Conversations- The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, by Goffman

I cannot understand when others say Goffman's name. It sounds like something else to me. Who? I ask.
We begin an inquiry- How do you know who you are?
We are who others say we are, using language. A network of conversations describe me- I react to these descriptions- accept or fight them- and thus fulfill them. "Absent language, there is no world" (Reese, 1/24/08). I cannot know who I am without the language to describe myself. Big L Language- little l language.
A child doesn't know she's a girl until she learns this. (Leila insists that girl's can have a penis. In a picture she has made, the figure is a girl, and the stick element is the thing she pees with, her penis. "Girls don't have a penis," I tell her. She disagrees.
My brief is "bad ass."
Goffman speaks of performers having different fronts for different audiences, and feeling a disconnect when audiences interact. One example, after I became a mother with L, Barbara at work related to me only as a mother. It jarred, because it was not the desired performance for me at that time. Another example, X's fear of birthday parties which brought all his audiences into contact because of the different fronts he presents to each one. This disparity is lessening as he becomes more open about who he is with family, and where he comes from with friends. I, however, have long been allowed backstage at all his events.