Be Known as Mixim
or
My Life as a Palindrome
 
 

It all started about ten years ago. Maybe it was a little longer. I knew another Michael in college, but he h/ad a creative spelling. Sure he had started out like me, like all Michaels, around the world. Then the day came and he changed into Mykel. I admired the change. It suited him. I thought that some day I would find a way to spell my name that more accurately depicted who I was. So I rearranged a few letters, and I thought and thought, but I didnít find anything. So I thought some more.

It was in this state of thinking that I stayed for a few years. Then one day a friend of mine was expounding on the wonders of palindromes. I decided that is how I would respell. I needed a palindrome for a name! Some time, in the years in which I had been thinking, people had begun to call me Mikey instead of Michael. So I respelled. My name is Knmikimnk. (editors note: all spellings of mikey are pronounced the same. Thatís my name after all.) That was the formal version. Lazy writers could use the form Mikim. Not long after, I started writing the ëkí both backwards and forwards. It is hard to show while typing, but it looked something like an ëXí with a vertical line through it. I did this to have not just a palindrome but a mirror image. Then when typing, the only thing to do was make it an ëxí. And that is how I came to be known as MiXiM.
 
 

Submitted by:
Mixim (for a palindrome contest. All palindromes are underlined)