It's been about a week since my last post and life has been interesting, to say the least. To start off, apparently the national government thinks I am a male. Yep, you read that right. Mr. Keenan Pruett. The story of my life. Maybe I should start at the very beginning...

It all began the day before kindergarten started. I was a happy, cute child, with long blonde hair and the big, teased bangs. It WAS 1989, after all. Anyhoo, I was about to enter kindergarten at Harris Elementary School in Brownsburg, Indiana. The day before school started, you were supposed to go to the school and find out which class you were in, via the posted sheets on the outside doors of the building. I remember walking up to the building with my mom and sister, excited about finally being old enough to go to school. To make a long story short, we weren't able to find my name on any of the class rosters. Odd, you might think, considering that mom enrolled me and we went through all the preliminary requirements such as the eyesight and hearing tests and the state-mandated shots (which was when I was told I wouldn't have to have another shot until I enrolled for college. I told my doctor I was never going to college. If he could see me now...). Finally, Mom spooted my name. On the boy list. Mrs. Brown's PM kindergarten class, little Keenan Pruett, the boy. I was crushed. That was the day I realized I had a boy name. Mom comforted me and told me that it was a beautiful name and very unique, so it didn't phase me for too long. The situation was righted and I was placed in Mrs. Simpson's AM class. I cried on the first day of school, and she gave me a cookie from her blue Cookie Monster cookie jar. She won my heart.

Second grade. First day of class. My teacher, Mrs. Capps, was calling the roll. When she got to me, she said, "Keenan Daniel Pruett?" I can still hear her voice ringing in my ears. I put my hand up, embarrassed, and said, "It's Keenan Danielle, not Daniel." Mrs. Capps tried to stifle her surprise, but failed miserably. My friends noticed, too, and called me Keenan Daniel for a long time.

Elementary school was full of people trying to hide the surprise at the fact that Keenan was infact a girl. It's a little hard to get used to that type of thing, but I survived.

I moved to Kokomo in the middle of 7th grade, which is quite possibly the WORST age to transfer schools. Not only did I have to start over with the Keenan=girl struggle, but this was also when the smash hit TV show "Kenan and Kel" was popular. Yeah. It is safe to say that probably half of the people I met that first week at Taylor asked me if I ever watched the show (didn't we all? Come on!), where Kel was at, and if I had any orange soda they could drink. I lived in a world where Keenan was associated stricly with funny, overweight, African-American teenage guys. Ironically, my sister's name is Kalee, similar to Kel, and people actually asked if my parents had planned that. Yeah, they did, of course. They knew that 13 years after I was born, a TV show would be popular with the junior high age group and they wanted me to make friends, so they tried to make my name culturally relevant? Ah, junior high, the years when the brain just quits functioning.

High school wasn't so bad with the name ordeal, but almost every single piece of mail I got from colleges was addressed to Mr. Keenan Pruett. And on surveys, despite the fact that I clearly checked the "Ms." box or wrote a large, bold "F" in the space provided for gender, they always came back to me addressed to the male with the same name as me. Eventually, I gave in to the fact that, despite my best efforts to reconcile my gender with my name, the world was always going to view Keenan as a male name.

And then there is college. I still get mail addressed to Mr. Pruett, but not as frequently. And nothing from IWU, they know me as a woman. Most people, that is. Last year, I was in Old Testament survey with the wonderful Dr. Wilbur Williams. One day, I wrote something funny on Brittany's attendance sheet and he saw it and asked about it the next day in class. I was ill and did not attend that next class, so he asked Brittany to explain it aloud. She refused, so Dr. Williams said, and I quote, "Well, next time Keenan is in class, we'll have him explain it to us." Brittany told me that, and I was crushed. The semester was almost half over by this time! It gets worse, though. One day, he was taking attendace (we sat in the 2nd row of a large lecture hall. I sat between Brittany and Noah Moody) and he tried to get Noah's attention, but kept saying, "Keenan? Keenan?" while looking directly at Noah. I just sat there, confused as to why Williams was calling my name and trying to talk to Noah. Then it hit me. He fell victim to the trap. Sigh. I put my hand up and said, "Yes, Dr. Williams?" and the look on his face was classic. He was obviously caught off guard. He tried to play it off like he meant to be talking to me, but I knew the truth. It was a sad, sad day in my life. It, however, pales in comparison to what happened last Friday.

Angie and I stopped at my house before Encounter, and I picked up my mail. There was a rather official looking letter, so I opened it up. It was from the United States Selective Service Department. I'll just write the beginning part:

Dear Mr. Pruett,
Our records show that you are no longer eligible to recieve national financial aid because you failed to register for the draft...

That's right. Keenan Pruett is a draft-dodger. The letter went on to explain that if I failed to register, I could be fined up to $25,000, etc. Splendid! There is an exemption form that I can fill out, which I will be doing. One of the reasons I can check for being exempt from registering says "I am exempt because I am female." It's very humbling. I also have to provide a copy of my birth certificate to prove my gender. I wasn't sure how to react to reading that letter. I laughed on the outside, but deep down, it didn't make me very happy at all. I didn't cry, but my eyes were a little misty. I told my parents it was all their fault for giving me such a masculine name and that I am going to legally change it to something obviously female, like Mary. Mary Pruett. Ugh, no thanks. I like my name: it suits me. And by that I mean that I haven't encountered another name that I'd like to be called, not that I am a guy. I am not. I'll just set the record straight once and for all: I am a female!! Take that, Selective Services!!

That took longer than I had intended, but now the masses know the whole story.

Thanks for being a part of my life.