this will sleigh you

It’s around this time of the year that I start to get into the spirit of Christmas. Usually the festive cheer takes shape as a sort of desperate coping mechanism through the final weeks of uni. My saying “I can’t wait for Christmas!” is the same as “I can be 100% certain I won’t have to deal with this 3000-word essay on December the 25^th, hurrah!”

Of course I love Christmas for all the other reasons too. For the family, the food, the presents, the smell of dust and earwigs on the plastic tree when you pull it out from the box, the empty promises that this will be your last piece of shortbread, the bristle of an uncle’s stubbly kiss on your cheek, the shock when the cat knocks down and smashes her first (of many) glass baubles, drinking cold brandy custard from the jug, seeing the flash of surprise and delight on a loved one’s face when you give the perfect gift, putting reindeer ears on the dog and watching him sulk…

It’s for these reasons that I can understand someone wanted to prolong the magic. I have a friend who refuses to take down the tree until her birthday in March because it reminds her how wonderful it all was (she’s also extremely lazy). I make gingerbread year round, and I make for sure and certain those little buggers have the full Elven icing get-up when I decorate.

But I can’t really understand the logic behind changing your name to Santa Claus.

Would the real S.C please stand up? Osiowy, 2010

In 2000 an Ohio judge rejected Robert William Handley’s attempt to change his name to Santa Claus because “The petitioner is seeking more than a name change, he is seeking the identity of an individual that this culture has recognized throughout the world, for well over one hundred years”. Alright, fair enough, back to the drawing board. So imagine ol’ Robbie’s fury when, only a year later, the Utah Supreme Court tells David Lynn Porter to go for his life and start signing away as Santa Claus.

Okay, this really tickles me. Not only did these two men- with quite normal, sensible names to begin with- both decide that their lives would be exponentially improved by making the name change to St. Nick, but one gets his way and the other didn’t. I feel sorry for Robert Handley. I mean, if his last name were Claus and his parent’s decided to name him ‘Santa’ on the birth certificate there’d be no problem at all.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this. On the one side, I know I’d have a hard time stifling a laugh if given the opportunity to meet Santa Claus from Utah. But on the other- he’s not hurting anyone. Why on earth can’t we be called whatever we want, whatever we think sums us up the best?

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not taken lite-ly

If you are a person who

1. Has stumbled unwittingly upon swimsuit season and realised that, unlike 12 months earlier, when you look down you can no longer see your feet beyond your winter-tummy.  
2. Been likened to Miss Piggy- and not for your charming singing voice or amphibious significant other.
3. Considers exercise to be the walk to the letterbox (and back again, you regular Olympian you).

Garcia, 2010

Then you are probably no stranger to the Diet. And you are definitely no stranger to the word “diet” along with “lite”, 
“light” and “x% fat free” plastered over every yoghurt tub and cracker packet. These buzzwords shriek from the supermarket shelves. “Eat as much of me as you like! You’ll probably lose weight just from the sheer act of moving your jaw up and down! I’m guilt-free!”  

Well I’ve had enough of it. These names are lies which we gobble up as fast as those biscuits (no added fat, but you should’ve seen the gallon of sugar they unloaded into these bad boys). And if there’s no added sugar, there’s the fake stuff that gives you a headache and the sinking feeling that, in ten years, it’ll be the no. 1 cause of cancer. These labels are marketing ploys to make us believe they’re health foods, when in actual fact they’re just as artery clogging and diabetes inducing as the product next to it.

But man is it nice to pretend this chocolate bar is doing the good of a celery stick.

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citrus twist

As if by fate, I was getting into my car to drive home from work today when Hamish & Andy’s radio show came on (by the way, that isn’t the ‘fate’ part. I don’t find it miraculous that noise comes through the speakers when I put the keys in the ignition. Not since year 3 and the The Way Things Work picture book, anyway).

Back to business: Hamish & Andy. So they were talking about a schoolteacher friend from Los Angeles who has twins in his class. One called Orangejello and the other Lemonjello. Is that not the absolute worst thing you’ve ever heard? The only thing I can think of that would make this crime a little more palatable would be if the parents took it that step further and dressed them in their respective orange and yellow colours. Because then they’d be like mascots, or gelatinous superheroes. That’s almost cool.

But wait, there’s more! They’re not pronounced the way you think. Even though Ma and Pa must have been out of their minds stoned with the munchies for jello- they sure didn’t lack that special touch of class. Apparently the names are inexplicably European. Sound it out…Oh-rahn-jel-oh.

September 1933

I don’t care what digestion aid this adorably kitch advert promises. Orangejello and Lemonjello are wreaking all kinds of havoc on my upchuck reflex right now.

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this kid will be hung out to dry

If you’ll bear with me, I’d like to paint you a mental picture.

It’s the first day of school. Hair combed neatly, the never-before-worn uniform still crisp from his mother’s iron. A heavy backpack sits squarely on his small shoulders. He stands at the perimeter between playground and classroom, draws a deep breath and steps toward a group of playing children. This will be one of the clearly defining moments of his life. To meet and make friends… today he determines his social aptitude and popularity for perhaps years to come.

