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Welcome to The Moth podcast, I'm your host this week, Dave Wilburn. Look, the world is strange right now.

Now we don't all get along and we don't all have the same perspective on things. But I think we can pretty much all agree that this is a strange time we're living in. And with so much of this out of our control, the decisions we do get to make for ourselves become all the more important. So in this week's episode, we have two stories about getting your life together and taking matters into your own hands. First up is Ashley Johnson.

Ashley told this story at a Washington, D.C. story slam where the theme of the night was awards. Here's Ashley. Look at the.

I am originally from Maryland, and I knew at a young age that I wanted to be a professional actress.

I was one of those weird kids who would lock myself in the bathroom and look in the mirror and make myself cry because I was getting prepared for all the dramatic roles that I was going to play.

So I decided that after I graduated from college that I was going to move to Los Angeles. So three months after graduating, I moved to L.A., the place where dreams come true.

Well, let's just say that things didn't quite work out. I thought they would when I got there.

So I ended up getting a corporate America job.

But it's OK because I figured I could work in corporate America while pursuing my acting career and I wouldn't have to be a starving artist.

So year one Roseby I'm working in corporate America, not really doing anything acting related, but it's OK because I just got to L.A. still trying to find my groove here to Roseby got a promotion, not really doing anything acting related because I'm making money more money than I've ever seen straight out of college.

You're three roseby here for olds by your five roseby and I am miserable.

I did not move to L.A. to work in corporate America. I'm tired of sitting at that cubicle.

So I quit and I knew that there were three things that I needed in order to pursue a career in acting. I needed a good headshot, I needed training and I needed an agent head the head shot with taking classes, doing the training. But I didn't have an agent. So I started sending my resume out to different agencies, my headshot, and raised me out to different agencies all over L.A. And one day I got an email from an agency, actually me to come in to audition.

So the big day for the audition arrives and I get to the office building where the agency is, and I'm greeted by the receptionist. She gives me two different scripts. One is a commercial script and one is a dramatic script. And she tells me that I have five minutes to prepare and that she'll come back and get me and take me to see the agents.

So I prepare, I'm ready. I go in the room.

I go through the commercial part of the audition, did a great job on that. I go through the dramatic part of the audition, did a great job on that.

And I'm thinking I'm done.

I look over to my right. Well, let me tell you how the room was set up. It was three agents, one on my right, one on my left in, one in the middle.

So I look over on my right and I noticed that the agent has my resume in his hand. He's staring at it a little longer than he should be.

And he his eyes stop at the bottom of my resume. He says, You think? And I'm like, yeah, I sing because I put it on my resume. And he's like, let's hear something. OK, pause right there.

Three days earlier, I was having dental work done.

I've had a chip tube since I was a little girl. So I decided that if I'm going to take my acting career seriously, I need to get my toothpaste. So I decided to get a veneer.

And if anyone if you're not familiar with that, they pretty much shave your tooth down to nothing to put the permanent tooth on their.

Well, at least that was my experience. So they did that and they weren't able to give me the permanent tooth that day. So they gave me a temporary one. And they also gave me a plastic cover in to the keep to keep the tooth in place just in case. Back to the audition.

You sing? Yeah, I sing. Let's hear something. So I walk over to the agent's desk and I take a tissue off his desk without asking my you and I split the plastic covering in the tissue and then I sit it on his desk.

I don't know why I did that.

My nerves must have got the best of me.

And I go back to the center of the room and I proceed to sing and boom, the tooth falls out on the floor.

I was so embarrassed.

It was so silent in there. You could hear a pin drop. Well, in this case, you could hear a tooth drop.

And that moment, I had to make a decision, decision, am I going to finish this audition or am I going to run out of here from sheer embarrassment?

I want to know what I did.

I picked the TUF up off the ground, popped in my mouth and sang my heart.

So I'm happy to report to you all that I did end up getting signed by the agency, I was awarded a contract and they really didn't care about my missing front tooth after all, because as the saying goes in show business, the show must go on.

That was Ashley Johnson since sharing this story at the mosque. Ashley has published two books and wrote, directed and produced a short film called Where's Mother? Ashley continues to write and act, and she says she's looking forward to sharing more stories for many years to come. For more information on Ashley's work, head to the extras for this episode on our Web site, The Mofongo Extras. Up next, Peter Lefter Peter told this story at a New York City story slam where the theme of the night was named.

Here's Peter live at The Moth.

My wife came out of the hospital room and her eyes were ringed with red. And I took her in my arms and we just both cried. She was saying goodbye to my brother and we were taking him off life support that night after about three weeks of him being in a coma. And we broke our embrace and she looked up at me and she said, I promised that would name our first child, either Edward or Dwina. And I looked at her and I said, oh, you better hope he lives through the night because you've got to take that shit back.

And I said that for two reasons, because, one, I just didn't want to say the name Edwina for the rest of my life, and I knew with my karma as a shitty teenage boy that I was definitely having a daughter first.

There was no question about that. But but the second reason is the names have power.

Right? And I think I know this more than most people.

And the day I realized it, I was in a bank in Mexico and I passed the Teller Traveler's Check, it was 1991 and she looked at the traveler's checks and she looked at my passport and then she disappeared.

And I leaned over and I looked around and she was on the floor laughing.

And this was not a surprise.

The name I was born with was Fragoso, and an Italian for Casso means explosion or natural disaster, which is kind of fitting for my life.

But in Spanish for Casso means complete and utter failure.

