close a gmail account?

Anyone know how to close a gmail account? I want to remake my alias by removing the period in my name. Right now I have <first name>.<last name>@gmail.com and i want to make it all one thing without the period. But when I try to sign up it says it's not available unless I add at least a number at the end or something. I have a highly unique name (rare Russian last name), and I'm sure the issue here is not that someone already took that exact same alias. I bet it's just because those 2 aliases coexisting with only difference being the period would be too similar for google for some reason. So I think if I could just delete the account and make a new one, then Google would let me make it how I want it. Any ideas? I looked in the help and I'm not sure it's possible ... and in google help group someone else posted question about closing account too...

Yep........log on click terms of use at the bottom of page..
Scroll down to 11 which is manage accounts link i think..........click my services and edit and there are options.

Thanks, I found the way to do it in google's help group.