He smiles. Holds a hand up in a hesitant wave;

“Hi, my name is Buddy Bear…”

Meg Lowe, 2007

No. I’m not (soft) toying with you. Last week celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and wife condemned their newborn son Buddy Bear to a lifetime of schoolyard taunts, raised eyebrows and “I’m sorry can you repeat that?”

I’ve read my way through a fair stack of trashy gossip rags over the years, so I know all about the multitude of coo-coo-crazy names celebrities feel the need to bestow on their blissfully (for now) unaware offspring. But it still doesn’t cease to amaze me. Bob Geldof and his dog- I mean daughter- Fifi Trixibell, David Duchovny’s kid Kyd (that isn’t a spelling mistake) and my personal favourite, actor Jason Lee’s darling Pilot Inspektor.

If you’re a celebrity, chances are you have a smidgen of an ego. This arrogance usually boils to the surface as something relatively small and manageable, like Beyonce requesting red roses in her dressing room. But every now and then you come across celebrities that are so blinded by their self-composed omnipresent stardom that they believe their children are similarly beyond exceptional/unique/godlike and deserve a weird-as name that indicates as such.

In all likelihood, this loopy naming trend isn’t monopolised by the A-listers. As I write I bet there are inconceivably stupid names signing off onto birth certificates all over the world; but the only reason we don’t know about them is because they aren’t on our television screens selling us mascara or beckoning from cheap tabloid magazines at our supermarket checkouts.

The fact does remain, however, that 9 times out of ten the little kid on the first day of school prefers to blend in (to an extent) rather than stand out like spellcheck at a Tea Party protest. No decent parent would dream of putting their children in the line of fire to be bullied, yet this is exactly what mum and dad of Moxie-Crimefighter or Princess Tiaamii risk. I’m not advocating that the world be entirely made up of Jacks and Jills- all I’m saying is that there are millions of beautiful, intelligent, meaningful names out there that aren’t going to get the “Were the parents tripping on nappy fumes when they chose that?” reaction.

Just don’t get grizzly with me, Jamie. I think we can let Buddy Bear handle that.

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driving hazard: catchy 90s music

 

This came on the radio yesterday afternoon as I drove home along the freeway. Doing about 100km/hr with all the windows down and the Goo Goo Dolls blasting from my teeny speakers, I was going all out for John Rzeznik- drumming the steering wheel and singing the wrong lyrics like a rockstar strung out on too many blue Smarties.

A truck passed and the driver gave me a look of displeasure which said exactly: “Oh my god. That is the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever seen. And on my bumper I have a Honk if you’re horny sticker where the ‘o’s are cartoon boobs”

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get involved

Is there a story behind your name? I would love to hear it!

Be a pal and visit The Namesake Project’s very own Twitter Page

I mean it, go right now. This very second!

goanna garble

On my first day of pre-primary it only took until recess break before Chloe and I were best friends. We spent every moment together. Always at one another’s houses, our parents soon got used to our hip-fused friendship. And it wasn’t long before Chloe’s dad starting affectionately calling me Rosanna-Goanna.  

I was going to put up a picture of a goanna, but those things sure are ugly. Why on earth wasn't I more offended looks-wise?

I hated it. Not in a mildly irked, “Oh stop it, ha-ha” way, but in a “Villain, cease blaspheming my name or I’ll stab you with this Barbie strappy stiletto” way. To this day I’m still not completely comfortable with people messing around with my name. It took me a long time to get used to my Highschool friends calling me “Ro”, and don’t even get me started on the rollercoaster that was the Uni crowd and “Rosie”. Now, just to save time, I answer to just about anything that remotely sounds like it could be addressed at me (like a parrot, I just pick up on sounds and syllables).

I have to wonder now (fifteen years later and happy to announce no longer holding a grudge against Chloe’s dad) why did I get so upset about a harmless nickname? It surely wasn’t the goanna part, because I happened to pride myself on my slippery reptile cunning as a child. Maybe it was the lack of control I suddenly felt over my name. The powerlessness I had over how a person saw me, what they called me by.

That having been said, the poor man’s name is William and my 5 year-old-self did have a delightful habit of giggling maniacally and shortening it to “Willy”.

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 ‘Til next time

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this rubs off in water, right?

Of all the brilliant things I love about Facebook; at the very tippy top of the list has to be finding out should-be private, embarrassing and downright weird information about near strangers (yes I’m that easy. Did we meet once at a bus stop? Have you ever given me a haircut? Chances are we’re the best of cyberspace buddies).

I was reminded of this when my newsfeed notified me to a friend’s new tattoo. Complete with photo, this little snippet was irresistible to someone as sweet (shameless) and inquisitive (nosy) as me. And what a find it turned out to be.

