Oh Dear. That Might Be My Nasty Side Showing Again.
I am feeling very petty today. No, not pretty, PETTY.
This will be a very petty rant. I recognize it for its inherent pettiness and I am still upset enough to go ahead and let my pettiness show.
Bear with me, for I am very, very petty today.
I fully understand that I do not own my name; millions of other parents gave their daughters the same name; they did so before I was born and they’re still doing so because I have, if I may say so, a pretty cool name. Nobody is responsible for the name on his/her birth certificate. That name was not our choice.
Other names, in our lives, ARE chosen. And when one chooses a name to be known by, one should be careful.
When one wishes to have an online identity, one tends to be rather possessive of the name one CHOOSES to be known as. Our online, internet, blog-names are choices we make, and as with all choices, care should be taken.
In the beginning, the Blogosphere was sparsely populated, and any name one chose was probably the ONLY name of that kind “out there.” However, the Blogosphere has now Big Banged, and there are lots of us “out there,” and in order for the Blogosphere to maintain individual identity for its inhabitants, it’s extremely important for the new neighbors to. . . DO A LITTLE RESEARCH BEFORE CHOOSING AN IDENTIFYING INTERNET NAME, BECAUSE WHEN YOU DON’T CHECK IT OUT FIRST, YOU MIGHT CHOOSE A NAME FOR YOURSELF THAT SOMEONE ELSE HAS ALREADY ESTABLISHED HIMSELF/HERSELF WITH . . . and that creates confusion and hard feelings.
Did I mention the hard feelings?
Yes, you can choose any name you want, to sign your posts with. Sigh. Use Dooce’s name, or Michele’s, or Siggy’s, or MommaK’s, or Hoss’s, or Monty’s, or Fausta’s, or Suburban Turmoil’s, Kenju’s, or Muzik’s, or Cary Grant’s, or Popeye’s, or Little Lulu’s, or Herman the Hermit’s, . . . but you can bet people won’t appreciate it, and you can also bet that your neighbors in the Blogosphere will think you’re a complete and total tool for A. not doing your homework first and discovering that HELLO, these names are already in use! and B. not realizing that such things are simply NOT DONE. At least, they’re not done by the established Blogosphere.
Please, Newbies, before you start posting and commenting using names that someone else has already built a following with, do some simple research first. Google it. If it comes up, choose something else. Please.
It’s not pleasant when one starts to get email and Google Alerts, etc, for posts one hasn’t made and knows nothing about. It’s also extremely unpleasant when I see my Blogosphere Name in the comments of other blogs, because until one clicks the link, it would appear to be MY comment. Yes, I capitalize “Blogosphere Name.” It’s that important to me.
Because it’s my name in this neighborhood. You newbies, with your brand-new blogs*, who decided you wanted to blog under the name “Mamacita,” there’s no law against it. There’s nothing I can do. It’s a generic word. It’s up for grabs. It’s not copyrighted, nor can it be, because it’s just a word, like “mother” or “auntie” or “sister” or “papa-san” or “sweet petunia” or “amazing lack of credibility or creativity.” Pick any name you like. There’s nothing anybody can do about it. There’s nothing I can do about it.
Except maybe give you these few pieces of advice, the main one being, “Get your own damn blog- name and don’t use someone else’s!”
People work hard to establish themselves under a certain name. It’s not nice to elbow oneself in and try to blog using a name that someone else is already associated with.
I do not for one moment believe that any of the recent Mamacitas chose this name out of malice or anything remotely such. I think they all just didn’t know any better. They liked the sound of it, or that’s what they’re called at home, or it just seemed cool, whatever.
But I do believe that the days of assuming that on the internet, one can choose to be whatever or whoever one wishes to be, are over; there are far too many of us living here now, and we prefer not to get someone else’s email, or to be mistaken for someone else because that someone else has chosen to use an already-established name.
I have blogged about this issue before, back when it was still kind of funny; but after getting that last batch of Google Alerts about “myself,” I’m not laughing any more. I’m actually really pissed.
How pissed am I? You really don’t want to know.
Let’s just say that when my students try to claim or pass off something as their own when in fact it is actually associated with someone else, I fail them.
*By “brand-new blog” I am referring to any blog less than four years old.