And in certain countries, which was new to me, but apparently Mexico is one of them, for Castro is synonymous with the word fuck up.

So I could completely understand that if someone handed me a piece of paper that said, Peter, fuck up, I would laugh hysterically too.

But it was that moment where I realized. This is my father's name, a man who left when I was two that I have not seen since I was eight, he never paid child support, lied about his address, so we couldn't find the fucker, you know, to actually contribute to my life. And here I am. I'm carrying this name, which with this horrible legacy.

And so in that moment, I decided to take on my mother's name, which was an upgrade, not a big one, my mom's last name, a slaughter.

But after witnessing people's reaction to my name and that by laughing so hard that they had to fall off their chair at their place of employment, no doubt I realized it was time.

It was time for me to really choose the woman sname who who had raised me, who who had contributed the most to my existence and my my adulthood. And so when I came home from that six month period in Mexico, I saw my mom and I explained, hey, I made this decision. I want to take on your name. And she said, Sad, funny, funny. You should should mention that I have been thinking about dropping the S.

And I thought that was awesome. So together I took on her name and we together dropped this and I spent a lot of time thinking about, like, you know, at that time I was, you know, 20, 20 years old. And I wanted to get my Ph.D. in sociology and teach. And I thought the doctor laughter sounded a little bit too much like a pimp.

And yeah. So I went with the pronunciation lawter and Peter Lawter sounded much better than fuck fuckup. And so life went on.

And then I got married and my wife, who took on my name, thought that I was completely psychotic for using the presentation lawter when it was spelled.

Laughter It was just like that was just absolutely absurd.

So she went by laughter and I went by lawter and it was totally confusing until much to my surprise, I found myself one day introducing myself as Peter laughter.

And when you introduce yourself as Peter laughter people react to you in a very, very specific and and positive way, that what a great name you must be so happy.

And, you know, when 50 people say that to you in the period of a month, you actually start to believe it. Right? You start to take that on. And and so when my wife said that she was going to name our daughter, Edwina, I knew that was a mistake.

Yeah.

And we talked about it and we decided that we were going to name our child Edie either way and.

I knew I was going to have a girl and I worried about the reaction to people who it's a boy's name and we spelled out like a current moving in the opposite direction because I wanted the magic of my brother and the magic of moving against the currents to be part of her life.

And I remember when she was about four years old, we were at a birthday party and there was a magician who asked for volunteers and she volunteered and the magician said those words.

Isn't that a boy's name? And I remember myself standing up and I was angry and I was waiting for this moment. I knew it would come.

And my daughter at four just looked at him like he was a stupid idiot and said, no. That's my name, and I knew that the magic worked. That was Peter laughter. Peter told us that he and Ed were bashed by the Big Brothers, Big Sisters of America program when Peter was just nine years old. He said Ed was the best man I knew. And it wasn't long after we met that we realised we had become brothers in every sense of the word.

Peter sat down with his daughter Edie to talk about how she feels about her name. Here's Peter and Edie.

So, Edie, you are named after your Uncle Ed, my brother, who you have never met. And I've been wondering what the fact that you're named after a man and you are a young woman and how that how that you think that impacts you.

It's a.. It's something that's really special to me. And I think it's really fitting for who I am. And I think if people hadn't, I think if people didn't bring up the fact that it's quote unquote, boy's name, I would have never thought about it.

And I but I even think the kind of like ambiguity of it is really important to me. And it's just like.

She feels very me. I don't know. It does feel very good. It's one of the things that surprised me. Ever since you were three and up until now, 14 years later, you know that the name suits you the the thing and I know I read into this because I loved your uncle so much, but I see so much of you in him. And it's not I mean, clearly it's not genetic because we were not genetically related at an but but you're just just intense curiosity was something that I saw in him.

And when you latch onto something, you really latch on. Just your desire to learn everything about some very, very obscure thing was something that he really shared. And yeah. And had this just this wonder and an intellectual discovery which which I, I grew into. But I think that's something that you've always had, which is fascinating to me.

That makes me really happy to hear. I am really happy. I remember when I was younger and you describing that I was named after him and just sort of deciding that because of that I was like, it's like a part of me from there. And I feel very connected to him, even though I know about him, but only very abstract senses.

Well, the other thing that I think about with your name, it's this constant reminder of what family is or was for me and now is for us and our family. And because I had adopted me as a little brother when I was nine, now I realize that family is what you choose, not with what you end up with. And that's been really powerful. Definitely. Yeah. So, yeah. And your name is a constant reminder of that for me.

You know. Love you, kiddo.

That was Peter and Eddie. Laughter To see some photos of Peter and his family go to the extras for this episode on our website, The Mossberg Extras. My middle name is Sheherezade. Yes, 12 letters. She was the storyteller in a thousand and one Arabian Nights. And we are in no way related. And no, Sheherezade is not a family name. I didn't know I was a storyteller when I was an infant. My mother possibly didn't know I'd grow up to be one, but I totally get where Edie's coming from.

Sometimes your name isn't just what they call you. Sometimes it's who you are. And from this Damián, I understand exactly what it means to be an adult. Before we go, we like to give a special shout out to all the Edwina's out there. We think your name is lovely from all of us here at the mall. Have a story where every week. Dame Wilburn is a long time host and storyteller at The Moth. She's also the host of the podcast Dane's Eclectic Brain podcast production by Julia Purcell.

The Mom podcast is presented by PRICK'S, The Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public. NPR Big.