The person got… pause for suspense… a tattoo of their own name. Underneath their bellybutton. In thick black faux-gothic font. Wow.

I have a couple of thoughts on this (and I’m not even going to mention how I think tattoos should mean something, or be legitimate art, or have more thought than three seconds and “Duhhh, well… can spell my own name. Why not shave down the ol’ snail trail and slap on that in permanent ink?”) Because after you get past the lack of originality and the obvious jokes, the fact that someone would choose their name to mark eternally on their body is quite interesting. Perhaps this says something about the worth people place on their names, that my Facebook chum decided on this tattoo because they saw it as a part of themselves that would never cease to be relevant. Unlike the lurid butterfly tramp stamp or the red rose shoulder eyesore so many people get- and subsequently regret 30 seconds later- a name is unique and totally our own.

‘Til next time x

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Oh, and I didn’t mention any specific names here because I’m doing the noble thing and protecting identities. Their name is private- between them and whoever happens to look over at their midriff when they’re at the supermarket reaching for the high-shelf Cornflakes.

hello, my name is…

Just before I turned 14 my parents took us on a family holiday. Dragging a couple of beloved brats around Europe they endured a multitude of darling pubescent quirks. My flat-out refusal to partake in any photo (now to prove I’ve been to Europe I’m left with a handful of blurred paparazzo shots of my hastily retreating figure). My brother’s charming puffy-throat seafood allergy flaring up upon first tasting French snails. The major all-guns-blazing tantrum I launched on my dad while trapped on the London Eye.

All great memories. But I’ll never forget helping my mum scratch our initials onto the Eiffel Tower.

Granted, we weren’t as badass as that sounds. The night earlier our taxi driver had said the tower was due to be repainted that month. And our etching had company with heaps other graffiti. And it was tiny, honest.

I can’t pin down exactly what led a woman- who has never in her life received so much as a parking ticket- ask to borrow my hair clip and “play it cool”. But the feeling afterwards is easily explained. More than the thrill of doing something ‘against the rules’ was the knowing that, even for a few weeks before a fresh coat of white would erase it all, our name was immortalised on one of the most famous landmarks in the world.

Julia Webb, 2005

It may be considered one of the lowest forms of art (if you agree with that I’ll take you on later)* but I think this piece of 109-year-old graffiti sums up my point completely. His name was Sam, and in 1901 he stood at that brick wall and carved a simple self-introduction that would long survive him. Whatever his motive; I would like to bet he was filled with the same swell of release, ownership and immortality that the AA meeting attendee feels as they stand to announce “Hello, my name is…”, or the high school delinquent as they scrawl “X was here” on the dingy bathroom stalls.

At the end of the day it is a straightforward, basal urge.

I exist. I am significant. This is my name.

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‘Til next time x

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*Banksy. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, google him immediately. No really. Now.

(spelling) bees in bonnets

Yesterday at work a customer almost slapped me. At least that’s what her crazy eyes were threatening. As I misspelt her surname over and over I watched her lips purse and hands curl into fists, little cartoon puffs of steam shot from her ears. The exchange was like an unfunny skit from a 1930s comic duo: “Oh you mean ‘u’ with an ‘e-w’ not an actual ‘u’? Yes? No? Wait a second- is there a double ‘z’ in there or not?”

Of course the whole debacle was solved when my ingenious co-worker snatched the pen away from me, handed it to Miss Ridiculously-Unusual-Last-Name, and said “Why don’t you write it out for us?” But in the aftermath I took to wondering why I had been so hell-bent on making sure her name was correct. After all, it was only an order form for two dozen chocolate pops. The world surely wouldn’t end if I forgot to accent the ‘e’. And I’m fairly certain the woman herself didn’t really mind, so long as she got her chocolate in the end.

No. I’m afraid to say that the fault of this comedy of spelling-errors lies entirely in my mildly OCD hands. It’s an embarrassing train of thought, but let’s just see if you fellow crazies can keep up.

1. Everyone spells my last name incorrectly. I don’t know why. It’s actually incredibly straightforward- yet everyone from my University to my best friend cannot believe it when I drop the bombshell that I’ve never had an ‘h’ in my surname. “What!” they say, “Never??”

2. I won the Year 3 Spelling Bee in Primary School. More than a decade later this achievement still inexplicably manages to prop up my self esteem. Watch this space, it’ll probably make it into my obituary.

3. I didn’t want to be another grammatical knuckle-dragger to this woman. I’m sure she remembers a vast collection of incidents where it was required she spell her name to someone and they promptly buggered it up- and I sure didn’t want to be on that black list.

4. As I am trying to explore on this blog, a person’s name is synonymous to their identity. It means something profound, and I think that connection is worth valuing… even if it is merely her knowing that the dim-witted sales assistant tried her best to respect those damn double-z’s.

 

Haasbroek, 2008

‘Til next time x

P.S. Oh yeah! No apologies to those lacking a sense of humour that groaned at the pun post title. I make no excuses. It’s hilarious, you know it.