I Don't Want To Fall Asleep. I Don't Want To Miss A Thing.
When my Other Sister and I were about fourteen and fifteen years old, more or less, Mom and Dad took us all to the Cincinnati Zoo. We stayed in a downtown hotel, and Other and I had our own room. My brother and Tumorless stayed in the room with Mom and Dad.
That afternoon, Dad gave O.S. and me TEN DOLLARS APIECE and turned us loose in downtown Cincinnati. I can’t speak for my sister, but I was so surprised at the permission and so blown away by that much money that I was almost in shock as we began walking around the city, looking in the big windows and gawking like the small-town tourist-girls that we so sadly were. I don’t remember if I bought anything, but I remember watching my sister try on culotte-dresses, which were all the rage back then. I remember looking at her and thinking how pretty she was, and how nice she looked in the white culotte dress she finally chose. I can remember thinking – possibly for the first time, because I was a strange and moody kid and usually so lost in books that real life annoyed me – that she wasn’t merely a slightly younger sister whose sole purpose on this earth was to bother me, but that she was a person in her own right, and she was beautiful and smart and was going to make a positive difference in the world. I watched her turn in the many-faceted mirror and every view of her was beautiful.
When we got home, I took her picture, as she stood in front of our house wearing her white dress. I’d post it here, but O.S. values her privacy.
I’m still cleaning up Mom’s old photographs; this picture was one of them, tonight. It brought back a lot of memories. All of the pictures are bringing back memories, but the picture of my Other Sister, so young and pretty and smiling, in her new white dress that was purchased in the Big City while two young teens were on their own for a few hours and trusted with what was, to us, an incredible amount of money, made me smile, and wish she lived closer.
This trip was also the only time in my entire life that I’ve had my own hotel room. Well, shared with someone other than a parent or husband, that is. It’s also the only time I’ve ever explored a city without an adult pretty much holding my hand and telling me when it’s okay to cross the street. Seriously, you all have NO IDEA how provincial and small-town and backward I really am. I can face rooms full of needy students and I can give them what for and I can lecture to huge groups, and discuss, and I can stand my ground with nonsense and entitlement issues, and I can bustle around in a kitchen full of people and I can go to conventions and seminars and give demonstrations and talk to total strangers, and I pretty much know exactly what to do when people NEED me, but when I’m faced with meeting people I’m not working with. . . people who don’t really need me. . . . people I can’t do anything for, work-wise. . . people I hope will, well, um, love me and want to hang out and be friends. . . I’m at a total loss sometimes.
I’m looking forward to BlogHer for many reasons, and one of them is that while I am there, I’ll be working – and it’s so easy to relax and meet and talk to people when I’m working because, um, they HAVE to talk to me because they will need me – and while I am there, I’ll also be on a panel – and it’s so much easier to talk and relax when I have a defined purpose – but most of all? Most of all?
I love BlogHer because so many people I’ve read and loved and, okay, yes, KNOWN, for several years now will be there, and I’m going to try to stand up straight, take a deep breath, and approach them without melting into a bubbly mass of insecurity.
I’ve made two good starts. I’m going to Chinatown with Fausta, and I’m sleeping with Monty.
That’s right. We’re going to be ROOMIES in SAN FRANCISCO in a big fancy HOTEL without responsible adults to watch over us!
And then the three of us will hit Chinatown and who knows what else because I’ve had experience walking around a big city, by golly, and we’re going to paint the town.
That ten dollars is sounding pretty good right now, too.
I think all of you should sign up for BlogHer. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had in all my entire life, that didn’t involve a theme park pass or nudity.
Then again, there are theme parks in California, and who am I to dictate to people what to wear?
Blogroll. . . Google Reader. . . I want to see you in person, and I want pictures.
And when I get to BlogHer, I don’t want to miss a thing. Alert Steven Tyler.
Can’t wait. CAN’T WAIT. But I try to be mature about it.
Mom
This is my mother’s senior picture. I can remember looking at this picture as a small child and thinking, “My mommy is as beautiful as a movie star.”
I hadn’t seen this picture in at least thirty years, but it’s one of the pictures that I scanned to put on her new digital picture frame.
My opinion hasn’t changed, either.
My mommy is still as beautiful as a movie star.
